But he knows it can’t be true. She doesn’t know Yassim, she knows nothing at all about who he is, what he is.
Or does she?
It’s as if there are too many variables, too much contradictory information, too many emotions, and it makes it impossible for him to find any calm right now.
In addition, he can’t get those few seconds of the video she showed him out of his head. The bare room, the man on his knees in front of him. Fifteen years old. He couldn’t have been fifteen years old, it’s impossible. Besides, the whole thing was a setup. But it doesn’t matter. He’s a rapist now.
*
‘Did you eat something that was off? You look very pale, Jacob,’ Agneta says. She’s realized that not everything is as it should be with him, and she suggests he take a few days off to rest up.
But even though he doesn’t feel like being there, especially whenever he sees Vargander’s fit body striding down the corridor outside of his office headed to meetings in Beirut and the rest of the Middle East, he knows it would be even worse if he stayed home.
Instead, he catches Frida in the kitchenette and nags her to let him write a background memo on protests still raging into September, though they are slowly starting to ease up a bit now.
‘Okay,’ she says. ‘But I don’t have time to supervise you. You’ll have to take care of yourself. Does that work?’
She gives him a pile of books and articles from a few English-language newspapers and a few names of researchers at American University that he can contact, and he finds it helpful to bury himself in Lebanon’s endlessly complex system of shifting alliances and sectarian groups. He reads about Shia-Phalangists, Sunni Muslims and Maronite Christians, and about the civil war and the shaky, ineffective compromise that allows Lebanese state power to be shared between religious groups. He reads about corruption and nepotism, violence and war. He reads about how dissatisfaction had been boiling, and that it finally bubbled over when the government couldn’t even manage garbage collection any more. People overlooked the bad electricity, the unreliable postal service, the non-existent public transport and chaotic traffic. But stinking garbage in hot streets was apparently the breaking point for the young people from the various cultural groups, who joined together in protest for the first time. And then not just young people. And not just Western-educated elites, but also the ones who couldn’t imagine an alternative before. It all stands in the balance now. The protests are growing. Will it turn out like Egypt? Or Syria? Or will this suffocating compromise win in the end after all? Nobody seems to know. And Jacob doesn’t really know why he’s writing this memo or for whom or even how long it should be. He suspects it’s to keep himself occupied. But it doesn’t matter right now, because it gives him a temporary respite from the near constant anxiety pulsing inside him.
It has been more than two weeks, and he’s stopped manically checking his phone, when the text finally arrives:
I haven’t forgotten you.
‘The Ghost’
That’s all, but it’s enough to reawaken everything he’s tried so hard to forget. Both Yassim and Myriam.
He sits with the phone in his hand, reading the message over and over again. How should he answer? What do you say to a ghost?
He writes and rewrites; the words feel too big, as if they won’t fit on the screen. Finally, he sends only a large, red heart emoji. Nothing else is needed. Yassim knows. Jacob knows he knows.
The feeling settles in, it’s there when he wakes up the next morning, all through the day, even when he leaves the office after the sun sets. He buys a bottle of red wine in the small shop beneath his apartment. He needs peace and escape. He has to stop thinking about this dilemma, about who Yassim is. The risk he’s taking. If he’s not a terrorist, then who is he?
The key to the door doesn’t work, and he’s just about to put the wine bottle on the mosaic floor and grab hold of it with both hands when he hears a voice from within the shadows of the stairwell.
‘When were you planning to tell me he contacted you?’
Jacob turns around and sees Myriam in the shadows leaning against the wall.
‘Don’t think you can play both sides, Matti,’ she says. ‘You’re surely not so naive you thought we weren’t watching your phone?’ She moves towards him with those icy eyes flashing.
‘You landed yourself in the middle of this shit, habibi,’ she continues. ‘I know your head is spinning now. How can you have your cake and eat it too? Let me answer that question for you: you already ate it. The only things left are the crumbs of your life. Scrape them up and do what you can with them.’
He looks at her, shocked, confused. ‘I haven’t met with him,’ he says.
‘You will be crushed if you continue to waver on this,’ she says. ‘You have to understand that now.’
He nods slowly. All he wants to really do is disappear.
‘The second he contacts you, you contact me, do you understand? If you wait any longer, I promise you your life as you’ve known it will end.’
He understands nothing, and she already knows everything. But before he can ask, she’s disappeared into the shadows again.
*
Everything is quiet. A month goes by and Jacob starts to think Yassim might never contact him again. He’s sat with his phone in hand writing text messages over and over again. But never pressed send on them. He already knows that if he does meet Yassim he can’t break the rules, can’t force Yassim to be anything more than a ghost.
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.
&nb
sp; Slowly he stands up and walks past the stairs by West Hall and the pillars, up towards the main gate. He remembers every syllable Yassim says in that short conversation.
‘I missed you. Can we meet in an hour? You remember where I live?’
Does he remember? He remembers everything, every nuance, every insignificant detail.
Yassim hangs up before Jacob even has time to respond. The wind is rising again, and he lets it carry him across the campus, take him all the way to the traffic on Bliss Street.
He’s halfway down the slope to the sea when he remembers Myriam Awad, and doubt overtakes him. But everything is so insignificant now that he’s heard Yassim’s voice. So weightless. So small in comparison.
He hurries. Whoever Yassim might be, whatever happens to Jacob, it doesn’t matter. The only thing that matters is that he’s about to see Yassim again.
22 November
Stockholm
It only takes a few more minutes for the traffic to get going again. The black van and a couple of uniformed police officers standing outside the entrance of Lindblad & Wiman are the only ones still there by the time Klara drives by. It has started snowing, first just a few lonely snowflakes, but it picks up quickly and soon a thin layer is covering the ground.
She squeezes the steering wheel with both hands and turns and looks up at Gabriella’s office. If only she could see what was going on inside.
What should she do now? She has to gather her thoughts and she lets the car roll on for a while, until she finds herself passing Gamla Stan again, taking the same street she did before.
It’s incomprehensible. Gabriella, arrested on the street. Handcuffed, forced into a SWAT van.
Klara turns off at Munkbroleden and pulls into a disabled parking spot outside the Trattoria Romana restaurant. She leans forward, rests her forehead against the cool plastic of the steering wheel. The Volvo out on Sankt Anna. The same Volvo at the gas station on their way here. Gabriella being arrested.
She takes a deep breath, leans back in the seat and closes her eyes for a second before opening the car door and jumping out into the chilly air. Throws a glance at the disabled icon. Fuck it.
She starts to jog at an easy pace back down towards Skeppsbron. The cold, fresh air clears her head. The only logical place to start is by asking the police officers outside the law firm what the hell is going on. And where they took Gabriella. She’ll see about the rest. One thing at a time. Rock and salt.
*
A police car is still parked on the sidewalk outside Skeppsbron 28, and from a distance Klara sees two uniformed police officers on the stairs. She slows her pace, walks slowly down the wide sidewalk. The traffic is flowing as usual now. If she hadn’t been here just ten minutes ago, she’d have a hard time believing a SWAT team arrested someone in the middle of the street.
Fifty metres before reaching the office, she stops. What should she say when she gets there? If Säpo wants revenge on Gabriella for what she exposed this summer, isn’t Klara also in danger? Sure, Gabriella became a very visible and committed critic of Säpo’s methods, and even though Säpo refused to make any comment on the whole affair, there’s no doubt it had an impact on the public’s trust in the organization. But the idea that they would actually seek revenge? It sounds insane.
She’s on the stairs now and goes over to two police officers, a young woman with a blonde ponytail and a middle-aged man with a shaved head.
‘Excuse me. What’s going on here?’ Klara says. ‘I drove by and saw someone being arrested.’
Both police officers turn around and look at her. ‘Nothing,’ the male officer says. ‘Just routine.’
‘But it looked so dramatic,’ Klara tries. ‘You blocked off traffic, there was even a SWAT team, right?’
‘Like I said. Routine.’
Klara turns her attention to the young woman instead, trying to find a way through that cool look. ‘Where did you take her after you arrested her?’ she says. ‘To the city jail?’
‘The person who was arrested is being taken in for questioning. Not sure exactly where,’ the woman says. ‘We have no more information for you regarding this.’
‘But this is a law firm,’ Klara says. ‘It surely can’t be routine to arrest a criminal lawyer?’
‘How do you know we arrested a lawyer?’ the woman says. ‘Do you have some connection to the person we arrested?’
‘No. I was just driving by, like I said. Just curious.’
The woman exchanges a look with her partner; obviously Klara has piqued their interest. ‘Were you the one driving the car that the suspect got out of?’ the man asks.
Klara instinctively knows this is no longer a good idea, she shouldn’t have asked them anything, and she takes a few steps back on the sidewalk. The female officer takes half a step towards her and holds up her hands to show she’s harmless. ‘We’d like to ask you a couple of questions,’ she says.
But Klara has already turned around and started running as fast as she can. Blood pounding through her body. They took Gabriella; they can’t take her too.
It’s just ten metres to a tiny alley that leads further into Gamla Stan, and she turns so abruptly that she almost loses her balance on the cobblestones, but somehow she manages to stay upright.
Just a few metres behind her, she can hear them shouting for her, knows they’ve started hunting her.
The narrow alleys of the old part of town are like a maze, and they twist and turn until Klara barely knows what direction she’s running in. All she can think is that she has to keep moving forward and not to end up at a dead end.
She runs faster than she ever has before and rounds a corner where a couple of bikes lean against the building. She runs by them, throws them behind her to slow her pursuers, like she’s seen people do in the movies. The bikes clatter behind her and someone shouts, ‘Stop!’
But she doesn’t stop. She just keeps running and turning into tiny, deserted streets. Gaffelgränd, Pelikangränd. Suddenly she’s out on the somewhat wider Österlånggatan. Shops, cafes, tourists. She runs a few metres before bounding under a low archway and arriving in an inner courtyard.
A dead end.
Panic seizes her. She twists her head, looking for somewhere to hide, anywhere. A cargo bike is parked just to the left inside the archway, with a fabric cover over the cargo box.
She pulls the cover, frees a corner, throws herself into the box and zips it up quickly.
Someone is already in the courtyard – she can hear footsteps. They move further away from her hiding place, then stop and head back in her direction across the snow-covered cobblestones, closer and closer. Until they’re just on the other side of the fabric, not more than a foot away, just thin plastic between her and her pursuers. She can hear the male police officer on his radio. She closes her eyes, holds her breath.
16 October
Beirut
One hour, Yassim said, but it takes only twenty minutes for Jacob to make his way through the traffic on the streets that lead to Cornichen and the sea. His mouth is dry from exhaustion and nervousness, and he stops at a small kiosk to buy himself a Coke Zero. Forty minutes until Yassim said they should meet, but Jacob’s already there, can see the glass walls of his building between construction sites and building cranes.
He meanders down the street, stopping at a bank across the street from his destination. He opens his drink, takes a couple of deep gulps, and leans back, letting his eyes wander up the side of the building. The apartments are dark and empty, no more than items of expenditure on a spreadsheet in an open office somewhere in Dubai, bought by investors with oil money, never intended for habitation.
He counts the floors to number eight, follows the terraces to the corner, until his eyes hit a silhouette standing in the corner. He almost loses his breath.
Yassim.
He knows immediately, would recognize that body anywhere, from any distance. Yassim has a phone pressed to his ear, and he’s standing in the corner of his terr
ace looking down at Cornichen and the sea. Jacob feels guilty, like he’s a spy. He has no right to stand here in the shadows like some kind of stalker, but he can’t stop looking at him. Then Yassim finally takes the phone from his ear, puts it in his pocket, and goes back into the apartment.
Then Jacob’s phone vibrates again. Blocked number.
‘Hello?’ he answers in English. ‘I’m already outside.’
‘I’m sure you are,’ says Myriam’s hard voice. ‘Do you remember what I said last time, Matti?’
Jacob closes his eyes and waits for her to continue.
‘I told you to call the second he contacted you. But you didn’t.’
‘I just…’ he starts, ‘I got so stressed.’
‘There’s no room for stress. You know what you’re supposed to do. You call me on the number I gave you as soon as you hear from him. Is that clear?’
‘Yes,’ Jacob whispers. ‘It is.’
He cuts the call and looks up towards Yassim’s apartment again. The terrace is empty, but he follows the windows until he catches sight of two people in the shadows of Yassim’s apartment. One is Yassim, the other is nearly as tall, but looks older. They seem to be having a serious discussion. Yassim seems to be listening, as if the one talking is an authority figure.
Jacob checks the time on his phone again. Twenty minutes until he said he’d be there. He heads towards the entrance. Should he just take the elevator and ring the doorbell? But Yassim has a visitor.
He sits down on a low wall, out of sight of the armed guard in front of Yassim’s building, but still with a view of the entrance.
It doesn’t take more than a few minutes until a man exits. He looks stressed and hands some cash to the guard, says a few words. The guard nods, looks pleased, and the man looks up and down the street as if making sure nobody sees him. Then he crosses the street with a phone pressed to his ear and heads straight towards the wall where Jacob is sitting.
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