Midnight in Brussels

by Rebecca Randolph Buckley

  Another day during her explorations she was on her way to the Jerusalem Cathedral in the St. Anna section, near where she was staying. The lace museum was at the Jerusalem church where the nuns ran the center and the classes.

  But first she wanted to stop by the Craenenburg to have a cup of coffee and talk to Antoine for a few minutes. She’d been going into the establishment every day to visit with him, sometimes twice a day, sometimes over coffee, sometimes over champagne, sometimes over a meal. Sometimes she would sit outside in the courtyard.

  Antoine told her about his two little girls, ages seven and nine. His wife had left Belgium, leaving the girls behind with him. They lived in a building down the side street behind the Craenenburg, in an upstairs flat, so he was close by if they needed him. His mother had a house further down the lane and she took care of them while he was working.

  Because it was so warm, the doors were wide open at the Craenenburg, so Amanda decided to go inside instead of sitting on the patio on this particular day.

  Antoine was busy tending a large group of diners at the back of the room and didn’t see her as she headed for her usual table along the right wall.

  When he turned to take the order to the kitchen, he saw her and his face lit up. He waved and hurried into the kitchen.

  Antoine brought a smile to Amanda’s face, too. He was always so exuberant and cheerful. She’d not seen him in a bad mood at all. She felt he loved his job and she noticed that he treated all his customers accordingly.

  “Amanda! How good to see you!” he called out as he hurried back toward her from the kitchen. He bent down and they kissed cheeks, as was the custom. Amanda was a quick study.

  “How did the visit turn out last night?” Amanda asked as she watched his expression change from happy to sad.

  “Well, it wasn’t as good as I had hoped it would be. She spent an hour with the children and then left. It’s the girls I’m concerned about, you know. Not Nadia. Nadia is in a world of her own. We were lucky she even came for an hour. The girls cried when she left.” His shoulders slumped and his eyes were vacant for a moment.

  “I don’t see how she can do that to them. She’s their mother, ain’t she? Doesn’t that bother her at all?” Amanda asked.

  “No, not at all.” His shoulders were slumped.

  “I’d love to meet your daughters, Antoine. I miss my little nephew. Maybe on Sunday we can go to the park at the end of Carmmerstraat, where the windmills are—”

  “You would do that?

  “Yes, of course. I love children.”

  “Perfect! We’ll go on Sunday. That is a wonderful idea.” His countenance perked up and he was his usual happy self again.

  Chapter 22

  Before Amanda headed to the St. Anna’s quarter, she decided to go back to one of the streets that led in the opposite direction from the Markt that was lined with fashion shops - shoes, clothing, jewelry – to find a curling iron. Hers wasn’t working and the adaptor wasn’t helping any at all. She needed one that she could plug directly into the Belgian wall sockets.

  In watching the people pass her on the lanes, she had been surprised that the fashion trend was gypsy-like. Layers of colorful fabrics, tufted pants and skirts with vests, scarves and other adornments combined to create the masterpieces. The wearers became walking works of art, actually. Then there were the simply dressed: non-trendy dressers, but stylish, too. Monotoned ensembles in beige, brown, and olive green. She could guess who was affluent and who wasn’t. Most times. Not always. And tans! They all had tans. She’d heard they usually went to Spain and the south of France to beaches to get their tans. Some would go to Florida.

  It took her a while, but she finally found a curling iron for her hair. It was very expensive - $70. But she needed it, so she bought it.

  The Jerusalem Cathedral was straight ahead of Amanda. She’d made a right off Carmmerstraat on Jeruzalemstraat and walked a short distance towards the Kantcentrum where the lace-making took place. The building attached to the church had the same familiar roofline as most others in Bruges, she noticed. Only this one had ten steps from the top edge of each side wall towards the apex of the roofline.

  All the buildings in the St. Anna part of town were of drab stone, not much color. Bruges was certainly a town of stone – streets and buildings. But the original Jerusalem Cathedral had been built of wood, and in the fifteenth century the crumbling wood had been replaced with stone.

  What amazed Amanda more than anything about Bruges was that the buildings dated back to the medieval times. To her it was astonishing that she could be standing and looking at a house that someone else had been standing and looking at over half a millennium before. She could be touching a stone wall that someone five hundred years prior had been touching.

  She walked through the door leading to the Kantcentrum, whose name meant “lace-making.” The Kantcentrum started up in 1970, as late as that, to preserve the lace-making industry that had begun there in 1717 by the Sisters Apostle.

  After she viewed samples and supplies, as well as catalogs and books on lace-making, in the reception shop, she followed the arrows which guided her through rooms of completed pieces of antique lace. She couldn’t get over the intricate work that went into the making of all types of cloths and garments.

  The Chantilly laces captivated her most. Their outlined patterns with a flat, untwisted strand of thread, the placard explained, lace made of silk mostly, and usually black. Chantilly lace was originally made in France, but now it was made in Belgium. There were classic Chantilly shawls on display.

  What caught her eye next was the Binche lace. And she’d noticed that the center was giving classes on making it, beginning the following week. The patterns were very detailed with animal scenes and figures. And they weren’t outlined as Chantilly patterns were.

  Next came the room where the lace-makers were working. There were at least a dozen women of all ages, mostly older, sitting at tables tossing their bobbins, weaving the tiny intricate patterns. One woman was tossing them back and forth so fast Amanda couldn’t believe she knew what she was doing. It looked like she was shuffling the bobbins on the flat cardboard that held the thread and moving her hands lightning-fast just to be impressive. She definitely was impressive. The pattern was taking form right before Amanda’s eyes. She wondered if she’d ever be able to do that. They gave classes to school children, so surely she could master it if they could. She overheard a conversation that one of the makers had just passed away at 102 years of age.

  Before she left the center, Amanda enrolled in the class that was to start the following Monday. Happy as a lark, she left the Kantcentrum and walked to a café on Carmmerstraat near the B&B for dinner to celebrate her decision to learn lace-making.

  As she walked she thought of her mother sewing and mending clothing for a living in Arkansas. She thought of when she was a little girl and watched her mother use a needle, weaving in and out of the cloth to make such beautiful hand-sewn dresses for other people. She and her sister’s clothing were made from the scraps and leftovers of those dresses. Their mother would piece assorted materials together and come up with such pretty garments for the two of them. But she didn’t do it often, because all her time had to be used to make clothing and to do mending for others so the girls could have food on their table. And sad to say, their mother was not well. She was sickly most of their young lives until the day she died and their grandmother stepped in and took care of them till they were teenagers. Then they married their high school sweethearts and left Arkansas after their grandmother died.

  Amanda opened the single door of the small café and was met by a friendly elderly gentleman, who ushered her to a table in front of one of the two windows facing Carmmerstraat. She was the first customer of the evening.

  Chapter 23

  Rachel O’Neill’s arrival in Brussels brought back all the memories of the last time she was there. Only that time she had boarded a train to Bruges immediately, not taking in t
he sights of Brussels City. This time she checked into the luxurious, art nouveau, French Renaissance Metropole Hotel, built in the 1800s near the Grand Place—the most scenic market square in the center of Belgium.

  The hotel listed among its famous clients Caruso, Albert Einstein, Madam Curie, Albert Rubinstein, and many more … actually dozens and dozens more. Rachel was amazed at the endless list of famous guests on the hotel’s website. She hadn’t seen a list like that on other hotel sites. And of course the Brussels Metropole was a political haven, since Brussels had become the administrative center for the EU, with over a million inhabitants. Including the surrounding suburbs, the population was nearly three million.

  She’d always been drawn to the Metropole hotels and preferred staying in them when she traveled throughout the world. It was romantic ambiance that determined her choice of hotels. And the Brussels Metropole was no exception, it was just as she’d visualized. She immediately felt inspired as she stepped through the revolving entrance doors to the right of the well-known sidewalk Metropole Café where sippers and diners were on display in fashionable attire and sunglasses during the warm months and fur coats in winter. A Mecca designed for the beautiful people.

  Rachel felt in high spirits and energetic as she always did when she traveled, not a worry or a care in the world. Nothing else mattered but where she was and what she felt at the moment. It was heaven. She was happy to be in Belgium.

  Chapter 24

  Sunday rolled around very quickly for Amanda. Antoine and the girls were going to walk to her place in the St. Anna district and then they would all walk the rest of the way to the park and the windmills, where the old city wall used to be at the end of Carmmerstraat. The medieval city wall had been taken down in the nineteenth century, but two of the gates still remained.

  As they walked over St. Anna’s Brug (bridge) Antoine gave his daughters a history lesson. He told them about the St. Anna district that they were entering, about the churches, the nuns. Told them about the Alms houses where the elderly lived.

  He told them that poverty overtook the town after the Fifteenth century when silt had filled the seaport separating Bruges from the sea and world trade, and Bruges almost became a ghost town. The very rich came to the rescue for the widows and elderly and built Alms houses for them on abandoned properties, the houses were enclosed in a courtyard with one main gate as the entrance. He pointed out the entrances as they walked, marked by small statues of the Virgin Mother. They peeked into one courtyard and saw the rows of charming white houses, petite and quaint, surrounding the gardened courtyard. He told his girls that there were still between thirty or forty of the compounds throughout Bruges.

  They walked by the Jeruzalemkerk (church) and he pointed out the Kancentrum, explaining its history. The oldest daughter spoke up and told him that they knew all about the Kancentrum, they’d learned it in school.

  He raised his eyebrows and decided the history lesson was over. His desire to teach history had gotten away from him.

  As they rounded the corner onto Carmmerstraat they saw Amanda waiting on the front stoop of the B&B.

  Amanda had been watching Robert paint the trim on the house. She enjoyed talking to him, for he always shared the history of Bruges with her.

  She saw Antoine and the girls turn the corner and head up Carmmerstraat. “Oh, here they come!” she said to Robert.

  He stopped painting and looked at the trio sauntering towards them. “A lovely family. You say their mother abandoned them?”

  “Yes, isn’t that the awfulest thing you ever heard of?”

  “Those adorable little girls? Yes, that is awful.”

  Antoine grinned and called out to Amanda as they came nearer, “Hello, Amanda. Here we are, right on schedule.”

  She stepped down from the stoop and met him on the lane. They hugged.

  “This is my oldest, Elwina, and little Drulette. Girls, this is Amanda, my friend.”

  “Hello, Elwina, Drulette. You both look so pretty in your yellow dresses! I wish I had one as nice to wear. This is my landlord, Robert Nevel, Antoine.”

  Antoine reached out and shook Robert’s hand. “Hello. Looks like you’ve taken on a painstaking Sunday job.”

  “Oh yes. The weekend work of a landlord. Perfect day for it.”

  “So shall we get on with it?” Amanda motioned up the street. “Oh, almost forgot.” She opened the door and fetched a basket of goodies she’d prepared to take to the park. “Okay, I’m ready. Let’s go, girls.”

  When they arrived at the park at the end of the lane, the area was full of boats cruising the waterway, bicycles following the paths, people stopping to view the magnificent windmills originally built in the 1700s. Three of them.

  There was a pub near them with tables and benches outdoors. So they stopped for a drink and to get their bearings. The girls went ahead and played on the grassy mounds, chasing each other and tumbling.

  “They are absolutely adorable, Antoine. You have done such a great job with them. They’re so polite and seem to be very well-adjusted.” She was amazed at how normal they seemed.

  “A lot of it has to do with my mother. She has them while I’m working, you know, when they’re not in school. Between the two of us, we do all right, I suppose.”

  “You suppose? You do fantastic! I mean it.” She touched his hand and looked into his eyes. “You’re amazing.”

  He picked up her hand and gently kissed it. “I find you amazing, Amanda. Do you mind if I call you Mandy? You’re more like a Mandy than an Amanda. Amanda seems so old and great aunt-ish.”

  She laughed. “My mother used to call me Mandy. I don’t mind at all.”

  “Tell me, would you go out to dinner with me one night when I’m not working?” He seemed afraid of what her answer might be.

  She hesitated, not sure if she should or not. But then again, she was a grownup, she told herself, she was on her own, she was living in Bruges in another country for God’s sake, all by herself! So why shouldn’t she go to dinner with whoever she wanted, when she wanted, especially with the cutest guy in town? Richard’s and Arlie’s faces flashed through her mind, but only for a few seconds.

  “Yes, I will go to dinner with you. Anytime you want.”

  Chapter 25

  Just one more … Rachel popped another Belgian chocolate into her mouth. She’d purchased a box of them from one of the many chocolate shops along the route she’d walked from the Grand Place that morning. But they were putting her to sleep now. Ever since she could remember, chocolate made her sleepy.

  The day before, she had taken a long nap in the afternoon after eating six delicious pieces. The milk chocolate was her favorite, solid chocolate. But the shops had everything, crème-filled, nuts, chewy, dark chocolate … you name it, they make it all in Belgium. She’d observed that the chocolate and the lace shops made up a good percentage of the business in Belgium. Chocolates and lace. What a romantic combination!

  After the walk, she came back to the hotel and wrote ten more pages of her new novel. Inspiration was everywhere. She certainly had chosen the right city to trigger her imagination.

  She’d been in Brussels for two weeks and had already written 22,000 words. Only 80,000 more to go. Or, actually, 78,000. She liked to keep her novels at 100,000 words, give or take. She would divide the novel into three parts: 20,000 words in Part One; 60,000 in Part Two; 20,000 in Part Three. The meat of the story would be in Part Two.

  She’d just begun writing the meat; an idea had come to her that morning while she was having coffee in the Grand Place. Plus she’d been on the phone with Belinda several times and they’d exchanged ideas about the plot. Belinda was full of ideas lately; it tickled Rachel that she wanted to contribute.

  As she lay back on the bed closing her eyes and the chocolate began to take effect, she wondered why she hadn’t heard from Pete in the past few days. He was usually pretty good about calling every other day. It had now been four days since she’d heard from him las
t. She drifted off to sleep in mid-thought.

  The dream was of Pete in the jungle, in an open boat with a canopy traveling down the Amazon River reminiscent of the boat Bogart and Hepburn used. Then it became a Chinese Junk. She and Belinda were with him. They were sitting at a table with a white tablecloth, drinking champagne and eating giant shrimp cocktails in crystal. It seemed the normal thing to do on a Chinese Junk.

  Snakes were slithering at their feet; natives were chucking spears at them from both sides of the river; alligators and piranhas were swimming around the boat. No one seemed to be alarmed. Pete was laughing, saying what a beautiful place it was, saying that he wanted to live in Brazil, wanted Rachel to come live there with him when they were married.

  Rachel said “No way!” and stood up from the table to get another bottle of champagne from an ornately carved cupboard that was definitely not the usual boat fixture. She tripped on a pile of snakes and fell over the edge of the boat into the river. Belinda jumped in to save her.

  Pete watched them as he continued to drink and laugh. He told them to swim faster, swim to the boat and climb back on. Then he stood and leaned toward the water to pull them aboard, but the boat was moving faster and farther down river until it was out of sight. Belinda was going under. Rachel had to save her. Pete wasn’t there, he was gone, out of sight ....

  Rachel woke up in exhaustion. It had been a while since she’d had such a vivid dream. One of the reasons she’d come to the UK in the first place was because of her dreams. And she settled in Cornwall because her dreams led her there. She’d been guided by her dreams most of her life.

  Also because of her dreams, she had found her mother on an Indian reservation in Montana after years of believing she had died when Rachel was three years old. Rachel also discovered she was British in a past life because of her dreams, and discovered who she was and where she had lived on the south coast of England. Pete and her friend Margaret were believers of past lives, Paul and Belinda too.