As Karlsson and Wallström approached the security checkpoint at the main entrance, the latter took the opportunity to give the hundred-and-one-year-old a piece of advice. Or perhaps it was more like a plea. Given what she had seen him evoke during their dinner with Kim Jong-un, she suggested he consider being a bit more agreeable this time.
It was obvious that she was on edge about what was to come.
‘Agreeable,’ said Allan. ‘Of course. That’s the least I can do, Madame Minister, since you saved our lives and everything.’
USA
Donald John Trump was born in New York on 14 June 1946, a year to the day after Swedish citizen Allan Emmanuel Karlsson solved the last problem facing the United States in its struggle to create the atomic bomb.
Allan and Donald had more in common than one might at first think. For example, both had received inheritances from their parents. Allan had taken over a cottage with no insulation or running water somewhere in the forest outside the Sörmland village of Malmköping, while young Donald’s father had left him twenty-seven thousand centrally located apartments in New York City.
Subsequently things went equally poorly for the sons. Allan accidentally blew his cottage sky-high and as a result became homeless. Donald did more or less the same thing with his father’s business empire and was only rescued from bankruptcy by the help of a number of benevolent banks.
Another common denominator was that Donald and Allan had sat around sighing over their existences at more or less the same time, but on opposite sides of the globe: Allan on Bali, before he was bewitched by a black tablet and let himself be carried off by a hot-air balloon, Donald in a big white house in Washington, surrounded by idiots and malevolent characters.
It wasn’t as pleasant to be President of the United States as Donald Trump had expected. Firing people was just about the most fun thing in the world. When he did it in the business world and on TV, he was met with fear and respect. But as soon as he set a head or two rolling in the White House (or thirteen: it sort of depended on how you counted them), the corrupt media insinuated that he was mentally unstable.
Another horrible experience was that the Republicans – his Republicans – didn’t do as he said. And that apparently the law was written in such a way that he couldn’t fire them too.
And all this goddamned talk of racism. Like how his father Fred had allegedly been arrested at a KKK march in Queens at some point back in the beginning of time. For one thing, it had never happened. For another, he was released right away, so what was the big deal?
Worst of all, you could no longer tell the truth in this country. Not if you were the president. Like saying Mexicans were rapists. And Muslims were something even worse, every last one.
There were bright spots too, of course. After all, the president had a lot of say. He could start wars if the necessity arose. Real ones and verbal ones. His war against the fake media was ongoing. Donald Trump praised himself for having invented the word ‘fake’ on his own. Anyone who invents new words can make them mean whatever he wants. In practice, it meant that fake news was anything Trump didn’t like reading, listening to or watching.
But it was trickier with the real wars. Heads of state in other countries turned out to be as difficult to remove from office as any given House member or senator. The best remaining option was to threaten to bomb the shit out of them. This tactic worked in the business world, if you switched out the word ‘bomb’ for ‘sue’. But when your opponent was a pint-sized, narcissistic madman with the capacity for nuclear weapons, you really had to think twice. This wasn’t exactly one of Donald Trump’s strong suits. He had to admit that to himself. His time was far too precious for it. And, also, the North Korean narcissist reminded him of someone – he just couldn’t think who it was.
Anyway, Trump knew he had half the country on his side as long as he played his cards right. Since the other half was beyond salvation, it was mobilizing his own people that counted. Talking about new gun laws would, for example, be a bad strategy. Donald Trump had always taken care of his friends, especially the ones who couldn’t be fired. Like the gun lobby, for example. It was a nuisance that a psychopath had just killed sixty or so people in Las Vegas with the help of twenty-three different guns. According to Murphy’s Law, he would probably also have a school shooting on his hands soon.
Furthermore, the president had to continue to remind the country of all the external threats they faced (aside from the mass shootings, that was). To be on the safe side he added a few on his own. Everyone on his elite squad, of course, had to be on board with building a wall to block the country that consisted solely of rapists.
War was also a good mobilizing factor. He won his ongoing Twitter war just about every day. That left the other one, the one against the tiny rocket man. The narcissist.
Who did he remind him of?
* * *
White House Chief of Staff Reince Priebus had reason to come along on the president’s trip to New York to meet with UN Ambassador Nikki Haley, among others. The developments in North Korea were worrisome on all levels, including that Priebus himself had to do everything right from now on in order to keep his job. He had just made the mistake of correcting his boss – the armada of American ships the president said was heading for North Korea was not in fact an armada and, what was more, they were on their way in the other direction, towards Australia. His boss had lost his temper and blamed Priebus for the fact that the lying New York Times had published the truth.
Aside from the part where the president wasn’t always as exact in his pronouncements as the world might wish, there was also the fact that he only made things worse each time he insulted Kim Jong-un. But the worst thing anyone could do was try to tell him that.
In any case, Priebus informed his president that the representative of the Security Council, Minister for Foreign Affairs Wallström, had arrived at the UN building and was ready for a meeting. In addition, she was – in accordance with the president’s wishes – in the company of the Swiss nuclear weapons expert, the Swede Allan Karlsson.
‘Shall I ask—’
‘Bring them here,’ said President Trump.
* * *
‘Hello, Mr President,’ said Margot Wallström.
‘What she said,’ said Allan.
‘Sit down,’ said the president. ‘We’ll start with you, Mrs Wallström. What body part were you thinking with when you began your visit to Pong … Piyong … North Korea with a press conference? Press conferences are awful, and North Korean ones are worse.’
Margot Wallström said that there had been no time to think with any body part at all. She had been driven straight from the airport to the live TV spectacle that the president and the rest of the world had been privy to.
‘We were all fooled by Kim Jong-un. It’s as simple as that,’ said Minister Wallström. ‘In my capacity as representative of the United Nations, let me be the first to apologize.’
‘You were all fooled,’ the president contradicted her. ‘I will not be fooled by that little rocket man.’
The minister apologized: it had not been her intent to insult the president. That said, she wasn’t sure an epithet like ‘little rocket man’ would benefit the conversational climate between North Korea and the rest of the world. She had devoted a whole chapter in her report to the secretary general on the importance of proper linguistic usage. ‘If you would like a copy, Mr President, I will immediately make sure—’
‘A chapter? Who would ever read that? Who would read that? Just answer my question.’
Minister for Foreign Affairs Wallström could not recall the president having asked any question other than with what body part she had been thinking. Although she couldn’t say so.
‘I’ll do my best, Mr President. May I take this opportunity to introduce you to Mr Allan Karlsson? He’s not Swiss, as has been claimed, but Swedish. And he has not helped North Korea in its struggle to build—’
‘Who are you?’ the p
resident interrupted, turning to Allan.
Allan was already wondering the same thing about the man across from him. Was he the president, or just strange? Oh, well, history proved it was possible to be both.
‘Who am I? I’m Allan Karlsson, as the minister mentioned. And I’m Swedish. I believe she mentioned that as well. And, like she said, I did not help North Korea. In fact, it’s possible I threw a spanner in their works. In short, that’s who I am. I can, of course, tell you more.’
‘They say you received the Presidential Medal of Freedom,’ said Donald Trump. ‘But that president is history. This one is going to take it back if you don’t answer my questions right. Take it back.’
‘I promise I’ll do my best, if you’ll only start asking questions,’ said Allan. ‘But giving the medal back would be difficult. It vanished somehow in a submarine on the way to Leningrad in 1948. It’s possible that the Russians have been keeping it hidden since. You can always ask that guy in Moscow, Putin. I understand you’re on good terms.’
President Trump was thrown off balance. A submarine? 1948?
This afforded Allan the opportunity to keep talking. ‘But I will answer as I’m able. I must say, I’m in the habit. Truman wanted to know all about the atom bomb. Soon after that it was Nixon. He was more curious about the practice of politics in Indonesia, wiretapping and such. I told him what I knew, and apparently it had an impact on him. Whatever the current president wishes to know, I’m ready to be of service. I expect that the art of making vodka out of goat’s milk is not at the top of the list. It seems, in any case, that the goat’s milk would be the more interesting part anyway.’
Allan had read on the black tablet that the poor wretch of a commander-in-chief was a teetotaller and always had been.
Trump remained quiet for a moment. ‘You talk too much,’ he said. ‘Why don’t you tell me what you were doing in North Korea instead, and why you helped that idiot over there with nuclear weapons?’
‘I didn’t help any idiot,’ said Allan. ‘Unless we’re counting Nixon. I ended up in Korea by chance, along with my friend Julius. We were rescued at sea by a ship. Unfortunately enough, it was on its way to its home harbour outside Pyongyang. And as if that wasn’t enough, alcohol was forbidden just as much on that boat as it seems to be here. The captain’s name was Pak, by the way. Perhaps you know each other.’
President Trump tried to find something of substance in the old man’s exposition but didn’t succeed. ‘Would you get to the point? What do the Koreans know that they didn’t know before you told them?’
Allan was beginning to dislike the cross man in front of him. What was wrong with him? He was just about to ask when he recalled his promise to the delightful Madame Wallström. He was supposed to be agreeable. How did one do that? ‘Anything I may have told the Koreans is more likely to have had the result that they know less today than they did before. I gave them a few formulas, that’s true. Among others, one that tells how best to purify wastewater, if memory serves. That’s not the sort of knowledge one can start a war with.’
‘Wastewater?’ said the president.
‘You can bleach clothing with it too. In any case, with the exemplary aid of Minister for Foreign Affairs Wallström, we managed to flee before they could discover that the formulas I’d patched together would not be of any use in nuclear weapons. My only crime, as I see it, is probably that I ended up in peril at sea off the coast of Indonesia. If the president considers this reason enough to take back the medal, then all that’s left to do is find it.’
Even Allan thought this last bit didn’t sound sufficiently agreeable.
‘Speaking of nothing much at all, might you allow me a personal reflection, Mr President?’ he said, as the president was still pondering his next step.
‘What is it?’
It was worth a shot.
‘That’s a tremendously nice hairstyle.’
‘A tremendously nice hairstyle?’ said the president.
‘Well, actually, all of you looks very nice. But the hairstyle has something a little extra.’
President Trump adjusted his reddish-blond mop. His internal rage ebbed away. ‘You’re not the first to say so. Not the first.’
Clearly pleased. It was a wonder how easy some things were. Allan vowed to practise this ‘agreeable’ idea again the next time he met an American president.
The Swiss-Swede was decently likeable, now that Donald Trump thought about it. And a little exciting. With good judgement, it seemed. He looked at his watch. ‘I have to go see to some important business. No more time for you.’
Margot Wallström stood up to leave the meeting she would have been more than happy to do without. Allan, due to his age, was considerably slower.
‘Hold on,’ said Donald Trump. He had an idea, and it never took him long to move from thought to action. This old man was long-winded and strange, but he definitely had taste. What he’d said about the hairstyle was right on target. ‘Do you play golf, Karlsson?’ he said.
‘No, I don’t,’ said Allan. ‘I once had a Spanish friend who played the harmonica. But that was before he died. After that he didn’t play anything. Got his head shot off in the Civil War. A real shame. That was a while ago now.’
Donald Trump wondered which civil war Karlsson could be referring to. Surely he wasn’t old enough for it to be the American one. Oh, well, whatever war it was, it didn’t matter. It would be interesting to keep him around for a while yet.
The problem was, the president had a round of golf planned outside New York, by invitation of one of his better friends, a real-estate magnate who’d invested seven hundred thousand dollars in Trump’s presidential campaign, and was now poised to get six point two million dollars in lowered real-estate tax in return. This was best celebrated over eighteen holes, but unfortunately a virus had sent the magnate to bed with a high fever. Trump was loath to cancel the game just for that. Golf was golf, and remaining at his borrowed desk at the UN building didn’t seem like a viable alternative. Each time he made himself available, it seemed the whole world wanted a piece of him.
So golf it would be, and Trump informed Karlsson that he was welcome to join in, so they could chat a little more. If he wanted, in addition, to make himself useful he could keep an eye on the Puerto Rican caddy. Perhaps Puerto Ricans weren’t any more likely to be thieves than anyone else, but they did have a tendency to drag their feet.
‘I don’t know what sort of talent I have for keeping Puerto Ricans in line,’ said Allan, ‘but I suppose we can find out. If the president desires my modest company, I won’t be the one to upset the apple cart. I must confess that I have done just that at certain junctures when I happened to end up involved with various leaders from the many corners of the world. It’s seldom ended well.’
The old man was being difficult again. But he still had his charm. Had his charm. ‘Then that’s settled,’ said the president. ‘Nice!’
He asked Minister for Foreign Affairs Wallström to leave, with the comment that she should watch herself from now on. ‘Thanks for coming. Now go.’
‘I should be the one to thank you,’ said Margot Wallström.
Once a diplomat, always a diplomat.
* * *
The President of the United States doesn’t take a taxi, or even an Uber, from Manhattan to a nearby golf course. He takes a helicopter. It was waiting on the roof of the UN building. Trump and Allan were escorted to it by five Secret Service agents, three of whom followed them on board. Another five had long been on site at the golf course, to secure the area, along with a large number of local police officers.
Allan spared a fleeting thought for his friend Julius as he stepped into the helicopter. The weather was pleasant for the season and he would have nothing to complain about, sitting on a park bench in the sunshine; he’d just have to sit there a little longer. How long could a round of golf take? An hour?
During their journey over Manhattan and Queens, the president pointed out a
ll the buildings he’d inherited, bought or sold throughout the years. And a few he’d neither inherited nor bought nor sold, but which had slipped in nonetheless. Then he talked about what he planned to do with the real-estate tax, that vile health-care reform, various free-trade agreements, and the general level of decadence. He unintentionally gave the unemployment rate as double what it currently was and promised Allan he would halve it so it reached actual levels.
Allan listened. He already knew enough of the contents of the black tablet to observe that the president was exaggerating or making things up as often as he hit the mark.
The helicopter landed; the president and his hundred-and-one-year-old Swiss-Swedish companion stepped out just a few metres from the first tee. There was no waiting time for the president. Hole number one was a par four and 310 metres. It bent slightly to the left, with a wide fairway and a deep bunker on the right side.
‘Well?’ was Trump’s first and only word to the Puerto Rican, who informed the president that he would do best to play it safe and put the ball in the middle of the fairway so that he would be in the optimal position to hit the ball into the green.
The president’s golf skills were not, however, so great that the ball always went where it was supposed to. Like this time. A more forceful hit than intended, plus a crosswind.
‘You goddamn worthless good-for-nothing,’ said President Trump to the poor caddy. ‘Worthless good-for-nothing.’
Clearly it was the caddy’s fault that the wind had taken the ball and sent it into the bunker.
Allan knew not a whit about golf, but it seemed to him that the guy holding the club must be at least partially responsible for his own stroke. Above all, he had grown tired of the president’s habit of repeating himself, like a scratched record. It probably wouldn’t count as agreeable to bring this up, but Wallström wasn’t present any longer, so what would happen?
The Accidental Further Adventures of the Hundred-Year-Old Man Page 13