The Girl Who Saved the King of Sweden (44 page)
Yes, the prime minister did know. He asked his assistant to hold on for a second and turned to Nombeko.
‘Might you consider attending the morning meeting between me and the president of the People’s Republic of China, Miss Nombeko? The president’s interpreter is in the hospital.’
‘And complaining that he’s about to die?’ said Nombeko.
Before the prime minister had time to ask what she meant by that, she added, ‘Absolutely. Of course I can do that. But what will we do with the truck, the bomb and Celestine in the meantime?’
Letting Celestine be alone with the truck and the bomb for several hours felt . . . not good. Nombeko’s first idea for a solution had been to handcuff her to the steering wheel. But her next idea was better. She returned to the suite and was soon back.
‘Your boyfriend is now chained to the sofa he is snoring so beautifully on. If you do anything stupid with the truck and the bomb while the prime minister and I meet the president of China, I promise I will throw the key to the handcuffs into Nybroviken.’
Celestine snorted in reply.
Prime Minister Reinfeldt rang two of his bodyguards and asked them to come to the Grand to pick up Nombeko and himself in a car with maximally tinted windows. Celestine’s orders were to stay in the first car park she saw until he or Nombeko called her. It would just be a few hours, the prime minister promised, longing so hard to reach the end of the yesterday that was still going on that he was about to burst.
On an angry supreme commander and a beautifully singing woman
Fredrik Reinfeldt sat down in one of the easy chairs in his office with a sandwich and a triple espresso. He had just undergone a renovation in the form of a shower, fresh clothes and mud-free shoes. Already sitting in the other easy chair was his South African Chinese interpreter with a cup of Swedish tea in hand. In the same clothes as the day before. On the other hand, she hadn’t been digging in any potato fields.
‘Ah, so that’s what you looked like before you got dirty,’ said Nombeko.
‘What time is it?’ said the prime minister.
It was twenty minutes to ten. There was time to prepare the interpreter.
The prime minister said that he was planning to invite Hu Jintao to the climate change summit in Copenhagen in 2009, which would take place at the same time as he himself would become the president of the EU Council.
‘There will probably be some talk about the environment and various efforts in that field,’ he said. ‘I want China to be a part of the upcoming climate treaty.’
‘Well, how about that,’ said Nombeko.
One controversial matter was that the prime minister also planned to discuss Sweden’s views on democracy and human rights. At those points, it was extra important for Nombeko to interpret word for word, rather than in her own words.
‘Anything else?’ said Nombeko.
Well, they would also be discussing business, of course. Imports and exports. China was on its way to being increasingly important to Sweden as an exporter as well.
‘We export twenty-two billion kronor’s worth of Swedish goods on a yearly basis,’ said the prime minister.
‘Twenty point eight,’ said Nombeko.
The prime minister emptied his espresso and inwardly confirmed that he was experiencing the most bizarre twenty-four hours of his life by a nearly infinite margin.
‘What else does the interpreter have to add?’ he said.
He said this without sarcasm.
Nombeko thought it was good that the meeting would be about democracy and human rights, because then, afterwards, the prime minister could say that the meeting had been about democracy and human rights.
She’s a cynic, too, in all her brilliance, thought Fredrik Reinfeldt.
* * *
‘Prime Minister. It’s an honour to meet you, now that circumstances are more orderly.’ President Hu smiled, extending his hand. ‘And you, Miss Nombeko – our paths cross again and again. Most agreeable, I must say.’
Nombeko said that she felt the same, but that they would have to wait a bit longer to talk safari memories, because otherwise the prime minister would probably become impatient.
‘By the way, he’s planning to come out of the gate with a few things about democracy and human rights, which he thinks you aren’t very good at. And he’s probably completely on the wrong track there. But don’t worry, Mr President, I think he’ll mince along pretty carefully. Let’s get on with it – are you ready?’
Hu Jintao made a face at what was coming, but he didn’t lose his temper. The South African woman was far too charming for that. Besides, this was the first time he’d worked with an interpreter who translated what had been said even before it had been said. Or the second time. The same thing had happened once in South Africa, many years earlier.
Sure enough, the prime minister moved forward cautiously. He described the Swedish view of democracy, emphasized Swedish values regarding free speech, offered his friends in the People’s Republic support in developing similar traditions. And then, in a low voice, he demanded the release of the country’s political prisoners.
Nombeko interpreted, but before Hu Jintao had time to answer, she added, on her own authority, that what the prime minister was really trying to say was that they couldn’t lock up authors and journalists just because they wrote objectionable things. Or displace people, censure the Internet . . .
‘What are you saying now?’ said the prime minister.
He had noticed that her translation was twice as long as might reasonably be expected.
‘I was just passing on what you said, Prime Minister, and then I explained what you meant by it to help the conversation move along a little faster. Both of us are a bit too tired to sit here all day, aren’t we?’
‘Explained what I meant? Did I not make myself clear enough earlier? This is top-level diplomacy – the interpreter can’t just sit there making things up!’
By all means. Nombeko promised to try to make things up as little as possible from now on, and she turned to President Hu to say that the prime minister wasn’t happy with what she’d added to the conversation.
‘That’s understandable,’ said Hu Jintao. ‘But interpret this: say I’ve absorbed the prime minister’s and Miss Nombeko’s words and that I possess the good political sense to tell them apart.’
At this, Hu Jintao began a lengthy reply, which brought up Guantánamo in Cuba, where prisoners had been sitting for five years while waiting to find out what they were charged with. Unfortunately the president, too, was fully aware of the regrettable incident in 2002 when Sweden had obediently done what the CIA told them to do and deported two Egyptians to prison and torture, whereupon it turned out that at least one of them happened to be innocent.
The president and prime minister continued to exchange words and sentences for another few rounds of this before Fredrik Reinfeldt thought they’d done enough. And so he turned to the environment. This part of the conversation flowed more smoothly.
A little while later, they were served tea and cake – the interpreter, too. In the informal atmosphere that a coffee circle often brings, the president took the opportunity discreetly to deliver a comment in which he expressed hope that yesterday’s drama had by now been resolved for the better.
Yes, thanks, the prime minister said that it had, without sounding completely convincing. Nombeko could tell that Hu Jintao wanted to know more, and out of sheer politeness, she added – over Reinfeldt’s head – that the bomb had been locked into a bunker and that the entrance had been walled over for good. Then she thought that perhaps she shouldn’t have said what she’d just said, but that at least it hadn’t been completely made up.
When he was younger, Hu Jintao had done a bit of work with nuclear weapons-related issues (it had started with his trip to South Africa), and he was curious about the bomb in question on behalf of his country. Of course, it was a few decades old, and China didn’t need a bomb; the Chinese military had plenty of megatons already. But if all the intelligence reports were correct, the bomb in disassembled form could give China a unique look into South African – that is, Israeli – nuclear weapons technology. And that, in turn, could become an important piece of the puzzle in the analysis of the relationship and relative strengths between Israel and Iran. As it happened, the Iranians were good friends to the Chinese. Or halfway good. Oil and natural gas flowed east from Iran, while at the same time China had never had more trying allies than those in Tehran (with the exception of Pyongyang). Among other things, they were hopelessly difficult to read. Were they in the process of building their own nuclear weapons? Or were they just making a lot of noise with rhetoric and the conventional weapons they already had?
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!’
