 asanova Restaurant Book: Gaston's Story
Chapter 1
It was the summer of 1948 when my family moved to Malmedy. The distance from Ligneuville to Malmedy was only seven kilometers, but it might as well have been a thousand. I was living in a real city - or so I thought. Actually, Malmedy only had about 5,000 citizens, but to a seven-year-old boy accustomed to living in a small village, it was enormous, filled with opportunities for adventure and new places to explore.
My parents had rented a retail space across from the majestic cathedral on Malmedy's main square, and opened a small grocery store that was part of the "Delhaize le Lion" franchise. When a customer walked in the door, a bell would ring in our living quarters behind the store. My mother would bustle out, with a lyrical "Bonjour, Madame!" and step behind the counter. The customer would tell my mother which items she needed and my mother would whisk around the store gathering the order, perhaps a bar of soap from the shelves behind the counter, a bag of coffee from the window display, and a head of cabbage from the crates displayed on the sidewalk. Our father also worked from the store selling wholesale liquor, which he delivered to the bars and hotels in the old truck he brought from Ligneuville.
Our grocery store was in a four-storied building. A small kitchen and living room were behind the store at street level, and our bedrooms were on the third and fourth floors. Sandwiched between the store and our bedrooms was a second-floor apartment rented by a quiet English teacher and his wife. Even though we shared a stairwell, we rarely spoke to them. This quiet, well-educated couple had little in common with our raucous family.
My third-floor room was wonderful - I had it all to myself that first summer in Malmedy. Walter, who was only three, slept down the hall in a white metal crib in my parent's bedroom. Gilbert, Rita and Denise - now young adults busy with their own lives -- slept in rooms above ours on the top floor of the building.
These were prosperous times. During the day, I could hear the sound of buildings under construction and, at night, dance music filled the air. Dreams that seemed beyond my reach during the war years could now come true.
* * *
In the fall, I entered the second grade in Malmedy. Most school days in Malmedy had a regular routine, but Thursdays were special. Early in the morning, our mother would make bowls of milky coffee for breakfast, often whipping a raw egg into the coffee to ward off colds. While eating my slice of bread smeared with butter and berry jam, I could hear the clatter of city workers setting up the wood and metal frames that would be used as vendor booths for Friday's farmers market. By the time school was over for the day, the entire block behind our store looked like a giant jungle gym. All the neighborhood children would gather there like hordes of monkeys, swinging and climbing as we made our way across the square, never touching the ground.
I was raised with mixed feelings towards "le marche." The vendors at the Friday market were competitors for our grocery store, and my parents resented local people buying fruits and vegetables at the Friday market that we sold in our store all week. Sometimes I would catch my friend's parents red-handed, buying apples or potatoes from our competition. I never knew whether or not to tell my parents.
About once a month, an accordion player visited the market, setting up a small table and chair, protected from the sun by an umbrella. I would stand for hours listening to him play his accordion while he sang popular songs from the French hit parade. He earned his living, not from tips, but by selling poster-sized sheets of lyrics of these songs, printed on bright red, yellow or green paper. Now and then, I had enough money to buy my own sheet, which folded to fit into my pocket. I would practice singing my favorite songs all through the week, carrying the lyrics with me until the paper wore apart at the folds.
My dream was to have a piano so that I could make my own music. Denise learned of my dream, and egged me on, encouraging me to ask for a new piano as my special Christmas gift that year.
The holiday season in Belgium begins in late November, as children prepare for Saint Nicholas Day on December 6. We were always on our best behavior, because Saint Nicholas could be watching. We knew Saint Nicholas as a stern man, dressed in regal red and gold robes and a tall hat, like a bishop's. He carried a long staff and traveled with a donkey and a small, dark-skinned boy who seemed very mysterious and a bit scary. If we misbehaved, we knew that Saint Nicholas would order his dark helper to leave us switches and vinegar instead of toys and candy. Every evening during the weeks leading up to Saint Nicholas Day, Walter and I would put an apple or carrot stick in our slippers and place them outside on the doorsteps. The next morning we would hurry down the stairs to see if Saint Nicholas had visited our house, taking our treat for his donkey and leaving behind a piece of candy or a trinket. One evening, Saint Nicholas' white-gloved hand appeared at our window and tossed candy and walnuts on the kitchen floor. We ran to the window, but he was gone, with only the sound of his bell ringing in the distance.
On December 6, we received the special toy and candies that Saint Nicholas had left for us and exchanged gifts with our friends and family. This was our main gift-giving holiday; Christmas Day was reserved as a religious celebration of Christ's birth, and the gifts under the tree on Christmas Eve were more practical and substantial - for example, a sweater, bicycle, or - I hoped - a new piano.
As usual, our parents closed off our living room the week before Christmas. Then, on Christmas Eve, they finally allowed us to enter the living room. A huge tree stood in the middle of the room, decorated with angel's hair and tinsel, and real candles burned bright on each limb. When I entered the living room, it was clear that my dream piano was not with the gifts surrounding the tree. Needless to say, I was disappointed, even though I did get other, less extravagant, gifts. A year or so later, my parents bought a used piano and arranged for weekly lessons, so my dream eventually came true - just not in the way that I had hoped.
* * *
By the spring of 1949, Walter had grown too big for his crib, so he moved into my room and my bed. I knew the day would come when I would have to give up my privacy, but I still didn't like it. My first task in defending my territory was to make sure he stayed on his side of the bed. His natural tendency was to roll over close to me where he would be warmer in the unheated room. I had to put a stop to that. I told Walter that a robot lived in my bed that patrolled the invisible border separating my side from his. Whenever Walter invaded my space, the ruthless robot, "la machine," pinched and scratched his intruding arm or leg. It didn't take him long to learn to stay on his side.
Our bedroom floor was made of linoleum-covered cement. In the winter, a midnight trip to the bathroom was like walking across an ice block. To complicate matters, I first had to climb over Walter to get out of bed, since my side of the bed was against the wall. Many nights, I lay in bed, my legs squeezed together tight, hoping I could hold back the urge until morning.
One night, I came up with a solution. I rolled over toward the wall, pulled down the covers, lowered my pajama pants, and quietly urinated against the wall. I carefully choose my angle so as to not splash the sheets and controlled the flow so the wallpaper absorbed the liquid before it reached the floor. It worked perfectly! Satisfied, I rolled back in the warmth of my bed and snuggled under my gold blanket, happy to have found a simple solution to a major problem.
A month or so later, I was walking through the store when I overheard the couple who lived in the apartment below us talking to my mother. This was unusual, so I slowed down to listen.
"We have a wet spot on our ceiling that grows larger every week." the young wife said. "Is it possible that your apartment has a leaky pipe?"
I didn't say a word, but quietly slipped out the door and ran down the street.
* * *
My mother's dream was to own a building in a prime location for a larger grocery store. She and my father worked and saved toward this goal, so there was little money left over for trivial things like toys. That was ok, because our friends didn't have store-bought toys either. Instead, we had a tremendous amount of freedom - and an entire town to use as our playground. No one was concerned if we were gone from morning to dusk. Our parents knew we'd be home when we got hungry.
Even though Malmedy was being gradually rebuilt, there were still blocks and blocks of ruins and rubble from the bombs. Walter and his friends played follow-the-leader, each one trying to out-do the others with their dangerous stunts. They climbed half-burned stairways in abandoned buildings, leaped from one rooftop to another, and walked across unsupported pipes like tight-rope walkers. They explored tumbled-down buildings that were grand houses before the war and found secret passages where people hid their valuables from the soldiers. Sometimes they found treasures that were better than any toy - a helmet, pair of boots, or an old ammunition belt filled with cartridges, some were German and others American.
One week, we all had the best toy imaginable. Rita's fiancé, Pol, worked for a garage mechanic who sold used cars occasionally. One day, Pol parked an old army jeep behind our house while he looked for a buyer. It didn't take long for Walter, our friends and me to figure out that we could put the jeep in neutral and "drive" it, powered by a dozen pushing boys and girls. All week long, we took turns driving around the square. After a few days, Pol reclaimed the jeep, but to compensate us for our loss, he gave me a dozen firecrackers, which I gave away. I hated the sound of firecrackers - they reminded me of the bombs.
These were happy times; no one wanted to be reminded of hard years that they had lived through. My mother worked in the store six days a week, and, as in Ligneuville, we always had a young woman who helped her with the housework. Saturday was the time to clean the house, bathe Walter and me, and hand us a fresh set of clothes for the week.
From Saturday evening on, my mother was on holiday. Saturday and Sunday nights, all the adults - including Denise - went out on the town. In Belgium during those years, there was no such thing as "teenagers." Even at the age of 15, Denise was considered an adult, and was expected to act accordingly. She, like Rita and Gilbert, learned social skills by attending dances and parties with our parents. There were no chaperons - that concept didn't exist. Everyone just went out and had a good time dancing, eating, drinking and talking until two or three o'clock in the morning.
So, every Saturday and Sunday night, Walter and I ate a sandwich and drank a glass of table beer. Sometimes our mother also served us milk soup, bowls of soupy cream of wheat, mixed with fresh milk and sweetened with heaping spoonfuls of brown sugar. This was a special treat for us. After eating, we played a while and went to bed. When we were asleep, the rest of our family went out for the evening. Gilbert played the accordion in a band, our father played cards at the local café, and my mother, Rita and Denise went to the dance hall down the street. We didn't have babysitters. In those days, parents would never have considered paying someone to watch two sleeping boys.
One night, I woke up and the house was deadly quiet. I crawled over Walter, turned on the bedside lamp, and went down the hall to our parent's bedroom. No one was there; Walter and I were alone in the monstrous four-storied building. I returned to our room and nudged Walter. "Wake up," I said.
"Huh?" he mumbled, still mostly asleep.
"No one is here. But I know where we can find them. Let's go." I pulled Walter out of the bed and found our overcoats. I could see snow falling outside our window. Even inside, it was so cold that we could see our breath. We put our coats over our pajamas, put on our socks and shoes, and went down the stairs to the sidewalk.
The streets were empty, but about a block away, we could see the lights and hear the music pouring out of L'Ambiorix. We shuffled through the snow until we reached the dance hall. The windows were fogged up from heat generated by dozens of dancing bodies. With our noses pressed against the glass, we could make out Rita dancing slow with Pol. He was wearing a jacket and tie, and she had on her best black silk skirt. The record playing was "Mona Lisa," which I'd heard the accordion player sing at the Friday market. Only this sounded a lot better. In the corner, we could see our mother talking with the women at the next table, while Denise flirted with a GI sitting beside her. So this was what they did at night! I couldn't wait for the day when I could dress up and go out at night too.
Two men standing near the entrance saw us peering through the glass, and called our mother over.
"Goodness, what are you two boys doing here?" she said, putting on her fur coat. The men chuckled as she led us home, holding each of us by the hand.
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