LIEZELE, a small town in the province of Antwerp, Flanders.
Up to a few months ago, I was totally unaware of its existence. And I was again about to forget the place exists, had it not been for the newspaper article on two brothers Erik and Bert Mertens, the last two of three asparagus growers of the town.
My own grand father used to grow
asparagus. I almost grew up in them. I knew about the short season, - from the end of April till June 24th - to harvest them. There is no good English translation for the Flemish words 'asperges
steken' or
'krabben', which means digging them out of the ground by hand. As growing asparagus is time consuming and requires some specific skills and a good eye.
Asparagus in Flanders are traditionally grown under long hilly lanes of light ground. That's the kind of ground you will find here, in the Puurs - Kalfort - Liezele zone. It is also the type of ground I grew up at : Baal - Tremelo - Begijnendijk - Werchter in the province of Flemish Brabant.
White asparagus, just like Belgian endives are white because they cannot see the sun light. They grow underground and it is essential to harvest just before they stick out. The ground will show cracks which means it is time to harvest. An asparagus grower thus has to rise before sunrise for the first harvest of the day.
Growing asparagus is time consuming and hard labor. I often watched my granddad get on his knees each time he had seen a crack in the ground, dig for the white gold with his bare hands and then cut the asparagus at the bottom of the lane. On two or three occasions I was allowed to try myself. The lanes were long and no machines to transport the harvest to the farm could be used.
My granddad was a stubborn, authoritarian man who would not tolerate resistance. Everyone had to help at the farm and when my father went to university to study mathematics, he declared him war. For my grandfather studying was equal to fooling around and being lazy. My grand mom on the other hand supported my father's choice. But she was by no means up to the stubborn mindedness of her husband. What he said was law and there would be no further discussion.
When I met a man from Liezele I had zero knowledge on Liezele grounds. True, he made it no secret he and his four brothers and sisters had grown up amongst the cauliflowers, another vegetable requiring early harvest and hard labor. I guess his habit of rising early explains why he never had a desire to sleep in for a romantic cuddle.
His story reads like a 'modern' version of child slavery. The moment he could walk he was helping out on his parents' farm, not allowed to have a normal childhood. I never met his father who died several years ago. But my guess is his father too would not tolerate a word of resistance. A no was a no, tout court. His kids had to work, work hard and abide by his law.
I fell in love with this man because of what I then thought 'his great dose of common sense'. Common sense he had developed, so I assumed, whilst working the cauliflower fields. He was a hard worker and I admired him for that. He also treated me very nicely, taking me for dinner weekly, paying my milonga entrance fees.
As long as I behaved properly, accompanying him to his company's annual dinner party and the end-of-the-year family gatherings, being the obedient 'wife' cooking and staying at home I was the ideal partner. And he would still be nice to me. But then I once went for a drink with a friend I had not seen for months. He was at work, on a Saturday, and I told him so. I missed his two phone calls in a spam of ten minutes to find him red of anger and jealousy the third time he called, less then fifteen minutes after his first call. No matter how hard I tried to assure him I would not stop thinking of him even when out for a drink, I could not convince him. It took me four days, tons of apologies and begging on my knees to turn his mood and his 'opinion' on me. I was warned already then but refused to 'see' it.
I am an independent, self-employed woman, a single mom with a twelve year old living in European Capital City of Brussels. I love traveling and have done so extensively. Four years ago I bought a building in Buenos Aires . I have been renovating this building for almost two years now hoping to open a small boutique hotel with only a few months left in order to launch the project. Such a project requires taking risks, devotion, perseverance, creativity, social skills and a huge financial commitment. I was in the wrong, foolish belief a man who runs his own company would be able to fully understand and support me ( not financially) in my project. At first, he seemed to be on my side, jokingly stating that if one day I had to go to Buenos Aires for six months to get my project on the rails, he'd have no problem with it. But when I announced I was going there for a month, he could merely see it as ' five weeks of luxury holidays'. Only, he made no word of his anger and frustration then.
My 'punishment' came the moment I returned. He apparently was too busy to pick me up from the airport. When he returned from work that Friday, he immediately changed clothes to go & ride his bike for .... three hours. After a long bath he offered to take me for dinner only to invite his sister along a few moments later. Dinner was all about work, his work, no word on my my trip to Buenos Aires.
When he woke the following day shortly after sunrise, he put on the same cycling clothes again, this time to disappear for over four hours. I dared to comment and a storm of aggressive words is what I received in return. When I mentioned the presence of his sister during our first dinner in a month together, I was an ungrateful child and he made it very clear he had paid for it.
He took off anyway tough I had solicited his help to move some furniture in my B&B.
He left and I started packing. He had handed me the keys again of an old, red Renault I was able to use. I felt like an intruder, but one that was moving out. And I knew I would never return to his old-fashioned, smelly bachelor's apartment again. We met in my place the same evening and for a nice, romantic 'first' dinner-for-two since my return he asked me to make him eggs. Can a Saturday evening be more romantic than that !
As the week passed, his attitude toward me turned 'normal'. But on Friday, knowing I had been cooking for dinner, he did not show up and did not bother to call to let me know. His excuse was poor, claiming he had been too busy the whole day to call. When I reminded him a call or message would have taken less than a minute, he returned my objection stating ' I had just spent five weeks of luxury holidays in Argentina'. The third comment as such in my one week since my return.
I had enough of it, and worse, it hurt, it hurt a lot. It was so crystal clear at once this man would never understand me, would never support me in whatever I would undertake in my life. He could just not understand what had made me so angry.
It was the start of two months of silence. On my invitation to talk ten days after the crisis, I received no reaction. On two milongas where we bumped in to one another, he completely ignored me. And then he was so smart to 'steel' the red car from me whilst I was dancing without giving me a prior warning. That hurt again, and it marked for me the point of no return.
Having a decent conversation after this event continued being impossible. I realized what I knew before, this is not a man for me. He lacks the minimum of conversational skills; he tends to compensate his lack of control over me with
manipulative, punitive behaviour; he is unable to even try to see the situation from my point of view. I am the woman and as long as I do and behave according to his expectations, all is fine and he will treat me well. The moment I 'step out of the box', - which I do a lot, - I am punished. So now he has the wisdom he cannot live with a woman who goes on holidays out of the blue ! Poor man. What a sad life he lives. How lonely can he be.
It is my story, but a story lived by so many other women still. Men who cannot stand the power in women. Women with an education, a successful job and a large social circle pose a major threat to these men. Men who's egos stand in the way. These men will love a woman under certain conditions, one of them being she lives up to their rigid, inflexible set of expectations. It is a primitive,
'medieval' view on women. It is a way of thinking not only to be found in 'primitive' societies. Flanders, known as one of the most industrialized regions in the world, still suffers from this medieval way of thinking, more often to be found in rural areas rather than in the cities.
We have a saying in Flemish: " You can take the man out of the village, but not the village of the man." Unfortunately this is still true, so true...
Aan de ingang, een halfuurtje na het begin
van de milonga, een gelukkig niet te lange rij. Ondanks dat gaat het traag aan de kassa, veel
te traag. De zaal ziet er vanuit dat standpunt al veel te klein uit. Ik besluit
een ticket enkel voor die avond te kopen. 12 €, maar daar krijg ik niet eens
een bloedlelijk AVA-bonnetje voor in de plaats. Een halve meter verder rijkt een dame me een
flauwblauw met witte zwanen en roze hartjes bedrukt polsbandje aan. Of ik een
weekendpas heb gekocht. Ik knik eerlijk van niet en schuif zonder bandje door
tot in de zaal.
Up to a few months ago, I was totally unaware of its existence. And I was again about to forget the place exists, had it not been for the newspaper article on two brothers Erik and Bert Mertens, the last two of three asparagus growers of the town. 
