I had one of my rare but interesting intense, symbolic dreams that feels almost more realistic than real life.
The world seemed older, maybe not simpler, but more subtle and less technological. In this dream I looked more like a stereotypical male Ivy Leaguer (whatever that is, but definitely thinner and more handsome than I am in real life). I remember buttoning a suit, fixing a tie while looking in the mirror; I had a more narrow, chiseled face, thinner black hair, a dimple, and a smile that was dashing.
I was either a student in college at some old institution or had just graduated. I remember strolling along under shady, sturdy trees around a sunlit, flower-lined stonewall campus joking casually alongside the no-face man who would soon become my handler.
We went on a funcation across Europe. We met others of similar educational, socio-economic ilk, enjoyed some fine dining and cultural entertainment opportunities, mostly in dark, ancient, brick and stone cities in Eastern Europe and the Near East. Next thing I knew in my dream, my life was immersed in lightning paced, jet-setting intrigue.
Somehow we were working to figure out the connections between the terrorists in Southwest Asia / Middle East and Europe. I don’t remember any specifics of what I was doing in my dream when I was off traveling from one country to another, using multiple passports and (apparently) only slightly modified “disguises,” but a couple of things happened that let me in on a bit of what I was up to.
In a side office of one of the embassies in what might’ve been Belgium, a woman that I thought of as a kindly older (I was in my early 20’s) somewhat frumpy secretary asked me what the government had me up to these days. She asked nicely and with genuine curiosity, but when I said, “oh just trying to wrangle through some minor disagreements and come to terms on totally inconsequential details,” she looked at me hard and skeptically and said, “hmmm...” dismissively.
Outside her door (we were in some sort of a secure space apparently) one of my colleagues - with a harried look but a glimmer in his eye which suggested he’d also experienced a whirlwind exciting and perhaps treacherous week - stopped me briefly and asked me how many places I’d been to in the last week. I paused and quietly revealed “well, one passport is stamped in Prague, Ankara and Jerusalem, another has me going through Afghanistan, Pakistan and Czechoslovakia, and another has me in London, Paris, and Berlin - so you tell me...” He gave me a knowing look, breathlessly rattled off his list, which included Cairo, Moscow and Baghdad, and then hurried off to some other part of the building.
At that point, just as I was stepping off towards whatever came next, the secretary from the office shot her arm out of her office doorway, grabbed me by the shoulder, and yanked me backwards until I was standing back in front of her desk with her office door pulled shut. “Minor disagreements and inconsequential details indeed...” We both smiled, me sheepishly, she grimly.
“Now you listen to me, IF you get in trouble, here is my number. You call and tell me you’re coming. Then come straight into my office, walk into this closet, which will be closed and locked.
“Here is a key” (which she handed me) “Walk into this closet and walk right down the stairs. I’ll be waiting at the bottom for you and we’ll get you off to someplace safe. Oh, and lock the door behind you.
I thanked her and walked out the door. As I was leaving what had been the Belgian embassy building, I exited by a narrow stone stairway directly onto a busy street. There was a boy begging at the base of the steps and I stopped to say hello and to give him some change. Somehow I learned that the boy’s native language was Arabic, so we started speaking Arabic together; in the course of our conversation we both used a word that had the letter “ض" in it.
I must’ve pronounced the letter more like a “daal” “د" because a kindly old grandfatherly type man, hunched over, wearing a suit and using a cane corrected me politely. He tapped me on the shoulder and spoke humbly, “beg your pardon sir, it’s pronounced _____ not _____.” His voice was oddly high pitched, nasally, and frail. I smiled and said, “right you are my man - my mistake, thank you, I always mess up the daud words.” I bid them both a good day and went off on my way. (I’ve tried to remember since waking what the daud word was that we used, but can’t quite find it).
Cut in the dream directly to Baghdad now. I’m participating in a meeting of officials and apparently I’m using an assumed identity of a person who wouldn’t have any business being anywhere near Belgium. I use the same word in the course of casual Arabic conversation that I had used in Belgium with the child beggar. A man in a fine silk suit, standing straight without a cane, taps me from behind on the shoulder, “Beg your pardon Sir, it’s pronounced _____ not _____.” I smiled and said... nothing. As I turned I could see Saddam Hussein looking directly and sharply into my eyes. I now recognized that he had been the grandfatherly old gentleman in a disguise of his own. I knew in that moment that he also recognized me. His voice was still high pitched, nasally and frail, but this was his house, and I was caught. Betrayed by the ض
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