LAST PHOTOGRAPH OF MY DAYS AS AN IDEALIST You urge me, after so many years of silence, to send you details about my occupations, about this "wonderful" world in which, you say, I am lucky enough to live and move and have my being. I might answer that I am a man without occupation, and that this world is not in the least wonderful.-E.M. Cioran, "Letter To A Faraway Friend" How far I have come to wishto come home. This morning,the first in twenty-threeexiled years, the white noiseof commerce eclipsed my only dreamof childhood: the dull bootsand swollen faces of bodies hang-ing from streetlamps. Your lettersand wishes for my life herearrive whitened by a beliefin this country like a trinketof light perfect and invisible.What has not changed and whathas are identical. 28 years earlier,Chinese tanks and soldiers rolledover students. Here whole familiessleep on sewer grates and barterfor whatever one might spare.Yesterday, a pigeon appeared onmy desk and pecked at your letters.My cat caught it in mid-flight.The argument of its wingssurprised him into letting it go

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