A playful literary mystery set in the 1930s and 1990s, Ninochka tells the double tale of two women exiles who are both homesick and sick of home. Tanya, a Russian immigrant living in New York, travels to Paris in an attempt to reconstruct the secret life of Nina B., who was murdered there almost sixty years ago, on the eve of World War II. The murder was never solved, and in an attempt to crack the case, Tanya takes possession of Nina’s handbag, which contains her diaries, love letters, kits for embroidering Russian blouses, a mysterious treatise on Eurasian supremacy, and a review of Ninotchka, the film in which Greta Garbo played a KGB agent who finds romance in Paris.
Among the potential murder suspects are a charismatic professor and nationalist leader, an aspiring American songwriter, an aging Trotskyite, a Hungarian con artist, a heavy-drinking singer of nostalgic romance, and an athletic Comrade X of unknown origins who was rumored to have returned to the Soviet Union. As Tanya is drawn into this immigrant underworld of displaced people, double agents, and dreamers, she finds herself more and more implicated in the life of the murdered woman. Ultimately, she is forced to return to her native country, where she confronts her own homesickness in the changing post-Soviet world.
Содержание
1. In which the murder takes place
2. In which you catch a glimpse of my green card and sample immigrant crêpes
3. In which I try to examine Nina’s diary but speak with the strangers instead
4. In which we observe émigrés on the beach and learn everything we need to know about potential murder suspects
5. In which we revisit Nina’s childhood and play hide-and-seek in the Summer Gardens
6. In which the detective gets unexpected mail
7. In which we finally learn about the men in Nina’s life and meet ‘the Eurasian genius’
8. In which we attend the Eurasian tea party and lose all respect for Attila the Hun
9. Which might make you blush
10. In which we learn about the ‘other woman’ and read the Manifesto of the Kinopeople
11. In which we all go to a Hungarian party and learn about Soviet missile launchers
12. In which I finally see Ninotchka and wonder about the consequences
13. In which I spend some time in the Bibliothéque Nationale and stumble upon a conspiracy theory ciphered in the script of Ninotchka
14. A digression on common fears and on the importance of dusting, preferably with a wet rag
15. In which the best part happens behind the scenes, so the anxious reader can just skip this chapter altogether
15-A. Hardly a chapter at all, a couple of loose pages from my computer diary
16. Which tells you how to cure a common cold with roasted salt and potato steam and how to remove stains on your red Pioneer tie
17. In which the detective misbehaves in the movie theater while watching a film with Gerard Depardieu
18. In which we finally meet Nina’s last lover Lionel, learn of his desire to become a great American writer and read his sketch about Russian roulette
19. Which tells you what to do when you run into your lover’s wife in the supermarket
20. In which we learn how Ninotchka was conceived and what made Greta Garbo laugh
21. In which a mysterious character from the third row packs his bags and makes a confession
22. Up in the air
23. In which we travel to Russia and watch a musical dedicated to the Soviet Constitution
24. In which my beautiful grandmother takes her last stroll in Paris
25. In which I invite you to come home with me but Tram No. 30 runs very slowly
26. In which I bury my grandmother
27. Which offers you seven elephants of happiness
28. In which we dispel our sad thoughts and learn what Ninel Markovna really did in Paris
29. In which you meet my English professor and drink the cheap wine of our youth
30. In which we taste a fruit drink and cabbage pirogi at my Alma Mater and learn what happened to Boris Krestovsky in Russia
31. In which we stop making Eurasian jokes and explore the double life of Yuri Poltavsky-Rizhsky
32. In which you follow me to Moscow and have a pickle treat
33. In which we eavesdrop on Comrade Kaganovich
34. In which we watch The Lilac Sunset and listen to Kachalsky’s songs
35. In which I meet Cossacks and have a romantic escapade at the Pizza Hut
36. In which the murderer makes a scene
37. In which we get homesick in Gorky Park
38. In which we leave Russia and bid farewell to Rabinovich and Anka the machine gunner
39. Which tells you that there is no place like home
40. Greta Garbo’s Last Smile
Postscript
Об авторе
Svetlana Boym is Professor of Slavic and Comparative Literature at Harvard University. She is the author of several books, including
The Future of Nostalgia and
Kosmos: Remembrances of the Future, as well as short stories and plays.
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