in my dream they are natives of some small village. it is an andean village maybe; doesn't matter. i am visiting, an anthropologist or something like. i am a man. there is someone with me, a guide, something. everyone left the village once, years ago. in the dream it is to go to school. not everyone, but close enough. the way the draft takes everyone. when they came back, the military occupied the village. occupied every corner. forbidden were fires, and music, and love. one caught engaging in any forbidden act was subject to death. i do not remember the plot, or the plot is unrememberable, but i remember the end. the anthropologist is asking questions. he wants to know what it was like before. people are remembering. he speaks of love. he can do this because he is foreign and white and too much trouble to kill.

at the end, there is a woman, nighttime, outside her door with a big box. she yells for him. she is crying. she begins to unload the box - the contents make no sense, even in the dream: sneakers, a sheaf of paper, a mug. the mug has hearts on it. she begins screaming.

i believe in love
i believe in love
i believe in love

there is torchlight, wild flame. she screams into the house - stand with me! stand with me! she knows she is going to be killed. she is unloading more things from the box, throwing them on the flagstones. i don't know what they are. there is sound of footsteps, or something that tells her the militia is near.

i believe in love
i believe in love
i believe in love

her voice is failing. she puts her head in the doorway. stand with me, papa! desperate. stand with me daddy! he is not her daddy, but why doesn't he answer? for a moment we we see him hurrying through hallways, somewhere.

by the time he reaches the street there is a knife through her throat, hilt deep. the dream narrates: the way an assassin is killed, or a woman or a child stabs another. the soldier turns to him. he also believes in love, arches his head back to prove it. the soldier may be crying, or he hesitates because the anthropologist is foreign and white. american. the knife is raised. the anthropologist murmurs, ada.

the soldier walks away, brisk, as though his business is done and he has matters to attend to. she is not dead, the hilt sticking out of her white throat. he wants her to tell him to take it out, but she does not. she asks for a drink of water; he knows she wants coffee or sweet clear vodka but brings her water. brings her to water, carrying her in his arms. it is nighttime, the torch still guttering in its stand. we both know she will die.