At the embassy, Jacob looks at the pictures Yassim took again. They’re blurry, naturally, since they’re photos of a computer screen snapped in haste. But they’re all he has, so he opens the browser on his computer and starts to search for images from Aleppo. He limits the search to the last few weeks. They may have been published by now.

It doesn’t take long to find the pictures. First, the one of the boy on the truck. Then one of the razed house where the table is still set. They’re not iconic images of Aleppo, not images that define the conflict for the general public, but they’ve appeared in articles in a French magazine and also been reprinted on a few blogs and web pages. How did they manage to spread so fast? Yassim said they weren’t ready for publication just a couple of weeks ago.

He clicks on the image and is directed to an article in a French magazine. It’s behind a paywall, but the photo can be glimpsed behind it. He goes back again and clicks on one of the blogs. The blog is also in French, but the photo of the little boy on the truck appears in full. Jacob clicks on it. It’s a good picture, of that there’s no doubt. Yassim has talent. He closes the picture and scrolls through the article even though he’s not very good in French.

But something gnaws at him, something’s not right. Slowly he scrolls up to the top of the post.

The date. The blog post is almost a year old.

He goes back to the French magazine. Despite the paywall, it’s the same there. November 2014. The picture wasn’t taken a month ago. It was taken at least a year ago.

With trembling fingers he returns to the blog and sees that the image is attributed to a large photo agency. And as he scrolls further down the blog, he sees the image of the house with no front wall, and several other pictures he remembers vaguely.

Why did Yassim lie about taking the pictures just a few weeks ago, if he actually took them a year ago?

Jacob suddenly feels very cold. Something’s not right, and despite all his defences, he has to give it up now, admit to himself that what Myriam says is probably true. There’s no longer any way to hide from it.

*

Three weeks go by before Myriam hunts him down again, even though she calls every other day to make sure he hasn’t forgotten about her. He’s close to telling her about the pictures, about Yassim’s lies, but he lets it be. It’s as if Yassim’s betrayal will only become real if he says it out loud, and he’s not sure he can handle that right now.