‘And I don’t really know…’ Agneta continues. ‘I don’t really know what they were thinking sending an intern into the middle of all this. The situation isn’t normal right now. To say the least.’

Jacob swallows. Is it his lack of Arabic skills? Is now when they’ll be exposed?

‘But what do I know?’ Agneta sighs. ‘I’m just an assistant here. It’s not my decision. Besides, we thought you were coming next week so I’m afraid we don’t have much for you to do right now. I managed to arrange an apartment in eastern Beirut for you. A colleague at the French embassy will be gone all through the autumn so we’re renting it for you. I suggest we get your documents in order and get you set up there. Then you start next week.’

They go through a bunch of papers together, Jacob receives a security card to enter the embassy, and before he knows it they’re back in the Volvo again, headed east, crossing over the green line Jacob read about during his summer vacation. The one that divides Muslim Beirut from Christian Beirut, the area he’ll be living in. During the civil war it was the frontline. Now it’s a throughway, nothing more.

Agneta asks the car to stop outside Saliba Market.

‘That’s the address,’ she says. ‘They don’t really use street numbers here. Just say Armenia Street, near Saliba Market to your taxi drivers, okay?’

Agneta unlocks the door to a stunning art deco apartment with mosaic flooring and a small balcony, facing out onto the street and the bullet holes and then finally the harbour and the sea.

‘I’m sure you can take care of yourself from here,’ she says. ‘You seem like a resourceful young man.’

Jacob’s chest swells when she says that; it almost feels like he might float right off of the ground with pride. Resourceful. Sure, despite her promising, impressive name, she’s only an assistant. But if she sees it, won’t the others see it too?

21 November

Sankt Anna

The snow is heavier now, the flakes no longer fluffy and light, but small, hard, and mean. They don’t melt where they land on the grey grass, the grey rocks, the grey fields that surround Sankt Anna’s old church in the Östergötland archipelago. Instead they form drifts and layers, small slopes against stone fences and tree trunks, windswept embankments leaning on the stone walls of the small church.