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A Tomb for Boris Davidovich consists of seven loosely related stories, which could be read separately. They all share one element, however, that gives them an organic unity. The first story, “The Knife with the Rosewood Handle,” takes place, for the most part, in Bukovina, a part of Romania (now part of the Soviet Union) in the 1920’s and 1930’s. Miksha, a handyman who “could sew on a button in ten seconds,” works for a Jewish shopkeeper until he is fired for skinning a skunk in his master’s yard. Afterward, Miksha becomes acquainted with a revolutionary, Aimicke, who introduces him to the underground. In their secret activity, they suspect that a police informer is in their midst. Miksha takes it upon himself to uncover and punish the traitor; he decides that the traitor is a young girl named Hanna Krzyzewska and murders her. Later, it turns out that it was Aimicke who was informing the police about the group’s activities. Miksha, who has fled to the Soviet Union, is arrested and induced to confess that he worked for the Gestapo, in the process implicating twelve Russian officials, who, with Miksha, receive sentences of twenty years of hard labor.