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know the work of Sholem Aleichem?” he asked the young people, who did not bother to hide their boredom.
    “I do. My father painted the sets for the Jewish Theater when his plays were performed in Moscow,” Ida volunteered laconically.
    The poet looked at her with interest.
    “Your father? Are you Marc Chagall’s daughter? His Idotchka. I remember seeing you when you were a little girl. Perhaps in Berlin. Yes, surely in Berlin. You, of course, do not remember me, but please give my regards to your dear parents.”
    He peered at her over the podium, perhaps seeing in his mind’s eye the impish auburn-haired child who had been the pampered pet of their small community.
    “Idotchka.” Her nickname was whispered derisively through the room. Her classmates pointed at her and nudged each other.
    Ida ignored them and shrugged indifferently.
    “I will do that, monsieur le professeur,” she assured him.
    She knew that in all probability her parents would not even recognize his name. He was not famous enough to be included either in their circle of intimates or in their roster of acquaintances whose names and phone numbers they inscribed in a black leather address book. One never knew who might one day prove useful. Their peripatetic life had taught them as much.
    The elderly professor beamed at her.
    “Ah, little Ida,” he murmured and turned back to his notes.
    “Ah, if only he knew how grown up his little Ida is,” Michel whispered into her ear.
    “Perhaps I will tell him how grown up I am. Perhaps I will tell everyone,” Ida teased, suppressing her laughter.
    But of course she would tell no one, nor would Michel. They delighted in the secrecy of their sweet intimacy.
    Each afternoon, they escaped the activities of the encampment and dashed across the meadow to an abandoned shepherd’s shack. And each day their lovemaking was slower, more deliberate.
    “We must be careful,” Michel had cautioned, and she had nodded in agreement and laughed. She was the daughter of enlightened parents. Bella had explained the monthly cycle to her the day her menses began, blushing only slightly but determined to be a modern woman, a modern mother. No shtetl ignorance of her body for her Ida, la fille Parisienne .
    “I know what I’m doing, Michel,” she had assured him. “My body is my friend. We understand each other.”
    They undressed each other, Michel always fumbling with the buttons of her dresses as she had known he would. She knelt to remove his boots and to stroke his long, pale feet. They examined each other with knowing eyes and tender touch. Naked, they raced across the earthen floor, their games of tag ending in tumultuous and merry surrender. They played house, offered each other pretend meals of alpine grass and acorns. They built themselves a bower, a canopy of tangled vines, and Michel fashioned a soft bed out of the branches of conifers over which he spread his long leather cloak. Bright green pine needles glinted in her copper-colored curls, and she plucked them out carefully one by one as they walked very slowly back to the encampment.
    Her sleep was untroubled, her dreams pleasant but unremembered. She awakened smiling and serene.
    She went to the communal shower house late one evening and was toweling her hair dry when Elsa sat down beside her. Ida smiled at her. She liked grave-eyed Elsa, who was so unlike the other girls. Orphaned in Moscow, Elsa had made her way to Paris with the help of Jewish relief organizations and had stoically taken control of her own life. She had studied medicine while working at odd jobs and managing scholarship grants that provided her with modest stipends. Somehow she had found time to fall in love with André, a young surgeon. She had shown Ida his photograph. He was rotund, prematurely bald, his nose prominent, his eyes narrow.
    “He is not handsome, I know,” she had said frankly. “But then I am not beautiful. We love each other for who we are, not for how we look. He