'Tres gentile, tres aimable,' she says to me, the Yorkshire terrier pup in her large expensive handbag sniffing my knuckles.
I have thought about this. But I'm not inclined. The not-having-anything-to-be-responsible-for is...important, actually. For now.
We'd started chatting when I asked her about the dog. I tend to do this. Throw myself into conversations in French inevitably tying myself in knots, grasping, reaching for a word, mouth opening and closing like a trout, as my victim, polite yet ever more embarrassed, patiently waits.
She is giddy to have met someone from Yorkshire - the origins of her beloved pup 'Pepe', as she sees it. She asks me if I like Brussels, and we talk about the shopping, the parks, the weather, the people.
Then there's a pause, a sense of conversation over. We both turn away and the packed tram bucks and veers along Avenue Louise. Everyone too hot, everyone holding themselves in, everyone trying not to move, trying not to make themselves even hotter, one woman holding a small, buzzy, battery-powered fan to her face.
For the umpteenth time I pine for grey Yorkshire mizzle...and I'm thinking of a cool Dales shower when suddenly, surprisingly, the woman, who I'd all but forgotten about, leans for forward and takes hold of my wrist.
'Guess how old I am!' she challenges.
This shouldn't happen, should it? The potential to be offended - the potential to cause offence! No-one, certainly not a complete stranger on a tram in full earshot of the public, should ask a question like that! Certainly no woman who doesn't want to risk being shot down in pieces.
I look at her, trying to decide whether I misunderstood. But she is smiling, encouraging, willing me to speak. So I refuse to guess. I tell her it is simply not possible. I do guess, though, inwardly...sixty-something. Early sixty-something.
Bright eyes, twinkly. The sleeves of her pressed, white, linen suit halt at her elbows revealing tanned, freckled forearms, manicured nails, shimmering-pink polish. She has a dainty silver diamond cross around her neck. Her dark hair is styled and teased to the nape of her neck, a few tendrils around her face. A little too much make-up for such a hot day. But yes, she is beautiful, I think. She has something, a glow.
'J'ai soixante-quinze ans,' she proclaims, quite loudly actually, certainly loud enough to turn the heads of other passengers. 75 then. Wow. 'I am lucky, no?' she says. No smugness in her manner, none at all. No vanity, just joy. She does look incredible. The inner cynic scrutinises for scars.
I can't believe I say this...but after some appropriate oohing and ahhing and agreeing, I ask what her secret is. We journalists tend to blurt this one out. We ask it of people hitting 90 or 100, of couples celebrating a golden or diamond wedding. As if there is some magical formula... when the reality is there is no answer. We all muddle through. We all cock it up. We all find a way..
She reaches for the puppy and pulls him onto her knee, talking more at him than me, stroking his back, firmly. 'I wake up in the morning you know, and I look in the mirror and I smile at myself - and I really mean it!'
She waves her hand with a Flamenco-like flourish. 'There! That is what you have to do. Easy. No?'
I'm at a bit of a loss. Wishing she'd speak a bit more quietly. She continues. 'Terrible things have happened to me....truly terrible. But this is my life, I am still here!'
There can't be a soul aboard this tram by now who isn't listening in.
She goes on: 'If you are lucky you know how to be happy...I know how to be happy, that is why I look so young!''
Blinking good genes too, I'm thinking. I'm also thinking 'how, on the 94 tram, did we get to this?' Yet there is something incredibly uplifting in this woman's vivaciousness, her assuredness..
I say 'terrible things?'...and she waves me away with a smile and the slightest irritated shake of the head. Not to be discussed then. Certainly not the place and, one tram stop to go, not the time either. Or maybe she thinks I'm missing her point. A man behind her catches my eye, rolls his eyes. He thinks she's bonkers.
Pepe the pup pants and does his hot dog routine. The tram welcomes and disgorges more passengers and we talk of other things, mundane stuff: the best clothes shops, restaurants, holidays. Then it is our stop, where the tram terminates, at Place Louise, where Tiffany and Versace rub brickwork with Chanel and Dior. I'm here to meet a friend and her little boy for a burger.
At the stop I can tell she wants to be off. 'It was lovely to meet you,' I say. I'm about to say more when she grabs my arm, pulls me to her, air-kisses both cheeks, waves au revoir, and vanishes in a click clack of slingback heels, little Pepe bouncing and bumping along in the bag beside her. Her strong perfume coils around for a while until a gust carries it off...
Later, after the burger, in a cafe off the cobbled streets of the Sablon, Mozart's Clarinet Concerto through the speakers, I am surrounded by lively chatter; French and English mostly. It passes over like comforting background music. I dip in and out.
My coffee is in a big bowl with no handles, so you have to grasp it in both hands - comforting, drinking like that. There are three older women at a table opposite eating beautiful salads, drinking rose. They look in their 70s which probably means they are 110.
The tram woman lingers. I want to know about her. I wonder, in retrospect, whether her gaiety was all too frantic, forced.....masking something else.
I wonder whether she means it all, or whether she's fooling us, fooling herself..
Or maybe I'm seeing things that were not there. Maybe I'm wrong to doubt her. Maybe she lives by every word, every day.
I hope so.
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