But after all those arguments and all these years, I still don’t really know what it means: chat. The Internet traces its origins back to Germany, and says the word appears in several written forms: chat, chat, chatted or clette (burdock also exists, and some cannot trace it, but that is another matter). Klette Marietteas used above, is an expression of surprise, an exclamation that emphasizes how suddenly something can happen – but no idea who exactly Mariette may be in the whole story (and whether Mariette also had an older and difficult brother, and whether she lived in Germany).
A chatI’m still learning, can also just mean a slap. Ramasser une klette … then means: catching a moth (and I don’t mean the moth).
But in most cases it is used to describe an imbecile, a troublemaker, an incompetent person (the kind that can easily be chat gets).
YouTube, source of eternal wisdom, shows me a video in which a young fisherman from Ninove, after catching a fat, white albino carp, spoke the magic words: “Azo pecking a load.” There is something of a trembling, religious ecstasy in his voice and thick accent.
Whatever it may mean, I mainly link it to my brother, and his tough boyhood and my less tough girlhood. And so when I drive through Brussels, and I see them hanging along the way – on lampposts, on electricity booths, on walls, etc. – I hear the past silently calling to me on all sides: fat chatthick chatthick chat.
And all I can think is: hopefully my birthday card will arrive on time.
