I wonder whether dreams and nightmares mean anything. One psychologist wrote that they are the mind digesting the previous day.
Last night, three Hungarians, two men and a woman, kidnapped me. One of them was a very short man who pressed his pudgy fingers into my neck, and the woman suggested tortures she would gladly perform if I did not cooperate. They went into a kitchen, leaving me in a hallway all alone. People passed, but they knew not to talk to me. There was no bathroom and no food. After a very long time, they came back and said we were going to make a movie in the subway.
We walked along a river, and then they left me again, but before they left, they tied a long, thin piece of cloth around my head — I thought later they would use it as a gag. I wandered around a bit, afraid to stray too far or try to escape. I didn’t know my way around Hungary, so felt helpless. Not far from me were two people sitting on a bench. As they talked, I realized they were Americans. I might have approached them to help me escape, but I was afraid they were plants to make me misbehave so my captors would have a chance to torture me. The trees and the river were exquisite, flocks of birds rose from the ground and flew in formation, the colors were brilliant — I thought of gypsy music and jangling bangles, the beautiful side of Hungary.
What to say to the Americans without endangering myself? I stood at some distance from them until they looked at me, and then I said, “Remember me.”
Then I woke up.
What an exquisite way for me to tell myself that “remember me” is why I write, and not doing it would be torture.