A teacher-student romance at a Vermont college ends when Elizabeth, the student, leaves Paul without telling him she is pregnant. Subsequently, she gives up their baby for adoption and leaves the country. Years later, now a divorced mother with children, Elizabeth finds Paul and they go to face their daughter.

"At eighty-five, Teo, one of the world's most influential choreographers, is ready to withdraw from the bombast and romance surrounding his long and illustrious career. But then he meets Vivi, a waitress at a Tel Aviv café, and the slumbering passions of his youth are roused once more. Suddenly and unexpectedly, his desire for a woman's touch, his anguished memories of World War II, and his complex, soulful engagement with dance all come rushing back. Vivi's life will change, too, as Teo's affection forces her to confront her guilt over an illicit relationship during her days as a soldier. Soon their interactions with art, their very investment in living, will reawaken ghosts of their painful, suppressed pasts--from Warsaw to Copenhagen, from Berlin to Tel Aviv--that cry out for forgiveness and peace."--Page 4 of cover.