Salyuty na toj storone

There are eleven narrators in Alexandra Shalashova's novel-they experience and interpret events in different ways, leaving no room for any objective version. They are the young patients and caretakers of the sanatorium on the other side of the river, where children are evacuated from the City just before the war. Soon the bridge linking them to the outside world is blown up, and the children are plunged into darkness. Every day they hear explosions - or salutes? - but they don't know if there is still a war going on. Lack of food, conflicts, a new informal hierarchy, the invisible presence of Evil, which has no name - and violence blossoms, caused by endless loneliness, fear. One day a Soldier comes to the children and offers to take them out to the people. But will they make it - or will they go straight to the unknown invaders?