1. The disabled old man and his wife (hostel in Amsterdam)
He sat in front of me again. The same dark red shirt. The same posture. With his back facing me, he lowered his head and stayed there motionless. Only occasionally did he look around for a few seconds, and then lowered his head again as if he was falling back to sleep.
At the beginning of July, I stayed in a hostel in Amsterdam for two weeks. I woke up early and went downstairs to get breakfast in the hostel every morning. I was almost always the first one there.
One day during breakfast, I saw out of the corner of my eye that a dark red figure drifted by me in slow motion and sat down at the table in front of mine. I raised my head and realized that he was a disabled old man, with dislocated hip, who had to walk around very slowly with metal crutches. As he sat down, I gazed at his languid figure and somehow thought of my grandfather.
Later his wife came. She was very tall and slim. Her short silver hair with a blunt bang and triangular black-rimmed glasses reminded of Anna Wintour, the editor-in-chief of Vogue. But unlike the fashion icon, she was very simply dressed —a long black cardigan with a white shirt inside, and loose black pants. She gently put a hand on the old man’s shoulder, greeted him in English and asked him with a soft voice if he felt ok. They both looked at least seventy.
She soon brought back a plate of food for her husband, and then another for herself. Unlike her husband, she walked very quickly in small steps. As she walked, her body leant forward as if about to fall facedown. After the wife sat down, she took out a city map of Amsterdam and a travel guide. They went on discussing their travel plans for the day. But it was always the wife that was proposing where to go. The husband occasionally asked a short question, and then gladly agreed with everything she proposed.
I was so touched by their love and passion for living and traveling together. It is easy to stay lazy — to find excuses for not standing up with crutches — after facing challenging circumstances. But it is the brave ones, the strong ones, and the wise ones who know how to continue seeking happiness and adventure, even during the twilight years of life.
I saw them during breakfast every morning. The same table, the same routine for both of them. Even the same clothes. I also saw them once at night in the hostel bar. It seemed that they spent most of their time inside the hostel, despite of all the travel plans they had discussed every morning. They were sitting on a bigger table, each with a bottle of Dutch beer. They were examining the beer bottles. The light casted upon their faces was yellow and warm, similar to but softer than the sunlight outside.
2. Young lovers on the train (from Luxembourg to Antwerp)
I took a weekend trip to Luxembourg by myself. It took more than five hours by train to go from Antwerp to Luxembourg, or vice versa.
The scenery outside of the window on the train took my breath away. It was trees after trees, hills next to hills, one green polder after another, wild flowers of all colors, and above all a cobalt blue sky full of big floating clouds. Cows and sheep stood still, while everything moved all together in a horizontal translation back into the past. Occasionally a few austere houses stood on the fields, looking empty but not forlorn.
The train was running alone in nature, while I was sitting alone in the train.
The train was almost empty. The few people on board included a young couple sitting across the aisle from me. They were whispering in a language that I failed to identify. They sat face to face in the same posture, putting their elbows next to each other’s on the little table and supporting their heads with both hands. The girl had a ponytail. The guy dyed part of his hair gold.
They both looked outside of the window at first. The guy pointed to something and the girl started to laugh. Then he looked at her and gently patted her hair to get her attention. They looked at each other face to face and whispered the lover’s discourse. For a moment, they were oblivious to the beautiful view outside, to the quiet observer sitting nearby, to the noises of the old train. They constructed their own world — a momentary world that was burning fervently within but insensible to everything outside.
Later, the guy sat down next to the girl and put his arm around her body. The couple walked out of their solipsist world after a few kisses and started to appreciate the beautiful landscape again. They cuddled and whispered to each other while pointing to passing objects outside of the window. The air was wet with the steam rising from their boiling blood.
I kept falling in and out of dreams during those five hours. When I completely woke myself up, they were already gone, bringing the entire lovers’ world with them and leaving nothing behind for the loners among the rest.
3. The merry dancing couple and a drag queen named Patricia (gay bar in Antwerp)
Right after I returned to Antwerp from Luxembourg, I went to a small gay bar near the hostel with a friend. The red neon light brought a sense of enchantment and mystery to everything inside. A plump drag queen named Patricia was performing lip sync that night with music from decades ago. Wearing a red puffy dress and curly white wig, the drag queen stood under the spotlight and danced in exaggerated moves.
A group of people crowded in front of her and danced wildly to the dramatic music. Some wore tank tops and shorts, exposing tattoos all over their bodies. Some people wore fashionable tight black pants and white T-shirts. Some kept grinding and twerking on each other. Some sat quietly on the high stools by themselves and swayed subtly to the music. There were also quite a few skinny young girls that danced along in the crowd and shared the gaiety of those tall gay men around them. Everybody raised their arms up in the air and cheered at the end of every song.
My friend and I each grabbed a glass of Belgium beer and leaned on the window. There was a couple in front of us. Both of them wore casual polo shirts and men’s shorts.
They stood by themselves next to the bar counter, looked at each other in the eyes, held each other’s waist, exchanged light kisses, sang along with the loud music and swayed their whole bodies with great emotions. During the climax of one song, the younger and taller men held his partner’s hand up in the air, while the older man rotated somewhat awkwardly but cheerfully under his arm.
I looked at their sweet smiles on the face and was touched greatly. Those are the smiles that people living in some other countries have longed for all their lives. But it is almost impossible for them to be acknowledged and accepted by their own cultures.
Later, the drag queen came, patted their butts and teased about their intimacy. A few other men also waved to them and came to kiss their cheeks. The couple smiled shyly to everybody around them, and then to each other again.
4. The luckiest man in town (Flemish dinner host in Ghent)
On the last night of my summer abroad course, we were divided in small groups and invited to go to the locals’ homes for a typical Flemish dinner. I was assigned to be with another girl and our professor. We went to the house of the director of the Flemish culture organization that hosted us for dinner.
Upon entering the house, we met his wife and granddaughter. Both he and his wife were almost 80 years old. His wife was very quiet. She wore a bright yellow dress, which made her look elegant but also so youthful. When we were chatting around a small table on the corner of their big backyard, the wife was in the kitchen preparing for snacks and white wine. The backyard was quiet and spacious. The trees lining the walls blocked the view of all other buildings. It almost felt like we were in the middle of nowhere while, in fact, the house was very close to the city center.
Later, we moved to the dinner table. The granddaughter told us that her grandma was busy all day preparing for the dinner. The starter was a cold dish with little shrimps inside a hollowed tomato. The main course was chicken breast served with red wine. And the dessert was a homemade blueberry cake. After the dessert, we were provided with green tea or coffee, Belgian chocolate, a local sweet called “noses,” and little cupcakes. The man teased his wife before the food was served, pretending to cast doubt on its tastiness. But he was also the first one to praise and applaud after we took our first bites.
The conversation lasted for almost five hours without interruption. It flowed spontaneously in all directions. The man even told us an interesting incident when he was hung on the tree branch after the ladder slipped and how his neighbor climbed the wall to save him. His wife suddenly opened her month and said slowly in English: “Nobody was at home then. It is unimaginable, what would happen if the neighbor wasn’t there.”
The wife scarcely ever talked. Even when we were praising her cooking skill, she just smiled gracefully. I think it might just have to do with the fact that we were speaking English. But she became excited when her husband began to talk about their upcoming trips to Lebanon and many other countries within the following months. Proudly she told us that she had been to many places with her husband, and sometimes with her children and grandchildren. She then pulled out her phone to show us pictures of her two cute grandson sitting on the laps of two older granddaughters.
During our conversation, someone on the table suddenly said to the man: “You’re so lucky to have met and married your wife!” He then giggled with a mischievous gleam in his eyes. Raising his hand high in the air, he said happily: “I am lucky? Well, I confirm!”
When we had to say goodbye in the end, they hugged me tightly and kissed me on both cheeks three times. I was never too close with my grandparents, so I was touched by their amiability and cordiality towards us, as well as their enduring companionship and love towards each other.
5. A little girl in a bright red dress (Acne Studio in Antwerp)
When I was shopping in Acne Studio in Antwerp, I was a little impatient when I saw the old man standing in front of the clothes and blocking my way. He put his right hand in his pocket and just stood there, staring in another direction. Excuse me, I said. He moved forward enough to let me squeeze past, but then kept standing there and staring in the same direction.
I looked at him and realized he was quite fashionable for his age. Gray crew socks with black leather shoes. Short-sleeved shirt and shorts both light-colored. A khaki cap on his head and a petite feminine backpack on the back. He was at least 60.
I continued walking and going over the hanging clothes until I heard a door open behind. I turned around and saw it was the man’s wife walking out of the fitting room. She had a short cropped hairstyle and wore a bright red dress inside a white shirt, which she was trying on. She asked her husband for opinion and turned her body around and back. With both of her hands tightly pressed against her thighs, she even looked nervous like a timid young girl standing in front of her date for the first time.
The man carefully examined the white shirt, which seemed to me a little too loose. He didn’t speak much — only slightly opened his mouth to utter a few words. Then the woman asked for a smaller size immediately. After the woman went back into the fitting room to change, the man continued standing there in the same position, with his hand in his pocket and eyes fixed on the door.
I first thought of my parents. My dad never went shopping with my mom, not to speak of helping her decide how the clothes fit. And then I thought of my grandparents. My grandpa would not even allow my grandma to buy a 50-dollar dress, as he refused to move on to the enjoyable present and was still living in the memory of an impoverished past in the northern Chinese village.
I later saw the man and his wife standing together in front of the checkout desk. The man carried all the shopping bags while the woman leaned on her husband like a little girl.
It is the little things that tell us what love is.
