Moscow

Moscow is the home Ilya Rozanov names when grief brings him back to Russia, and the place where he completes his last obligations to his father before choosing to leave. Its importance lies less in any description of the city than in the sequence of departures attached to it: a funeral, a family estate, a summer condo, and Ilya’s decision that he has no reason to return.

Home and Return

When Shane Hollander asks where Ilya is going, Ilya answers that he is going home, specifying Moscow rather than Boston. The distinction surprises Shane and makes him fear that something has happened to Ilya’s father. In a few brief exchanges, Moscow becomes the point at which Ilya’s private loss enters their relationship: he has returned there in the midst of a family crisis, and Shane’s first response is to worry about him.

Ilya’s return is not presented as a settled homecoming. He has come to speak with someone, and Shane is the person he thinks of; by the time he leaves a shop with a cappuccino, he is heading reluctantly toward his father’s house. The funeral is scheduled for the following morning. Ilya’s movement through Moscow is therefore bound to an immediate duty he does not welcome, even as the city remains the place he calls home.

The Funeral and Family Obligations

The funeral places Ilya’s return within a short, sharply defined period of obligation. He expects to attend the service and then leave what remains of his family behind. The phrasing makes his return sound less like a restoration of family ties than a final reckoning with them: he goes to his father’s house because the funeral requires it, not because he imagines that the journey will repair the family.

By the next day in Moscow, Ilya considers his filial duties complete. Andrei Rozanov is the executor of their father’s estate, which is described as meagre, while Ilya regards his own responsibilities as a son as fulfilled. These practical and personal conclusions converge. The funeral has occurred, the estate has someone else to administer it, and Ilya no longer sees an obligation that would require him to remain in Russia.

The Summer Condo

Moscow is also the location of Ilya’s own condo, which he keeps for the summers. He tells Shane that he is alone there, establishing the apartment as his immediate refuge during the days surrounding the funeral. It is not his year-round base: Ilya expects to fly back to Boston the next day, and the condo’s seasonal use contrasts with the permanent life he has resumed elsewhere.

Over the course of those days, Ilya recognizes that he has no real reason to return to Russia. He allows that he might come back someday, but cannot imagine spending another summer there. His father’s death has ended the obligation he felt toward the country, and the possibility of a future visit remains abstract rather than a plan. Moscow thus holds both his remembered summer routine and the decision to break with it.

Leaving the Apartment Behind

Ilya makes an impulsive decision to give the condo to Andrei. He leaves his brother free to sell it or use it as he wishes, and his indifference to what Andrei does with the property underscores that Ilya is not trying to preserve it as a family home. He also has no belongings in the apartment that he wants to keep. The transfer is a practical way to avoid selling the condo himself, but it also removes one more reason to return.

On his last night sleeping there, Ilya sits on the bed and thinks of something he would like to do to commemorate the occasion. The narrative identifies the impulse but does not yet disclose the act, leaving the apartment’s final night as a threshold rather than a completed ritual. Moscow’s significance gathers in that unresolved moment: Ilya has finished the duties that brought him back, given away the place that anchored his summers, and is preparing to leave for Boston without claiming that the past has been erased.