Everyone thought this was a good compromise. And their first sales went superbly. In their first month, the girls and the potter together found buyers for nineteen pieces. Eighteen of them were sold at the Kivik market, and the nineteenth was sold at Bukowskis auction house.
But putting the pieces up for sale at the fine old firm in Stockholm wasn’t without complications, not if one didn’t want to be locked up – and Nombeko and the girls had already tried that once. So they made sure to locate a retired gardener via the Chinese Society in Stockholm. He was about to move home to Shenzhen after thirty years in Sweden, and he received a 10 per cent commission to act as the seller to the auction firm. Even if the big sister’s certificate of authenticity was a good one, there was always the risk that the truth would come out after a year or two. If this happened, the long arm of the law would have a hard time reaching all the way to Shenzhen. Furthermore, eleven million people lived there, so it was a dream for any Chinese person who had reason not to be found by the Swedish police.
Nombeko was the one who took care of the bookkeeping. She was also on the unofficial company’s even more unofficial board.
‘In summation, we have taken in seven hundred and two kronor in market sales and two hundred and seventy-three minus commission at auction during our first month of accounting,’ she said. ‘The costs were kept down to six hundred and fifty kronor for travel to Kivik market, there and back.’
The potter’s financial contribution to the endeavour in that first month was thus a net profit of fifty-two kronor. Even he realized that one branch of sales was more profitable than the other. On the other hand, they couldn’t use Bukowskis too often. The auction firm would soon grow suspicious if a new Han dynasty goose were to show up as soon as the last one had come under the hammer, no matter the quality of the certificate of authenticity. Once a year would have to do. And only if they could obtain another homeward-bound decoy.
The Chinese girls and the American bought a decent second-hand Volkswagen bus with their first month’s profits, and then they adjusted the market selling price to ninety-nine kronor; they couldn’t get the potter to agree to go any higher. He did, however, add his napalm-yellow Saigon collection to the joint venture, and all in all the girls and the potter took in about ten thousand kronor per month through their business, while waiting for Bukowskis to be ready again. This was more than enough money for all of them. They did live cheaply, after all.
CHAPTER 13
On a happy reunion and the man who became his name
It would still be a while before it was time for one of the tenants at Fredsgatan 5 to die.
Holger One was happy at Helicopter Taxi Inc. He managed answering the telephone and brewing coffee splendidly. In addition, he was allowed a practice flight now and then in one of the three helicopters, and each time he imagined that it was bringing him one step closer to kidnapping the king.
At the same time, his young and angry girlfriend was travelling around Sweden in a truck with stolen plates, and she kept herself in good spirits by way of her hope that she would one day be caught in a routine traffic stop.
The three Chinese girls and the American went from market to market, selling antique items for ninety-nine kronor apiece. At first Nombeko went along to keep an eye on everything, but when it turned out that it went well, she stayed at home more and more often. As a supplement to the market sales, Bukowskis was subjected to a new Han dynasty goose about once a year, and it was sold just as easily each time.
The Chinese girls’ plan was to fill the VW bus with pottery and take off to see their uncle in Switzerland once they had saved up a little money. Or a lot. They were no longer in any rush. After all, they found life to be both lucrative and rather pleasant in this country (whatever it was called).
The potter worked alongside the girls, suffering only from a few exaggerated neuroses, and only now and again. For example, once a month he went through the pottery studio looking for hidden microphones. He didn’t find any. Not a single one. Not ever. Strange.
In the parliamentary election of 1991, the ‘Tear All This Shit Down’ Party received another invalid vote. But many more went to the Moderate Party. Sweden got a new prime minister, and Holger Two had reason to make another call to offer him something he surely didn’t want but ought to accept just the same. Unfortunately, Prime Minister Bildt never got the chance to say yes or no, because his assistant had the same idea as her predecessor about which calls could be put through and which couldn’t. And when Holger tried to contact the same king as four years earlier, the same court secretary said the same thing she had last time. And she may have said it a bit more snootily.
Nombeko understood Two’s demand that the bomb should be handed over to the prime minister or no one at all. The only exception being if the king happened to get in their way.
But after nearly four years and a change of government, she realized that one had to be someone in order to get close enough to the Swedish prime minister without causing alarms to go off. It would be best to be a president of another country or at least the CEO of a company with thirty or forty thousand employees.
Or an artist. Earlier that year, a girl named Carola had sung about being ‘captured by a storm wind’ and won a song competition because of it, and it had been shown all over the world. Nombeko didn’t know whether she had met the prime minister afterwards, but he had at least sent her a telegram.
Or a sports star. That Björn Borg probably could have been granted an audience whenever he wanted in his glory days. Maybe he still could. You had to be someone. That is, you had to be exactly what Holger Two was not, while she herself was illegal.
On the other hand, she hadn’t been locked up behind an electric fence for four years now. And she very much wanted to keep it that way in the future. So Nombeko was able to reconcile herself to the fact that the bomb remained where it was for a little longer, if it absolutely had to stay there, while she browsed through a new shelf each week at the local library.
Meanwhile, Holger Two grew his import business to include hand towels and hotel soaps.
Pillows, hand towels and soaps were not what he had had in mind when, in his youth, he dreamed of getting away from his father, Ingmar, but they would have to do.
* * *
In early 1993, contentment spread throughout both the White House and the Kremlin. The United States and Russia had just taken another step in their joint efforts on mutual control of the two superpowers’ nuclear weapons arsenals. Moreover, with the new START II treaty, they had agreed to further arms reductions.
Both George Bush and Boris Yeltsin thought that the world had become a safer place to live.
Neither of them had ever been to Gnesta.
That same summer, the Chinese girls’ chances of continued lucrative employment in Sweden grew dimmer. It all started when an art dealer in Södertälje discovered that authentic Han dynasty geese were being sold at markets around the country. He bought twelve of them and took them to Bukowskis in Stockholm. He wanted 225,000 kronor for each, but instead he found himself in handcuffs and jail. No one could believe in twelve Han dynasty geese in addition to the five the firm had sold in as many years.
The attempted fraud was reported in the papers, where Nombeko noticed it and immediately told the girls what had happened and said that they must absolutely not approach Bukowskis again, with or without a decoy.
‘Why not?’ wondered the little sister, who lacked the ability to see the danger in anything.
Nombeko told her it was probably impossible to explain that to anyone who didn’t already understand, but that they must still do as she said.
At this point, the girls felt they’d had enough of their ongoing adventure. They had already collected a decent amount of money, and they wouldn’t get much more if they were reduced to accepting the American potter’s pricing.
Instead they filled the VW bus with 260 newly made pieces of pottery from the time before Christ, hugged Nombeko
goodbye, and took off for Switzerland, their uncle Cheng Tao and his antiques store. They would sell the pieces they took with them for $49,000 per goose or $79,000 per horse; they also had a handful of other things that were so unfortunate they could be considered more than unique and had therefore received price tags between $160,000 and $300,000. Meanwhile, the American potter resumed his trips from market to market, selling his own copies of the same items for thirty-nine kronor, pleased that he no longer had to compromise on the price.
In her goodbye, Nombeko had said that the price level the girls had chosen was undoubtedly fair, considering how old and lovely the pieces were – especially to an untrained eye. But just in case the Swiss weren’t as easily fooled as the Swedes, she wanted to send them off with the advice not to be careless with the certificates of authenticity.
To this the big sister replied that Nombeko shouldn’t worry. Their uncle had his weak points like anyone else, but when it came to the art of creating fake certificates of authenticity, he was a match for anyone. Yes, he had spent four years in prison in England once, but the fault for that lay squarely with that bungler in London who had drawn up such a slipshod authentic certificate of authenticity that their uncle’s fake one looked too good in comparison. That bungler had even been locked up for three months before Scotland Yard figured out how things really stood: that is, that the fake, unlike the original, wasn’t a fake.
Since then, Cheng Tao had learned his lesson. These days he made sure not to make his work too perfect. Kind of like when the girls knocked off one ear on the Han dynasty horses in order to up the price. Things would go well, they promised.
‘England?’ Nombeko wondered, mostly because she wasn’t sure the girls understood the difference between Great Britain and Switzerland.
No, that was history. During his time in prison, their uncle had shared a cell with a Swiss ‘sweetheart swindler’ who had done his job so damned well that he was in for twice as many years as their uncle. As a result, the Swiss man didn’t need his identity for a while, so he had lent it to their uncle, possibly without being asked first. Their uncle didn’t always ask before he borrowed things. On the day he was released, the police stood waiting outside the gates. They had planned to deport him to Liberia, because that was the last place he had been. But then it turned out that the Chinese man wasn’t African but Swiss, so they sent him to Basel instead. Or maybe it was Bern. Or Bonn. Possibly Berlin. In any case, as she’d said, it was Switzerland.
‘Goodbye, dear Nombeko,’ said the girls in the little Xhosa they still remembered, and then they left.
‘祝你好运,’ Nombeko called after the VW bus. ‘Good luck!’
As she watched the girls disappear, she spent a few seconds calculating the statistical probability that three illegal Chinese refugees who couldn’t tell Basel from Berlin would make it through Europe in an uninsured VW bus, find Switzerland, get into the country and then run into their uncle. Without being discovered.
Since Nombeko didn’t meet the girls ever again, she never knew that they decided early on to drive straight through Europe until they got to the country they were looking for. Straight through was the only right way, the girls thought, because there were road signs all over the place that no one could understand. Nombeko also never knew that the Swedish-registered, touristy VW bus was waved through each and every border control along the way, including the one between Austria and Switzerland. And she never knew that the first thing the girls did after that was go into the nearest Chinese restaurant to ask if the owner might know Mr Cheng Tao. The owner didn’t, of course, but he knew someone who might know him, who knew someone who might know him, who knew someone who said he had a brother who might have a tenant by that name. The girls really did find their uncle, in a suburb of Basel. Their reunion was a happy one.
But, of course, Nombeko never knew this.
* * *
All of the remaining tenants at Fredsgatan were still alive. Holger Two and Nombeko clung to one another more and more. The latter noticed that just being near her Holger made her happy, while Holger himself felt immensely proud every time she opened her mouth. She was the smartest person he knew. And the most beautiful.
They still had lofty ambitions among the pillows in the warehouse, in their endeavour to have a child together. Despite the complications that would arise should it really happen, the couple’s frustrations grew when it didn’t. It was as though they had got stuck in life and a little baby was what would unstick them.
Their next step was to blame the bomb. If they could just get rid of it, a baby would probably turn up out of sheer momentum. Intellectually, they knew that there was no direct connection between the bomb and a baby, but it increasingly became a matter of emotion rather than reason. Take, for example, the way they moved their erotic activities to the pottery once a week. New place, new possibilities. Or not.
Nombeko still had twenty-eight rough diamonds in the lining of the jacket she no longer wore. After her first failed attempt a few years earlier, she hadn’t wanted to subject herself and the group to the risk involved in travelling around and selling them. But now she was starting to entertain the idea again. Because if she and Holger had a lot of money, it might be possible to find new ways to reach the troublesome prime minister. It was too bad that Sweden was so hopelessly uncorrupt, otherwise they could have bribed their way to him.
Holger nodded thoughtfully. Maybe that last part wasn’t such a bad idea after all. He decided to try it right away. He found the number to the Moderate Party, called it, introduced himself as Holger, and said he was thinking of donating two million kronor to the party, on the condition that he got to have a one-on-one meeting with the party leader (slash prime minister).
The people at the party headquarters were more than interested. It would surely be possible to arrange a meeting with Carl Bildt if Mr Holger would just state who he was and what his business was, as well as his full name and address.
‘I would prefer to keep that private,’ Holger tried, and was told in reply that he was certainly welcome to do so, but that it was still necessary to maintain a certain degree of security surrounding the party leader, who was moreover the country’s head of government.
Holger thought quickly; he could pretend to be his brother with an address in Blackeberg and a job at Helicopter Taxi Inc. in Bromma.
‘Then will I be guaranteed a meeting with the prime minister?’ he said. The office couldn’t promise anything, but they would do their best. ‘So I’m going to donate two million kronor and then possibly get to meet him?’ said Holger.
That was more or less correct. Surely Mr Holger understood.
No, Mr Holger did not. In his frustration over how damn hard they had to make it to talk to a simple prime minister, he told the Moderates that they could look for someone else to cheat out of his money. Then he wished them the very worst of luck in the next election and hung up.
Meanwhile Nombeko had been thinking. It wasn’t as though the prime minister sat around at his government offices all day long until he left office. He did actually go out and meet people. Everyone from other countries’ heads of state to his own colleagues. Beyond that, he was on TV now and again. And he talked to journalists on the left and right. Preferably right.
It was unlikely that Holger or Nombeko could transform him- or herself into a head of state from a foreign country. It sounded easier to get a job in the government offices or somewhere nearby, although that would be quite difficult enough in itself. Two could start by applying to a university; all he had to do was dash off some entrance exams first. Then he could study whatever he wanted in his brother’s name, as long as it would eventually bring him into the vicinity of the prime minister. They wouldn’t need the pillow business any more if they could just sell the fortune in Nombeko’s jacket.
Two absorbed what Nombeko had said. Political scientist? Or economist? It would take several years at a university. And it might not even lead anywhere. But the alte
rnative seemed to be to stay where they were until the end of time, or at least until One realized that he would never learn to fly a helicopter or until the angry young woman grew tired of never being arrested by the police. If the disturbed American hadn’t already messed something up by then.
Furthermore, Two had always loved the idea of higher education. Nombeko gave her Holger a hug to acknowledge that if they didn’t have a child, at least they had a semblance of a plan. It felt good.
They just had to find a safe way to sell the diamonds.
* * *
While Nombeko was still pondering how and where she would approach which diamond merchant, she walked straight into the solution. It happened on the pavement outside the library in Gnesta.
His real name was Antonio Suarez, and he was a Chilean who had fled to Sweden along with his parents because of the coup d’état in 1973. But hardly anyone in his circle of acquaintances knew his name. He was simply called ‘the Jeweller’, even though he was anything but. He had, however, once been a shop assistant at the only jeweller’s in Gnesta, where he’d arranged for the entire contents of the shop to be robbed by his own brother.
The robbery went well, but his brother went on a binge all by himself the next day, got in his car while extremely drunk, and was stopped by a police patrol that couldn’t help but notice that he was both speeding and swerving from side to side.
The brother, who was romantically inclined, began by admiring the shape of the female police inspector’s breasts, upon which he received a bop to the nose. This in turn made him fall madly in love: nothing was as irresistible as a woman with guts. He put down the breathalyzer the wronged inspector asked him to blow into, took a diamond ring worth 200,000 kronor from his pocket, and proposed.
The Girl Who Saved the King of Sweden Page 19
