Art student Anne Trister has, like Léa Pool, a Jewish father and a gentile mother. Her father's death is what moves her to leave school and her lover in Switzerland behind and travel to Québec in Canada. She stays with an older friend Alix, a child psychiatrist absorbed by the case of an abused little girl. Alix tries to help Anne to relate to her Jewish roots by telling her about a trip to the desert she once made. Anne is fascinated by the story and by Alix and falls in love with her.