"Don’t Cross Me Off the List..." by Dina Rubina, summary

This book is an autobiographical prose, published in 2024, in which the author describes her own wild family with brutal honesty. The most important detail of the text lies in its categorical rejection of saccharine childhood memories in favor of a merciless, yet sincerely loving, portrait of aging parents and difficult grandparents. The author carefully assembles the fragments of memory, revealing living people with their phobias, vices, and boundless devotion to one another.

A holiday that is always with you

Boris is drafted into the army in his third year at an art school in Simferopol. He ends up at a military aviation school in the Urals. He pines for his girlfriend, Asya, who posed for him during class, and recalls trips to Yalta to visit his friend, Volodya Pirogov. He finds refuge in Hemingway, lying on the top bunk of a train car while a brutal brawl rages among conscripts below. Sergeant Major Soldatenkov takes him to Perm. At his unit, Boris learns to disassemble aircraft cannons and practices acrobatics.

In the army, he meets a cruel German named Riegel. One day, Riegel beats a cadet with a belt buckle during a movie, avenging a repressed Volga German family. Boris witnesses this but remains silent. Later, Riegel takes him to a thieves’ hangout in Nizhnyaya Kurya. There, a young woman with smoky gray eyes leads Boris through a long suite of rooms and into the courtyard, saving him from the criminal underworld. Before his discharge, Boris receives a letter from Volodya’s mother. His friend has died of a heart defect. Returning home, Boris closes the door on Hemingway’s story forever.

Grandma Rachel

The author recalls life in an adobe house in Kashgarka, Tashkent. In her youth, Grandma Rakhil was known as an incredible beauty from the village of Zolotonosha. She sang Ukrainian songs and possessed phenomenal acting talent. Rakhil knew how to play pranks on neighbors and random fellow travelers. Her husband, Grandpa Sender, lost his legs to a tram. He learned to walk on prosthetics and stood behind a block, masterfully butchering lamb carcasses at the Alay market.

Grandma had a stern, imperious disposition. She washed buckwheat over and over again, accompanying the process with parables about matchmaking. Rachel knew how to pull hot coals out of the stove with her bare hands. The girl Dina slept with her on the cot, jack-in-the-box, and watched the burning candle gutter.

Murderer Bertha

The story of Rachel’s sister, Bertha. She became pregnant by her cousin. When he refused to marry her, she threw sulfuric acid in his face. He died of a heart attack. The deceased’s brothers testified in Bertha’s defense in court, and the jury acquitted her. Bertha’s child soon died of typhus in an orphanage. She later married Misha Leshchinsky, a kind man reminiscent of Charlie Chaplin, who had long been in love with her.

Berta possessed an exceptional mathematical mind. She worked as an accountant and managed the factory cafeteria during the war. Uncle Misha adored little Dina, taking her for walks in the parks and telling her sad stories. In her old age, Berta moved in with her nephew Yasha. Life there was marked by endless squabbles with her sister, Rakhil. Berta retained her gift for calculation until her last days and advised the underground factory workers.

Parental fading

The most poignant section of the book deals with the parents’ aging. The father, a stern artist, unexpectedly invites his daughter to a Georgian restaurant in Jerusalem for shashlik. The meeting turns into a quarrel. The father criticizes her work and complains about her life. Between the lines, one can see the confusion of old age. Soon, he dies quietly in his sleep.

The mother, a former brilliant history teacher, falls ill with dementia. The author places her in a religious boarding school in the Romema district. Sensitive people like nurse Uri work there. The mother is losing her memory but maintains a commanding tone. The boarding school is filled with a diverse group of people: the former school principal, Iosif, who shouts obscenities; the Argentine Paulina, who tore her rival’s hair out of her because of a plasticine rooster; and the old woman, Galya, who turns out to be a sniper and war hero. In brief moments of clarity, the mother asks her daughter to bring a new book and adds, "Please don’t cross me off the list." The pandemic turns visits into painful encounters through a glass partition.

Migratory viola

The family receives substantial royalties from the sale of her husband’s paintings. His sister, Vera, a violinist, persuades him to buy a unique hand-crafted viola by Almaty master Georgy Shub. The viola is enormous. It was created for a two-meter-tall musician who died tragically in the mountains.

The sisters try in vain to sell their viola in Israel. They carry it to buyers in a worn-out case tied with an elastic band from underwear. The viola sits for a long time in a damp storage room at a music school in a Tel Aviv suburb. During a cold, snowy winter in Samaria, the family wraps the instrument in a wool blanket. Then the viola travels with their mother to New Zealand, where Vera has moved. The buyer is nowhere to be found there either. The instrument returns to Israel with their nephew, Borya. The family hangs it on the wall as a memento of their failed commercial venture.

You and I under peach clouds

A story about a Tibetan terrier named Kondrat. The puppy was accidentally brought into the family’s Samaritan trailer. Kondrat grew up to be a willful and fearless dog. He accumulates a whole cache of stolen dirty socks and growls, defending his prey. He brutally attacks stuffed rabbits, is terrified of holiday fireworks, and gets into morning squabbles with a Great Dane on the neighboring balcony. The animal takes turns sleeping on each family member’s bed. The author describes his deep affection for his family, his ability to beg food from guests, and his habit of sitting for hours on a cliff, contemplating Jerusalem.

The road home

A memoir of an eight-year-old girl’s escape from a regional committee pioneer camp near Gazalkent. The heroine left at night barefoot because she couldn’t find her sandals in the dark. She walked along the warm asphalt, hiding from the occasional cars in the sagebrush thickets.

This long mountain journey became a moment of her coming of age. The girl gazed at the endless starry sky above. She realized that a person is alone and doomed to carry their burden alone until the very end. At dawn, the runaway reached Tashkent. Her family did not scold her, but they were deeply shocked by the actions of a wayward child.