Chapter 13
On a happy reunion and the man who became his name
It would still be a while before it was time for one of the tenants at Fredsgatan 5 to die.
Holger One was happy at Helicopter Taxi Inc. He managed answering the telephone and brewing coffee splendidly. In addition, he was allowed a practice flight now and then in one of the three helicopters, and each time he imagined that it was bringing him one step closer to kidnapping the king.
At the same time, his young and angry girlfriend was travelling around Sweden in a truck with stolen plates, and she kept herself in good spirits by way of her hope that she would one day be caught in a routine traffic stop.
The three Chinese girls and the American went from market to market, selling antique items for ninety-nine kronor apiece. At first Nombeko went along to keep an eye on everything, but when it turned out that it went well, she stayed at home more and more often. As a supplement to the market sales, Bukowskis was subjected to a new Han dynasty goose about once a year, and it was sold just as easily each time.
The Chinese girls’ plan was to fill the VW bus with pottery and take off to see their uncle in Switzerland once they had saved up a little money. Or a lot. They were no longer in any rush. After all, they found life to be both lucrative and rather pleasant in this country (whatever it was called).
The potter worked alongside the girls, suffering only from a few exaggerated neuroses, and only now and again. For example, once a month he went through the pottery studio looking for hidden microphones. He didn’t find any. Not a single one. Not ever. Strange.
In the parliamentary election of 1991, the ‘Tear All This Shit Down’ Party received another invalid vote. But many more went to the Moderate Party. Sweden got a new prime minister, and Holger Two had reason to make another call to offer him something he surely didn’t want but ought to accept just the same. Unfortunately, Prime Minister Bildt never got the chance to say yes or no, because his assistant had the same idea as her predecessor about which calls could be put through and which couldn’t. And when Holger tried to contact the same king as four years earlier, the same court secretary said the same thing she had last time. And she may have said it a bit more snootily.
Nombeko understood Two’s demand that the bomb should be handed over to the prime minister or no one at all. The only exception being if the king happened to get in their way.
But after nearly four years and a change of government, she realized that one had to be someone in order to get close enough to the Swedish prime minister without causing alarms to go off. It would be best to be a president of another country or at least the CEO of a company with thirty or forty thousand employees.
Or an artist. Earlier that year, a girl named Carola had sung about being ‘captured by a storm wind’ and won a song competition because of it, and it had been shown all over the world. Nombeko didn’t know whether she had met the prime minister afterwards, but he had at least sent her a telegram.
Or a sports star. That Bj?rn Borg probably could have been granted an audience whenever he wanted in his glory days. Maybe he still could. You had to be someone. That is, you had to be exactly what Holger Two was not, while she herself was illegal.
On the other hand, she hadn’t been locked up behind an electric fence for four years now. And she very much wanted to keep it that way in the future. So Nombeko was able to reconcile herself to the fact that the bomb remained where it was for a little longer, if it absolutely had to stay there, while she browsed through a new shelf each week at the local library.
Meanwhile, Holger Two grew his import business to include hand towels and hotel soaps.
Pillows, hand towels and soaps were not what he had had in mind when, in his youth, he dreamed of getting away from his father, Ingmar, but they would have to do.
* * *
In early 1993, contentment spread throughout both the White House and the Kremlin. The United States and Russia had just taken another step in their joint efforts on mutual control of the two superpowers’ nuclear weapons arsenals. Moreover, with the new START II treaty, they had agreed to further arms reductions.
Both George Bush and Boris Yeltsin thought that the world had become a safer place to live.
Neither of them had ever been to Gnesta.
That same summer, the Chinese girls’ chances of continued lucrative employment in Sweden grew dimmer. It all started when an art dealer in S?dert?lje discovered that authentic Han dynasty geese were being sold at markets around the country. He bought twelve of them and took them to Bukowskis in Stockholm. He wanted 225,000 kronor for each, but instead he found himself in handcuffs and jail. No one could believe in twelve Han dynasty geese in addition to the five the firm had sold in as many years.
The attempted fraud was reported in the papers, where Nombeko noticed it and immediately told the girls what had happened and said that they must absolutely not approach Bukowskis again, with or without a decoy.
‘Why not?’ wondered the little sister, who lacked the ability to see the danger in anything.
Nombeko told her it was probably impossible to explain that to anyone who didn’t already understand, but that they must still do as she said.
At this point, the girls felt they’d had enough of their ongoing adventure. They had already collected a decent amount of money, and they wouldn’t get much more if they were reduced to accepting the American potter’s pricing.
Instead they filled the VW bus with 260 newly made pieces of pottery from the time before Christ, hugged Nombeko goodbye, and took off for Switzerland, their uncle Cheng Tao and his antiques store. They would sell the pieces they took with them for $49,000 per goose or $79,000 per horse; they also had a handful of other things that were so unfortunate they could be considered more than unique and had therefore received price tags between $160,000 and $300,000. Meanwhile, the American potter resumed his trips from market to market, selling his own copies of the same items for thirty-nine kronor, pleased that he no longer had to compromise on the price.
In her goodbye, Nombeko had said that the price level the girls had chosen was undoubtedly fair, considering how old and lovely the pieces were – especially to an untrained eye. But just in case the Swiss weren’t as easily fooled as the Swedes, she wanted to send them off with the advice not to be careless with the certificates of authenticity.
To this the big sister replied that Nombeko shouldn’t worry. Their uncle had his weak points like anyone else, but when it came to the art of creating fake certificates of authenticity, he was a match for anyone. Yes, he had spent four years in prison in England once, but the fault for that lay squarely with that bungler in London who had drawn up such a slipshod authentic certificate of authenticity that their uncle’s fake one looked too good in comparison. That bungler had even been locked up for three months before Scotland Yard figured out how things really stood: that is, that the fake, unlike the original, wasn’t a fake.
Since then, Cheng Tao had learned his lesson. These days he made sure not to make his work too perfect. Kind of like when the girls knocked off one ear on the Han dynasty horses in order to up the price. Things would go well, they promised.
‘England?’ Nombeko wondered, mostly because she wasn’t sure the girls understood the difference between Great Britain and Switzerland.
No, that was history. During his time in prison, their uncle had shared a cell with a Swiss ‘sweetheart swindler’ who had done his job so damned well that he was in for twice as many years as their uncle. As a result, the Swiss man didn’t need his identity for a while, so he had lent it to their uncle, possibly without being asked first. Their uncle didn’t always ask before he borrowed things. On the day he was released, the police stood waiting outside the gates. They had planned to deport him to Liberia, because that was the last place he had been. But then it turned out that the Chinese man wasn’t African but Swiss, so they sent him to Basel instead. Or maybe it was Bern. Or Bonn. Possibly Berlin. In any case, as she’d said, it was Switzerland.
‘Goodbye, dear Nombeko,’ said the girls in the little Xhosa they still remembered, and then they left.
‘祝你好运,’ Nombeko called after the VW bus. ‘Good luck!’
As she watched the girls disappear, she spent a few seconds calculating the statistical probability that three illegal Chinese refugees who couldn’t tell Basel from Berlin would make it through Europe in an uninsured VW bus, find Switzerland, get into the country and then run into their uncle. Without being discovered.
Since Nombeko didn’t meet the girls ever again, she never knew that they decided early on to drive straight through Europe until they got to the country they were looking for. Straight through was the only right way, the girls thought, because there were road signs all over the place that no one could understand. Nombeko also never knew that the Swedish-registered, touristy VW bus was waved through each and every border control along the way, including the one between Austria and Switzerland. And she never knew that the first thing the girls did after that was go into the nearest Chinese restaurant to ask if the owner might know Mr Cheng Tao. The owner didn’t, of course, but he knew someone who might know him, who knew someone who might know him, who knew someone who said he had a brother who might have a tenant by that name. The girls really did find their uncle, in a suburb of Basel. Their reunion was a happy one.
But, of course, Nombeko never knew this.
* * *
All of the remaining tenants at Fredsgatan were still alive. Holger Two and Nombeko clung to one another more and more. The latter noticed that just being near her Holger made her happy, while Holger himself felt immensely proud every time she opened her mouth. She was the smartest person he knew. And the most beautiful.
They still had lofty ambitions among the pillows in the warehouse, in their endeavour to have a child together. Despite the complications that would arise should it really happen, the couple’s frustrations grew when it didn’t. It was as though they had got stuck in life and a little baby was what would unstick them.
Their next step was to blame the bomb. If they could just get rid of it, a baby would probably turn up out of sheer momentum. Intellectually, they knew that there was no direct connection between the bomb and a baby, but it increasingly became a matter of emotion rather than reason. Take, for example, the way they moved their erotic activities to the pottery once a week. New place, new possibilities. Or not.
Nombeko still had twenty-eight rough diamonds in the lining of the jacket she no longer wore. After her first failed attempt a few years earlier, she hadn’t wanted to subject herself and the group to the risk involved in travelling around and selling them. But now she was starting to entertain the idea again. Because if she and Holger had a lot of money, it might be possible to find new ways to reach the troublesome prime minister. It was too bad that Sweden was so hopelessly uncorrupt, otherwise they could have bribed their way to him.
Holger nodded thoughtfully. Maybe that last part wasn’t such a bad idea after all. He decided to try it right away. He found the number to the Moderate Party, called it, introduced himself as Holger, and said he was thinking of donating two million kronor to the party, on the condition that he got to have a one-on-one meeting with the party leader (slash prime minister).
The people at the party headquarters were more than interested. It would surely be possible to arrange a meeting with Carl Bildt if Mr Holger would just state who he was and what his business was, as well as his full name and address.
‘I would prefer to keep that private,’ Holger tried, and was told in reply that he was certainly welcome to do so, but that it was still necessary to maintain a certain degree of security surrounding the party leader, who was moreover the country’s head of government.
Holger thought quickly; he could pretend to be his brother with an address in Blackeberg and a job at Helicopter Taxi Inc. in Bromma.
‘Then will I be guaranteed a meeting with the prime minister?’ he said. The office couldn’t promise anything, but they would do their best. ‘So I’m going to donate two million kronor and then possibly get to meet him?’ said Holger.
That was more or less correct. Surely Mr Holger understood.
No, Mr Holger did not. In his frustration over how damn hard they had to make it to talk to a simple prime minister, he told the Moderates that they could look for someone else to cheat out of his money. Then he wished them the very worst of luck in the next election and hung up.
Meanwhile Nombeko had been thinking. It wasn’t as though the prime minister sat around at his government offices all day long until he left office. He did actually go out and meet people. Everyone from other countries’ heads of state to his own colleagues. Beyond that, he was on TV now and again. And he talked to journalists on the left and right. Preferably right.
It was unlikely that Holger or Nombeko could transform him- or herself into a head of state from a foreign country. It sounded easier to get a job in the government offices or somewhere nearby, although that would be quite difficult enough in itself. Two could start by applying to a university; all he had to do was dash off some entrance exams first. Then he could study whatever he wanted in his brother’s name, as long as it would eventually bring him into the vicinity of the prime minister. They wouldn’t need the pillow business any more if they could just sell the fortune in Nombeko’s jacket.
Two absorbed what Nombeko had said. Political scientist? Or economist? It would take several years at a university. And it might not even lead anywhere. But the alternative seemed to be to stay where they were until the end of time, or at least until One realized that he would never learn to fly a helicopter or until the angry young woman grew tired of never being arrested by the police. If the disturbed American hadn’t already messed something up by then.
Furthermore, Two had always loved the idea of higher education. Nombeko gave her Holger a hug to acknowledge that if they didn’t have a child, at least they had a semblance of a plan. It felt good.
They just had to find a safe way to sell the diamonds.
* * *
While Nombeko was still pondering how and where she would approach which diamond merchant, she walked straight into the solution. It happened on the pavement outside the library in Gnesta.
His real name was Antonio Suarez, and he was a Chilean who had fled to Sweden along with his parents because of the coup d’état in 1973. But hardly anyone in his circle of acquaintances knew his name. He was simply called ‘the Jeweller’, even though he was anything but. He had, however, once been a shop assistant at the only jeweller’s in Gnesta, where he’d arranged for the entire contents of the shop to be robbed by his own brother.
The robbery went well, but his brother went on a binge all by himself the next day, got in his car while extremely drunk, and was stopped by a police patrol that couldn’t help but notice that he was both speeding and swerving from side to side.
The brother, who was romantically inclined, began by admiring the shape of the female police inspector’s breasts, upon which he received a bop to the nose. This in turn made him fall madly in love: nothing was as irresistible as a woman with guts. He put down the breathalyzer the wronged inspector asked him to blow into, took a diamond ring worth 200,000 kronor from his pocket, and proposed.
Instead of the yes he had expected, he received handcuffs and a free ride to the nearest jail cell. When all was said and done, the speeder’s brother was behind bars, too. Even though he denied everything.
‘I have never seen this man in my entire life,’ he said to the prosecutor in Katrineholm district court.
‘But isn’t that your brother?’ said the prosecutor.
‘Yes, but I’ve never seen him.’
But the prosecutor had a few things up his sleeve. For one, he had photographs of the brothers together, from their childhood on. The fact that they were listed as living at the same address in Gnesta was another matter of aggravation, and then there was the fact that a large part of the spoils from the robbery had been found in the wardrobe they shared. Furthermore, the brothers’ honest parents testified against them.
The man who had since been called the Jeweller got four years in Hall Prison, the same as his brother. After that the brother flew back to Chile while the Jeweller supported himself by selling cheap trinkets imported from Bolivia. The plan was to save all the money in a pile until he had a million kronor, at which point he planned to retire to Thailand. He had met Nombeko at the markets. It wasn’t as if they actually spent time together, but they nodded at each other in passing.
The problem was that the Swedish market crowd never really seemed to understand the magnitude of silver plastic Bolivian hearts. After two years of hard work, the Jeweller was struck by depression; he thought that everything was just shit (which it essentially was). He had made it to 125,000 kronor in pursuit of his million, but he couldn’t take it any more. Instead he went to Solvalla one Saturday afternoon in his depressed condition and used all his money to place what was by far the biggest bet of all on that week’s V75 horse racing, with the intention of losing it all and then going to lie down and die on a park bench in Humleg?rden.
But then horse after horse performed as it should (but never had before), and when all the races were over, one solitary winner with seven correct picks was able to collect 36.7 million kronor, of which he received 200,000 as cash in hand.
The Jeweller decided to forget about dying on a park bench in Humleg?rden; instead he went to the Café Opera and drank himself silly.
In this he succeeded beyond expectations. He woke up the next afternoon in a suite at the Hilton at Slussen, naked except for his socks and underwear. His first thought, given the presence of his underwear, was that he might not have had as much fun as last night’s circumstances called for, but he couldn’t say for sure because he didn’t remember.
He ordered breakfast from room service. While eating his scrambled eggs and drinking his champagne, he decided what he wanted to do with his life. He put aside the Thailand idea. Instead he would stay in Sweden and invest in a business of his own for real.
The Jeweller would become . . . a jeweller.
Out of pure malevolence, he set up shop next door to the boutique in Gnesta where he had once been trained and that he later robbed. Because Gnesta is Gnesta, where one jeweller is almost too many, it took the Jeweller less than six months to drive his former boss out of business. Incidentally, this was the same man who had nearly called the police that time Nombeko had paid a visit.
Then one day in May 1994, the Jeweller ran into a black woman outside the library on his way to work. Where had he seen her before?
‘The Jeweller!’ said Nombeko. ‘It’s been a long time. How is life treating you today?’
Oh yes, she was the woman who had gone around with that screwy American and those three Chinese girls who were impossible to get anywhere with.
‘Fine, thanks,’ he said. ‘I’ve exchanged silver plastic Bolivian hearts for the real thing, you could say. I’m a jeweller here in town these days.’
Nombeko thought this was extraordinary. Suddenly and strangely, she had a contact in Swedish jewellers’ circles. And one who seemed to have flexible morals, or possibly no morals at all.
‘Fantastic,’ she said. ‘I guess it’s Mr Jeweller from now on. Might you have any interest in making a deal or two? I happen to have some rough diamonds to hand, and I would be happy to exchange them for money.’
The Jeweller thought about how impossible God was to understand. On the one hand, he had always prayed to him; on the other hand, he had seldom received anything in return. And then there was that ill-fated robbery, which ought to work against him when it came to the divine. Instead, the Lord was dropping riches straight into his lap.
‘My interest in rough diamonds is very keen, Miss . . . Nombeko, was it?’
So far, business hadn’t gone at all as the Jeweller had planned. But now he could start planning to rob himself on the side once more.
Three months later, all twenty-eight diamonds had been traded in and sold on. Instead, Nombeko and Holger had a backpack full of money. Nineteen point six million kronor, which was probably 15 per cent less than if the deal hadn’t had to be carried out so discreetly. But, as Holger Two said, ‘Nineteen point six million is still nineteen point six million.’
He had just signed up to take the autumn university entrance exams. The sun was shining and the birds were chirping.