by Kirsten Boie
But on the far side of the water, countless dots of light were twinkling comfortingly: the illuminated towers of the palace and city hall, and a moored ship with a string of bulbs shining in all the colors of the rainbow. A billboard flashed an advertisement for a new model of car, followed by a well-known brand of jeans, followed by something else. And here and there, Jenna could see the friendly glow of lights in living-room windows, where people would be yawning and wondering if they should go to bed, or nodding off in front of the television, or playing a board game with their family.
As if today was just another day, she thought, slowly getting down from the back of the truck. How beautiful our capital is, and how peaceful it all seems.
Jonas and Perry were standing by the driver’s cab, ten feet away from each other, both looking back at the forest. They would be coming from that direction if they were heading for the city. Nahira, Lorok, and Meonok all had their phones to their ears.
How beautiful our capital is, Jenna thought, and how peaceful it all seems, and how pictures can lie.
At first Magnus hadn’t understood what was going on. Malena, standing wearily beside him, had thrown him a confused and questioning look when the first of them had appeared, heading along the boulevard from the direction of the city. To start with they came on their own, in twos and threes, and in the golden light of the old streetlamps the trio on the balcony saw that some of them were carrying flags stuck under their arms, as if they were embarrassed, and also rolled-up banners.
“What does it all mean, Magnus?” whispered Margareta.
The room behind them was empty now. Bergson and Arinoki had taken the laughing Petterson away. Magnus hadn’t asked where they were taking him. All that mattered was that they had gone, since soon the tanks might be training their guns on the balcony. When they fired, no one must be hit by a stray bullet.
The trickle of people coming along the boulevard slowly grew into a flood. Now there was a dense crowd moving toward the palace, and the astonished, almost incredulous Magnus saw that there were more and more people joining them.
“It’s midnight!” he said. “Where are they all coming from? What do they want?”
Malena looked as if she was on the verge of collapse. “They’re carrying Scandian flags,” she whispered.
No leader emerged from the crowd. No one had told these people what to do, and there were no megaphones, no loudspeakers. Each one individually had made the decision to come to the palace square, but now that they’d reached their destination, they looked around as if they were waiting, hesitating, wondering whether they had done something stupid and should just turn around and go back home. Two men who had begun to unfurl a banner looked around and then rolled it up again. Maybe all of them had expected to be met at the palace, to have someone tell them what to do once they’d arrived. They had certainly thought they were going to do something great, and yet now there was nothing. If there hadn’t been more and more people coming after them, the first arrivals might already have left the square.
“They’ve seen it on television,” said Magnus. “Or maybe they found out online.”
Malena looked at him. Suddenly her expression was alert, even excited.
“They’ve come to protect Scandia,” she said. “Papa! Of course! They’re all here because they know that a coup has been planned and they don’t want it to happen! And they’re South Scandians, Papa. Look, most of them have got fair hair!”
Magnus nodded. “They won’t be able to stop it,” he said wearily. “Once the tanks roll in, they’ll be in terrible danger.”
“But they know that!” cried Margareta. “Do you think they’re so naïve? And will their own countrymen fire on them? Magnus! You must speak to them!”
Magnus looked at her. “And what should I say?” he asked.
Margareta’s eyes flashed angrily. For a moment it seemed that she had forgotten her daughter, the abduction, Petterson, the treason. “What should you say?” she cried. “Everyone down there would know what’s to be said! But someone has to say it! And you’re the king!”
“I haven’t got a microphone,” said the king, taking a pace backward. “Or a loudspeaker, or a megaphone!”
Margareta stepped toward the front of the balcony. Seeing her, the moving mass on the square below seemed to freeze, and then wild applause broke out, people cheered, and suddenly the flags were unfurled.
She looked back at her brother. “When this palace was built, there were no loudspeakers,” she said. “But the kings of Scandia always addressed their people from here all the same. If you won’t do it, I will!”
Malena came to stand beside her.
In the square the cheers and applause redoubled. The people had seen them now. Someone had brought along a bugle, and blew it as if he was on parade. Banners were unrolled: Scandia United!; Our Goal: Equality — Quality — Jollity; Two Islands, One Country, No Limits! Margareta remembered these banners from the elections last year: Now, in this grim moment of crisis, they seemed out of place, and yet at the same time just right.
“People of Scandia!” she cried out. A hush fell over the square.
“She wants to say something!” people said to one another. “Quiet! Princess Margareta is going to speak!”
“Scandians from the north and Scandians from the south!” she said, but her voice was too soft. She cleared her throat.
“Scandians from the north and Scandians from the south!” repeated her brother from behind her, and it carried over the whole square. Once again there were cheers and loud applause.
“The king!” they shouted. “It’s the king!”
“We stand here together …” said Magnus. There was total stillness in the square. Not even the flags fluttered. “… to avert a danger we hoped would never again threaten our country. Never! I am proud of all those Scandians who have come here tonight in order to defend the belief we all share: that only a just and united Scandia can be a happy Scandia. A country in which every citizen feels responsible for his or her fellow citizens, regardless of whether they come from the north or the south. Only in such a country can there be a prosperous and peaceful future for all.”
The silence was so complete that any cough or sneeze in the square could be heard up on the balcony.
“I am proud of each and every one of you,” Magnus stressed, his voice trembling slightly. “And I am grateful to be king of such a wonderful nation. But now I must ask all of you to consider. You know what is coming. You know that the tanks that are about to roll into this square are not part of some computer game. They are real and they are deadly.” He drew a deep breath. “So I beg you to think carefully whether you wish to remain here. Think of your children, of your families. When the tanks arrive, some of you will pay for your courage with your lives, and none of us can know who will make this ultimate sacrifice. To leave now will not be an act of cowardice. You must think seriously about this.”
Now there was movement in the crowd — a new sense of unease and annoyance. “We know the risks!” shouted a young man. “We know this is no game! And when they see all of us here”— instead of addressing the balcony, he now turned to look at the crowd —“the soldiers, they won’t dare to shoot! Not at us, their own people!”
There were murmurs of agreement on all sides. Magnus waited until the crowd had quieted down again before continuing. “That is what we all hope,” he said. “But we can’t know for sure. These things can happen. These things do happen, and have happened, over and over again in the world. Brother shoots brother”— he paused for a moment —“friend shoots friend. No one can be certain. So there is no shame in leaving here now.”
No one moved.
“But my sister, my daughter, and I will stay,” said Magnus. “And we shall wait. With you.”
There were thunderous cheers. If the tanks were now rumbling toward them from the dam, the people’s shouts would have drowned out the sound.
Then someone started singing, and others joined
in until the whole square was filled with their song. It was a North Scandian song of summer, but a song they also loved in the south.
The traffic on the dam had gradually dwindled to nothing. Just an occasional car came from the city, looking almost lost on the broad highway, but not a single vehicle crossed the dam to go into Holmburg.
Had the road farther out been blocked to clear the way for tanks and troop transport? If so, the people who were now beginning to arrive must have found a way around any barriers. One by one or in small groups they headed toward Nahira, their weapons in their belts or in their hands. Jenna saw scythes and axes, knives of all sizes, and at least one man carrying an air gun. So these were the dreaded rebels? It was laughable — they were farmers and shepherds, laborers and factory workers, and they’d brought their tools with them. How could Nahira possibly think they’d be able to hold up an entire army? Fifty, sixty, at most seventy men and women without real weapons? What could they do against tanks and machine guns? It was stupid even to go on hoping.
Nahira now stepped out of the darkness into the middle of the road. She stood in the center lane and raised her arms for silence. In the cold light of the streetlamps, her tiny figure cast a long shadow.
“Thank you for coming!” she said. “All of you. But there are only a few of us, and we should not deceive ourselves. Against the soldiers and their tanks we don’t stand a chance. We are too weak. We don’t have proper weapons. All we have is ourselves and our courage.” A silence had fallen over the crowd. “So lay down your scythes, your axes, your knives, and your guns. We shall gather here in the middle of the road. The soldiers should know that the people standing before them will not use force. The people standing before them have nothing to oppose the army with except their lives, and their hopes for a better future.”
“No weapons at all?” cried a young man, grasping his ax even more tightly. “Have you lost your mind, Nahira? They have tanks. They have —”
“That’s precisely the reason,” said Nahira. “They have tanks. We have our hope for justice and our dream of a better life. We shall wait.”
“There aren’t enough of us!” cried a woman with a scythe. “Nahira, it’s insane. How can we possibly …?”
But the first of them had already begun hesitantly to lay down their weapons. The pile of things they had brought to defend themselves with grew higher and higher. And the higher it became, the more pathetic it looked, and the more helpless they appeared.
“Nahira!” whispered Jenna. They had to stop this. Perry was right: It was madness.
And then they heard the rumble of the tanks. The chains grating over the asphalt. The sound was unmistakable.
“They’re coming,” murmured Jonas. Jenna hadn’t even noticed that he was standing next to her. Maybe he hadn’t realized it himself. “Oh God, they’re really coming.”
Then, out of the bushes in which they themselves had been hiding, stepped a slender figure. Her long blonde hair shone even in the pale light of the streetlamps.
“Ylva!” gasped Jenna. What was she doing here?
Ylva didn’t look at her, or at Jonas. As the rumble of the tanks drew ever nearer, Ylva marched straight up to Nahira.
“If you don’t mind,” she said, “I’d like to stand with you.”
Once again they’d spent the whole evening glued to the television.
“That’s mine!” Bea kept shouting when the blurred pictures of the trucks and the hangars flickered across the screen. “Look! From my cell phone!”
“Yeah, yeah,” said her father for the third time. “I think we’ve got the message.”
Nevertheless, she knew how proud of her he was. After all, it had been thanks to her that these reports were going around the globe. Ordinary Bea from Nowheresville. Thanks to her, and thanks to the policeman who had sent the video from her phone to all the newspapers and TV companies.
Bea had totally lucked out by being at the police station when she’d called Jenna. Who would have put a semihysterical girl straight through to the chief political editor? But with the authority of the state behind him, the policeman had been connected automatically.
“Hate to think what the phone bill will be,” the policeman had said. “But what the heck, it’s all for a good cause, right?” And he’d gone on to call the next one, and the one after that.
Now they were watching yet another special news program about Scandia.
“Breaking news!” said the anchorman. The shock effect of the words made Bea realize just how close she’d been to falling asleep. It was almost two o’clock in the morning. At this time on a normal weekday, she’d have long since been in bed.
“As these scenes, which our reporter filmed from his hotel window, clearly show, Scandians are flocking by the thousands to the palace square. It seems that the whole country has now heard about the imminent threat of a coup, and even the South Scandians, who have lost and will lose many of their privileges because of the reforms, are in an apparent majority on the side of the king and the elected government.”
“What is he talking about?” asked Bea.
The reporter now left his room to mingle with the dense crowd of people in the street, who were all heading in the same direction. He held his microphone out to an elderly man.
“You don’t think we’d actually let ourselves be tricked like that, do you?” he said. “We’ll never believe another word they tell us! Have you heard what they did? The shortages? It wasn’t the rebels at all! Do these plotters seriously think we’ll let ourselves be governed by people who’ve betrayed us like that? Ha! The scoundrels. We won’t let them get away with it!” And then he disappeared into the crowd.
The familiar face of the reporter now appeared on the screen. “And so it appears that, by opening up their country with the reforms of the past year, the government took a step that might now be crucial to its survival,” he said. “Access to foreign television channels and the Internet, which had been denied to the Scandians until recently, has allowed every citizen to find out what’s being reported beyond the state-controlled stations of Scandia 1 and 2. And the commitment of the people to defending and promoting these reforms is both surprising and dramatic. If indeed the tanks should enter the city tonight …”
“I bet they will,” said Bea’s father. “We know what those plotters are like!”
“… they will have to point their guns not only at the government, but also at their own people. Whether the plotters expected such a development remains to be seen. How will they respond? How much blood are they prepared to shed when the world as well as the rest of the Scandian nation is watching? Everyone now knows that this is an artificial crisis deliberately staged by a secret cabal claiming they want to free the people from the strife that they themselves created!”
Bea leaned back on the sofa. “And all thanks to me!” she said. She’d never been interested in politics — who was? But now, suddenly, she had helped change the fate of an entire nation.
“OK, freedom fighter,” said her mother. “Isn’t it about time you went to bed?”
Bea shook her head. “Not until they say that Jenna is safe. What happened to her? Don’t they know?”
Her father said nothing.
“Then I suppose I’d better brew some coffee,” said her mother. They were in for a long night.
Until now Jenna had only seen tanks on television. Since she had been a princess living in Scandia, there hadn’t been any more military parades, and now, as these mighty machines came rumbling toward her, she held her breath. Out of the darkness of the forests they were advancing, four abreast, slowly and massively. Their searchlights lit up everything before them as bright as day. She knew that they were all helpless in the face of such power.
Next to her in the human chain stood Perry, holding her hand tight. On her other side was a North Scandian boy with bags under his eyes, who had somehow come between her and Jonas.
Next to Jonas was Ylva.
The tanks wer
e so much darker and larger than Jenna had imagined, and her fear suddenly grew equally large and dark. Why was she standing here? They would never be able to save the country. The tank treads split the asphalt, and the barrels of the guns moved from left to right, like the antennae of giant blind insects hungrily seeking their prey.
The machines were coming nearer and nearer, but they weren’t slowing down. It was as if the soldiers in the turrets really were blind, as if they didn’t see the people waiting ahead of them, hand in hand in the glaring light.
“Now!” whispered Jenna.
The first row of tanks had reached the pathetic pile of weapons. Metal splintered under the chains, and scythes and axes, sickles and knives, were crushed to powder, air guns and pistols ground to dust. But the massive hulls didn’t deviate an inch from their path. They rolled forward, crunching the weapons as if offering the people in front of their gun barrels one final proof of their terrible power, one final chance to get out of their path.
“Mom!” Jenna murmured, and felt her legs desperately wanting to run away. But Perry’s hand held her fast, and on her other side the fingers of the North Scandian boy pressed equally hard — maybe to encourage her, maybe to warn her.
Only thirty feet to go. Only twenty. Only ten. They were really going to do it.
And then the column stopped. The guns were still aimed at the people in front of them, but the terrifying noise suddenly ceased. The silence only increased Jenna’s fear.
Along the hard shoulder of the road, racing at breakneck speed past the stationary tanks, came an armored car. Even before it screeched to a halt just a few feet in front of the people on the dam, the passenger door flew open and a man leaped out. In the bright light, Jenna could see gold braiding and stars on his uniform and his cap. She heard the crackle of a megaphone.