7756
April 10th, 1943
Houlle (Pas-de-Calais) - The bistro of the town hall faces the Lafoscade Distillery. The local jenever normally has only a few meters to go from the producer to the consumer.
Unless it comes from further away, of course, but few people know how to appreciate this grain alcohol There are however amateurs as far as Lille or Calais, or even as far as England through the city of the Bourgeois. Of course, the British can no longer get supplies for the moment, but it is still possible for wealthy people from Lille - because gin is not a commodity displayed on the supply tickets! This is the case of Doctor Somoire, Achille of his first name, a great connoisseur of all types of alcohol. However, he defended himself from being a connoisseur, claiming that he was only interested in distilled beverages for scientific purposes. Dame!
You have to know the disease well to identify the possible remedies... But the bad tongues in his neighborhood whisper that the good doctor pushes his professional conscience to the point of wanting to know the disease personally before the remedy!
With the war, it is much more difficult for him to circulate. Gasoline being rare, even with his status as a doctor, it is impossible to make the traditional Easter trip to the small village on the Houlle River, which gave him his name. Fortunately, there is his daughter, Marinella, a beautiful, athletic twenty-year-old who doesn't mind riding her bike on the roads. On the other hand, she doesn't have much choice if she wants to get some fresh air, and this happens more often than helping her father in the office or the cook in the kitchen. The doctor, a widower, has made his choice, but takes advantage of her taste for cycling to make her do some errands, and today, it is a big one, considering the distance - 70 km.
Four hours for the outward journey, as much for the return, he had to leave at dawn to arrive before noon. Oh, this is not her first time, it's the fifth or sixth time. She leans her mount against the wall of the restaurant, between ordering her dinner (the lunch din ch'Nord), then quickly goes out to cross the road of Watten towards the distillery, in order not to be trapped by the midday closing.
Mr. Lafoscade, who left for Paris when the Germans arrived, where his wife is from, gave up his establishment to his cousin Eugène Persyn, whose sons have taken over both the family brewery in Saint-Omer and this distillery. This suits Marinella well, because these young people are very pleasant, hard-working and agreeable. A bit of banter during the shopping, she loves to see them blushing...
Her purchases made, the young lady returns to sit down in the estaminet with happiness. Far from the city, in spite of the war, one eats better in the country, because there is always something to cultivate or to raise, which ends up in a plate. Marinella starts to be well known in the village: not to the point that they sing her praises, but everyone knows why she comes. Or thinks they know. The smart ones laugh at the bottles of medicinal alcohol that she brings empty, only to take them back full, a good way to get through the roadside checks, the smell of juniper not really reminding one of cognac or calvados from other regions. The order form and the leave of absence signed by his father's doctor and countersigned by the distiller justifies the rest. At the zinc counter, we smile.
Just as we smile at the young people from the village, who suddenly come to the bistro when Marinella is around. It's up to the one who offers a drink to the young girl, in order to sit at her table while she tastes her omelette with bacon and potatoes. What do they tell each other? No one knows, but it's with a smile that the old barkeepers look at the scene... If only they knew!
At the moment, it is Eric, the blacksmith's son, who lost an arm during the debacle, who holds the rope. But the whispered conversation is not always romantic. Between two tender words, others slip in, more down to earth.
- You have beautiful eyes, you know... The Krauts have opened a large construction site between Watten and Eperlecques.
- You are very cute, even without your arm... How big, and what for?
- Something very big, the trenches are almost a kilometer long around the rails, but we don't know why... We hear about a power plant, but of this size!
- Weird, that's true. I'm going to tell the others, let them come and see... My beautiful, I will come back for Passover...
- Good idea, beautiful, we could go for a walk and have a picnic.
- I'd love to. I have to go now.
The return trip is longer than the outward one, but if someone were to note this, he would naturally put it down to fatigue and the weight of the full bottles rather than a detour through the postal center.
Houlle (Pas-de-Calais) - The bistro of the town hall faces the Lafoscade Distillery. The local jenever normally has only a few meters to go from the producer to the consumer.
Unless it comes from further away, of course, but few people know how to appreciate this grain alcohol There are however amateurs as far as Lille or Calais, or even as far as England through the city of the Bourgeois. Of course, the British can no longer get supplies for the moment, but it is still possible for wealthy people from Lille - because gin is not a commodity displayed on the supply tickets! This is the case of Doctor Somoire, Achille of his first name, a great connoisseur of all types of alcohol. However, he defended himself from being a connoisseur, claiming that he was only interested in distilled beverages for scientific purposes. Dame!
You have to know the disease well to identify the possible remedies... But the bad tongues in his neighborhood whisper that the good doctor pushes his professional conscience to the point of wanting to know the disease personally before the remedy!
With the war, it is much more difficult for him to circulate. Gasoline being rare, even with his status as a doctor, it is impossible to make the traditional Easter trip to the small village on the Houlle River, which gave him his name. Fortunately, there is his daughter, Marinella, a beautiful, athletic twenty-year-old who doesn't mind riding her bike on the roads. On the other hand, she doesn't have much choice if she wants to get some fresh air, and this happens more often than helping her father in the office or the cook in the kitchen. The doctor, a widower, has made his choice, but takes advantage of her taste for cycling to make her do some errands, and today, it is a big one, considering the distance - 70 km.
Four hours for the outward journey, as much for the return, he had to leave at dawn to arrive before noon. Oh, this is not her first time, it's the fifth or sixth time. She leans her mount against the wall of the restaurant, between ordering her dinner (the lunch din ch'Nord), then quickly goes out to cross the road of Watten towards the distillery, in order not to be trapped by the midday closing.
Mr. Lafoscade, who left for Paris when the Germans arrived, where his wife is from, gave up his establishment to his cousin Eugène Persyn, whose sons have taken over both the family brewery in Saint-Omer and this distillery. This suits Marinella well, because these young people are very pleasant, hard-working and agreeable. A bit of banter during the shopping, she loves to see them blushing...
Her purchases made, the young lady returns to sit down in the estaminet with happiness. Far from the city, in spite of the war, one eats better in the country, because there is always something to cultivate or to raise, which ends up in a plate. Marinella starts to be well known in the village: not to the point that they sing her praises, but everyone knows why she comes. Or thinks they know. The smart ones laugh at the bottles of medicinal alcohol that she brings empty, only to take them back full, a good way to get through the roadside checks, the smell of juniper not really reminding one of cognac or calvados from other regions. The order form and the leave of absence signed by his father's doctor and countersigned by the distiller justifies the rest. At the zinc counter, we smile.
Just as we smile at the young people from the village, who suddenly come to the bistro when Marinella is around. It's up to the one who offers a drink to the young girl, in order to sit at her table while she tastes her omelette with bacon and potatoes. What do they tell each other? No one knows, but it's with a smile that the old barkeepers look at the scene... If only they knew!
At the moment, it is Eric, the blacksmith's son, who lost an arm during the debacle, who holds the rope. But the whispered conversation is not always romantic. Between two tender words, others slip in, more down to earth.
- You have beautiful eyes, you know... The Krauts have opened a large construction site between Watten and Eperlecques.
- You are very cute, even without your arm... How big, and what for?
- Something very big, the trenches are almost a kilometer long around the rails, but we don't know why... We hear about a power plant, but of this size!
- Weird, that's true. I'm going to tell the others, let them come and see... My beautiful, I will come back for Passover...
- Good idea, beautiful, we could go for a walk and have a picnic.
- I'd love to. I have to go now.
The return trip is longer than the outward one, but if someone were to note this, he would naturally put it down to fatigue and the weight of the full bottles rather than a detour through the postal center.