Jan is a 38-year-old man who has lived happily in North Africa for the past twenty years. Returning home after his father's death, he hopes to reconnect with his mother and sister to support them financially. Driven by a desire for a profound, parabolic homecoming, he stubbornly decides to withhold his true identity until his family recognizes him naturally.

Martha is Jan's estranged younger sister who helps her mother run a small village inn in Bohemia. Feeling trapped in the gloomy, landlocked climate of Central Europe, she harbors a consuming fantasy of escaping to the sun-drenched seaside. Hardened and blunt, she views the inn's wealthy, solitary guests purely as targets to rob and murder to fund her ultimate escape.

The Mother is an elderly woman who runs a Bohemian inn alongside her daughter. Decades of a harsh life have eroded her emotions, leaving her deeply disillusioned and exhausted. She longs only for the peaceful oblivion of sleep, participating in the inn's dark activities out of numb habit rather than malice or ambition.

Maria is Jan's loving wife who has traveled with him from their warm, comfortable home in North Africa. She values direct communication and simple, honest affection. Disturbed by the gloom of Europe and the senselessness of Jan's masquerade, she tries desperately to convince him to speak plainly to his family before tragedy strikes.

The Old Servant is an elderly employee at the inn who performs his duties with an unsettling, absolute silence. He moves through the spaces almost like a phantom, doing exactly what is required and no more. He offers no human connection or emotional presence to the guests or his employers, embodying a strange, cosmic indifference.