- NIELSEN ... I HAVE BAD NEWS FOR YOU

We were on our cabway back from Heliopolis, that City of the Sun sinking slowly pukepale into the smog behind us, having done, or so we thought, that day, as I had been walking deserted streets among hundreds of parked cars between the white walls of a factory and the crumbling smogcoloured concrete wall hiding nothing but even more featureless chaos the kind you'd have to dig your glance in for minutes to find the century old forms left by the locals of the age where they still knew who they were, cutting the edge of an outskirted roundabout, passing down along a long row of BP gas station workshops gaping of car remains and workers in green-and-grey uniforms, waving my free left hand at their open-mouthed wondering what-on-our-earth-is-that-man-is-that-flag-does-it-mean-something-what? smiling and crying alam-el-sadaka! seing their mouths widen into big smiles and so on down a narrow passage stuffed with small old metal workshops, car remains, stunned staring men and boys seated on plastic chairs under the single tree at the end of their day, and then finally at the end of that shot popping out of thin late afternoon light the usual fattish lazy thirty-something ages old rotten teethed forget-my-face stopping me saying, can I see you passports!

Which he could, no problem, he could even have a smile, the smile and the friendly words of tourists just wanting to make a funny video-clip "to show my brother back in Copenhagen", and then he, lonely as he was, gave in and let us go. And that was it. Or so we thought leaning back into the dusty seats of the cab, as suddenly, at the very moment we passed by the presidential palace my phone played my song, and there she was, Myriam from Darb sounding so wornout&down saying: - Nielsen ... I have bad news for you.

- This morning Moataz was called again by the National Security, and they asked him to come down and they kept him for about four hours, from nine till one, and they told him they had been investigating more about you... - Me? I said. - You, she said, - and they didn't like what you are doing here in Egypt, and they warned him about you, and they told him to cancel the event with you on Tuesday... - My presentation and my concert? I said. - Yes, she said, - they know everything about you, about the statue in the airport and about your flag, and they have been following you, Moataz said he saw some of them here yesterday at the opening of that other exhibition, and he thinks they had come with you, because you came, and he recognized at least two of them, so they are probably following you, so maybe, Nielsen, it is better, for you and for us, to cancel that event ... so what do you say ...?