One hour, Yassim said, but it takes only twenty minutes for Jacob to make his way through the traffic on the streets that lead to Cornichen and the sea. His mouth is dry from exhaustion and nervousness, and he stops at a small kiosk to buy himself a Coke Zero. Forty minutes until Yassim said they should meet, but Jacob’s already there, can see the glass walls of his building between construction sites and building cranes.
He meanders down the street, stopping at a bank across the street from his destination. He opens his drink, takes a couple of deep gulps, and leans back, letting his eyes wander up the side of the building. The apartments are dark and empty, no more than items of expenditure on a spreadsheet in an open office somewhere in Dubai, bought by investors with oil money, never intended for habitation.
He counts the floors to number eight, follows the terraces to the corner, until his eyes hit a silhouette standing in the corner. He almost loses his breath.
Yassim.
He knows immediately, would recognize that body anywhere, from any distance. Yassim has a phone pressed to his ear, and he’s standing in the corner of his terrace looking down at Cornichen and the sea. Jacob feels guilty, like he’s a spy. He has no right to stand here in the shadows like some kind of stalker, but he can’t stop looking at him. Then Yassim finally takes the phone from his ear, puts it in his pocket, and goes back into the apartment.
Then Jacob’s phone vibrates again. Blocked number.
‘Hello?’ he answers in English. ‘I’m already outside.’
‘I’m sure you are,’ says Myriam’s hard voice. ‘Do you remember what I said last time, Matti?’
Jacob closes his eyes and waits for her to continue.
‘I told you to call the second he contacted you. But you didn’t.’
‘I just…’ he starts, ‘I got so stressed.’
‘There’s no room for stress. You know what you’re supposed to do. You call me on the number I gave you as soon as you hear from him. Is that clear?’
‘Yes,’ Jacob whispers. ‘It is.’
He cuts the call and looks up towards Yassim’s apartment again. The terrace is empty, but he follows the windows until he catches sight of two people in the shadows of Yassim’s apartment. One is Yassim, the other is nearly as tall, but looks older. They seem to be having a serious discussion. Yassim seems to be listening, as if the one talking is an authority figure.
Jacob checks the time on his phone again. Twenty minutes until he said he’d be there. He heads towards the entrance. Should he just take the elevator and ring the doorbell? But Yassim has a visitor.
He sits down on a low wall, out of sight of the armed guard in front of Yassim’s building, but still with a view of the entrance.
It doesn’t take more than a few minutes until a man exits. He looks stressed and hands some cash to the guard, says a few words. The guard nods, looks pleased, and the man looks up and down the street as if making sure nobody sees him. Then he crosses the street with a phone pressed to his ear and heads straight towards the wall where Jacob is sitting.
It’s the man from Yassim’s apartment, Jacob is sure of it despite the distance. He has an innate authority in the way he moves, a commanding presence. He appears to be in his fifties and is wearing an expensive, dark-blue suit. His thick white hair is carefully combed back over his head. When he turns and looks up the street Jacob flinches. It feels as if the man is looking straight into him, as if he knows who Jacob is, what he’s waiting for. A shiny black Mercedes with blue diplomatic plates stops. The man lowers his phone, jumps into the back seat, and disappears into the throbbing stream of Beirut traffic.
Jacob stays on the wall, slowly drinking his coke. He thinks about Myriam and the first time he saw Yassim on the terrace in Mar Mikhael. He thinks of the photograph that was leaning against the wall of Yassim’s room, and he thinks of Yassim’s naked body. He thinks about the man he just saw, his remarkably white hair, and how nothing is simple here in Beirut, nothing is what it seems.
He puts his drink on the wall next to him and stands up, restless and suddenly afraid. It’s as if he’s looking at himself and his situation from the outside: a naive Swede falls in love with somebody he doesn’t know. He’s neither experienced nor gifted enough to handle the situation with Yassim and Myriam.
He pushes his fingers through his hair and turns away from Yassim’s building, takes a step up towards Hamra, back to his normal life, away from folly and risk.
Then his phone rings again.
‘Where are you?’ Yassim asks.
Jacob stops. He gulps, closes his eyes, feels his blood become light, lighter than air, lifting him, his whole body, up above traffic and conflict and confusion, up above Beirut, out above everything that’s impossible to understand, up to something that’s only emotion, only instinct, lust and trembling excitement.
‘I’m here,’ Jacob replies. ‘I’m coming. I’m coming.’
*
Afterwards, they lie naked in Yassim’s white sheets on his low bed in his empty bedroom. Jacob feels Yassim’s arm around his shoulders, feels himself being pulled close and kissed. Lightly this time, not rough and relentless like a few moments ago.
‘Have you missed me?’ Yassim asks, his lips still against Jacob’s.
Jacob presses closer to Yassim, lets his tongue wander inside his mouth again. He’s getting hard again, even though it’s been just minutes since he emptied himself into Yassim’s hot, waiting mouth.
‘Yes,’ he moans. ‘I thought you were never coming back.’
Yassim pulls away and holds Jacob’s hand in his own. The regretful sadness that Jacob saw last time – which feels like an eternity ago – is back.
‘But I did,’ he says. ‘It’s impossible to stay away from you.’
‘Is that what you want?’ says Jacob. ‘Do you want to stay away from me?’
He’s not just seeking confirmation, not just waiting to hear Yassim say: ‘No, of course not. I want to be with you forever.’ He says it because he doesn’t know what this is, who Yassim is.
But his friend rolls onto his side and puts on his white briefs and his shirt.
‘Come,’ he says. ‘Let’s eat something.’
*
By the time Jacob pulls on his jeans and T-shirt and goes out into the large living room, Yassim has cleared the computer from the table and arranged takeout boxes of salads and spreads. He opens a bag of pita bread and tears it into pieces.
‘I picked up some food on my way,’ he says, smiling at Jacob. ‘Thought you might be hungry.’
Jacob nods, moved by this thoughtfulness, and keeps his eyes on Yassim’s face, though Yassim never looks directly at him. Jacob watches as he fills up bowls, puts the bread in a basket. Jacob wants nothing more than to go and put his arms around him. The doubts he felt seem negligible now. That Yassim is what Myriam says he is seems only laughable. He suddenly wants to tell him everything. About Myriam and the bathhouse and the threats and accusations. But something holds him back, and he turns his eyes away. A little sliver of suspicion.
‘Were you in Aleppo?’ he asks quietly. ‘This whole time?’
Yassim puts tabbouleh on Jacob’s plate and drizzles olive oil over a container of grainy baba ganoush.
‘I’ve been just about everywhere,’ he says cautiously. ‘I go where they want me.’
Jacob nods. Why would he lie? And yet he can’t let go of Myriam’s words. All these conflicting agendas.
‘I got here a bit early,’ Jacob begins doubtfully. ‘So I was waiting outside.’
He gestures towards the window where the city’s yellow light streams onto the grey concrete floor. ‘You had a visitor right before I arrived?’
Yassim takes a bite and looks up at him questioningly. He shakes his head slightly. ‘Excuse me? I don’t quite follow you.’
‘I thought I saw someone in the window,’ Jacob says, looking away. ‘But I must have been wrong.’
Wasn’t that Yassim’s apartment he was looking up at? Wasn’t that Yassim he saw? He’d been so sure. But now Yassim just smiles at him.
‘You must have been spying on the wrong apartment, Jacob,’ he says, taking another bite of the bread. ‘I’m not the only one who lives here.’
Jacob shrugs. ‘I guess so. Sorry.’
But it does seem to be only Yassim’s apartment that’s inhabited. And he’s absolutely sure he’d recognize Yassim’s silhouette anywhere. But he doesn’t say anything. Just eats his hummus Beiruti and takes a gulp of water.
‘Can you tell me about life at the embassy,’ Yassim says. ‘I want to hear something that’s not war or misery.’