This morning I was awakened by a text message….it was my Ukrainian
friend, Eugenia, telling me (not asking me!) that our plan to meet for a walk
this morning was being moved forward from ten o’clock to half past nine. She and Fiesta, her little black Scottie on long-term
loan from her daughter-in-law, were getting anxious to get started. “Ok!”
I texted her back in brief reply.
She then called to change our meeting point to the Canadian Embassy on
Avenue Franklin Roosevelt, just a five-minute walk away for me. “I woke you up,
didn’t I?” she asked me in French.
Though she speaks perfect English, in addition to her native Russian, we
always speak to each other in French. “Well, yes,” I replied, “but that’s
ok…I’ll be there!” I lingered in my bed
a bit longer after being up rather late the night before, then finally pushed
myself out, got ready, and out the door.
A perfect day greeted me…the temperature was balmy, the sky
blue…my heart felt light, and so did my feet.
I looked up and down Avenue Franklin Roosevelt when I reached the end of
my cross street, and spotted the familiar red and white flag of Canada with its
maple leaf. I then saw from a distance a
little black bouncy mop of fur on a leash….Eugenia and Fiesta were waiting for
me.
I first met Eugenia last fall on the 94 tram along Avenue
Louise. She was with her friend
Margareta, a Brazilian, and they were discussing an Italian film they had just
seen. I had also just come from the same
film at the Istituto Italiano di Cultura.
I asked them how they liked the film, and thus began a conversation
which lasted until Eugenia descended from the tram two stops before mine, and
by then we had discovered some common interests, exchanged mobile phone
numbers, and made a tentative plan to go walking together in the woods near our
neighborhood.
This was only our second walk, but I felt just as if I were
going to meet an old friend. She had
opened her heart to me on our first walk, telling me about her wonderful twelve
years with the love of her life who had died tragically of cancer just three
months earlier. Today when I met her, she was stronger and more determined,
with many plans in the making, not the least of which is a month-and-a-half
long trip to the Caucasus where she will visit
with a dear friend.
She wanted to show me the Parc Solvay, which I had never
seen, so we headed into the Bois de la Cambre along footpaths that crisscross
this urban park which melds with the huge Forêt de Soignes, a 5,000 hectare
forest in Brussels
filled with giant beech trees, and enjoyed on foot, by bike or on horseback. We
did, in fact, greet some riders on beautiful chestnut thoroughbreds, and
Fiesta, despite her small stature, managed a growl or two at them as they rode
past.
We approached the well-known “Etang des Enfants Noyés” (Pond
of the Drowned Children”) in which, fortunately, no child has ever
drowned. The story goes that a miller named
Verdronken once had his mill here, and when he died, his children inherited it,
and it was known as the pond of the “kinderen verdronken” in Flemish,
mistakenly translated as the pond of “the drowned children.” If you read my blog from last fall, you will
have seen photos of this tranquil pond, reflecting dreamy, shimmering images of
the surrounding trees on its thickly-glazed green surface.
We continued on through the woods until we came to an
opening where the sun poured in as we stepped into a walled potager garden, in
a slightly neglected state, but still being cultivated. I saw thick red stalks of rhubarb buckling
under the weight of its giant leaves, and all around the wall enclosure, lovely
espalier apples. Beyond the walled
vegetable garden, we stepped into an idyllic landscape of old apple trees in
blossom, sloping in neat rows down a hillside towards another small pond. In the distance, the ruins of a 19th
century mansion could be glimpsed among the trees. Also near the pond, we spotted whimsical
giant mushrooms carved from tree stumps, presided over by a wizened and bearded
face also carved from a felled tree. We skirted the pond, where Fiesta created
a stir by barking at the mother ducks herding their ducklings along the pond’s
edge. The mother ducks were quite
indignant and protected their babes fiercely against this outrageous
intervention by a small black fury.
Eugenia quickly snapped Fiesta’s leash on and scolded her for disturbing
their peace.
The mansion in ruins brought to my mind scenes from Jane Eyre, and I half expected to see a
blind Mr. Rochester sitting somewhere near the folly-like structure. Eugenia
told me that the house had burned twice, and is purported to have some sort of
curse upon it….vines are growing out of the turret and it would certainly serve
well as a film set for a romantic horror story.
Just beyond the ruined façade was a tremendous old tree of great
sculptural magnificence that I had to photograph. Unfortunately, I had brought
only my mobile phone as a camera, so the quality of my photos is not very
satisfactory.
Eugenia led me to a picturesque elliptical garden with a
lily pond at its center. Here the stone
paths curving around the central water element were festooned by arbors where I could see rose
canes preparing their blooms for the month of June. I will have to go back to
witness their beauty in a few weeks’ time.
Planted in the beds between the concentric circular paths were groups of
white and dark red tulips, past their peak, but looking lovely as their huge
petals strained to their maximum circumference.
We seated ourselves for a while on a bench in the sun, and
began speaking Italian, as Eugenia wants to practice again after nearly two
years since her last course. Ironically,
as we headed back around the pond and past the apple orchard, we crossed paths
with a father and his three small boys, speaking Italian. Eugenia addressed them in Italian, and so
began an interesting exchange in which we discovered that the man is a
professional opera singer, qnd speaks some Russian as he has performed in Prince Igor, Eugene Onegin, and Boris Godunov. He detected Eugenia’s Russian accent, then
asked where I was from. He commented
that English speakers in general usually expect everyone to learn English,
but that Americans tend to be better than the British at speaking other
languages. I felt slightly
redeemed. He is from Naples, and married to a Belgian. She speaks English to their children, he
speaks to them in Italian, and they learn French at school. After saying goodbye, we had to head directly back home,
as I needed to leave for a class in the early afternoon. I returned home after three and a half hours,
rejuvenated by the natural beauty of this glorious May morning.
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| The little black fur figure is Fiesta...she is full of energy! |
