Year: 2015
Publisher: Eksmo
Age limit: 16+
Genres: Contemporary Russian literature
Dina Rubina has written three wonderful books that unite different generations of different families from different parts of the world. At the same time, the main connecting link here is musical activity, as well as canaries, which with their beautiful singing were able to connect the souls and hearts of people.
“Russian canary. Prodigal Son" is the third part of the series written by Dina Rubina. Everyone should read the work for many reasons. There is a huge love here - for life, for your soul mate, for what you do. The author also added many historical moments, wars, political instability and confusion into the book, which greatly influenced people's lives.
The main characters of the work are the singer Leon and the deaf girl Aya. They are happy together, but there are secrets in their relationship. So, Leon admits to his beloved that he is stalking some of her relatives. He, as an intelligence officer, suspects them of arms smuggling.
Leon and Aya go to her homeland, to her family. There, a young man charms everyone, and he also fulfills an important mission - he must see and find out everything about one person who is hiding within the walls of this house. During the trip, lovers enjoy beautiful views, have a pleasant time together, and also give each other happiness and love. And so Leon manages to find out a lot of useful information, and the canary helps him find the criminal - a person who works with plutonium automatically becomes allergic to canaries.
The book “Russian Canary. The Prodigal Son" grabs you from the first lines and keeps you in suspense until the very end. You will worry about the fate of the main characters, and also hope that all crimes will be solved and stopped.
This is the final part that will answer all the questions that you may have had when you started reading the previous two parts. Dina Rubina was able to choose such words to fully express the real feelings of young people, as well as the love of parents for their children. The writer perfectly managed to convey the beauty of the landscapes that you can see through the eyes of the characters.
If you haven't read anything by Dina Rubina, start with the Russian Canary series. You will fall in love with both the books and the writer herself. Of course, it is better to start your acquaintance with the first part in order to fully enjoy the whole story. These books will give you a good mood and inspiration.
On our literary website you can download Dean Rubin’s book “Russian Canary. Prodigal Son" for free in formats suitable for different devices - epub, fb2, txt, rtf. Do you like to read books and always keep up with new releases?
Dina Rubina
Russian canary. Prodigal son
© D. Rubina, 2015
© Design. Eksmo Publishing House LLC, 2015
Dedicated to Bora
Onion rose
The incredible, dangerous, in some ways even heroic journey of Zheltukhin the Fifth from Paris to London in a road copper cage was preceded by several stormy days of love, squabbles, interrogations, love, torture, screams, sobs, love, despair and even one fight (after frantic love ) at rue Aubrio, four.
The fight is not a fight, but she threw a blue and gold cup of Sevres porcelain (two angels look like a mirrored oval) at him, and hit him, and abraded his cheekbone.
“Fir-fry…” Leon muttered, looking at his face in the bathroom mirror in amazement. - You... You ruined my face! I'm having lunch with the channel producer on Wednesday. Mezzo…
And she herself got scared, flew up, grabbed his head, pressed her cheek to his skinned cheek.
“I’ll leave,” she breathed out in despair. - Nothing works!
She, Aya, failed to do the main thing: to open him like a tin can and extract the answers to all the categorical questions that she asked as best she could, fixing her inexorable gaze on the core of his lips.
On the day of her dazzling appearance on the threshold of his Parisian apartment, as soon as he finally opened the hoop of his yearning hands, she turned around and blurted out:
- Leon! Are you a bandit?
And the eyebrows trembled, flew up, circled in front of his raised eyebrows in amazement. He laughed and answered with wonderful ease:
- Of course, bandit.
Again he reached out to hug, but it was not to be. This little girl came to fight.
“Bandit, bandit,” she repeated sadly, “I thought it over and understood, I know these habits...
-Are you crazy? – he asked, shaking her shoulders. - What other habits?
“You’re strange, dangerous, you almost killed me on the island.” You have neither a cell phone nor an email, you cannot stand photographs of yourself, except for the poster one, where you are like a joyful remnant. You walk as if you killed three hundred people... - And starting up, with a belated cry: - You pushed me into the closet!!!
Yes. He actually pushed her into the storage room on the balcony when Isadora finally came for instructions on what to feed Zheltukhin. Out of confusion, he hid it, not immediately figuring out how to explain to the concierge the mise-en-scène with a half-naked guest in the hallway, riding on a travel bag... And in that damn closet, she sat for exactly three minutes while he frantically explained to Isadora: “Thank you for not forgetting, my joy,” (fingers get tangled in the loops of a shirt, suspiciously released from trousers), “but it turns out that already... uh... no one is going anywhere.”
And yet, the next morning he dumped Isadore all the truth! Well, let's say, not all of it; Let's say he went down to the hall (with slippers on his bare feet) to cancel her weekly cleaning. And when he just opened his mouth (as in the thieves’ song: “A cousin from Odessa came to see me”), the “cousin” herself, in his shirt over her naked body, barely covered... and didn’t cover a damn thing! - flew out of the apartment, rushed down the stairs like a schoolboy at recess, and stood and trampled on the bottom step, staring at both of them demandingly. Leon sighed, broke into the smile of a blissful cretin, spread his arms and said:
– Isadora... this is my love.
And she responded respectfully and cordially:
– Congratulations, Monsieur Leon! - as if standing in front of her were not two maddened rabbits, but a venerable wedding procession.
On the second day, they at least got dressed, opened the shutters, tucked in the exhausted ottoman, devoured everything that was left in the refrigerator, even half-dried olives, and contrary to everything that his instincts, common sense and profession, Leon allowed Aya (after a huge scandal, when the already filled ottoman howled again with all its springs, accepting and accepting the tireless Siamese load) to go with him to the grocery store.
They walked, staggering from weakness and swooning happiness, in the sunny haze of early spring, in a tangle of patterned shadows from the branches of plane trees, and even this soft light seemed too bright after a day of loving confinement in a dark room with the telephone turned off. If now some merciless enemy intended to pull them in different directions, they would have no more strength to resist than two caterpillars.
The dark red facade of the “Semicolon” cabaret, an optician, a hat shop with blank heads in the window (one with a pulled-down earflap that floated here from some Voronezh), a hairdresser, a pharmacy, a mini-market, completely plastered with sales posters , a brasserie with big-headed gas heaters above rows of plastic tables exposed on the sidewalk - everything seemed strange, funny, even wild to Leon - in short, completely different than a couple of days ago.
He carried a heavy bag of groceries in one hand, with the other, tenaciously, like a child in a crowd, he held Aya’s hand, and intercepted her, and stroked her palm with his palm, fingering her fingers and already yearning for others, secret the touch of her hands, not expecting to get to the house, where they still had to trudge God knows how long - eight minutes!
Now he powerlessly brushed aside the questions, reasons and fears that were pouring in from all sides, presenting some new argument every minute (why on earth was he left alone? Aren’t they herding him just in case - like then, at Krabi airport - rightly believing that he can lead them to Aya?).
Well, he couldn’t lock him up without any explanation arriving bird within four walls, placed in a capsule hastily put together (like swallows make nests with their saliva) by his suspicious and wary love.
He so wanted to walk her around Paris at night, take her to a restaurant, bring her to the theater, clearly showing her the most wonderful performance: the gradual transformation of an artist with the help of makeup, a wig and a costume. I wanted her to be captivated by the comfort of her favorite dressing room: a unique, charming mixture of stale smells of powder, deodorant, heated lamps, old dust and fresh flowers.
He dreamed of going with her somewhere for the whole day - at least to the Impressionist Park, with the monogrammed gold of its cast-iron gates, with the quiet lake and sad castle, with the picture puzzle of its flower beds and lace parterres, with its seasoned oaks and chestnuts, with plush dolls of trimmed cypress trees. Stock up on sandwiches and have a picnic in a pseudo-Japanese gazebo over the pond, to the burr of a frog, to the chatter of frenzied magpies, admiring the smooth progress of imperturbable drakes with their precious, emerald-sapphire heads...
But so far Leon has not found out his intentions friends from the office, the wisest thing was, if not to run away from Paris to hell, then at least to sit behind doors with reliable locks.
What can we say about forays into nature, if on an insignificantly small segment of the path between the house and the grocery store, Leon constantly looked around, stopping abruptly and getting stuck in front of shop windows.
It was here that he discovered that Aya's clothed figure was missing something. And I realized: a camera! It wasn't even in the bag. No “specially trained backpack,” no camera case, no those scary lenses she called “lenses.”
-Where is yours? Canon?- he asked.
She answered easily:
- I sold it. I had to get to you somehow... They stole your bags from me, bye bye.
- How did they steal it? – Leon tensed.
She waved her hand:
- Yes, yes. One unfortunate drug addict. Stolen while I was sleeping. Of course, I brushed him off - later, when I came to my senses. But he’s already spent it all down to a penny...
Leon listened to this news with bewilderment and suspicion, with a sudden wild jealousy that sounded like an alarm bell in his heart: what kind of drug addict? how could steal money while she was sleeping? What kind of shelter did you find yourself in at such a good time? and how much is it near? or not in a shelter? Or no drug addict?
He briefly noted with gratitude: it was good that Vladka had taught him from childhood to humbly listen to any incredible nonsense. And I realized: yes, but this the person doesn't know how to lie...
The incredible, dangerous, in some ways even heroic journey of Zheltukhin the Fifth from Paris to London in a road copper cage was preceded by several stormy days of love, squabbles, interrogations, love, torture, screams, sobs, love, despair and even one fight (after frantic love ) at rue Aubrio, four.
The fight is not a fight, but she threw a blue and gold cup of Sevres porcelain (two angels look like a mirrored oval) at him, and hit him, and abraded his cheekbone.
“Fir-fry…” Leon muttered, looking at his face in the bathroom mirror in amazement. - You... You ruined my face! I'm having lunch with the channel producer on Wednesday. Mezzo…
And she herself got scared, flew up, grabbed his head, pressed her cheek to his skinned cheek.
“I’ll leave,” she breathed out in despair. - Nothing works!
She, Aya, failed to do the main thing: to open him like a tin can and extract the answers to all the categorical questions that she asked as best she could, fixing her inexorable gaze on the core of his lips.
On the day of her dazzling appearance on the threshold of his Parisian apartment, as soon as he finally opened the hoop of his yearning hands, she turned around and blurted out:
- Leon! Are you a bandit?
And the eyebrows trembled, flew up, circled in front of his raised eyebrows in amazement. He laughed and answered with wonderful ease:
- Of course, bandit.
Again he reached out to hug, but it was not to be. This little girl came to fight.
“Bandit, bandit,” she repeated sadly, “I thought it over and understood, I know these habits...
-Are you crazy? – he asked, shaking her shoulders. - What other habits?
“You’re strange, dangerous, you almost killed me on the island.” You have neither a cell phone nor an email, you cannot stand photographs of yourself, except for the poster one, where you are like a joyful remnant. You walk as if you killed three hundred people... - And starting up, with a belated cry: - You pushed me into the closet!!!
Yes. He actually pushed her into the storage room on the balcony when Isadora finally came for instructions on what to feed Zheltukhin. Out of confusion, he hid it, not immediately figuring out how to explain to the concierge the mise-en-scène with a half-naked guest in the hallway, riding on a travel bag... And in that damn closet, she sat for exactly three minutes while he frantically explained to Isadora: “Thank you for not forgetting, my joy,” (fingers get tangled in the loops of a shirt, suspiciously released from trousers), “but it turns out that already... uh... no one is going anywhere.”
And yet, the next morning he dumped Isadore all the truth! Well, let's say, not all of it; Let's say he went down to the hall (with slippers on his bare feet) to cancel her weekly cleaning. And when he just opened his mouth (as in the thieves’ song: “A cousin from Odessa came to see me”), the “cousin” herself, in his shirt over her naked body, barely covered... and didn’t cover a damn thing! - flew out of the apartment, rushed down the stairs like a schoolboy at recess, and stood and trampled on the bottom step, staring at both of them demandingly. Leon sighed, broke into the smile of a blissful cretin, spread his arms and said:
– Isadora... this is my love.
And she responded respectfully and cordially:
– Congratulations, Monsieur Leon! - as if standing in front of her were not two maddened rabbits, but a venerable wedding procession.
On the second day, they at least got dressed, opened the shutters, tucked in the exhausted ottoman, devoured everything that was left in the refrigerator, even half-dried olives, and contrary to everything that his instincts, common sense and profession, Leon allowed Aya (after a huge scandal, when the already filled ottoman howled again with all its springs, accepting and accepting the tireless Siamese load) to go with him to the grocery store.
They walked, staggering from weakness and swooning happiness, in the sunny haze of early spring, in a tangle of patterned shadows from the branches of plane trees, and even this soft light seemed too bright after a day of loving confinement in a dark room with the telephone turned off. If now some merciless enemy intended to pull them in different directions, they would have no more strength to resist than two caterpillars.
The dark red facade of the “Semicolon” cabaret, an optician, a hat shop with blank heads in the window (one with a pulled-down earflap that floated here from some Voronezh), a hairdresser, a pharmacy, a mini-market, completely plastered with sales posters , a brasserie with big-headed gas heaters above rows of plastic tables exposed on the sidewalk - everything seemed strange, funny, even wild to Leon - in short, completely different than a couple of days ago.
He carried a heavy bag of groceries in one hand, with the other, tenaciously, like a child in a crowd, he held Aya’s hand, and intercepted her, and stroked her palm with his palm, fingering her fingers and already yearning for others, secret the touch of her hands, not expecting to get to the house, where they still had to trudge God knows how long - eight minutes!
Now he powerlessly brushed aside the questions, reasons and fears that were pouring in from all sides, presenting some new argument every minute (why on earth was he left alone? Aren’t they herding him just in case - like then, at Krabi airport - rightly believing that he can lead them to Aya?).
Well, he couldn’t lock him up without any explanation arriving bird within four walls, placed in a capsule hastily put together (like swallows make nests with their saliva) by his suspicious and wary love.
He so wanted to walk her around Paris at night, take her to a restaurant, bring her to the theater, clearly showing her the most wonderful performance: the gradual transformation of an artist with the help of makeup, a wig and a costume. I wanted her to be captivated by the comfort of her favorite dressing room: a unique, charming mixture of stale smells of powder, deodorant, heated lamps, old dust and fresh flowers.
He dreamed of going with her somewhere for the whole day - at least to the Impressionist Park, with the monogrammed gold of its cast-iron gates, with the quiet lake and sad castle, with the picture puzzle of its flower beds and lace parterres, with its seasoned oaks and chestnuts, with plush dolls of trimmed cypress trees. Stock up on sandwiches and have a picnic in a pseudo-Japanese gazebo over the pond, to the burr of a frog, to the chatter of frenzied magpies, admiring the smooth progress of imperturbable drakes with their precious, emerald-sapphire heads...
But so far Leon has not found out his intentions friends from the office, the wisest thing was, if not to run away from Paris to hell, then at least to sit behind doors with reliable locks.
What can we say about forays into nature, if on an insignificantly small segment of the path between the house and the grocery store, Leon constantly looked around, stopping abruptly and getting stuck in front of shop windows.
It was here that he discovered that Aya's clothed figure was missing something. And I realized: a camera! It wasn't even in the bag. No “specially trained backpack,” no camera case, no those scary lenses she called “lenses.”
-Where is yours? Canon?- he asked.
She answered easily:
- I sold it. I had to get to you somehow... They stole your bags from me, bye bye.
- How did they steal it? – Leon tensed.
She waved her hand:
- Yes, yes. One unfortunate drug addict. Stolen while I was sleeping. Of course, I brushed him off - later, when I came to my senses. But he’s already spent it all down to a penny...
Leon listened to this news with bewilderment and suspicion, with a sudden wild jealousy that sounded like an alarm bell in his heart: what kind of drug addict? how could steal money while she was sleeping? What kind of shelter did you find yourself in at such a good time? and how much is it near? or not in a shelter? Or no drug addict?
Aya and Leon enjoy love in his apartment on Rue Aubrio. The hero is trying to protect his beloved from danger, and the girl suspects him of illegal activities. The singer is forced to admit that he is an intelligence officer and is tracking down her English relatives Bonnke, Friedrich and Gunther, in connection with arms smuggling. The heroine tells everything she knows about the criminals.
The singer persuades Aya to ask to visit his uncle - he definitely needs to see Gunther, whom Israeli intelligence does not know by sight and has been tracking for a long time. Leon hopes to learn “about a small, inconspicuous bay, about a private, venerable yacht whose final destination will be the port of Beirut.” For Leon, this information is a ransom, “an exchange with the office... I give you... Gunther, and you give me peace and freedom. That is, IU...” Leon proposes to the girl, and in the role of engaged couple he has to go to London.
Taking Zheltukhin, they drive a rented car across half of Europe, enjoying the tourist views and each other’s company; this is a true love journey. The heroes spend an amazing night in the Flemish castle of Leon's acquaintances.
After the concert in London, the heroes visit Friedrich, who is having a reception in honor of his birthday. In the house, besides his uncle and his wife, there are several guests, the bodyguard Chadrick, the maid Bertha and Gunther, hidden from everyone in his room. Friedrich is sincerely happy about his niece and her fiancé. Leon charms the owner's wife Elena, quietly eliciting from her the necessary information about the family yacht, on which, as he suspects, smuggled plutonium is being transported to the Middle East.
In the owner's bookcase, the hero notices an old family book by Big Etinger, which Jacob Etinger once sold to the old antique dealer Adil. The book disappeared after the murder of the old agent, in it there is a danger sign left by the antique dealer. In the holiday salad, Leon sees an onion rose, which was once prepared by the “terrible Nubian” Vinay, who served at Immanuel’s. All these warning signs point to some kind of threat awaiting the heroes in the house of the arms dealers.
The maid Big Bertha brings Zheltukhin to Gunther, who is hiding in the house, and with that an allergic attack of suffocation occurs. This is the canary reaction of a person dealing with plutonium. When Gunther is taken to the hospital, Leon finally sees him for the first time - it is Vinay, who has been working under the nose of Israeli intelligence for many years.
Love in Portofino
Leon plans an operation to track plutonium smuggling routes and destroy Gunther. He decides to carry out everything secretly, alone, and then send the result to Israeli intelligence. The hero hides Aya in the village and prepares for a dangerous task.
After a conversation with his former lover Nicole and analytical reflections, Leon determines the place where father and son Bonnke will load the stolen plutonium onto a yacht to transport it to the Middle East. This is the Italian port town of Portofino, where Bonnke and Nicole have villas. Not wanting to part with his beloved for a long time, the singer takes her with him, planning a colorful “spy performance”. In addition to them, Gunther is secretly being monitored by Israeli intelligence services, who recognize Leon in the make-up of an old woman.
On the day of the operation planned by the hero to destroy Gunther, Aya is overtaken by an attack of a long sleep. Leaving the girl at the hotel and writing two letters - for her and for intelligence, Leon sails into the bay and, having tracked down the yacht, drowns the enemy. Upon surfacing, he is captured by Gunther's guards and taken to the Middle East.
Having woken up and read her lover’s letters, the heroine does not follow the instructions, but begins to look for Leon on her own. In a cafe on the coast of Portofino, Iya is seen by Nicole, discussing with her relative the strange death of the Bonnke family: Elena and Friedrich crashed in a car when they went to identify the body of Gunther, who drowned while drunk. This is the official version for the police.
Return
Leon is beaten on the yacht, finding out why he killed Gunther. According to the version he composed, he is taking revenge for the bride, who was supposedly once raped by him. Chadrick, the bodyguard of the murdered Gunther, joins the tormentors. He tortures the hero, not believing in the legend he invented about the avenger groom.
Nathan Kaldman and Shauli discuss the rescue of Leon from captivity. According to intelligence information, he is hidden in different places in Syria and Lebanon by bandits of Islamist groups. From their conversation, it turns out that Aya sent a letter to Shauli, which presented the entire criminal scheme for transporting plutonium to the Middle East and the role that the Bonnke family played in this. According to Nathan, the Israeli intelligence services will not rescue Leon from captivity, since he disrupted their important operation and is no longer an active agent. The men also mention that the plutonium ended up in the hands of Arab terrorists, and Aya disappeared.
Nathan turns to the old intelligence officer Zara with a request to raise his old connections and assist in the liberation of Leon. She names the lawyer Nabil Azari, who has the most incredible contacts and often acted as an intermediary in prisoner exchanges. Ironically, the lawyer is Leon's uncle, the brother of his biological father.
Aya rushes around Europe in search of Leon, with whom she is expecting a child. Nobody can help her. Believing that Leon is alive, she meets with Philippe Gueshard, the singer's impresario, and tells him that Leon is probably an intelligence officer, which incredibly surprises him. She goes to Bangkok and works in a hotel almost until she gives birth.
In Israel, intelligence officer Meir Kaldman has a difficult conversation with his wife Gabriela. She is depressed about Leon's capture. The husband notices that the special services will not rescue the singer, since he disrupted a very important operation. To this, Gabriela vindictively tells him that their third child, Ryzhik, is Leon’s son, and that his adored mother, Magda, cheated on her husband while he was in captivity. An enraged Meir almost kills his wife, but his father stops him. As a result, Nathan has a heart attack and dies in the arms of Magda, to whom he forgives his long-standing betrayal.
On the day of Nathan's funeral, Magda comes to the intelligence office and blackmails deputy chief Nachum Schiff in order to force him to free Leon. Israeli intelligence services are still taking steps to find and ransom Leon. At the same time, lawyer Nabil Azari receives proposals from three interested parties - Israeli, French and Iranian intelligence - to participate in negotiations on the exchange of the French singer Etinger for the Iranian captive General Mahdavi. The negotiation mechanism starts.
News agencies report the imminent release of the famous singer. After reading this news, Aya goes home to Alma-Ata, expecting Leon to find her there.
The night before the exchange, a drunken Chadrick secretly enters Leon's cell and blinds him, avenging his murdered lover Gunther. In Cyprus, under the auspices of the UN, an exchange of a singer for a captured general is taking place. Leon's friend Shauli accompanies the hero to Israel, where he is met by Avram, a long-time family friend. The singer is being treated in hospital.
Aya has a strange dream that she gave birth to a four-eyed boy. Waking up, she reads the news about the exchange that took place and the release of Leon. Overcoming her father's resistance, she flies to Israel. Shauli accompanies her to the hospital room. When they meet, Aya learns that Leon is blind, and Leon learns that he will become a father.
Epilogue
St. Mary's Abbey, near the Israeli village of Abu Ghosh near Jerusalem, hosts an annual music festival. The oratorio “Prodigal Son” is sung by the famous countertenor Leon Etinger together with his eight-year-old son Gavrila. The boy has a viola, like his father had in childhood. He's a little like Leon, but without his father's fierceness. Rather, he resembles Big Etinger - Herzl. The hall is full. Magda, who is present here, reflects on the vicissitudes of fate and nature, which gave one son Leon hearing and voice and deprived the other of talent. She regrets that Meir will never allow her to introduce the children. The woman admires Aya, admitting that the singer is happy with her.
Aya meets Shauli at the airport, who has arrived to listen to the oratorio. On the way to the abbey, the heroine enthusiastically talks about her work as a documentary filmmaker. The old bachelor Shauli admires Aya and is jealous of Leon. He compares the heroine to the biblical Ruth, a symbol of righteousness and devotion to her family.
On the stage “soars, intertwining, a duet of two high voices... Two figures, Leon and a boy, standing so close to each other, as if fused, in the indissoluble connection of two voices lead the party of one rebellious, but humble soul...”. Aya thinks she hears her husband and son singing. The heroine recalls that when Gavrik was little, she and her husband heard each other, holding the baby’s heels, and called him “the guide of happiness.”