The Friend

by Joakim Zander

  She meets his naked, terrified eyes. ‘I didn’t know you…’ she begins.

  ‘You remember that Christmas in the archipelago two years ago? I was kidnapped by my clients who turned out to be a freaking CIA death squad, as you might remember?’

  He smiles crookedly.

  ‘I shot somebody. And it wasn’t exactly like I could talk about what happened to anyone – Säpo made that abundantly clear. If anyone understands keeping it together with alcohol and work and a little bump now and then, surely it’s you? But after what happened this summer… The Russians and those fucking riots in the suburbs? I haven’t been able to sleep. I think people are breaking into the apartment, I think I’m being followed and monitored. And do you know what the worst part is?’

  Klara shakes her head.

  ‘That I’m not even sure I’m paranoid. Because who the hell knows, right?’

  Klara stretches out her hand and puts it on his cheek, caressing it gently. ‘Yes,’ she says. ‘Who the hell knows?’

  ‘So I bought a gun from a guy down in Anderlecht that my cocaine dealer knew.’

  He lifts it up and turns it over, inspects it.

  ‘It’s so damn big. But I didn’t know what else to do.’

  ‘You bought a gun and applied for a job at the Ministry of Enterprise. Unusual strategy, I’d say.’

  George laughs and stands slowly. He puts the gun on the kitchen counter. ‘I don’t know,’ he says. ‘Maybe if I can get out of here, if I get away from my job at Stirling & Merchant and all the bullshit, maybe it will stop? Maybe I can start sleeping again, won’t panic every time I hear a sound I can’t quite place.’

  Klara stands up too. ‘You should get help. For real. You can’t live like this, surely you know that?’

  George picks up the bags of food and puts them onto the small kitchen table. He looks at her ironically. ‘Good advice. How’s that working out for you?’

  *

  It’s five o’clock in the morning when Klara slips into the kitchen, opens the door to the fridge, and takes out an almost untouched tub of hummus. Neither of them ate much last night, despite being so hungry when they ordered that George bought basically the entire menu.

  ‘You sleep about as well as I do.’

  She turns around and sees him standing in the doorway, in a tank top and a pair of striped boxers. He’s squinting at her; without glasses his face looks so naked and clean cut, and he’s so… cute? Is George Lööw cute? She truly has lost control.

  ‘I have some Rohypnol,’ she says. ‘To help me sleep. But I don’t dare use it.’

  She has an important meeting in about twelve hours. After she got control of her drinking last night, she couldn’t risk being affected in any other way. Better to be tired than chemically hungover.

  ‘And here I gave you the bed,’ he continues, passing by her to the fridge. ‘You could have taken the sofa if you didn’t want to sleep.’

  Klara dips a piece of bread, chews and swallows while she looks at him evenly. ‘Or you could come into the bed with me?’ she says. Damn, that sounded more forward than she’d planned.

  They haven’t discussed what happened on the sofa before he picked up the food, just let it be.

  Now he turns around from the fridge, still squinting in the dark kitchen, but with something more confident and interested in his eyes. ‘Is that what you want?’

  She doesn’t say anything; she just dips another piece of bread and stares down into the food. Does she? Really?

  Then she looks up and nods.

  ‘Yes,’ she says. ‘I do.’

  15 November

  Beirut

  Shatila is far from the glittering downtown and the galleries of Mar Mikhael, far from Cornichen and the university. Shatila is poverty and permanent impermanence, a fifty-year-old refugee camp that’s turned into a neighbourhood.

  The taxi drops him off at the Embassy of Kuwait, near the edge of the camp, and Jacob stumbles on through winding, narrow alleys, between walls covered with flaking graffiti and spray-painted stencils of Arafat. As he looks up at the gritty, decaying buildings, he sees Hamas flags and Fatah emblems hanging out of the windows. The sun is setting, and he can feel eyes staring out at him from small, improvised kiosks and shops. He tightens the backpack around his shoulders.

  Nobody will find him here, but he also knows he shouldn’t be alone; he should have calmed down and waited to enter with a guide. Most of all, he should have called Alexa first, despite the risk, and asked her to meet him.

  Reflexively, he puts his hand in his pocket and reaches for his phone, but then remembers that he doesn’t have one any more. He tossed it in the garden.

  The alley he’s walking down bends slightly to the left and narrows, and when he rounds the turn he sees two men in leather jackets staring at him without expression and his mistake dawns on him with full force.

  Jacob stops. He glances around and sees another man blocking the path behind him. He raises his hands with open palms to show that he’s unarmed, that he’s not a threat, that his intentions aren’t bad.

  The men say nothing at first – they just stand there with unreadable eyes. Jacob opens his mouth and closes it again, takes a step backwards. He doesn’t know what to say or what’s required in a situation like this. Something flashes in the sunlight. A gun at one of the men’s belts.

  ‘I’m a friend,’ he says in his faltering Arabic. ‘I’m looking for the youth centre.’

  It rings so hollow, and he can feel the man behind him getting closer. The two other men also move slowly towards him. Jacob swallows hard, panic pounding in his chest.

  ‘I’m looking for the youth centre,’ he tries again.

  The men stop and look at him. The echo of stories of robberies, disappearances and kidnappings bounce around inside his head. What is the actual name of the centre where Alexa is working? Why did he come in here so unprepared? What the hell was he thinking? He should have gone to the Four Seasons or some other Western hotel, tried to disappear into the crowd. This is folly and naivety, nothing else.

  ‘Who are you?’ asks one of the men.

  ‘My name is Jacob,’ he says, but his mouth is so dry the words barely make it over his lips. ‘I’m a Swedish diplomat.’

  It’s not exactly the truth, but perhaps it might function as a shield of some kind. The expression of the man who asked doesn’t change, but he nods almost imperceptibly to the man standing behind Jacob, who slowly closes a hand around Jacob’s upper arm.

  He gestures with one hand to the man behind him and then turns around and heads into the alley. Jacob is dragged in the same direction, his feet moving without choice, following the two men, deeper into the labyrinth of Shatila.

  Is this a kidnapping? He tries to memorize the path they’re taking, that’s all he can do. Past some kind of workshop, a mural in the PLO’s honour, a small opening between houses that are barely more than hovels; he sees four children kicking a ball in the shadows. But it’s useless.

  ‘Where are you taking me?’ he says to the man holding him by the arm.

  But the man just glances at him without answering and quickens his steps. Suddenly, the two men in front of him head to the door of a concrete building, which seems more substantial than most. One knocks.

  The other man turns to Jacob. He no longer seems threatening; he’s almost friendly, almost harmless. He points to a sign above the door. It’s slightly illuminated by a fluorescent lamp that sways in the chilly breeze.

  Palestinian Recreational Youth Centre, PRYC, it says on the sign. In English and Arabic.

  ‘This was where you wanted to go?’ the man asks. ‘The Youth Centre?’

  Jacob swallows again. He can’t believe it’s true. They’ve taken him where he wanted to go. This wasn’t a kidnapping; they just wanted to help.

  ‘Thank you,’ he says. ‘I didn’t know…’

  He doesn’t get further before the door opens and he sees Alexa’s worried eyes in the gap. She looks
at him, trying to place who he is for a moment.

  ‘Jacob?’ she asks. ‘What are you doing here?’

  *

  They sit down at one of several long tables with linoleum tops in a room that’s used both as a cafeteria and a classroom. A woman is wiping down another table on the other end of the hall. Alexa puts a cup of tea in front of him.

  ‘So tell me,’ she says. ‘What made you come all the way out here without even calling first? You were lucky to run into those guys; you could have been robbed. You know that, right?’

  Jacob nods and feels the wound on his back start to ache again. For a while he’d almost forgotten it.

  ‘So much has happened,’ he begins. ‘I don’t even know where to start.’

  Then the dam bursts, finally, and tears start coursing down his face. Everything washes over him: Yassim and Myriam and the gunshots at Hamra. The kidnapping that never was.

  He’s expecting Alexa to put her arm around him, try to comfort him, tell him everything will be okay, and that she’ll take care of him. But she just puts her hand on his and stares deeply into his eyes.

  ‘There, there,’ she says. ‘Pull it together now, Jacob. Men don’t break down around here. Do you understand?’

  *

  It takes him fifteen minutes to tell his story. Alexa doesn’t say anything, just sits there completely still, listening. Half the time she doesn’t even look at him, just stares at the wall without expression. When he’s done, he takes a deep breath and buries his face in his hands.

  ‘I don’t know what I got caught up in,’ he whispers.

  Alexa turns her face to him and looks at him calmly: ‘Beirut,’ she says. ‘You got caught up in Beirut.’

  She stretches out a hand and puts it on his back, runs her hand slowly between his shoulder blades until she finds the little bandage that covers the stitches and the chip.

  ‘You can almost feel it through the skin and the bandage,’ she says. ‘If you know it’s there.’

  Jacob just nods.

  ‘And what happens now?’ Alexa says. ‘You have something under your skin that you’ve promised to get out of Beirut. You’re being hunted by the Swedish and probably US intelligence services. You can’t exactly buy a ticket and fly home. What are you going to do?’

  Jacob removes the thick envelope the bookseller gave him and slides it across the table to Alexa. She opens it and extracts the contents. Flight tickets to Brussels via Istanbul. A MasterCard. And finally, the most shocking thing of all: a Swedish passport, for one Patrik Andersson.

  ‘Lordy,’ Alexa whispers.

  It’s the first time she shows any kind of reaction. Apparently, her limit is at counterfeit passports.

  ‘They’re quite serious about all this,’ she says, flipping through the passport. ‘This Yassim – I don’t know him. I know he was at my party, but he arrived with someone else. Do you trust him? Or are you so blinded by love that you’ll do anything for him?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ he whispers. ‘I do think I love him.’

  ‘Blind it is,’ Alexa says drily. ‘But it doesn’t really matter.’ She sighs and leans towards him, puts the passport back in the envelope again, lowers her voice. ‘Either you have information about war crimes beneath your skin, which the Americans, or somebody else, don’t want made public. Or you have instructions for a terrorist attack or network or something like that. Either way you’re fair game, Jacob. Either way, you’ll be hunted and imprisoned.’

  He sobs and puts his forehead on the table. The extent of what he’s got himself into is finally coming into focus. ‘I know,’ he whispers.

  ‘In other words, there is no help for you,’ she says. ‘But you know that. There is no state or institution that you can trust.’

  Jacob tries to nod, still with his forehead to the desk. It doesn’t matter what’s on the chip, or if he trusts Yassim, or if what Yassim says is true. He will be on the run or locked up; he’ll be in danger no matter what he does.

  ‘Is there anyone else who can help you?’ Alexa’s voice sounds distant, barely able to penetrate his self-pity. He shakes his head so that his cheek lies against the table as he looks at her.

  ‘What do you mean, anyone else?’ he asks. ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘Someone at the university? A politician. Any journalist? Anyone really, just someone you trust who has the power and influence. Wasta. Do you understand?’

  Wasta. Always this wasta, these patrons. Always someone you can call when the police stop you or when you’re denied some permit, or when you want your daughter to get into one of the French schools. A distant relative who’s the mayor of a small town. A godfather whose brother is chief of the police. The connections are complicated, and the paths between people often laughably long. But Jacob has nobody. No one at all. He just shakes his head.

  ‘Not here,’ Alexa says. ‘I mean in Sweden.’

  ‘Sweden doesn’t work like that,’ he mutters. ‘It doesn’t matter who you know.’

  ‘I get that it’s not like here,’ she says. A slight note of irritation in her voice now. She doesn’t have time for the obvious. ‘But someone who’s independent. Someone you trust and who trusts you?’

  ‘I don’t know anyone,’ he says. ‘I don’t have those kind of contacts.’

  As he sits up in his chair and opens his eyes again, he remembers something he caught a glimpse of. Someone he read about. It’s not much. Almost nothing.

  ‘Can I borrow your computer or phone?’ he says. ‘I want to check something.’

  24 November

  Brussels

  Pale sunshine streams in through the bedroom window, and Klara wakes up in a panic and sits straight up. Has she slept the whole day away and missed the meeting?

  ‘Fuck, fuck, fuck,’ she says under her breath and bends over the edge of the bed to find her phone.

  ‘What is it?’ George mumbles beside her.

  Klara twists around and sees his naked body beside her. They had sex again. And fell asleep in each other’s arms.

  ‘What’s the time?’ she says.

  George turns to the bedside table and a grotesquely large watch. ‘Half past eight. Calm down, it can’t be that much of a hurry, can it?’

  Klara falls back against the pillows again, less panicked, but still not calm. He puts the watch on his wrist. ‘I got this after all the bullshit in the archipelago. From my boss. It’s a limited-edition Panerai; it costs tens of thousands of dollars. Pretty sick, right?’

  She looks at the huge black watch on his wrist and shakes her head. ‘What’s sick is that you walk around with that on your wrist as if it’s normal,’ she says. ‘I’ve honestly never seen anything more vulgar.’

  George snorts and rolls onto his back. ‘Don’t hold back, please,’ he mutters. ‘Tell me what you really think.’

  She glances over at him in all his wounded ego, wondering for a moment how she could have slept with such a person.

  But then he turns to her, and his face is serious. ‘You’re going to meet the guy today. Who do you think he is?’

  She shrugs, sits up and starts searching for her underwear. ‘How should I know? Even Gabi didn’t seem to know.’

  ‘And those men you think are following you?’ he says. ‘It has to be related, right?’

  She finds her underwear balled up next to the bed and pulls it on. ‘I can’t imagine any other explanation. Did I tell you I got some kind of adrenaline rush in Stockholm and almost confronted them at Bromma?’

  George nods. ‘You have to find a way to shake them off,’ he says. ‘Before you meet this Karl.’

  ‘I wanna know who they are,’ she says. ‘I’m so tired of being in the middle of things I don’t understand.’ She gets out of bed and turns to George. ‘Don’t you have a job to go to?’ she says.

  ‘Just a couple of weeks left,’ he says. ‘It’s not like I’m irreplaceable at the moment, obviously.’

  *

  ‘Well, there’s nobody out there
right now anyway,’ George says.

  He’s just come in from buying croissants from a small nearby bakery, and he’s standing with a steaming espresso in each hand, half hidden behind the curtains at the window, peering down towards the crossing where he bought food yesterday. Klara sips her coffee and stretches to get a better look. He’s right. The street is empty except for a few men and women in suits on their way to work at the EU Commission or maybe at some law firm down on Avenue Louise.

  ‘Do you think they gave up?’

  ‘Maybe,’ Klara mutters. ‘But if they bought a last-minute plane ticket just to keep an eye on me down here, it hardly seems likely that they’d just give up.’

  George takes a sip of his coffee, his eyes still on the street. She looks at him from the corner of her eye. He’s so concentrated and unexpectedly protective of her, and her overheated brain slows down when she’s near him. She doesn’t feel the constant panic. She doesn’t feel so alone.

  ‘Over there?’ he says. ‘In that old BMW?’

  Klara leans towards the windowsill and peers down. She can just make out the silhouette of someone sitting behind the steering wheel. He seems to be drinking something out of a big cardboard cup.

  ‘Maybe,’ she says with a shrug. ‘But it’s not the same guy as yesterday.’

  ‘That’s the guy,’ George says. ‘I’m one hundred per cent sure of it. He was behind me at the bakery just now. Bought a large coffee.’ He nods down at him. ‘He’s drinking it now. Seemed Middle Eastern. Had a beard. Jeans and some short bodybuilder-type jacket that made him look like a big guy. He kept glancing behind him all the time in the direction of the apartment. Wanted to make sure you didn’t disappear while he was getting his coffee. It’s him for sure. They’ve just changed the guy, realized that you know they’re following you.’

  Klara sighs. For a moment she’d allowed herself to think they might have miraculously let her go.