PART THREE
Present – That part of eternity dividing the domain of disappointment from the realm of hope.
Ambrose Bierce
CHAPTER 9
On a meeting, a mix-up and an unexpected reappearance
Nombeko had described herself as a South African freedom fighter with a price on her head. Sweden liked that sort of person and, sure enough, she was immediately admitted to the country. First stop: the transit camp of Carlslund in Upplands V?sby, just north of Stockholm.
Now, for the fourth day in a row, she was sitting on a bench in the cold outside camp building number seven, wrapped in a brown blanket with IMMIGRATION BOARD written on it, thinking about what she was going to do with the surplus of freedom she suddenly found herself possessing.
She was now twenty-six years old. Meeting a few nice people might not be a bad idea. Normal people. Or at least one normal person. Someone who could teach her about Sweden.
And what else? Well, one could assume there was probably a national library in this country, too. Even if most of what was on the shelves would be in a language she didn’t understand. The normal person who taught her about Sweden would just have to teach her Swedish as well.
Nombeko had always done her best thinking when she had some dried antelope meat to chew on. There hadn’t been any at Pelindaba. That might explain why it took her eleven years to figure out how to escape from there.
What if the antelope meat had already arrived at the Israeli embassy? Did she even dare to go there? Why not? That tape she had used as a threat against the agents would still serve its purpose, even if it was just as nonexistent now as it had been then.
At that moment, a truck with a red cargo box pulled into the yard. It backed up to a storehouse and a man of about Nombeko’s age hopped out and started carrying plastic-wrapped pillows from the truck to the storehouse. Again and again, until the truck was empty and he got a signature from a woman who was apparently in charge of the storehouse in question. A woman who was in charge. OK, she was white, but still.
Nombeko walked up to the man and said that she had a question. But it would have to be in English, because she didn’t speak any Swedish. Unless by chance the man spoke Xhosa or Wu Chinese?
The man looked at Nombeko and said that English would be fine. He had never heard of the other languages. How could he help her?
‘Hello, by the way,’ he said, extending his hand. ‘My name is Holger.’
An astounded Nombeko took Holger’s hand. A white man with manners.
‘Nombeko,’ said Nombeko. ‘I’m from South Africa. I’m a political refugee.’
Holger was sorry to hear about Nombeko’s bad fortune, but he welcomed her to Sweden all the same. She wasn’t cold, was she? If she wanted, he could ask for another blanket for her from the storehouse.
Was she cold? Ask for a blanket? What was going on? Had Nombeko already managed to meet the normal person she had never met thus far, just a few seconds after she had dared to hope for such a thing? She couldn’t help uttering her appreciative surprise:
‘Imagine that people like you exist after all.’
Holger gave her a melancholy look.
‘The problem is, I don’t,’ he said.
Don’t what? Nombeko wondered. And she said just that: ‘What don’t you do?’
‘Exist,’ Holger replied. ‘I don’t exist.’
Nombeko looked him up and down and down and up. And she thought it certainly was typical that just when someone who seemed worth her respect showed up in her life – he didn’t exist.
Nombeko let Holger’s statement go and asked instead if he might know where the Israeli embassy was.
The man who didn’t exist didn’t quite see the connection between a South African refugee and the Israeli embassy, but he didn’t think it was any of his business.
‘It’s in the centre of town, if I remember correctly. I’m going that way anyway. Would you like a ride, Miss Nombeko? If you don’t think I’m being too forward, that is.’
He was being all normal again. He was practically apologizing for existing. Which was, of course, rather contradictory if he didn’t exist.
Nombeko became vigilant. She studied the man. He looked nice. And the way he expressed himself was both intelligent and friendly.
‘Yes, please,’ she said at last. ‘If you can wait a moment. I’m just going to go up to my room to get my scissors.’
They drove south towards central Stockholm. The man turned out to be easy to talk to – what was his name, Holger? He told her about Sweden, about Swedish inventions, the Nobel Prize, Bj?rn Borg . . .
Nombeko had many questions. Had Bj?rn Borg really won five straight Wimbledons? Fantastic! What was a Wimbledon?
The red truck arrived at Storgatan 31, and Nombeko climbed down from the cab, went to the gate of the embassy, introduced herself and asked if a package from South Africa addressed to her had shown up.
Yes, it had just arrived, and it was a good thing that she was already here: the embassy couldn’t have deliveries like this one just sitting around. The gatekeeper turned to Nombeko’s chauffeur and asked him to back up to the loading bay around the corner. It was best for the miss to stay here: there were a few papers she had to sign. Now where were they?
Nombeko tried to protest. The package wasn’t going with the truck; she had been planning to carry it herself, under her arm. She would make her way back to the camp somehow. But the guard just smiled as he waved Holger away. And then his nose was back in his pile of papers.
‘Let’s see here . . . I’m not very organized, you see, miss. Not this one . . . this one?’
It took some time. By the time the formalities had been taken care of, the package had already been loaded into the back of the truck and Holger was ready to leave. Nombeko said goodbye to the gatekeeper and climbed back up into the cab. ‘You can just let me out at a bus stop, I guess,’ she said.
‘I don’t quite understand,’ said Holger.
‘What do you mean?’
‘I thought you said there were twenty pounds of antelope meat in your package.’
‘Yes?’ said Nombeko, gripping the scissors that were in her pocket.
‘I would guess it’s more like a ton.’
‘A ton?’
‘Good thing I have a truck.’
Nombeko didn’t say anything for a few seconds. She let this information sink in. Then she said, ‘This isn’t good.’
‘What isn’t good?’ Holger wondered.
‘Everything, actually,’ said Nombeko.
* * *
Mossad Agent A was in a good mood. It was morning in his hotel room in Johannesburg. His colleague from his years at Pelindaba was already on his way to a new post in Buenos Aires. A himself was planning on going to Jan Smuts International right after breakfast to fly home; he had a few weeks of well-deserved vacation in front of him before he found the cleaning woman in Sweden and did with her what he must do (and was happy to do).
The room phone rang. A was surprised, but he answered anyway. It was none other than Foreign Minister Peres, who was famous for getting straight to the point.
‘Why on earth have you sent me twenty pounds of horse meat?’ the foreign minister said to his agent.
Mossad Agent A was quick on the uptake. He immediately realized what had happened.
‘I am terribly sorry, Mr Minister. There’s been a horrible mix-up. I will take care of it right away!’
‘How the hell is it possible to mix up what I was supposed to receive with twenty pounds of horse meat?’ said Shimon Peres, who didn’t want to say the words atomic bomb over the telephone.
‘Actually, it’s antelope meat,’ said Agent A, who immediately regretted saying it.
Mossad Agent A managed to shake off his angry foreign minister for the time being, and he called the Israeli embassy in Stockholm. Transferred to the gatekeeper, he said, ‘For God’s sake, don’t let the seventeen-hundred-pound delivery from South Africa leave the embassy. Don’t even touch it until I get there!’
‘What a nuisance,’ said the gatekeeper. ‘A nice black woman was just here with a truck, and she signed for it. Unfortunately, I can’t see what her name is, because I don’t seem to be able to find the receipt.’
Mossad Agent A never swore. He was deeply religious and had been brought up with strict guidelines on what one could and could not say. He put down the receiver, sat on the bed, and said, ‘F*cking hell.’
Agent A painted mental pictures of the ways he would kill Nombeko Mayeki. The slowest options felt best.
* * *
‘An atomic bomb?’ said Holger.
‘An atomic bomb,’ said Nombeko.
‘A nuclear weapon?’
‘That, too.’
Nombeko thought that Holger deserved to hear the whole story, now that things had gone the way they had. So she told him about Pelindaba, the secret nuclear weapons project, and the six bombs that had turned into seven; about Engineer Westhuizen, his luck, his Klipdrift and his unfortunate demise; about the two Mossad agents, the box of antelope meat that was meant to go to Stockholm, and the considerably larger package – the one that Holger and Nombeko were driving around with right now, which was meant to go to Jerusalem. Although she didn’t go into detail, Holger soon had a rough idea of what had happened.
And he understood it all, except for how things could have gone so wrong. Nombeko and the agents had had two packages to keep track of, one small one and one gigantic one. How hard could it be?
Nombeko wasn’t sure, but she had her suspicions. The fact was that three nice but slightly flighty Chinese girls with poor judgement were in charge of the post at the research facility. Nombeko believed that the labelling of two packages at the same time had been one package too many. And so things had got mixed up.
‘Yes, that’s the least one can say,’ said Holger, feeling chilled through.
Nombeko said nothing for a moment. Holger went on: ‘So you and representatives from what is possibly the world’s most capable intelligence agency put address labels in the hands of three flighty girls with poor judgement?’
‘That’s what happened,’ said Nombeko. ‘If we want to be critical, and perhaps we should, given the situation.’
‘Who puts people that can’t be trusted in charge of outgoing post?’
‘And incoming,’ said Nombeko. ‘Well, that was all the engineer’s doing. He was truly one of the stupidest people I’ve ever met. He could read, but that was about it. He reminded me of a terribly dense assistant from the sanitation department of the City of Johannesburg I once had to deal with as a teenager.’
Holger didn’t say anything, but he let his brain go in four different directions at the same time. Anyone who has involuntarily driven around with an atomic bomb in the back of his truck knows the feeling.
‘Should we turn round and give the bomb back to the Israelis?’ said Nombeko.
This jolted Holger out of his mental paralysis.
‘Never!’ he said.
He, too, had a rather unusual life story. The fact was, Miss Nombeko understood, that he didn’t exist in some ways; he had, of course, already mentioned this. But he still loved his country. And there was no way he could even consider voluntarily handing over an atomic bomb to any intelligence agency – Israeli or otherwise – on Swedish soil.
‘Never!’ he said again. ‘And you can’t stay at the refugee camp. I’m sure the Israelis will try to find both you and the bomb.’
Nombeko took in what Holger had just said. But what captured her interest more than anything else was his repeated assertions that he didn’t exist.
‘It’s a long story,’ Holger mumbled.
Nombeko thought some more. All she had figured out so far regarding her future as a free woman was that she wanted to meet some normal people, because she had no experience of that at all. And then a seemingly normal Swedish man had shown up. Nice. Considerate. Well read. Who claimed that he didn’t exist.
This was as far as she got before Holger said, ‘I live in a condemned building in Gnesta.’
‘That’s nice,’ said Nombeko.
‘What if you move into the same building?’
Nombeko had decided that she wouldn’t need her scissors in Holger’s company. A condemned building in . . . what was it called? Gnesta?
Well, she thought. She had lived in a shack for half her life, and she’d been locked up behind a fence for the other half. A condemned building would probably be an improvement.
But was Mr Holger sure that he wanted to be saddled with a refugee and a nuclear weapon? And another country’s intelligence agency on his heels?
Holger wasn’t sure of anything. But he found himself liking this person. He couldn’t imagine sending her into the clutches of the Israeli Mossad without a second thought.
‘No,’ he said. ‘I’m not. But the offer stands.’
Nombeko liked Holger in return. If there was in fact someone there to like.
‘You’re not angry with me because of this thing about the atomic bomb, then?’
‘Nah,’ said Holger. ‘Such things happen.’
The drive from the Israeli embassy in ?stermalm out to the E4 highway and south took them through Norrmalm and Kungsholmen. Through the windscreen, Holger and Nombeko could see Sweden’s tallest building, the 275-foot-tall Dagens Nyheter tower. Holger couldn’t help imagining what might happen to it if the bomb went off. Finally he had to ask:
‘How bad would it be if things went badly?’ he said.
‘What do you mean?’ said Nombeko.
‘Well, if I drive into a lamppost here and the bomb goes off . . . exactly what would happen? I assume you and I would be in bad shape, but what about the skyscraper over there, for instance – would it collapse?’
Nombeko replied that Holger had guessed correctly that they probably wouldn’t make it. Neither would the skyscraper. The bomb would destroy almost everything within a radius of . . . say . . . thirty-eight miles.
‘Almost everything within a radius of thirty-eight miles?’ said Holger Two.
‘Yes. Or, really, everything.’
‘Within thirty-eight miles? All of Greater Stockholm?’
‘Well, I don’t know how big Greater Stockholm is, but it does sound big. Then there are other factors to consider . . .’
‘Factors?’
‘Besides the fireball itself. Shock waves, immediate radioactivity, wind direction. And things like . . . Say you drive into a lamppost here and now and the bomb goes off . . .’
‘Or say I don’t, on second thoughts,’ said Holger, gripping the wheel tightly with both hands.
‘But just as an example. What would happen, I would guess, is that all the major hospitals in the Stockholm area would immediately go up in flames. So who would take care of the several hundred thousand severely injured people from the edges of the bomb’s radius?’
‘Yes, who would do that?’ said Holger.
‘Not you or me, anyway,’ said Nombeko.
Holger, wanting to get out of that thirty-eight-mile radius as quickly as possible, drove onto the E4 and speeded up. Nombeko had to remind him that no matter how fast and far he drove it would still be thirty-eight miles to safety as long as he had what he did in the truck.
Then he slowed down again, thought a little more, and asked if Miss Nombeko couldn’t disarm the bomb herself, given that she’d been there when it was built. Nombeko replied that there were two types of atomic bomb: operative ones and inoperative ones. As luck would have it, the bomb they were driving around with was an operative one; it would take four or five hours to render it harmless. There hadn’t been enough time for this when things had suddenly got rushed down there in South Africa. And unfortunately, this particular bomb’s unique disarming diagram was in the hands of the Israelis. They were – as Holger could surely understand – not in any position to call Jerusalem and ask them to fax it over.
Holger nodded, looking anxious. Nombeko consoled him by saying that she thought the bomb could tolerate a great deal, so even if Holger slid off the road, chances were that he, she and Greater Stockholm would survive.
‘You think so?’ said Holger.
‘Of course, it would be best not to find out,’ said Nombeko. ‘Where did you say we’re going, by the way? Gnesta?’
‘Yes. And once we get there, our main task will be to get my brother to understand that he can’t use what we have in the truck to bring about a revolution.’
* * *
Sure enough, Holger lived in a condemned building. Nombeko thought it was quite charming. It was an L-shaped four-storey structure, and it was connected to a warehouse that was also L-shaped. Together the buildings formed a square or courtyard with a narrow entryway that led out to the street.
Nombeko thought it would be a waste to tear down the building. Yes, there was the occasional hole in the wooden stairs up to the floor where she had been told she could live. And she had been forewarned that several of the windows in her new apartment were covered with boards instead of glass. And that there was a draught from the cracks in the wooden walls. But all in all, it would be an enormous improvement on her shack in Soweto. Just take the fact that there were real boards for a floor in the condemned building, rather than trampled earth.
Using skids, hard work and ingenuity, Holger and Nombeko managed to get the atomic bomb out of the back of the truck and into a corner of the warehouse, which otherwise housed an awful lot of pillows. She and Holger hadn’t discussed it, but one didn’t need to be nearly as gifted as Nombeko possibly was to realize that he was in the pillow-selling and pillow-distributing business.
The bomb now stood crammed into a corner of the warehouse, posing no immediate threat. As long as none of the thousands of easily ignited pillows caught fire, there was reason to believe that Nyk?ping, S?dert?lje, Flen, Eskilstuna, Str?ngn?s and Stockholm and its environs would endure. Not to mention Gnesta.
As soon as the bomb was in the warehouse, Nombeko had a few questions. First this nonsense about Holger’s nonexistence. Then the part about Holger’s brother. What made Holger think that his brother would be tempted to use the bomb to bring about a revolution? And who was he, by the way? Where was he? And what was his name?
‘His name is Holger,’ said Holger. ‘And he’s around here somewhere, I imagine. It’s sheer luck he didn’t show up as we were dealing with the crate.’
‘Holger?’ said Nombeko. ‘Holger and Holger?’
‘Yes. He is me, you could say.’
Holger had to straighten things out this instant, otherwise Nombeko would leave. He could keep the bomb, though; she had had enough of it.
She piled pillows onto the crate in the warehouse, climbed up, and sat in one corner. Then she ordered Holger, who was still on the floor, to explain. Or, as she put it:
‘Explain!’
She didn’t know what to expect, but forty minutes later, when Holger was finished, she felt relieved.
‘Well, that doesn’t matter. If you don’t exist just because you don’t have any papers that say you do, you have no idea how many South Africans don’t either. I only exist because the numbskull of an engineer I slaved for needed me to, for his own convenience.’
Holger Two accepted Nombeko’s comforting words and climbed onto the crate himself; he lay down among the pillows in another corner and just breathed. It was all too much – first the bomb in the crate under them and then sharing his life story. For the first time, an outsider had heard the whole truth.
‘Are you staying or going?’ said Holger Two.
‘I’m staying,’ said Nombeko. ‘If I may?’
‘You may,’ said Holger Two. ‘But now I think I need some peace and quiet.’
‘Me, too,’ said Nombeko.
And then she settled down across from her new friend, so that she could just breathe, too.
At that moment, there was a cracking sound as a board came loose on one of the short ends of the crate containing the bomb.
‘What was that?’ said Holger Two, at the same instant that the next board fell to the ground and a woman’s arm stuck out.
‘I have my suspicions,’ said Nombeko, and they were immediately confirmed as three Chinese girls crawled out, blinking.
‘Hi,’ said the little sister when she caught sight of Nombeko.
‘Do you have anything to eat?’ said the middle sister.
‘And drink,’ suggested the big sister.