Something loosens inside him, a lock silently opens, and it’s as if a part of him is now free and rising up to the top of the tree with the bats. He’s staring down at himself on the bench, his thin body in a pressed, baby blue button-down shirt, slim chinos and brown dress shoes, and in the gap between his trousers and shoes a flash of colourful socks. He looks so young from up here. So stiff and naive and restrained. Why has he never been in a garden like this before? Why hasn’t he lived a life of chaos and risk and pounding, rushing blood?

He knows why. Choosing chaos and risk is a privilege, and it costs. And where he comes from, there are no extra resources. But tonight, what’s happening right now, is not a choice, nothing he sought out. It’s just happening, and he’s letting it happen.

‘Jacob,’ Yassim begins to speak quietly in his American-accented English. ‘Who are you, Jacob? How do you make the trees bloom in August?’

It should sound cheesy, overly sweet, like something from a B-movie. It should make him giggle, break the spell. But it doesn’t. Quite the opposite. This is a night where magnolia trees bloom in August, and every sentence has been set free from history. Jacob opens his mouth, closes it again. Yassim stares at him calmly, neither restless nor impatient.

‘Or don’t tell me,’ Yassim says. ‘Let me guess.’

Jacob feels himself falling down from the treetops again, landing in his own body, in his own head. He doesn’t feel calmer, not at all, but he does feel braver. Ready to go all the way, no matter where it leads.

‘Okay,’ Jacob says and smiles, he hopes seductively. ‘Tell me who I am, Yassim.’

He scoots closer to his new friend, so close that their shoulders touch, and leans towards him so that their noses almost brush each other. If they are going to kiss, they should do it now. Jacob’s whole body tenses up. How much more obvious can he be? He’s gone further than ever before. He’s going to do it now. Going to kiss Yassim. Let Yassim kiss him and caress him and put his hand under his shirt, unbutton his trousers. He’ll let Yassim lie him flat on this bench, here in the darkness, and do whatever he wants to him. There’s a kind of freedom in yielding.

But Yassim just looks at him with eyes that are half amused or arrogant, half filled with warmth. He doesn’t kiss Jacob, he doesn’t put his hand on his neck or against his chest. Instead, he pulls back and smiles again.

‘You’re a Scandinavian diplomat,’ he says.

Jacob quivers with pride. Yassim may not have kissed him, but he sees Jacob the way he wants to be seen, and it’s such a confirmation.