Jacob nods. He feels stupid and naive again. At the same time it makes him horny to be reprimanded by Yassim. He’s attracted to his violence, for better or worse. And he hasn’t deleted the pictures.

‘I’m just impressed by you,’ he says quietly. ‘I can’t understand how you can go back and forth to Aleppo, that you can do the things you’re doing.’

Yassim lets go of his chin and laughs weakly. He shrugs and drinks his coffee.

‘You do what you have to do,’ he says. ‘I know the city now. Have my contacts. I just don’t have the energy to discuss it when I get home. It’s two different worlds. Sometimes it feels like even more than that.’ Yassim bites his lower lip and looks at him with those eyes Jacob has never been able to hide from. Then he stands up and walks over to the kitchen area.

‘There’s so much…’ Yassim begins again with his back to Jacob. ‘So much I can’t share with you. Especially not here in Beirut.’

He turns around and looks at Jacob with bottomless eyes. Their expression equal parts tragic and terrifying. Jacob wishes he hadn’t pushed him to the limit, wishes they could just have gone on like before, without any of this, without forcing them here. But this is where they have ended up.

‘What kind of things?’ Jacob asks. ‘What do you feel like you can’t share?’

But the moment has passed, Yassim has covered the abyss in his eyes, forced it away again, and replaced it with a slanted, somewhat annoyed smile. ‘Don’t you have to work today?’ he says, moving towards Jacob. ‘Say no.’

Jacob shakes off the feeling he had a few seconds ago. He thinks of the pictures on Yassim’s computer. Of the interviews he should transcribe. But nobody cares, of course. It’s just an activity to fill the time.

‘No,’ he says. ‘There’s nothing I can’t reschedule.’

Yassim grabs his cheeks and kisses him on his mouth. ‘Good!’ he says. ‘You know what people who want to see each other without being seen in Beirut do, don’t you?’

Jacob shakes his head. ‘What?’

‘They go to Byblos.’

*

They take off in Yassim’s VW Golf, head north over the uneven highway under the autumn sun, make their way out of Beirut, past the beaches and the casino in Jounieh, in between the mountains and the sea.

‘They say it’s the oldest city in the world,’ Jacob says. ‘That people have been living there for seven thousand years.’

Yassim just nods and puts a hand on his thigh. Jacob has been reading about Byblos, and he remembers Agneta saying that Byblos was a place to get away from the watchful eye of one’s family, a temporary retreat for a date or affair. Nevertheless, it feels strange to be with Yassim outside the apartment.