Saba sat on her stool outside the hut in the moon-bathed square. She had seen the scene in front of her many times before. Every day was a repetition of the previous one in this camp. Still, she observed what was unfolding in front of her, intrigued as though it were her first encounter. Saba couldn’t imagine doing otherwise. Couldn’t let boredom set in. So she smiled as she watched children racing each other, the athlete playing football with a sock ball, taking the opportunity to ogle Samhiya, painting her nails by the sideline, with every pause in the game. And when a dance began around the singer in a slow, endless circle, it seemed to Saba that their country’s dance was conceived in response to their history, marred by repetition of the same bloodied story over and over again.

Come and join us, people urged each other.

Let’s dance. Let’s dance.

Saba took a stroll and found herself outside Jamal’s hut. The entertainer was sitting with the two old men, the Asmarinos in colourful cardigans and Zahra’s grandmother. The cinema-screen sheet, with a big square cut out in the middle, quivered behind them in the breeze. On the screen, the bees buzzed on the yellow flowers of the hibiscus tree, beginning the process of reproduction.

The grandmother called Saba over. Come and join us, she said. We are talking about love.

Among other things, said the white-haired man in a blue cardigan, laughing.

Anyway, she is too young to join our conversation, said the bald, clean-shaven man wearing a pink jumper.

She is the same age as Jamal, said the grandmother. But it seems to you a woman has to be double the age of a man before she matches his wisdom.

Exactly, said the man in the blue cardigan.

The man in pink nodded and, turning towards Saba, he said, Signorina, I am too old to stand up unaided. Please come and help me.

How come this grandmother here would need no help and she is older than you? said the man in the blue cardigan.

It is not the years that weigh one down, said the man in pink, but the numbers of lovers in one’s heart.

The grandmother laughed. The weight of the one true love I had would outweigh all your encounters.

After she helped him to stand up, the old man bowed his head at Saba and kissed her hand. Signorina, forgive this foolish old man for assumptions unnecessarily made under the duress of bad company.

All this effort to say a simple thing, said the man in the blue cardigan.

Indeed, said the man in pink. I am a man of my time, and in our time, we treated women like goddesses.

Just treat us like human beings, said the grandmother, and that would solve the world’s problems.

Saba sat down next to the grandmother, who took her hand. Anyway, let me go back to what I was saying, she said. The power of love erases all differences. It humanizes us and brings our energies, spiritual and physical, to one combined force. When we make love, we are meant to be one.