"Russian Canary. Zheltukhin" by Dina Rubina, summary Automatic translate

This book is a sprawling family saga with elements of a spy detective story, written in 2014. The plot connects two disparate families — Odesa musicians and Almaty hunters — through generations, united by their love for the song of a small bird. In 2015, the trilogy that opens with this novel was a finalist for the national literary prize "Big Book."

Prague Prologue and Alma-Ata Childhood

The story opens in Prague. Two jewelers are discussing a strange elderly customer who has purchased a garnet bracelet. As she leaves, she cynically suggests blinding their canary with a hot wire to improve its singing. Soon, an Iranian tourist’s car explodes in the street. It turns out that the "old woman" is actually a young countertenor, Leon Etinger, in disguise, a secret agent who has successfully completed his mission. Having shed his disguise in Hotel Room 303, he prepares for the evening concert and remembers his flighty mother, Vladka.

The action shifts back in time to Alma-Ata. Little Ilya grows up under the strict supervision of his grandmother, Zinaida Konstantinovna. Her brother, Nikolai Kablukov, nicknamed the Hunter, is a frequent guest at their home. This tall man once caught snow leopards. Now he is obsessed with breeding canaries. His favorite is the canary Zheltukhin II, a brilliant soloist who lives in an old confessional. The bird’s song about "faceted glasses" is forever etched in Ilya’s memory. The Hunter hides a heavy secret. His daughter, Tatyana, Ilya’s mother, constantly ran away from home and eventually gave birth to a baby of unknown parentage. The Hunter takes these tragedies hard and suddenly leaves to voluntarily starve himself to death.

The grown-up Ilya is studying at the institute, working part-time at the editorial office of the Vesyolye Stroyady newspaper. He falls in love with the beautiful Guzal, meeting her at the Medeo ice rink. The young man longs for his grandfather’s birds and buys a descendant of that same canary, Zheltukhin the Third, from the old bird catcher Fyodor Morkovny. Ilya reopens the family business, immersing himself in the intricacies of canary breeding. Along with the birds, he also takes the old oak confessional.

Odessa branch of the Etingers

At the same time, the Etinger family flourished in Odessa at the beginning of the twentieth century. Gavrila Oskarovich was the opera house’s first clarinetist. His son Yasha ran away from home, joining anarchists and taking the family platinum chervonets with him. His daughter Esther showed great promise as a pianist. The brilliant dressmaker Polina Ernestovna created the famous "Viennese wardrobe" for her. Esther created a sensation in Vienna with the eminent professor Vinarsky, but the sudden death of her mother Dora ruined her plans for a European education.

Esther remains in Odessa, working as a pianist in movie theaters. One day, after a screening, a huge man in a leather coat approaches her — Nikolai Kablukov. He sends greetings from his brother Yasha and gives her a canary named Zheltukhin. Kablukov tries to woo Esther, but soon becomes infatuated with their tall maid, Stesha. The proud girl kicks them both out. Kablukov leaves, and the devoted Stesha remains to take care of the house.

Years later, Yasha, now a Cheka agent under the name Mikhailov, secretly returns. Gavrila Oskarovich curses his son for demanding he hand over the rarest antique books. Yasha hides in Stesha’s attic, and their brief one-night stand yields a daughter, Irusya. At the beginning of the occupation of Odessa, Gavrila Oskarovich is arrested by the Romanians. The old man angrily sings an opera aria before being shot, and a soldier kills Zheltukhin right in his cell. Stesha avenges her master: she stabs the building manager, Sergei, who betrayed them, with a blade hidden in Etinger’s cane. Esfir, meanwhile, performs with the front-line brigades and suffers a tragic love affair with the Spanish dancer Leonor.

The Silent World of Aya

In Almaty, Ilya’s wife, Guzal, dies in childbirth due to a heart defect. Her grandfather, Mukhan, who survived the Majdanek concentration camp by reading German papers using carbon paper, retreats into the frozen steppe and disappears without a trace. Grief-stricken, Ilya names his newborn daughter Aya. It turns out the girl is nearly deaf. Dr. Rachkovsky diagnoses third-degree sensorineural hearing loss. Ilya refuses to give up. He obsessively nurtures his daughter, enrolling her in figure skating with coach Viola Kondratyevna and teaching her to lip-read. Aya perceives rhythm through the vibrations of her father’s chest during their chess games.

The girl hides in a wooden confessional among the birds and grows up a rebellious and withdrawn woman. She finds a calling in photography. She inherits excellent equipment after the death of her reporter friend, Yefim Portnik. Captivated by the process, Aya photographs the movement of air in the gardens and captures rare Apollo butterflies with her lens. The estrangement between her and her father grows. The arrival of Friedrich, Guzal’s German relative, provokes conflict. The foreigner promises to take Aya to study in London, and Ilya feels his daughter slipping away from his world.

The Birth of the Voice

The Odessa branch continues through Irusya, a diligent, straight-A student. She leaves for Norilsk with her engineer husband, Vladik, and gives birth to a daughter, Vladka. The red-haired girl is the complete opposite of her mother. A flighty, energetic troublemaker, she spouts poetry and gets into endless adventures. Vladka is sent to Odessa, to live with the aging Esfir and Stesha, in a noisy communal apartment. There live colorful neighbors: the dreamlike Aunt Pasha, the stagehand Uncle Yura Kudykin, and the former kept woman, Lyubochka. Vladka poses nude for sculptors, sells homemade ink at the market, but remains internally cold.

She becomes pregnant after an awkward encounter with a shy foreign student on a beach at night. A boy, Leon, is born. Esther names him after a friend who died at the front. Leon grows up a withdrawn child. He avoids noisy company, ignores his mother’s antics, and acknowledges only the stern Esther as an authority. The boy spends hours in dark rooms, collecting old antiques. It turns out that Leon has a unique musical gift — a silvery countertenor voice capable of flawlessly imitating languages. Esther takes on his education. The boy sings in the choir, then moves on to solo roles in the theater. As an adult, Leon — now an accomplished artist and special agent — performs in the Venetian cathedral of Santa Maria della Salute. He sings Weber’s oratorio "The Prodigal Son," stunning the audience with the heavenly purity of his vocals.

Departure and loss

Vladka, tired of the scandals, decides to emigrate to Israel. The packing process is fraught with anxiety: antique furniture is given away, rare items are lost. Esther asks Leon to be sure to buy the missing family books if he finds them. Later, finding them in a shop, the adult Leon will turn the ancient tome bearing the seal of the "House of Etinger" into a secret hiding place for his agents.

At the border station in Chop, customs officers conduct a humiliating search. Due to Vladka’s obscene language, the border guards throw suitcases and valuable paintings by Odessa artists into the dirty snow. Leon manages to save only one bag containing a surviving "Viennese wardrobe" and an old French tapestry.

The family arrives in Jerusalem to a cold, empty apartment. The move is difficult, as both old women rapidly weaken. Stesha is admitted to Hadassah Hospital. Before her death, she confesses to Leon that she murdered the building manager and calmly passes away. Alone, escaping grief and a foreign language, the boy spends hours listening to Mozart’s "Requiem" on his iPod. To the sounds of the terrifying mass, he weeps for Stesha, experiencing a primal fear of death. At the same time, the boy realizes the phenomenal power of his vocal cords. He understands that music has the power to dispel the darkness. Leon vows to become the Voice that can overcome the darkness.