In Bruges - a short story by Adam Carlton

---

In Bruges

She is in Bruges. She is sitting outside a restaurant in late summer sunlight, drinking a glass of wine by herself.

She has been thinking, in a bored, slightly exasperated way, about the fact that she is here at all.

She is here because her husband and his parents are on some kind of family pilgrimage. They have come to visit a war grave. It belongs to someone they barely knew of. A bomber pilot, or a navigator. He died here. His plane crashed. He was buried. She assumes they only recently discovered that the grave existed. If they did not know this person, she certainly does not.

She is happy to stay behind. Her husband can talk to his father who never stops watching people, waiting for the slip; and his mother, who apologises to people before they have even spoken, and who judges. Neither of them likes her: for their son they wanted safe, tamed; career-advancing. Sitting here alone feels like a temporary refuge. A small oasis of peace and loneliness.

And then an old man had appeared, slightly strange. With an old-fashioned camera. He made himself known by the bright flash as he pointed it directly at her.

He walked over. He placed the photograph on the table in front of her. He said, “You might want to visit that address?” He walked away without waiting.

Now there is a dilemma.

She could go back to that arid hotel. Or she could walk to the address written on the back of the photograph. The waiter tells her it is nearby. In the old part of town. Probably no more than a hundred and fifty metres from here.

She looks at the photograph.

It is not quite right. The likeness is exact, but the details are wrong. She is not actually wearing a skimpy top. She is not wearing makeup. Her sensible trousers do not correspond to that elegant dress shown in the image. The smile might be hers, unmistakably - but it is one she never practises in front of anyone else.

Still, there is no doubt at all about what she is going to do.

---

-