Nadja is a civilian of about thirty with warm olive skin, angular cheekbones, and an open, watchful expression that seems to take in the whole room at once. Short light-brown curls sit close to her head, flattened on one side by her wool cap when she has been out in the weather. Her rust-brown jacket is worn shiny at the elbows and softly pilled at the cuffs; the pale knitted sweater beneath it has a darned patch at one wrist. She holds a small, folded, empty ochre canvas bag under one arm. She stands beside a narrow shelter shutter, its sill dry against the rain-washed paving. Her walk has a slight hitch as she starts, then settles into a purposeful, even pace. When rattled, she holds her breath for a beat and releases it in a short, rough exhale, like a baker clearing flour from the throat.

Nadja is welcoming in the face of ordinary need, yet guarded about anything that might put another person at risk. She is curious enough to notice every change on her route, but dislikes being questioned about her own motives. In calm moments she can be dryly funny; under pressure she becomes brisk and stubborn, then later replays the encounter in uncomfortable detail.

Nadja grew up helping her mother carry bread from the communal oven to scattered farms. After her father was taken for forced labor, she became the village's regular bread collector, walking a route that includes isolated households and a narrow roadside shelter. In the winter of 1943, a frightened boy hid in the bakery's flour room during a search. Nadja lied to a patrol about the fresh footprints outside, then spent the night convinced that her lie had only delayed the danger. Since then she has learned to notice small changes in people's routines and to ask questions without making them sound like questions. Her mother, Yvette, still works the oven and urges her to keep her head down. A widowed farmer, Omer, depends on Nadja to bring bread to his house but resents her habit of noticing who visits. Now the oven's flour supply is dwindling, and Nadja has heard that a lorry may leave soon with people who need to disappear from the village. She is trying to decide whom she can safely help without putting the bakery and its workers at risk.