The Swimmer

by Joakim Zander

  ‘You’re late,’ she says and brushes the long, blond hair out of her face.

  She’s around thirty years old, not beautiful, but there’s something about her seriousness that’s appealing. Her English is American, but with the singsong accent that I know all too well.

  ‘I have to pick up my kids.’

  ‘I’m sorry,’ I say and mean it.

  Obviously stressed, she puts a few documents down on the table in front of me.

  ‘Here’s the woman you were looking for,’ she says. ‘This is her death certificate. You were correct that she worked as a diplomat with the Ministry for Foreign Affairs and that she seems to have died in an explosion in Damascus in 1980.’

  I nod quietly and fiddle with the page, which is written in a language I don’t understand.

  ‘I found some articles about it in the Swedish newspapers. It seems to have been a pretty big deal here. I remember it myself, actually. It’s not often that Swedish diplomats are killed abroad. I made copies of a couple of the articles. It seems to have been an accident, a car bomb intended for someone else. They got the wrong car.’

  I sit down on the pale wooden chair next to her desk. My legs suddenly feel unreliable.

  ‘She had a daughter,’ I say, and I can hear how empty, how flat, my voice is.

  Louise nods.

  ‘That’s right,’ she says. ‘She had a daughter who survived, she was a few months old. It’s a strange story. Very, very strange. In all the media coverage, it states that the daughter died along with her mother in the car, but if you dig a little deeper…’

  She pushes the hair away from her forehead and glances impatiently at the small watch on her slender wrist.

  ‘If you dig a little deeper, you find her in the public records. Klara Walldéen. I have a friend at the Foreign Ministry, who did a quick check.’

  She flips impatiently through her papers.

  ‘There’s no record, oddly enough. But, according to rumor, if you’d believe in rumors, she was found wrapped in a blanket at the Swedish embassy in Damascus on the day the bomb exploded. The whole thing was hushed up, of course. After the bomb and everything. I guess they were afraid that something would happen to her.’

  Electricity jolts through me, through my bloodstream.

  ‘What happened to her?’ I say.

  ‘She lives with her grandparents in the Östergötland archipelago on… Let me see… Yes, here it is. On a little island called Aspöja.’

  12

  December 19, 2013

  Brussels, Belgium

  Klara took a deep breath and turned her face toward the blue floral wallpaper, fighting the temptation to bury her nose into the fold of Cyril’s neck as he lay in her bed just a few inches away, naked and drowsy. Despite their nudity, despite having explored every inch of his body with her mouth and her hands over the last few months, such a gesture would be disconcertingly intimate, surprisingly tender.

  Their relationship was not tender. Passionate, absolutely. She felt a spark when Cyril came within a certain radius of her, a world-shattering sexual charge that she had never felt before, but suspected, without wanting to explore any further, that it had something to do with his inaccessibility. How many times in the last few months had she woken at dawn to see Cyril half-dressed and halfway out the door of her bedroom? How many times had she woken up from the creaking of the stairs down to the living room? How many times had Cyril cancelled their meetings, which were already too few and far between, because he was stuck in an airport, a meeting, a dinner?

  And how many nights had they even spent together? Twenty, maybe? Fifteen? Barely. Cyril, like most Members of the European Parliament, was only in Brussels a few days a week. The rest of the time he was either traveling or at home, connecting with the voters of his Parisian constituency.

  When they’d started seeing each other a couple of months ago that had suited Klara perfectly. She hadn’t wanted more. Cyril was exciting. Intelligent. And the charge between them was transformative. It made her weak and unstable, alternately inferior and dominant. And she could tell it affected him too. His tight grip on her arms, her neck. His fingers in her hair as he pressed her down against the mattress and entered her from behind. She could still taste him on her lips, in her mouth. This was passion, wonderful, burning desire. But it wasn’t tenderness, not real intimacy. And it had been unexpectedly liberating. No demands, no history, just brief, intoxicating moments outside of time.

  So it surprised her when Cyril turned over and looked at her for a long time without saying anything. His gaze was dark, and slightly ironic. She met his eyes hesitantly, suddenly embarrassed, and shared the silence.

  ‘Why don’t you have any pictures of your family?’ he said. ‘I’ve been here several times a week over the last few months, and I still don’t know anything about you. Well, I know a few things about you.’

  He pulled the covers up over his hips, as if suddenly becoming aware of his own nakedness.

  ‘We talk about the parliament, the world. Food. But I know almost nothing about you. Your family. Your home. And it struck me, you don’t have any pictures of them either. Expats always have pictures of their family on display. But not you. Why not?’

  His voice, the gentle French accent, the American vocabulary. Had he studied in the United States? She turned her eyes away from him and lay on her back, staring straight up at the sloping ceiling above her bed, concentrating on her breathing.

  She didn’t feel ready for this. Not ready to break their unspoken pact, their casual agreement. At the same time, she wanted nothing more than to reveal her background and history to Cyril piece by piece, while he did the same. But she needed time to get used to the idea. It couldn’t happen like this, without warning, without time to adjust.

  ‘I don’t know. I haven’t really thought about it. I guess I’m not that into pictures.’

  She swung her feet down onto the cool wooden floor and sat up, with her back to Cyril.

  ‘That’s bullshit!’ he said. ‘Everybody needs pictures of their family.’

  Couldn’t he just wait a little, let her get used to the idea? Let her catch her breath and catch up with him.

  ‘Can’t you tell me something about yourself? Do you have siblings? What do your parents do? Anything.’

  She turned toward him. Allowed her eyes to show a gleam of irritation.

  ‘I don’t have any siblings,’ she said as she awkwardly pulled on a maroon T-shirt with london school of economics printed across the chest. She put her barely shoulder-length dark hair up in a sloppy ponytail.

  ‘Only child.’

  She picked up her phone from the nightstand. Checked the time.

  ‘Come on! I have a meeting in half an hour. We need to get moving.’

  She smiled sheepishly and rather unconvincingly at Cyril and pointed toward the narrow staircase that led from her minimal bedroom down to the living room of her little attic apartment.

  ‘It makes you uncomfortable!’ he said.

  He threw out his arms, as if he’d finally made her admit something she’d long denied. The satisfaction of the gesture only made her more unwilling to continue the discussion.

  ‘What?’ she said.

  Was this really what he wanted?

  ‘Do you mean that it makes me uncomfortable to talk about my family? Okay, sure, it makes me uncomfortable to talk about family. Is that enough? Are you satisfied with that answer?’

  She pinned him with her bright blue eyes. Not yielding an inch, a wave of annoyance crashing over her.

  Cyril raised his hands in mock surrender and sat up in bed.

  ‘Okay, okay. If you don’t want to talk about it,’ he muttered, putting on his boxer shorts. ‘I just wanted to show a little interest.’

  They were standing fully dressed down in the living room a few minutes later. A taxi had been ordered. Ready to reenter their normal lives.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ Klara said. ‘I didn’t mean to overreact.’


  She reached out her hand and brushed his. Cyril still looked hurt. Offended. Perhaps his mistresses were usually more accommodating.

  ‘No problem,’ he said and ran his hand through his hair. ‘I understand.’

  ‘My family,’ she said.

  Cyril turned to her, attentive, interested.

  ‘My family is easy to describe. It consists of my grandparents, who mean everything in the world to me. Period. And Gabriella, my best friend. I’ve had boyfriends. Shorter relationships. And one that was longer, which, sometimes on dark nights when I can’t sleep, I wish had lasted longer. Is that enough honesty for you?’

  ‘Why didn’t it last longer if you wanted it to? I can’t imagine him leaving you.’

  ‘That,’ Klara began. ‘That we can save for another time. But it was not a happy period in my life. And I was running away. First to London, then here. Later on I guess there wasn’t room for a relationship. And maybe that’s just as well.’

  ‘Your parents?’ Cyril said gently, as if not wanting to risk interrupting her story.

  ‘I don’t have any parents. I ran out of them. My mother died when I was two months old. I have photos of her in an attic closet on Aspöja, but no memories. Nothing at all.’

  She looked directly into his eyes. Her tragic background. Her loneliness and her vulnerability. There was nothing she liked discussing less. The tender looks, the teary eyes that inevitably followed the story of the orphan girl from the archipelago. All that damned understanding and sympathy. It put her at a disadvantage, turned her into someone that she wasn’t, into the person they thought she was.

  But Cyril simply nodded quietly and brushed a wisp of hair from her forehead.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ he said. ‘I didn’t know.’

  He took Klara’s hand in his. She didn’t pull away, but she didn’t respond to his caress either.

  ‘I never met my father. I don’t know anything about him other than that he was American and that my mother met him when she was working in Damascus. She was a diplomat. Maybe he was a diplomat. Maybe he was a businessman. Who knows? My mother never discussed it with my grandmother. And then she died in a car bombing in Damascus.’

  13

  December 19, 2013

  Brussels, Belgium

  The weather went from bad to worse as Mahmoud’s taxi drove away from the EU Quarter toward the Africa Museum in Tervuren, just east of central Brussels. Sheets of sleet whipped against the old Mercedes. It was only five-thirty and already dark—ominous in some way. Mahmoud peered through the window, trying to see the tops of the gray office buildings where European power was assembled. The buildings seemed to continue upward, into the darkness, without end. The taxi crawled forward. Rue Belliard, the European Quarter’s east-west artery, was apparently always in the midst of a traffic jam. At least one of the lanes was closed, and the taxi driver muttered and swore in French. Something about whores and politicians and the relationship between the two, that is if Mahmoud’s rudimentary French hadn’t failed him completely.

  He looked around, out through the taxi’s aquariumlike rear window. Headlights flashed off of the glass facades. In the darkness and the rain, it was impossible to see if any cars were following him. He didn’t think it was likely. His maneuvers in the subway had been so irrational that even a large team of pros would surely have lost him. And a change of taxi after that. He should be safe. Had it not been for the Volvo in Uppsala, he would have found it difficult to even imagine he was being followed. Now it was a real possibility.

  Somewhere behind them on the rue Belliard sirens began to wail. Blue light bounced off of the shining concrete and glass windows, coloring the gloom inside the car. From the corner of his eye Mahmoud saw the police approaching on motorcycles at breakneck speed down the closed lane. They were followed by a police car and a fleet of black Mercedes that were much newer models than the one Mahmoud was riding in. An EU flag and what might be an Afghan flag were fastened on the front. They fluttered dramatically in the storm. Maybe they were on their way to preparatory meetings for the large summit on Afghanistan this spring? The Marshall Plan was being prepared. The one that would bring peace to the mountains. Or maybe it was just some lonely ambassador being driven to the airport.

  Just when he’d given up hope of ever leaving the European Quarter, they were out of Brussels, driving on a straight road through a sparse deciduous forest. He felt his heart start to beat faster, and his mouth went dry. He started to regret that he hadn’t told anyone where he was going. Maybe he should have contacted Klara after all? But how the hell would that have sounded, after years of silence: ‘Hi, Klara, I think I’m being followed, and I’m headed to meet somebody in Tervuren who would like to hand over sensitive information to me. Paranoid schizophrenia? Well, now that you mention it.’ Way too crazy. And he’d given his word he wouldn’t tell anybody. He was alone. Might as well realize that. Breathe calmly.

  It took no more than five minutes for Mahmoud to get to the museum from the roundabout, where he’d asked the taxi driver to drop him off. It was almost six o’clock. The parking lot on the side of the museum had turned into a mud puddle, and Mahmoud tiptoed to avoid getting completely filthy. When he rounded the corner of the massive museum building, he glimpsed a large, well-planned park with gravel paths, manicured bushes, and gray lawns. It was poorly lit, but Mahmoud stopped to try to figure out where he was supposed to be an hour from now. It was easy enough to identify the large pond in front of the entrance stairs. But to the right of that he couldn’t see much more in the dusk. When the time came, he would have to rely on his intuition.

  After a few tedious hours spent idling around the dusty exhibitions, he could only conclude how odd it was that a country with such a controversial colonial history hadn’t tried harder to establish a more interesting museum. The best part was actually the building. Other than that, it seemed to consist of flea-bitten giraffes, weary display cases of smaller animals, and some obligatory Central African spears and shields. Your typical natural history museum, long past its prime. But he wasn’t here to learn more about Belgium’s colonial history.

  It was almost ten to seven, and Mahmoud slowly made his way back to the room where the door was supposed to be. He took a deep breath. The time had come. He pushed down on the handle with resolve.

  The door swung open, and Mahmoud had to hold tight to keep the wind from ripping it out of his hands. It had stopped raining, and to judge by how his breath turned to smoke, the temperature must have dropped a few degrees while he was inside the museum. He shivered and climbed down some steel steps to the muddy gravel path. The pond in front of the museum was dimly lit but the park, which stretched out down a slight slope behind it, was impossible to make out in the dark. Mahmoud stayed in the shadows on the right side of the pond, just to be on the safe side. He cursed himself for bringing only his dress shoes to Brussels; his socks were already soaked by freezing rain. It was imperative to keep your feet dry. There wasn’t a soldier in the world who didn’t know that. But Mahmoud had thought his soldiering days were over.

  The luminous numbers on his G-shock watch read 18:53. Seven minutes left. Still in the shadows, he made his way through a thin hedge on the other side of the pond. He stopped to listen: the park was completely silent. The only sound was the distant hum of traffic. It was probably rush hour for the EU officials and diplomats living in Tervuren. From this position he had the entire museum within sight. It was deserted.

  When he turned around and gazed into the darkness, it didn’t take long for him to identify the sculpture from his instructions. The bronze glistened faintly in the light from the pond. He turned left and crossed a small, wet lawn. In front of him, he could make out a forest, or at least something that looked like a forest. He went on. And there, almost hidden among evergreen bushes, he could just make out a park bench. He stopped. On the right side of the bench was the clear silhouette of a man.

  14

  December 19, 2013
/>   Brussels, Belgium

  George stepped through the doors of Comme chez Soi at exactly seven o’clock on Thursday evening. It was part of his new life in Brussels; he was always on time. Previously, he had been so-so about punctuality. Not anymore. He tried unsuccessfully to hide a smile. After George had finished the translation, Appleby had come by his office and suggested they take George’s annual evaluation over dinner in the restaurant, which boasted two Michelin stars. It was just too fucking amazing. This was what he loved about his life. He’d wrestle with unintelligible tasks and stupid translations, if it meant he could live like this.

  A waiter met him as soon as he set foot inside the door.

  ‘Monsieur Lööw? Monsieur Appleby is waiting for you upstairs,’ he said in French.

  ‘Merci,’ replied George, and he followed the waiter through the nearly empty public section of the restaurant—the restaurant had just opened for the evening. Starched white tablecloths. Painted windows. Quiet, yet lively, noise level. Ties and money. Small footstools for a lady’s handbag. George’s mood kept getting better and better. This was his style. Add a glass of champagne and maybe a tiny, tiny line of cocaine in the bathroom, and George would be on top form.

  When they reached the top of the narrow stairs, the waiter opened a high, mirrored door onto what seemed to be a private room.

  Appleby was sitting alone at a table set for two. He was busy writing something on his BlackBerry, but impatiently beckoned George inside. The room was paneled with light-colored wood. Heavy curtains framed the windows and a large, dark oil painting, a still life of some sort, hung on the wall behind Appleby. Two leather armchairs were placed near the window. That was probably where you sat when you were enjoying your cognac. The restaurant wasn’t George’s style. Too dusty and old-fashioned. George liked white walls, glass, and steel. Wallpaper* magazine style. But it was impossible to deny that this place had class.