Alexandra Shalashova's novel features eleven narrators, each experiencing and interpreting events differently, leaving no room for any objective interpretation. They are young patients and caregivers at a sanatorium on the other side of the river, where children are evacuated from the City just before the war begins. Soon, the bridge connecting them to the outside world is blown up, plunging the children into darkness. Every day they hear explosions—or are they fireworks?—but they don't know if the war is still going on.