The novel opens in the year 2004 in the village of Eldár in Chechnya. One night, Akhmed watches from his window as Feds break into the home of his friend Dokka across the street and capture him. Akhmed knows to assume he’ll never see Dokka again. Before leaving, the Feds burn down Dokka’s house. The next morning, Akhmed goes searching for Dokka’s eight-year-old daughter Havaa. Akhmed finds Havaa in the woods behind her house, where Dokka sent her to hide with a blue suitcase. Akhmed tells Havaa that they will escape to the city of Volchansk, where Akhmed knows the name of a woman at the city hospital. In doing so, Akhmed abandons his invalid wife Ula. Akhmed and Havaa walk all day through the woods, avoiding land mines and the soldier-occupied checkpoint. Akhmed remembers when the woods were full of “wolves and birds and bugs and goats and bears and sheep and deer” (12), but now their village and the surrounding woods are destitute.

At the hospital, Akhmed and Havaa meet surgeon Sofia Andreyevna Rabina, or Sonja, who runs the hospital along with an elderly nurse named Deshi.