Юнас Юнассон - The Accidental Further Adventures of the Hundred-Year-Old Man

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 president 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.’