Read Online Paris to the Pyrenees: A Skeptic Pilgrim Walks the Way of Saint James by David Downie - Free Book Online

closed, but the churchyard stood open. The tombs seemed well cared for. An inscription on one related to a woman who’d lived from 1911 to 1992 and had won the Médaille d’or de la famille française —the Gold Medal of the French Family. It spoke of the demographic politics applied after the decimation of the populace in World War One, a policy quietly continued today. This particular mother had borne many children, been subsidized by the government, and awarded a medal for her exemplary breeding. Her maiden name was the same as that of the current owners of the most important piece of property in the village, a family, we were given to understand, not well-loved nowadays.
    Carved on the obelisk-shaped village war memorial were the names of dozens of soldiers from World War One, three from World War Two, and one deportee—probably a Jew or undesirable sent to the death camps. Every French village has a similar memorial, usually an obelisk, the age-old symbol of ptext-align: justify; } p.indentedoower. In France it also symbolizes the secular state. The memorials told the same story of slaughter in 1914–1918 that led to the débacle , capitulation, and Nazi Occupation of 1940. World War Two had been a continuation of World War One, the so-called Great War. Great for the arms business, among others.
    Not everyone in France had capitulated and collaborated. The Résistance had found its homeland here, in the Morvan’s impenetrable black forests, which in 1944 stood between retreating Nazis and safety in Germany.
    As we settled down to our petit déjeuner , the grandfather clock in the hotel dining room rang eight times, not once, not twice, but thrice. “It’s always ahead by half an hour,” Danielle reassured us. “If it runs on time, I’ll start to worry.”
    We tucked in and tanked up on watery coffee. I was sorry to be leaving but, for many reasons, elated to start walking again.
    Outside, the stolid tortoise awaited us. “Will we see you tonight at Marigny l’Eglise?” Alison asked encouragingly, referring to a village several valleys south.
    The tortoise shook her head. “I probably won’t make it that far.” She measured her words. “I’m in no rush. After Marigny my route diverges from yours.” She cracked her jack-o’-lantern smile. “Do you have water and lunch?”
    Water we had. But there were no provisions in Cure. “Lunch?” Alison mused.
    “My wife doesn’t actually need to eat,” I said. “She’s a stag-horn fern. Anyway, the Topo Guide says there’s a café in Saint-André-en-Morvan. That’s a couple of hours down the trail. We’ll be all right.”
    The tortoise smiled wider, shook our hands, and lumbered in to breakfast.
    Upstream from the pink millhouse, the Cure splits, rushing around isles of poplar and birch. I drank in the scent and remembered Danielle’s parting comment. I’d asked about our destination, Marigny l’Eglise, ten miles south and six miles beyond the village where she was born. “I’ve never been to Marigny,” she’d said wistfully, as if that were the most natural thing in the world. “I’ve never even walked over the hill back home to Saint-André.”
    To me that seemed astonishing. Was it lack of curiosity? Clearly Danielle wasn’t lazy. Maybe she just didn’t like to walk, or didn’t have the time or feel the need.
    Time we had made for our walk, though it might ruin us financially. Time, in the form of calendar days, appointments, e-mails and telephone calls, was already beginning to melt, like Salvador Dalí’s pocket watch.
    I thought of the many other deep-rooted Europeans I’d met over the years, people who stay close to home, who hardly know the village across the valley, let alone the one over the ridge. How different we were. No matter how long I lived here, I would never be like them, at least not in the realm of being root-bound. Having winged my way from San Francisco to San Diego, New York City to Providence and Boston, and from