The Relais du Haut-Quercy was a large white limestone building, two storeys high, located just outside the village. The gate opened with a slight creak. I crossed the gravel courtyard and climbed the steps to the reception area. There was nobody there. Behind the counter, the room keys hung on their board. None of the keys was missing. I called out several times, each time louder than before, but no one answered. I went back outside. At the rear of the hotel was a terrace surrounded by rose bushes, with small round tables and wrought-iron chairs, where they must have served breakfast. I followed a broad path lined with chestnut trees for fifty metres or so before I came to a grassy esplanade with a view of the surrounding countryside. Deckchairs and umbrellas awaited hypothetical guests. For a few minutes I contemplated the landscape, rolling and peaceful, then I turned back towards the hotel. As I reached the terrace a woman came out, blonde and fortyish, in a long grey woollen dress, her hair pulled back in a headband. She started when she saw me. ‘The restaurant is closed,’ she called out. I told her that I only wanted a room. ‘We don’t serve breakfast, either,’ she elaborated. Only then did she admit, with obvious reluctance, that there was a room to be had.
She led me upstairs, opened a door and handed me a tiny scrap of paper. ‘The gate locks at ten. After that, you have to use the code.’ She turned and left without another word.
Once I’d opened the blinds, the room wasn’t so bad, except for the wallpaper, which was patterned with hunting scenes in dark magenta. I couldn’t get the TV to work: there was no signal on any of the channels, just swarms of pixels. The Wi-Fi wasn’t working, either. There were several networks that had names beginning with Bbox or SFR — those must have belonged to people in the village — but nothing that sounded like Relais du Haut-Quercy. I found an information sheet in a drawer. It listed various local attractions, there was also information on the local cuisine, but nothing about the Internet. Staying connected was obviously not a priority in this establishment.
After I’d unpacked, hung up the clothes I’d brought, plugged in my tea kettle and my electric toothbrush, and turned on my phone to find no messages, I started to wonder what I was doing there. This very basic question can occur to anyone, anywhere, at any moment in his life, but there’s no denying that the solitary traveller is especially vulnerable. If Myriam had been with me, I’d still have had no good reason for being in Martel, yet the question simply wouldn’t have arisen. A couple is a world, autonomous and enclosed, that moves through the larger world essentially untouched; on my own, I was full of chips and cracks, and it took a certain amount of courage for me to slip the information sheet into my jacket pocket and go out into the village.
In the middle of Place des Consuls stood a grain market. It was clearly very old. I know almost nothing about architecture, but the houses on either side of it, built of a beautiful yellow stone, had to be a few centuries old at least. I’d seen things like that on TV, generally on shows hosted by Stéphane Bern, and these were just as good as the ones on TV, maybe better. One of the houses was really big, practically a palace, with groin-vaulted arcades and turrets, and when I went up close I learned that indeed the Hôtel de la Raymondie had been built between 1280 and 1350, and that it first belonged to the Vîcomtes de Turenne.
The rest of the village was more of the same. I walked down picturesque, deserted lanes until I reached the church of Saint-Maur. Massive, nearly windowless, it was a sort of ecclesiastical fortress. The information sheet said it had been built to resist the many attacks of the infidels who used to populate the region.
The D840, which crossed the village, continued on to Rocamadour. I had heard of Rocamadour, a well-known tourist destination with lots of Michelin stars. I even wondered whether I hadn’t seen Rocamadour, on a Stéphane Bern show. Still, it was twenty kilometres away. I opted for the smaller, winding road to Saint-Denis-les-Martel. After a hundred metres I happened on a tiny gatehouse made of painted wood where you could buy tickets for a tour of the Dordogne Valley by steam locomotive. That sounded interesting. It would be even better if you were a couple, I told myself with sombre relish. Anyway, there was no one in the gatehouse. Myriam had been in Tel Aviv for several days now, enough time for her to find out about classes, maybe she’d already enrolled, or maybe she was spending her days at the beach. She loved the beach. We’d never gone on holiday together, I realised, I had never been good at choosing where to go or making reservations. I claimed to love Paris in August, but the truth was I was incapable of leaving.
A dirt path ran along the right-hand side of the railway track. I followed it up the gentle slope of a thickly wooded hill and, after a kilometre, I found myself at a scenic view with an orientation table. A pictogram of a folding camera confirmed that this was, by vocation, a scenic view.
Below me flowed the Dordogne, encased between limestone cliffs some fifty metres high, obscurely pursuing its geological destiny. I learned from an information panel that the region had been inhabited since the dawn of prehistory. Cro-Magnon man had slowly driven the Neanderthals out of this valley. They had taken refuge in Spain, then disappeared.
I sat on the edge of the cliff, trying and failing to lose myself in the landscape. After half an hour, I took out my phone and called Myriam’s number. She sounded startled to hear from me, but pleased. Everything was going well, she had a nice flat with good light in the centre of town. No, she hadn’t enrolled yet. How was I doing? Fine, I lied, but I missed her a lot. I made her promise to send me a very long email, filling me in on everything, as soon as possible — forgetting that I couldn’t go online.
I’ve always hated making kissing sounds on the phone. Even when I was young, I dreaded it, and forty years later it struck me as plainly ridiculous. I did it anyway. As soon as we hung up, I was overwhelmed by a terrible loneliness, and I knew that I’d never have the courage to call Myriam again. The feeling of closeness when we talked on the phone was too violent, and the void that came afterwards too cruel.
My attempt to interest myself in the natural beauty of the region was obviously doomed to failure, but I stuck it out a little longer, and night was falling as I made my way back to Martel. Cro-Magnon man hunted mammoth and reindeer; the man of today can choose between an Auchan and a Leclerc, both supermarkets located in Souillac. The only shops in the village were a baker — closed — and a cafe on Place des Consuls, which also seemed to be closed. There were no tables set up on the square. Inside, though, I could see dim lights. I pushed the door open and went in.
Forty or fifty men were sitting in silence, watching a BBC News report on a TV hanging at the back of the room. No one turned to look when I walked in. They were locals, obviously, nearly all retirees, plus a few men who looked like manual labourers. I hadn’t spoken English for a long time, and the presenter was talking too fast for me to really follow what he was saying. The others didn’t seem to be doing much better. The images, from various places — Mulhouse, Trappes, Stains, Aurillac — were of no obvious interest: community centres, nursery schools, empty gyms. It wasn’t until they showed Manuel Valls, looking pale under the harsh lights on the steps of the Hôtel Marignon, that I began to reconstruct the events of the day: twenty polling stations, across France, had been attacked by groups of armed men early that afternoon. There had been no casualties, but the ballots had been stolen. So far, no one had claimed responsibility. Under the circumstances, the government had no choice but to suspend the elections. An emergency meeting had been called for later that evening, the president would take appropriate measures; the law of the Republic, he concluded rather flatly, would prevail.