It’s the man from Yassim’s apartment, Jacob is sure of it despite the distance. He has an innate authority in the way he moves, a commanding presence. He appears to be in his fifties and is wearing an expensive, dark-blue suit. His thick white hair is carefully combed back over his head. When he turns and looks up the street Jacob flinches. It feels as if the man is looking straight into him, as if he knows who Jacob is, what he’s waiting for. A shiny black Mercedes with blue diplomatic plates stops. The man lowers his phone, jumps into the back seat, and disappears into the throbbing stream of Beirut traffic.
Jacob stays on the wall, slowly drinking his coke. He thinks about Myriam and the first time he saw Yassim on the terrace in Mar Mikhael. He thinks of the photograph that was leaning against the wall of Yassim’s room, and he thinks of Yassim’s naked body. He thinks about the man he just saw, his remarkably white hair, and how nothing is simple here in Beirut, nothing is what it seems.
He puts his drink on the wall next to him and stands up, restless and suddenly afraid. It’s as if he’s looking at himself and his situation from the outside: a naive Swede falls in love with somebody he doesn’t know. He’s neither experienced nor gifted enough to handle the situation with Yassim and Myriam.
He pushes his fingers through his hair and turns away from Yassim’s building, takes a step up towards Hamra, back to his normal life, away from folly and risk.
Then his phone rings again.
‘Where are you?’ Yassim asks.
Jacob stops. He gulps, closes his eyes, feels his blood become light, lighter than air, lifting him, his whole body, up above traffic and conflict and confusion, up above Beirut, out above everything that’s impossible to understand, up to something that’s only emotion, only instinct, lust and trembling excitement.
‘I’m here,’ Jacob replies. ‘I’m coming. I’m coming.’
*
Afterwards, they lie naked in Yassim’s white sheets on his low bed in his empty bedroom. Jacob feels Yassim’s arm around his shoulders, feels himself being pulled close and kissed. Lightly this time, not rough and relentless like a few moments ago.
‘Have you missed me?’ Yassim asks, his lips still against Jacob’s.
Jacob presses closer to Yassim, lets his tongue wander inside his mouth again. He’s getting hard again, even though it’s been just minutes since he emptied himself into Yassim’s hot, waiting mouth.
‘Yes,’ he moans. ‘I thought you were never coming back.’
Yassim pulls away and holds Jacob’s hand in his own. The regretful sadness that Jacob saw last time – which feels like an eternity ago – is back.
‘But I did,’ he says. ‘It’s impossible to stay away from you.’
‘Is that what you want?’ says Jacob. ‘Do you want to stay away from me?’
He’s not just seeking confirmation, not just waiting to hear Yassim say: ‘No, of course not. I want to be with you forever.’ He says it because he doesn’t know what this is, who Yassim is.
But his friend rolls onto his side and puts on his white briefs and his shirt.
‘Come,’ he says. ‘Let’s eat something.’
*
By the time Jacob pulls on his jeans and T-shirt and goes out into the large living room, Yassim has cleared the computer from the table and arranged takeout boxes of salads and spreads. He opens a bag of pita bread and tears it into pieces.
‘I picked up some food on my way,’ he says, smiling at Jacob. ‘Thought you might be hungry.’
Jacob nods, moved by this thoughtfulness, and keeps his eyes on Yassim’s face, though Yassim never looks directly at him. Jacob watches as he fills up bowls, puts the bread in a basket. Jacob wants nothing more than to go and put his arms around him. The doubts he felt seem negligible now. That Yassim is what Myriam says he is seems only laughable. He suddenly wants to tell him everything. About Myriam and the bathhouse and the threats and accusations. But something holds him back, and he turns his eyes away. A little sliver of suspicion.
‘Were you in Aleppo?’ he asks quietly. ‘This whole time?’
Yassim puts tabbouleh on Jacob’s plate and drizzles olive oil over a container of grainy baba ganoush.
‘I’ve been just about everywhere,’ he says cautiously. ‘I go where they want me.’
Jacob nods. Why would he lie? And yet he can’t let go of Myriam’s words. All these conflicting agendas.
‘I got here a bit early,’ Jacob begins doubtfully. ‘So I was waiting outside.’
He gestures towards the window where the city’s yellow light streams onto the grey concrete floor. ‘You had a visitor right before I arrived?’
Yassim takes a bite and looks up at him questioningly. He shakes his head slightly. ‘Excuse me? I don’t quite follow you.’
‘I thought I saw someone in the window,’ Jacob says, looking away. ‘But I must have been wrong.’
Wasn’t that Yassim’s apartment he was looking up at? Wasn’t that Yassim he saw? He’d been so sure. But now Yassim just smiles at him.
‘You must have been spying on the wrong apartment, Jacob,’ he says, taking another bite of the bread. ‘I’m not the only one who lives here.’
Jacob shrugs. ‘I guess so. Sorry.’
But it does seem to be only Yassim’s apartment that’s inhabited. And he’s absolutely sure he’d recognize Yassim’s silhouette anywhere. But he doesn’t say anything. Just eats his hummus Beiruti and takes a gulp of water.
‘Can you tell me about life at the embassy,’ Yassim says. ‘I want to hear something that’s not war or misery.’
22 November
Stockholm
Every heartbeat feels like a tiny explosion, every single beat seems like more than enough to draw their attention, Klara thinks, huddled in the foetal position beneath the cover. She holds her breath as the legs of the police officer brush against the cover that forms her only defence. He’s unbearably close to her.
Then she hears more steps enter the courtyard. A breathless voice. ‘Berg!’
A woman’s voice. The other officer.
‘Witnesses say she disappeared to the left up Svartman- gatan.’
‘Svartmangatan?’ Berg answers. ‘I could swear that I saw her sneak in here.’
‘Well, she’s not here,’ the woman replies impatiently. ‘We’ll lose her if we waste any more time.’
‘But you can’t trust eyewitnesses,’ he mutters. ‘I know what I saw.’ He runs a hand over the cover.
‘Forget it,’ the woman says impatiently. ‘If she was the one driving, I don’t know why they didn’t take her in immediately during the crackdown.’
The bike shakes as Berg accidentally hits it with his hip. ‘Oh, damn!’ he mutters.
‘We don’t even know if she’s got anything to do with this,’ the woman continues.
‘But you know how it is,’ Berg says. ‘You don’t run if you’ve got nothing to hide.’
‘That’s not our problem right now anyway,’ the woman says. ‘They want us back at our post. Anttila is covering for us now, but he goes off duty in three minutes.’
The man sighs. ‘A terrorism crackdown on a law firm, and we decide to leave loose ends. Fucking amateur hour.’
‘Save it for the break room,’ the woman sighs, exhausted. ‘No one else wants to hear it.’
Their boots crunch across the snow that covers the inner courtyard as they slowly head out through the archway onto Österlånggatan again.
*
Klara stays there until she loses all track of time and starts to shake violently from the cold. Finally, she slowly gets up on her hands and knees. She’s lost all feeling in her fingers and struggles to take off the cover so she can stumble out of the cargo bike.
Terrorism crackdown. The words echo in her head.
Has Gabriella been arrested in a terrorism crackdown?
Klara remembers the phone call last night, the one she heard from outside Gabriella’s door. She was going to meet someone in Brussels. A little
sceptical, but still willing to fly to Brussels. After the terrible slaughter at the Bataclan in central Paris just a week ago, it feels like the whole world is on edge.
If this isn’t Bronzelius’s way of making good on his threat, then it must be a huge misunderstanding. What else could it be?
She’s out on Österlånggatan now, but soon turns off again onto one of the smaller streets. She can slowly feel the warmth returning to her limbs. Does she dare go back to Gabriella’s car? The police could have it under surveillance. But how would they even know where it was parked?
She continues down towards Kornhamnstorg where she abandoned it before her failed attempt to talk to the police.
When she arrives at Mälartorget, the car is still standing on the disabled spot at Trattoria Romana. She stops fifty metres from it and scans the street. No police officers. Nothing unusual at all. Just a normal, sleepy winter Sunday in central Stockholm.
Not so much as a parking ticket, she discovers when she reaches the car. Her hands tremble after the events of the past few hours, and she glances at the Italian restaurant she parked at, feels that familiar desire for a glass of wine. Just one. To calm down, to think clearly.
But she steels herself, unlocks the car and hops in. It would be too ironic if she were to hide for twenty minutes from the police and then end up arrested for drunk driving. She presses the start button and puts it into gear. From the corner of her eye she sees a bag on the passenger side. Gabriella didn’t take it with her.
Klara stops, turns off the engine and puts on the handbrake, then bends down and grabs the bag, a spacious leather tote, decorated with a familiar golden monogram pattern. She takes out a sweater, a vanity case, and the clothes Gabriella wore yesterday, and puts them on the passenger seat. She was only going to Sankt Anna archipelago for a night, so she packed light.
No computer, no phone either – she must have had it on her – only a charger in the bottom of the bag, a hairbrush, an old pack of chewing gum, a pot of expensive face powder and a half-full bottle of water.
Something jingles and Klara grabs hold of the keys to Gabriella’s apartment. But that’s all. Nothing of value. Nothing that gives the slightest clue as to what Gabriella was up to, the reason for her arrest.
Klara notices something curious on the face powder’s label, and deeper in the bag she feels the contours of something else. She grabs hold of a thin black notebook she didn’t notice at first. She takes it out, puts the rest of Gabriella’s things back into the bag, then opens the notebook to the first page.
20 October
Beirut
Jacob wakes up next to Yassim in a dark room, the only room in the apartment that doesn’t have translucent walls. In fact it’s the opposite of transparent thanks to thick blackout curtains. Despite the darkness, he can still make out Yassim’s face, eyes closed, mouth half open. He’s so still right now, unlike earlier in the night when he tossed and turned in his sleep so much that Jacob woke up and turned towards his stern face. Yassim’s mouth was moving in his sleep, as if he were speaking or praying, but without words, and Jacob gently pressed close and waited for him to calm down.
This is the fourth night in a row he’s slept here. The fourth day he’s come here directly from work, and they’ve collided in desire in the hallway, could barely make it to the bedroom, the fourth night they’ve eaten among the lights of the city in the living room, while Yassim insisted that they stay away from windows and balconies.
‘We’re ghosts, darling,’ he said. ‘We can’t let anyone see us. This is only happening between you and me.’
And then he pulled Jacob deeper into the apartment and kissed him until no thoughts were in his head, no other need except his need for him. Until the memory of his betrayal faded almost completely.
Because this is happening only between them.
Every morning on his way to the embassy, Jacob calls Myriam to report while betrayal burns in his throat and chest. Just to keep her at a distance, he thinks, just to save the crumbs of his life. And every morning he hears her frustration growing.
‘Jesus Christ, you can’t just spend all your time fucking,’ she says. ‘You have to get the password to his computer so you can load the thumb drive. Do you understand? You have one task here. Focus.’
Each call forces him to confront and conquer himself, his doubts, his worries. Every conversation with Myriam forces him to harden himself to what she’s saying. It can’t be true; Yassim can’t be who she says he is.
But what if it is true?
What proof does he have that Yassim isn’t a terrorist? What proof does Jacob have that Yassim couldn’t be both the person Myriam says he is, and the person Jacob knows.
The thumb drive burns inside his pocket. He knows he has to do what Myriam says. There’s no other way out of this. He has to because she’s forcing him to, but also because he can’t be sure. Because there are limits even for him, even for his naivety, his desire and his infatuation. Because no matter how much he doesn’t want to face it, no matter how wrong it feels: he doesn’t know who Yassim is.
*
Jacob sits up, careful not to wake Yassim. He pulls on a pair of underwear and tiptoes barefoot over the cool concrete floor into the living room, where he’s dazzled by the morning light falling through the huge windows.
He fills the moka pot with coffee from a jar in the cabinet and turns on the gas stove. While waiting for the coffee to brew, he sits down at the table in front of the computer. He bends forward hesitantly. With trembling hands he pushes the screen up and is met by the blurry photo overlaid by a dialogue box asking for a password.
He sighs, closes the computer again and pulls his phone out of his pocket to check his messages and the news, but it gets stuck and drops onto the floor. He throws a foot out reflexively to soften the fall, and somehow manages to kick it under the table.
He swears silently and crawls under the table. He hits his head against something cold and angular, and stifles a moan of pain as he turns his head.
It takes him a moment to understand what he’s looking at. Duct-taped to the underside of the table, there is a large, black gun. He gapes at it and runs his fingers along the barrel.
He can hear Yassim moving around. He turns around, grabs hold of the phone and backs out from under the table. When Yassim comes out of the bedroom, he’s back on the chair again.
‘Did you sleep well?’ Yassim says, going over to the stove. ‘Ah, you already put on the coffee!’
There’s a gun under the table; it’s the only thing Jacob can think of. He knows it’s not unusual for people to be armed here; it’s not like Sweden. But still, how could there be a gun under the table?
‘Yes,’ he says. ‘I slept great.’
Yassim pours coffee into two small cups and puts one on the table next to Jacob, before bending down and kissing him on the cheek. ‘What is it, my darling?’ he says. ‘You look like you’ve seen a ghost.’
Jacob clears his throat, tries to collect himself, takes a small sip of the strong, black coffee. What do you say when you’ve just discovered a gun under the table of someone who you’re inexorably drawn to, but who you suspect might be a terrorist?
‘Didn’t I?’ Jacob says. ‘You’re my ghost.’
He takes Yassim’s hand and kisses it with Myriam’s message ringing in his ears: ‘Don’t forget – he’s not who he says he is.’
But who does he say he is? Jacob doesn’t know anything about Yassim. Just that he’s more attracted to him than anyone else he’s ever met. And that it’s mutual. Yassim can’t keep his hands off Jacob either, can’t be without him. What exactly have they been up to the last four nights?
Jacob has come here late, straight from work where he stayed as late as possible despite a near complete lack of tasks, because Yassim supposedly had meetings with clients into the evening. They’ve eaten and slept with each other. It doesn’t sound like much when you put it like that. But there’s so much more to it than just sex an
d takeout. But what has Yassim actually told him about himself? His family is from Syria, but lives in England. He’s a photographer.
Myriam’s voice is in Jacob’s ear. The gun’s cold against his fingers. Doubt and worry and confusion.
‘Sometimes I think you really are a ghost,’ Jacob says. ‘It feels like I don’t know anything about you at all.’
Yassim laughs and takes a sip of coffee. But Jacob thinks he hears some sadness there, something more than just amusement at how adorable Jacob is. ‘What do you want to know? I’m an open book.’
Jacob shrugs. Then he pushes up the screen of the computer in front of him. ‘I’d like to see the pictures from your Syria trip. You’re so far away sometimes. I want to see what you see.’
Yassim takes another sip of coffee and sits down at the short side of the table. ‘There’s nothing to see yet. They’re not ready. I have to go through them and edit them. They’re for a magazine, and I don’t need to turn them in for a few more days.’
This is how it’s been every time he brought up something about Yassim or his job. There’s always an excuse. He hears Myriam’s voice in his head again.
‘I don’t care if they’re not ready,’ he says, frustrated now. ‘I know we can’t be a couple outside these walls. But I’m interested, Yassim. I want to know what you’re working on, what you experience, where you come from.’ He pushes the computer towards him. ‘Just a couple of pictures, okay? Just something?’
Yassim doesn’t move, just stares at Jacob without saying a word. It’s a test. Both of them feel it. Jacob didn’t mean it like that, but that’s how it turned out.
But he doesn’t have the strength to hold out, doesn’t want a confrontation, doesn’t want to upset this fragile magic.
‘Forget it,’ Jacob says, sliding the computer back. ‘It’s not important. If you don’t want to tell me, then…’
But Yassim leans over, and grabs the computer out of Jacob’s hands. ‘Okay, okay,’ he says. ‘If you’re so fucking curious then you might as well see. But only a few.’
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