A feminine meditation on death and absence: the absence of the heroine's husband Paul, of the intense life of her childhood in wartime Russia, and her youth in Moscow, of friends and family who have vanished behind the tundra of the Gulag, of parents who loved her.

A uniquely feminine meditation on death and absence: the absence of the heroine's husband, of the intense life of her childhood in war time Russia, of friends and family who vanished in the Gulag.