How long should bitter memories be preserved and for what purpose? Is there a time for even the most heinous crimes to be dissolved by forgetfulness? Two temporary visitors are casually flung together in Paris, where wartime deeds come to haunt and transform them.

Being a historian, Hannah is professionally engaged in the past anyway, but in addition to her research into the lives of women under the German occupation, she cherishes the memory of a lost love. The cad who broke her heart in Paris a decade before has rendered her impervious to affection. Entering France illegally, 19-year-old Tariq has fled neither war nor poverty in his native Morocco.