A Day with Grand-père Albert
Back-dating this to Friday, May 31st, 2019, even though it’s June 6th 2020 by the time I’m posting it
Thursday we wake up groggily to our alarms going off earlier than we prefer. My phone, essentially unused as I haven’t bothered to get a Belgian SIM since Matthias has an international plan, was charged enough last night that I didn’t bother plugging it in. I roll over to plug it in this morning in anticipation of charging it up before our day begins. It doesn’t buzz. I jiggle the charger in the socket. Nothing. I flip the light switch on and off. Also nothing.
There’s no electricity.
We go back to bed for a few hours.
When we eventually arise, we call our Airbnb hosts to let them know the situation. There’s no answer. Today is a holiday (Ascension Day). We turn Matthias’s phone into a hot spot and I message our hosts. We don’t receive their reply until we’re already out of the house, at a café with reliable WiFi.
I’m writing this not knowing whether there is electricity (and therefore hot water) at the place, but I hope so.
We take an Uber to visit Matthias’s grandfather, soliciting solicitous questions from the driver, who wants to confirm that the address is correct. It’s only 20 miles (25 by highway)—the equivalent of driving from Boston to Beverly essentially. While not an Uber (or Lyft, rather) I’d take readily, I’d still chose that over renting a car or taking the train.
We’re forgetting that the entirety of Belgium itself is roughly the same size as Massachusetts, however, and our driver (dare I admit rightfully?) is acting as though we’ve just directed him to drive a fifth of the way across the country, a drive to Pittsburgh, farther even then DC.
No matter. We are in the car. And the trip still costs less than renting a car.
We get on the highway, and I watch place names both familiar and unfamiliar whiz by, realising that I have no idea where we’re headed. Typically I navigate or need to know at least what the path is, Gretel style, lest I need to take charge and find the way. But Matthias knows where his grandfather lives—or at least has the address—and has phone service, so he’s leading. I continue to look out the window.
We turn off the highway and take a series of back roads, at one point hilariously taking a marginal path through a field before hopping back on the same main road that had paralleled it all along. Eventually we arrive at the outskirts of a village, to a small parking lot off the side of the street, at a u-shaped brick building with pleasant landscaping. We’re here.
We thank the driver and step out of the car. A son is helping his presumed mother into a car. Matthias looks towards the building anxiously, suddenly realising we have no idea what protocol is—where we enter, how we justify why we’re there, even how to let his grandfather know we’re here.
‘Bonjour!’ we hear as we’re crossing the lawn, and look up to see a bald, bespectacled little rotund man in a coral-coloured shirt leaning halfway out a second story window. ‘Bonjour Matthias!’
‘And that’s my grand-père…’ Matthias says from the side of his mouth before we return the greeting.
Grand-père Albert (gran-pear Al-bear—it rhymes in French) tells us which door to enter and says to wait as he comes down. We do so and greet him in the hall. He and Matthias embrace, and I try to quell any anxiety about decorum. Grand-père Albert embraces me, too, then leans back and kisses me one, twice, three times as is the custom. We’re family.
We take the elevator up to his suite and he gives us the brief grand tour. My favourite part is the window, huge and open onto the lawn for both nature and people watching.
He asks if we’ll join him for a glass of champagne, and we joke in French about the sheer absurdity of turning it down. He and Matthias pose for a picture to send back to the family and we go about trying to get my iPad set up to FaceTime Matthias’s father. The only problem is there’s no WiFi, or at least any that we can connect to. Should have foreseen this… (I was left wondering how long it will be until WiFi in senior living facilities will be a demand rather than an afterthought.)
As we try to figure out logistics, Grand-père Albert pulls out a tiny package wrapped in a paper towel and inexplicably Scotch-taped, like a little gift. He opens it to reveal a flip phone and says that this is his only phone, but it doesn’t have a SIM (or any charge, presumably…). In the end we use Matthias’s phone to call his father, all of us on speaker.
After talking with Yvan-Pierre, we align on a general plan (no one is too hungry so we’ll wait to eat, Grand-père Albert will lead us on a guided walking tour of the town, but first let’s sit and talk awhile) and settle in for some conversation, the afternoon breeze floating gently through the large open window.
After about an hour, we all agreed it was time for that walk. Grand-père Albert led the way, teaching us about the village of Grez-Doiceau as we went.
We amble down the little lane upon which he lives. The back roads are quiet, but a car passes us, some mid-level executive sedan. Grand-père Albert remarks at the car, pointing to several driveways on the lane as well, ‘Ah, the fancy cars…’ he says, ‘Audi, Mercedes, V…B…’ ‘Be em doublé ve?’ I offer tentatively in French. ‘Yes, so many fancy cars. Ah, it’s not too bad for us regular people. They come into the town, move into the town, but they pay their taxes. I cannot pay; they pay the taxes and it is not too bad for us regular people.’
At the end of the street there is a walled property, with dark cypress or other evergreens visible above the wall. Probably teeming with E-classes.
In the Center of town, Grand-père points out a plaque on the side of a building. I read the French, noticing something about Minnesota. He tells us how a stone from the foundation of this building was laid down as the cornerstone of a church in Minnesota, in a community referred to as ‘Little Belgium.’ Seems an odd pride.
Grez-Doiceau lies on a river called the Trein, something Grand-père points out to Matthias with pride. You can’t miss it, really, with some signs posted up along a teeny tiny bridge that crosses it. Some trails run along the river, down at the level of the water, a flight below the street.
Farther along the street, the road turns. Grand-père Albert gestures generously towards the road that leads off into the distance. ‘The end of the village! Don’t blink or you’ll miss it!’ He cracks himself up.
I pause to take a picture of a set of local election posters, and Grand-père Albert seizes the opportunity to opine upon the state of democracy, both in Europe and in America. He emphasises that we are free in America—free to choose what we will, free from political oppression, free from wars tearing up our own soil. ‘You are free,’ he repeats solemnly, ‘You are free.’ I’m not wholly convinced of this, but he has a decent argument. ‘You Americans love your freedom. You are free.’
We stop to detour through a green on the outskirts of town, where Matthias and his grandfather sit on a bench to continue their conversation and I play paparazza to the town swan, whose name I regrettably forget now. Frank?
After our walk we pop back to the house to change for dinner, and head out back into town to follow a path along the Trein, around Frank’s green (he had moved on for the evening), and to the local bistro, where we enjoy a marvellous dinner at Grand-père Albert’s pace. He raves about the baked potato side, and when the waiter places a huge cone of perfectly golden brown frites in front of us, he waves the waiter down and tells him that he wants a baked potato instead, much to Matthias’s chagrin, who looks forlornly at the frites disappearing into the distance. He also raves about all matters of personal opinion, from freedom and history to travels And personal stories, sometimes somewhat to Matthias’s chagrin. He continues to expound upon the theme of freedom, and how much of it we have in America. He often throws up his hands and explains, ‘So is life!’ with a nonchalant shrug.
After dinner we walk back to the house, through hedgerows where we can hear chickens scratching and dogs playing on the other side, along the Trein, which is starting to make the noises of a river at night. Dusk is falling and the path is turning from green into that indiscriminate lowly lit colour of twilight. We drop Grand-père Albert off and assure him of what a fine time we’ve had, and that we’ll come back to visit him again soon.
We hit a bit of a snag when we go to order a car home. No service in your area the app informs us unhelpfully. My phone is useless, Matthias’s is dying, and we still don’t have WiFi. We sneak into a nurse’s station to plug Matthias’s phone into the computer to charge and keep watch. Whoever is on shift must be in another part of the building, which at first seems like a blessing, but soon turns into a disappointment as we realise she’s probably our best bet for getting home. Eventually we flag someone down in the corridor, and she suggests we call a taxi. Several companies later we find one who will bring us back to Brussels, but we have to wait 45 minutes.
Time passes, and when the car arrives we sneak back through the entrance, which lies directly under Grand-père Albert’s thankfully closed large window.
A little after 10PM we turn onto our street in Etterbeek and offer one up for the cost of the car, as there’s no meter inside. We pay what ends up being a reasonable fare for getting us out of that potential pickle and head up to our Airbnb. We get back into the place long after dark, to electricity. Sometimes it’s the little things.