The Swimmer

by Joakim Zander

  So go the days, the nights. The endless moments turn into weeks and then years. The monotonous drone of the highway follows me around like tinnitus. When Abu Ghraib has been in the headlines nonstop for a month, I finally get my office. Not a word, nothing. But it is a vindication. A barely audible whisper. A gesture of reconciliation or a bribe. That’s how I want to read it. As if they can’t really be sure of me. But they know exactly how sure they are of me. They’ve always known. Who but the most unswervingly loyal would still be here?

  We change presidents and as a natural consequence the organization is shaken until everything falls into the exact same place it was from the beginning. No, that’s not true. Things change. The madness finally lifts like a cloud of steam and leaves us as we once were. Rational and street-smart rather than evangelical. And we sit back and read about what we’ve created in the Washington Post. An alternative, private, for-profit war machine. Those endless subcontractors. The scope is shocking, even to those of us on the inside, who should know.

  Slowly I force myself back into the pool, slowly I learn to swim again. Lap after lap, until I no longer keep track, until my arms are so tired I can hardly lift the remote control of the plasma TV in my apartment, which is furnished like an affordable hotel room down to the smallest detail.

  Slowly, barely even noticeably, I exchange whiskey for tea, sleeping pills for five times twenty push-ups on the soft carpet of my bedroom floor, twelve hours of dreamless sleep for seven hours of choppy nightmares, sadness, and a shaky, skipping version of life. Until I’m not drinking at all anymore. Not even coffee.

  Langley and the swimming pool and AA meetings in depressingly fluorescent-lit classrooms in Palisades or Bethesda. I don’t have much more. Evenings watching cable television and eating takeout. One day at a time. That’s what became of my life. It’s not much. It’s almost nothing.

  I carry Damascus with me in the locket you gave me, which hangs around my neck. It never leaves me for a second. Everything I’m running from. Everything I’ve abandoned and sacrificed. It fills me with emptiness. Every Friday I search our records for my daughter’s name. Let her name whirl through our endless database while I close my hand around the locket. I pray the only prayer I have, the only thing that matters to me now: Good God almighty, let there be zero results.

  It’s a week before Christmas. I’ve bought some twinkling electric lights to put out on my balcony in an awkward approximation of normality. The cardboard box of lights is big but so light I can carry it in one hand as I grope in my pocket for the keys to my Mazda in the gray, perpetual twilight of the mall’s parking garage. My footsteps echo on the concrete.

  There’s a man standing next to my car. A hundred ingrained reflexes are transmitted and multiplied through my spine, my nerves. A hundred opposing impulses of violence and escape. The man straightens up, turns to me, stretches like someone who’s been in the same position for a long time. It’s an inviting movement, the slow gesture of someone from whom you have nothing to fear. I hear my steps slow in the echo. Finally, I stop. Twenty yards from the car. Just the rustling of a giant fan somewhere. Just the traffic three floors below us. Just a trembling moment, threatening to capsize.

  The man stands still and raises his open hands with infinite slowness, in a timeless gesture of peace, good intentions. But it’s only when he takes a few, short, slow steps toward me that I see who he is. Twenty-five years of shifting alliances. But I still know who he is.

  The mustache is shorter. His face is lined and older. It’s not his appearance that unmasks him. It’s what seeing him does to my memory of a previous moment. How his gestures, his movements, bring me back, brings the past back. It’s connection through pattern recognition, memory through context.

  ‘Salam alaikum,’ he says.

  I clear my throat and take out the key to the car. Unlock it with a click, a beep.

  ‘Alaikum salam.’

  We sit in the car. Two shelved spies in a Japanese car, in an American shopping mall, in a world that wriggled away from us, in this unpredictable present that we don’t know how to relate to. At first, we say nothing. We just sit there. Not even looking at each other. Ultimately, it’s up to me to begin.

  ‘How’d you find me?’ I say in Arabic.

  He glances at me, obliquely from above. A flash of disappointment in his eyes.

  ‘How I found you? I’ve been in the US for quite some time. I have contacts. You know how it works with our background. If you want to find someone, you do.’

  I feel stupid. I should never have asked. I’ve insulted him, his skills, what’s left of a life he might no longer lead.

  ‘So,’ I say. ‘You live here now?’

  He nods, sighs, raises his arms.

  ‘I saw which way the wind was blowing. Already after 9/11. It was only a matter of time. And your colleagues were accommodating.’

  ‘And now?’ I say. ‘What are you doing now?’

  He smiles wryly and leans back in the seat.

  ‘Now I teach Arabic at a community college in St George’s County. My wife is a nurse again.’

  He stops, shakes his head, clearly uncomfortable with that particular part of his new life. Finally, he shrugs.

  ‘She’s American now and seems to like it. It went quickly for her. It’s the American dream, right? Hard work, two cars, and a small house in Millersville?’

  He smiles again. A smile that’s ironic but not resigned or bitter. It’s the smile of someone who’s long understood the importance of not fighting against the current, of not asking why or complaining about how life has changed. It’s the smile of a refugee.

  ‘It turned out differently than we imagined,’ I say. ‘Everything turned out differently.’

  He nods. ‘It’s been a long time since Stockholm.’

  The diving bell has hit bottom. The reason he sought me out, which must have been harder than he lets on. I nod.

  ‘Twenty-five years ago,’ I say. ‘It feels like yesterday.’

  ‘Do you remember that you asked me about something before our meeting? That you asked me to look into something? As a favor. Between spies.’

  ‘Of course.’

  My heart rate has now doubled in speed. I try to swallow, but my mouth has stopped producing saliva.

  ‘It was brave. You took a risk. Contacting someone you didn’t know. Adding a personal inquiry onto an official meeting. It’s rare. Right?’

  He turns in his seat and looks me straight in the eye.

  ‘Anyone who makes such an inquiry is either ignorant or trying to fool themselves. Do you agree?’

  ‘What do you mean?’ I say.

  He shakes his head gently. He looks tired, old.

  ‘You’re not ignorant. You had your suspicions. Founded suspicions. And you knew that I would never be able to verify them. That it doesn’t work that way. You knew I would give you an empty answer. Something that is not a lie and not the truth. Still you asked. Still you asked who killed your girlfriend, the mother of your daughter. You asked me when you didn’t even know who I was.’

  ‘I was desperate,’ I say carefully. ‘I was willing to do anything.’

  He shakes his head again and opens his backpack, pulls a beige folder out of it. Balances it on his knees. I close my eyes. Lean back, feel the blood pulsing through my body.

  ‘You asked me because you knew that my answer would be empty. That it would be possible to interpret however you wanted to. You wanted to be able to choose the easy way. Lie or truth. You chose the path of least resistance. Who am I to judge you for that?’

  I don’t say anything. Barely even breathe.

  ‘And maybe I should let it be. What good will it do now?’ he says. ‘To bring up the past? It has been such a long time. But this life turned us into instruments. Nothing more. Constantly ready to act on whatever they chose to share with us. Constantly ready to switch sides, switch ideology, or methods.’

  I nod, my eyes still closed. There is no difference. We
’re all the same.

  ‘And now it’s over for both of us. Life as we had imagined it. Maybe it’s time to stop lying to ourselves too?’

  He lifts the folder and drops it in my lap. It weighs almost nothing. The truth weighs almost nothing. I don’t open my eyes until I hear the car door close behind him, until I hear the echo of his footsteps through the empty garage. I don’t need to open the folder. I already know what it contains.

  39

  December 20, 2013

  Paris, France

  Mahmoud was absolutely certain. When he’d turned around quickly on the platform, he’d caught a glimpse of the girl from the Brussels airport. She had been walking calmly among the other passengers twenty yards behind them.

  He led them, his hand still on Klara’s elbow, away from the platform. At the entrance to the terminal, he saw a sign with an arrow leading to the storage lockers. One floor down. Next to the rental cars. Mahmoud felt the adrenaline mixing with his blood, but tried hard not to let it show that he’d discovered his pursuers.

  ‘How did you pay for the tickets in Brussels?’ he whispered to Klara.

  ‘Um, with my debit card, I think.’

  He nodded.

  ‘Shit. I should have warned you. Fuck. It seems like they’re able to follow everything we do. They must have seen that you bought the tickets and followed us onto the train.’

  Klara said nothing. Just nodded. She didn’t look scared, only focused.

  ‘You have the phone we bought in Brussels?’ Mahmoud said.

  After Klara had returned with the train tickets, Mahmoud had bought two cheap burner phones, so that if they had to split up they’d still be able to stay in contact.

  ‘Yes,’ she replied. ‘In my purse.’

  ‘Good. We’re going to have to take a huge risk. I think our best chance is to split up.’

  Mahmoud turned his head and looked straight into her eyes. She met his gaze.

  ‘Okay,’ she said.

  In the first few weeks of his ranger training Mahmoud had learned that you never know exactly how a person might react to extreme stress. Some become unreasonable, irrational, lose their self-control. Those who seemed to be natural leaders might suddenly become paralyzed. For others, their calm and focus increased with the degree of stress. Somehow he’d probably always known he wouldn’t have to worry about Klara. Still, the realization left him feeling relieved and strangely moved.

  ‘And you have the locker ticket too?’ Mahmoud said.

  ‘In my wallet,’ she said.

  ‘Good. Here’s what we’re going to do. We’ll walk out to the taxi stand, like everything is normal. If there’s a line, we’ll just wait calmly in it. When we get a taxi, you’ll jump in first. As soon as you get into the car, you’ll scoot right through the backseat and out the other side. Okay?’

  Klara’s eyes darted around nervously. She swallowed hard. She too was feeling the adrenaline.

  ‘Okay.’

  ‘I’ll drive away in the taxi and draw off our pursuers. You stay out of the way for a while, then hopefully you’ll be able to empty the storage locker and take the subway as far away from here as you possibly can. I’ll call you in a few hours, and we’ll meet up again.’

  ‘And if I can’t shake them? What do we do?’

  ‘Then we’ll figure something else out. But this is the plan. Right now, it’s all we’ve got.’

  ‘Remind me never to travel with you again,’ Klara said.

  Mahmoud stopped, turned toward her, took her face in his hands and pulled it toward him, pretending to kiss her tenderly on the cheek.

  ‘You can do this, Klara,’ he whispered. ‘We can do this, okay? What was it your grandfather used to say again? Rock and salt? That’s what you’re made of, right?’

  They’d nearly reached the taxi stand. Mahmoud felt his pulse racing even faster. It was a crucial moment. Sink or swim.

  ‘Wait,’ he said to Klara.

  He took off his backpack, bent down, and pretended to rummage in it while looking over his shoulder. The blond girl was moving in a wide arc in the same direction as them. On the opposite wall, he saw a man of about thirty-five moving in a similar pattern. He seemed to fit the profile. Physically fit, loose cargo pants. Ski jacket and a duffel bag. Bluetooth headset in his ear. Most likely an American. So there were two at least. He couldn’t see any more.

  ‘There are two of them at least,’ he whispered to Klara without looking at her.

  ‘A blond girl with a ponytail in a dark blue Canada Goose jacket. And a guy wearing cargo pants and a grayish red ski jacket. Baseball cap. Both of them have headsets in their ears. Pretend you’re stretching, while I fiddle with the backpack.’

  Klara did as he said. Stretched, and took the opportunity to scout the terminal.

  ‘I see them,’ she said. ‘I recognize the girl. She was in my apartment.’

  Her voice was strained. Her face tightened.

  ‘Focus, Klara,’ whispered Mahmoud. ‘Focus. It’s all about technique. There is no emotion here, you understand? No feelings. In and out of the taxi. That’s the plan.’

  Klara nodded calmly, collecting herself.

  ‘Good. Here we go,’ Mahmoud said, and stood up.

  The street outside the station was chaotic: full of smoke and cars and business travelers crossing at random pulling suitcases and families with backpacks and maps and crying children. At least there was no queue for the taxis. They walked up to the first one with determined steps.

  ‘You know what you’re supposed to do?’ he hissed.

  ‘Don’t worry. Just do your part, and I’ll do mine,’ she replied.

  Mahmoud opened the car door, and Klara jumped into the backseat of the taxi. She glided across the worn and cracked leather seat, slightly hunched over, and opened the door on the other side just enough to be able slip out into the street. She didn’t even turn around to look at Mahmoud.

  ‘Louvre,’ Mahmoud said to the taxi driver.

  It was the only thing he could come up with in the heat of the moment. The driver turned and looked over his shoulder, obviously confused by the young woman first jumping out into the street and now crouching behind his left rear wheel.

  ‘Drive! Now!’ Mahmoud said in English.

  The driver shrugged and put the car into gear. They rolled out into the Parisian traffic. Mahmoud turned around in his seat and saw the guy in the cargo pants jumping into a small dark blue Volkswagen Golf, which must have been waiting for him across the street. So there are more than two, thought Mahmoud. The airport girl was standing in the taxi queue with a finger pressed against her headset. Mahmoud couldn’t see Klara, but unless the airport girl had seen her—and there was no indication she had—Klara had probably made it.

  40

  December 20, 2013

  Paris, France

  Klara ran, crouching along the line of taxis until she felt like she must be outside the field of vision of her pursuers. From the corner of her eye, she could see Cargo Pants jogging across the street. Klara snuck between two parked cars, so he wouldn’t see her. Her heart was racing. A dark blue Golf came rolling up the street, and the man jumped into the passenger side, then the car seemed to take off in pursuit of Mahmoud’s taxi.

  Cautiously, Klara peeked between the cars. Ponytail was still standing in front of the side entrance to the station. It looked like she was talking to someone on her headset while scouting the surroundings. It was definitely the girl in running clothes that she’d seen come out of her front door. Klara felt sick, as if she might vomit. How long had they been spying on her? She took control of her breathing. Forcing herself to breathe deeply and evenly. No feelings. Shove aside your emotions. Shove away your thoughts.

  She knew she had to make her way into the station again to access the luggage lockers. Still crouching slightly, she started moving down the street behind the cars. When she got to the corner of the station, she peered back along the sidewalk. Ponytail had disappeared. Klara took a r
ed knitted hat out of her purse and pulled it down over her ears. She carefully tucked all of her dark hair under its edges. When she was done, she took off her dark blue coat and hung it over her bag. She shivered. Her gray cardigan, which had cost her a fortune in Antwerp, was not primarily designed for warmth. Paris was as cold as Brussels, but it couldn’t hurt to alter her appearance as much as possible.

  She gathered herself and started walking toward the main entrance. A steady stream of Friday commuters was flowing through the station, and Klara let herself be swept along by the wave. She followed the signs to the storage lockers and took the escalator down one floor.

  In order to enter the lockers area she had to pass through a security screening. All bags were X-rayed by a grim-faced guard. A short line had formed behind the turnstiles. When it was Klara’s turn, she put her shoulder bag and coat on the belt.

  ‘Excuse me,’ she said and turned to the guard, ‘could you tell me where I can find C193?’

  She had to make an effort to breathe normally. The guard looked attentively at her before answering.

  ‘Section C is over there, mademoiselle.’

  Klara thanked him and retrieved her things from the conveyor belt. Maybe, just maybe, luck was on their side.

  It took her no more than a minute to locate the locker. It was small, the smallest kind available, and square. Maybe two foot by two foot.

  She leaned forward and entered the code that was on the receipt. She held her breath. A red light shone beside the locker door. A short message in French appeared on the display. Wrong code. Klara felt the floor sway beneath her feet. Wrong code. She took out the receipt again, slowly pressing the six digits once more.