The Woman Who Waited by Andrei Makine

A very dreamy book; events and descriptions are misty and their reality
is quite uncertain. A young Russian man is telling the story of his
time in a tiny desolate village called Mirnoe where he meets a woman in
her 40s who has been waiting for her beloved to return from the war for
30 years. The wonder of her faithfulness and goodness is the central
theme of the novel. By the writer of Dreams of My Russian Summers.
According to the book jacket, he divides his time between Paris and a
village in southwestern France. I love to think the village is Les
Arques , where his countryman the artist Zadkine lived. (See post on
From Here, You Can’t See Paris.)