 In 1942 in occupied France, a Jewish refugee (Lena Weber) marries a soldier (Michel Korski) to escape deportation to Germany. Meanwhile a wealthy art student (Madeleine) loses her first husband to a stray Resistance bullet; at the Liberation she meets an actor (Costa Segara), gets pregnant, and marries him. Lena and Madeleine meet at their children s school in Lyon in 1952 and the intensity of their relationship strains both their marriages to the breaking point.