They paint things differently there

I am thinking of another country, a vast and bleak landscape, while the artist works until midnight. I was in this country to meet a powerful man. Listening presently to the artist’s breathing, I remember the low-lying mist and tall pine trees, the whiff of decadence and smell of gas. The man I was there to meet loved Hegel. He also ran one of the largest banks in the world. (‘I've got so much to do,’ says the artist.) He believed in cancelling Third World debt and reorganising the world’s financial system. I was small fry and happened to know a young woman who knew him well. I wanted to make a film, something inexpensive, unusually intimate, using a hand-held camera and natural sound. I knew getting him to agree to be the subject matter was a long shot but I was a determined young man. Anyway, word soon came from his honour-bound secretary that we could meet. I was to travel one morning to his home 25 kilometers outside the city and drive with him back to the bank. I phoned my young friend to register my delight. Each subsequent confirmation however was swiftly cancelled. The man must have visited four countries while I waited in a hotel close to his headquarters, where floors of financial acumen sported swathes of art. (The artist is still working behind me and I hear her industry.) The philosopher-banker even bought a bank while I waited and eventually I was informed we could meet in precisely two days – same plan, same route. I put my feet up and ordered a drink but the following morning I was woken by a young banker imploring me to wake up. ‘He’s dead!’ he kept shouting down the phone. ‘Dead, dead, dead!’ I leaped out of bed and raced to the bank’s headquarters and I remember still dressing while I ran. The young banker was right. The very same three-car convoy I was to travel in was hit by a roadside bomb hidden in the saddle bag on a children’s bicycle. The philospher-banker's legs were blown off and the poor man bled to death. (‘I’m done,’ says the artist, life-affirmingly, as I revel once more in the present tense.)