Rain on a Hill side.

Eighty years ago The Nazi S.S. were blocking the road over the pass and most of the hundreds of people trying to cross were on foot. Today, there’s only three vehicles and the people blocking the road are road maintenance technicians from the other side of the border.

I pull around them onto the gravel, intending to drive on behind them but they wave their arms. Checking they are not holding machine guns, I stop the car and step out into the driving rain and run over to the side of their van.

“It’s shut.”

“It’s the only road.”

“We’re opening it again in twenty minutes, wait by the petrol station and we’ll start moving the barriers just after the hour.”

It’s lucky I speak French.

The first of the other vehicles has already turned and headed back down the mountain, the second is patiently waiting at the petrol pumps. I consider the options. 

The petrol pumps are no more than that, and they are not in operation. Not before another two hours for the rest of the week and then again the week after. There is no shop, no attendant and no coffee to distract or entertain us.

The view is disappearing into a storm, and the temperature has dropped by 20 degrees.

At the bottom of the mountain is the sea, a restaurant and a hotel.

Hmmm.

Choices

In the restaurant fifty or so tables are neatly set with plates, cutlery and cuttingly clean folded cloth napkins. 

There are two people dining.

A woman waits to serve from behind the bar, another waits at the cashier’s table for any one choosing to pay, and a waiter hovers between the two.

In the corner and elderly man sits behind a pile of forks. He is counting them and stacking them into rows on the table in front of him.

When he finishes, he stands up and shuffles over to the box of paper napkins in the corner.

The napkins are grey.

The man is in pain when he walks.

He takes the paper napkins back to his table and sitting down, starts to fold the forks into the napkins.

“Is it still raining?” You ask.

I look at the window.

A man in a cap, with a large umbrella over his head walks past outside.

“I think so,” I reply.

There are there are the remains of a celebration on a table in the far corner – a cardboard tiered cake and a number of photos.

A wedding?

Perhaps.

The restaurants anniversary?

The last time people came here?

The S.S? 

The building is for sale.

It is still raining.