Tomorrow it is Tuesday.
Last night it rained.
The small French square
appears to be clean.
It is early morning, I am sitting on a terrace
with warm croissants and coffee.
The man next to me
in his blue pyjamas
orders a second Pastis de Marseille.
Alcohol content: 45%
It is nine o'clock in the morning.
I am browsing through a Paris Match,
looking at gruesome pictures of the demonstration
against the results of the election in Iran.
Men with their clubs slashing
at the demonstrators.
After the green of hope, the blood of repression.
Woman with veils
attack the police
to protect their sons from the blows.
Seems like a photo from the Dark Ages
of a fierce looking Ayatollah Ali Khomeini.
It reminds me of, as some people always say,
my Flemish friend who died before his time,
Frans 'Sus' Verleyen.
On his gravestone is written:
'The best is
to extend the mystery.'
His article, which I think he wrote in 1980,
describes his visit to the Shah of Persia.
An interview he entered with much hesitation.
He did not fancy going to listen
to what would have probably been ceremonial words only,
of a sovereign ruler, who has his opponents
executed.
It seems as if he had some preconceived ideas.
The shah was the type of person
impossible not to look at.
And he unfolded huge images
with pipelines, connections with the Trans-Siberian
Railway,
forced education, quick nuclear reactors
petro-chemical technology.
He left the palace confused by his
confrontation with a Caesar,
a new Mustafa Kemal Pasha Atatürk.
A ruler, who wanted to allow woman to walk
without a black veil
and would rather see them wearing a ski suit
or a bikini on the beach.

The king is dead…