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, S?rmland, 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 country’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.
But first of all: sleep. Nombeko stepped into her apartment and closed the door.
* * *
When she took inventory of the situation the next morning, she found that Holger One had left early to deliver pillows in Gothenburg and had taken the angry young woman with him. The three Chinese girls had awoken, eaten up the Falu sausage and fallen asleep again. Holger Two was sitting in the cosy corner of the warehouse with some administrative work (and simultaneously guarding the bomb), and because most of what he had to work on was in Swedish, Nombeko couldn’t help him.
‘Should I go and get to know the potter in the meantime?’ she said.
‘I wish you the best of luck with that,’ said Holger Two.
‘Who is it?’ the potter said through the door.
‘My name is Nombeko,’ said Nombeko. ‘I’m not from the CIA. However, Mossad is on my heels, so please let me in.’
Because the potter’s neurosis concerned the American intelligence agency and not the Israeli one, he did as she asked.
The fact that his visitor was both black and a woman mitigated the way he viewed the circumstances. Certainly the American agents that were out in the world assumed every conceivable colour and shape, but the archetype was a white man in his thirties.
The woman also displayed evidence that she knew an African tribal language. And she could account for so many details from her alleged childhood in Soweto that it was impossible to rule out that she’d actually lived there.
Nombeko, for her part, was rather fascinated by how much of a nervous wreck the potter seemed to be. Her tactic would have to be frequent but short visits in order to build up trust.
‘See you tomorrow,’ she said when she left.
One floor up, the Chinese girls had woken up again. They had found kn?ckebr?d in the pantry, and they were sitting there crunching on it when Nombeko joined them.
Nombeko asked what the girls were planning to do next, and heard in reply that they hadn’t had time to think about it much. But they might go to see their uncle Cheng Tao, since he lived nearby. In Basel. Or maybe it was Bern. Or Bonn. Possibly Berlin. Their uncle was an expert at creating antiques, and they were sure he wouldn’t say no to some help.
Among all the things Nombeko had absorbed from the library in Pelindaba was a certain amount of knowledge about the European continent and its cities. So she considered herself to have every reason to guess that neither Basel, Bern, Bonn nor Berlin was exactly next door. And she thought it might not be easy to find the uncle even if they managed to figure out which city he was in. Or at least which country, for starters.
But the girls replied that all they needed was a car and some money; the rest would take care of itself. It wasn’t important whether it was Bonn or Berlin; they could always ask their way. In any case, it was Switzerland.
Nombeko had an abundance of money for the Chinese girls, of course. At least in an indirect form. The seam of what had been her only jacket since her adolescence in Soweto still contained a fortune in diamonds. She fished one out and went to the local jeweller in Gnesta to get it appraised. But the jeweller had previously been cheated by an assistant of foreign extraction, and for this reason had found himself concurring with the global opinion that foreigners cannot be trusted.
So when a black woman came into his shop and spoke English as she placed a rough diamond on the counter, he asked her to go away, otherwise he would call the police.
Nombeko had no desire for close contact with representatives of Swedish law and order, so she picked up her diamond, apologized for the bother and left.
No, the girls would have to earn their own money and get their own car. If Nombeko could be of help with the little things, then she absolutely would, but no more than that.
The same afternoon, Holger One and the angry young woman came back. One discovered that his brother’s pantry was bare, and he had no choice but to go to the shop. This gave Nombeko the opportunity to have her first private conversation with the angry young woman.
Her plan was twofold. First get to know the enemy – that is, the angry young woman and Holger One – so that she could then lead them away from the bomb, figuratively and preferably also literally.
‘Aha, the American,’ the angry young woman said when she saw who was knocking at her door.
‘I told you, I’m South African,’ said Nombeko. ‘Which origin, above all others, are you?’
‘I’m Swedish, of course.’
‘Then you must have a cup of coffee to offer me. Or even better, tea.’
She could probably fix some tea, even if coffee was preferable because she’d heard there were better working conditions on the South American coffee plantations than on the Indian tea ones. Or else that was just a lie. People told so many f*cking lies in this country.
Nombeko sat down in the angry young woman’s kitchen and said there was probably an awful lot of lying in every country. And then she opened the conversation with a simple and general question:
‘So how are things with you?’
The angry young woman turned out to be angry about everything. She was angry about the country’s continued dependence on nuclear power. And oil. About all the rivers harnessed for hydro-electric power. About the noisy and ugly wind power. About how they were going to build a bridge to Denmark. With all the Danes, because they were Danes. With mink farmers because they were mink farmers. With animal breeders in general, actually. With everyone who ate meat. With everyone who didn’t (she lost Nombeko here for a moment). With all the capitalists. With almost all the Communists. With her father because he worked at a bank. With her mother because she didn’t work at all. With her grandmother because she had some noble blood. With herself because she was forced to be a wage slave instead of changing the world. And with the world, which didn’t have any good wage-slavery to offer.
She was also angry because she and Holger lived in the condemned building for free, because this meant there wasn’t any rent she could refuse to pay. God, she so longed for a protest! What made her angriest of all was that she couldn’t find a single good protest to go to.
Nombeko thought that the angry young woman ought to take a job as a black person in South Africa for a few weeks, and maybe empty a latrine barrel or two in order to get some perspective on her life.
‘And what is your name?’
Imagine that; the angry young woman could become even angrier. The fact was, her name was something so horrid that she couldn’t say it.
But Nombeko insisted, and she finally managed to get the name out.
‘Celestine.’
‘Wow, that’s so beautiful,’ said Nombeko.
‘It was my father’s idea. That bank manager. Damn him!’
‘What may I call you without risking my neck?’ Nombeko wondered.
‘Anything but Celestine,’ said Celestine. ‘What’s your name?’
‘Nombeko.’
‘Well, that’s a hell of a name, too.’
‘Thanks,’ said Nombeko. ‘May I have a little more tea?’
Because Nombeko had the name she did, she was given permission after her refill to call Celestine Celestine. And to shake her hand as she left, as thanks for the tea and the conversation. On the stairs as she left she decided to wait until the next day for Holger One. It was taxing to get to know the enemy.
The best thing that came out of her meeting with the girl who didn’t want to be named what she was named was that she didn’t mind if Nombeko used her Gnesta library card. The defected political refugee was in need of a library card, while the angry young woman had realized that all you could borrow was bourgeois propaganda of one sort or another. Except Das Kapital by Karl Marx. That was only half-bourgeois, but they only had it in German.
During her first time at the library, Nombeko borrowed a Swedish language course with accompanying cassettes.
Holger Two had a tape player, and they did the first three lessons among the pillows on the crate in the warehouse.
‘Hi. How are things? How are you? I am well,’ said the tape player (in Swedish, of course).
‘Me, too,’ said Nombeko, who was a quick learner.
Later that same afternoon, she felt ready to take on Holger One. She found him and got straight to the point.
‘So I hear you’re a republican?’
Yes, Holger One said that he was. Everyone ought to be. The monarchy was depraved. The problem was that he was so desperately empty of ideas.
Nombeko said that even a republic can have its downsides, like for instance the South African one, but by all means. She was there to try to help.
What she meant was that she wanted to help One stay away from the bomb, but she left plenty of room for other interpretations.
‘It would be terribly nice of you to help, Miss Nombeko,’ he said.
In accordance with the plan she had started to formulate, she asked Holger to tell her about the republican thoughts he had had in the months since the king had fallen on his father.
‘Not the king! Lenin.’
Holger One admitted that he wasn’t as clever as his brother, but that he still had an idea to bring to the table. It was to kidnap the king by helicopter, get him onboard while leaving his bodyguards behind, take him to some sort of place and then get him to abdicate.
Nombeko looked at One. Was that what he had managed to think up?
‘So. What do you think, Miss Nombeko?’
Nombeko couldn’t say what she thought. Instead she said, ‘That idea might not be quite complete, don’t you think?’
‘What do you mean?’
Well, where had he been planning to get a helicopter, for example? Who would fly it, where would they kidnap the king, where would they take him, and what was their argument for why he should abdicate? Among other things.
Holger One sat there without saying anything. He lowered his eyes.
It was becoming more and more obvious to Nombeko that Two hadn’t received the short end of the stick when the combined amount of general intelligence had been divided between the brothers. But she didn’t say that, either.
‘Let me think it over for a week or two, and then I’m sure everything will work out, but right now I want to go and find your brother. As a change of pace.’
‘Thank you so much, Miss Nombeko,’ said Holger One. ‘Thank you so much!’
Nombeko went back to Two and told him she had started a conversation with his brother and that her plan was to think of a way to get him to think of other things besides crates with secret contents. Her half-finished idea involved making One believe that he was getting closer to a revolution, when in reality he was just getting farther away from the bomb.
Holger Two nodded his approval and said it sounded like everything would work out for the best.