THE REVELATION OF SAINT NIELSEN THE BANNED

In the last hour before dawn I arrive at the square, once a village square now the last square at the fringe of the city of Cairo. Beyond this square there is nothing. No History. Only desert. It is five to five, the night is still and cold, the square deserted, the houses around it sleeping. At my arrival a shadow slides out of a dark shop, shuddering in his frock. He stops and lights a cigarette. – I am looking for Dabscha, friend to Amr, I say. – What Dabscha, the shadow says, - there are two, brothers, one Ismail and one Mohammad. – Ismail Dabscha, I say. - Mr. Dabscha is on his way, says the shadow, - please have a seat. I remain standing, flag in hand, the hole in the centre hidden, veiled like a newborn child wrapped in white silk, dusty and grimy after the long journey through the city, the night. I watch the square. In the shadows of dry trees something is moving slightly, a camel or a lonely mule. Beyond the houses a cock crows. After a while a man appears out of the darkness leading three horses. He stops. The horses are old. – You are Dabscha, friend of Amr? – Yes sir, he says. – You will take me past the pyramids and into the desert? – Yes sir, I will, but not me, the boy. – What boy? I say. – The boy is on his way, please have a seat! He lights a cigarette. I remain standing. – I bring you three horses, the man says, - one for the boy, one for the lady, and one for you. – I walk, I say, - I am the Prophet. – Even a prophet one day needs a horse to carry him. – I walk, I say. – Even Isa entered the city of Jerusalem on an ass. – You are right, I say, - But I walk.

After a while the boy arrives. – I am Tamer, the boy says, - I will take you to the desert, you will be there before sun rise, when sun rise you will see the pyramids, or maybe you will not, maybe there is a mist, and you will see only desert and mist, please mount on your horses. – I walk, I say. – No, sir, the boy says and shakes his head, - you cannot walk, sir, it is the desert, it is long way. – I walk, I say, - I am the Prophet! The boy looks at me. Then he turns his head and looks at his boss. The boss shrugs. Or spits. Or reels of a prayer. The night is still and dark. – Let's go, says the boy and offers his hand to the film crew and helps her mount one of the tired old horses and then jumps upon the second. And whether I climb the third and ride through the night and into the desert like a prophet or stubbornly keep to the ground and walk the flag towards the dawn of a new day is up to those who may follow, to you.

And this is what I see as I leave you, peoples of Egypt, peoples of the world, and go before you back in time, past the first icons of civilization, the pyramids, and into the future: On my right hand I see a long wall separating time from eternity, city from desert, and on my left hand I see shadows of decaying houses and huts, and suddenly there is a thunder rolling, and out of the darkness before me a band of young boys standing in stirrups bend taut as bows almost flying, their forearms and right elbows lifted over the glistening backs of foaming horses, yelling and howling break the silence of night and vanish behind me leaving the night cracked open into the first grey of dawn, the long cloud of dust slowly sinking to the ground.

And then I see the dirt road bending away from the wall and leading us into a narrow passage between run-down houses, no lights, but sudden invisible waves of damp air, the sharp and deep smell of animals, - no peoples live here, the boy called Tamer says, - behind all these walls, in all these houses there is only animals, horses, camels, you ever ride a camel? – No, I say, - I walk.

Then the road takes a turn, past the last leaning house or shack of Cairo, and to my left I see a line of dry trees standing out of the grey of dawn, and to my right I see a graveyard, no flowers, no bushes, just big square stone tables lying like closed doors in the dust. As I pass a black bundle unfurls into a woman straightening up and looking up on me, her lips moving in prayer or curse. I see the path opening into a nowhere, an in-between, neither field, nor desert, the ground boggling with dung, burned straw and rubbish, the heat from hidden embers, veils of cold smoke moving in the rise of the desert wind, a lonely withered tree and under the tree an old couple, man and wife, older than History, stooping, shovelling the stinking remains of a burned out civilization into large plastic bags. And I see the path slowly rising out of the smouldering and into the desert, up along a fence vanishing into the dark grey now slowly turning into a light brown haze over the dunes. And I see another band of horses suddenly rolling out of the haze down along the fence towards us, the boys yelling wild as gypsies as they pass. And then nothing. The haze. The dunes, dirty and grimy, rising and falling before me. And I see the Prophet walking along the endless fence separating desert from desert holding the Law, a soft silken tabula unfurling, flapping in the desert wind, the hole moving like a mute mouth in the centre. I see three horses and three human beings, two men and one woman, and on the slope behind the desert path the carcass of a dark horse, a stray dog digging into the steaming entrails.

I see the long dune rising into a small desert mountain and on the soft peak a shack made of sheet metal, cardboard, remains of old rugs, and open to one side, and to the other, leaning against the rugs, an old armchair, imperial style, once pink now yellow from desert dust, surrounded by dark ashes, burned poles, old drums, soda cans and rubbish in a motionless rolling down the slopes. I stop before the dark opening and I see a human shape huddled-up in a dirty blanket on the ground inside, feet slightly protruding, wrapped in rags. The boy called Tamer dismounts his horse and bends over the huddled-up and calls a name and the shape grunts and vaguely moves. – What is it? I say. – A boy, the boy called Tamer says, - he lives here, alone, since he was seven, he left his family and went up here to live alone on the top of this mountain in the desert. Sometimes, if people pass by this mountain, they will stop and he will make tea for them. And I see the older boy bending over the younger and once again calling that name. And slowly the shape unwraps itself from the blankets and sits up rubbing its eyes with dirty hands, mumbling something neither words nor song. And later I see the young boy stooping, stirring up yesterday's embers into the pale and faint fire of a new day. And later again I see the two boys sitting side by side on a board in the opening of the shack, the older smoking a cigarette, the younger hunched over, forehead resting upon hands as if praying or crying or drowsing or mourning or pondering or deep in despair. And I go to the other side of the shack and stand for a while, and in the distance I see three triangular shapes slowly appearing out of and then again disappearing into the luminous haze. I have to go, I say to myself, and I turn towards the shack and suddenly I cry out, - Tamer! Tamer, it is time to go! And from behind the shack not Tamer, but the young boy appears and he stops before me and looks at me, and I look into his eyes, and I see that they are deep, an endless space opening into itself, and I look into that space and I see that there is mildness and no doubt, and I see that he is wise, wiser than Tamer, wiser than me, wiser than time and the peoples of Cairo, and he takes my hand and he looks at me and his hand is dry and old and warm. – I have to go, I say. And he slowly and patiently shakes his head. – I have to, I say, - it is time. – You must wait for the tea, the boy says. – Why? I say. – It is special tea, made from the fire. And then he lets go of my hand and disappears behind the shack, and I close my eyes and once again I see the three huge triangular shapes sinking out of and into and out of and into the luminous haze, and I realize that I don't know if they were there or if what I saw was just made out of my seeing, a vague breathing in the brain, the retina waving like a transparent curtain in the desert light. And I open my eyes and there right before me I see the shack made out of discarded sheet metal, torn up cardboard boxes, remains of old rugs silently moving in the desert wind, and I see that it is for real, it is there, and if it is the last remains of civilization or the beginning of a new I cannot say. And instead the boy reappears from behind the shack and stops before me and hands me the bottom of an old can, steam curling up into the sharp morning light. I look into his eyes, - thank you, I say. And I raise the can to my mouth and he watches me carefully as I blow onto the surface and then take a sip. And the taste is the taste of tea, it is, it is the taste of tea and yet there is more, there is the taste of the fire, the taste of this place, of the shack and the sheet metal, the cardboard, the rugs, they boy, his life and my death and the desert. – Thank you, I say and I hand him the can and I turn and pick up the flag and start walking slowly down the slope and then over the next dune and down behind it and into the desert.             

LAST CALL FOR MR. NIELSEN!

I woke up and I opened my eyes and I saw no difference, neither day nor night, and I knew that this was The End, hot and damp and yet I was freezing like a skinny old secretary bird and my stomach squeezed by the hand of the Big Unseen, and it wasn't the National Security, no, neither the white nor the black nor the plain-clothed and not even that Russian agent with plutonium in his take-away sushi, it was the good old plagues of Egypt that had finally counted me out as they had once counted the mission of he who came before me, of Niebuhr, from five down to the one and lonely, the eternal stranger, the I. – I ..., I whispered and that was all, my stomach was squeezed by a series of convulsions and finally went into a meltdown, but I wasn't able to move. And there I lay for years or days or minutes on end until finally the film crew gently knocked on my door, - I ..., I croaked or peeped, and in she came. She turned on the light. I looked like corpse. I was. – Weren't we supposed to ...? she said. – I ..., I whispered and shook my head. – Oh! she said.  She stepped onto my bed and dragged the dustheavy curtain aside and opened a small hidden cupboard and dragged out a dirty white towel wrapped around the hard disc containing the entire video recordings. – Maybe it is better that I bring it with me, she said, - in case they might show up. – But where would you ...? I mumbled. She had met a young Dane and now she would bring the hard disc to him and ask him to hide it in his suitcase and bring it out of Egypt. – And you ...? I said. – I'll manage. Do you want me to bring you something? – No, I said, - ... just water. She brought me a big bottle of water and left me in the darkness. And there I lay listening to the state of emergency, that strange Egyptian modus vivendi or modus moriendi, the sound of constant panic, thousands of cars unable to move, going and getting nowhere, the third world production of nothing but noise, exhaust fumes, garbage and uproar, le honk pour le honk, there is no future and you ain't getting nowhere, but there is this horn in your car, your freedom of speech, - I am! Here! I am! The millions of voices moving like bubbles in a boiling soup, the medieval bray of the fruit seller down in the passage going like a metronome through the sound of the twentieth century exploding into the twenty-first. I all the time I was waiting for the moment when they would finally knock on my door or just step right in and pick me up and do away with me. Why not? They had been following me, investigating my mission, they knew who and why and exactly where I was, there was only one thing left for them to do: close the casket. But why? I wasn't going nowhere now, finally I had turned into my own double lying as pale and white and still in my darkness as he in his. I was no good or bad or threat to neither them nor my contractors nor History nor humanity and the world. I didn't even mean anything. I was nothing, not even a sign to misinterpret. And so no one came. And outside, the state of Egyptian emergency slowly faded into a slumber, an indolent mumble that wasn't the end, but just the transition from Thursday into holy Friday. And when mullahs started weeping I crawled out of bed and into my grey suit, dragged my corpse down the corridor and into the elevator. The sleepy aging elevator boy held out his hand towards me and I looked into the open palm and it was dry and chapped, a landscape of narrow dirt roads, a story with no beginning and no end, and I shook my head and pressed the button and down I went. Outside in the Tala'at Harb Street the film crew was waiting for me. – Oh, Mercy! I mumbled and hailed a white cab and fell into it, - just take me away! – What? said the illiterate driver. – The airport! the film crew said and turned the camera on me. – Me? I mumbled. She nodded. – This is the end, I said, - and what have I done? Nothing. But at least I tried. I went as far as I could, didn't I? She nodded, and did her thumb up. – I went as far as I could and then even a little further, and everywhere I was stopped. But even then I kept on walking, didn't I. I failed and I failed and I failed and here we are and what have I done? – Great! she said. – What? I said. I was talking about world history, the clash of civilizations and the new world order. She thought about her film. – The history of the world is no film, I said, - not even a documentary. Or maybe it is. – Here we are and what is the outcome? I said, - lots of stories, but no change. Take a look, I said, - everything is exactly as it was. The supposed statue of the Prophet Muhammad is still in his box untouched and unseen by the peoples of Egypt. And the impossible walk that should have taken me, the twenty-first century Moses carrying the Flag of the Future, the law of a new world order through the land of Egypt, past the pyramids and into the light of a new desert dawn ... it all imploded into the darkness of room no. 5. Or maybe I'm wrong, I mumbled and looked out into the state of emergency, the long line of military complexes, fences, dust grey gardens and somewhere behind, the presidential palace, - maybe I actually went there, all the way through the Cairo, through History and Mankind and out on the other side, past the pyramids and into the desert, and this ..., I said, - is this just a dream?

At the check-in I collapsed. They kindly picked me up and placed me in an old wheel-chair and wheeled me all the way to the gate. There a man was waiting, plain-clothed. - I am the doctor, he said. He took my temperature, pulse, blood pressure, absorption of oxygen. Everything was too low. – I am afraid I have to keep you here, he said. – Here? I said, - in Egypt?! He nodded. – No, I said, - no! And then nothing. And then the sound of a voice from the PA: - Last call for Mr. Nielsen ...      

GO DOWN MOSES, GO ALL THE WAY DOWN!

This is no age for a prophet. Can't be. Or maybe it is just that I feel so alone. Back then, in the Age of Prophets, they were multiple, the one prophet was baptizing the other, it was like a Prophets League, they were fighting, denouncing and renouncing each other, the way from fisherman to fame was just one little step, one day you'd be the carpenters illegitimate child and the next day the son of God. I have a son, but no Father. I just wake up in the morning unseen and unwanted by the Egyptian peoples in the flea-crowded bed of the windowless Room no. 5. Un-called-for I get out of bed and put on my grey suit and tie and pick up my flag and knock on the door of the film crew and wait for her to get ready, and against all odds and the word and law of the Egyptian authorities I just go on walking the Flag of the New World Order, the Flag of Friendship, the Flag of Wonder, through Cairo. And for every step I take my way is getting heavier, step by step my legs are being filled up with lead, no doubt they have poisoned me, hired some Russian agent who behind my back or right in front of my face and gaze have filled my Foul-Felfela with plutonium, another heavy metal, heavier even than lead. But in spite of all that, in spite of ban, lead and plutonium I go on, I stand up and pick up my flag and go on walking on through the days and nights of this world, through suburbs suffocating in noise, garbage, human stools and exhaust fumes.  

Today we picked up the red thread of our history in the district of Shubra, or Rud El Farag, or maybe it was the El Wayli. In a seemingly nameless side alley of a side alley the film team took shelter in a gateway while I proceeded a few hundreds of meters down the alley. I stopped under the remains of a suffocated tree and pulled out the flag of my bag watched over by a sweaty unwashed young man leaning out of his window in a dirty-white sleeveless T-shirt smoking like the eternal image of the unemployed and lost generation of the world. His gaze was a misty blend of indifference, suspicion and loathing. I raised the flag and went out into the street and resumed the heroic walk through the land of Egypt, as always smiling, waving my free left hand and crying out "Salaam!" and "Alaam el-Sadaka!" But something had changed. Or maybe it was just the time of day or just this particular street. Three young men walking by, old crooked women in black, two young mothers, children, workers, everyone looked at me, but no one smiled, no one greeted me. They just looked. At the end of the alley I turned my head and saw a sudden crowd of men, young and grown-ups, dragging the film crew further into the darkness of the gateway. I stopped, and for a moment I just stood there, the flag hanging like a fainted law on its fishing rod, wondering what a prophet of the old age would do when one of his apostles was suddenly swallowed up by the angry mob. I wondered. And while I wondered time passed, and suddenly the film crew reappeared from the darkness of the gateway, no longer that young, on the contrary, older, blander than before. And behind her the mob of men had stopped in the gateway, hate hazing from their eyes. – They forced me to erase the recording, she said. – Who? I said looking at the men still looking at us, - are they some kind of plain-clothed agents? – No, she said, - I don't think so, it is just the people living here in this street. – But why? I said, - why?

Why would they stop us, why force us to erase the recordings of a stranger, but friendly smiling man walking a white flag through their street, if not out of fear. Not fear of us, of course, but fear of the ones who fear, the ever-present state, the plain-clothed agents oozing through the crowd of plain citizens. The supreme power of a police state is not the hundreds of thousands of white and black and sand-colored police officers, it is not the hundreds of thousands of plain-clothed agents of the National Security, no, the supreme power of the land of Egypt is the people itself having slowly been turned into and grown up to be their own secret agents, each citizen watching over himself and his neighbors and the casual strangers passing through his street, each citizen being his or her own censor, censuring himself and his neighbor and the casual stranger filming another stranger carrying an enigmatic but soft, white and innocent flag through the street.      

It was a blind alley, another dead end. But I had to go on. My legs were heavier than ever before. I reached the main road passing through the district of Rud El Farag, or El Wayli, or maybe it was the El Qubba, another countless-lane artery gray with pollution and noise, a roar of trucks and rustbodies stuck in this dead end of civilization. Behind the smog a low sun was sinking faintly orange into the horizon of garbage and ruins. Beyond hope or just comatose as I was, instead of crossing the main road, I just started walking down alongside it. And of course it was endless, a straight line drawn by an indifferent god and attended by thousands and thousands of the same huge greybrown concrete housing blocks. It was the straight line of hell: coming from nowhere and leading me nowhere. I walked along ruined concrete walls and sheet metal fences, a sudden withered garden grey from suffocating and dust. To my other side an endless procession of old trucks, excavators, load tractors and bulldozers had come to a permanent halt, their shovels resting heavy in the fainted garbage and dust. With every breath I took another part of my brain expired, my lungs and flag turning grey. At the end of a long crumbled concrete wall a gate suddenly opened into a huge yard. An old billboard showed fainted signs of car repair shop. Without hesitation, as if it was the gate to heaven suddenly and in the very last moment opening up to let me pass out of the old world, I entered, still carrying the flag. Just inside the gate a small group of people were gathered, dirt-poor, dressed in rags, but not like repair shop workers, rather like peasants, shepherds from the age of prophets. Jesus! I thought as I greeted them, - Salaam alekhem! and passed by them into paradise: It wasn't paradise, it wasn't even a car repair shop, it was a field, but a field without crops or grass, just a dark brown ground in the abyss between huge twenty store housing blocks. And on or in this dry brown piece of no man's land a small herd of scrawny cattle and sheep and goats was hovering, slowly turning their dead eyes towards me as I walked by and came to a halt in front of a wall. The End. Once again. From an opening in the building above me a man leaned out and cried something in that grating guttural voice of the Egyptian subordinate. I looked up, smiled, or at least tried to. – Alaam el-Sadaka, I mumbled. He spat. I turned around and looked at the small group of peasants or shepherds - three boys with shepherds sticks, a man and a women, an old crooked couple - still standing at the gate like a medieval painting looking at me. I waved my hand. They looked. From the gap in the building above me the man growled once again and spat. I turned to the cattle, the smogcolored sheep and the two goats standing in the dried ditch watching me without a sound. I raised my hand towards them and waved it, - Salaam, I mumbled, I am your prophet. And then I resumed walking, passed the small group of peasants, went through the gate and back out in hell.

THE AGE OF THE PROPHET

But you cannot stop us. Never. We are like water, like time, like History; you can try to hold us back, you might hold us back an entire night, but the next morning we will rise up again and go on walking!

I have come to the land of Egypt from that country in the far north, I have come to the land and the peoples of Egypt to prove, by the mere presence and shape of my body, that I, yes, I am the Prophet, the long-awaited, he who shall part the waters, he who shall separate the ones who say "welcome to Egypt!" from the ones who say "stop!" I have come to the land of Egypt to walk through the sea of people, to carry the Flag through the sea of the living and to separate the past from the future, I have come to you, peoples of Egypt, to give you the Law, the Law of the New World Order. See! the Flag is the law, the Flag that I bring with me and carry through your world, the Flag that parts the sea of peoples and separates the ones who say "welcome to Egypt!" from the ones who say "stop!", the ones who dare from the ones who fear, this Flag has come into the land of Egypt once and for all, and you cannot hold it back as you cannot hold me back, the Flag will carry me as I will carry the Flag through the world, through the sea of flesh and fear and ferocity, and thus as I walk I give you the Law, peoples of Egypt. And he who dares will read the Law and he who fears will try to stop me, to make the flag unseen like my double, the statue that lies unseen by the peoples of Egypt in his wooden casket in the airport of Cairo. He who fears will try and he will fail, cause as that statue is said to be a statue of the Prophet I am the mold of that statue, and thus I am the Prophet, I have come to your land, to the land of Egypt, and you cannot hold me back, oh, no, the night you hold me back is the night before the day I will rise up again and go on walking, go on parting the ones who dare from the ones who fear, go on giving the Law of the New World Order which is yet to be seen, to appear to the ones who dare see in that enigmatic circular hole in the Flag:

THE DIPLOMACY - AN INTERMISSION

- You need a producer, Myriam, the Lebanese beauty working at Darb, said last night at the vernissage. – A what? I said. – A local, someone who knows the city, speaks Arab, and knows how to deal with the police. She called Mahmoud and explained him my mission and passed me the phone. – It sounds interesting, he said, - and dangerous. At midnight we met him outside a cafe in a fairly dark side alley in Downtown. He was tall and skinny as a secretary bird with a crooked nose, big black-framed glasses, Rastafarian-hair and eyes hazy from that kind of smoke. – I have an idea, he said, - what you have to do is, you rent a car and we drive out into a peaceful area like Heliopolis, I know a street there, a street with almost no cars, no traffic, you take out your flag and drive down that street waving your flag through the open window of the car. – No, I said, - I walk, I don't drive. – Why not? he said. – Who do you think I am? I said, - the four-wheel-Moses?! – What about a boat then? he said, - we rent a boat and you sail down the river Nile, all the way through Cairo and down through the land of Egypt standing on the deck of the boat waving your flag! – No, I said. – I walk. Then he said no more. And then: - Okay, then you need a letter from your embassy saying that they know about you and your mission and approve of it, okay!

This morning we postponed any further action and walking and stepped right out of bed and into a taxi to the Danish Embassy on the Zamalek island. They took our cameras and bags and instead they gave us each a visitor's identity card to hang around our necks like medals of surrender. We were put to wait for five minutes (the consul was still in her morning conference with the ambassador) in a bare violently lit white room furnished with a table and four chairs apparently taken directly out of a Danish gymnasium of the 1980'ies, two Le Klint lamps and four colorful Andy Warhol poster versions of the fairy tale paper cuts of Hans Christian Andersen. Half an hour later the consul, a middle aged or rather elderly lady of the Hellerup 1950'ies appeared and led us to her office. And from here I, out of diplomatic reasons, have to shift into Danish, as the following might be considered unsuitable for non-Danish citizens:

- Vær så god at sætte jer, sagde konsulinden og satte sig bag skrivebordet og rejste sig og forsvandt ud ad døren og ned ad gangen og lod mig stirre på en orange appelsin, der lå blandt de grå ringbind og papirer på en hylde i reolen og kom tilbage og satte sig og sagde, - undskyld, vi har en frygtelig masse presserende sager i disse dage, hvad synes I om Cairo? – Jo, tak, sagde jeg, - her er jo ganske meget politi. – Ja, sagde konsulinden og så gennem vinduet ud over de vissengrønne trækroner og skoven af betonblokke, der bredte sig i formiddagssmoggen, - de vil gerne passe på os. – Jo, sagde jeg, - bestemt, men der er måske lige rigeligt med politi. – Det er nu engang sådan, de har valgt at have det her, sagde konsulinden. – Aha, sagde jeg. Vi så ud ad vinduet. – Jeg er først lige vendt tilbage til stillingen som konsul her for nogle få måneder siden, sagde konsulinden, - jeg kommer lige fra Pretoria, det er tredive år siden, jeg var her sidst, jeg kan næsten ikke kende byen igen, sukkede hun. – Ja, sagde jeg, - tiden går. – Ja, sukkede konsulinden, - men ægypterne er nu så søde, hvis I fortsætter bare hundrede meter ned ad gaden her og krydser den næste vej, så er der det dejligste kvarter med supermarkeder og en del små gallerier. – Tror De, ambassaden kan give os en form for brev, en konfirmation af, at ambassaden kender til vores mission her i Ægypten? – Vi vil på det bestemteste fraråde jer at vise det flag her i Ægypten, sagde konsulinden. – Det er desværre for sent, sagde jeg. – Vi kan ikke hjælpe jer, sagde konsulinden, - når først sikkerhedstjenesten har været inde over sagen, så kan ambassaden ikke gøre noget. – Hvad så? sagde jeg. – I er nødt til at indgive en ansøgning til de ægyptiske myndigheder om tilladelse til at filme, sagde konsulinden, - I får sikkert ikke noget svar. – Ha! sagde jeg, - herligt! – Ja ja, sagde konsulinden og så mig alvorligt i panden hen over kanten af sin brille, - men det er skam ikke bare af modvilje, det er også fordi ægypterne ikke kan få sig selv til at sige nej. – Den ægyptiske sikkerhedstjeneste?! sagde jeg. – Ægypterne har så utroligt svært ved at sige nej, sagde konsulinden. – Aha, sagde jeg, og, - aha. – Jamen så vil jeg ønske jer nogle gode dage her i Cairo, sagde konsulinden og rejste sig, - nu skal jeg følge jer ud, husk at aflevere jeres visitors cards nede i receptionen.  

AND NOW JUST THAT LITTLE FURTHER TOO FAR (The illegalized Walk - part 3)

But before we ever reach the hotel, the Brigadier is once again called by his supreme being, the Big Unseen, and once again the entire delegation of twenty-five police offers and secret agents and two Danish terrorists comes to a halt and the interrogation begins all over again: - First name! Second name! Third name! I start getting dizzy and the Brigadier kindly decides to jail us. He swiftly clears one of the street station shelters of street police officers and asks us to take over their plastic seats and even joins us together with the head of the black Central Security officers. And there we sit through the night watching the street life, citizens, tourists passing smiling and freely laughing by on their way home, and every second minute the Supreme Being calls, and once again we spell our names and the purpose of our being and the Brigadier once again tries and fails to spell this to his Supreme Unseen. - Who the hell is this? I ask the black Second Lieutenant. - It is like our CIA, you know? Yes, I know the CIA, a kind of shipping company, isn’t it, moving supposed terrorists (like us) from one part of the world to other, freer countries like Syria, Romania or Egypt, countries where you as a police officer enjoy a larger freedom, so to speak, to slap you clients (like us) under the feet, drown them, loosen their tongues through the use of electric chock etc. etc., - yes, I know the CIA, I say. And meanwhile the young film crew sits suspiciously restless in her plastic chair, trying to direct her young and tender chest aka the talisman camera towards the person speaking. – Oh please, turn of that thing now! I whisper, in Danish. I am tired now, and old, and hungry! – Please, I say, - can I have some water?! But there is no water in this provisional street corner jail, so at least they won't be able to perform the famous Egyptian water-torture on us. – I am sorry! says the Brigadier politely. But then I have an idea, after all this sheet metal shelter constitutes a kind of open jail, so – wouldn't You be so kind, Sir, to make one of your officers walk me just one hundred meters down that street, I say and point towards the Shara Mahmoud Basani, - to the small street vendor so that I can buy myself a bottle of water? The Brigadier looks bewildered at his black colleague. They have obviously never had such a question posed by a supposed terrorist. Impossible! But why? I am thirsty, I haven't had anything to drink for at least four hours? They look at each other. And two minutes later I walk down the close-to-deserted street between two police officers, one white and one black, and behind us the plain-clothed whispering Gollum. We enter the street vendor’s wildly lit two square meters, he jumps up and steps back into a wall of sweets as if facing a sudden invasion. I produce a five pound note and he hands me two large bottles of water which the polite white offers to carry. – La la! I say and commence the retreat, triumphantly, in the midst of my entourage. As we pass by a small still open bakers shop I even dare to step aside, and before my guards manage to stop me I have asked for two bread sticks. The rest of the night we spend seated in our provisional semi-open sheet metal shelter prison watching the last tourist and then the last citizen pass by. Finally we are alone, alone among Egyptian police officers. But at least we are on bread and water.

We gave up. Gave up the thought of a future. At last we just were, there, in that provisional jail, spelling our names and reason to be over and over again like a never-ending nightmare. Then once of a sudden the Brigadier turned of his cell-phone, - okay, you can go! – Why? I said, - where? – To your hotel, he said. – But your ... superior? I said and pointed at his mobile phone. – He says you can go, you are free, but, he said, - no more filming, and that flag... – The Flag of Friendship? I said. – Take it to your hotel room, said the Brigadier, - and keep it there, okay. – Okay, we said. And then the Brigadier called out a name, and out of the dark of the night the young shiny white Second Lieutenant reappeared. – Give them their passports, the Brigadier said. – Why? said the Second Lieutenant. – They are free.

BETWEEN THE ACTS - POISONED?

The last days I've felt so tired, for every step I take into the land of Egypt my legs are becoming heavier. As if they are slowly being filled up with lead. Each new morning I just long for darkness to fall, to give into that side alley and sit among the other regulars outside that shabby café and have my janzoon while contemplating the life in the street, the old shoe-shiner squatting among the garbage, the other old man taking care of the parking of cars, the light that is turned on, or off, in that high-ceilinged room on the first floor across the street. Am I becoming an Egyptian, fat, shabby and lazy, have they given me some poison? Who? They are following you, says Mr. M. Who? I say. Them, he says. Where? I say. Everywhere, they even followed you out here in Darb yesterday, I recognized two of them, they had come with you. They are investigating you. They know everything now, about the statue, about your flag, they don't like the things you are doing here in Egypt. But why? I say, I just want to be friendly, there is a hole in my flag, how can it hurt them? But what does it mean? says Mr. M. I don't know, It's just a piece of white cloth with a hole in. Yes, but what does it mean? They are following me, that is what it means. They don't like me, that is what it means. "They have to be punished, all of them!" said the security officer, says Mr. M. And I am so tired, every day I'm getting more and more tired, or paranoid, or beyond hope, or ... Nothing makes sense any more. Will we ever get access to that statue of that Prophet? Will he lie forever as a Pharao in his wooden casket in the nowhere-land of the customs? Will I ever fulfill my mission or will I be stuck in this boiling hell of a city for good, that is bad, that is worse, even worse. We have to go on! I say, and the film-crew just nods and does her happy thumbs-up behind the camera. Every day we have to show the flag! I say. Yeah! she nods. We are going nowhere and it doesn't make sense, but we just have to go, to show-up and walk just a little bit further, just one little street, through whatever remote outskirt, we just have to, I say, and it doesn't make sense and we are getting nowhere, but we have to! I say. Never give up! I say, if we give up, if we just sit down at some side-alley cafe and order a coffee and a pipe, then they have done us, turned us into Egyptians, into smoking mummies. I say.

They are following me. Everywhere. Even here. A few days ago they picked up a young guy down in Alexandria, they stopped him, dragged him of his scooter and into the police head quarters and kept him for the next three days. And when his family came to see him, they said they couldn't, but the family saw his scooter standing outside, and meanwhile, inside, they beat him up, again and again, and his eyes turned purple, and his skull and his skin, all purple, and they dragged out his nails, and when he suddenly turned out to be dead and they couldn't beat him back into life, oh, they panicked and threw him aka his corpse into a car and drove down to the channel and threw him into the water, and they called his family and said that, oh, by the way, the clothes of your son has been found at some place near the channel. And the next day the mortuary called and said that, oh, by the way, they had had a kind of son of that family delivered this morning.

But he was Egyptian. I am a foreigner, almost a tourist. They love tourists. "Welcome to Egypt!" they all cry out and smile. No, not all of them. Not the National Security. The plain-clothed don't smile. Never. That's the difference. I saw them that other night as they kept us and interrogated us for an entire holy Friday night. The police men smiled, even the black ones, the Central Security Forces. But not the plain-clothed, they didn't even look at me, not once. They weren't even fat, they seemed to be eaten up by hate, their eyes were deep purple, flickering, and they didn't have a voice, just a whisper, "they have to be punished, all of them". I think they have poisoned me, spit in my salad, my legs are slowly being filled up with lead, soon I won't be able to go any further, or to raise my arm with the flag. And then they've done me, then I'll be stuck in my filthy room no. 5 on the 6^th floor of this starless Hotel Lotus...