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
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
‘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.