The Swimmer Read online

  George stepped into the cube and closed the door behind him. It bothered him that his client was already sitting in one of the bright leather seats. The secretaries were instructed to have visitors wait in the reception area if they were early. But George didn’t let the client see his annoyance; he just casually frosted the glass with the twist of a button.

  ‘Mr Reiper! Welcome to Merchant and Taylor!’ he said as he slapped on his widest, most self-assured smile, and held out a well-manicured hand to a man, around the age of sixty, who was sitting slumped in his chair, in a position that seemed unaware of, or in direct opposition to, everything that might be considered ergonomic.

  Reiper looked like he lived a profoundly unhealthy life. He wasn’t exactly fat, more half-inflated, with the loose outline of a neglected helium balloon. He was almost completely bald, and around the sides of his head ran an unruly wreath of slush gray hair. His face was sallow, as though he rarely went outdoors. A thick white scar ran from his left temple down to the corner of his mouth. He wore a shabby black polo shirt with a pair of dry-cleaned, pleated khakis, and had holsters for an iPhone and a flashlight in his belt. A dirty notebook and a blue Georgetown Hoyas cap were lying on the shiny glass surface of the conference table. His position in the chair, the slow movement of his finger on the screen of his phone, the way he didn’t even look up when George entered the room, gave Mr Reiper an aura of authority that seemed as obvious as it was ruthless. George felt the hairs on his forearms stand up: a purely primal response to the feelings of discomfort and disadvantage that his new client evoked. He knew instinctively that he never, ever wanted to hear the story behind Mr Reiper’s scar.

  ‘Good morning, Mr Lööw. Thank you for taking the time to meet with me,’ said Reiper, finally taking George’s outstretched hand.

  The pronunciation of his surname was almost perfect. Unusual for an American, George thought. His voice was throaty and a little sluggish. Maybe southern?

  ‘Have you had coffee? I apologize, our receptionist is brand-new. I’m sure you know how it is.’

  Reiper gave a quick shake of his head and looked around the room.

  ‘I like your office, Mr Lööw. The detail of the frosted glass is, well, spectacular.’

  They sat down across from each other, and George carefully arranged his completely irrelevant papers into a rough semicircle around his notebook.

  ‘So, what can we help Digital Solutions with?’ George said and switched on yet another smile that he considered worth every cent of the 350 euros he cost per hour.

  Reiper leaned back and returned George’s smile. There was something about that smile, something about how it faltered because of the scar, that made George want to look away. And there was something about Reiper’s eyes. In the warm light of the conference room’s meticulously positioned spotlights they sometimes looked green, sometimes brown. Cool and expectant, they seemed to change color at random. Combined with the fact that he never seemed to blink, it gave Reiper the lazily ironic, utterly lethal expression of a reptile.

  ‘So this is the deal,’ Reiper said and slid a couple of stapled documents across the table at George.

  ‘I know you’re very proud of your discretion here at Merchant and Taylor, but then I also know you sing like canaries when the tide turns. Purely a formality, of course.’

  George picked up the document and flipped through it quickly. It was a classic nondisclosure agreement between him and Digital Solutions. He couldn’t reveal anything of what they discussed in their meetings. He couldn’t even mention to anyone that he worked for Digital Solutions or was aware of their existence. If he were to do so, he could be liable for an almost astronomical amount, depending on the severity of his slipup. Nothing out of the ordinary, really. Many clients were concerned about their anonymity and were not always willing to be associated with a public relations firm known for being as ruthless as Merchant & Taylor.

  ‘It says that it was signed in Washington, DC,’ George said at last. ‘But we’re in Brussels.’

  ‘Yes,’ replied Reiper, somewhat absently. He appeared to be reading something on his iPhone. ‘Our lawyers think that would make it easier to avoid what they call a forum dispute if that become necessary.’

  He shrugged and looked up from his phone.

  ‘But I’m sure you know more about nondisclosure agreements than I do?’

  There was a new sharpness in his voice. Something like interest flickered in his otherwise dead eyes. George felt ill at ease. Sure, he’d signed a series of similar contracts during his time at Merchant & Taylor. However, there was something about how Reiper had said it, something more complicated. George pushed the thought away. It was impossible. No one could know anything about that. Reiper’s allusion must just be a coincidence.

  George pulled his Montblanc out of his breast pocket, signed the contract with a quick flourish, and pushed it back across the table to Reiper.

  ‘There you go,’ he said, anxious to get the meeting started. ‘Maybe now we can begin?’

  ‘Excellent,’ Reiper replied absently. Without looking up from his iPhone, he folded the agreement carelessly and jammed it into the inside pocket of his worn jacket. Finally, he slid the phone into its holster with care and met George’s eyes.

  ‘We need help with a translation,’ he said. ‘To start with.’

  5

  August 1980

  Northern Virginia, USA

  Something is worrying her. I know that before Susan even opens her mouth. There’s nothing strange or supernatural about that. Over time I’ve learned to read the signs, the nuances, the shift of a glance, hands moving like frightened birds, as if by themselves, or not at all. I almost always know what people are going to say. It’s one of the thousands of ways I survive. But when she speaks, I don’t hear her. I can only see her gray suit, her dyed blond hair, and watery eyes. See the traces of her daily commute: the coffee stains on her shiny lapel.

  She lives in Beltsville, Greenbelt, Silver Spring. One of the endless suburbs where we all live. She drives a Ford, and everything she reads is classified. Like many of us, she’s stopped drinking. We either drink too much or not at all. Donuts and watery coffee in the Methodist Church on Sundays. Appreciative words about the choir, pointless conversations about preschools and vacations. Susan is so ordinary. An ordinary, ordinary all-American woman of thirty-five with a house and a mortgage and a new car every other year. She and her husband are trying to scrape together college money for the two children. But all of that is part of the framework. The game within the big game. We all feel that the everyday is too slow, too mundane. Not important enough. Too little is at stake.

  The air-conditioning is turned up so high that I’m starting to get goose bumps. My ears are still ringing from the explosion, and every terrible night I dream of white light, shallow breathing, and your greasy hair. I wake up sweaty, wild, the sheets twisted around me, protecting my pillow with my body.

  ‘They were both in the car?’ she says and sits on the edge of the only other chair in my microscopic room.

  I nod, forcing myself to look her in the eyes, to neither hesitate nor move.

  ‘Terrible,’ she says. ‘Terrible. I’m so sorry. This job, this life. We pay a high price.’

  She doesn’t look sad. She’s as neutral as her car, her house, her ill-fitting suit. I swivel my chair and stare out toward the parking lot and the thin, green trees on the other side of it. You can hardly sense the highway. We sit in silence for a while, let the dust swirl in the late summer sunlight streaming through my window. But she’s not here for condolences. Not only.

  ‘Why did you show up in Paris?’ she says at last. ‘Why didn’t you go directly to the embassy in Damascus or Cairo?’

  I shrug, turning my gaze back to her, looking straight into her eyes again.

  ‘That was the original plan,’ I say. ‘Boat from Latakia to Larnaca. Flight to Athens. Night train to Paris. I had tickets from de Gaulle to Dulles, but I thought that u
nder the circumstances, it was better to check in in Paris.’

  ‘After what happened… Wouldn’t it have been appropriate to deviate from the plan? To check in in Damascus?’ she says.

  Her voice is soft and friendly. On the surface, she’s still here to make sure I’m okay, express her sympathy. But we both know that’s just on the surface. There’s always a subtext, always an underlying reason. And another reason beneath that one as well.

  ‘I explained everything in my debriefing,’ I say. ‘The bomb was meant for me. I followed protocol and stayed under the radar until I felt sure I wouldn’t get shot in the embassy’s parking lot.’

  She leans back. Drums her wedding ring gently against the steel frame of the chair.

  Click click click click click.

  Only that and the rustling of the air conditioner.

  ‘You overestimate the Syrians and their allies,’ she says. ‘A car bomb in Damascus is all they’re capable of.’

  ‘Maybe,’ I say. ‘But as I said, I wanted to be sure.’

  Susan nods, allows herself to be satisfied. There’s nothing here that doesn’t follow protocol. Not a trace. She locks her eyes with mine.

  ‘We’ll get them,’ she says slowly. ‘You know that. Damascus, Cairo, Beirut… All the Middle Eastern agencies are looking into this now. It’ll take time, but we’ll find the culprit, you know that.’

  I nod. The thought of revenge is still just a seed.

  She leans forward. A different look, a different tone when she speaks.

  ‘And the information you received from your contact?’ she says. ‘The weapons delivered to the Syrians. You’ve only given that information in my report, right? Not in the debriefing? Nowhere else?’

  I nod my head.

  ‘Only in your report,’ I say.

  ‘It’s probably a dead end, of course. A plant. But we don’t want to raise any alarms.’

  ‘I’m aware of the consequences. It stays in your report.’

  She leans back for a moment. Following my gaze out the window. Finally, she gets up.

  ‘Are you okay?’ she says.

  Her tone is constant, no matter how much suffering she demands.

  ‘I’m okay.’

  ‘Take the rest of the week off,’ she says. ‘Go for a swim. Get a drink.’

  I see how she pats the plastic doorframe with the palm of her hand before leaving my room. It rattles. Encouragement, perhaps. Sympathy. She knows I swim. There’s nothing they don’t know about me.

  The water in the public pool is too warm, but I still prefer it to the pool at Langley. When I surface for air every fourth stroke, I hear the shrill voices of a school class bouncing like radar waves between the chlorine-scented tile walls. Lap after lap. There was a time when I could have been a really good swimmer. The Olympics were an actual possibility, a goal within reach. But my motivation extended only to the University of Michigan and no further than that. I don’t regret it. I don’t regret anything.

  I know that so much of this is a lie. But reality is fragile; without the lie it threatens to crumble. The lie is what’s holding up the bridge. It’s what allows you to cross from one shore to the other. There is no truth.

  Still I requested the report before I left the office. I knew it would be classified at a higher level than I had access to. We’re never allowed to read about what concerns ourselves. And I knew that if I were allowed to see it, if I read it with my own eyes, it would certainly be a lie. But my request was refused. It was a relief. I don’t want to know when they’re lying to me.

  So now I’m sitting in this sad, dirty locker room, my legs trembling after hours in the pool. Paralyzing guilt is jolting through me like electricity. Swimming holds it at bay. The repetition and the habit hold it at bay. In the water, I’m temporarily safe. As soon as I stop, I hear the sound of the car ignition, see the image of a very small child under shards of glass, pieces of concrete.

  Later I drink Rusty Nails in front of the TV. My living room is bare. Some moving boxes are stacked in the corners. They contain nothing of value. I’m sitting on my new couch and watching a rerun of a baseball game I don’t care about. The apartment—a modern box, one of many, with a garage, conveniently close to the reassuring hum of the highway—smells faintly of paint and air-conditioning. The muscles in my arms feel tight. I swam six miles. Twice as far as I usually do.

  The baseball game is ending as I pour my third drink, and I switch over to Johnny Carson. I realize immediately that I don’t have the energy to listen to Richard Pryor’s Ronald Reagan jokes. They don’t interest me. They’re trite, they move too slowly.

  Everything is moving too slowly since I came back here. I’m a man for the field. Strategies, analysis, the eternal politics of Langley, Pentagon, DC, move too slowly. Give me another passport, another language, another life. Drop me in Damascus, in Beirut, in Cairo. I know how to make contacts, how to maintain them over a glass of sweet tea, whiskey, and cigars. I can make a tabouleh that will remind my guest of his childhood in Aleppo. Even when borders are hostile, I’ll have the best Lebanese wine on my balcony.

  And there, on the balcony, in the melancholy sweetness of sunset, with jasmine in the air and the buzz of diplomats, gangsters, and politicians inside at the dinner table, I’ll make a transaction that means someone other than me will die in the end. We are always playing for a draw. Our ideal is the status quo.

  They want us to meet with a therapist when we come back in nowadays. As if debriefing weren’t enough. Already on the first day, when our tans are still brilliant under the fluorescent lights in the midst of the phones, copiers, and telex machines. With bodies still aching from jet lag and a change of climate. With minds still full of Arabic, Russian, Portuguese. We have to sit through these mandatory sessions. Talking about our transition after months, years in another country, another culture, far away from taking the highway to work, Kentucky Fried Chicken on the way home, and the deadly boredom of a normal life.

  But when it comes to what they want us to talk about, we remain silent. How could we talk about what we do? What should I say? That I lived as an Arab businessman in Damascus, buying weapons, banal secrets, and shadowy influence with the taxpayers’ money, waiting for something that might be worth the infinite price we are willing to pay? That I, when I caught the scent, froze like a rabbit in headlights and lost everything?

  Should I talk about that? What I can’t even acknowledge to myself? If I start to talk about it, I would never stop. If I start thinking, I’m dead.

  So all I do is smile and look at the clock. When the obligatory hour is over, I stand up, put on my anonymous dark blue jacket, and get on the highway, return here, back to this anonymous box that is anything but a home. And I bide my time and hope my quarantine will finally come to an end. That a folder with a different identity, airline tickets, and an account number will drop onto my desk so that I’ll be able to continue, to start over. The only thing I live for is the next move, the next round.

  6

  December 18, 2013

  Brussels, Belgium

  The train station under the Zaventem airport seemed like it was perpetually under construction. Everything was a jumble of orange cones, barrier tape, and scaffolding.

  Mahmoud did his best to squeeze through the static crowd so he could catch the next train to Brussels. There were lobbyists and other foot soldiers in the cause of European integration with copies of that morning’s recently leafed through Financial Times protruding from their streamlined Samsonite luggage, their cell phones glued to their ears; Orthodox Jews, dressed in black, waiting for the train to Antwerp; families dressed for their vacations, dragging oversize suitcases to a charter flight to Phuket. The conductor whistled, and Mahmoud pushed forward to catch his train. At that moment he felt the backpack he had slung over one shoulder slip off and down onto the concrete floor of the platform. He stopped but couldn’t see it. Annoyed, he bent down to get a closer look. The crowd pushed him sideways toward the tra
in. Someone tapped him on the shoulder.

  ‘Is this yours?’ A blond girl around his own age with a ponytail, loose-fitting clothes, and cool, green eyes held his backpack up to him.

  ‘Yes, it is. Thanks a lot!’ Mahmoud answered.

  He grabbed his bag and managed not only to squeeze himself onto the train, but also to find an empty window seat. He sank down onto the cracked vinyl of the orange seat with a sigh.

  As the rusty old train, protesting loudly, pulled away from the airport, Mahmoud took out the program for the next day. The roster was impressive. Members of the European Parliament, NATO officers, an ambassador, reporters from major international newspapers. All of a sudden, he felt intensely nervous. Why hadn’t he started preparing earlier? He closed his eyes in order to concentrate. Within thirty seconds, the previous day’s late night took its toll, and he fell into the deep, immediate sleep that only traveling evokes.

  ‘So it’s not even a five-minute walk, Mr Shammosh,’ the dapper porter at Hotel Bristol told him in a slightly stilted voice that sounded much older than his smooth, twenty-something face looked.

  ‘Perfect,’ Mahmoud said. He folded the map and slipped it into his backpack, which was worn and camouflage-colored. It looked like its life had started in the army; the picture of a small parachute was sewn onto the flap.

  Like its porter, the lobby of the Hotel Bristol seemed to lay claim to a history it didn’t actually possess. With its red carpets, mahogany and leather, and English gentility, it made a halfhearted attempt to mask being part of an international hotel chain.