Maybe this is how it ends? Maybe it’s for the best? Or not maybe. It is for the best. If Yassim never comes back, everything will go back to the way it was before. No Myriam. No videos. No threats. No doubts about who Yassim is, no weighing attraction against risk, no gnawing suspicion that Yassim might be who Myriam says he is: a terrorist. A murderer.

Finally, the summer is over and an early autumn sun shines down at a new angle on the traffic and bullet holes and sidewalk cafes, and the only thing left from the protests are the graffiti, the memories and the conversations. Compromise won over the chaos. Maybe they’ve seen too much war here to have the stomach for a revolution? Jacob keeps working on his memo and has started meeting researchers at the university who are so friendly and interesting that sometimes he’s almost able to forget Yassim.

*

One day he’s walking over the pedestrian bridge from the Zaha Hadid concrete colossus that houses the Institute for International Relations at the American University when his phone vibrates in his pocket. He just met a very helpful Palestinian professor and for once is feeling calm.

Around him darkness has fallen, but the campus is still bustling with students on their way to their final lectures of the day and with crickets on the slope that leads down to the football field and the sea. It’s early October, the air is still warm and soft against Jacob’s cheek, but when he steps out onto the gravel that surrounds the Green Oval, a breeze moves between the trees and buildings. The students feel it too; they button an extra button on their shirts and move closer to each other, as if seeking shelter from what’s coming. It’s as though they all feel it at the same time: it’s not autumn yet, but not summer either, and a kind of melancholy falls over the city.

When he takes out his phone, he sees the caller has a blocked number, and whatever calm he felt is obliterated. As he answers, every detail surfaces, and he stops and leans against a low wall, listening. The chaos and stress make it almost impossible for him to breathe. But that’s not all. There’s something else, and it scares him even more. Is it love?

After the conversation, he can barely walk, almost stumbles over to a bench, sinks down with his eyes closed, the phone still warm in his hand. The breeze makes the pine trees behind him sway and the students quicken their steps. But Jacob could stay here forever, in this moment of expectation and fulfilment, hopeless dreams he’s been carrying inside him for almost two months. His skin feels electric; he’s surprised his clothes don’t catch fire.