Brussels Noir Read online

  I never wanted it to happen this way. In my heart and mind, I believed I was acting in my son’s best interest. I had, it seemed to me, considered all the potential risks; I had analyzed and made sure to eliminate them. Is it my fault if things took a bad turn? If I couldn’t predict the unpredictable? Can we ever force destiny without paying a price?

  That night, at home alone, was hell for me. Around eleven o’clock, I began keeping watch by the window for the drunkards’ return, ready to offer my son all the comfort he needed to move past the incident which I hoped, all the same, was upsetting enough to make him afraid of repeating it. The minutes went by with a dreadful slowness, and the silence grated on my nerves. I was startled by the slightest noise coming from the street; my heart raced at a glimpse of the rare passerby outside my window.

  At midnight, still nothing. What was happening? Why were they taking so long? Had my parakeet kept his side of the agreement and refrained from all physical violence? I began to seriously doubt it. Exhausted, tormented, I paced in circles like a lion in a cage. The anxiety turned my stomach; my throat was raw, my heart in agony.

  At half past midnight, no longer able to stand it, I tried to reach Jean on his cell phone. I had promised myself I would do nothing out of the ordinary, but the pressure was too strong. The ring sounded over and over, with a terrible indifference, until it went to voice mail. I thought I was going crazy. I hung up immediately, afraid I wouldn’t be able to hide the anxiety in my voice. What would I have said, in any case? There is nothing worse than ignorance in such situations, when imagination gets the better of reason. I was unable to stop myself from imagining the worst.

  The coup de grâce came around two thirty in the morning. I was at wit’s end; I had called Jean’s phone multiple times, disregarding all the rules I had set for myself. I could no longer think clearly, had even considered going to the Parvis to put an end to this terrible waiting. Only the fear of exposing myself to the dangers of the night kept me at home.

  I immediately registered Virgile’s absence. When Jean and Mike stepped through the doorway, my nerves snapped. I rushed toward them, assailing them with cries and questions: what had happened to my son, where was he, in what state? Jean looked distraught, he stared at me without seeing me, as if indifferent to my cries, to my tears and interrogations. Mike quickly moved to stand between us, and tried desperately to calm me down, to hold my attention, while rattling off a string of sentences, of which I understood not a word. Maddened by this endless logorrhea, this obstacle standing between me and my son’s fate, I violently pushed him aside, threw myself on my husband, and began beating his chest with my fists.

  “Tell me my son isn’t dead!” I screamed, abandoning myself to a fit of rage.

  “Dead?” mumbled Jean, looking at me as if I’d gone insane. “He’s . . . he’s not the one who’s dead.”

  I didn’t understand. Not right away. I asked where Virgile was. Jean stood still in front of me, motionless, as if staring into a void; his gaze seemed so vacant, you’d have thought he was blind. So I slapped him across the face. A one-way ticket to reality.

  The shock ran through him for a moment; his eyes twitched repeatedly before focusing on us again, finally showing a glimmer of discernment. That was when he broke into sobs. And then he told me.

  Everything had gone as I’d planned. At first. After leaving the Union around eleven o’clock, they took a shortcut up rue de l’Hôtel des Monnaies. That’s where they were cornered by my parakeet. First came the insults, spewed in their faces like gobs of spit. Jean told them not to react, and they obeyed. Exasperated, the man moved on to threats: he planted himself in front of them, blocking their way, then, taking out his switchblade, ordered them to hand over their wallets. This time, they had no choice but to react. Jean stood in front of Virgile and tried to reason with the vagrant. It was a waste of time, he said; the man seemed under the influence, of alcohol certainly, but probably other, more illicit substances too. When Jean refused to give in to his threats, my parakeet became even more aggressive. He began to twirl his blade under Mike’s nose, then Jean’s. Virgile, still in the background, seemed paralyzed by the scene. The tension was growing by the second: Mike urged the man to calm down, Jean tried to get him to listen to reason. A crowd quickly gathered, a handful of curious people watching the fight unfold, some of whom also tried to diffuse the situation. That was when . . .

  Virgile, without anyone understanding what had unleashed such fury, suddenly let out a scream and leapt at his attacker, reversing the roles. Already somewhat dazed in his intoxicated state, the man was completely disarmed. Virgile knocked him to the ground, and the switchblade fell from his hand and rolled onto the cobblestone. My son grabbed it, and before Jean had the time to react, he had thrown himself on the man.

  It is difficult for me to describe the scene. Jean’s account of it was disjointed, the words struggled to escape his throat; he was still petrified, in shock, and his terror stood in the way of all attempt at coherence. As they’d changed from onlookers to witnesses, the people had begun to scream, horrified by the violence of the assault. Several of them immediately called the police. According to my husband, it was as if Virgile had lost his mind­—he continued beating the unfortunate wretch who had stopped fighting back, burying him under an avalanche of blows. Then the blade pierced flesh and suddenly blood was spurting everywhere, and no one was able to put a stop to this murderous frenzy . . .

  Our lives stopped there, at the moment when that poor soul escaped from his wounded body.

  I don’t understand. We were happy. A simple family. A fairy tale.

  The press relayed the incident as soon as the following morning. In the miscellaneous-news column.

  Virgile has been incarcerated for two months in the Prison de Forest, awaiting his trial. Mr. Morago, his lawyer, is fairly pessimistic regarding his release. According to him, my son faces fifteen years in prison. Minimum.

  Once the period of disbelief had passed, we began the struggle to regain our footing in a world that had become permanently hostile to us. These days, keeping our heads high is a battle fought as daily as it is in vain. Two weeks after that night, Michael Hampton moved out: he now lives in an apartment with two other students, in the municipality of Ixelles.

  This morning, while leaving my house to buy a few groceries, I saw that two garbage bins had been emptied in front of our door.

  Daedalus

  BY KATIA LANERO ZAMORA

  Matongé

  A train hurtles past a row of dilapidated buildings. The muffled rhythm of the cars passing over the rails wakes Lea from her dream. Her body still aching from the day before, she clutches her bedsheets as if trying to hold on to the night. But the alarm clock doesn’t lie. Its hands point cruelly at 5:55.

  Lea would rather smother herself with her pillow than step out into the biting cold. Lucas isn’t sleeping either; he silently counts the mechanical tick-tock. When the alarm goes off, she presses the button to stop the metallic shrieking. Lucas rolls over to face her.

  “Lea . . .”

  She turns her back to him, sits up at the edge of the bed. “Lucas, please, not this morning.”

  He sits up too, pulling the sheets tight around him to try to keep warm. “Lea, I’m begging you, don’t go. Nothing is forcing you . . .”

  She grabs the alarm clock with both hands, resets it, and places it back on her nightstand. Then she drags herself out of bed, shivering. “You know perfectly well that I have no choice.”

  She stumbles into the bathroom. It’s so cold that her breath forms clouds around her mouth. At six o’clock sharp, the light turns on; in the bathroom, the heater starts up and the news comes blaring out of the radio. It’s the end of the blackout.

  “Regional Europe must make economic efforts.”

  Her watch reads: twelve hours until the next blackout.

  “You’re listening to la Première. It’s six o’clock.”

  Lea turns the shower tap a
ll the way hot to warm up the bathroom. She leans over the sink, washes her face with cold water, and looks at her reflection in the mirror. There are deep circles under her eyes. Her body is drained from the stress of running against the clock.

  Traffic news: “A few delays on the Walloon highways. Congestion on the E40, already backed up to Leuven. Cars are at a standstill at Tervuren, and a one-to-two-hour delay is expected for those coming to the European capital by car this morning

  A small number of privileged commuters own cars; it takes them two to three hours to reach Brussels. Lea hopes that one day they’ll earn enough, she and Lucas, to allow themselves this luxury. In the meantime, they’ll have to make do with public transport. Staring at her reflection, she tells herself: It could be worse. If others can manage, you can too, Lea.

  She takes a quick, scalding shower.

  More violent clashes have broken out between police and the insurgents of the Free Quarter of Matongé, home to Brussels’s large Congolese community. All night long they’ve been chanting, “Udhalimu”—“injustice” in Lingala.

  “The tension continues to rise today among protestors who’ve set up their headquarters in the Hôtel le Berger, itself a symbol of the struggle against the Europeanization of Brussels, caught in a stranglehold between the European quarter and the wealthy avenue Louise. It’s been nearly one hundred days since the barricades were raised and the activists rallied behind the popular leader Amani Muntamba to protest the expansion of the union’s administrative departments.”

  Lea steps out of the shower, dries herself vigorously, turns off the radio. The hearing that will determine whether Matongé must yield to Europe is set for today. Everyone at the office is on edge, the Deciders are constantly changing their minds, their reasoning is impossible to follow, and she can’t sleep from worry. She puts on her linen pants, tank top, and cotton shirt, ties her hair back in a ponytail, and applies a dash of eyeliner and a touch of mascara, even though the Security Council highly discourages commuters from wearing makeup. She clings to this last ritual of femininity, insists on performing it every morning, as she did before. Before everything changed.

  She comes face-to-face with Lucas in the hallway. He hurries after her and stops her at the top of the stairway.

  “Please, Lea, don’t go back there!”

  “I’m sick of fighting with you every morning.”

  6:15. Eleven hours and forty-five minutes until the next blackout. She rushes down the stairs, grabs her backpack in the entryway, and stuffs it with protein bars, a flask of potable water, and her pair of woolen shoes.

  “You’re sitting on a powder keg, Lea, next to a bunch of kids playing Pickup-sticks with matches!”

  “I have two more dossiers to work on, just two dossiers, then I’ll have my telecommuting license.”

  “And if it’s two dossiers too many? Quit, damnit, you can find a job here!”

  “I’m not going to quit just because you tell me to every morning. We can’t get by on two Walloon salaries, and you know it.”

  Lucas looks away, angry. Lea softens and takes his hands.

  “I’ll stay until I’m on the waiting list to be transferred to a regional office.” That was the plan.

  “To hell with the money. It’s gotten too dangerous.”

  Lea reaches into the front pocket of her backpack and takes out her Mark III 9mm, which she’d bought on the black market from Fabrique Nationale, the arms manufacturer, when she started working in Brussels, and tucks it in the back of her pants. “I know how to defend myself.”

  Lucas smiles faintly. “I know.” He sighs before kissing her lips.

  She laces up her combat boots and throws on a wool sweater. After checking to make sure she has some matches left, she puts on her worn jacket, pulls the zipper up to her chin. She kisses Lucas again. “See you tonight, maybe.”

  * * *

  She leaves the house, pulling on her fingerless gloves, and heads out into the darkened street. A yellowish light seeps from old utility poles. A train passes, making the security barriers between the buildings tremble. Sparks fly as sheet metal grazes iron. Lights come on in apartment windows. The blackout is over, the day has begun.

  The streetlamps buzz, flickering weak light onto the cobblestone. 6:20. Eleven hours and forty minutes until the next blackout. Lea hurries toward the bus stop where passengers wait for the 1, which will take them to the Gare de Liège-Guillemins.

  When you’re a commuter, you know when you leave home. But you don’t know when you’ll return.

  At the end of the street, the bus’s headlights pierce the fog. First step: swipe her AboScan card over the ticket machine. The commuters board in single file, scan their cards one by one under the weary gaze of a visibly exhausted bus driver. When the beep sounds, Lea places herself in front of the camera and allows herself to be recorded. The green indicator flashes; she can board the bus and take the seat assigned to her.

  One seat per person, in a single vehicle, once per day. This is one of the measures that Europe has taken to regulate the daily flow of commuters. It’s important not to miss your ride. Otherwise, you’ll have to wait twenty-four hours for permission to take another.

  At each stop, the bus fills with more passengers. Lea wipes the condensation from the window with the sleeve of her jacket and watches the city go by. Thirty minutes later, at the end of an avenue lit by the neon lights of strip clubs, the Gare de Liège-Guillemins, a tired butterfly with faded steel wings, emerges from the middle of a dreary esplanade. A jumble of architectural relics surround the station, various eras and styles clashing; a sad mausoleum of the outsize hopes of a city with too little means.

  Hordes of commuters descend from buses, trams, and cars, rush toward the gare, and anxiously separate into lines. Lea puts on her backpack, readjusts her gloves, and checks her watch. 7:06, ten hours and fifty-four minutes until the next blackout.

  The bus doors open. The passengers scramble to get off and run for their trains. Lea sprints all the way to track 2, checks the information on the departures board: Liège-Brussels-Midi, 7:11, arriving. She climbs the escalator, passing to the left of less-hurried commuters, and elbows her way onto the platform. A shiver runs through the horde of commuters crowded dangerously at its edge. The train cuts past, a metal serpent scintillating beneath the spotlights. Its lurching noise fills the entire station. Lea pushes to the front, shoving, trampling the other commuters. As the train begins to slow down, the third-class commuters flock in front of its passing doors, hoping they’ve chosen the right spot at the right time, afraid of having to ride on the outside platform between cars, without guardrails, which is often the lot of amateur commuters. Lea knows the drill by now: first, there’s the faint signal as the braking starts; then you have to gauge the speed of the train and the number of doors that have already flown by: six . . . seven . . . eight . . .

  She moves back a few meters, startles a man as she elbows past him, and comes to a stop with her nose in front of the door. She waits for the second-class passengers to board, swipe their AboScan cards, and take their seats. Then she swipes her own card and is authorized to board. Before, the train floors were carpeted, the seats upholstered in an elegant royal-blue fabric. All that remains of that now are the seats’ rusty frames, the floors encrusted with grime, and, in the neon lamps that give off a pallid light, several decades’ worth of dried-up bug carcasses. Once the car is completely full, the doors close, the lights go out, and the rising body heat forces everyone into a kind of claustrophobic intimacy. A nasal voice, distorted by the crackling of a rundown loudspeaker, announces: “Ladies and gentlemen, welcome aboard the intercity train to Brussels-Midi. Next stops, Brussels-North and Brussels-Central.”

  The train begins to move. Lea feels for the butt of her Mark III and pulls her jacket tighter around her chest. Outside, it’s pitch dark. Commuting in winter is like passing through an endless tunnel.

  * * *

  Brussels-Midi. The terminus. The crowd
comes streaming down the long concrete platforms. A fine, steady drizzle falls. The commuters walk nervously down tunnels leading into the bowels of the old station, past graffiti-covered walls and makeshift shelters. The trash cans overflow with rotting garbage. Lea has to step over a homeless man whose presence can be discerned only by the feet protruding from a heap of moldy blankets. Then she hurries to follow the line making its way toward the network of galleries that lead to the central hall, the vital organ of the underground station, buzzing with activity, worn out with the feverish passage of thousands of commuters.

  But never mind the crowd. What matters is the rhythm. Lea moves in step with the man in front of her, matching her pace to his. In this way, dozens of lines form, running along tracks and into tunnels, meeting in columns, separating at automatic doors, or flowing down stairways to the metro trains, tramways, buses. Amid the urban music of squealing brakes, bells announcing the closing of doors, and the whistles of ticket inspectors, Lea is blinded by dancing headlights. She descends into the gallery that leads to metro line 2.

  After taking out her passport and her work permit, she moves into the line of commuters coming from the Walloon region. On the opposite side of a plate-glass window, Flemish commuters await the same customs inspection. Just like every morning, the agent takes Lea’s passport, inspects her work permit, stamps it with the date, and says in a voice even less cordial than he looks: “Welcome to the European capital.”

  Lea collects her papers and goes running down the slow, creaky escalator to the metro platform. A forty-second wait is announced for her train. She stands beside a row of three orange plastic chairs. The waiting commuters tap their feet, gazes flitting from their watches to the departure boards. It’s a reflex, like glancing at the rearview mirror to survey the road. 8:30. Nine hours and thirty minutes until the next blackout. She is late.