Chapter Text
November 11th, 1938
In a small hamlet nestled a few kilometers from Dieppe, an older gentleman stood waiting as the local schoolteacher finished locking the gates of the village school.
Monsieur Herpin had sent the children away early that afternoon. November 11th signified twenty years since the Armistice—a conflict that consumed a generation in the trenches and cast a lingering shadow on those who survived. Even in the peaceful solitude of Grangeville, its memory had never fully faded.
People said it was over—as if a war could truly end for those who carried it with them, lingering in their lungs, nightmares, and the restless silence when memories resurface.
Verdun.
That was where half his love for humanity had been stripped away in the gas. Where his leg had failed him, refusing to carry him from the rattle of machine-gun fire.
No—he would have died there, shrapnel buried deep in his leg, left for the mud to claim him.
If the Morteau boy hadn't lifted him and taken off.
Pierre-Gilbert.
The finest man Eufemio had ever had the honor of commanding.
He shifted slightly, one arm resting behind his back as his cane tapped softly against the ground, stepping forward just as Monsieur Herpin finished with the padlock.
“I see the schoolchildren were fortunate enough to have their lessons cut short, Herpin.”
“A small mercy,” Monsieur Herpin replied. “And fitting, I thought. The Armistice was signed at eleven, after all. We had the children sing La Marseillaise before laying the wreath at the monument.”
He gestured toward the war memorial at the center of Grangeville, bearing a likeness of Pierre-Gilbert Morteau in his horizon-blue uniform. Eufemio followed Herpin’s hand, then gave a quiet shake of the head as he struck a match and lit his pipe.
“And still, I cannot believe Gilbert refused to stand and model for it,” he murmured.
Herpin smiled faintly. “Stubborn as ever.”
“Hopelessly so,” Eufemio muttered, smoke curling past his lips. “He kept trying to push me forward instead. Said I ought to be the one standing there.”
He glanced down at his cane.
“With these knees? I’d have made a miserable monument.”
Eufemio pulls the pipe back as his lungs constrict, reaching for his handkerchief to muffle the unpleasant noise. A harsh cough broke through before he could stop it. He turned slightly, pressing a handkerchief to his mouth to stifle the sound. Not in a polite "tickle-in-your-throat" way, he could shrug off.
Eufemio turns away. This isn’t something he wants others to gawk at. It was ugly, reminding people of those times of steel and mud and "fallacies" of war. Every damn cough came up like something dredged from a flooded trench, rattling in his chest before breaking loose in a fit that bent him over his cane.
« Pardonnez-moi… il semble que je ne puisse même plus profiter tranquillement de ma pipe. » He dabbed his lips with his handkerchief, eyes narrowing ever so slightly at Herpin—as if daring the man to show even a flicker of pity.
Herpin, wisely, did not bite. Instead, he shifted his focus to the road, where the low growl of an engine disturbed the village's peace. A red work truck rattled into the square, horn blaring much louder than needed.
“Salut, Herpin!” Adrien Reynaud—local troublemaker turned Paris-trained mechanic—called out, one hand resting loosely on the wheel.
“Mind the road, Reynaud!” Herpin shot back, half-amused, half-exasperated. His former pupil just grinned and waved.
Reynaud’s truck roared off in a fit of rattling protest, sounding less like a proper motorcar and more like a toolbox being kicked down a staircase. Eufemio watched the spectacle with a faint squint, pipe still in hand. He drew steadily, out of habit, then paused.
“What an eyesore,” he rasped, his voice catching slightly in his throat. He cleared it with a brief, controlled cough. “Christ above, it resembles a circus wagon!”
“A Ford,” Herpin replied simply. In his mind, the red truck lurched away with all the dignity of a wounded tin can.
Hmph. Today’s youth—lacking restraint and taste. France gifted the world Peugeot, Citroën, Delahaye… yet they still prefer Ford. Quite remarkable. After decades of developing engineering, it’s amusing how boys end up preferring machinery that sounds like a pot of bolts.
Eufemio started to walk past Herpin, a small grimace crossing his face as the autumn chill settled into his knees. Once the cold took hold, it rarely loosened unless the sun itself managed to pry it loose.
“How many years did Reynaud give you hell?”
“Mm, young Adrien?” Herpin asked, clasping his hands behind his back as he fell into step beside him. Around this time of year, Eufemio’s patience for the modern world always seemed to wear especially thin. “Can’t quite recall the last time he made me want to hang a slate round his neck.”
There was a trace of amusement in his voice, as though memories of Adrien reenacting automobile collisions in the schoolyard had become fond nostalgia rather than cause for concern.
“Been years now. Bright boy. Terrible with silence. Drew motorcars in the margins, stole chalk, and once attempted to prove velocity by launching a wooden cart into Bernard.”
“Ah, le petit renard des rues… I imagine Victor Duroc takes great pleasure in dragging that cad home by the ear?”
“Not for some years now,” Herpin replied mildly. “He manages himself well enough these days.”
The old professor's cane hovered mid-air, his step halting.
“I beg your pardon…?”
Herpin just breaks into a laugh, shaking his head. "Turns out Reynaud is more skilled than I gave him credit for. "
"Madame Duroc's rather proud..."
“Hélène? She’s always loved her petit prince,” Herpin said. “All that remains of Alain Reynaud. Her Aimé.”
Right. Alain Reynaud. Another one who had served France during the war. Like Pierre-Gilbert, he returned from the Western Front alive. Still marching to a familiar rhythm that never truly faded from the back of their minds. The rhythm of the trenches never quite left men like them. Waking with a violent start, clutching at the bedsheets, only to realize there was no artillery shelling beyond the window. Only dreams.
Dreams submerged in blood, gas, and decay.
Eufemio knew that rhythm well. He remembered choking on the fumes, the rain driving cold needles through his coat as the poison settled deep in his lungs. He remembered Pierre-Gilbert’s arms catching him in the mud, hauling him through the muck while both of them coughed as if their bodies were trying to turn themselves inside out.
He recalled the doctor from Berlin, noting his overly clean hands and deliberate hesitation. The way the doctor made the treatment seem like a delayed favor. He only began to act once he realized Eufemio was an officer and insisted on treatment for Morteau.
Eufemio had lived. Pierre-Gilbert had lived too, for a while. But neither of them had left that field whole. Not even two decades later, and a familiar feeling still hung heavy across Europe. He never expected the heads of government to quietly nod and hand over Austria. But it didn't end there. Next came the Munich Agreement.
“Peace for our time." What a pointless little phrase. Chamberlain should have kept it inside before he let it slip out of his mouth. Foolish man.
"Still on that?" Herpin raises an eyebrow, readying himself for the upcoming symposium.
"Peace for our time,” Eufemio repeated, the words tasting sour in his mouth. "Chamberlain may wave his paper around as he pleases; ink won't stop artillery. Especially not with that ambitious little Austrian dragging Germany along by the throat. And for what? Because fools mistook a crook for a statesman.”
"Eufemio!"
Herpin's hand was resting over the doorknob leading into Grangeville's cafe.
Eufemio scowls but exhales sharply, waiting to hear what Herpin has to say so he can ground himself.
"Now, now,” Herpin sighed. “The man’s done a fair enough job rebuilding Germany.”
Eufemio gave him a pointed gaze. "Would you still march behind Marshal Pétain if you learned he was nothing more than a loud-mouthed agitator with a taste for chaos?”
“Marshal Pétain and Germany’s Chancellor held very different ranks during the Great War.”
"Herpin…"
“The Beer Hall incident was fifteen years ago, old friend.” Herpin opened the café door, letting Eufemio step inside first before following after him. “Anyone can change in fifteen years.”
Change. Of course. Eufemio went a bit silent as Herpin greeted Violette Tisser, the wife of the proprietor. While Monsieur Tissier tended to his post behind the épicerie’s counter, Violette busied herself with the café. The older blonde woman was always quick to engage in conversation, even more if the client was a visitor passing by. She was better suited to the hustle and bustle of Le Havre, than this quiet stretch of Pays de Caux where every rumor traveled faster than the church bells.
“Ah, docteur Cervantes!” Violette beamed, already reaching for two cloudy glasses from beneath the counter. “You’ve returned before the tourists remembered we exist. A miracle.”
Eufemio gave a polite incline of the head, easing his cane against the leg of a chair. “And yet I see Grangeville survives another spring.”
“Barely,” she laughed. “The rain nearly drowned the potatoes and Monsieur Leduc says the road toward Dieppe looks like the moon.”
Herpin snorted at that, removing his cap. “Leduc says that every year.”
“Yes, and every year he’s right.”
The café carried the warm scent of roasted chicory, cider, damp wool, and old wood scrubbed so many times it had lost its shine. Along the wall hung faded advertisements for Dubonnet and Byrrh, their colors softened by cigarette smoke and Normandy winters. A fisherman in rubber boots occupied the corner nearest the window, nursing a glass while pretending not to listen.
Eufemio noticed it immediately. Villages were like lungs. They breathed information in quietly. Then coughed it back out. Violette set the drinks down with a practiced flourish. Sparkling water cut with citron syrup. Pale gold bubbles climbed lazily toward the surface. Carlos would have approved if it were strawberry syrup instead.
Carlos…
“Still taking it this way?” she asked.
“Always,” Eufemio replied.
Herpin settled into the opposite chair with a weary sigh. “If I drank what you liked during the war, I’d never sleep again.”
“That was the point.”
A brief silence passed between them, not uncomfortable, merely old. The sort carried only by men who had once watched artillery fire stain the horizon together.
For a fleeting second, he could picture him clearly: sprawled carelessly across a chair with his sleeves rolled to the elbows, dark curls refusing discipline, arguing politics with anyone unfortunate enough to make eye contact. Too clever for his own safety. Too proud to lower his voice. Even as a boy, Carlos possessed that dangerous spark Eufemio had seen before in young men marching toward causes larger than themselves.
The kind of spark Europe was feeding again.
Eufemio stared down into the glass. Barcelona had been full of boys like that. Now, many of them were buried beneath it.
“You’ve gone quiet again,” Herpin noted gently.
“Mm.”
“You’re thinking of Spain.”
Eufemio exhaled slowly through his nose. There was no use denying it. The civil war lingered on his mind like the smell of smoke trapped inside wool. One could wash the fabric ten times and still catch traces of it in the rain.
“He writes less often now,” Eufemio admitted. “That troubles me more than if he wrote nothing at all.”
Herpin frowned slightly. “You think he’s in danger?”
"He's my boy. All I have left here. Of course a father like me would think he's in danger."
The fisherman in the corner shifted quietly at that, eyes fixed firmly on his drink.
Outside, somewhere beyond the windows, a bicycle rattled over loose stones. Someone shouted for a dog. The distant cry of gulls drifted inland from the cliffs. For one fragile moment, France almost sounded peaceful.
Eufemio’s fingers tightened slightly around the sweating glass. He looked back at Herpin.
“Regarding the living arrangement…” He tapped one finger lightly against the glass, buying himself another second. “I’m afraid I won’t be able to uphold that arrangement anymore. My niece… she…”
The words caught halfway up his throat. His gaze flicked briefly toward the fisherman by the window, then to Violette wiping down the counter with slow, deliberate movements that seemed to suggest she was listening intently while pretending not to. Eufemio adjusted his spectacles instead.
“She has become… more delicate than I anticipated,” he finished carefully. “The journey has not suited her.”
Herpin’s expression softened almost immediately. “Ah.”
It wasn't understanding, but it was enough. Eufemio felt a bit guilty for feeling relief afterward.
“She’s young?” Violette asked before she could stop herself. “Your niece, I mean.”
“Seventeen. She'll be eighteen next July.”
“Poor little thing,” she murmured instinctively. “Paris can exhaust anybody these days.”
“No, not Paris.” Eufemio shook his head before taking a sip. “She lives in Mexico with my sister and five nephews.”
Both Herpin and Violette are caught off guard. Mexico?
“Mexico?” Violette repeated, intrigued immediately. “Mon dieu… that’s quite the voyage for a young woman.”
“Martha and I have come to an agreement that my niece, Maria, would benefit greatly from studying for a few years in France.” Eufemio kept his tone measured, almost scholarly. “There are many respectable finishing schools operated by sisters.”
“A convent education?” Violette exclaimed with admiration. “Très chic."
Herpin responded with a soft hum. “And more secure than Paris these days."
Safer. Eufemio almost grimaced into his drink. If only safety were that straightforward.
"Martha insists the girl requires refinement,” he added casually. "My sister says Maria has inherited too many traits from her father’s side of the family."
"And what does that mean exactly?”
Eufemio exhaled quietly through his nose, somewhere between affection and fatigue.
“She rides horses as comfortably as a ranch hand, slips into kitchens to chat with the servants, and once came home with an injured stray bunny concealed under her shawl.” He paused briefly, then added, almost hesitantly, “It escaped from her room and was discovered at dawn sitting in Martha’s potager, fat as a pear and entirely unapologetic.”
Violette nearly dropped the glass she was cleaning so she could stifle the snort of laughter threatening to escape.
“Oh-laaa, not the potager!”
The horror in her voice lasted all of two seconds before she broke into laughter, the image too vivid now to ignore: a plump little rabbit enthroned among Martha’s precious lettuces at dawn.
Eufemio’s mouth twitched. “Her pearl onions suffered most.”
Violette stared at him. Then the laugh broke out of her completely, bright and helpless, one hand braced against the counter as though the floor itself had betrayed her.
“The pearl onions?”
“Every last one within reach,” he said solemnly. “The culprit showed no remorse.”
“Oh, I like your niece already.”
The words came lightly, almost teasingly, yet something gentler settled beneath them after a moment. Violette leaned her elbows against the counter, thoughtful now rather than amused.
“She sounds sweet,” she said. “A little lost in her thoughts, perhaps, but sweet.”
Eufemio’s expression quieted.
For a brief moment, the morning noise of the café drifted around them: chairs scraping against old floorboards, distant conversation, the faint clink of cutlery from the kitchen.
“Yes,” he said at last. “She has had… a difficult year.”
Violette nodded as though that confirmed something she had already suspected. Then, after only the briefest pause:
“You should bring her to Grangeville sometime.”
Eufemio glanced up.
“I mean it,” she continued. “Not for long if she tires easily. Just an afternoon perhaps. The sea air is good here, and people mind their business well enough when told to.” Her mouth curved slightly. “Besides, I think she would enjoy the village.”
A faint smile finally touched Eufemio’s face.
“And the village?” he asked.
Violette’s eyes brightened again.
“Oh, I believe the village would absolutely enjoy her.”