Entering a weird, remote hamlet, Andrei calls himself "a simple wayfarer, " but he is in fact highly compromised: he has no identity papers. Taken under the wing of the military zone's commander, Andrei is first assigned to guard the blueberries that supply a nearby bear reserve. He is surrounded by human wrecks, supernatural umbrellas, birds carrying plagues, albino twins.
The bears - and an affair with a married woman - occupy Andrei until his protector is replaced by a new female commander, "a slender creature, quiet, diaphanous, like a dragonfly, " and yet an iron-fisted harridan. As things grow ever more alarming, Andrei becomes a "corpse watchman, " standing guard over the dead to check for any signs of life, and then ...