Episode 9: A delicate incident: Le principe du pollueur-payeur
It was around three o'clock in the night when this happened. A time when it's hard to spot even a car on otherwise constantly jammed Rue de la Loi. It was only around six in the morning that a CEO dressed like an extraterrestrial on a mountain bike, cycling to his work, stumbled upon the soulless body of Claus. He immediately called 122 and in seconds the avenue was blocked by two police cars and an ambulance. Rachida came out and recognising the strange customer grew worried.
"Et qui va payer ma chambre maintenant?" was all the humanity she could utter.
In the meantime, when all the ambulance crew could do was declare that Claus had already passed away, the police crew had another kind of problem. And soon started to quarrel in a language that sounded sometimes like French, sometimes like Dutch and sometimes both of the above, while at the same time close to none (it was Brusseler). The problem being, which police department was responsible for the handling of the "paperasse", the papers that had to be filled when all the agents on the spot actually wanted was to go home after a long night shift. The fact that Claus landed on the line exactly in between Etterbeek 1040 and Brussel 1000, but also just a few meters from the LEX building under the mail code 1048, practically the heart of European Union, only complicated matters.
The Big police Boss had to be woken up to handle this delicate affair. And he did not like to be woken up every time a weird guy decided to throw himself off some balcony, which seemed to happen more and more often lately. But there was one more factor that seriously complicated things: G.W. Bush was visiting Brussels next day and extreme security measures had to be taken before, during and a month after (!) his visit. A traffic jam in these hours was just out of question at this neuralgic spot, that Bush and all his escort of 57 heavily armed cars, Humvees and Hummers was going to have to cross to reach the Council's main building, under the close air-surveillance of 30 helicopters and 13 jet fighters. It was going to be worse than a 21st of July, the National feast day for Belgium, albeit without confetti.
In minutes the Big Boss of the Police was on the spot, with his tie badly done and a bad morning breath. It was drizzling, as usual, and traffic was getting thick, with all the curious drivers that could not understand what was so important with another homeless found dead on the street. But the Boss had a real riddle to solve in less than an hour, when G.W.B was going to be there. What impression could that give of his city, what would be the impact for his career…He definitely could not decide by himself. He had to call the Big Big Boss. This was a mater of national pride!
The Big Big Boss was in the middle of another endless sterile parliamentary session among people that had found themselves locked in the same flat country after what seemed nowadays to be a rather poor decision. They were discussing for the thousandth time the future of the country. What language should be spoken, what structure should the country take, should the King stay or go, and, mainly, to whom belonged Brussels. It seemed the Flemish were winning and soon only Charleroi and Mons, plus the obsolete coal mines, would remain to the Walloons, while the Dutch speaking (well, sort of…) part would become a corporate structure with a flag presenting the Flemish lion spitting dollars and where the French speaking minority (well, sort of…) would need a visa and pay toll to come to work in what would become the capital waar Vlamingen thuis zijn... The Walloons really did care for this deterioration of their negotiating power, but feeling guilty about they did not exactly know what, they preferred to pass the matter to the French Community Ministry of Interiors, which was sadly on strike due to the impossibility to get their Christmas present, three years before. The real reason of course was, Les Diables Rouges had played the evening before a critical match against the football team of Afghanistan, which they unmistakeably lost 7 to 1, and the officers of the Ministry had not yet overcome their sorrow, or hangover for that matter…
Anyhow, in just two minutes the Big Big Boss was also on the spot (the Parliament is just down the road).
"Amij amij amij!", he exclaimed when he saw the mess on the pavement. And without a seconds' hesitation called his wife.