Alice Austen revisits how Belgians responded to Nazi occupation

In May 1940, as the Nazis invade Belgium, the residents of a sedate apartment block in Place Brugmann, Brussels, wake to find that their longtime neighbors, the Raphaëls, have disappeared. Alice Austen uses this moment as the starting point for her subtle debut novel, 33 Place Brugmann, about how a diverse group of Belgians react to the Nazi occupation.

She tells her story in snapshots, writing in the multiple first-person voices of those who remain at 33 Place Brugmann and those who flee. Charlotte is a young artist who may not see colors but has “vision.” Miss Hobert is a gossip with “a rabid imagination.” The courageous and pragmatic Colonel Warlemont resists the occupation with the assistance of his dog Zipper.

The narrative’s diffuse nature can make it hard for the reader to keep up. But Austen’s peripheral approach admirably reinforces the atmosphere of paranoia, confusion and suppressed fear. And such is the glittering, dreamlike quality of the prose that we happily skate over the surface of the text rather than unpick how events are linked.

What really distinguishes the book is that all hindsight is laid aside. The reader lives with the characters through terrifying, and occasionally mildly comic, situations in which no one has any sense of what is happening at the time or how the future may unfold. One beautifully written and memorable short scene follows another. Before the war, Leo Raphaël, an art dealer, enjoys an elegant lunch in a Brussels restaurant with his associate who kindly suggests that it would be best for him to hand over his business – because “it is only a matter of time before you will be prevented from working.”

Perhaps the most moving narrative thread belongs to Masha, a seamstress who bolts to Paris. In a rare departure from “present moment” writing, she speaks from beyond the grave, telling us of her love for Harry. Together they worked as couriers for the French Resistance. “Should I have paid more attention? Darlings, one thing I know is that it would not have mattered.”

Austen was apparently inspired to write the novel because she lived briefly at 33 Place Brugmann. As someone who spent sixteen years living in that same area myself, I admired her ability to understand “the battlefield of Europe.” Often thought to be quiet and evasive, the Belgians have a talent for appearing to adapt and comply while slyly resisting.