‘Everything’s okay, Klara,’ George Lööw says. ‘Just breathe. We’re gonna take care of this, okay?’

She senses him sitting down on the chair next to her, putting his arm around her and pulling her close. Something releases inside her, and she lets it float away. She lets her head fall onto his shoulder.

‘George,’ she mumbles. ‘I meant to contact you, I was going to call, I was…’

‘Shh,’ he says, stroking her hair. ‘It’s fine, Klara. Just breathe now.’

He lets go of her for a moment, fumbling in his pocket for something, and then he lifts her weak arm with one hand and pushes something small and dry into her palm with the other.

‘Take this,’ he says. ‘Beta blockers. Nothing dangerous, but it’ll help you slow your pulse, okay?’

She looks at him. The buzzing in her ears has almost completely disappeared now. She’s almost out of the bubble. He looks so different. Not like the slick lobbyist she met a couple of years ago. This George is softer, his eyes not shifting and impatient, but warm and worried.

‘You got glasses,’ she whispers.

He smiles and pats her cheek. ‘Always had ’em. Just stopped using contacts. Take the pill now.’ He holds up the wine glass to her.

‘You’re giving me wine to wash down the medicine?’ she asks. ‘Haven’t changed that much, I see.’

He shrugs. ‘Just do what I say. Believe me, I know exactly how you feel right now.’

*

They walk slowly and quietly towards Matonge, the Congolese part of the Ixelles neighbourhood that borders on the EU district, and Klara remembers these contrasts were exactly what she loved about Brussels: privilege never more than a block away from poverty, the future never disconnected from the past.

She feels better, almost functional, after downing her wine and George’s pill. She can feel George glancing over at her as they cross Rue du Trône, continue past small, dusty shops full of wigs and phone cards, dried fish in wooden crates on the sidewalk.

‘You’ve changed,’ she says. She runs a hand over his jacket. ‘What happened to the Wall Street look?’

George was really the quintessential lobbyist when Klara first met him. Flashy job at a big American PR firm. The suits, a glass of champagne in his hand at Ralph’s, big talk, high stress and shady customers.

‘Laid off after last summer,’ he says. He takes her arm gently and pulls her close to keep her from being run over by a teenager on a Vespa tearing around the corner.

Klara nods. Her pulse isn’t racing any more. She glances up at him. The panic attack has started to give way to something else, something warmer, something bigger. It feels so good to be walking side by side with George. Too good.

‘What are you up to now?’ she asks.

‘You won’t believe it,’ he says.