“Sure, but I should probably get cleaned up before we go.”
“Don’t worry about that, you’re with me,” she tells him, rubbing the conversation she doesn’t know I was just having in my face.
He gets into Emilija’s car. The two of them speed off together. I get down from the bed and hang another decoration on the truck’s hood. I try not to think about what happened, even though it’s all I can think about. What did I do wrong?
Afrim comes over to me with the keys to the truck in his hand; he volunteered to drive tomorrow. “So, Elena, I was thinking, if you’ve never been to the old town before, maybe I could show you around tonight?”
“Thanks, but I’m not exactly in a sightseeing mood right now.”
“Oh come on, you’ve been here for almost half a year. If you haven’t even been to the old town, who knows what else you haven’t done? You’re the Maršal of Yugoslavia and you deserve to have someone broaden your horizons.” He pauses for a minute, thinking. “Um, I know, how about this: have you ever had Asian food before?”
“Um, no? And Asian food in Brussels?”
“Yep, it’s awesome. Have you eaten a waffle?”
“No, is that a thing here?”
“Oh my God. Um, have you had a beer, other than the kind in your hand right now?”
“There are other kinds of beer?”
He looks like he’s about to burst out laughing, for some reason. He grabs my hand. “All right, your emergency mandatory sightseeing tour starts now.”
Afrim calls to another one of the members to take over decorating the truck and we take the metro back to the stop named Louise. We walk down, past the Palais de Justice. We turn right and then left, past a church into a big square. To my right, farther up the hill, there is a park with a bunch of metal statues on the pedestals that surround it.
Afrim points in the other direction. “This is the Grand Sablon, where the Saint V’s Day parade will start two days from now.”
We walk down through the square. It has a lot of chocolate shops in it, for some reason. Then we go down a winding, cobbled road. We turn onto another wide street with cars on it. The two of us pass a building that’s almost as ornate as the palace next to where the residence is. Afrim tells me that this was once Brussels’ stock exchange, before it got merged with the Paris one and no one knows what they’re going to do with it now. We take a left and then a right. It brings us to a narrow street. Some of the restaurants have their names in a bunch of spidery characters, in addition to French. The road sign on the side of the building on the corner informs me that this is the Rue des Poissonniers.
Afrim walks into one of the restaurants. It’s hot inside. He orders two of the same thing for us, and a couple of beers, except not the kind I’m used to drinking at the guild’s container. Looking on the label, I can see the words ‘Westmalle,’ ‘Trappist,’ and ‘Tripel,’ though I don’t know what they mean.
We clink cups that look like oversized wine glasses and I take a sip of the beer, before I dig into the food, some kind of noodles in oil and peanuts, with chicken and funny vegetables. I find that I’m wolfing it down with wild abandon.
“So, how is your first pad Thai?” Afrim asks, his own mouth full. I am starting to feel a little lightheaded.
“It’s great. I’ve never had anything like it before and this beer goes down so smooth.” I keep gobbling up the noodles.
He keeps talking with his mouth full. “I know, this is one of the only streets that the locals come to for food in the city center. Most of the Belgian stuff is for tourists.”
We finish and he pays before I can offer. Afrim leads me out of the restaurant.
“Now, let us begin le grand tour.” He says the last part in French, then goes back to Albanian. We start at the magnificent white façade of the La Monnaie opera house, then head down to Saint Catherine’s church, which Afrim informs me has a makeshift Serbian Orthodox church in one of the chapels. Next to Saint Catherine’s there’s a wide square with some fountains in it. Afrim tells me this used to be a fish market. Then he gives me what clearly to him is the most important news about this square. “Around Christmas, the Winter Pleasures market is going to be here. Mostly just food and booze. We can go to that, too. It’s really great, if you have the money.”
We walk back the way we came. Afrim leads me past the stock exchange building down another narrow street. We enter a crowded square. My jaw drops. I’m surrounded by some of the most ornate buildings I’ve ever seen, studies in gilding, stone and metal sculpture.
Afrim is looking at me. “I know, right. This is the Grand Place. It doesn’t get more ‘old town’ than this.” We stand there for a while, admiring the gilding, the carving, the statues and the tall spire on the building Afrim tells me is the city hall for Brussels’ center commune. He leads me down another street that has a lot of waffle shops on it. Some of the vending windows have them piled high with toppings. I go for one of them, taking out what little money I have.
Afrim waves me off. “Those are only for tourists. We only eat them with caramelized sugar or chocolate.”
He orders two of them with chocolate. They are different shapes. One is more angular and crispy and the other doesn’t have a definite edge, it’s more doughy. Afrim tells me about how the first is called a Brussels waffle and the second originally comes from the town of Liège, in the French-speaking part of Belgium. Then Afrim leads me to another café off to the side of a statue-fountain that is, of all things, a peeing boy in a costume.
“We can stop for another beer here, by the Mannequin Pis. It’s one of the biggest attractions in the city, but this café is surprisingly low key.”
There are a bunch of old dolls inside the café, I guess meant as decoration. Afrim orders a few more beers, each of which comes with a different-shaped glass. One, called Karmeliet, goes down particularly easy. We have a few more beers talking and laughing about random stuff, like two old friends, though I guess I don’t really have a frame of reference for having old friends that goes back beyond this summer.
He gets up again and pays. My tipsy mind realizes something. “Come on, I know you don’t have a lot, at least let me pay for something.” I only have about five euros on me, but it’s the least I can do.
He puts an arm on my shoulder. “Nah, I got this.”
I feel like I’ve had enough booze to make me really tipsy, even though I don’t think I drank that much beer. The rest of the night passes in a blur: Afrim explains how the peeing boy is the statue of a real kid who got lost and his father promised to put up a statue of whatever he was doing when he was found. He tells me that now there’s a society that chooses which costume it will wear every day. Then we admire the view from next to the monument to the Glory of the Belgian Infantry, by the Palais de Justice. We take a bus back down another street to the neighborhood where the university is, I think, and turn on a street that for some reason, I specifically recall is named Rue Elise.
“This isn’t in the city center—it’s in Ixelles—but it is one of my favorite places. If it has a name, no one knows it, but it has hundreds of kinds of beer. Mostly we just call it the Secret Beer Place.”
“Sounds good to me.”
We stay until the Secret Beer Place has its last call. We stumble out of the bar, with me too gloriously drunk to even remember Drago, or be jealous of him and Emilija. We take a tram back to the city center. Afrim walks me to the residence, which I guess is really nice of him.
“So, how did you like it?”
I peck him on the cheek. “Thanks, I had a great time. I think this was exactly what I needed.” I stumble into the elevator and have to try a few times to swipe my pass. It goes up. I stumble out into the entry hall. I’m so drunk for some reason that I fall over an armchair, knocking it over. I let out a loud groan. I must have made a loud bang, because after a minute the light goes on and Hristijan hobbles out of the master bedroom in a bathrobe, on one foot and his crutch. Rada walks out of my room
and sniffs me.
“Great, I see you’ve been partying again.” Hristijan cocks his head at me.
“It wasn’t another guild party. Afrim showed me around some of the highlights of the city and we had a few beers, that’s all,” I mumble.
“How many?”
“Not that many.”
“What kind of beers did you have? You look positively pickled.”
“Different kinds. I think one was called Karmeliet.”
Hristijan shakes his head and brings the fingers of his free hand to the bridge of his nose. “I’ll take it that your friend conveniently forgot to mention that Tripel beers practically have the alcohol content of wine.”
“Oh, I guess that explains it.”
He sighs like he’s tired. “Just go to sleep.”
I stumble into my bedroom and fall into my bed. Rada curls up next to me. Afrim was a good friend to do that for me. Anyway, tomorrow is the final party before Saint V’s Day, at the VUB—the Dutch-speaking counterpart of our school. I guess Hristijan will be annoyed when I get home late again tomorrow night and the next too, but he’ll have to deal with it. Just because I’m the Maršal of Yugoslavia, that doesn’t mean I’m not allowed to have a life beyond my duty.
Drago
The Dutch-speaking VUB’s guilds have it a lot better than we do. They are housed in this old place that was once used to store coal: caverns with high, vaulted iron ceilings that make the music reverberate off the walls.
I am wet with beer. It’s traditional here to throw your plastic cup up in the air when it is almost empty. Even though I do it too, I really think that it is a waste of perfectly good beer.
I see Afrim glance over at Elena on the opposite side of the metal cavern. I can’t believe that she would do this to him: go with him on a date that used up most of his money and then treat him like he doesn’t exist. This has to be some sick way of getting back at me. I knew she was bad news.
Afrim throws his cup up into the air, sighs and then walks out of the vaulted iron chamber.
After a moment, I throw my almost empty cup into the air and follow him. There is a border hedge near the entrance outside. I look around, but Afrim is nowhere in sight. I wait for a few minutes in the relative quiet. Then I hear Elena’s voice behind me.
“Hey, I saw you leave. Is there something wrong?”
I snap at her. “What kind of sick game are you playing?”
“What the hell do you mean? You could at least tell me what you’re accusing me of.”
“I mean with my brother. I turn you down, so you go running off with him, leading him on like it’s some bizarre way of getting back at me?”
“What are you talking about? He just offered to show me around town, that’s all.”
I drive my forehead into my palm. “Are you really that clueless? He asked you out on a date. You said you were only too happy to go along with it, and now he’s all worked up that you gave him the cold shoulder tonight, after he used up most of his money.”
“What? Sorry, but how was I supposed to know that’s what he was doing? I grew up in a compound disguised as a winery. So, yeah, I really am that clueless. Besides, even if Afrim and I were dating, there is no reason for you to get so worked up about it. You told me yourself.”
“I’m not getting worked up. I’m just trying to keep you from hurting my brother’s feelings, intentionally or otherwise.”
“So, in other words, you don’t want to be with me, but you’d freak out if I decided your brother was option number two?”
“No…it’s just…”
She takes a step forward and knits her eyebrows. Her bangs are soaked in beer and pasted onto her forehead. “Look, I do have enough of a clue to realize that there is something else going on here. You and Afrim survived a war. I’m not buying the ‘I’m something that Afrim needs to be protected from’ explanation. It’s not the same as protecting him in a war zone. You’re not angry at me. You’re the one who is jealous.”
I step forward, almost in her face. She doesn’t back up. I feel her breath on my nose. “That is the most ridiculous thing I’ve ever heard,” I manage. “I already have a girlfriend.”
Her forehead creases dislodging some of her wet hair. She leans the final few centimeters and forces her lips against mine like it is part of the fight. I push back with equal force before I catch myself and pull away. “What the hell?”
I caught myself a second too late. I hear an aggravated shout behind us: Afrim, pissed at me.“Seriously? She gives me the cold shoulder and this is what you go and do?”
I look over to see him start walking into the darkness. “Afrim, Afrim!” I yell after him. He doesn’t turn around. “It didn’t happen like you think. Afrim!”
I look over at where Elena is standing, her mouth having dropped into a slight O, as if she only now gets what she did. She yells after him. “Afrim, I’m sorry. It was a misunderstanding.”
My brother walks around a bend.
I snap at her. “Some misunderstanding. Look what you’ve done.”
“Me?”
“Yeah, you started it.”
She juts her head forward. “You’re right, I did. And you finished it, you jerk.” She starts walking away in the opposite direction from Afrim. I stand there alone in front of the hedgerow, telling myself again and again that this has to be proof that nothing good could come from being around Elena. The latest chore she’s created now ahead of me, I head off in search of my little brother.
Twelve:
Saint V’s Day
Drago
I hear my brother groan as I stare out the multipaned grimy window in our room in the Gare Maritime.
“There’s a bucket next to you if you need to barf,” I say to Afrim, without turning around.
“Shut up,” he rasps. “I’m not talking to you.”
I keep staring out the window. “You just did. We literally live in the same room. Stop acting like you’re five. You’re a hungover mess and you’re probably still high.”
“How else was I supposed to react after my own brother tried to steal my girlfriend right out from under my nose?”
“I wasn’t trying to do that. She kissed me.”
“Why would she do that, if she basically agreed to start going out with me two days ago?”
“She had no idea you were asking her out. You should have seen when she tried asking me out; I turned her down.” I sigh. “I told you that she wasn’t girlfriend material. She’s practically a feral person.”
“It sure didn’t look like you felt that way last night.”
I look over at him for the first time this morning. “Look. How was I supposed to know she was going to do that? We were all drunk, I was surprised and I just sort of reacted in the moment.”
“You like her, don’t you? What’s more, that’s why you like her, even if you say you don’t.”
I sigh again. “It’s not a question of that; you’re just saying that because you like her.”
Afrim leans over the old bucket we found and finally throws up.
He coughs a few times. “Fine, true enough, sorry. I got so pissed. In more ways than one, I mean.”
“I’m sorry, too. I should have seen it coming and not let things get so out of hand last night. She’s had people structuring her whole life up until she moved here. She’s never needed self-control before.”
There is a moment of silence, before Afrim asks, “Are we good?”
“Of course,” I tell him. “We’ve lived through a war and then a decade and a half on the street together. We’ll be fine.”
“Yeah, at least it’s good to see that you finally feel that way about someone again.” Afrim sighs.
“I don’t,” I say. “Like I told Elena, I’m with Emilija.”
As if on cue the girl we’ve been talking about comes running into our room.
My voice stays cold. “The two of us need to talk now. What you did last night was un.…”
Elena sh
akes her head. “I know that you might be upset at what happened but we have bigger problems right now. I just heard from Lucija that Daesh issued a bombing threat against the parade today. The Brussels- Capital Region authorities are threatening to cancel it. I tried to get Hristijan to intervene but he says he has no power over the Brussels regional government.”
Lucija herself steps into the doorframe beside Elena. “Come on, get your sorry, hungover behinds cleaned up. We’ve got to get moving.”
I jerk my head to the side. “You’re here? From what Elena told me you hate all the stuff the student guilds do.”
“I know and it’s true. But one thing I hate way more is capitulating to terrorist threats. The parade has got to go on. We have to get to the Brussels Cabinet of Ministers immediately.”
Elena nods at me. “You and Lucija are going there. I’m going to head to the British Permanent Representation to the EU. I think I know who’s really behind this and I am going to have another chat with Sir Jonathan.”
Elena
The car that dropped Drago and Lucija at the Brussels parliament building lets me off in front of the building that’s partly the Permanent Representation of the United Kingdom to the EU. I show my Croatian diplomatic credentials to the guards at the now-repaired front entrance. They let me in.
I walk over to the main reception desk. “I need to talk with Sir Jonathan, now.”
“I’m sorry, ma’am,” the lady sitting behind it tells me. “Sir Jonathan is in a very important meeting. He cannot be disturbed.”
“I’ll show him an important meeting,” I snap, and walk deeper into the building, ignoring her calls to come back. I pass through the ballroom where Watson threw the reception for me. I see the signs that separate the embassy, the consular section and the Representation to the EU. I head for the third doorway at the ballroom’s far end. Walking down the hall, I hear voices. I reach the end of the hallway and open the door before the guards running down the corridor can stop me. I walk in. Sir Jonathan is at the head of a long meeting table, with others seated at the sides.
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