Opposite the turning to the house, a narrow river ran beside the road. Beyond it, buried under climbing plants and trees, you could make out the low ruins of houses, traces of the old village that had been abandoned or destroyed. But by what? By time, or by flames perhaps, or deadly boredom or even by the marauding beasts in the woods last night. Everything was to be considered a danger here, including the sun that was frantically beating down now, past noon. Franck turned around. He caught a glimpse of the hill rising above him. He couldn’t look straight at it because of the sun; he could only make out the shape of the mountain of scrubland and limestone that dominated the valley. More than a hundred metres high, it was like the prow of a giant ship sailing high above the road. The gîte was sitting up there as if on an island, cut off from its surroundings. A short succession of barks came from behind the hill. Franck thought back to the dog from last night, wondering if it was the one from Madame Dauclercq’s enormous kennel. It must be; he could see no other explanation for a dog to be roaming around here, unless it didn’t have a master and was truly wild. He decided to make sure and got back in the car, turning around instead of going up the track. Mont d’Orcières receded in his rear-view mirror, then rose like a reef on the horizon until it appeared in its entirety, before vanishing at the first bend to be replaced by other hills, hills that were gentler and less menacing.

September 1914

September 1914

If she wanted to tempt the devil, let her. Even if she could convince the Hun to tell her how he got enough meat to feed his lions and tigers, that wouldn’t mean he was telling the truth.

In the village, people were wary of upsetting Joséphine because two days ago Dr Manouvrier had officially been declared missing, meaning she was almost certainly a widow. No one knew where he was, but there were no witnesses to his death. According to procedure, it was necessary to have two witnesses for a declaration of death, so although the doctor was categorised as ‘Deceased’ on the document received by the mayor, the box for ‘Date and place of death’ contained nothing but a terrible question mark. In the absence of a formal declaration, and because the mayor had not received a certificate signed by the public prosecutor of the Republic, Dr Manouvrier could not absolutely be considered dead. He could not be awarded the honour of ‘Mort pour la France’. But the fact that a soldier was not considered dead did not necessarily mean that he was alive.