Ilya Returns to Moscow for His Father’s Funeral

Ilya Rozanov’s return to Moscow for his father’s funeral turns a sudden death into a reckoning with the family obligations Ilya has continued to carry. He pays for the arrangements and fulfills what he calls his duties as a son, but the funeral does not draw him back into family life. By the time he prepares to leave, he sees no reason to return to Russia soon and gives his Moscow condo to his brother, Andrei Rozanov.

The Call and the News

The news arrives while Ilya is leaving the arena. He has already spent an hour with Shane Hollander that afternoon and intends to meet him again that night. As he walks out through the players’ entrance, he is thinking about what jab to send Shane when his phone rings. The caller is his brother. Ilya nearly lets it go unanswered, but he can imagine a reason for the call that has nothing to do with money. He answers, and the interruption changes the evening’s focus from a planned private meeting to the death in his family.

Ilya tells Shane that he is home in Moscow. Shane is surprised and asks whether something has happened; when he guesses that it concerns Ilya’s father, Ilya confirms that his father is dead. Shane offers his condolences, but Ilya does not answer. Shane hears him sniff and make a tight, throaty sound. The brief exchange conveys distress without supplying a fuller account of what Ilya feels: the news is stated plainly, while his response reaches Shane first as a sound and a silence.

Funeral, Family, and Obligation

The funeral is scheduled for the following morning. Before it, Ilya walks out of a shop with a cappuccino and reluctantly heads toward his father’s house. His reluctance gives the practical journey a particular weight: he is going because the funeral and his remaining responsibilities require it, not because the homecoming has become welcome. He describes the family he is about to leave as what remains of his family, a phrasing that makes the funeral part of an ending rather than a return to a secure family circle.

Ilya tells Shane that he is paying for everything, which makes him of use. The explanation links his position in the family to what he can provide, rather than to comfort or closeness. When Shane asks about his father’s wife, Ilya says she is upset but not about his father’s death; she is scared for herself. The distinction complicates the expected shape of a family gathering around a death. Ilya reports fear and self-interest in the household, while the funeral expenses and duties fall to him.

Leaving Moscow

By the next day in Moscow, Ilya expects to fly back to Boston the following day. His brother Andrei is executor of their father’s estate, small as it is, and Ilya considers his own obligations complete. He has fulfilled his duties as a son; the phrasing sets a limit on what those duties entail. The death has not produced a reconciliation or a renewed commitment to the family. Instead, it marks the point at which Ilya believes he can stop returning out of obligation.

Over the days in Moscow, Ilya realizes that he has no real reason to go back to Russia. He allows that he might return someday, but cannot imagine spending another summer there. His sense of obligation, he concludes, died with his father. This is not a claim that he will never see Russia again; it is a decision about the foreseeable future, and about the force that had previously brought him back. The funeral closes that obligation without resolving the larger family history.

The Condo and the Meaning of Departure

Ilya gives his Moscow condo to Andrei on impulse. Andrei can sell it or use it to meet his mistresses; Ilya does not care which. He wants to avoid the work of selling the place, and there is nothing inside it he wants to keep. The details make the departure material as well as emotional: rather than preserve a foothold in Moscow or sort through possessions, Ilya transfers the property and leaves its future to his brother.

On his last night there, Ilya sits on the bed in the condo. That final image gathers the event’s practical and emotional strands into a single, quiet pause: the funeral duties are done, the flight back to Boston is imminent, and the room no longer represents something he intends to maintain. His return to Moscow has therefore changed his relationship to home less by restoring family ties than by clarifying the limits of his obligation. The death brings him back for the funeral; completing that duty gives him permission, in his own understanding, to leave.