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Page 51.

27. Belair: Mélusine's Place

They continued walking up the Avenue de la Liberté, soon reaching the Petrusse (River) Valley.

"Wow, that's scenic," she said as they came out to the Place de Metz, an opposite book end from the Place de Paris—at the other end of the avenue—where they had sat for a while after leaving the train station. From the twin small park circles of the Place de Metz, one had a panoramic view of the High City across the valley. Here, on this side, was the century-old, iconic tower of the Spuerkees, Savings Bank. The edges of the valley were lined with mansions, including those of ambassadors and millionaires. There was the tragic memorial of Villa Pauly, owned by a Jewish doctor who had been deported to a concentration camp by the occupying Germans in World War II. Dr. Pauly's offices had become Luxembourg Gestapo headquarters, with torture chambers conveniently in the former patient examination rooms, and the railroad administration across the street.

Across the valley from Place de Metz maybe two hundred meters or so rose sheer cliffs out of the Petrusse River valley, huge granite walls buttressed long ago with fitted stone blocks to create Luxembourg's formidable fortifications. The three slender turret peaks of the national cathedral, which they'd seen in the stained glass mural in the Gare, were visible across the valley.

Holding hands, Rick and Hannah ambled tiredly across the old, narrow Adolphe bridge, named for a nineteenth century Grand Duke of the still-ruling Nassau dynasties, related to earlier Bourbon-Parma royalty by complex interlocking hereditary titles and marriages.

A lovely, calm sort of evening, almost a faint haze like the beginning of a fog, lay over the deep valley. The Petrusse was filled with greenery, and trees, and a mix of ruins and rooftops. The Petrusse River flowed like a silver ribbon in its concrete canal along the bottom.

Rick and Hannah emerged in the High City—the oldest part of the city, though most buildings along the Boulevard Royal leading away from the Pont Adolphe were modern. Much of the city's vibrant economic health flowed through these corridors, building up to the almost metropolitan appearance of the glass and concrete Kirchberg colony of miniature skyscrapers beyond Belair.

Hannah and Rick walked across the Pont Adolphe to the Place de Bruxelles (Brussels Plaza), where they walked left along the edge of the Petrusse Valley on major roads, coming into the commune of Belair within a kilometer or so. It was a pleasant, leafy walk along a series of busy avenues named for long-ago royalty.

Passing the Parc Belair with its playgrounds, they passed by avenues named for historical cities and generals like Verdun and Marechal Foch.

"There is something haunting about this place Belair," Rick said.

"I know, I feel it too. It's in the air. Like a time capsule."

"This whole country is a time capsule," he said.

She made a dream face. "Belair means Pretty Air. I'll bet it was really sweet here centuries ago when this was probably mostly forest."

"The whole world was probably sweeter then, although life was harder in other ways."

"Aren't we the philosphers?"

"Yes we are. Do you have the exact address?"

She nodded. "You know, it's coming back to me now. When my parents were still young and together, and my dad was in the Air Force stationed in Germany, they had friends who lived here in Belair. That's what it was. They were nice people. I have no idea what ever happened to them. I just remember we came here a few times from Germany on weekends to visit, and it was always so nice and dreamy. Oh god, look at these quaint little streets."

They walked deeper into the neat, semi-modern quarter of Belair. Leaving the chateaux and mansions along the edge of the Petrusse, they came to quintessential, miniature Luxemburgish neighborhoods that possessed the sort of Germanic tidiness mixed with French softness that one found in Lorraine and Alsace.

"We are here together in Belair, a bit of magic from my childhood," she said. She squeezed his hand for emphasis. He returned the sentiment, thinking there was indeed a haze of otherwordliness hanging around here.

They found a narrow street with whitewashed houses on either side. Each house seemed to have a neat little driveway, and an ornate wooden door, and a livingroom picture window with a flower trellis hanging under it.

"Mélusine and Romain's house should be right along here soon," Hannah said as they walked along a sidewalk of small concrete puzzle-piece stones—everything laid out with agonizing neatness. She added, "Their main meal is lunch here. They take a long lunch. During the noon time, you can smell beef or pork dishes cooking from house to house, along with things like Sauerkraut, steamed beets, and all sorts of vegetable things and of course the potato, for which they are famous."

"And a little wine to help things along," Rick added. "Moselle River valley wine."

"There are farms and cows across most of the country too," she added. "Look, here we are."

The sign by the steel mailbox, set on a brick post amid whitewash, read Poncelet.

Hannah pointed. "We're here. That is her husband's name—Romain Poncelet. He is an architect, and she works as a technical librarian. I met her in Shanghai where she was on contract for one of Wan's industries. We sort of hit it off, because she was staying in a guest house where I was also staying—or being kept, I should say, along with two or three other girls, one from Canada, the other from Ecuador. I broke down and cried and told her what happened to me, and she said I should visit her when I became free. Now here I am. Back in the garden of my childhood."

"That's kind of ironic."

"Kind of. You tell me." She leaned down by the steps leading up to the little front door, and found a house key under a heavy black rubber mat. "Here's our key to adventure."

"I can't wait to get some sleep," Rick said.

They stepped inside, gingerly, aware of intruding in other people's home. Hannah said, "Mélusine said we should make ourselves at home. Romain knows we are coming. She says her husband is very sympathetic. He's a big PAX supporter."

Rick had long been sympathetic to PAX's global efforts toward a movement for democracy, labor unions, universal health care, tolerance, and all the other issues of quality of life for working and middle class families that were being tossed overboard by the global corporate-republican movement. (*Endnotes #3)

"Mélusine does technical docs for corporations," Hannah explained as they made themselves comfortable, and Rick examined bookshelves and photographs. "Romain teaches at Uni Lux. Luxembourg is one of the world's tiniest nations, but one of the wealthiest. They keep dancing between the raindrops. At one time they were one of the top seven steel producers, but they sold the national industry to the Indian billionaire Lakshmi Mittal, who has not been kind to workers and unions while owning half the world's steel production."

"That's why they are zillionaires?" Rick said. "Like J. Paul Getty once said, if you know how much money you own, you're not really wealthy."

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