He turns to the voice. And somehow he knows before even turning, before seeing the face that belongs to that voice, from this moment on everything will change. There’s no going back, no past, only future. Nothing will ever be the same again.

Then he sees those eyes, the smile in them, and more than that, Jacob feels like he’s seen them before. And he says as much: ‘Have we met?’

His English feels shaky, his accent so Swedish despite struggling for a cool British sound. But those eyes just smile at him. He knows they haven’t met, he’s just dreamed about this moment, what it would be like to look into eyes like those. He almost falls backwards, not smoothly like a bird, but clumsily, like a badly trained clown, and if the hand that belonged to that voice hadn’t grabbed his left arm maybe he would have stumbled over the ledge and down into a coal-black Lebanese night.

‘Careful,’ the voice says. ‘Don’t disappear, we haven’t even met yet.’

21 November

Sankt Anna

When Klara finally starts to cry, she can’t stop. She cries like a child, shuddering, sobbing, in the church pew. She cries for Grandpa and Grandma. For everything they’ve done for her, because it’s incomprehensible that she’ll never sit with Grandpa in his boat again, unimaginable that she’ll never hear him sigh or see him shake his head in disappointment when she doesn’t recognize some distant birdcall. She cries through a veil of tears when she catches sight of Grandma’s resolute face, and realizes she doesn’t know what her life will be like now. But most of all she cries for herself.

‘I’m sorry,’ she whispers and looks up at her grandmother. ‘I don’t know what’s gotten into me. I can’t control it.’

Grandma turns to her and caresses her cheek; there’s warmth and something almost like relief in those eyes.

‘Crying is the best thing you could do for me,’ she whispers back. ‘You’ve kept too much inside for too long, little love.’