Ida has just arrived in Oslo to study psychology at the University, after dropping out of her literature studies in Trondheim. Ida's is anxious for most things. Not getting of the bus at the right stop, running out of toilet paper on the public toilet, environmental changes and world war three. But her greatest fear is terror. There is nothing that frightens her more than being a victim of a random attack.

The story is about Sharif, a Somali military student in the Soviet Union in 1977. Sharif has a daughter, Farhiya, with a Russian woman, and lives in Leningrad. On Farhiyas 5th birthday, Sharif receives a call about an imminent deportation for him, and his daughter from the Soviet Union.