Her own appearance, Lian hoped, signaled maturity and reserve, enough to dissuade the attentions of hawkers, pickpockets, and talkative fellow travelers. She’d pulled her hair into a tight knot, the severe style offsetting her least-favorite feature, a small chin that made her seem years younger than nineteen. At least her navy-blue Minghua blazer proclaimed her of university age.

The Japanese had yet to bomb the city’s outlying districts. Minghua University’s campus lay southwest of Nanking and was a haven compared to the frenzied scene around the railway station. The university had begun emptying bit by bit as nervous parents instructed their children to come home.

Lian’s home was Peking, where her mother lived. But Peking had been taken by the enemy earlier that month. She’d been frantic for her mother’s safety until a much-delayed letter arrived. Inside, her mother had tucked in money for Lian’s train fare. Peking was already lost when her mother wrote that letter. The Chinese army was in retreat and the Japanese were marching in.

Daughter, everyone expects the Japanese to reach Peking within days. I’m leaving tomorrow. I will meet you in Shanghai. When you get there, find the Unity Mission School and stay there. Tell them your mother is a former student. Tell them I’m on my way. They won’t refuse you.

But when her mother mailed the letter, the Japanese had not yet attacked Shanghai. Every day, newspapers printed photographs of Shanghai’s streets, now cordoned off with barbed-wire barricades that separated Shanghai’s International Settlement from the rest of the city. The Settlement was not Chinese territory. It had been ceded to foreign powers decades ago and the Japanese military couldn’t enter. Now refugees streamed into the sanctuary of the Settlement, past gates guarded by Japanese sentries.

Lian was taking the Nanking-to-Shanghai train, which terminated at Shanghai’s North Railway Station, safely located inside the Settlement. But how would her mother get to Shanghai? What if she couldn’t get past the barricades? It was too late now for second-guessing or a change of plans. Her mother was on the road and Lian had no way of contacting her, let alone in a timely fashion.

These thoughts and a multitude of other worries spun hazily in Lian’s head and slowly, slowly, she opened her eyes. Sunlight from a back window illuminated motes of white dust hanging in the air. No, not dust. Flour. The baker’s family was sweeping the floor, coaxing snowy piles onto a large cloth, which they tilted carefully into a bin. Lian sat up and leaned her back against the wall.