"The Fake Wife" by Dina Rubina, summary Automatic translate

This book is a collection of short stories and novellas, published in 2021. It brings together texts from various years, exploring human relationships, family dramas, loneliness, and the search for meaning in life against the backdrop of Soviet and post-Soviet realities. The texts intertwine tragic and comic elements, revealing the psychology of characters of varying ages and social backgrounds.

Several stories from this collection have been adapted for screen. The story "When Will It Snow?" was filmed in 1979, and the short story "Double Surname" was adapted into a film of the same name in 2006.

When will it snow?

Fifteen-year-old Nina lives with her artist father and older brother, Maxim. She sleeps on an old sofa with a sticker reading "Sofa No. 627" and suffers from recurring kidney problems. Five years ago, her mother died in a plane crash, and now her father has announced his intention to marry Natalya Sergeyevna, an assistant director. This provokes a violent protest from Nina, who categorically refuses to accept her stepmother.

A chance encounter with twenty-three-year-old Boris brings new emotions into her life. Boris calls Nina, mistaking her for a girl from the theater, and Nina shows up for the date wearing a red jumpsuit and a yellow cap. Gradually, they become closer. Boris visits Nina in the hospital before a difficult kidney removal operation, to be performed by surgeon Makar Illarionovich. Another patient, a pale girl with red hair, suddenly dies there. Before her own operation, Nina realizes the value of human life. She writes a note of apology to her father and mentally lets go of her grievances.

Blackthorn

The story describes the life of a little boy after his parents’ divorce. His mother works constantly to provide for the family, taking on extra work — typing texts at night. She’s short-tempered, often yelling at her son for dirty clothes and forcing him to try on new clothes, but she loves him sincerely and passionately. His father, whom the boy sees on weekends in his old apartment, is calm and gives him interesting toys.

The child is torn between his attachment to both parents. He hides from his mother his joy at seeing his father. The boy feels guilty for liking his father’s gifts and simultaneously suffers from his mother’s sudden mood swings. He notices her fatigue, her premature graying hair, and the Finnish dress she bought at GUM. Outside their apartment window, an old, thorny blackthorn bush grows, its branches reaching up to the window grille.

Other people’s entrances

Journalist Ilya, in his twenties, lives in a cramped apartment with his mother, a teacher, and his doting grandmother. He writes a small column, "About This and That," for the evening newspaper, answering readers’ everyday questions, squandering his literary talents. His family reproaches him for his reluctance to start a family and his aimless lifestyle. A university friend, Yegor, informs Ilya that his former girlfriend, Natasha, has married happily, had two children, and defended her dissertation.

Ilya broke up with Natasha ten years ago. A meeting with her outside a store awakens belated remorse in Ilya. He waits for Natasha at the entrance to a new high-rise building and asks her to leave her husband, but is categorically refused. Natasha admits she loved him for a long time, but now it’s over. Later, Ilya accidentally encounters her drunken husband, who suspects his wife of infidelity due to his prolonged absence. Ilya beats the man, defending Natasha’s honor. In the early morning, he returns home, finally realizing the emptiness of his own existence.

Tomorrow, as usual

Police investigator Alexander lives with his grandmother, his grandfather, a colonel, and his young niece, Margarita. His sister, Irina, performs in the circus with her husband, Viktor, and rarely sees their daughter. His family constantly urges Alexander to quit his dangerous job and take a high-paying position as a legal consultant in the metro construction industry. Alexander investigates cases of repeat offenders, thieves, and domestic violence. The defendant, Yuri Sorokin, who burglarized the apartment of his friend, Rafik, seems to the investigator like a smart man who stumbled by accident.

Alexander even promises to help Sorokin find employment after his release. However, it later emerges that this repeat offender, along with an accomplice, was involved in the murder of a railway lineman. Soon after, Alexander’s partner and close friend, Grigory, is killed in the line of duty. He was stabbed with a screwdriver by a drunken troublemaker whom the investigators had taken pity on and not taken to the station the day before. The tragedy forces Alexander to abandon his plans to quit. He decides to remain in the force and asks his grandmother to set an alarm for the morning.

Double surname

The story is told from the perspective of a father driving his sixteen-year-old son, Philip, to their dacha. The boy has adopted the double surname Kryukov-Vozdvizhensky, which causes him deep inner turmoil. The man recalls the past: his wife became pregnant by another man named Viktor. The protagonist adopted the stranger’s baby, nursing him back to health through a life-threatening staph infection while his mother was hospitalized with mastitis. The man came to love the boy as his own, bottle-feeding him and holding him in his arms at night.

Five years later, the woman went to live with the child’s biological father in Novosibirsk, promising never to reveal the truth about his origins to her son. At the end of their trip, a neighbor, Nina Semyonovna, passes a telegram to the house. Philip reads the text about his father’s death. The boy’s real father fears that the secret of his birth will now be revealed and Philip will learn the true story of his birth.

Plum blossom

The narrator meets Ikuo Sogami, a Japanese professor of theoretical physics, at the Parisian restaurant "Maitre Kenji’s." The scientists discuss science, drink sake, and then move on to family matters. Sogami shares a story: after the sudden death of his eldest forty-year-old son, his youngest son gave birth to a daughter, Yuno. Ikuo shows a photograph of his six-month-old granddaughter in an elegant traditional wedding gown.

The daughter-in-law specially commissioned this photo and bowed to her father-in-law. She explained that her grandfather would be able to symbolically attend the girl’s wedding through this photograph, even if the spirits of her ancestors summoned him prematurely. The narrator recalls short Japanese poems — haiku — as well as koans, which teach the hidden meaning of things. The story prompts the narrator to reflect on Japanese poetic wisdom, the transience of time, and the inevitability of death.

Mary

The story takes place in New York City. Emigrant cosmetologist Galina meets a client named Jonathan at a salon. He calls himself Mary, wears a feminine wig, bright clip-on earrings, and large beads, and is preparing for a gender reassignment. Jonathan suffers from childhood trauma: his mother abandoned him and his adopted brother, Henry, after their father died in a car accident. His adopted brother was taken from Iran by his father during the revolution.

Now Henry is terminally ill with Charcot’s disease, paralyzed. Jonathan tries to replace his dying brother with female companionship. After his brother’s death, Jonathan falls into profound despair and abandons his feminine persona. The narrator finds him freezing on the steps of the salon. She brings him home, washes him, and dresses him in men’s clothes from his neighbor, Yura. Through physical intimacy, she helps him reclaim his masculine identity. Later, together, they buy Jonathan a new men’s wardrobe at a discount store and host a memorial evening for Henry.