The Girl Who Saved the King of Sweden

by Jonas Jonasson

  Nombeko interrupted Hu Jintao’s thoughts:

  ‘I think I can tell that you’re speculating about the bomb, Mr President. Shall I ask the prime minister if he’s prepared to give it to you? As a gift to cement peace and friendship between your countries?’

  While President Hu thought that there might be better gifts of peace than a three-megaton atom bomb, Nombeko continued to speak, arguing that China already had so many bombs of that sort that one more or less could hardly do any harm. In any case, she was sure that Reinfeldt would be very happy to see the bomb disappear to the other side of the Earth. Or even farther, if it were possible.

  Hu Jintao replied that it certainly was in the nature of atomic bombs to do harm, undesirable as that may be. But even if Miss Nombeko was correct in guessing that he was interested in the Swedish bomb, he could hardly ask the prime minister for that sort of favour. So he asked Nombeko to go back to her interpreting before the prime minister had reason to become irritated once again.

  But it was too late:

  ‘What are you talking about, for God’s sake?’ the prime minister said angrily. ‘You were supposed to interpret. Nothing more!’

  ‘Yes, I’m sorry, Mr Prime Minister. I’m just trying to solve a problem for him,’ said Nombeko. ‘But it didn’t go well. You two go ahead and keep talking. Environment and human rights and such.’

  The prime minister’s recurring feeling about the past twenty-four hours came back again. The thing that could not possibly be happening this time was that his own interpreter had gone from kidnapping people to kidnapping conversations with the head of state of another country.

  During lunch Nombeko earned the fee she had neither asked for nor been offered. She kept up a lively conversation between President Hu, the prime minister, and the CEOs of Volvo, Electrolux and Ericsson – and she hardly inserted herself at all. There were just a few instances when her tongue happened to slip a bit. Such as when President Hu thanked the CEO of Volvo a second time for the fantastic gift the other day and added that the Chinese themselves couldn’t build such nice cars, and instead of saying the same thing once again, Nombeko suggested that he and his country might as well purchase all of Volvo so they didn’t have to be jealous any more.

  Or when the CEO of Electrolux was discussing the way the company’s various products were performing in China, and Nombeko sold Hu the idea that, in his capacity as secretary of China’s Communist Party, he might consider a little Electrolux-encouragement for all the loyal members of the party.

  Hu thought this was such a lovely idea that he asked the CEO of Electrolux, right there at the table, what kind of rebate he might be offered if he put in an order for 68,742,000 electric kettles.

  ‘How many?’ said the CEO of Electrolux.

  * * *

  The supreme commander was on holiday in Liguria when he was summoned by the prime minister, via his assistant. He quite simply had to come home – it wasn’t formulated as a request from the government offices, but as an order. It was a matter of national security. The SC must be prepared to present ‘the current status with regard to military bunkers’ in Sweden.

  The SC confirmed that he had received the order, and then he spent ten minutes pondering what the prime minister could possibly want before he gave up and requested a JAS 39 Gripen for a flight home at the speed the prime minister had indirectly decreed (that is, twice the speed of sound).

  But the Swedish Air Force can’t land and take off at just any old airfield in northern Italy; rather, it was directed to Christopher Columbus Airport in Genoa, which was a two-hour trip for the SC, given the traffic that always and without exception prevailed on the A10 and along the Italian Riviera. He would not make it to the government offices before four thirty, no matter how many sound barriers he broke along the way.

  * * *

  The lunch at the Sager House was over. There were still several hours left before the meeting with the SC. The prime minister felt that he ought to be with the bomb, but he decided to trust Nombeko and the untrustworthy Celestine for a little while longer. The fact was, he was totally, terribly exhausted after having been involved in absolutely everything without any sleep for more than thirty hours. He decided to take a nap in his office.

  Nombeko and Celestine followed his lead, but in the cab of the truck in a parking spot in Tallkrogen.

  * * *

  Meanwhile it was time for the Chinese president and his entourage to journey homewards. Hu Jintao was pleased with his visit, but not even half as pleased as his first lady, Liu Yongqing, was. While her husband had devoted his Sunday to politics and boiled cod with butter sauce, she and a few women in the delegation had had time for two fabulous field trips. The first was to the farmers’ market in Västerås; after that they had gone to a stud farm in Knivsta.

  In Västerås, the first lady had rejoiced over exciting, genuine Swedish handicrafts before she came to a stand with a variety of imported knickknacks. And in the middle of it all – the first lady didn’t believe her eyes! – an authentic Han dynasty pottery goose. When Liu Yongqing asked three times, in her limited English, whether the seller was really asking the price he quoted, he thought she was haggling and became angry:

  ‘Yes, that’s what I said! I will have twenty kronor for the piece and not one öre less!’

  The goose had once been included in a few boxes of junk he bought from an estate sale in Sörmland (the now-dead man had, in turn, bought the goose from a strange American at Malma Market for thirty-nine kronor, but of course the current seller didn’t know that). He was actually tired of the piece, but the foreign woman’s manners had been so gauche, and she had clucked with her friends in a language that no one could understand. So now the price he’d set was a matter of principle. Twenty kronor or no deal. It was as simple as that.

  In the end, the old woman had paid up after all – five dollars! So she couldn’t count, either.

  The seller was satisfied; the first lady was happy. And she would become even more so when she fell madly in love with the three-year-old black Caspian stallion Morpheus at the stud farm in Knivsta. The horse had all the attributes of a full-grown, normal-size horse – but he was no more than three feet tall at the withers and, like Caspian horses in general, would never get any taller.

  ‘Must have!’ said Liu Yongqing, who had developed a unique ability to get her way since becoming the first lady.

  But because of everything the entourage wanted to bring back to Beijing, Cargo City at Arlanda Airport demanded a ridiculous amount of paperwork. There they had not only every practical tool for loading and unloading, but also full knowledge of what stamps were needed in which circumstances. The valuable Han dynasty goose slipped past. But things didn’t go as smoothly with the horse.

  The president was already sitting in his presidential chair on his presidential plane, asking his secretary why their departure was being delayed. In reply he was told that the small problem was that the shipment with the president’s Volvo from Torslanda still had about fifteen miles to go before it arrived, but that things weren’t going quite as well with the horse the first lady had bought. They were so strange at this airport: they seemed to act as though rules were there to be followed, and it didn’t matter that it was the Chinese president’s plane they were talking about.

  His secretary admitted that these conversations had been a bit tough to conduct, since the interpreter was still in hospital and wouldn’t be well enough to leave with them. The secretary had no intention of burdening the president with all the details, but the short version was that the delegation would very much like to call upon that South African woman one last time, if the president thought it was advisable. Thus they wondered if they could have permission from the president to ask her.

  This is how it came to be that Nombeko and Celestine were awakened by a phone call as they lay head to foot in the cab in the parking space, and they took off for Cargo City at Arlanda with potato truck, bomb and all to help the president
of China and his delegation with their various Customs declarations.

  * * *

  If you don’t think you have enough problems, you should acquire a mammal in Sweden just hours before you’re about to fly home to the other side of the world, and then insist that the animal must travel in your luggage.

  One of the things that Nombeko was supposed to help with was getting the Board of Agriculture to issue a valid certificate of export for the Caspian horse that had looked deep into the eyes of First Lady Liu Yongqing a few hours earlier.

  The horse must also have proof of vaccination to show to the correct representative of the authorities at the airport. Since Morpheus was Caspian and the destination of the journey was Beijing, the general regulations from the Chinese Board of Agriculture required a Coggins test in order to make sure that the horse, which had been born and raised in Knivsta, six hundred miles south of the Arctic Circle, wasn’t suffering from swamp fever.

  Furthermore there must be sedatives on the plane – syringes to inject the horse with should it panic while airborne. Plus a slaughtering mask in the event that things and the horse got completely out of control.

  Last but not least, the district veterinarian from the Board of Agriculture had to examine the animal and be there to identify it at the airport. When it turned out that the director of the district veterinary office for Stockholm County was on a business trip in Reykjavik, Nombeko gave up.

  ‘I have become aware that this problem demands an alternative solution,’ she said.

  ‘What are you thinking?’ said Celestine.

  Once Nombeko had solved the horse problem for Hu Jintao’s wife, she had reason to hurry back to the government offices to give a report. It was important that she get there before the supreme commander did, so she chose to hop into a taxi after having given Celestine a strict admonition not to call attention to herself or the potato truck while in traffic. Celestine promised not to, and she would surely have kept her promise if only the radio hadn’t happened to play Billy Idol.

  What happened about twenty miles north of Stockholm was that a traffic jam formed as the result of an accident. Nombeko and the taxi made it through, but Celestine and the potato truck got caught in the rapidly growing lines of cars. According to the account she gave later, it is physically impossible to sit in a stationary vehicle while the radio is playing ‘Dancing with Myself’. Thus she chose to keep going forward, in the bus lane.

  This is how it came to be that a head-banging woman in a potato truck with stolen licence plates passed an unmarked police car in the line of waiting cars north of Rotebro on the wrong side – and was immediately stopped for a talking-to as a result.

  While the police inspector checked the licence number and learned that it belonged to a Fiat Ritmo whose plates had been reported stolen many years ago, his trainee colleague went up to Celestine, who rolled down the window.

  ‘You can’t drive in the bus lane, accident or no,’ said the trainee. ‘May I see your licence, please?’

  ‘No, you can’t, you pig bastard,’ said Celestine.

  A few tumultuous minutes later, she had been stashed in the back seat of the police car, in handcuffs not unlike her own. All while the people in the non-moving cars around them took pictures like mad.

  The police inspector had many long years of service behind him, and he explained in a calm voice to the young lady that she might as well tell them who she was, who owned the truck, and why she was driving around with stolen licence plates. Meanwhile the trainee investigated the back of the truck. There was a large crate in it, and if one were to bend it just right at one corner, one could probably get it . . . yes, there it went.

  ‘What on earth?’ said the trainee, and he immediately called his inspector over to show him.

  Soon the police officers were back with the handcuffed Celestine to ask more questions, this time about the contents of the crate. But by now she had caught up with herself.

  ‘What was it you said, you wanted to know my name?’ she said.

  ‘Very much so,’ said the still-calm inspector.

  ‘Édith Piaf,’ said Celestine.

  And then she began to sing the long-cherished words of ‘Non, je ne regrette rien’: No, no regrets … no regrets – none at all …

  Still singing, she was taken to the Stockholm police station by the inspector. During the trip, the inspector thought that you could say what you wanted about working as a police officer, but it was always interesting.

  The trainee was assigned the task of cautiously bringing the truck to the same place.

  * * *

  At four thirty on Sunday, 10 June 2007, the Chinese national plane took off from Stockholm Arlanda, destination Beijing.

  At about the same time, Nombeko got back to the government offices. She managed to talk her way into the most holy of places by getting hold of the prime minister’s assistant and explaining that she had important President Hu-related information for her boss.

  Nombeko was let into the prime minister’s office a few minutes before it was time for the supreme commander to make his entrance. Fredrik Reinfeldt looked much more alert now: he had slept for almost an hour and a half while Nombeko was out at Arlanda doing magic with papers, horses and other things. Now he wondered what she had on her chest. He had imagined that they wouldn’t speak again until after the SC had been brought in and it was time for . . . as it were . . . terminal storage.

  Well, the prime minister needed to know that circumstances had just rendered the meeting with the supreme commander unnecessary. However, it would probably be a good idea to give President Hu a call as soon as possible.

  Nombeko went on, telling him about the pony-size Caspian horse and the nearly infinite amount of bureaucracy that was required if the animal were not to remain on the ground, which the first lady and her husband would find generally irritating. Instead, Nombeko had thought of an unconventional solution: to let the horse share space with the already properly declared Volvo that the president had received from Volvo at Torslanda on Friday.

  ‘Do I really want to know this?’ the prime minister interrupted her.

  ‘I’m afraid that it’s best you do know,’ said Nombeko. ‘Because the fact is, the horse didn’t fit in that crate with the Volvo. But if one were to tie up the animal and shut it into the crate with the atomic bomb and move all the documentation from one crate to the other, Sweden would get rid of both Caspian horse and bomb in a single trip.’

  ‘Do you mean to say—’ said the prime minister, stopping in the middle of his sentence.

  ‘I am sure that President Hu will be delighted to take the bomb home: it will supply his technicians with all sorts of details. And after all, China is already full of medium- and long-range missiles – surely one three-megaton bomb more or less won’t make any difference. And just think how happy the president’s wife will be to have the horse! It’s just a pity that the Volvo ended up staying in Sweden. We have it in the back of the potato truck. Perhaps you could assign someone to ship it over to China as quickly as possible, Prime Minister? What do you think?’

  Fredrik Reinfeldt did not faint as a result of the information he had just received, because he didn’t have time to. His assistant was knocking on the door to inform him that the supreme commander had arrived and was waiting outside.

  * * *

  Just a few hours earlier, the SC had been sitting there eating a late breakfast with his wife and their three children by the harbour in lovely San Remo. After the alert from the government offices, he had hurried into a taxi to go all the way to Genoa, where he was picked up by a textbook example of the pride of the Swedish Air Force, the JAS 39 Gripen, which took him to Sweden, to the military airfield Uppsala-Ärna, at twice the speed of sound and a cost of 320,000 kronor. From there he was taken by car and was delayed by a few minutes because there had been an accident on the E4. While the traffic stood still, the SC witnessed a bit of everyday drama on the side of the road. The police had stopp
ed the female driver of a truck before the very eyes of the SC. The woman had been handcuffed, and then she started singing something in French. A strange incident.

  And after that, his meeting with the prime minister was even stranger. The SC had been worried that they were on the brink of war, given the emphasis with which the head of state had summoned him home. Now the prime minister was just sitting there, asking for reassurance that the Swedish bunkers were in working order and serving their purposes.

  The SC replied that, as far as he knew, they were all fulfilling their functions, and there were certainly a few empty spots here and there, depending on what the prime minister wanted to put in storage, of course . . .?

  ‘Great,’ said the prime minister. ‘Then I won’t trouble you any longer, Supreme Commander. After all, I hear you’re on holiday.’

  When the SC had finished mulling over what had happened and decided that it was impossible to understand, his confusion turned into irritation. Why couldn’t he take a holiday in peace? Finally he called the pilot of the JAS 39 Gripen training plane that had picked him up earlier that day, which was still at the military airfield north of Uppsala.