Brussels Noir

by Michel Dufranne

  * * *

  Ideas would usually show up in my head without prior notice, just as my friends back in Quito used to appear at my place on Riofrío Street. Ideas coming without warning, stealing my sleep, my appetite, my solitary joys; sometimes I’d let them knock on the door and, hidden in the closet, I’d wait until they gave up and went away. Then I’d go to the window to watch them amble downhill, saddened, in search of someone else willing to open the door for them at this late hour. Those friends of mine in Quito would get so wrapped up in your business you’d find them bobbing in your soup, opining about your life with nearly as much gusto as your mother; they knew you better and loved you less, and would never shy away from offending. This is how ideas would come to me, how they would treat me; occasionally I could escape them, but if they persisted I would finally succumb.

  I was on the balcony finishing a book by Erri De Luca about vengeance and justice, and it reminded me of the Lone Ranger. I decided to go down to the abandoned house. It was a sunny day. The weeds had started to take over, even climbing up the walls. I approached the house. From my angle I could see in through the barred windows; surprisingly, the interior seemed to be in good shape—a few minutes with a broom would make it inhabitable again. I was amazed that a group of squatters hadn’t already moved in. It was a perfect place for those folks who hope to change the world by preaching age-old idealistic mantras. I sat against the door. The painting had already begun to lose its shine, from up close it looked frighteningly bad, almost worse than the little drawings my son would make. I stepped closer. The painting, I figured, was an allegory, however poorly done, of a meeting between a succubus and an incubus, and it was signed, W.O.T.N., initials that, of course, meant nothing to me. The two paint cans were in the same place they had been on the day of the attack; the bloodstain, however, had disappeared.

  I scanned the neighboring houses. From that vantage you could see a lot more clearly the comings and goings of the neighbors. The kid probably was, without any of us realizing it, a point of connection in our disparate lives. I went back inside, grabbed a book I had been wanting to read, the Prix Goncourt–winning Trois jours chez ma mère by François Weyergans, and went back to the empty lot. I read for two hours straight, glancing up whenever I saw movement in any of the houses or buildings in front of me. A young woman stood next to her bathroom window and blow-dried her hair; a little boy, sickly looking, pressed against his window glass in what looked like a pose of angelic nostalgia. On page 88 I found a description of how to shrink heads. I nearly jumped—I’ve written about shrinking heads before. I read it through three times. Lucky for me, Weyergans didn’t have the Amazon in his bones, and his writing was rather lackluster. I took in a deep breath, but a second later I saw what a fake I was; mine had been a stupid invention as well, a mere fantasy. I got up and went back home. I spent the afternoon with my son, lulled by the routine of my paternal duties.

  European elections rolled around, with extreme-right parties winning in both France and Great Britain, the German Nazi party even electing a member of parliament, and the Nazi party of Greece electing three. The press and the politicians were stunned.

  Always the same circus, said my wife.

  Damn history repeating itself, I said, only the Italians saved face. For once, I added.

  We were like two winos in the twilight of life and alcoholism. We sat down to watch the news, holding hands, without the least desire for a glass, ready to tip into the abyss together. My wife went to work the next day with her head hung; the shifts in the new parliament had put her position at risk. Soon we’d have to pack up and set off—not to Paris, thank God, but probably to London, or, if she was up for it, and if I was too, to some African embassy. If we were looking to make it rich, we could have decided to go to Afghanistan or Iraq, but that wasn’t us. We needed a place where I’d have the opportunity, but not the necessity, to shut myself indoors.

  I went back down to the empty lot to finish the Weyergans novel. I felt really close to the main character, even if, as I was reading it, he was pretty much my opposite. Every once in a while I’d look around at the neighboring buildings: the same young woman was blow-drying her hair in front of her window, but instead of seeing the sick child, silhouettes flitted by like ghosts. It started to rain, but I didn’t go back inside. Protected under the balcony of the abandoned house, I continued to read. I returned to our apartment at one in the afternoon, ate, and took a nap. Then I rushed out to get my son. As I walked past the police station, I recognized the officer who had jostled me in the doorway. There was a whole gaggle of policemen; I guessed it was shift change. They came smiling, joking, most of them speaking Flemish, all of them brandishing their arms, their batons, and handcuffs. Two of them were the guys who had attacked the boy that day while patrolling the neighborhood. Just because he’d tagged a wall in a vacant lot? At least that’s how it seemed. If I had the gall I would have searched the city for W.O.T.N. because surely he had tagged other neighborhoods and was probably recognized in the circle of local graffiti artists, those urban tribes that seem identical across Tokyo, Santiago, and New York—to such an extent that they bored me before I ever got to know their work. But we weren’t in a novel and my character had no desire to dive into that plot. Above all, I was not in a position to prove anything to anyone; those years were long gone. I had my plan, less literary than cinematic, and I was set on following it to the end; surely that’s what motivated me the most.

  For three weeks I went out every day and read in the vacant lot. I’d take a stool, an umbrella, a thermos of coffee, and some fruit or a sandwich. I reread Le Chercheur d’or by Le Clézio and Un barrage contre le Pacifique by Duras—the first two books I’d ever read in French. They excited me, not so much because of their stories, but because they brought me back to the late eighties and that stupid nostalgia for my country. Le Clézio as much as Duras pushed me toward fruitless searches and grandiose dreams; maybe I too had let myself be hypnotized by them.

  The sick child wasn’t only sick, but dying. Every day his features sharpened more, his gaze languishing. There, with his face on the other side of the window, was the perfect metaphor for injustice. Every morning the girl would reappear to dry her long brown hair. The silhouettes of the first few days gave way to faces, every once in a while stares, even smiles; so quickly does the unusual become part of the landscape, or at least an element of daily life. The initial surprises were forgotten; the vacant lot became my place. When I’d grow tired of sitting on the bench, I’d read as I walked or squatted next to a wall; the brush would give way to my steps, even the house seemed to come alive with my presence and absence; whenever I’d come or go something within her would move. I had the hope (in Spanish we say, literally, I have the illusion: Tengo la ilusion) of seeing W.O.T.N. reemerge. The British would never think of such a phrase, they’d think it was hysterical or even hypocritical. In French, the word illusion has a negative connotation, sort of like a lie, a mistake. I started a novel by Roth, the character was named Consuela Castillo, she was the daughter of exiled Cubans (they call them worms in Latin America), and I was surprised by the a at the end of Consuela; because in Spanish the name ends in o: Consuelo; this detail disturbed my reading.

  After three weeks, I decided to stay in for a few days, hoping to create a little suspense. I observed the vacant lot and the neighborhood from my balcony with affection, as if it were a part of me. Four people were killed in the Jewish Museum in Brussels. The Belgian police were petrified. It was the French who found the suspect, out of pure luck, in France. It was deemed an attack by a “lone wolf,” as they call those young men who come back from the civil war in Syria with the hope that the world will become what they think it is. Helicopters flew over our house for a while, the traffic near the Parliament and the police station was total chaos. My wife would leave every morning and come back every night dejected. She spent a night with Obama. Well, not with him, but near him, and she participated in a meeting with the
French, German, and British foreign ministries.

  For me, this marked the time to return to the vacant lot. The house received me graciously, a beautiful light streaming in through latticed windows, illuminating the bald walls and the dusty wood floors. How many dead have passed through here? I wondered—as I have a habit of imagining horror instead of happiness. The first to appear was the boy, along with his mother; he no longer had hair and seemed stripped of all hope. He smiled and with his small fingers waved hello. The mother also smiled, and I felt relief in her expression, as if her gazing into the vacant lot was her only moment of quietude. The boy said something, his mother responded. I sat with my book on my lap; when I glanced up they were no longer at the window. I started to cry. The girl with the long brown hair appeared and she did as she always did; I was thankful to the repetition that gave the morning its consistency.

  At one in the afternoon two officers showed up. They didn’t enter by hopping over the fence and circling the park, but came right through the abandoned house. A man appeared for the first time at the window where the girl was drying her hair. These are the surprises of any type of writing, whether fiction or nonfiction, whether in the story line, the connecting narrative threads, or the hidden truths. I peered down at my book, my fingers could barely hold it up; the words hardened as if they’d transformed into warning signs, jumping from the page, changing shape.

  I saw their black boots. One officer grabbed me by the arm and ordered me to stand, the other snatched my book: Ecuador by Michaux. He’s a Belgian author, and I told this to the cop, who stared at its cover in disbelief. Be quiet, the other said, squeezing my arm. They arrested me inside the house. It was in that moment that I realized my script had failed me. I tried to free myself, but the two officers lifted me into the air and threw me halfway across the room. My clothes were covered in dust. They beat me to a pulp.

  When I came to, I was lying on a rickety old bed in a locked cell. My left eye was swollen shut. My skin was covered in dried blood. I pulled off my clothes. I’d never seen my body with so many colorful bruises. I thought of my son crying at school. I called out; there was no response. Had somebody at the school gotten ahold of my wife? I tried to remember what info I’d given when we enrolled him: our address, my cell number, our names . . . but not my wife’s number. What were they going to do when I didn’t show? In France they’d call the police. But in Belgium? Surely they’d call the authorities, or maybe even try to reach my wife after not being able to get ahold of me, but she might be in one of those secret, behind-closed-doors meetings. I screamed again. Nothing. It was my fault my son was scared and crying. I’d let myself get carried away by my stupid ideas, and now I was going to have to face the repercussions of my own naïveté. Please, I yelled. Help me! A sepulchral silence (forgive the idiotic description) surrounded me. I was in a clandestine prison, in the Belgium of today, with a new king but the same dull fight between the “haves” (the Flemish) and those supposedly leeching off of them (the Wallonians).

  Shit, I said to myself; these stupidities were still passing through my head instead of anything that could actually help me: the world is the same and will go on being the same ad vitam æternam! I should tell myself stories so as not to go insane, find inspiration in my friend Samuel Blixen who was locked in a hole for years during Uruguay’s dictatorship. The horror of cliché took over in those first few hours in the cell. Yes, my cell—I should call it like it is, otherwise I’ll lose my mind. Let me confess something personal: since I was twenty I’ve suffered from panic attacks and anxiety; it comes in waves, sometimes fiercely and sometimes it’s bearable, but when an attack comes, without exception, it is tenacious, pushing me to the edge of something without body or weight, some nameless fear, an annihilation, pushing me up to the border but not over, this limbo that I’ve already mentioned, where I’m at risk of finding myself completely alone, without even a memory of my wife or child. In my cell there was an old bed, a hole to shit into, and a crude faucet above the hole. It was about thirty square feet and six feet high. The temperature was probably fifty-five degrees but humid, a perfect place to store wine or provoke attacks of rheumatism for somebody so disposed, as I was.

  There was an outlet in the wall. It was the only thing that seemed to come from the outside world. Good God, how those two little slits could signify the entire world for someone like me: the television where my parents and I watched the blurry image of Armstrong walking on the moon. My radio in Paris, the French culture programs, Là-bas si j’y suis, of Daniel Mermet, FIP, and the melomania—banal as it was—that reminded me so much of myself. The enormous radio in my Grandpa Riofrío’s house. The lamp on my work desk, rusted and beautiful. The lamp on the nightstand, which we would leave on as we made love because seeing is just as important as feeling. Charging my first cell phone. The rechargeable batteries we used in my son’s toys, his small lamp with the cosmic shade. The blender and the toaster, neither of which we could live without. My electric razor and toothbrush. My wife’s hair dryer. The ridiculous plugs of Great Britain, those of my own country, the plugs in the hotels I’ve passed through—so many. The dresser drawer where we store our chargers—probably, I kid you not, twenty or more—for our cameras, our phones, the innumerable other gadgets we use or we neglect to use, that we still have or that we lost years ago. Life could be reduced to that act of plugging and unplugging, charging and draining, turning on and turning off, these verb pairs that seem to contain some truth, and yet in the end are pretexts to avoid yourself, to deny your own stupid human condition.

  The cuts and bruises healed, or at least improved. A doctor came, or someone who said he was a doctor, along with two guards. Doctor, I said when he approached me, they don’t have the right to lock me up. I told him my wife’s name, told him that she was a diplomat, and then begged him to contact her. He left without speaking a word. I thought of the Argentine priests giving extreme unction to political prisoners during the dictatorship. I thought of Gustavo Garzón, a classmate of mine in Ecuador, who was disappeared by the Ecuadoran police. I thought of the Restrepo brothers, assassinated by the Ecuadoran police, though we never found their bodies. The world is full of the disappeared, people we forget about too soon. How soon will they forget about me? Which of my friends will have the courage of the Restrepo family?

  The guards came back. I thought they were going to torture me; I couldn’t stop my imagination from running wild. After all this time spent incommunicado, my mind had started to blur the line between simple thoughts and sinister scenarios. Though violent, I told myself, the police are still sane. From when I first came to Brussels until the day I saw them beat W.O.T.N., cops in Belgium seemed more relaxed than anything, almost provincial.

  Both guards stood in front of me. Your wife, one of them said, is disappointed in you.

  What? I replied, thinking I had misunderstood.

  She’s figured out that you’re just as disgusting as all the blacks.

  I know, I said, our relationship was only ever about sex. Plus, I added, she likes Dylan Thomas and I like Alfredo Gangotena.

  One of the guards tried to make sense of what I’d just said; the other smiled ironically. You’re an idiot, he said, you’ll see this is no joke. And then, with a theatrical gesture, he pulled a plastic bag out of his pocket, inside of which was a bracelet. He held it up to me. Recognize this?

  No, I said.

  Well, we found it in your house with, unfortunately for you, traces of blood.

  Then I remembered picking up the bracelet that same day that W.O.T.N. disappeared. And? I spit out.

  You’re going to have to tell us who you killed.

  I didn’t kill anybody, but I did see you beating the hell out of that kid in the vacant lot.

  They both laughed. We’ve come to an agreement with your wife and your lawyer, they told me, and then they left.

  The next day they took me out of the cell and drove me to an airport. I was locked up with a group of men and wo
men. My fellow detainees spoke Lingala, and at first they tried to talk to me in that language. They were from the equatorial region of the Congo. Both they and I were tired of being from a place whose name people always mixed up.

  We’re from the equator, we must be able to understand each other, no? they asked me.

  That’s true, I said, then asked what was happening to us.

  Nothing, one of the women responded. Just life. Her black eyes drilled into me. I’d never given much consideration to my African roots; I’d always thought that my life was guided by words, by their sounds; I never wanted to be what people wanted me to be, I never wanted the circumstances they chose for me, and yet, unfortunately, I’d become the unwanted surprise, the intruder, the mistake.

  The cops burst into the room, brimming with law, authority. The woman started kicking, screaming: My name is Semira Adamu and I am a free woman!

  They took us to the same plane. I went in front, handcuffed but relieved that I would soon be far from this piece-of-shit city and near my son and wife. They made me sit down and asked me to keep calm. This sounded strange, incongruous even. Yes, okay, I replied. The woman, on the other hand, fought like a wild animal. The policemen surrounded her, and the intensity of her battle gradually subsided. Then there was silence. Suddenly the police got really nervous. One started to give her a cardiac massage, the other mouth-to-mouth.