Journal: Flexing the Brussels Muscle
The International Lesbian, Gay, Trans and Intersex Association (ILGA) recently updated their ranking of European countries by LGBT+ advocacy. The United Kingdom topped this list a decade ago, but this year it dropped to 22nd place. There appears to be a lag in the minds of those who are not directly affected - an unkillable rhetoric that, whatever happens, the United Kingdom is one of the safest and happiest places in the world. It has its issues, but doesn't every country? Well, I think it's worth examining the other 21 countries who out-gayed us this year, and coming in second on the list was
Belgium
And you could feel it. You hadn't been to the country since a school trip in year nine, which if I'm not mistaken, was spent pining over your best friend and shamelessly flirting in front of war memorials, rather than soaking in the culture. The highlight had been when the history department - famed for their joyous personalities rather than organisational skills - left you stranded with your friends in Ypres for several hours. The group of you were quite easily forgettable.
Now you had a stable relationship and a bachelor's degree under your belt. And, returning to the country via the Eurostar, you were glad to have developed something of an eye for art, architecture and beauty. We hadn't meant to choose the weekend of Brussels pride, so it is perhaps revealing that we accepted the copious pride flags lining the streets as a permanent feature of the city. They didn't look out of place, like the rainbow crossings in London on Bristol sometimes can, when the streets they adorn feature smashed shop windows, overflowing rubbish and fights in the park. In Brussels, I watched young people appear on balconies to watch the rainbow crowds, with arms around one another and sun on their faces.
Saint Bavo's Cathedral, Ghent
St. Michael & St. Gudula Cathedral, Brussels
Looking up can do us all a world of good. It's my favourite thing about cathedrals: that they are designed to draw your eye upwards along their smooth willowy pillars to their canopy of stars. As a child I was jealous of the glow-in-the-dark stars on my brother's bedroom ceiling. I imagined him lain there, predicting the future in his constellations. The same hands that brought us into the world nailed the little lights to the sky. So to did those early architects strive to find their fathers in the patterns of the ceiling.
I could put my own stars up now, if I wanted, but I don't. The same day that we looked around the cathedral we went to a restaurant for adults - Le Zinneke. For the first time in my life, I ordered a bottle of wine and was asked to taste it before pouring. What a charade it was - the waiter pretended not to notice that I was just a child, in bed at 8pm, looking at the stars. Very good of him. Although, I'm in my twenties. I ordered it because I wanted it and I had the money to. I suppose it wasn't a charade. I suppose he could have easily mistaken me for an adult.
The Royal Theatre Toone is famous throughout Belgium (at least according to the elderly man who came over to speak to us in broken English in the interval). His name was Jean-Charles and he'd grown up in the Congo ("it was paradise and I didn't know it." He said with a twinkle on his waterline which suggested a tear. "And now I shall never go back"). Though he couldn't speak much English, he still put in a great effort to speak over us. I like these sorts of interactions. He told us about the death of his brother, and, half-crying, he led us back up to our seats for the second half of the puppet show. As the lights went down on the attic room, he leant over to us and whispered urgently "I couldn't live without love."
Neither of us knew a word of French, so watched the puppet version of Guillaume Tell with open mouths like kids watching Punch and Judy, with added Swiss patriotism. I had a strange feeling that when I died, I would find myself sat in that same loft, where the walls were completely curtained with hanging, out-of-use puppets, and I'd have Jean-Charles sat beside me to watch ten disembodied hands puppeteer key moments from my life.
Afterwards, drunk as anything, we ran to the Grand Place, and looking for a bar that someone had given us vague directional clues towards at a wedding, we stumbled across a bar called Goupil Le Fol. Having had dinner at a restaurant just over the road that same evening, I could have sworn that the bar had not been there in daylight hours. As we walked in, my heart flooded with the distant memory of having been there before. The place was a maze of corridors, all crammed floor to ceiling with paintings, cushions, lamps and sofas. Its low ceilings were home to many hushed conversations in french, and as we settled into a sofa, drinking wine and cassis, I began to cry simply for my love of the place. (I'm really fun to go on holiday with.)
Comics
You have to wonder: where are all the girls?
Mini Europe
Grand-Place
Petit-Place
Grand Ghent
Petit Ghent
We got on a train in Brussels and within two hours we were back in London, and suddenly it seemed strange that my bag was full of flyers for tours and puppet shows, written in other languages. As always, the second I leave a place it transforms itself into a dream - inaccessible and intangible. But to fly so quickly between countries feels like a taste of a world where everything works - where everyone is affordably connected. It feels idealistic and utopian. The Eurostar is one of those things that will stop feeling like magic when I get older, but I hope it never does.
When that man stole your bag on the red London bus, I hope he at least looked through your sketch book before he chucked it. I hope he saw me - round and gormless as we sat with cherry beers by the Leie - and felt, as we did, that he had all the time in the world. I hope he packed up and moved to Ghent. I hope he's sat there now with a cigarette and a waffle. I hope he remembered, as we did, that this is our one and only chance to live.
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