In a Moscow prison cell, Vladimir Ippolitovich Vetrov awaits his execution. A cockroach keeps him company, along with a pestering voice accusing him of being a traitor to the Party, the Motherland and the People-for having succumbed to the delusions of the West, to the sirens of Paris, and to the importance of discourse. As the process of awaiting death unfolds nothing happens in the cell, but what takes place inside Vetrov's mind is the intimate and merciless assessment of the man who wanted to destabilize the totalitarian regime of the USSR-and who will answer for it-as he considers his...