* * *
Sure enough, Holger lived in a condemned building. Nombeko thought it was quite charming. It was an L-shaped four-storey structure, and it was connected to a warehouse that was also L-shaped. Together the buildings formed a square or courtyard with a narrow entryway that led out to the street.
Nombeko thought it would be a waste to tear down the building. Yes, there was the occasional hole in the wooden stairs up to the floor where she had been told she could live. And she had been forewarned that several of the windows in her new apartment were covered with boards instead of glass. And that there was a draught from the cracks in the wooden walls. But all in all, it would be an enormous improvement on her shack in Soweto. Just take the fact that there were real boards for a floor in the condemned building, rather than trampled earth.
Using skids, hard work and ingenuity, Holger and Nombeko managed to get the atomic bomb out of the back of the truck and into a corner of the warehouse, which otherwise housed an awful lot of pillows. She and Holger hadn’t discussed it, but one didn’t need to be nearly as gifted as Nombeko possibly was to realize that he was in the pillow-selling and pillow-distributing business.
The bomb now stood crammed into a corner of the warehouse, posing no immediate threat. As long as none of the thousands of easily ignited pillows caught fire, there was reason to believe that Nyköping, Södertälje, Flen, Eskilstuna, Strängnäs and Stockholm and its environs would endure. Not to mention Gnesta.
As soon as the bomb was in the warehouse, Nombeko had a few questions. First this nonsense about Holger’s nonexistence. Then the part about Holger’s brother. What made Holger think that his brother would be tempted to use the bomb to bring about a revolution? And who was he, by the way? Where was he? And what was his name?
‘His name is Holger,’ said Holger. ‘And he’s around here somewhere, I imagine. It’s sheer luck he didn’t show up as we were dealing with the crate.’
‘Holger?’ said Nombeko. ‘Holger and Holger?’
‘Yes. He is me, you could say.’
Holger had to straighten things out this instant, otherwise Nombeko would leave. He could keep the bomb, though; she had had enough of it.
She piled pillows onto the crate in the warehouse, climbed up, and sat in one corner. Then she ordered Holger, who was still on the floor, to explain. Or, as she put it:
‘Explain!’
She didn’t know what to expect, but forty minutes later, when Holger was finished, she felt relieved.
‘Well, that doesn’t matter. If you don’t exist just because you don’t have any papers that say you do, you have no idea how many South Africans don’t either. I only exist because the numbskull of an engineer I slaved for needed me to, for his own convenience.’
Holger Two accepted Nombeko’s comforting words and climbed onto the crate himself; he lay down among the pillows in another corner and just breathed. It was all too much – first the bomb in the crate under them and then sharing his life story. For the first time, an outsider had heard the whole truth.
‘Are you staying or going?’ said Holger Two.
‘I’m staying,’ said Nombeko. ‘If I may?’
‘You may,’ said Holger Two. ‘But now I think I need some peace and quiet.’
‘Me, too,’ said Nombeko.
And then she settled down across from her new friend, so that she could just breathe, too.
At that moment, there was a cracking sound as a board came loose on one of the short ends of the crate containing the bomb.
‘What was that?’ said Holger Two, at the same instant that the next board fell to the ground and a woman’s arm stuck out.
‘I have my suspicions,’ said Nombeko, and they were immediately confirmed as three Chinese girls crawled out, blinking.
‘Hi,’ said the little sister when she caught sight of Nombeko.
‘Do you have anything to eat?’ said the middle sister.
‘And drink,’ suggested the big sister.
CHAPTER 10
On an unbribable prime minister and a desire to kidnap one’s king
Would this absurd day never end? Two was now sitting up in his bed of pillows, looking at the row of three girls who had just crawled out of the crate.
‘What is happening?’ he said.
Nombeko had been a bit worried about the girls, and about what would happen when the security arrangements were tightened up at Pelindaba. She was afraid that they would receive the fate that had been meant for her.
‘I don’t know what will happen next,’ she said, ‘because that’s apparently how life is. But what just happened was that we found out how the large package and the small package happened to switch places. Nice escape, girls!’
The Chinese girls were hungry after four days in the crate along with the bomb, four pounds of cold rice and five litres of water. They were escorted to Holger’s apartment, where they tasted blood pudding with lingonberries for the first time in their lives.
‘Reminds me of the clay we used to make geese out of,’ the middle sister said between mouthfuls. ‘Can I have seconds?’
When they were full, all three of them were tucked into Holger’s wide bed. They learned that they had been assigned the last somewhat functional apartment in the building, the one on the top floor, but it wouldn’t be habitable until a large hole in the wall of the living room had been taken care of.
‘I’m sorry you have to sleep in such crowded conditions tonight,’ said Holger Two to the girls, who had already fallen asleep.
* * *
A condemned building gets its name because it should and will be torn down. Only in exceptional cases do people reside in condemned buildings.
So one could say it was noteworthy that a single condemned building in Gnesta, Sörmland, now housed the following: one American potter, two very similar and dissimilar brothers, one angry young woman, one escaped South African refugee and three Chinese girls with poor judgement.
All of these people found themselves in nuclear-weapons-free Sweden. Right next door to a three-megaton atomic bomb.
Thus far, the list of nuclear nations had included the United States, the Soviet Union, Great Britain, France, China and India. Experts estimated their combined number of warheads at about sixty-five thousand. The same experts were in less agreement on how many times over these could destroy the Earth; after all, the strength of the loads varied. The pessimists guessed fourteen to sixteen times. The optimists guessed it was more like two.
South Africa could be added to the above list. So could Israel, although neither of them wanted to explain how that had come to pass. Perhaps Pakistan could be added, too: they’d been promising to develop their own nuclear weapons ever since India had set one off.
And now Sweden. If involuntarily. And without knowing it.
* * *
Holger and Nombeko left the Chinese girls where they were and went to the warehouse to have a talk in peace and quiet. There was the bomb, in its crate, with the pillows on top of it making it seem like a cosy corner, even though the situation wasn’t particularly cosy.
They climbed up on the crate again and sat at either end.
‘The bomb,’ said Holger Two.
‘We can’t just keep it here until it no longer poses a danger to the general public,’ said Nombeko.
Two felt hope igniting inside him. How long would that take?
‘Twenty-six thousand and two hundred years,’ said Nombeko. ‘Plus or minus three months.’
Two and Nombeko agreed that 26,200 years was too long to wait, even if luck was on their side when it came to the margin of error. Then Two explained what a political stick of dynamite the bomb was. Sweden was a neutral country and – according to itself – the world’s foremost representative of good ethics. The country believed itself to be absolutely free of nuclear weapons, and it hadn’t been involved in a war since 1809.
According to Holger Two, two things must happen: they had to hand the bomb over to the countr
y’s leaders, and they had to do it so deftly as to avoid starting any rumours. Furthermore, there was a third thing – this manoeuvre should happen so quickly that Two’s brother and company didn’t have time to mess anything up.
‘So let’s do it,’ said Nombeko. ‘Who is your head of state?’
‘The king,’ said Holger. ‘But he’s not the one in charge.’
A boss who wasn’t in charge. Rather like Pelindaba. The engineer there had essentially done what Nombeko told him to, without understanding it himself.
‘So who is in charge, then?’
‘Well, the prime minister, I suppose.’
Holger Two told her that Sweden’s prime minister was named Ingvar Carlsson. He had become prime minister overnight after his predecessor, Olof Palme, was murdered in central Stockholm.
‘Call Carlsson,’ Nombeko suggested.
So Holger did. Or at least the government offices, where he asked for the prime minister and was transferred to his assistant.
‘Hello, my name is Holger,’ said Holger. ‘I would like to speak to Ingvar Carlsson about an urgent matter.’
‘I see, what might that be?’
‘Unfortunately I can’t say. It’s a secret.’
In his day, Olof Palme had been listed in the phone book. Any citizen who wanted something from his prime minister could just call him at home. If it wasn’t the children’s bedtime or the middle of dinner, he would simply pick up the phone.
But that was in the good old days. And those days had ended on 28 February 1986, when the bodyguard-less Palme was shot in the back after a trip to the cinema.
His successor was protected from the average Joe. His assistant replied that Mr Holger must certainly understand that under no circumstances could she allow unknown people to speak to the head of state.
‘But it’s important.’
‘Anyone could say that.’
‘Really important.’
‘No, I’m sorry. If you like you can write a letter to—’
‘It’s about an atomic bomb,’ said Holger.
‘I beg your pardon? Was that a threat?’
‘No, for Heaven’s sake. It’s the other way round. Or, well, the bomb is a threat, of course – that’s why I want to get rid of it.’
‘You want to get rid of your atomic bomb? And you’re calling the prime minister to give it away?’
‘Yes, but—’
‘I can tell you that people very frequently try to give things to the prime minister. Just last week there was an obstinate appliance dealer who wanted to send over a new washing machine. But the prime minister does not accept that sort of gift, and that also goes for . . . atomic bombs? Are you quite sure this isn’t some sort of threat?’
Holger assured her once more that he didn’t mean any harm. He realized he wasn’t going to get any further, so he thanked her for nothing and said goodbye.
Then, at Nombeko’s urging, he called the king as well, and he spoke to a court secretary who answered in a similar fashion to the prime minister’s assistant, only snootier.
In a perfect world, the prime minister (or at least the king) would have answered, received the information, immediately travelled to Gnesta and taken away the bomb and its container. All before Holger’s potentially revolutionary brother had even had time to discover the crate, started to ask questions, and – God forbid – started thinking for himself.
Again, that would have been in a perfect world.
In the real world, what happened instead was that One and the angry young woman walked through the door of the warehouse. They were there to find out how it happened that the blood pudding they had been planning on taking from Two’s refrigerator was gone and the apartment was full of sleeping Chinese people. Now they had a few more questions, such as who the black woman on the crate in the corner was. And what that crate she was sitting on was.
From the new arrivals’ body language, Nombeko realized that she and the crate were the centre of attention, and she said that she would be happy to participate in the conversation if only it could be conducted in English.
‘Are you an American?’ said the angry young woman, adding that she hated Americans.
Nombeko said that she was South African, and that she thought it sounded laborious to hate all Americans, given how many of them there were.
‘What’s in the crate?’ said Holger One.
Holger Two answered by not answering. Instead he told them that the three Chinese girls in the apartment and this woman right here were all political refugees, and that they would be staying in the condemned building for a while. On a related note, Two apologized that his blood pudding had been eaten before One had time to steal it.
Yes, his brother did find this irritating. But what about the crate? What was in it?
‘My personal belongings,’ said Nombeko.
‘Your personal belongings?’ the angry young woman repeated, in a tone that said she expected a more thorough explanation.
Nombeko noticed that curiosity had taken a hopelessly strong hold in both One’s and his girlfriend’s eyes. Might as well mark her territory:
‘My personal belongings,’ she said again, ‘all the way from Africa. Just like me. And I’m both nice and unpredictable. I once planted a pair of scissors in the thigh of a man who couldn’t behave himself. Another time . . . it happened again. The same man, actually, but a new pair of scissors and the other thigh.’
These circumstances were too difficult for Holger One and his girlfriend to grasp. The woman on the box had a friendly-sounding voice, but at the same time she was hinting that she might attack them with scissors if her crate wasn’t left in peace.
So One took the angry young woman under his arm, mumbled goodbye on behalf of both of them, and left.
‘I think I have a Falu sausage in the bottom drawer of the fridge,’ Two called after him. ‘If the two of you aren’t planning to buy your own food.’
Holger Two, Nombeko and the bomb were alone in the warehouse. Two said that Nombeko, as she probably understood, had just met his brother the republican and his ill-tempered girlfriend.
Nombeko nodded. It seemed precarious to have those two and an atomic bomb on the same continent. Much less in the same country. And now they lived in the same property. They would have to do something about that as soon as possible, but now it was time for some rest and relaxation. It had been a long and eventful day.
Holger Two agreed. Long and eventful.
Nombeko received a blanket and pillow from Two before he took a mattress under his arm and showed her the way to her apartment. He opened the door, put down what he was carrying and said that what he had to offer was not exactly a palace, but he hoped that she would feel at home.
Nombeko thanked him, said goodbye for the time being, and stood there in the doorway, alone. She remained there for some time, philosophizing.
On the threshold of one’s own life, she thought. But it was a life with impediments, considering that she had an atomic bomb in tow and probably one or two single-minded Mossad agents on her heels.
But still. She had her own apartment now, instead of a shack in Soweto. She would never again have to administer shit, and she was no longer locked up behind double fences along with an engineer who was practically single-handedly responsible for keeping an entire brandy industry in business.
The National Library in Pretoria was lost to her. Instead, its counterpart in Gnesta would have to do. It was pretty extensive, according to Holger Two.
What about everything else?
What she would have liked to do most of all was take the damn bomb and drive back to the Israeli embassy. And maybe she would just set it on the street outside, tell the gatekeeper, and run away. Then she could have re-entered the Swedish immigration process, received a residence permit, studied at a university and eventually become a Swedish citizen.
And after that? Well, being a Swedish ambassador in Pretoria wasn’t a bad idea. The first thing she would do was
invite President Botha to a dinner without food.
Nombeko smiled at her fantasies.
But the reality was that Holger refused to hand the bomb over to anyone but the prime minister of Sweden. Or possibly the king. And neither of them would answer the phone.
Holger was the most normal person she had met in her life so far. He was actually quite pleasant. Nombeko felt that she wanted to respect his decisions.
But aside from him, it seemed to be her fate to be surrounded solely by fools. Was it even worth fighting? On the other hand: how can one accept fools as they are?
The American potter, for example, whom Holger had told her about. Should she let him take care of himself in his general insanity? Or should she seek him out and make him understand that she wasn’t automatically from the CIA, just because she spoke English?
And the Chinese girls, who had long since become full-grown women, even if they didn’t always act like it. Soon they would regain their energy after the journey, the blood pudding and their sleep, and they would start looking around. In what way was their future Nombeko’s responsibility?
Holger’s brother, the one with the same name, was easier. The brother must be kept away from the bomb. Along with his girlfriend. The responsibility for making sure that that actually happened could not be passed off.
The cleaning woman from Pelindaba realized that even in Sweden there were things that had to be tidied up and decisions that had to be made before she could start living life for real. Learning Swedish was high on the list, of course: Nombeko couldn’t bear the thought of living a mile from a library without making use of it. Protecting the bomb was at least as important. And it couldn’t be helped – she didn’t think she would have any peace of mind if she didn’t deal with the crazy potter and the three happy-go-lucky, injudicious girls. Beyond that, she hoped there would be enough time left over for the only company she felt she could appreciate – that of Holger Two.
The Girl Who Saved the King of Sweden Page 16
