The Dreams

Dream 29

The place was new to me — I had not seen it before. Perhaps it was the grand salon of a hotel where the Harafish used to sit together around a banquet table. They were talking about the choice of the best female writer of renown. It seemed clear that the woman I had nominated would not be accepted. They said she was only superficially cultured and her behavior was depraved.

Playfully, I tried to defend her, when I noticed they were looking at me with unprecedented grimness, as though they had forgotten our lifelong intimacy. I got up to leave the salon, but none of them stirred, as they all glared at me, seething with rage.

I walked toward the elevator and stepped into it, nearly on the verge of tears. Then I became aware of a woman in the lift with me — her face was severe, and she was dressed like a man. She told me that she mocked what they call friendship: the way people dealt with each other had to change drastically. While I thought about the meaning of all this, she pulled a pistol from her pocket and pointed it at me, demanding any cash that I had with me. It was all over quickly, and when the elevator came to a stop and the door opened, she ordered me to get out.

As the lift resumed its descent, I found myself in an unlit corridor. Overwhelmed with the feeling that I had lost my friends, I feared that incidents like this robbery were waiting out there to ambush me, wherever I should go.