The story centers on Paul Dédalus, an anthropologist preparing to leave Tajikistan, who has a series of flashbacks that include his childhood in Roubaix, his mother's attacks of madness and his father's alienating depression. He remembers his trip to the USSR, where a clandestine mission led him to offer up his own identity for a young Russian, whom he considered a phantom twin for the remainder of his life as well as remembering Esther, the beautiful, rude love of his life.