It wasn't until after she had boarded the train that Tikva, who decided to call herself Tikva until she reached France, decided to see what her mother had given her. From the dim lights on the car, she saw that it was a necklace. A star of David necklace. There was a piece of paper attached to the chain. Tikva turned it over to read it.

"Dearest Tikva,

I do not want you to forget who you are, and what you have left

behind in Denmark. Everyday in Paris, I wore this necklace, hidden, of course,

under my dress, but it provided me with a sense of peace and hope. I wish you,

truly, the best of luck, writing your novel. I never knew you wrote, Tikva. I hope

you succeed, no, I know you will succeed. But please, write me, and your father.

You know he worries.

Your loving mother,

Mama"

Tikva smiled at the last sentence. Many people thought that Avram was overprotective of his only daughter. Tikva removed the note from the chain, folded the note carefully, placed it in her pocket, and slipped the chain around her neck, making sure the star fell close to her heart.

Some people might be wondering why Tikva took a train to Paris instead of a boat, being as she could have much more easily sailed to Paris. The thing is, Tikva hated sailing. The thought of being alone in the middle of water on something that looks like it shouldn't be floating scared her half to death. She much preferred trains, which had wheels, ran across the ground, so if it did stop for some unexpected reason, she could just get off and walk away. If a ship stopped in the middle of the ocean...she shuddered at the thought and began to instead practice her French. The bookseller had been teaching her French as soon as he heard the reason why she wanted to go to Paris.

To go, to be, to sing, to write, the verbs danced through Tikva's head through the long train ride, causing her to think of little else. A handsome blonde haired man across the aisle may have been flirting with her, or may have been calling her an ugly dog, Tikva didn't know. She couldn't understand a word he said, for he was speaking rapid English, a language Tikva didn't understand. She tried to explain that to him, by shaking her head and asking him if he understood various other languages, but he just sputtered on. Finally Tikva gave up and went back to practicing her french verbs. She was probably never going to see this man again.

The train rolled into the station and came to a screeching halt. Tikva rubbed her back and wondered if she would ever be able to walk again. Then she remembered. She was no longer Tikva now, was she. She was Charlotte. Charlotte rubbed her back and wondered if she would ever be able to walk again. She was about to say "oy vey!" meaning "oh pain!", but then realized what might come of her words and said instead, "oh, my back hurts terribly!" in French, with a hint of a Danish accent. Which was the effect she intended. She didn't care if they knew she was Danish, that was all fine and well with her, it was if they found out she was Jewish that her goose was cooked. Frace, as she had been taught, was notoriously spiteful toward the Jews for no good reason, and Charlotte decided she didn't really want to even know what that reason was.

"May I help you with your bags, Mlle?" The handsome blonde haired man asked her, a smile pulling at the corners of his lips. His hair was curly and unruly, as though it had been ruffled by the wind, and his face tanned, as if he had lived by a warm sea, where he would often walk out across the rocks and let the sun beat down on his....she was fantasizing.

"You could understand me all along, monsieur?"

He didn't speak, but instead nodded his boyish face up and down grinning like he had discovered a huge diamond. He took her bag down from the rack and held it in his strong arms. He was very muscular too, she noted.

"Then why didn't you say you spoke French?"

He smile grew even more. "Because I found it amusing to watch you speak all those languages. What was the last one you tried? French, Danish..."

The last one was Yiddish. Why had she tried Yiddish?

"A dialect of German." Yiddish did sound like German, didn't it? "My accent was probably quite terrible, which was why you couldn't tell." She hadn't even stepped off the train and she was already lying.

"May I ask your name, Mlle?"

She blushed. "Charlotte. Charlotte DuBois. And you, good monsieur?"

"Marc." He held out his hand. She took it, warily, and he kissed it. She blushed even more. "Marc Laurent."

"Your name is French, Monsieur Laurent, but your accent certainly is not. Pardon me if I am being too forward, but where do you live?"

"Well, I was born in France, but I went to an English boarding school. Now I go to an English college. I summer in France though, south France, where it is nice and sunny. I'm coming back to stay, but I doubt my English accent is going to leave. You, Mlle DuBois, also have a French name, but, alas, like me, speak with a foreign accent. Where do you come from?"

"Denmark. Copenhagen. My parents used to live in France though. In Paris. They worked for the Opera house."

"Well, isn't that incredible! I'm about to go there."

"Really? So am I! I have an interview."

"As do I." Marc smiled. "I wish to be a dancer."

"I wish to be an alto."

"In the hope of saving some money, Mlle Dubois, do you think that perhaps we could both take a carriage to the Opera, with our bags, audition, then split up? It would be more efficient."

Charlotte knew that his idea had nothing to do with his wanting to save some change. If he was able to travel between England and France every summer, he must not be a pauper, the idea of traveling in a carriage with a strange man scared her, but she didn't want to seem impolite, and he did have her bags, after all. "The idea sounds simply marvelous. What a lucky coincidence, hmm?"

"I do not believe in coincidence, Mlle. I believe in fate." They stepped off the train, Charlotte trailing after the strong man carrying both her bags and his own. Shifting the entire bulk to one arm, after stepping out onto the street, he managed to flag down a carriage, and they both got in.

"So, have you ever been to Paris before?" Marc smiled and turned to Charlotte, waiting for an answer.

"No. I've never been to France in my life." Charlotte smiled, but it was a rather embarrassed smile. She had never really been in such close quarters with such a type of man before.

"Well. How very interesting. You know, for someone whose never been to France, you speak the language very well." Marc shook his head back and forth, causing the curls to bounce away from his eyes.

"You know, Monsieur Laurent, you really need to cut your hair."

"I know. I plan on doing that right after the audition." He ran his hands through his hair. "But until then, I'll just have to live with it." He looked back at her again. "Why do you keep calling me Monsieur Laurent? You make me feel so old! I'm probably not much older than you are, Charlotte. Call me Marc."

Charlotte tried to make herself smaller. "Yes, Monsieur Marc." She said quietly as she moved as far as she could away from him. He was being much too forward. It wasn't polite.

He seemed to have read her mind. "Oh, I'm sorry Mlle DuBois. Am I making you uncomfortable? I'm sorry. I haven't really kept up with the proper manners around women. There are precious few at my college."

"One would assume that, Monsieur. I'm sorry if I seem to be distant or aloof. It just appears, from what I've seen, that Paris is so different from Copenhagen." Or really, the behavior of gentiles was so much more uncouth than that of what she was used too.

"I'm sure it is Mlle. Granted, you haven't really seen that much of Paris." Just as he said this, the carriage pulled to a stop in front of a grand looking building. Marc hopped down and opened the door. He then took Charlotte's hand and helped her out.

"Charlotte, um, Mlle DuBois, welcome to the Paris Opera house. Let me get our bags." He took them down, and held them in his arms as he had done before. It had recently rained, and the streets were muddy. Charlotte lifted the hem of her skirt to keep it from dragging. As mama said, nothing makes a worse impression than a dirty skirt. Trying to remain confident, but shaking inside, because this would dictate wether she could stay in Paris, Charlotte approached the doors of the Opera House.

A/N: Tut tut. Charlotte is just in Paris, and she has already begun lying and getting into carriages with strange, if ruggedly handsome, men. What will happen to her? I know. But you don't. Do you want me to tell you? Then review, if you wish to know what happens to our interesting [I hope] herione!