They walk in silence past the bars and small Pakistani grocery stores that are open late, up towards the wide Avenue de la Toison d’Or, which leads to the luxury stores near Place Louise. The drizzle is constant but barely noticeable.
‘Should we grab a taxi? I live just behind Place Stéphanie,’ George says, stopping outside the cinema at Toison d’Or.
Klara looks around. Her head has cleared a bit. George was right, of course – she didn’t need another drink.
‘Let’s walk,’ she says and starts down the street again.
Even though it’s not much past eight-thirty, the sidewalks are almost empty. Monday and the weather has kept the flâneurs at home.
‘How long have you been feeling like this?’ George asks quietly outside the entrance to Marks & Spencer. The English department store wasn’t here when Klara left Brussels, and she lets her eyes sweep across the display window.
‘I don’t feel any particular way,’ she says quietly. ‘Is it really so strange to end up a little shaky after your friend is rounded up in an anti-terrorism operation, and you realize you’re being followed by the Russian mob or whoever the hell they are?’
George grabs hold of her elbow gently, and she pulls it away, but regrets it immediately. It would have been so nice to be held by him.
‘I don’t mean that,’ he says. ‘It was like this in the summer too, right?’
Klara glances at him and starts walking again. ‘I feel better now,’ she says.
‘You know what I mean.’ His voice is louder now, and carries a touch of annoyance, and he’s grabbed her elbow again, turning her towards him. ‘You had a panic attack at Ralph’s, Klara. You’ve been drinking like a fucking sponge. You think you can fool me?’
She turns her eyes away, but after what he saw at Ralph’s she knows she can’t hide from him. ‘Can we just go home now?’ she says. ‘I can’t talk about this now. I’m sorry.’
She turns her eyes up the street, in the direction they just came from, mostly to avoid looking at George. There are only a few people hurrying through the drizzle, maybe headed to the movies or to get a beer. But her eyes settle on a man leaning against a doorway next to a souvenir shop fifty metres further up the street. He looks like he might be of Middle Eastern descent, has a short, neatly trimmed beard, is wearing tracksuit bottoms and a dark puffy jacket of some glossy material. He looks like he’s waiting for somebody while staring at his phone. A completely unremarkable situation in other words. But something about him makes her heart beat faster, despite the alcohol and beta blockers. There are a thousand strangers who look like him. But she can’t help noticing he’s dressed in the exact same style as the men in Bromma and Zaventem, and she starts to tremble.
‘Come on,’ she says. ‘Let’s get going.’
*
George lives in a small one-bedroom on Rue Berckmans, just behind the legendary Hotel Conrad, which has been renamed something long and German-sounding since Klara left. They step into his hallway, and she’s surprised by how ordinary and impersonal the apartment is. George’s personality – or at least his former personality – promised something more spectacular.
‘It’s only temporary,’ he says apologetically, hanging up Klara’s jacket. ‘I had a sweet place down by Place Lux, but I bought a two-bedroom in Stockholm to get ready for the move. Renovating the kitchen now. Gaggenau, a wine fridge. The works.’
It’s clear that his old, flashy personality isn’t completely gone, and Klara smiles a little as she walks past him into a living room that looks out over the street. ‘Nice to know that deep down inside you’re still the same superficial arsehole I used to know.’
‘Oh, come on,’ George mutters behind her. ‘Am I supposed to live like a Social Democrat just cos I got a government job?’
Klara turns back to him and smiles more widely.
‘No offence, of course,’ he adds. Klara used to work for the Social Democrats in Brussels. ‘You know what I mean.’
He walks over to the window and turns on a small lamp and soft light fills the room, then he takes out his silver lighter again and lights a few candles on the coffee table.
‘This place is nothing special,’ he says. ‘I just rented something furnished until I was ready to move. Just one month left.’
Klara sits down on the sofa and looks at him. He’s so much softer, she thinks. It’s done him good to let go of his slick persona. He looks nice. His eyes used to seem so impatient and restless, but now she thinks they look mostly worried and a little nervous. It seems like his attention-seeking, childish self-confidence was only a mask, and he’s let go of it. Not completely, but enough to see what’s behind.
He settles down beside her on the sofa, so close that she catches a whiff of his cologne: citrus and wood. It smells expensive.
‘Damn,’ he says, rising halfway. ‘We should eat. I can go out and grab something. Don’t really have much at home. Cooking’s not my thing.’
Klara nods and leans back. She gently grabs his arm and pulls him back down. She feels so safe here, in his company. All of the stress of Brussels is flowing out of her on George’s sofa, in George’s company. It’s confusing – she barely knows him, after all. But she didn’t imagine it. Maybe there’s always been something there, something that she has tried to ignore?
‘Can’t you wait a minute?’ she says. ‘Can’t we just sit here for a while?’
Without really knowing how it happens, she’s leaning against his shoulder, and he’s hesitantly putting an arm around her.
She turns her face cautiously up towards George’s throat and lets her lips run along the skin just above his collar. She feels his skin tense under her lips, and he changes his position on the sofa, twisting towards her. Suddenly, his hand is beneath her chin and their faces are just millimetres apart. She raises her hands and runs her fingers through his thick hair. She gently takes hold of it and pulls him close.
His lips taste like beer and tobacco and peppermint chewing gum, and at first it feels almost too surreal to even register what’s happening. She’s kissing George Lööw! It would have made her laugh out loud if it didn’t feel so natural, if it didn’t feel like letting go of something she’d held in check far too hard, for far too long.
He runs a hand over her hair now, grabs the back of her neck and pulls her even closer, going from careful to hesitant to intentional. She pushes him back so that he’s half lying on the couch, but she doesn’t stop kissing him, she just straddles him. Now he moans into her mouth, and she can feel his hands on her back, running down towards her butt. She fumbles with the buttons of his shirt, without letting her lips leave his, without letting anything come between them. It feels if she were to pull back for even a second the magic would be broken, and reality would flood over them again.
He has a hand on one of her breasts now, inside her bra, and she feels that he can’t hold back either, that he’s caressing it with a desperation that would hurt if she wasn’t so unbelievably turned on.
‘We should go to the bed,’ he gasps.
But Klara pushes him down on the sofa while pulling at his belt, unbuttoning and pulling down his trousers and suddenly he’s in her hand. He’s smooth and hard, and Klara pulls down her own trousers, her underwear, and then she pulls back for a second and looks deep into his eyes.
*
Afterwards she lies with her cheek pressed against his warm chest, her hands still in his hair; he’s still inside her. She can feel his chest falling and rising beneath her. Maybe she should say something, but she doesn’t know what, and honestly doesn’t know if her voice will hold.
Somewhere in the distance a siren is approaching, and when she opens her eyes she can see flashing blue lights shining on the wood floor as a police car drives by outside. Gently, she turns onto her back, lying next to him on the sofa. She glances at him as he stares up at the ceiling.
‘Well well,’ she says finally. ‘You sobered me up.’
She turns towards him and sees a little smile on his lips. He glances at her, then turns his eyes away nervously. ‘This…’ he begins. ‘I wasn’t expecting this.’
She laughs. ‘Really? I thought you were a player? A hawk among the sparrows down at Place Lux? Was I completely mistaken?’
She glances at him and can swear he’s blushing. ‘This… is a little different.’
She’s sitting up now, has found her underpants between the cushions of the sofa. She fishes them out and pulls them on. ‘Is it?’ she says, smiling provocatively. ‘How is it different, George? Do tell.’
She sounds tougher than she feels. Or she doesn’t know at all how she feels – just that she liked what just happened. That she likes George’s lips and breath, his hands on her skin. That she feels so safe suddenly. And she doesn’t want it to end.
George has pulled on his chinos now and is standing up. His hair is dishevelled, almost wild, and Klara likes the way he runs his hands through it, trying to get it back in place.
‘I don’t know,’ he says quietly. ‘Just different.’ He looks at her and grins. ‘Well, are you hungry now?’
She nods. She actually is. The beer has given way to a weak headache. But the pressure in her chest is gone. When has she felt this light lately?
‘There’s a Lebanese restaurant down on the street,’ he says. ‘I can go pick some food up. I think they have a lot of vegetarian stuff, too.’
‘You know I’m not a vegetarian, right?’ she says, looking at him with amusement.
‘Really? Could have sworn you were?’ He holds out his arms. ‘You’ve got that kind of aura, you know.’
*
She wants to take a shower but she can’t let go of what happened, so she settles down on the sofa again. What the hell is this? Did she really just have sex with George?
She stands up and walks over to the door of the balcony. Carefully draws the curtain and looks down onto the street.
He just left to get food, but she already feels a little empty and lonely and warm and raw. She misses him. It’s crazy. George Lööw? The original Brussels playboy? She must be even more fucked up than she knew.
She glances down at the street bathed in a hazy, yellow light. She’ll just stand here and wait for him to come back.
The street is empty now, and she looks up towards the intersection where the restaurant is located.
And there, leaning against one of the leafless trees, a man stands in slacks and a dark, shiny puffy jacket. With her heart pounding, she draws the curtains again.
Somebody is still watching her.