Whether the Germans could be defeated or not, the war went on and on. It lasted far longer than the fortnight promised at the beginning. After three weeks of combat, people talked of a torrent of gunfire, a hail of bullets, of German machine guns the equivalent of a hundred rifles, an image that terrified the villagers, as if each German soldier had a hundred rifles in his hands … The women began to realise that the men would not be coming back soon, and that in addition to taking care of this harvest, they would have to plan for the next one, and prepare for winter.

The sergeants had been right to draft in all the farmers. They knew that the strong countrymen would make formidable infantry battalions. But that left the women – the young wives and mothers and girls – to tend to all the rest of life, the animals, the children, the old people, the worn-out donkeys, the poultry, the rabbits and the meadows. In a world intent on destruction, all life was as fragile as a flickering candle. It was up to the females to be strong. One day, should the war ever end, they would be asked to receive back and console the men.

In Orcières, there was not a single able-bodied man except for the German. And the German, with his army of barbaric roaring lions and tigers, was, like all his compatriots, essentially an enemy. What was even more worrying was that the women did not know how to use the hunting rifles stored at the top of cupboards, and did not even want to touch them. Now that they were in charge, it was up to them to ward off fear and to avert danger.

But the roars of the lions and tigers shattered their evenings. The barbaric noise which burst out like a storm was becoming too much to bear. In the black of night, the growls bore down like another sky on top of them. Some believed they could hear in the noise the pleas of their men, refusing to die. Others saw it as a nightly reminder of the months of anguish and cries to come. The lions and tigers were roaring in hunger, the terrible hunger of enormous beasts weighing two hundred and fifty kilos, an insane hunger. The villagers wondered how the lion tamer would ever be able to satisfy their appetites.

August 2017

August 2017