"The Queen of Spades and Others" by Lyudmila Ulitskaya, summary

The short story collection "The Queen of Spades and Others" was published in 2001. This book is a gallery of dramatic human destinies, where hidden family dramas, forbidden love, physical ailments, and incomprehensible twists of memory are revealed behind the façade of Soviet and post-Soviet life. The author explores ancestral memory, the despotism of strong personalities, and the quiet humility of those who bear the burden of caring for others.

The book combines three thematic cycles: “Poor Relatives”, “Girls” and “The Queen of Spades”.

Poor relatives

Happy

Every Sunday, the elderly couple Berta and Matthias Levi observe a strict ritual: they take the tram to the cemetery to visit the grave of their only son, Vovochka. The child was born when Berta was 47 and Matthias was around 60. After eight happy years caring for their son, the parents lost him in an instant: the boy ran out after a ball and was killed by a truck. Returning from the cemetery, the elderly couple remember their son, immerse themselves in memories, and while away the evening playing cards.

Poor relative

On the twenty-first of every month, the well-off Anna Markovna’s second cousin, the half-witted Asya Shafran, comes to her house for her allowance and used clothes. Anna Markovna indulgently listens to her guest’s absurd speeches, offers her tea, and hands her an envelope filled with money. Once outside, Asya hurries to Kostyansky Lane to visit her gravely ill friend, Marusya Fomicheva, and gives her all the money and gifts she’s received, without reserve.

Bronka

The reclusive Simka appears in a Moscow courtyard with her daughter, Bronka. At fourteen, Bronka becomes pregnant and then gives birth to three more sons, categorically refusing to reveal the father’s name. The family moves into the room of their deceased neighbor, photographer Viktor Petrovich Popov. Forty years later, Anna Markovna’s granddaughter, Irina, meets the aged Bronka and learns a secret: the father of all four sons was the elderly photographer Popov, for whom young Bronka felt boundless and devoted love.

Genele the bagwoman

Aunt Henele lives in abject poverty, but considers herself the mentor of her entire family. She tirelessly keeps the courtyard park clean and never parts with her antique Swiss handbag. Before Passover, Henele selects the best poultry, visits the butcher, and prepares a feast for her wayward brother Naum and his feeble-minded son Grigory. On the way to see her brother, Henele suffers a stroke. She dies in the hospital, clutching an invisible handbag. Relatives hope to find hidden jewelry among her belongings, but her niece, Galya, places the empty handbag in the deceased’s coffin.

Daughter of Bukhara

Military doctor Dmitry brings home a beautiful young Uzbek woman, Alya, nicknamed Bukhara, from the front. They have a daughter, Milochka, with Down syndrome. Dmitry, unable to bear the weight of this tragedy, goes to a nurse. Bukhara learns of her fatal illness and begins a race against time. She drinks medicinal herbs to live a few more years, teaches her daughter basic work skills, and finds her a husband, the quiet, disabled Grigory Berman. Having arranged her daughter’s future, Bukhara returns to her homeland to die.

Lyalin’s house

French literature teacher Olga Alexandrovna (Lyalya) easily changes lovers and considers infidelity a guarantee of family well-being. Her son, Gosha, befriends the circus youth, Kaziyev (Kazey). Visiting the ill Kaziyev, Lyalya begins an affair with him. One night, she discovers her own daughter, Lena, in her lover’s room. The shock sends Lyalya into a deep stupor. Awakening from her muteness, she remains forever a quiet, sick woman, weeping incessantly out of compassion for all living things.

Gulya

Elderly Princess Gulya, a survivor of exile and labor camps, turns every day into a celebration. The son of her longtime friend, San Sanych, comes to seal the old window frames against the winter cold. Over cognac and reminiscing about her former bohemian life, Gulya feigns a heart attack, lures a confused man into bed, and experiences another outburst of passion, which she then boasts about to her guests.

Girls

Gift not made by hands

Third-graders Alena, Masha, Sonya, and Svetlana are accepted into the Pioneers at the Museum of the Revolution. Among the gifts for the leader, they see a portrait of Stalin, hand-embroidered by the armless girl Tamara Kolyvanova. Upon learning that the embroiderer is the aunt of their classmate, the girls save up money and go to Maryina Roshcha. Armless Toma cynically admits she embroidered the portrait to get a place to live, takes the rubles they brought for a drink, and sends the stunned schoolgirls away.

Other people’s children

Engineer Sergo leaves for the front after a farewell night with his wife, Margarita. She gives birth to twins, Gayane and Victoria. Due to the superstitions of her mother, Emma Ashotovna, news of the children reaches Sergo late. Suspecting infidelity, he sends a cruel letter disowning the family. Margarita loses her mind with grief. Returning from the war, Sergo sees his wife ill and children crying, acknowledges the girls as his own, and takes on the care of the family.

On March 2nd of the same year…

In the winter of 1953, during the "Doctors’ Plot," Jewish schoolgirl Lilia Zhizhmorskaya faces alienation and bullying. In her home, her centenarian great-grandfather Aaron, who tells the girl biblical stories, slowly fades away. A street hooligan, Bodrik, lies in wait for Lilia in the entryway but is fiercely rebuffed. That same evening, Lilia comes of age, her great-grandfather dies quietly, and the country learns of Stalin’s death.

Chicken pox

The friends gather at Alena Pshenichnikova’s apartment. Looking at Persian postcards and dressing up in silk clothes from her diplomat parents’ trunk, the girls begin a wedding and childbirth game, led by the experienced Tanya Kolyvanova. After the party, almost all the participants contract chickenpox, and the memories of the game become a shameful secret.

Poor happy Kolyvanova

Schoolgirl Tanya Kolyvanova falls head over heels in love with her new German teacher, Evgenia Alekseyevna. Dreaming of giving her a luxurious basket of cyclamens for International Women’s Day, Tanya agrees to the advances of her lame neighbor, Shurik the Spider, for the missing money. After leaving the flowers at the teacher’s door, the girl hears a slap: her general’s husband is beating Evgenia Alekseyevna out of jealousy. Soon, the teacher leaves for abroad. Years later, a grown-up Tanya marries a Swede and finds a comfortable life.

The Queen of Spades

Beast

Lonely Nina is grieving the loss of her mother and husband. A brazen stray cat appears in her empty apartment, leaving feces on the bed and refusing to budge. Her late husband’s friend, Mirkas, throws the cat off the balcony. Freed from the obsession, Nina dreams of all her deceased relatives, alive and reconciled.

The Queen of Spades

Ophthalmologist Anna Fedorovna has spent her entire life subject to the whims of her ninety-year-old mother, Mur — a former salon beauty and heartless egotist. A surprise visit from Anna Fedorovna’s ex-husband, Marek, gives her grandchildren hope: he invites them on vacation to Greece. Furious, Mur forbids the trip. Anna Fedorovna decides for the first time to go against her mother’s wishes, but suddenly suffers cardiac arrest on the street. Her daughter, Katya, slaps Mur, but then obediently goes to pour the old woman coffee.

Darling

Philosophy professor Nikolai Romanovich marries a simple housekeeper, Antonina Ivanovna, for the sake of her fair-haired son, Slavochka. He raises the boy as his beloved student and life partner. After the professor’s death, the now-mature Slava finds himself in a state of disarray. Meeting the cellist Zhenya doesn’t save him: the young man lacks attraction to women. Slava ties his fate to a casual lover, ends up in prison, loses his human form, and decades later dies at the hands of an unknown assailant in a park.