"Grandma Said to Sit Quietly" by Nastasya Renzhina, summary Automatic translate

This book is a gritty social drama, published in 2024, telling the tragic story of an abandoned child and a lonely old woman. The most important detail about this book is that the plot hinges on a shocking psychological paradox: saving a life turns into a cruel, albeit unconscious, imprisonment. The author blurs the lines between genuine care and outright abuse.

Life in the Closet

The story unfolds in an ordinary village, where an elderly, lonely woman named Zoya Ilyinichna, known to everyone simply as Baba Zoya, is living out her days. The locals consider her a slightly strange and withdrawn old woman. Something unimaginable is happening in her old house: a little boy is living in a rickety closet. Grandma Zoya calls him Kuprinka and treats him like a mythical brownie or a pet. She places iron bowls of water, boiled eggs, and veal right on the floor for him.

Grandma Zoya sometimes slips him "Rakovye Sheyki" candies to appease him when the boy gets upset with her. Kuprinka can’t speak properly, making only isolated, inarticulate sounds, communicating with gestures, and is terrified of daylight. Grandma Zoya doesn’t let him out of the house. She’s afraid that mean neighbors will take the child away. The old woman convinces herself she’s protecting him from a cruel world where he’ll be laughed at. She’s even afraid to turn on the light at night, lest she startle her "tenant" when he emerges from the closet to wander around the house.

Anna’s Secret

As the story unfolds, Kuprinka is the illegitimate son of a local girl, Anna. Anna left for the city and returned to the village greatly changed, embittered, and pregnant. Fearing her parents’ wrath and village gossip, Anna carefully concealed her pregnancy, wearing loose clothes several sizes too big. She sincerely hoped that the unwanted baby would die in childbirth.

Having given birth to a boy on a farm in secret, Anna intended to rid herself of him forever. But soon after, the girl herself died tragically — drowned in a local pond. Her secret would have sunk with her if Baba Zoya hadn’t found the abandoned newborn. Zoya Ilyinichna took the baby, nursed him back to health, and kept him with her, without telling any of the villagers.

The illusion of care

In her mind, clouded by total loneliness, the old woman decided to hide the boy from public view. She raised him in strict secrecy, didn’t teach him human speech, and didn’t develop social skills, causing Kuprinka to grow up a true savage. He hid in an old creaky closet, was frightened by the ordinary chickens in the yard, and communicated with his reflection in the mirror.

The boy had absolutely no understanding of how normal human life worked. Baba Zoya sincerely loved the child, considering him her salvation from a lonely old age, but at the same time, she kept him practically captive. Once, she even forced him to crawl into a warm dung heap to keep warm. This harsh, rural empiricism was intertwined with a strange maternal tenderness.

The grief of parents

Meanwhile, Kuprynka’s real grandparents, Elena and Slava, were unaware of their grandson’s existence. After Anna’s death, their home was plunged into a lingering, impenetrable grief from which there was no escape. Slava spent entire days sitting motionless at the kitchen table, staring into space.

Elena often froze in the middle of the room, unable to breathe from the overwhelming grief. They left their daughter’s room untouched, like a gloomy crypt, afraid to even look at the closed door. Slava once tried to slam the closet over the door to create the illusion the room had never existed, but Elena resisted. The memory of Anna slowly destroyed their lives.

Exposure

However, the truth could not be hidden. Baba Zoya’s neighbors — the meticulous Marya and her husband Genka — began to notice something was wrong. Marya constantly kept an eye on the old woman’s house, sensing that something strange was going on there. One day, the village children accidentally spotted a "curly-haired boy" in Baba Zoya’s window. Rumors quickly spread, gathering fantastical details.

Local gossips, including the gossipy Anfiska, began making bold guesses. When tensions in the village reached a breaking point, the neighbors decided to openly confront each other. Genka, Marya, Anfiska, and the bewildered police officer Ivan Fyodorovich broke down the old gate and burst into Baba Zoya’s yard, harshly demanding to see the child. Panicked, the old woman tried to hide Kuprinka in the house, frantically locking the doors, but the crowd was unstoppable.

Due to extreme stress and the panicky fear of losing her only friend, Baba Zoya suffered a heart attack. She felt ill, fell, and couldn’t get up. Neighbors called an ambulance.

Tragic ending

The police and paramedics arrived. The paramedics loaded the moaning Baba Zoya onto a makeshift stretcher and carried her to the car. At this dramatic moment, a wild and frightened Kupriinka broke free from his neighbor’s arms and ran after the departing car.

With tears in his eyes, the boy screamed loudly and clearly the only familiar word: "Baba!" Hearing this desperate cry, Zoya Ilyinichna silently begged for forgiveness, realizing her guilt before the child, but the ambulance took her away forever. The old woman could no longer utter a sound, only whistling weakly in response, carrying love for her extraordinary grandson in her heart.

New life

After the tragic denouement, the truth came out. The boy, whose real name was Kolenka, turned out to be Elena and Slava’s biological grandson. Upon learning the truth, Anna’s grief-stricken parents immediately took the feral child in. They settled Kolenka in his mother’s old room, giving him Anna’s old things, including her favorite teddy bear.

Adapting to normal life was difficult. At first, Kolenka habitually hid in the closet and slept on the shelves, was terrified of sleeping on a soft bed, and completely failed to use a spoon at the table. Elena flung her arms at him and fed him like a baby bird until he learned to eat on his own.

Acceptance of reality

Elena and Slava re-taught the boy the most basic human skills — eating without using his hands, washing in a warm bath with a soft washcloth, and watching television. Despite the profound psychological trauma, Kolenka gradually began to adjust to normal life. He turned out to be a leisurely, thoughtful boy, who loved to spend long hours gazing at the sky or watching bugs in the grass.

Slava suppressed all malicious gossip in the village. He strictly forbade Anfiska from spreading rumors that Baba Zoya had abused the child. Grandfather understood the simple truth: despite her savage, primitive methods of upbringing, the old woman had still saved their grandson’s life. In Kolenka’s eyes, Slava saw his dead daughter Anna, and this gave him renewed strength to carry on.