The Friend

by Joakim Zander

  She holds it up for George. ‘Something very fucking shady is going on here,’ she says.

  George takes the phone from her, looks at it and stiffens. ‘What the hell is this? Russian?’

  Klara nods. She feels a chill run down her spine.

  ‘So that explains the Eastern Europeans that Gabriella wrote about in the letter. They’re Russians?’

  ‘Seems so,’ she says. ‘I don’t like this, George.’

  ‘Me neither,’ he says. ‘I think we better leave right now. Before his friends show up.’

  23 November

  Brussels

  The room is dark and dank; just a single strip of grey light penetrates a sloppily painted black window near the ceiling. The smell of mould and rancid cooking oil radiates from the walls, filling the musty room.

  Jacob’s temples are pounding, his head aches, and as he opens his eyes, he’s so cold his teeth are chattering. The wound on his back burns.

  Is he in a basement? On a floor? He can feel a thin mattress beneath him, hardly more than a rug. Apparently he’s lying on his side. He should sit up, but when he tries to he can’t make his hands move. He tries to send signals to them, but it’s as if they’re stuck. His wrists sting, and he turns his head and looks down. There they are, tied up with white plastic ties.

  The memory comes back in flashes and fragments. Flying out of Beirut, the man waiting for him with a name on a sign, the gun in his belt. The footsteps. The pain of what seemed like a needle. The legs that wouldn’t hold him. The darkness.

  He’s flown from Beirut under a false name. Using a fake passport. And now he’s been shackled in a cold basement.

  Only Yassim knew which flight he’d take and under which name.

  Despair washes over him. There are only two options. Either Yassim has lost control of what’s happening. Or Jacob has been completely duped.

  Then comes the terror. He screams. No words, just a bottomless, empty roar that feels like it might never end.

  But it does when two men in ski masks throw open the door and come into the room. The scream ends when one of them bends down and slaps him across the cheek with a gloved hand so hard that his lip bursts and blood runs down his face and onto the dirty mattress. The scream ends when the other man pushes a big white rag into his mouth so no sound can come out.

  One of the men grabs his shoulders and forces him into a seated position. Then he pulls Jacob forward until he’s kneeling on the floor. Hands behind his back. Rag in his mouth. Blood flowing down his chin. The man leans over to him, and Jacob can smell his acrid breath.

  ‘Be quiet,’ he says in heavily accented English. ‘Not a sound.’

  He takes a step back and pulls a small gun from the waistband of his cargoes. He puts it against Jacob’s forehead, and Jacob feels tears flowing down his cheeks.

  Then he pulls the trigger.

  The gun clicks and Jacob collapses onto his side on the mattress again, his whole body shaking.

  ‘Exactly,’ the man says, laughing quietly. ‘Keep your mouth shut.’

  Jacob nods.

  The two men turn around and disappear out the door. He can hear them locking it behind them.

  *

  It’s impossible to say how long he’s been there when he hears someone outside the door again. Maybe an hour. Maybe twelve. The cold is a part of him now. Like frost has buried itself in his brain and spine. He’s so hungry. And unfathomably, indescribably afraid.

  Slowly the door is pushed open. In the dark he can’t see what’s happening other than a dark figure entering the room and crossing the floor towards him. It’s not until the figure steps into the dim, grey light falling from the small window, that he realizes who it is. And his heart stops.

  There in the middle of the room stands Yassim.

  *

  Jacob tries to say something, but the rag just sinks deeper into his mouth, almost suffocating him. He manages to push himself up into a semi-seated position with his shoulder against the wall.

  Yassim is here.

  He’s here.

  The two men in ski masks have stepped into the room, but they’re standing at the door. It may be the same men as before, impossible to say. Yassim is almost in front of him now and stops and stares at him calmly, without emotion, as if he’s never seen him before, as if Jacob didn’t mean anything at all.

  When Yassim’s boots hit him a few inches beneath the ribs, it’s not the pain that paralyses him, but how surprising and inexplicable it is. He rolls into a ball on the mattress as best he can with his hands behind his back. He pulls up his knees, pain radiating in his abdomen.

  The second kick hits him in the back and he screams into the rag stuffed into his mouth. It comes out as no more than a stifled mumble. He should close his eyes, but he can’t. Instead, he keeps them open wide, staring up at Yassim. Unable to believe that this is happening, that his friend would do this to him.

  Now Yassim squats down. He slowly pulls the rag out of his mouth, grabbing hold of Jacob’s throat.

  ‘What the hell have you done?’ he says. ‘What kind of worthless fucking idiot are you? Do you understand how fucking dead you are?’

  Jacob just stares at him and shakes his head, he can’t answer even if he knew what to say.

  ‘You took the chip out,’ Yassim continues quietly. ‘How could you be so fucking stupid?’

  He finally lets go of his throat, and Jacob gasps for breath, his mouth dry from the rag that’s been stuffed inside it for hours. But before he can say anything at all, Yassim has punched his face. There’s a flash before his eyes, and he cries out in pain, humiliation and confusion.

  ‘Now you’re going to tell me where the chip is,’ Yassim says.

  Jacob tries to swallow, tries to make his mouth work again. ‘W-why are you doing this?’ he sobs.

  Yassim grabs hold of his neck again and starts to strangle him.

  ‘Did you think I ever cared about you?’ he hisses, then a laugh that’s both dry and joyless. ‘You’re so much more naive than I ever could have hoped, you little faggot,’ he says. ‘You thought we had a relationship after only seeing each other three times? Don’t you get it? You’re a tool for me, nothing more.’

  Yassim loosens his grip on Jacob’s throat slightly, and Jacob gulps for air and coughs and almost chokes on his own breath.

  ‘Tell me where the chip is,’ he says. ‘Or, I swear to God, I’ll strangle you right here.’

  Jacob sniffs, tears run down his cheeks. ‘Don’t kill me,’ he whispers. ‘Why are you doing this? Don’t kill me.’

  ‘Then tell me, you stupid little shit,’ Yassim says, leaning over his face again. ‘Tell me.’

  Jacob has no other alternative, so he tells him, with blood flowing from the reopened split on his lip, with his face and body aching from the blows and kicks. He tells him about Myriam at the museum and how her men hunted him, how they shot at him. He tells him about Alexa in Shatila and how she called a friend who ran a clinic for the Palestinians in the refugee camp. That she took the chip out of his back and gave it to him in a small plastic bag without asking any questions. That he tried to find out what was on the chip, but that it was password-protected. About how he hesitated and didn’t know what to do. And how, finally, he decided to trust Yassim and take the plane out of Beirut. When he gets to that point in the story he closes his eyes and sobs so hard he doesn’t think Yassim can hear him any more. But hands press around his neck again.

  ‘So where is the chip now?’ Yassim asks. ‘What the fuck did you do with it?’

  Jacob’s thoughts spin. There’s nothing left, he won’t survive this. But he has to keep a cool head, he has to win some time. ‘I hid it,’ he whispers.

  Yassim lets go and so he’s able to speak.

  ‘I had it removed,’ he says. ‘And then I gave it to someone to keep it safe.’

  ‘Who?’ Yassim says.

  ‘A friend from the Swedish embassy,’ Jacob whispers. ‘She doesn’t know what
is on it, only that it is mine. But if she doesn’t hear from me she will hand it over to the authorities.’

  Yassim just looks at him and shakes his head quietly. Then he throws himself on top of Jacob, presses Jacob’s belly against the mattress, puts a knee in his back, grabs him by the hair and pushes his head down. Then he leans over and whispers in his ear: ‘Then it’s time to call this friend now.’

  He lets go, sits up, turns around and says something in Arabic. One of the men by the door answers.

  ‘You’d better be telling the truth,’ Yassim says. ‘You don’t understand what kind of trouble you’re in.’

  Jacob can’t even gather the strength to turn his head, but he can hear Yassim’s footsteps making their way out of the room. Hear him saying something to the other men, hear the door opening and closing and the lock being turned.

  Only then does he turn on his side.

  And that’s when he notices it.

  He’s lying on something. Something hard and sharp.

  Something that wasn’t there before Yassim came into his cell.

  *

  Jacob lies there, immobile, until he’s sure that Yassim and the others are gone. His whole body is throbbing and tender from the beatings, and the wound on his back is burning.

  They must have cut him open when he was drugged. Like he was just a package they could treat however they want, and throw it aside when its function was over.

  Was Myriam right the whole time?

  Alexa was definitely right. If he hadn’t done as she said, he’d be dead now.

  It is impossible to understand. That’s all he was for Yassim. A tool. A package.

  He won some time by lying about leaving the chip in Beirut. But sooner or later his lie will be discovered. Sooner or later, the chip will come out. His backup plan goes no further than that.

  He slowly rolls onto his back. What he has underneath him lies in a rolled-up plastic bag, narrow and about ten centimetres long.

  He grabs onto it and manages to find the opening of the bag. Spinning the plastic until he can stick his hand into it.

  Something cold and smooth meets his fingers and he runs them along the bag’s contents.

  A knife.

  Eagerly, he rummages it out of the bag and feels it glide out of his hands and onto the mattress. With his heart pounding, he runs his hands over the dirty fabric until he grabs hold of it again. Fumbling carefully, he tries to keep the sharp edge away from his body and hands. Tries to poke it between his wrists and the taut zip ties.

  It’s easier than he expected. As soon as he finds the right place, the plastic falls off.

  He can hardly believe it. Dares not believe it, so he lies there with his hands still behind his back. Lies there until he’s finally brave enough to pull them in front of him, turning and twisting them in the darkness. Slowly he turns onto his stomach again, amazed at how easy it is when he is no longer bound.

  He holds the knife in front of him, it’s just a small kitchen knife with a red shaft, the kind you use to cut vegetables. In the context of his dirty prison, its ordinariness feels foreign.

  Yassim gave him the opportunity to free his hands. But why?

  So he lifts the plastic bag and beneath it he finds a single, folded piece of paper. It’s too dark to read the pencilled lines on it, so he stands up and walks to the window whose grey light is getting weaker every minute.

  Just two lines, written in a hurry:

  The window is open.

  Be quick.

  Jacob looks up at the black-painted window. He stops and listens but hears nothing outside the door. The window is just above eye level. He walks over to it and reaches up for the handle. There is a keyhole on it, and on top of that someone has drilled loops into the window and window frames and connected them with a padlock. He feels whatever small hope he had evaporate again. It’s not open: the lock is still sitting there.

  But he’s wrong. As he pulls on the padlock, it opens. Someone has forgotten to lock it. Or unlocked it.

  He turns around, towards the darkness of the basement. Next to the door he sees the contours of an old armchair. Impatiently, eagerly, he grabs hold of it and pulls it out into the weak light, towards the window and freedom. It’s heavy and makes a scraping sound as he drags it over the raw concrete. But he can’t worry about that now: he has to get out of here, has to be quick. Has to escape.

  He thinks he hears something outside the door. Another door opening, a creaking. Are they heading back down the stairs again? For a moment he considers stopping what he’s doing, pushing back the chair, closing the window, throwing himself onto the mattress again and pretending to be bound.

  But it’s now or never. This is his opportunity to get out of here alive.

  He’s up on the chair now, looking out into an inner courtyard or an alley, just concrete and trash and trashcans.

  He hears it clearly now. Someone is heading down the stairs, towards his cell, and the terror claws at him, as he stretches an arm out through the window. He feels the damp, cold stone in the courtyard against his hands, but can’t get a grip. He can’t go further, can’t get out. He just stands there, hanging in his cell, halfway out, still a prisoner.

  His feet fumble, and he manages to get a foot onto the backrest of the chair, can hear it cracking, threatening to collapse beneath his weight. He continues to grope around the stones of the courtyard until he finally finds an edge to hang onto. Then he pulls himself out, first his upper body, then legs, then feet.

  Suddenly he’s lying in the courtyard. In a cold breeze that makes the skin on his arms turn to gooseflesh. He wants to cheer and laugh. He’s free. But now he has to get away, keep moving.

  He gets to his knees and lifts his eyes. There’s only one way out, and it seems to lead to a normal city street. He sees a small kiosk or convenience store on the other side of the street.

  He can barely believe a normal world still exists out there, as he stands up and takes a step out towards the street.

  But he doesn’t make it further before a dark figure appears in the opening to the inner courtyard, blocking his way.

  24 November

  Brussels

  George manoeuvres his car into the traffic on Avenue Louise. Down into tunnels and up again. Just before the major transit route heads into Bois de la Cambre, he turns left towards Place Flagey, and the two small grey ponds known as the Ixelles Ponds. Klara looks at the grey buildings with flaking shutters and small Portuguese bistros.

  ‘You’re going to miss all this,’ she says.

  George glances at her. ‘Brussels?’ he says with a shrug. ‘Why do you think that?’

  ‘You don’t notice it until you leave,’ she says. ‘And maybe not even then. But you notice it when you come back. Everything that makes you so furious when you live here: the strikes and roadwork and the traffic and all the fucking hassle. Then you move and come back, and you see all the people sitting around drinking their Leffes at some outdoor cafe in November, and you forget about all the bullshit. We’ve been here too long. No other city will be like this one for us.’

  George nods and parks the car by the sidewalk next to one of the small ponds. The trees are bare and straggly; a cold drizzle hangs in the air.

  ‘I won’t miss being hunted by the goddamn Russians, that’s for sure,’ he mutters and jumps out of the car.

  *

  They order a coffee and sit down at Café Belga’s outdoor seating area, despite the cold. Klara wraps one of the cafe’s beige blankets around her shoulders and stares out over the small square and the tram tracks in front of them. She lights a cigarette and sips her cappuccino.

  ‘At least we have a good vantage point here,’ she says, ‘if they track us down again.’

  George takes a Marlboro from Klara’s pack and looks back over his shoulder towards the big, bright bar room where young students and freelancers are bent over laptops, phones and croissants. He turns back to Klara again. His eyes are so different than s
he remembers them, so much less insecure and arrogant. There’s a depth there now, something almost like caring. And something more, something bigger that makes her body tremble, and it’s so strong and surprising that she doesn’t know what to do with it, so she looks away.

  ‘Are we gonna figure this out?’ George says. ‘It could be just about anything. And the Russians? I don’t like it.’

  She feels him hesitantly putting his hand over hers. It’s as if he doesn’t really know if it’s appropriate, if he has permission, despite what happened yesterday and this morning.

  She turns her palm upwards so she can lace her fingers with his. She feels his cold thumb stroking her wrist. It feels so strange and confusing to touch him, to hold his hand. More intimate than lying naked beside him in his bed. And when she turns to him and meets his eyes again, it is as though a door opens inside her. For so long it’s felt like she was stumbling around in a big gloomy room, a cave or a tomb, trapped inside memories, and she didn’t know what to do. Memories and guilt. She got lost in that room, didn’t know how to find a way out, didn’t know where the door was, or if there even was one.

  But now, here in the grey chill of Brussels, just days after Gabi’s arrest and her grandfather’s funeral, with George’s hand in hers, it’s as though she found it. As if she fumbled onto the door handle in the dark, as if she turned it and discovered the door was never locked.

  She looks at George. Sees his blonde hair, his slightly worried eyes, feels his fingers playing with her own. He’s not the door, not the one who opened it. But maybe he’s the one standing there when she cracks it open.

  ‘Yes,’ she says. ‘We’ll figure this out.’

  23 November

  Brussels

  ‘Hurry up!’ says the person blocking Jacob’s way.

  But the voice isn’t threatening, just stressed, urgent, anxious. He lifts his head and sees Yassim coming towards him.