Midnight in Brussels (14 page)

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 last. 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.

Now she wondered what this latest dream could mean. She was expecting a call from Belinda regarding the results of the tests. That had been worrying Rachel. Maybe that was the reason for the dream.

The phone rang.

“Hello?”

“Rachel, luv!”

“Oh, Pete! I’m so glad it’s you. I’ve been so worried.”

“No need to worry, doll. I couldn’t call because of where we were. No worrying, luv. Promise me.”

“But I had such a horrible dream just now. You know how I feel about my dreams..”

“Just be patient a little longer, doll. We’re making such progress with the gathering of the plant life. Found some we’ve not seen before. It is beautiful here. Maybe you’d change your mind about this place if you would come see it. Belem is very modern, luv. We could build a home here, there’s enough work to keep me here indefinitely.”

Rachel was silent.

“Doll, are you there?”

“I’ve got another phone call, Pete, am expecting a call from Belinda. Can I call you back later?”

“Yes, I’ll be here for a couple more hours.”

“Okay, bye now.”

Rachel pushed the call waiting key as she answered the knock at the door. Room Service was delivering coffee and toast.

“Hello? Oh, good. Wait a minute, Belinda. Let me pour a cup of coffee and sit down. Hold on.” Her heart rate increased already knowing that the news was going to be bad. She couldn’t shake the feeling. She tipped the waiter and poured herself a cup of coffee. “Okay, so tell me what the doctor said. I’m all ears.”

“Well, it’s as he suspected. Lymphoma. No doubt about it.”

They both were silent. Both were tearing up. Both were ready to cry.

“I’m coming home. I’ll leave today.” Rachel’s voice quivered, she couldn’t hide her feelings.

“No you’re not. Now don’t do anything foolish. You stay there and write that book. I have plenty of people here to drive me nuts. My goodness, my mother is coming back at the end of the week; Paul is here; Dudley is already suffocating me and he takes Jake off my hands more than usual. So don’t you worry. I’m alright.

“We’re trying to decide what to do about the pregnancy, Rachel. Paul wants me to abort, and so does the doctor. Sounds like it might be the best thing to do because they want to start the treatment right away. They don’t think I should wait till after the baby is born. What do you think, Rachel?”

“Look, I know how much you want your baby, especially since you thought you’d never have any children after Baby Jake, but you do have Paul Junior now. Two beautiful boys. What’s most important is that you’re around to raise those two boys, you know? I—” Rachel couldn’t control her emotions. She couldn’t talk anymore.

“I know … I know … but I just can’t bear to think that I’d be killing my baby girl. She’s a girl, Rachel. My girl.”

They both wept.

After a few moments, Belinda continued, “But I know I must think of Paul and the boys, they’re the most important people in my life and I can’t let them down. So, I will abort. I must. Thank you, Rachel, you’ve helped me decide. I’ll talk to you later, and I’ll be all right so don’t you worry. The abortion procedure is simple the doc says. So you stay there … and write that novel … you understand me?” Her sobs were intermittent.