What has he done? Yassim’s face flickers by. His warm, deep eyes. Myriam’s indifferent expression. The man with the white hair. The sting of the wound on his back. He can’t think about it any more. He has to trust that Yassim has a plan. And he has to stay alive until they’re together again.

Slowly, he lies down on the bench and adjusts his shirt. Tomorrow he has to go to the Gefinor Centre, to the bookstore. A wave of exhaustion hits him. Even if he had a plan or knew where to go, he wouldn’t have the strength to leave this garden now. He closes his eyes and falls asleep instantly.

*

It’s light out when he opens them again. He shivers a little and stretches, stands up, and steps out into the sunshine on the yellow, scraggly lawn. He hears a single car out on the street; it’s still early. He takes a few deep breaths and walks over to the gate.

The street is deserted, but his legs tremble as he presses his way through the opening in the gate and out into reality again. Myriam’s men are gone. He drags his backpack out behind him and grimaces when he puts it on. The wound on his back aches – if it weren’t for that, this might all seem like a dream, too blurry and terrifying to be real.

He wanders around for hours, walks towards the centre of the city from eastern Beirut, down towards the sea. Buys a coffee and a croissant, constantly glancing over his shoulder.

He has almost no memories of the morning, barely any of yesterday either, and he doesn’t know how he got here, but suddenly he’s in Hamra, near the main entrance of the American University.

Why is he here? He doesn’t know where else to go, and maybe the university offers some sense of security, stability and order in the midst of this chaos.

His legs ache from walking. He flinches and looks around. It feels as if he’s been walking in his sleep, as if he hasn’t been conscious, but his legs have carried him here of their own accord. He looks up towards the tops of pine trees peeking out above the university’s grey wall and still feels drowsy. He runs his eyes along the wall up the street, the traffic noise washing over him, and then overwhelming sadness settles on him, and for a second he’s dizzy again.

He’s standing on the street just fifty metres from the entrance. He never hesitated for a second, he realizes. Not when Yassim asked him. Not at the museum with Myriam. Not in the garden. But now he feels like he’s looking at himself from the outside: just a confused, naive Scandinavian lingering on a street in Beirut.