Jaime met Zehra in Madrid. She was one of his students at the Complutense University, where Jaime had for the last four years, been teaching a subject which grew more and more dynamic and complex by the day: Politics of the Middle East.

As he hung up the phone, the young professor thought back to the first time he had met Zehra, whom he now felt extremely lucky to call his fiancée.

It was a particularly cold morning in November , 2003, in Madrid. Although Jaime usually liked to walk, that day he decided to take his car, a chic Mercedes, from home to the university. The streets of Madrid were somewhat desolate that morning and the rain from the night before, hadn’t quite stopped. But there was a certain vitality and energy in the cool wind, and as Jaime entered the Complutense building, he felt suddenly excited about starting the new semester.

“How are you, Mr. Rovira? Long time!”

Jaime smiled. “Sebastián! How’ve you been? How’s Lucía?”

“Good, good. We had a great time. Turkey was fabulous. Come and have dinner with us tonight. We have so much to catch up on and besides, Lucía will be happy to see you”.

Sebastián Domínguez and Jaime Rovira were colleagues at the School of Oriental and African Studies in London and now again, only this time as professors, at the Complutense. Both shared a deep respect for each other, both as experts in their respective fields as well as upright and caring human beings.

Sebastián’s wife, Lucía, adored Jaime as a younger brother and never missed a chance to introduce him to her pretty and intelligent friends.

Although Jaime would never admit it, he was sometimes lonely. Being an only child, he never had anyone his age at home. He´d go down to visit his parents every couple of weeks in Pozuelo, and that aside, he had little to call a social life. Although he loved his work, he didn’t have many friends except Sebastián at the university either, since at 33, he was the youngest of the professors and had little to share with his colleagues in their free time.

Rovira accepted the invitation and started to collect his papers for the first lecture. A sheet slipped from his hands. It was the list of new students and as Jaime reached to pick it up, he suddenly remembered about the new girl who was coming from Lebanon: Zehra Khoury.

At first sight, Jaime felt deeply attracted to his new student, not only because of her beauty but rather the courage and curiosity that shone in her lovely, green eyes and her expression- at once intelligent and playful.

Zehra soon became the star of the class, with her mastery of Spanish, her friendly nature and above all, her passion to resolve the conflicts in her region.

Rovira never permitted his growing love for her to translate in to any kind of favoured treatment, for his character would never allow that. But Zehra distinguished herself on her own, among teachers and fellow-students alike. She was of that rare breed that truly want to dissipate tensions in the world. Some called her an ‘idealist’, but she’d rather struggle for her unattainable ideal than resign herself to being just another spectator of the wars that were consuming her world. Her name means ‘flower’ in Arabic, and that’s what she was: a flower. Serene and yet so full of life.

Zehra Khoury was born in to an influential and respected family of Lebanon. Her elder brother, Marwan, and she grew up in Beirut. Her parents were very open-minded and always encouraged their children to seek their own answers to questions which most would not even dare to ask.

So it was that Zehra, at 26 , decided to travel to Spain and understand the Western perspective on the conflicts which she and her fellow countrymen lived so closely. Having scored brilliantly in her degree, she returned to Beirut, leaving behind a piece of her heart in the person of Jaime Rovira, her professor, best friend and future husband.

Their families were somewhat surprised but thrilled when Zehra and Jaime announced their decision to get married and in the last few weeks, the wedding preparations were all that they dedicated their leisure time to.

Jaime didn’t care so much about the wedding as he did about holding his beloved in his arms again. He had been counting the days for her to return to Madrid, along with her family, to celebrate the wedding, on the 27th of July. Everyone had wanted it to take place in Beirut, but Zehra wanted the city of Madrid, which she so loved and where she had met Jaime, to have a special part to play in the celebrations. Besides, Jaime had already decided to end his four year teaching career at the Complutense and move to Beirut to put his studies in to practice.

The idea excited him. Beirut was, till the early ‘70’s, the transit point between the West and Asia. Known as the ‘Paris of the East’, the city was a fascinating amalgam of culture, literature, history, art and music, in an ambience very liberal and advanced for its time.

Beirut suffered much during the 16 year Civil War in Lebanon, but the current reconstruction and reform process gave one hope that someday, Lebanon and especially it’s gem, Beirut, would recover their lost splendour.

“My parents speak with so much nostalgia of how beautiful Beirut was when they were young. My dream is to help it re-attain its past glory”, Zehra used to often say, as she sung one of her favourite songs, ‘Al helm al arabiyah’ (The Arabian Dream), composed in 1998 and sung by 23 of the biggest stars of the Arab world in a show of unity and to spread the message of peace in the wake of the Arab-Israeli conflict.

“The problem, not just for Lebanon, but the whole Middle East, is that the western model of ‘democracy’ and ‘liberalization’ could never function the same way there as they do in the West. We have our own culture and traditions and, contrary to what the world seems to believe, not all of it is bad. We need to create our own version of democracy, but incorporating our culture and religion. That’s our identity”, Zehra argued. “You understand that perfectly, Jaime, but few others do. Lebanon needs people like you to facilitate an understanding between the West and the Middle East”.

Jaime didn’t really need convincing. He had travelled to the Lebanese capital on several occasions and he loved the city. He hoped to contribute, albeit in a small way, to the transition the country was undertaking, making use of his deep understanding of both the Arab world and of the West to facilitate a coming together of civilizations. A high post at the renowned think tank ‘Al-Ahram’, awaited him when he returned to Beirut in October, 2006, with his bride.

As he prepared to sleep that night, Jaime recalled his just concluded conversation with Zehra. “See you tomorrow, darling ”, she had said, clearly every bit as excited and impatient as he was, and yet, she had not forgotten to recognise that all depended ultimately on the will of the Almighty. “Inshallah”, she had added, before sending him a kiss and hanging up.

On the morning of the 13th of July, Jaime woke early. The sun was already up and he concluded that it was going to be yet another hot day. “Who cares? Zehra likes the heat anyway!”, he thought and began to get the house in order and then to take a shower. The flight was expected to arrive late in the evening, but Jaime had a busy day ahead, making sure that everything, absolutely everything, was just perfect for when his princess arrived. He had made reservations for them at a nearby hotel, but that night, they would all dine together, to be able to discuss at length the wedding arrangements.

At 8:30, Jaime went to collect the newspaper and sat down to his first coffee of the day. Arabian coffee. A gift from Zehra the last time she had come to visit him.

Jaime sat down at the kitchen table and as he glanced down at the paper in his hand, he felt suddenly paralyzed. Israel had started bombing parts of Lebanon in retaliation to the kidnapping of two Israeli soldiers by the Lebanese shi’a militia Hezbollah. The picture on the front page of ‘El País’ left him frozen for several minutes, before he ran to the phone.

An hour later, his mobile phone rang. “Jaime, have you seen the newspaper?” It was Sebastián. “I have and I’ve been trying to call her house and her mobile but with no luck. I think the communication towers have been affected. What the hell do I do, Sebastián?”

“Pray. We’re coming over. Relax.” Sebastián’s words failed to comfort him. He called the Lebanese Embassy, where the Political First Secretary was a friend of his and Zehra’s.

“Hakeem, this is Jaime. I’m trying frantically to get in touch with Zehra but the phones seem not to be working. What’s going on? Is it really as bad as the media says?”

“Worse, my friend. I’m sorry to say, but it’s actually much worse. We’ve also just lost contact. The bloody Israelis have bombed the communication towers. There’s nothing one can do now but wait and see what happens. And pray. Pray hard”.

The next several days passed by one the same as the other. Jaime returned to his old friend- solitude. He kept trying to call Zehra, but in vain. And each day, as he saw the images of devastation en the south of Lebanon and in Beirut, he grew more and more desperate and frustrated.

Moreover, for an academic like him, the attitude of the European Union, the US and the UN towards the conflict, seemed especially cruel. “How can Condoleezza Rice say they aren’t seeking an immediate ceasefire? It’s like saying, “Please, carry on with the killings. It’s unbelievable!”, he exploded.

“It’s all a big failure, Sebastián. A shame for all of the ‘civilized world’. How can you and I talk about peace, the need for dialogue, about the the UN and the EU if, when the time comes, all they can do is show their pathetic weakness? They’re all citing Resolution 1559 now. And the many others which have been blatantly violated? Who speaks of them?”

Sebastián and Lucía hugged their friend, without really being able to offer him much comfort. There was no comfort and they knew that. Everything Jaime said was true. This was yet another stain on the banners of those who propagated democracy and human rights.

Hour after hour and day after day, Jaime sat at home, watching the news and tortured constantly by the thought of what might have happened to Zehra and her family. He thought of their lovely mansion, which he had visited last winter, with its tall trees and beautiful view of the hills surrounding Beirut. How would it all be now?

He looked at life around him with a sense of deception and rancor. People carried on with their lives as normal. It seemed that no one even realized what was happening in another part of the world. For everyone else, it was a war, tragic, but far away. Not for him. His life had been destroyed from one day to the next and a replica of the war in the Middle East was taking place every minute in his head and in his heart.

A week after the aggression began, the phone rang in Jaime’s house, breaking the awful silence in which he sat, wondering about his precious Zehra.

“Jaime?”, a man’s voice could be heard faintly.

“Marwan!” Jaime recognized his future brother-in-law’s voice immediately. “Ya Allah! Where are you? And where’s Zehra?

There was a silence at the other end.

“Marwan? Where is Zehra?”

The voice turned in to a sob. “Our flower... our beloved flower... Allah has taken her”.

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It was not an easy journey. The destination was not going to be as Jaime would have imagined three months ago. First, because of what had happened, which had taken Beirut a thousand steps back from where it was. And second, because one wouldn’t hear again in it’s streets, the laughter of Zehra Khoury.

Marwan was the only member of the family to have survived the brutal Israel raids. His parents and his dear sister died in a single flash, which wiped out their big mansion and another dozen in that aristocratic neighborhood of Beirut. The young man had gone on a short official trip to the north of the country and had returned as fast as he could to take care of his family when the bombings commenced. He reached early morning, but even so, all he found was the ruins of the house he had grown up in and in it, the bodies of the three people he had vowed to always protect.

After finding a safe place in which to bury them, Marwan, along with thousands of other refugees, left Beirut for the north, where he had some friends and a few relatives. There he found a village where the phones were working and he immediately called Jaime.

Now, three months later, he stood at the recently re-opened Beirut International Airport, waiting for Jaime and as soon as he saw him, he wrapped his arms around him and cried.

Perhaps out of a sense of guilt and shame for the inaction of his ‘liberating’ western world or perhaps because his life without Zehra didn´t make much sense to him now, Jaime, along with Marwan, had decided to dedicate himself to fulfilling what Zehra had left behind: her dream. Her “Helm al arabiyah”, the magnificent idea of going back in time a bit and recreating that little paradise of the Middle East that was once Lebanon.