Specifically the Dream of a Soulmate Infatuations

At every turn he senses the weakness of his claim upon Kirsten's attention. His impression of her freedom and autonomy scares as much as it excites him. He appreciates the lack of any good reasons why she would ever beetow her affections upon him. He properly understands how little right he has to ask her to look upon him with the kindness which his many limitation requires. At the perimeter of Kirsten's life, he is at the apogee of modesty.

The comes the pivotal challenge of knowing whether the feeling is mutual, a topic almost childlike simplicity nonetheless capable of sustaining endless semiotic study and detailed psychological conjecture. She complimented him on his grey raincoat. She let him pay for their tea and poppadoms. She was encouraging when he mentioned his ambition to return to architecutre. But then again, she seemed ill at ease, even a little irritated, on the three occasions when he tried to bring the conversation around to her past relationships. Nor did she pick up on his hint about catching a film.

Such doubts only inflame desire. As Rabih has realized the most attractive people aren't those who accpet him right away (he doubts their judgement) or those who never give him a chance (he grows to resent their indifference) but rather those who, for unfathomable reasons - perhaps a competing romantic entanglement or a cautious nature, a physical predicament or a psychological inhibition, a religious commitment or a polictical objection - leave him turning for a little while in the wind.

The longing proves, in its own way, exquisite. Eventually, Rabih looks up her phone number in the council paperwork and, one saturday morning texts his opinion that it might be sunny later. I know, comes the almost instantaneous rely. On for a trip to the Botanics ? Kx

Which is how they end up, three hours later, touring some of the world's most unusual tree and plant species in Edinburg's Royal Botanic Garden. They see a Chilean orchid, they are struck by the complexity of a rhododendron and they pause between a fir tree from Switzerland and an immense redwood from Canada whose fronds stir in a light wind coming in off the sea.

Rabih has run out of energy to formulate the meaningless coments which typically precede such events. It is thus out of a sense of impatient despair rather than arrogance or entitlement that he of impatient despair rather than arrogance or entitlement that the cuts Kirsten off in mid-sentence as she reads from an information Plaque - Alpine trees should never be confused with takes her face in his hands and presses his lps gently against here, to which she responds by shutting her eyes and wrapping her arms tightly around his lower back.

An ice cream van in inverleith Terrace emits an eerie jingle,a jackdaw screeches on the branc of a tree ransplanted from NewZealnd and no one notices two people, party hidden by non-native trees, in one of the more tender and consequential moments of both of their lives.

Read Part 7