january-2010

We were heading in the general direction of Bastogne and were
now in the region where the American 101st Airborne Division withstood the German assault in
the Battle of the Bulge. The forest was thick with history – occasionally a forgotten cement
fortifi cation poked through the fallen leaves.
The path wound around a rocky outcropping and ended abruptly at a stone cottage with a tin
roof and smoke curling out of the chimney. A small dark fi gure sat on a wooden bench against the
house, bent over a bucket; she continued whatever it was she was doing without looking up. A
mangy dog slept curled at her feet. He raised his eyes, barked indifferently, then returned to sleep.
Instinctively, and not wanting to intrude, we turned our bikes away and back down the path. Her
shrill voice cut through the silence like the squeak of a rusty gate.
“You!”
She looked up and beckoned us with arthritically rigid fi ngers. Jackie and I looked at each
other and we silently agreed to return. It had been a hot day and we were short of water.
We tried not to show our hesitation as we pushed our bikes toward the house. The old woman,
dressed in black, stared at us impassively as we approached. Thin, wrinkly face, corvine nose,
puckered mouth without apparent teeth, and snow white hair. She cut an almost witch-like fi gure.
“You want water?” she asked in French.
She rose from the bench and following her stooped fi gure, we went into her home. Inside the
gloomy room, illuminated only by the sun streaming through the windows, a covered pot
simmered on a wood-burning stove and a pair of cats slept together on a rocking chair.
A chicken scurried under the rough-hewn table as we entered.
Grabbing a plastic jug, she led us through
the house to the back and the water pump outside.
A mud-caked pig sidled up to us, squealing as it
rubbed against my leg.
“Best water,” she said, as she pumped the
handle. “What are you doing here?”
“Camping au sauvage,” I said.
“You be careful – very dangerous,” she said, leading us back to the house.
The single, low-ceiling room was panelled on one side with grey, weathered wood.
ADVENTURE TRAVEL
“She looked up and
beckoned us with arthritically
rigid fi ngers”
A few framed photos were tacked to the wall, one of them a portrait of a large, well-dressed
family ranging from the elderly to the infants.
“My family,” she said. “In Charleroi – all university!” The pride in her voice was evident.
Her husband, she explained, had been a coal miner and had passed away fi ve years before.
She sometimes went to Charleroi to visit the family, she said. “But I do not like the city.”
“They come to see you?” I asked.
She closed her grey eyes and shook her head. It was not a question I should have asked.
“What is dangerous – out there?” Jackie asked. I detected the nervousness in her voice.
“Boar, wild pigs – very unpredictable.”
I looked at her for more information. “In the fall, it is breeding season,” I think I
understood her to say.
Outside, she nodded to her bucket. It was fi lled with wild mushrooms. “Pigs love
mushrooms,” she said simply.
WILD Holland Herald 41