The Italians.
They came in a small, overpacked car with northern Italian plates and the smell of dried herbs trailing behind them. A couple—cheerful, expressive, and visibly confused by the silence of Saint-Mystère. They had rented a gîte just beyond the old well, insisting on a kitchen. They wanted to cook like at home.
French food—troppo complicato, they said with a shrug—they wanted proper pasta. They brought everything with them: olive oil in dark glass, garlic in braids, vacuum-packed pecorino, tinned tomatoes, and enough spaghetti to feed a village that wouldn’t ask for any.
Every evening, the scent of boiling pasta and fried onion drifted through the alleys. Once, Madame Lefèvre waved from her garden. They waved back enthusiastically. No words were exchanged.
They stayed for six days. On the seventh, the scent vanished.
They had run out of pasta, packed their car, and disappeared before dawn.
Only the empty tins remained, stacked neatly by the recycling bin.
In Saint-Mystère, we did not touch them.