The Swimmer

by Joakim Zander

  ‘He must have gone up.’

  Mahmoud heard someone starting to climb the rungs he’d just come up. At that very moment he reached the hatch.

  If he could just get it open, maybe he’d be able to climb in and hide there. Gently, he bent down, swaying in the increasingly cold wind. His hands were stiff, and the enamel was slippery. Adrenaline. His heart was pounding a hole in his chest.

  On his third attempt, he was able to reach around the edges and start rocking the hatch to see if it could be opened. Just as he felt it giving way, he heard someone swing over the same roof’s edge.

  ‘Locked on target!’ a calm voice said.

  23

  December 20, 2013

  Brussels, Belgium

  Klara woke up to her phone beeping. She rubbed her eyes and stretched out her hand to read the message. Eva-Karin.

  8:30 office ok? Her customary brevity. The keyboard was too small for Eva-Karin’s fingers. Something she refused to acknowledge, of course.

  Klara ran her hands over her face, trying to wipe away the sleep. The phone showed it was just after seven. She vaguely remembered that Cyril had already tried to wake her up. That she’d fended off his attempts and fallen back asleep. He’d taken an early train back to Paris. Something about meetings, his constituency, whatever.

  Eva-Karin probably wanted to give instructions for the rest of the day. Her plane back to Sweden was leaving before lunch. But, of course, she wanted to stop by Parliament and check her name off on the compensation list as well. Parliamentarians received per diem for every day they worked in Brussels. Many of them took an early flight on Friday, rather than the night before, to get an extra day’s compensation.

  As if they weren’t already being paid enough, thought Klara. Stingy bastards.

  ok, she replied and sat up in bed.

  She looked around. The bedroom was bright and clean. No clothes thrown on the floor. A translucent, rounded plastic chair from Kartell sat in one corner. A wall of closets. A signed and numbered abstract print in red and blue hung on the wall next to the door. Windows facing the street, covered by heavy, white curtains lent the room a comfortable darkness. Neutral, European upper-middle class. A tasteful, unexceptionable pied-à-terre.

  Klara didn’t know how long she’d stood outside the tapas restaurant last night. Long enough to feel confident that Ponytail wasn’t coming back. Finally, she’d gathered her courage, and walked back to her front door with determination. Her senses on edge, she’d crept up the creaking stairs and stopped in front of her own, thin door on the top floor. She’d taken a deep breath, turned the key in the lock, and thrown the door wide open.

  The apartment had been dark and quiet. Her heart pounded as she’d stepped over the threshold and turned on the light in the living room. She didn’t know what she’d expected. That the apartment would have been ransacked? Ripped sofas and a battered TV? But everything was as usual. The pillows on the sofa arranged just like they usually were. The newest issue of the New Yorker lying open to a review of John le Carré’s latest book, just as she’d left it that morning, before she and Cyril had come back here. She’d climbed the stairs to her attic room. The sheets were in disarray. Her pink Agent Provocateur panties tangled at the foot of the bed, just where they had landed when Cyril tore them off of her eight hours ago. Everything had been exactly as it usually was, just as it should be.

  Maybe she’d just imagined the whole thing? Maybe she’d heard sounds coming from somewhere else? The girl who came out of the gate might have been a neighbor she didn’t recognize?

  Klara sat on the toilet in Cyril’s clinically clean bathroom, rubbing her temples with her fingertips. A slight headache had set in as soon as she’d gotten out of bed. If she didn’t take some type of pill soon, she’d have to deal with it when it arrived in full force. She got up and opened Cyril’s mirrored bathroom cabinet.

  On the top shelf stood a pack of Panodil. Klara took out a sheet of them, pushed out two tablets, and washed them down with tap water. She was about to shut the cabinet door when she saw something that made her flinch. Two toothbrushes.

  One blue.

  And one pink.

  Against her will, she picked up the pink one and held it up to the light. It looked used. As she was putting it back, she discovered one more toothbrush. A smaller one, also pink, with Snow White on its handle.

  Her anxiety increasing, Klara went out to the combined kitchen and living room. A white Miele kitchen behind the island. Floor-to-ceiling windows looking out over the bare trees of Square Ambiorix. A white, expensive divan sofa in the living room area, a TV mounted on the wall. A dining table in oak with six Kartell chairs identical to the one in the bedroom. A few prints, belonging to the same series as the one in the bedroom. Everything clinically clean and completely impersonal. A tasteful hotel room. Cyril’s words from yesterday echoed in Klara’s head. ‘Expats always have pictures of their family on display.’

  Klara went back into the bedroom. She stood in front of the bed. Two nightstands, one on either side. Two designer reading lamps with cylindrical screens in white enameled metal. She walked around to the table on the side where Cyril had slept. His pillow still bore the imprint of his head. His scent was still there when she leaned over it. She closed her eyes and slowly pulled out the nightstand’s only drawer. She took a deep breath and opened her eyes.

  There lay a single upside-down frame. She suddenly felt heavy. As if her legs no longer had the strength to hold her up. Carefully, she sat down on the bed and turned over the picture.

  24

  December 20, 2013

  Brussels, Belgium

  Mahmoud turned in the direction where the voice was coming from. All he could see was the upper body of a man dressed in black wearing a ski mask with holes for the eyes and mouth. The man was holding a small, compact automatic weapon against his shoulder. He looked competent. As if sitting on a roof aiming his gun at people was what he was born to do.

  It was over. It was almost a relief in a way. Mahmoud straightened up carefully. He was standing with his heels on the back of the hatch, leaning back unsteadily against the sloping brick roof. Above the rooftops, he could see the lights of the city glowing in the morning darkness. He closed his eyes.

  ‘Hold your fire,’ said a deeper voice from down on the terrace. ‘The risk is too high. We need him alive.’

  Mahmoud heard the voices as if he was on the other side of a thick wall. Just a monotonous rumble. He didn’t dare to open his eyes.

  ‘Control says abort! Repeat: the orders are abort and return.’

  It was the deep voice down on the terrace again.

  ‘We have to get out before the fire department comes up here. There should be a fire escape in room five-oh-four. We have to get out of here. It’s more important than the objective right now. Let’s go!’

  Mahmoud glanced cautiously up at the man taking aim at him. He wasn’t far away. Ten yards. The man slowly lowered his weapon without releasing Mahmoud from his gaze.

  ‘You’re a dead man walking,’ the man said.

  Then he disappeared behind the gable again.

  According to Mahmoud’s watch it was almost eight when he heard, through the hatch on the roof, people moving on the same terrace he’d come from. The fire department and the police must still be searching the hotel. Somehow, he’d made it through the hatch into the attic of the hotel. And he’d been sitting there for hours on uncovered thermal insulation without moving. Waiting patiently for everyone to leave.

  But now his stress was being replaced by restlessness. He had to get away. He had to take control of this situation in some way.

  It took Mahmoud fifteen minutes of crawling over the attic’s unfinished wooden floor before he found a hatch. With a quick, creaking pull he managed to open the hatch and jump down into the hallway he’d run through in terror several hours before. A fire escape in room 504, they’d said. The room was at the end of the hallway. He touched the door with a s
weaty palm, and it swung open. It looked like the Americans had completely pulverized the lock. The room was empty and similar to the one he’d been staying in until this morning; the only difference was that the single window looked out over the building on the shorter side of the hotel. There couldn’t be more than a few feet between the buildings. Mahmoud went over to the window and cautiously peered out through the curtain. There was indeed a rusty fire escape to the left.

  Mahmoud gently opened the window overlooking the alley and peeked down toward the ground. To his horror, he saw a man dressed in black crouched and leaning against the building at one end of the alley. He was wearing a knit cap, and at his feet lay a black nylon bag. The Americans were still here.

  Mahmoud closed the window again. The man hadn’t seen him. He seemed to have been busy reading something on his phone.

  Fuck.

  Mahmoud left the room and crossed the hall to the emergency stairs. He held his breath and pushed open the door. But no one seemed to be guarding it.

  Carefully and quickly he made his way down to the ground floor. There were two doors. One seemed to lead to the front desk. Mahmoud didn’t dare touch it. The lobby was definitely under surveillance.

  Instead he tried the other door, which also turned out to be unlocked. Bingo. A staircase leading down into damp darkness. Mahmoud flicked a light switch that flooded the concrete stairs and everything around them with fluorescent light. The stairs led to a corridor between two rows of doors. It appeared to be a basement lined with a bunch of storage rooms. Mahmoud tried the first door. Locked. The second was as well.

  But then he looked up. At the far end of the corridor there was a dirty window that had to be on street level. Mahmoud ran down the hallway. He tried the latches next to the window. There was no lock and the window swung inward and upward. Mahmoud lifted it up and stood on tiptoe so he could see out.

  An alley. Some trash cans. No black-clad Americans, at least as far as he could see. Maybe this was his only chance. He put one foot on the hinge of the door closest to the window, grabbed the windowsill, and pulled himself up. The window frame was just big enough for him to fit his head and shoulders through. First he pushed his backpack through, then he climbed up in order to squeeze through. It was easier than he expected, and he suddenly found himself lying flat in the alley.

  He glanced in both directions. So far, no one seemed to have seen him. He got up and ran for the protection of the trash cans.

  He squatted down, breathing heavily, and tried to get an overview of the situation. His escape didn’t seem to have attracted any attention. He brushed off the dust from the attic and the dirt from the street, stood up, and started walking calmly toward the entrance to the alley. When he reached the street, he stopped. He cautiously peeked around the corner to the hotel entrance. The street was completely empty. The Americans were lying low. But if they were guarding the fire escape, they must certainly be guarding the entrance. Whether or not he could see them. He knew he wasn’t more than a block from Avenue Anspach, and on the other side of that was the tourist district. If he managed to get there, he could disappear into the mass of shoppers and tourists. His survival depended on a five-minute race.

  He tugged his backpack into place, fastened the buckles, and tried to calm down. All his senses were stretched to breaking point. He took three deep breaths, and then he ran as fast as he could out into the street, to the right, and away from the entrance. After fifty meters he turned left toward Avenue Anspach.

  He heard voices far behind him. Profanity in English. Running footsteps. Orders. Mahmoud ran faster than he had in his entire life. He reached Avenue Anspach without turning around. He sensed more than saw the cars slowing down around him as he crossed the street. Honking and curses filled the air. He didn’t dare turn around, just ran, ran, ran. Away from the hotel, straight ahead, away from Avenue Anspach. After a few minutes of sprinting across cobblestones, he found himself on the short side of the glittering Grand Place, the Flemish heart of Brussels. He stopped, back pressed against one of the facades.

  The Christmas market was about to open, and the rising wind carried the scent of mulled wine and Christmas cookies. A giant Christmas tree stood in front of the city hall. Its red and silver ornaments rattled faintly in the frosty breeze. Exhausted and with the adrenaline still pumping through his veins, Mahmoud looked over his shoulder. It seemed as though he had shaken his pursuers.

  A few icy snowflakes hit his cheek, and he leaned his head back, closed his eyes, and breathed deeply. He’d survived. He opened his eyes and let his gaze wander over the Flemish facades with their almost comical extravagance of gold leaf ornamentation. For how much longer?

  25

  Spring 1991

  Kurdistan

  It’s so beautiful. The rolling hills have the dull luster of raw silk in the afternoon sun. A haze hangs over their crests. A sky so high and blue it’s nearly white. I’m silently singing a song I don’t know the name of, by a band that might be called Dire Straits. I don’t know anything about music. I’m no more interested in music than I am in fiction. But there’s something about that line about the mist-covered mountains. Something about the warm, comforting tone of the electric guitar.

  There are no smells here. This landscape is completely void of scent. Just diesel from the Land Cruiser’s leaky engine. Sweet, black tea when we stop to eat. The food is simple: bread, yoghurt, nuts, sometimes lamb. The food of peasants and soldiers. War rations, even though we see tomatoes, figs, pomegranates at the stands along the road. So far the war’s been easy on them. Maybe they’re preparing themselves for what’s to come?

  My body aches, acutely aware of every hollow, rut, rock, that the car’s shocks can’t handle. How many miles have we been traveling in this car? How many miles have I been traveling in these kinds of vehicles, on these kinds of roads, donkey trails, tractor tracks?

  It’s a different time. We make increasingly shortsighted alliances out here now. In the field. The real field, not the metaphorical one. We build confidences one cup of tea at a time, only to forsake our promises before the taste of tea even leaves our mouths. We don’t live in disguises anymore. Not in the same way. The parameters have changed. This is no longer a zero sum game. The goal is no longer not to lose. Who even thought it was possible to win until the incomprehensible day they climbed over the wall? At the same time, nothing has changed for me. It’s still all about survival.

  ‘I’m so fucking sick of this shitty ass car,’ says my colleague to no one in particular, but I’m the only one besides the interpreter who speaks English.

  It’s his way of setting the tone. His way of creating a surface that he can stand steadily on. It’s not new to me. I know his type.

  ‘What did you say?’ I ask.

  Although I heard what he said. I glance in his direction. He’s sitting next to me in the backseat, slumped over the cracked seat in a position that, if he doesn’t change it, will guarantee him back problems by tonight. The bare crown of his head, his incipient balding. The thick, poorly healed scar running like barbed wire from his hairline down his yellowish left cheek. The scar pulls his face tight, making his rare smiles asymmetrical and impossible to interpret.

  Actually I don’t know anything about him, other than that he drank Jim Beam until the bottle he’d brought with him ran out yesterday and then moved on to something resembling turpentine, which he expertly procured on the outskirts of a market in Mosul. He misses college football, he says.

  I no longer drink anything stronger than black tea. I miss the monotony of swimming. Miss laps in the pool, the smell of chlorine, the sound of the tiles. Miss muscles tight and aching from exertion.

  ‘I said I’m fucking sick of this shitty ass car. We’re pouring a hell of a lot of money into this war, but we can’t get any real cars on the ground. Typical fucking Pentagon bullshit. Right?’

  I shrug. I’m not interested in the whining and bullshitting typical of his kind. We haven’t discus
sed it, but it’s obvious he’s ex-military. He lacks the deadly, quicksilver intelligence of a Navy SEAL, so he’s probably Special Forces. His intelligence is blunt, focused, ruthless. He doesn’t know anything about the Middle East, about the importance of drinking tea, about anything other than the shortest distance between two points. A man made for squares and straight lines, not for the inconsistency, frustration, and patience of the twilight zone.

  In the old world—the one that ended less than a year ago, that we already barely remember—his type came in after me, acted on the information I gathered. In the old world, we worked in different shifts. Now we’re working side by side.

  ‘The interpreter says it’ll take another half hour,’ I say.

  I lean back, close my eyes. Let the monotonous sounds, the uneven road, the almost imperceptible irritation rock me into hollow sleep.

  It’s nearly dark when we roll into the village. All the villages look the same. Gray, full of stones, gravel, laundry, goats. In the dusk it could have been the one we came from, the one we’re going to tomorrow. Some children running alongside the car shout something that I can’t hear or understand. We are the traveling salesmen of promises and weapons, and we’re greeted like heroes in every corner of this temporary country. Hopes are high, and we’re doing nothing to dampen them. Our job is to enthuse.

  ‘Is this the place?’ I ask the driver in Arabic.

  He nods and slows down at what might generously be described as a dusty little square. Dirty men in ankle-length kaftans and head scarves, carrying a motley mix of weapons, stand in a small group outside one of the little stone houses. They shoo away the children.

  My colleague is asleep, so I give his shoulder a hard shake. He wakes up immediately, as if he never slumbered.

  ‘We’re here,’ I say.

  ‘What a fucking dump,’ he says.

  We jump out of the car and are greeted by the men. We exchange pleasantries. My colleague smiles ironically when he bows but pronounces the greeting phrases perfectly. He has an ear for languages, but not the patience to learn anything other than English. The shadows would have devoured him in a second. He’s uninterested in nuance.