Ninochka
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Svetlana Boym
About this book
A Russian émigré living in New York travels to Paris to try to reconstruct the secret life of another Russian woman who was murdered there on the eve of World War II.
A Russian émigré living in New York travels to Paris to try to reconstruct the secret life of another Russian woman who was murdered there on the eve of World War II.
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.
Author / Editor information
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.
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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Front Matter
i -
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Contents
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In which the murder takes place
1 -
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In which you catch a glimpse of my green card and sample immigrant crêpes
11 -
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In which I try to examine Nina’s diary but speak with the strangers instead
21 -
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In which we observe émigrés on the beach and learn everything we need to know about potential murder suspects
28 -
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In which we revisit Nina’s childhood and play hide-and-seek in the Summer Gardens
50 -
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In which the detective gets unexpected mail
56 -
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In which we finally learn about the men in Nina’s life and meet “the Eurasian genius”
59 -
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In which we attend the Eurasian tea party and lose all respect for Attila the Hun
73 -
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Which might make you blush
83 -
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In which we learn about the “other woman” and read the Manifesto of the Kinopeople
88 -
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In which we all go to a Hungarian party and learn about Soviet missile launchers
95 -
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In which I finally see Ninotchka and wonder about the consequences
100 -
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In which I spend some time in the Bibliothéque Nationale and stumble upon a conspiracy theory ciphered in the script of Ninotchka
110 -
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A digression on common fears and on the importance of dusting, preferably with a wet rag
118 -
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In which the best part happens behind the scenes, so the anxious reader can just skip this chapter altogether
122 -
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Hardly a chapter at all, a couple of loose pages from my computer diary
127 -
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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
129 -
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In which the detective misbehaves in the movie theater while watching a film with Gerard Depardieu
133 -
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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
144 -
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Which tells you what to do when you run into your lover’s wife in the supermarket
151 -
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In which we learn how Ninotchka was conceived and what made Greta Garbo laugh
154 -
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In which a mysterious character from the third row packs his bags and makes a confession
155 -
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Up in the air
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In which we travel to Russia and watch a musical dedicated to the Soviet Constitution
174 -
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In which my beautiful grandmother takes her last stroll in Paris
185 -
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In which I invite you to come home with me but Tram No. 30 runs very slowly
187 -
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In which I bury my grandmother
193 -
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Which offers you seven elephants of happiness
197 -
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In which we dispel our sad thoughts and learn what Ninel Markovna really did in Paris
200 -
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In which you meet my English professor and drink the cheap wine of our youth
210 -
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In which we taste a fruit drink and cabbage pirogi at my Alma Mater and learn what happened to Boris Krestovsky in Russia
217 -
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In which we stop making Eurasian jokes and explore the double life of Yuri Poltavsky-Rizhsky
225 -
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In which you follow me to Moscow and have a pickle treat
236 -
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In which we eavesdrop on Comrade Kaganovich
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In which we watch The Lilac Sunset and listen to Kachalsky’s songs
247 -
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In which I meet Cossacks and have a romantic escapade at the Pizza Hut
256 -
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In which the murderer makes a scene
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In which we get homesick in Gorky Park
280 -
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In which we leave Russia and bid farewell to Rabinovich and Anka the machine gunner
285 -
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Which tells you that there is no place like home
294 -
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Greta Garbo’s Last Smile
298 -
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Postscript
302
