My wife and I are in a foreign country.
Probably Europe.
All the foreigners are being arrested to be exterminated.
This is unavoidable we are told.
It's the only solution.
I give my wife a last kiss before being separated.
I tell her she must try to survive.
We are told that six people from different countries would go at one time.
I'm asked where I'm from.
I hesitate.
America I say.
They put me in a group with five other foreigners.
I cannot tell where they are from.
We are walking in the street in a single file under guard.
The city is deserted.
It looks like a de Chirico painting.
I whisper to the woman in front of me that I will escape.
She laughs.
At a street corner I run away from the group.
I'm not sure if the soldiers are chasing me.
I cannot hear the sound of their boots behind me.
I am frightened and out of breath.
I reach an impasse blocked by a parapet.
I look over the parapet and see the city below.
Yellow fog hovers above the vast sleepy city scape.
I fall to the ground and curl into the fetal position.
The soldiers arrive shouting and pointing their rifles at me.
They grab me and tie my arms against my body with ropes.
I look like a giant sausage.
Now we are in a white room.
The soldiers push me still tied with the rope inside the fireplace.
They hit me with the butts of their rifles.
Suddenly I hear a woman shout don't worry we're coming.
I awake inside the dream.
I'm still lying on the ground in the impasse next to the parapet.
The soldiers hitting me with their rifles was a dream within the dream.
That becomes clear to me now that I am awake inside my dream.
Still lying on the ground I look up and see four people standing over me.
Two men. Two women.
They speak French to me.
They say they are going to help me.
I suddenly remember that I know French.
I tell them que je suis content de les voir là.
I get into their car.
A small foreign car which I cannot identify.
This bothers me.
One of the women is driving.
She's wearing a white dress that looks like a nurse's uniform.
We arrive at their apartment.
They explain that they are foreigners and they've been hiding here.
The apartment is very chic and cosy.
The men and women do not seem to be married to one another.
They use the formal vous form when they address each other.
The woman who is wearing the white dress has two children.
She sits at a table with them behind a curtain.
They eat.
I am not sure now if I am a man or a boy.
I wonder if I should go sit with the children behind the curtain.
It seems that the two men are architects.
They are talking architecture.
After a while I doze off inside my dream.
When I awake the men tell me I can stay with them in the apartment.
I'll sleep on a cot in a corner of the livingroom.
I should not go out or I'll get caught they say.
One of the women asks what I would have done had they not come.
I reply I would have walked towards the border until I reached freedom.
She laughs.
She tells me I would not have made it.
The men are now discussing the false papers I must get. They say I have to choose a new name for myself.
I suggest Julien Sorel.
They say it's too obvious.
What about Julien Sore I say just Julien Sore.
That's okay they say.
Julien sore.
Good.
One of the men goes out to get my false papers.
I assume my new identity.
After I got my new papers someone says let's go out for a walk.
The streets are full of soldiers who are looking at us suspiciously.
We decide to go back to the apartment.
One of the men says we'll wait here until the end of the war.
He seems to be the leader.
I tell my French saviors that we must leave immediately.
If we stay we'll all be arrested and exterminated I say.
They argue that on the contrary if we leave the apartment we'll get caught.
I tell them we won't because I already know that we'll survive.
They look puzzled.
I explain that I already know what is going to happen.
I have dreamt this dream before I tell them.
I tell them the war will end in May 1945.
The Americans will drop an atomic bomb on Hiroshima.
Thousands and thousands of people will die.
Hitler will kill himself.
The enemy will surrender.
All of us will be free.
They do not seem to believe that I already know all this.
One of the men puts his finger to his temple to indicate that I am crazy.
When I awake it is the 15th of May 1996.
My wife is asleep next to me.

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