Jacob jumps, frightened and guilty; he didn’t hear Yassim coming out of the bedroom.
He manages to put the picture back in its place against the wall before standing up; the flashlight on his phone is still shining.
‘I’m sorry,’ he begins. ‘I was just headed home, didn’t mean to…’
‘It’s not a problem,’ Yassim says calmly. ‘It’s the first picture I took of a drone attack. A wedding near the beginning of the air campaign against ISIS.’
Yassim stands there, his face dimly lit by the light coming through the big windows.
‘I have it on the wall so I don’t forget what it is I’m doing. It’s hard to explain.’ He shrugs his shoulders and smiles sadly. ‘But tonight I didn’t want it watching over us.’
Jacob nods and walks towards him. ‘I understand,’ Jacob says. ‘I didn’t mean to snoop. I was just heading for the door and saw it. Forgive me.’
He’s now reached Yassim and kisses him on the cheek. Yassim looks tired, but something flashes in his eyes as he deliberately pushes Jacob’s hand away from his cheek.
‘I hide my secrets better than that,’ he says evenly. There’s something hard and indifferent in his expression now, something that feels almost like a blow. They stand there, facing each other for a second that never wants to end. ‘If I have any secrets, that is,’ he adds.
He smiles again and his eyes are as warm as before; the change is so quick it leaves Jacob confused, with no idea what to say.
‘But you have to go now, my friend,’ Yassim says. ‘I have to get up early.’
He takes Jacob’s hand again, leads him to the elevator door and opens it. Jacob turns around. ‘Again, I’m sorry,’ he says. ‘It really wasn’t my intention to snoop, I don’t know what got into me.’
‘It’s no problem,’ Yassim says, and caresses his cheek gently. ‘It’s just a photo.’
Jacob nods. ‘Will you call when you get back?’ he says. ‘Or can I get your number?’
Yassim pushes him gently out the door, laughs and shakes his head. ‘Jacob, you really have to go now,’ he says. ‘Don’t worry, I’ll call you in the middle of the week when I’m back. It may be hard for you to understand, but I actually want to see you, too.’
When he says that, it’s as if something sticks in Jacob’s chest, a little nub of hope, a tiny shard of reciprocity. ‘Yes, it is hard to understand,’ he whispers.
Yassim leans forward and kisses him on his lips, pushes him into the hallway. ‘But so it is,’ he says. ‘Perhaps unfortunately. But so it is.’
22 November
Stockholm
They roll over the bridge into Stockholm just before eleven. Below them, the city sparkles in the autumn morning sun.
Klara is in the passenger seat, and Gabriella has just finished a phone call with her boss, Göran Wiman, who asked her to go by the office on Skeppsbron. Immediately.
Gabriella puts up a good show during the call, says things like ‘of course’ and ‘no problem’, maintaining an attitude that Klara recognizes quite well from her own past life as an ambitious political adviser in the European Parliament. It’s not a life that she misses.
‘Back to the salt mines?’ she says now, looking at Gabriella, who smiles tiredly without taking her eyes off the road.
‘What the hell choice do I have?’ she mutters.
‘I thought you’d have it easier now that you made partner?’ Klara continues.
Gabriella sighs again. ‘I’m the most junior partner,’ she says. ‘Apparently there’s a fucking hierarchy among us as well. You can’t win at this game.’
‘Doesn’t it help that you’re famous now?’ Klara says. ‘After last summer, I mean?’
‘Fame,’ Gabriella mutters. ‘Seems to create more problems than it solves.’
‘Why?’
But she doesn’t answer, just keeps driving in silence.
*
‘One strange thing…’ Klara begins when she finally tires of the silence in the car.
‘Yes?’
‘You promise not to give me shit now?’ she says. ‘And please remember, I buried my grandfather yesterday, so I’m obviously a basket case.’
‘Now I’m curious,’ Gabriella says, glancing at her. ‘Tell me.’
‘You know George Lööw?’ As soon as she says his name her face gets warm. Why is she even bringing this up?
‘George from Brussels, the PR guy?’ Gabriella says. ‘Who somehow managed to first represent a client that was a front for the CIA and then another that was a front for the Kremlin?’
‘Forget it,’ Klara says. ‘It’s nothing.’ She leans back in her seat.
‘Not a chance!’ Gabriella says, glancing over again. ‘What about George?’
‘I know he’s a douche bag; you don’t have to tell me that, okay?’ Klara takes a deep breath. ‘But…’
‘Stop it!’ Gabriella turns away from the road completely to stare at Klara with her eyes wide. ‘I knew it! I knew it this summer! Have you been in touch? Met? Tell me everything!’
Klara’s cheeks still feel hot, her mouth is dry. ‘Please stop!’ she says. ‘And no, we haven’t met or even been in touch. We’re friends on Facebook, that’s it. And it’s so stupid, he’s… Well, you know what he’s like. But still. I think of him pretty often. Too often.’
Gabriella drums her fists on the wheel. ‘Yes!’ she says. ‘Finally back in the game.’ Then she stops, puts a hand on Klara’s thigh. ‘I’m sorry. It’s not the right day to tease you about this. And honestly,’ – she turns to Klara again – ‘it’s a good thing. He’s hot, and he’ll grow into himself. You two are going to have the most beautiful little babies.’
‘I barely know him, Gabi. And I have no idea where this comes from? It’ll pass. I hope.’
Gabriella glances at her again. ‘We’ll see,’ she says. ‘We’ll see.’
‘Ha ha,’ Klara says. ‘I don’t think we’ll see anything at all.’
She turns her head and looks out over Stockholm. She asked Gabriella to take this route via Essingeleden, even though it’s a bit longer and more complicated, just for this very view. The city looks so grand from here, so promising and undeniably beautiful. The silver, sparkling water of Riddarfjärden contrasting with Kungsholmen’s yellow and pink buildings.
She runs her eyes along Söder Mälarstrand, past the brick walls of Münchenbryggeriet and towards Mariaberget where Gabriella lives. The bare trees seem so lonely in the bright morning light.
She leans back in her seat, allowing herself to feel this blend of calm and expectation that Stockholm always evokes in her, pushing away the sadness and emptiness of the past few months. Even though she’s never lived in Stockholm, she feels at home here. In Stockholm and on Aspöja. In East London sometimes. In Ixelles and Saint-Gilles in Brussels. Home can be many places, she thinks, gently turning her head back, glancing over her shoulder.
There’s another reason she asked Gabriella to take this way. On Sunday mornings the traffic here is sparse, and the bridge feels extra long and straight. It’s a good place to check if someone is following you. She thought she saw a Volvo take off from the rest stop at Sille-Krog right behind them. Thought the driver was a man she saw smoking outside the kiosk.
Now there’s a truck behind them blocking her view and before she can get a good look they’re on Kungsholmen making their way towards the inner city and Gamla Stan. On these city streets it’s impossible to see if you’re being followed.
Gabriella gives her a furtive glance. ‘Klara,’ she begins, exhaustedly. ‘Are you looking for that car again?’
She turns back towards the front, looks out at the cream-coloured buildings instead. She shrugs. ‘Just wanted to check,’ she mumbles.
‘Paranoia,’ Gabriella says, but her smile isn’t convincing, and it quickly dies on her lips.
Gabriella slows outside the law firm Lindblad & Wiman on Skeppsbron 28. Klara looks up at the Art Nouveau building. A flag with the company’s logo h
angs above the entrance, flapping in the wind.
‘When are they going to add Seichelmann to the company name?’ she asks.
‘One thing at a time, Klara,’ Gabriella warns her. ‘I have to start with partnership.’
‘I’m serious,’ Klara says. ‘You should push them a little. By the way, you can’t park your car here, you know that, right?’
Gabriella gives her a tired look. ‘Sunday morning, and I’m working? The company can pay the fine. I’d say it’s the least they can do if they won’t put my name on the flag.’
‘Hell, yes, girl,’ Klara says.
She smiles and glances down the street in search of mysterious cars, but sees nothing. The Volvo seems to be gone now. All she sees is a police car and a black Volkswagen van slowly driving past them and turning onto one of the narrow side streets of the Gamla Stan. Klara points to them through the windshield.
‘Listen,’ she says. ‘I can drive around the block. Doesn’t it feel a little provocative to park here right in front of the police, when they’re circling the block? I can take a few laps and wait.’
Gabriella looks up, following the short motorcade with worried eyes and a furrow on her brow.
‘What the hell?’ she mutters. ‘A SWAT van? At Skeppsbron on a Sunday?’
She puts the car keys in Klara’s lap.
‘Okay, I’ll call you. I think he just wants to give me a few documents. Shouldn’t take long.’
She jumps out onto the street, her eyes on the police cars. Klara follows her example and walks around the car to sit in the driver’s seat. She turns the key, then makes a slow turn onto a deserted street.
A SWAT van, she thinks with a crooked smile. It just takes one glance, and Gabriella knows what’s up. Klara often forgets how many years she spent as a defence attorney, and all the knowledge that entails.
*
It’s a little tricky to make her way around this neighbourhood. She can’t remember if she’s ever driven through the narrow, cobblestone streets of the Old Town before, and it takes her at least ten minutes to find her way back to Gabi’s office, though she enters at a point much closer to the city, near the royal palace.
The traffic is still sparse, so she finds it puzzling when the cars in front of her slow down and then stop completely. She stretches up in her seat, trying to see what’s happening. There are only two cars in front of her, and in front of them stands a police officer in a black helmet with an automatic weapon hanging across his chest.
Her heart starts to pound. The SWAT team she saw earlier. Some kind of crackdown. The other drivers open their doors and step out to get a better look, and Klara does the same.
Further down the street she sees a black Volkswagen van and at least two regular police vehicles. Around them stand dozens of police officers, all heavily armed. They don’t have their weapons raised yet, but they’re dressed in black, with helmets and Kevlar, and they seem prepared for a face-off at one of the buildings. Klara raises her eyes slightly and sees the Lindblad & Wiman flag they just joked about waving outside Gabriella’s office.
It takes a moment to make the connection, but when she does, her blood runs cold. No, it’s too surreal, too crazy. The police are at the door of the Lindblad & Wiman office.
24 August
Beirut
Sunday was empty and endless, so it’s a relief when his workweek starts again. A release to step into the safe buzzing of the air conditioner, to pour himself a cup of coffee in the small, windowless kitchenette.
‘You’ve been following the news, right?’ Agneta asks.
She spreads cottage cheese on crispbread and looks at him in her friendly way. He thought diplomats would be different, more exotic, and cosmopolitan. Or at least they’d eat Lebanese snacks. He does his best to hide his disappointment that they’re more like grey bureaucrats, that they usually do their best to recreate a Swedish work environment, complete with caviar, cottage cheese and crispbread. He nods, almost tells her he was there, at the protests on Saturday, about Yassim, and everything. But he stops himself. He was told not to go anywhere near the government district, and Yassim isn’t his boyfriend – he’s a ghost.
What if he really is? What if Jacob just made him up?
‘Yes,’ he says. ‘It’s crazy. What are the others saying? And where are they?’
It’s usually only Agneta who gets to the office before him, but it’s almost half past ten, and he hasn’t seen Frida or Vargander.
‘Meetings with the other EU ambassadors all day,’ Agneta sighs. ‘They’re at full capacity after the riots this weekend. They’re talking about an Arab Spring here too, you know. It’s typical that you’d end up in the middle of all this, Johan. As if it weren’t messy enough after the move from Damascus and all that.’
He feels his heart sink in his chest again. ‘Jacob,’ he says quietly.
‘Excuse me?’
‘My name isn’t Johan. It’s Jacob.’
Agneta looks at him with embarrassment and puts a hand on his arm. ‘Oh dear. Did I say Johan? I’m so sorry, I didn’t mean to. I know what your name is. It’s just a lot right now, you know.’
‘It’s no problem,’ Jacob says, smiling slightly. ‘And I think it’s exciting that so much is happening right now. Please tell me if I could help you with writing background material or anything at all.’
He’s not really sure what ‘background material’ means or what it’s supposed to contain, but he heard Frida use the words the other day and it sounds like a reasonable task for an intern. Something he could do so at least they’d remember that his name is Jacob.
‘Of course,’ Agneta nods. ‘Are you done with the receipts Frida gave you?’
‘Almost,’ he says. ‘They’ll be ready this afternoon. I’d better get to it.’ He lifts his coffee cup like a small salute and goes back to the corridor and to his own little office.
‘I’m really sorry about that thing with your name,’ he can hear Agneta saying behind him before he turns the corner.
*
With a sigh he takes down the box of receipts from a bookshelf and starts again. ‘Almost done’ was an exaggeration. He’s done about a third. But today, in his current state, he feels a kind of reluctant appreciation that he’s only sorting and stapling papers. The work is monotonous, almost automatic, and he can do it while his head and body are still in Yassim’s apartment. He feels his pulse start to race whenever his thoughts touch on what happened. Yassim’s mouth and hands. How he surrendered to Yassim, how he was willing to do anything for him. He stifles a gasp, so physical is the memory. He’s never felt anything like it.
At five o’clock he puts the final receipt on a shiny white piece of paper and is filled with pride when he looks down at three thick packets of chronologically arranged receipts.
But he’s also restless. He doesn’t feel like staying here at the embassy and doing nothing. It’s not as if anyone would miss him, he thinks as he stands up and heads towards Agneta’s room. He knocks softly and Agneta turns from her screen.
‘I’m done with the receipts,’ he says. ‘Is there something else you need me to do?’
He looks at her, hoping for something else, something more. There are riots and a revolution brewing no more than a few blocks away. There must be something bigger for him to do. Something more meaningful and noble than sorting through receipts.
Agneta smiles at him. She looks stressed and like she hasn’t slept properly.
‘Good work, Jacob,’ she says. ‘You see? Got the name right?’
He smiles back. ‘Bravo!’
‘Go home, you,’ she says. ‘You’ve done your duty for today.’
*
It’s dark by the time he reaches Mar Mikhael, and the lights of the traffic and restaurants dance around him. He stops outside his front door and gazes up the street, towards the sidewalk outside the bars where people are gathered for drinks, buzzing with laughter. Here the riots downtown seem to be just gossip and fodder for conversa
tion, hardly even real. But this is how Beirut is, they say. Even during the wars people gathered in bars in calmer neighbourhoods. Life goes on, even under difficult circumstances. For a moment he considers crossing the street to get a cocktail at Internazionale. But he’s hungry and tired. With a sigh he turns around and walks up the stairs to his apartment.
It takes a while to find his key and even longer to realize he can’t turn it because the door is already unlocked.
He freezes. Did he really forget to lock it this morning? That’s unlike him.
Cautiously, he pushes the door open to the dark apartment. The curtains on the windows and the balcony door are pulled open; the light from the neon signs and an unusually bright moon falls across the mosaic floor. Everything is as he left it and he lets out a small sigh of relief. He just forgot to lock up.
He walks into the kitchen and takes a bottle of water from the fridge, unscrews the top, and he’s just lifting a glass out of the dish rack when he hears a woman’s voice behind him.
‘You’re late, Matti,’ she says. ‘I almost started to despair.’
He drops the glass and it feels as if ten seconds pass before it reaches the floor and explodes into a thousand shards, before his life explodes into just as many shards, which will never, ever be put back together again.
*
The woman is standing in the darkness next to the door to the living room, just a few metres away. A sharp, thin stripe of light from the street illuminates the left side of her face, making her look ghostly, almost as if she glows. She’s in her mid-thirties, looks Middle Eastern. Thin, with short, dark hair. Slowly she takes a step closer to him, and he sees she’s wearing tight jeans, a black tank top and a red-striped, button-down shirt.
‘Who are you?’ he whispers.
‘Come on, Matti,’ she says, cocking her head to the side. ‘We have a lot to talk about.’
She holds out a hand to him and gestures towards the living room. He stands frozen in place and just shakes his head. ‘I want you to leave,’ he says clumsily.
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