Two French tourists disappeared on the Madeira Island almost a month ago. Their daughter, Johanna, 27, decided with her sister to reopen the bakery they had run for years.
Many customers who pass through the sliding doors of the bakery, in the center of the village, often have a closed expression. With wet eyes, some are unable to express their sorrow: “It’s too hard,” whispers a customer, her voice breaking, as she leaves the store. “We are very happy, for the employees but also for the villagers,’ says Nicolas Frédéric, 45 years old, a commercial baker for four years who considers the shop “as the soul of theVillage’“ For him, coming back this morning, “for the first time” since disappearance, “is complicated since their disappearance,“ says Michel Brotons, 86, a freshly purchased baguette under his arm.