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Serge Joncour is a novelist and screenwriter. He was born in Paris in 1961 and studied philosophy at university before deciding to become a writer. He wrote the screenplay for Sarah’s Key starring Kristin Scott Thomas, released in 2011. Wild Dog, winner of the Prix Landerneau des Lecteurs in France, is the first of his novels to be published in English.

Jane Aitken is a publisher and translator. She was awarded the Chevalier des Arts et des Lettres in 2009 for her work in promoting French literature in the UK.

Polly Mackintosh is an editorial assistant and translator.

WILD DOG

Serge Joncour

Part I

PART I

July 1914

July 1914

No one in the village had ever heard sounds like that coming from the hills. Wild, desperate sounds. The first shrieks rang out around midnight, distant at first, but moving closer and closer. Even the old people could not identify the source of the noise. It was as though some frenzied ritual were taking place up there in the woods, a savage brawl that seemed to be making its way towards them. At first the villagers thought it must be foxes or lynxes fighting over captured prey. The feverish sounds of these small, rabid beasts making their kills often disturbed their nights. Or it could have been the distinctive howling of local wolves, which pitched their cries to make the pack sound more fearsome. Previous attempts to keep them at bay by scattering the ground with strychnine had been unsuccessful, so tonight villagers young and old were roused from their beds to bang spoons against their pots and pans in the night air, a tried and tested method of keeping wolves away.

At night, the woods were alive with hidden sounds and rustling movements. Under cover of darkness, animals reclaimed their territory, free from human interference. In the village it was often possible to make out the sounds of unseen beasts hunting, mating or fighting. The night belonged to them, and this night more than any other.

‘It almost sounds like—’

‘Be quiet!’

As the hellish chorus rounded the hill, the sound became more distinct and the villagers were able to make out barking – savage, broken barking that could not have been a wolf and was too loud to be dogs. Only deer could make that kind of noise. It must have been deer that were heard that evening, high on buckthorn berries or driven wild by fear of an unseen predator. But this was the first time their shrieks had torn through the countryside with such demonic fervour. It was no use rattling their crockery now. There was nothing to be done but remind their children that at night deer are even louder than dogs and their barks are lower, more guttural and more frightening. During the rut, the bucks’ calls that seek to ward off their rivals seem also to reveal their own desperation. Something must have truly frightened them, however, to cause them all to cry in unison. No one in Orcières had ever heard so many of them at once. They seemed to be hurtling down towards the houses by the dozen. No one was scared of the deer, of course, but everyone felt troubled by the prospect of whatever it was that had caused them so much terror.

Panic spread quickly through the village that night, perhaps because for weeks now it had been haunted by a larger threat. Since the spring, the newspapers had been full of worrying headlines. This had already led some men to search in their cupboards for their carnets militaires, just in case they were needed. The silent fear that they would be called away from home circled ever closer around the sons and fathers of Orcières, as if they were a pack of frightened deer. Even in the furthest depths of the countryside, it was clear that the world was subject to the whims of a handful of royals most of whom were related to one another. Sovereigns pictured sailing or playing tennis in L’Illustré National were part of prodigious dynasties that linked the King of England to the Kaiser to the cousin of the Tsar and back again; these family ties were about to be torn apart in spectacular fashion. As the summer wore on, tensions rose. It was already unbearably hot, and fear cast a shadow over everything. Europe was a tinderbox; the armies stood waiting as the commanders squared up to one another, forming pacts, not through kinship but because they were preparing for the worst. Meanwhile, in the village, men and women would stay outside talking for as long as possible before going to bed, savouring the evening air as if this were their last chance to do so.

No one wanted a war here. In any case, war was surely an impossibility, especially in Orcières, hidden away at the furthest edge of the causse and several days’ journey from the nearest border. But that Friday even the calmest of spirits were troubled. The villagers wondered what was lying in wait for them up there, what predator had sent those deer running down the hill in terrified droves. Every summer they were newly surprised by the piercing cries of fighting bucks locking antlers and circling their rivals, but the barking had usually stopped in the time it took to roll and smoke a cigarette. The terrible sound persisted this time, until everyone in the village felt swirls of fear coil around their hearts and linger on their lips, like the stale end of a cigarette.

No one knew it yet, but on this late July night they were poised on the brink of war. In the little hamlet tucked away amid the hills, it was unthinkable that in just a few hours the sound of alarm bells ringing across the countryside would bring the summer swiftly and abruptly to an end. In a few days’ time, the war would start to devour their men by the trainload, and by its end, four terrible years later, it would have destroyed four empires and fifteen million lives. But in the early hours of this summer Saturday, what the villagers were most afraid of was the wave of terrified sound that descended on them from the hills. Groups of deer hurled themselves down into the valley in their dozens before disappearing westwards beneath the moon, which was hidden behind a shroud.

When, at last, it was quiet again, the villagers could hear the trudge of heavy footsteps coming from the woods. They were accompanied by the sound of clinking metal, indicating the approach of someone with an animal. The cloud had shifted and the moon was now shining brightly on the thickets surrounding the village, where something was moving through the undergrowth. Those with more active imaginations wondered if they might see a giant wolf emerging from the shadows, dragging a limp foot caught in a hunter’s trap, or even the infamous Champawat Tiger. In fact, it was a hooded, monk-like figure that came into view, accompanied by a weary-looking mule, bowls clinking on the haversack on its back. The adults crossed themselves as the children crouched behind them in fear. No one here had ever seen a pilgrim pass through the village. Walkers heading south from the Auvergne had once crossed the woods on their way to Spain, but it had been a long time since anyone had come through the village to reach Santiago. The appearance of this harbinger of doom should have alerted them to the fact that this night marked the end of an era. That this was their last evening in the old world and that the new day would herald the beginning of four years of suffering. The sight of the wandering stranger should have helped them realise that tomorrow they would wake up to the dawn of a new age which would be rung in with madness, gunfire, fear and, above all, blood.

Spring 2017

Spring 2017

The advert promised an oasis of tranquillity, a simple gîte tucked away in the hills. It was hard to make much out from the three available photos, but they seemed to confirm this description. Zooming out on the map, the house was a tiny dot in an ocean of green, surrounded by peaks and valleys in the heart of the Causses du Quercy Natural Regional Park. Lise was convinced she had found a peaceful hideaway. Others might have said the back of beyond. According to the blurb the simple house at the top of a hill had been built in the nineteenth century. The nearest neighbour was ten kilometres away, the nearest town a twenty-five-kilometre drive.

Lise had come across the advert whilst browsing the internet. Most people would have clicked away from the page after reading the description, but in many ways the house provided exactly what she was looking for: nature, sun and isolation.

And it really was isolated. Lise noted with interest that the gîte came with far fewer amenities than the other houses advertised on the website. It seemed to have none of the conveniences of a normal holiday home: no swimming pool, no air conditioning, not even a television. There was also no telephone, which meant no Wi-Fi.

That was what persuaded her that she had found the perfect place. For years she had longed to cut herself off from the world by spending three weeks with no internet or phone, and here was the perfect opportunity to go completely offline.

‘Lise, can you imagine us going three weeks without the internet?’

‘I could do it.’

‘Well, I’m telling you now, I couldn’t. Because of my job, I can’t be offline.’

‘It would be so good for us. And we’d be away from all the noise and pollution, and especially the radiation …’

‘Lise, please don’t start all that again.’

For several years now, Lise had claimed to suffer from the harmful effects of electromagnetic radiation from phones and Wi-Fi. This was the reason she wanted to get away from it all. More than anything she wanted to lead the healthiest existence she could, waking up with the sun and then watching it set in the evening, living in the moment, aiming to do nothing more than walk, meditate and breathe air that was free of noise, waves and particles. Further research online had revealed there was an organic supermarket in the nearest village. The rest could be picked from their surroundings; she could already see herself foraging for berries and roots in the garden. This was what she had been dreaming of: three weeks in the depths of nature, in the wild, cut off from everything.

‘Look, Franck, you just don’t get that many holiday homes that don’t have Wi-Fi or a TV. It’s lucky that I happened to come across this one, and it’s free for all of August, too!’

‘That’s exactly what I’m worried about. Don’t you think it’s strange that no one has commented on the page or left a review? And what are we going to do with a hundred and twenty hectares of forest?’

‘Nothing at all. That’s the point.’

‘Lise, it’s not going to be very relaxing – no air conditioning, no TV … There probably isn’t even a kettle or a toaster.’

‘You can’t go a few weeks without a kettle and a toaster?’

‘No, I can’t. I’m a modern man; in the morning I need my kettle and my toaster. And there’s no pool! Where did you even find this site? Are you sure it’s not dodgy?’

‘Franck, you’re just scared of it just being the two of us for three weeks, without our friends and their kids and their motorboats, not even neighbours to distract us.’

‘If you’re looking for rest and relaxation, why don’t we go on a cruise, or trek through the desert? I get emails advertising those kinds of things all the time. Trust me, there’s plenty of other places in the world you could find your peace and quiet.’

‘Because your idea of relaxing is planes and trips, and big groups. Being surrounded by other people, following a schedule, having a plan – that’s what you call a holiday?’

‘Well, anyway, your website says you need a 4×4 to get to the place. Look, it says there, “4×4 recommended”.’

‘OK, so we’ll rent one!’

‘Lise, do you know how much it costs to rent one of those things?’

‘Probably less than going on a cruise.’

The warnings about the track leading up to the house were unambiguous, and whilst Franck saw this as yet another reason not to take the house, for Lise it was further confirmation that she had found the perfect place. According to the description, the road leading up to the top of the hill was extremely steep and in poor condition, hence the need for a vehicle with four-wheel drive. To see for herself, Lise tried searching for it on Google Earth. There was no postcode, just the name of the local area, and she had to scroll over acres of emerald screen before she found the right place. This had to be the house; it seemed to be the only one for miles around. She could make out the track in question curving towards it. On-screen it was difficult to gauge how steep it was, a winding pale streak twisting away from the main road that stood out from its surroundings like a line of chalk on a blackboard. When they zoomed out they could see the house was surrounded by hills, trees and scrub, but no other houses. To the east of the house though, a flash of something sparkling caught their eye, a circle of light glittering in a dark patch of shadow. It could have been a ray of sunlight caught on camera or a reflective surface. Franck zoomed in further get a closer look, but all he could see was a white shape.

‘What do you reckon?’

He was already feeling oppressed by the prospect of three weeks out in the sticks with nothing but trees and hills for company.

‘I reckon there’s something fishy about this website.’

‘No, that bit of light over there – what do you think it is?’

‘I don’t know, Lise, probably a mirror or something. Or a pool of water.’

‘There you go. You can swim in that then!’

‘At least check if there’s reception up there.’

‘A reception?’

‘Phone reception, Lise.’

August 1914

August 1914

The bell at Orcières-le-Bas no longer chimed, but everyone in the village heard the alarm being raised across the countryside. The hellish toll of church bells frantically ringing tore through the sky from nearby Limogne and Villefranche. It would be some time before the village forgot that terrible sound. Every time the wind blew, people thought they could hear the desperate ringing that had plunged the country into terror on that sunny summer afternoon.

The portentous pilgrim and his mule had spent the night at the doctor’s house. Of the thirty or so households in the village, this was the only one that had room for a guest. There were several reasons for this, one being the considerable size of their farmhouse, and another that Doctor Manouvrier and his wife, Joséphine, much to the surprise of the rest of the village, had no children. The pilgrim set off for Santiago with his mule the following day at dawn, unaware that he had woken up in a country at war. To avoid finding himself at the mercy of his fellow men, who might have proved less forgiving than God, the pilgrim would probably have had to turn back at some point. Or perhaps he fell down one of the many sinkholes in the region. No one ever found out what had become of the pilgrim and his mule, and they certainly never reappeared in the village; but everyone remembered that the day they walked into the village was the day that war broke out.

That first day of August was glorious. The harvest looked set to be exceptional and the crops were plentiful; the landscape glowed with rich colour. But, whether they were working in the fields under the sun, or resting in the shade of the walnut trees, everyone in the village felt the same sense of dread. Tucked away in the craggy hills of the causse, Orcières was thirty kilometres from the nearest police station, but, as in every other village in France, the sound of bells ringing and a poster hastily put up in the main square were enough to tip their world into a new kind of chaos.

By decree of the President of the Republic, the mobilisation of the army and navy has now been ordered. All animals, vehicles and other necessary equipment required to support this effort will also be requisitioned.

Spring 2017

Spring 2017

‘Peace and quiet guaranteed.’ Even the heading above the description on the website was depressing. Franck and Lise had never gone away together for more than ten days at a time. Their holidays were mostly spent by the sea, in houses rented with other friends, more often than not surrounded by plenty of other people. They had never chosen to take themselves off to somewhere so remote just the two of them.

‘I don’t think so. Sorry, Lise.’

‘Look, Franck, I don’t want to fight about this. After everything I’ve been through in the last two years, I’m not fighting about this. It’s not a big deal. I’ll go on my own.’

‘It’s you that I’m worried about, Lise. What happens if you don’t like it after a couple of days? There’s literally nothing there, it’s in the middle of bloody nowhere. I looked it up on Google Maps and there’s nothing nearby, not even a village. Just hills and trees.’

‘That’s exactly what I’m looking for.’

‘Don’t you think there’s something a bit funny about the website? There’s something about it that doesn’t feel right.’

Franck had compared the page with a couple of other rental websites and found a few things that worried him. The house had clearly not been up on the website for long, as no one had left a comment or a review. Perhaps even more unusually, it was almost June and the gîte was still free for the whole of August.

‘I think that’s a good thing!’

For Lise, the fact that the house was still available when everything else was booked up was further proof that it was meant to be. They were meant to rent it. As for the lack of amenities, she had already come up with a plan. If there was no washing machine, she could already see herself washing their sheets in the river and hanging them outside to dry in the fresh air. There was nothing that could have put her off the house – more than anything she wanted to get back to nature, to practise meditation among the trees, to paint something other than city scenes and urban life, and to walk off the beaten track, safe in the knowledge she would not encounter another soul.

The person whose contact details were given on the advert seemed to take a long time to respond to emails, and when they did the messages gave little away. Twice Lise had dialled the 0065 number provided. The voice on the other end spoke neither French nor English, and when someone rang her back it was always at two or three o’clock in the morning and the caller never left a message. But the website was certified; it couldn’t have been a scam. In any case, Lise had decided not to let any of this worry her. This would be her approach to life from now on: she would let her instincts guide her.

Franck was also gradually coming round to the idea. He told himself that at least if it went badly, he would be proved right. He wouldn’t labour the point, he would simply say, ‘You know, I said from the beginning we’re not cut out for country living.’ He wasn’t worried; he knew it wouldn’t end up being three weeks there. Work would give him an excuse to make regular trips back up to Paris, and he would have plenty of ways to limit his time there. Unlike Lise, he had no desire to cut himself off from civilisation and not see anybody.

‘You know no one would come and visit us there, right?’

‘So that’s what you’re really worried about! You don’t think we’ll be able to cope for three weeks on our own, just the two of us, do you?’

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