Jacob wakes up to someone gently shaking his shoulder, and he opens his eyes. Grey hair in grey light. A face he recognizes from yesterday – or earlier today? He no longer knows what day it is. Or where he is.
‘I don’t know if I introduced myself,’ the man says. ‘Anton Bronzelius is the name. I’m with Säpo.’
Jacob nods and struggles onto an elbow, blinks in the bleak yellow lights of the room. Bronzelius. That was Klara’s contact at Säpo, he understood that much in yesterday’s chaos.
‘Where am I?’ he says. His voice is hoarse and creaky, and he clears his throat. Bronzelius is already on his feet.
‘Söder Hospital,’ he says. ‘They’re holding you for observation. It seems like you’ve been through a lot lately.’
Jacob looks around – it’s definitely a hospital room; shiny floors, big beds, tubes and a TV hanging from the ceiling. A vague memory of police cars and an ambulance taking him here.
‘Am I a prisoner?’ he says. It feels like the wrong word, but his brain is neither quick nor clear enough. Bronzelius just shakes his head.
‘We have a lot of questions,’ he says. ‘But you’re not suspected of any crime. Even if your role in all this is still far from clear. But we have time to talk about that later.’ He gestures to the door. ‘We’re in a bit of a hurry,’ he says. ‘I think there’s somebody you’d like to see before it’s too late.’
Jacob’s body aches as he follows Bronzelius through the desolate corridor of the hospital. His shoulder, knees, head. It feels as if he’s just been pulled out of the rubble, as if he survived an earthquake. Maybe that’s what he’s done.
The silence and tranquillity of the hospital is confusing; he can hardly believe that after everything, he’s safe now, or something like it. He’s not going to die. Whatever happens, he’s going to live.
Bronzelius stops in front of a door that a police officer is guarding. They exchange a few words, but Jacob is so exhausted and drowsy he doesn’t really process what they’re saying. The door opens and Bronzelius pushes him gently through it.
‘You have five minutes,’ he says. ‘I’m sorry, but that’s all I can give you.’
In the bed in this small room, Yassim is lying on his back on white sheets. His head rests against the pillow, his eyes are closed, and an overwhelming tenderness sneaks over Jacob. He hurries to the bed, leans over it. An IV in Yassim’s arm, a white, freshly dressed bandage on his chest. Yassim turns his head and opens his eyes.
‘You’re here,’ he whispers faintly.
Jacob nods and takes Yassim’s face between his hands, gently kisses those dry lips. Something rattles at the edge of the bed, and Jacob turns and sees that Yassim is handcuffed to the bedframe.
‘I think they’ll be keeping me a while,’ he says.
‘What are they going to do to you?’ Jacob says. ‘What’s going on?’
He turns around and sees Bronzelius’s face in the dim light at the door. ‘I’m afraid your friend will have to stay with us,’ he says. ‘He’s been connected to ISIS. Acted as courier.’
‘He was exposing them!’ Jacob bursts out.
He stands up, turns completely towards Bronzelius with his hands at his sides. The insight hits him ever more fully and leaves him with a paralyzing sense of powerlessness. Someone is going to have to pay, someone will be made responsible. And they’ve decided that’s Yassim.
‘You have three minutes left,’ Bronzelius says drily. ‘It’s up to you what you do with them.’
Jacob can feel he’s shaking now, but he turns back to Yassim, leans over him again, sinks down beside him, places his head so they’re side by side.
‘I’m so sorry,’ he whispers. ‘I…’
‘Shhh, shh,’ Yassim whispers. ‘I’m not sorry. We did the right thing, darling.’
Jacob feels tears welling up behind his eyes, feels his throat burning and the lump there growing. Yassim’s skin against his lips.
‘You can’t disappear,’ he whispers. ‘We just met.’
*
When the train stops at Eskilstuna, Jacob takes a deep breath and squeezes the armrest. He closes his eyes. It’s been two days since he left Yassim at the hospital. A day since Bronzelius let him leave the police station.
‘We’ll have to talk to you again,’ Bronzelius told him. ‘Don’t go too far.’
Jacob has already told them everything they wanted to know. Answered every question in the most minute detail as best he could. All in the hope that Bronzelius would answer just one of his own: ‘What is going to happen to Yassim?’
But beside those five minutes at the hospital that Bronzelius stole for him, he refused to give an inch. No promises, no information, nothing.
‘Focus on yourself,’ Bronzelius said. ‘That’s my only advice.’
But there was something about the way he said it. Something in his eyes, his expression when he looked at Jacob, which seemed to open a door rather than close it.
‘But he’s not going to disappear?’ Jacob asked. ‘You won’t make him disappear?’
Bronzelius just shook his head, almost imperceptibly. ‘No,’ he muttered. ‘This is Sweden. People don’t disappear here.’
And that was all. That was all he got, the only straw he has to cling to.
*
As soon as he gets off the train and steps down onto the platform, it feels like a mistake to have gone back to Eskilstuna. It feels like too much, too soon. He swore he’d never, ever return. Just keep moving forward and upward and never ever look back. That was the promise he made to himself. The promise that allowed him to survive his home and school and everything he swore never to think about or share with anyone.
When he opens his eyes he sees a light, cold rain falling in the lights of the station.
But he knows it won’t work any more. He knows that Myriam was right when she found him in Beirut. It was an illusion from the beginning. You can’t hide from who you are.
It’s just a few minutes’ walk from the station to the yellow brick buildings, the white balconies, the vodka bottles, the cigarette butts. His childhood. He still had the key in a small box in his room in Uppsala. He couldn’t quite let go of it during his studies, no matter how much he wanted to, and now he’s holding it in his sweaty hand as he opens the door to the apartment building.
But he stops there, unable to take another step. Then he feels Yassim’s hand in his, feels him gently pulling him up the echoing stairwell, hears Yassim’s voice whispering in his ear: ‘Don’t be afraid, Jacob. Don’t be afraid any more.’
She doesn’t answer when he rings the doorbell, but he didn’t expect she would. He carefully puts the key in the lock and turns it. It’s been so long since he opened this door, still he remembers the exact movement, how the lock slides and clicks. He remembers the vacuum suck as he pulls open the heavy door of a musty apartment and the stench of smoke and alcohol and closed windows with curtains drawn.
His mother is lying on the stained couch. On the coffee table are some leaflets and a half-eaten chocolate cake, an empty pack of cigarettes, a full ashtray, an empty bottle of gin, a couple of beer cans. He turns around to see where Yassim went – he felt so real just a moment ago, there in the stairs. But he’s disappeared again. It’s just Jacob and his mother here now, and he goes over to the window, finds the handle and opens it. A cold wind swirls into the apartment, making the dirty curtains flutter.
He turns to his mother just as she’s opening her eyes and starts to sit up on the couch.
‘Matti?’ she says. ‘Matti, is that you?’
Jacob goes over to the couch and squats down beside her. She looks at him with cloudy, tired eyes, her skin grey, her hair thin.
‘Yes,’ he says. ‘It’s me.’