In the country where he lived there was no one like him—in any event there shouldn’t be—and for a long time he had lived the myth that surrounded him. The special adviser, Sweden’s own Cardinal Richelieu, the prime minister’s top security adviser, the extended arm of power or perhaps simply power? In one of the few newspaper interviews with him he described himself as “a simple lad from Söder who’s always been good at arithmetic.”
Wonder what he plans to serve this evening? thought Johansson as the taxi stopped in front of the house where the man didn’t live.
The special adviser received him under the crystal chandelier in the hall and in the most Mediterranean manner.
“Lovely to see you, Johansson,” he said, standing on tiptoe, embracing his guest and marking two kisses on the cheek. “Let me look at you.” He took a step back but without releasing his hand. “You look like the picture of health, Johansson,” he continued.
“Nice of you,” said Johansson, smiling as he coaxed his fist loose from the special adviser’s damp grip. “You’re doing well yourself, I hope?” Although you look awful, and what in the name of God have you got on? he thought.
The special adviser was just below average height. In school he’d been a chubby little boy who for obscure reasons had never been bullied. As an adult first corpulent, then fat, and nowadays truly obese. A rotund body, with spider-like arms and legs, topped by a good-sized head of thick gray hair that stood straight up and out at the sides over his large ears. His face was bright red in color, consisting mainly of forehead and a nose worthy of a conquistador. His eyes were large and clear blue, well entrenched behind heavy eyelids and bulging cheeks, the imposing nose, a round pouting mouth with moist lips like those of a small child, then a natural progression to the three flowing chins that sought shelter under the lining of his shirt collar. Taken as a whole he was clearly a person who must possess considerable inner qualities.
In honor of the day he was dressed in an improbable ensemble of green velvet. Baggy pants without creases, green jacket with shiny lapels, and held together with a thick braided silk cord that he’d wrapped around his body. Along with a tuxedo shirt with black bow tie and a pair of gold-embroidered velvet slippers.
“Thanks for asking,” said the special adviser. “I feel truly excellent, exactly as I deserve. Like a pearl in gold. But you yourself, Johansson, you’ve become a real athlete lately. Soon you’ll be looking like Gunde Svan, that skier—or was he a high jumper?—you know,” he said with a slight wave of his left hand. “Shall we sit awhile and refresh ourselves while my dear housekeeper puts the final pieces in place?”
Then he made an inviting gesture and went ahead of Johansson across all the creaking parquet floors to the large salon where a small buffet was set out with mixed finger foods, a gigantic cut crystal vodka carafe, champagne, and mineral water in a table cooler.
Mostly beluga caviar, duck liver, and quail eggs, and why fritter away your short life on nonessentials? He still had free access to the beluga through one of his contacts “from the bad old days” who now ran an apparently successful contract operation in Kiev. The quail eggs he got from an acquaintance in the province of Sörmland, “a count and a landowner interested in hunting,” who also supplied him with pheasant, wild duck, grouse, and partridge. Plus all the “large game” of course. Such as moose filets, deer steaks, wild pig cutlets, and saddle of venison. His housekeeper shopped for the duck liver at the specialty food shops in the Östermalm market. On the other hand he’d stopped consuming goose liver. It was much too fat nowadays to be consumed in risk-free forms. Pure animal torture besides if you considered the source. He didn’t drink beer anymore either, not good for either the stomach or the liver, and in the golden middle age in which he and Johansson were now living, they had to keep an eye on what they put away.
“Caution and precision should characterize temporal things as well,” the special adviser summarized. “Water, vodka, champagne, and a little bite to eat with it. Cheers, by the way,” he said, raising his full glass.
“Cheers,” said Johansson. Talk, talk, talk, he thought.
After two sturdy shots, mineral water, a couple glasses of champagne, and ten or so small appetizers each it was time to sit down to a serious dinner. “No negligence this time,” said the special adviser, shaking his flaming red face with emphasis. This evening he intended to compensate Johansson for previous frugal entertainments and treat him to “a really old-fashioned, bourgeois dinner.” As soon as Johansson had accepted his invitation the special adviser had also conducted a number of “special reinforcement measures” to guarantee a successful result.
True, it was Thursday, but Johansson did not need to be troubled about either peas or pork. Much less pancakes with jam. The last time the special adviser had eaten such things was many years ago at a lunch at the defense department. Under silent protest, but unfortunately on duty and thereby without a choice. Before the end of this barbaric gathering he was already tormented by gas and for several days was confined to bed with tympanites, feverish and miserable, and if it hadn’t been for the diet his considerate housekeeper had quickly established—plenty of Fernet Branca, boiled fish, light white wines, mineral water without bubbles—the situation might have ended very badly.
“How can the military be allowed to challenge our armed forces like that?” asked the special adviser with an indignant glance at his guest. According to him it was pure treason, and regardless of whether it was a crisis situation or not those responsible should be brought before a military court, convicted of high treason, and immediately executed. If the special adviser could decide, that is. Or even better, beheaded with a dull, rusty ax if they’d had the nerve to serve warm punch with the peas. Food that only barbarians could ingest, and according to the special adviser it was obviously not by chance that Hermann Göring was supposed to have been particularly fond of both peas and pork plus pancakes with whipped cream and jam. Not to mention warm punch.
Talk, talk, talk, and personally I think that sounds good, thought Johansson.
His host’s reinforcement measures were clearly visible as soon as Johansson crossed the threshold to the dining room. The adviser’s dining room table accommodated twenty-four guests, this too was a good old bourgeois custom, according to the host. Now it was set for two at one end of the table. The special adviser at the short end and his guest to his right. At a comfortable conversational distance without the risk of spilling on each other. On their plates were elaborate folded damask napkins plus printed menus, around them a parade of various cut crystal glasses and an improbable amount of silverware. Simply the host and his guest at a table for twenty-four and obviously only two place settings. But otherwise the table was completely set with a white linen tablecloth, candelabras, centerpieces, and flower arrangements.
In honor of the evening the special adviser’s housekeeper had the help of a male steward in black tuxedo and a cook in full getup waiting in the background.
“Yum,” said the special adviser delightedly, rubbing his fat hands together and sitting down as soon as his male reinforcement measure pulled the chair out for him.
Johansson had to seat himself, and it was probably his own fault. When his host’s housekeeper hurried over to help him, he just shook his head deprecatingly and sat down. He quickly pulled in the chair and for lack of a straw reached for his napkin. I’m a simple boy from Näsåker. Hope she wasn’t offended, thought Johansson. His mother, Elna, would never have dreamed of pulling out the chair for her husband or her seven children either as soon as they were big enough. On the other hand she often stood at the stove while the others ate. Here it was more complicated than that, thought Johansson, and when the day came that he wasn’t man enough to seat himself it would probably be the end of most everything, he thought.
A nine-course dinner, different wines with every course, and already with the introductory consommé of lobster, finely shredded onions, and petits pois, the special adviser started
the monologue that was his own variation on the cultivated conversation one was expected to carry on during the consumption of a bourgeois dinner. First of all however he spilled on himself. Just like happy children always have a habit of doing, and without even noticing it.
“I see you’re admiring my tuxedo, Johansson,” said the special adviser, sighing contentedly as he lowered the spoon and began his initial comments.
Despite the color it apparently had nothing to do with the French Academy. Such small societies for mutual admiration left the adviser cold. The French Academy was an ordinary, government-financed soup kitchen for various literary aesthetes who had never done an honorable day’s work in their entire lives. As a mathematician he was above such things, and in his case it was far better than that. This was namely the particularly comfortable tuxedo that the special adviser would wear to dinner when he sat at High Table in the banquet hall at his English alma mater, Magdalen College, Oxford. Founded in the Middle Ages when most northern Europeans could barely express themselves comprehensibly, much less read, and obviously named for Mary Magdalene, the foremost of Jesus’s female disciples.
“Mohdlinn, pronounced Mohdlinn without an English ‘e’ at the end,” the special adviser clarified, pouting with enjoyment.
As Johansson perhaps didn’t know, for many years his host had been an honorary member of this fine old college. Honorary fellow, first-class member of the faculty by virtue of his scientific merits in mathematics but also in the more philosophically oriented theory of science. Over the years there had been numerous prominent physicians, physicists, biologists, and chemists who had studied at Magdalen College, two Nobel Prize winners in fact, all of whom gratefully enjoyed the insights that were basically unique to the special adviser when it came to constructing intricate theoretical models and testing more complex empirical lines of reasoning.
“Speak up if I’m tiring you, Johansson,” said the special adviser.
“Not at all,” said Johansson. Better that than you drinking too much, he thought, and personally he intended to wait for coffee and cognac, when from experience he knew that his host would be in a more contemplative state.
Already by course number two—pilgrim clams with tomato, asparagus and Avruga caviar—his host had left the scientific world and taken a sidetrack. Magdalen had a particular quality that distinguished it from all other colleges, not only at Oxford but in the whole world, and that especially ought to appeal to a man like Johansson.
“We have our own deer enclosure,” said the special adviser, smiling happily at his guest. “Think of it, Johansson. As an old hunter, I mean.”
In the midst of the medieval main street in the world’s foremost seat of learning, right behind the main buildings, walled in and along the river Cherwell, over three hundred years ago one of Magdalen’s many benefactors had had a deer park constructed.
“Sounds like fallow deer,” said Johansson.
“If you say so, Johansson,” said the special adviser with the usual hand waving. “Those brown things with white spots on their sides. Some of them have horns,” he clarified.
“Fallow deer,” said Johansson. “Quite certainly fallow deer.”
“Whatever,” answered the special adviser, and in any event it wasn’t the deer per se that was the point.
The point was better than that, and the special adviser did a proper job on all the details of the story while they enjoyed the third course, grilled king crab with veal sausage, grated potatoes, and a spicy sauce.
“Where was I now?” asked the special adviser as he wiped away a little sauce from his mouth and rinsed with an Alsatian pinot gris that was both refreshing and rich in minerals.
“The number of deer in the deer park,” said Johansson, who was unwillingly getting interested in the subject.
“Exactly,” said the special adviser, dabbing with his napkin. “As I’ve already suggested…”
The number of deer in the park should be, according to the donor’s will, equal to the number of full members of the college. At the present time there were sixty fellows and honorary fellows, and in the park behind the main building there was thus exactly the same number of deer.
“So you have your own deer,” said Johansson, raising his glass. A fat little rascal with a bad heart, gigantic head, short horns, and feeble legs. Approximately like the ones his children used to construct out of matches, pipe cleaners, and pinecones when they were little, he thought.
“Of course,” said the special adviser, sounding rather conceited.
“But that’s not all of it,” he continued.
The story was even better than that, and all according to the original statutes. As soon as a new member of the college was inducted, the deer herd was increased by one deer. And if one of them died, the proctor—the students’ own highest prefect—went out in the park and shot one deer, which was then served at the memorial dinner that was always held for the fellow who had taken leave of earthly life. The special adviser even claimed to have seen the proctor early one morning as he carried out this important task. Otherwise the deer were left in peace. Left to the pastoral peace that prevailed in the park at Magdalen College and in all the halls of learning.
“At the break of day, with the mist from the river sweeping into the park in its white veil, there comes the proctor in his long coat, his high black hat, with the worn-out shotgun in his steady hand. Imagine the shot, Johansson, that echoes out over the river Cherwell and the High Street,” said the special adviser, sighing as voluptuously as the male protagonist in a novel by the Brontë sisters.
Although the dinner itself was nothing remarkable, he remarked. Just an ordinary English gentlemen’s dinner, with venison steak, brown gravy, and overcooked vegetables. The wines on the other hand would usually be quite all right. A number of other benefactors had seen to that. The wine cellar at Magdalen was one of the foremost in Oxford. True, not like the one at Christ Church, with all those American Coca-Cola children, Arabian princes, and little Russian oligarchs, but quite all right, according to a connoisseur like himself.
“To be sure, English cuisine has little in common with this excellent filet of brill,” Johansson agreed, having secretly peeked at the menu as soon as they’d made it to the fourth stage in the bourgeois dinner. Filet of brill with globe artichoke and étouffée of crayfish tail.
“Not to mention this phenomenal Meursault,” the special adviser agreed, raising his large goblet of almost amber-colored wine. From his own cellar of course, and apart from the number of bottles completely in a class with the one served at Christ Church College, Oxford.
“There’s one thing I don’t really understand,” said Johansson.
“You’re much too modest, Johansson,” said the special adviser.
“How you manage to keep the same number of deer as members of the college. If you only shoot them when someone dies,” Johansson explained.
“What do you mean? Explain,” said the special adviser.
Johansson’s objections to the adviser’s story, his explanations, the questions and counterarguments from his host, the entire discussion took up the remainder of their dinner, as new courses were continually brought in. Glasses were filled, raised, and lowered…the gooseberry sorbet to cleanse the palate, venison noisettes, chanterelles grilled in butter, roasted cauliflower, Cumberland sauce, cheese soufflé, Brie and truffles with apple jelly, cream cheese with plums, chocolate terrine, the concluding small pastries. New wines all the time…red from Burgundy…white from Bordeaux…from the Rhône and Loire…while an indefatigable Johansson—like a cavalry officer from the days of the Crimean War—rode ahead with the discussion of the special adviser’s story about the deer in the park at Mary Magdalene’s own college.
According to Johansson the whole thing was very simple. An enclosure with sixty fallow deer ought to reasonably include twenty or so fertile does, which in turn meant that you could count on twenty-some fawns around the end of June every year. If the enclosu
re had been there for three hundred years and you shot a deer only when a member of the college died, then the number of members of the same congregation ought to amount to several million by now, and as far as the more precise calculations were concerned, he would happily leave those to his host.
“You must have enormous recruiting problems every summer. All those new fellows who will suddenly be elected,” said Johansson with an innocent expression.
There was really no question of that, according to the special adviser. He’d never really thought about how the exact details were solved. That the deer and their instincts would govern the selection of fellows was, on the other hand, inconceivable.
“What if a deer were to die? That sort of thing happens all the time,” said Johansson. “How was that resolved? By showing a fellow the door or perhaps even expanding the proctor’s assignment with the shotgun?”
This too was naturally ruled out, according to the special adviser who, however, promised to think about it.
“You are a real policeman, Johansson,” he said for some reason.
“Of course I am,” said Johansson. “Think about it, as we said.”
Then Johansson thanked him for dinner with a few well-chosen words, and his host got up from the table so they could continue their conversation in the library in peace and quiet, have a cup of coffee, and perhaps a glass or two of the special adviser’s downright remarkable cognac.
“Frapin 1900,” said his host with a happy sigh. “Think how good we rich people have it, Johansson.”
29
Over coffee they finally got to the point, and it was his host who raised the issue. For whatever reason, thought Johansson.
During his vacation, of which he had spent a week at Magdalen to ponder the larger questions in peace and quiet, the special adviser had understood, from the Swedish newspapers he’d still been reading, that his guest had apparently breathed new life into the old investigation of the assassination of his first boss, Prime Minister Olof Palme. Why, on the other hand, he hadn’t understood. According to his firm opinion it was Christer Pettersson who had murdered Palme. Pettersson was now dead. In any event it was much too late in the day, time to wipe the slate clean, forget the whole thing and move on.
Free Falling, As If in a Dream Page 21