"Boys" by Dina Rubina, summary Automatic translate

This book is the first part of Dina Rubina’s novel, published in 2024, which tells the stories of two different children in different eras. The text weaves together the harsh life of post-war Astrakhan and the tragic events of World War II-era Poland. The work draws on the profound contrast between the unfortunate childhood of one character and the lost prosperity of the other. The boys grow up and overcome life’s adversities, each in their own unique circumstances. The author describes in detail the everyday life and atmosphere of two completely different worlds.

Zhorik’s life in the yard

The book begins with an introduction to Zhorik. The boy constantly hides from his mother, Tamara. She suffers from alcoholism and often flies into blind rages. Zhorik has built himself a hiding place in a woodpile, which he easily squeezes into thanks to his thin frame. From his hiding place, he quietly watches his enraged mother, whose loud screams fill his life with constant fear. Zhorik desperately dreams of the imminent arrival of his friend Agasha and visualizes his mother’s mouth finally snapping shut.

Cow grazing in the Astrakhan region

Zhorika’s mother often threatens to send him to the countryside. But the boy is not at all afraid of hard work. In the past, he helped the experienced shepherd Matveich tend the state farm’s huge herd of cows. This happened in the small village of Solenoye Zaimishche in the Chernoyarsk district, when the child was only eight years old. The harsh conditions of the steppe have instilled in him endurance. Zhorika is proud of his work experience and considers himself completely independent.

Rescuing Zhorika in Agasha’s apartment

Zhorik’s fate takes a sharp turn thanks to his friendship with a strange boy named Agasha. This awkward-looking child has a shock of small, curly hair growing on his head. One day, a blue paper dove even gets stuck in it. One day, a beaten Zhorik ends up in Agasha’s clean apartment, where he is carefully laid on a soft sofa among pots of geraniums. His exhausted head sinks into a soft lavender pillow. The boy instantly falls asleep. Through a deep slumber, he desperately wants to forget forever his past life with his mother, the nauseating smell of alcohol, dirty kitchen waste, and hordes of insects. In Agasha’s apartment, Zhorik is surrounded only by the soothing aromas of geranium, cinnamon, and sweet cookies. It is in this safe environment that Zhorik meets the relatives of his savior. Agasha’s grandfather, ichthyologist professor Mark Aronovich Mirkin, whom the entire yard respectfully calls Makaronych, turns out to be a legendary fish expert. He becomes a reliable guide in the street child’s future life.

Itzik and the family watch collection

The second plot line transports the reader to a completely different era. The text introduces us to a boy named Itzik. He is affectionately known as Izhyo within his family. The adult hero’s real name is Cezary Adamovich Stachura, but as a child, he was simply a smart Warsaw boy. Itzik was distinguished by a phenomenal memory and incredible resourcefulness. The number of carriage clocks in his room resembled the lair of a seasoned traveler.

The boy’s father, Abraham Streichman, belonged to a dynasty of hereditary Warsaw watchmakers. Abraham was deeply conscious of the precise passage of time. He carefully preserved the family’s unique watch collection and planned to pass on the craft to his son. His father constantly insisted that mastering the basic principles of watchmaking required years of rigorous study. Itzik successfully inherited his father’s distinctive professional eye, an ability to notice the smallest details and concentrate on fine mechanisms.

The years of evacuation in Bukhara

War disrupts their normal rhythm of life. The family is forced to flee from the advancing German troops. They refer to the long years of exile with the official term "evacuation." Itsik’s mother, Zelda, finds work in a sewing cooperative established by Polish refugees. She spends her days altering suits and sewing soldiers’ underwear for the front. Her hard work ensures the survival of the entire family. Fate takes the fugitives far to the east.

Bukhara appears before them as a completely alien world. It is an ancient clay city, a yellowish-brown color with glimpses of cool turquoise. The tall, rectangular peshtak of the madrassa is richly decorated with delicate carvings depicting the sayings of the Prophet. The minarets and domes of the Miri-Arab madrassa rise above the flat roofs, resembling gigantic blue airships. The family settles into a tiny mud hut. Abraham continues to work, having placed a heavy padlock on his workshop. He carries his tools home and, in the dead of night, sits at a makeshift table made from simple wooden crates, repairing broken chronometers.

Return to ruined Warsaw

In the late autumn of 1945, the mother of the family uses her extensive connections. Zelda, who had worked as a dressmaker for the wives of many local officials, manages to obtain the necessary documents for departure. The family returns to Poland with their little sister, Zlatka-Zofia. Along the way, the girl accidentally drops her favorite stuffed animal under the rattling wheels of the train and mourns its loss bitterly, as if it were a living person.

Warsaw greets the displaced with a horrific scene of total destruction. Eleven-year-old Itzik walks through the blackened ruins of his hometown under a gray sky. The air is thick with smoke and the unbearable stench of burnt human bodies. The boy experiences a suffocating hatred for this horrific place, transformed into a vast mass grave. The ethereal smell of death penetrates his very consciousness, inflicting severe psychological trauma on the child.

Reflections of Western culture

The text also describes post-war Poland as a unique cultural phenomenon. For Soviet people, the country seemed like a bright reflection of the inaccessible West. The characters discuss Andrzej Wajda’s films Ashes and Diamonds and Stanisław Lem’s sci-fi film Solaris. The rhythms of new jazz and the songs of the Red Guitars ensemble penetrate the Iron Curtain. Young people dream of wearing pointed patent leather shoes, elegant gray striped suits, and cherry-red bow ties. Poland of that time is presented in the narrative as the most cheerful barracks in the socialist camp.

Zhorika’s school years

Meanwhile, Zhorik’s story continues in post-war Astrakhan. In fourth grade, the boy first hears the strange word "Parbuchiy." This is the locals’ abbreviation for Parobichev Hill, formerly home to a leper shelter. This awkward, wooden name is pronounced by his class teacher, Zoya Andreyevna. Behind her back, the students nickname the skinny teacher with her long, sinewy neck "Zoika-Mop." She has an extremely nasty temperament, constantly nagging the children and mercilessly picking on every little thing.

Zhorika spends more and more time with his strange friend Agasha. Grandfather Makaronych loves to tell stories about his hometown. The professor strictly forbids his listeners from interrupting him. If they disobey, the old man hilariously scolds them with the phrase, "Sgogi, Kholega!" Zhorika eagerly absorbs new knowledge, gradually distancing himself from the cruel world of his mother, Tamara. The street orphan finds true support among strangers, but kind people.

A fateful epiphany

The book describes in detail the moment of one of the adult characters’ difficult realization of reality. During a tense encounter, he looks at Zhorik. The boy freezes and stands transfixed. The narrator gazes intently into the child’s eyes and suddenly understands the bitter truth about the fates of three connected people. This moment is described as a sudden, suicidal epiphany.

The hero clearly understands that they will all pay an incredibly high price for their actions. He sews three human lives into his pocket with the harsh thread of hopelessness. Two completely different stories gradually converge, demonstrating the fragility of the human psyche in the face of historical and familial catastrophes.