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

The truth was, she didn’t want to be rid of Allan and Julius, not at all.

‘I have a two-room apartment upstairs. One of you can sleep on the spare bed in the hall there, the other on the sofa in the coffin store. Or in one of the coffins if it would be more comfortable. You’ll find toothbrushes and toothpaste next to the bandages, and you already know where those are.’

‘Perhaps a razor too?’ said Allan. ‘I can’t imagine that will make a difference either way in the impending bankruptcy.’

‘Oh, take two. I’ll add it to the tab.’

When Sabine came down from her apartment the next morning, Julius was in full swing building coffins. Allan was still on his sofa, watching.

‘What is he doing?’ she asked in surprise.

‘I don’t know,’ said Allan. ‘Preparing for his departure?’

‘Good morning,’ said Julius. ‘I’m compensating you for our room and board. I’ve always been good at carpentry. Did I mention that? Shouldn’t we go ahead and varnish the coffins as well? That might increase sales.’

‘From nothing to almost nothing?’ said Sabine. ‘Did you have time to grab some breakfast from the shop?’

They hadn’t dared. But Julius felt that if they were allowed to stay in the guest room and the carpentry shop for a few more days, he would be happy to open up each morning. That way Sabine could sleep in. Perhaps she didn’t often get the chance?

She responded that this was an offer worth considering, but that sort of decision shouldn’t be made on an empty stomach. ‘Come on, let’s eat.’

Breakfast consisted of a roll with cheese, juice, and coffee from the machine. Meanwhile the shop received four whole morning customers, each of whom made a small purchase. Julius seemed to be something of a lucky charm. And he proved that he could handle the cash register.

‘Fifty-eight kronor, please. Thanks. Two kronor change. Have a nice day.’

Sabine thought the fake diplomat seemed like a better sort than you would have expected at first. And so far his labour wasn’t expensive. Altogether, the cost ran to a box of bandages, a few cups of coffee, a bun, a roll, three decilitres of juice, and one or perhaps two ibuprofens. The one called Allan wasn’t quite as useful, but then again he was even cheaper.

So there were objectively good reasons to let the old men stay. Beyond the fact that she enjoyed their company.

‘Of course you can stay here for a while,’ she said. ‘But don’t build too many coffins – that will only drive up the cost of storage.’

Chancellor Merkel had just finished her first meeting with President Trump in Washington. In it she had been informed that NATO was useless. And that NATO was fantastic. That Trump loved Germany. And also that Germany had to get its act together on a number of issues. That the bonds between the countries were strong. And that the only thing that united them was that they had both been wiretapped by Obama.

Now she was back at the German embassy, where she was immediately shown to a situation room that was protected from bugs. Waiting for her there were the German ambassador, the German UN ambassador, and the director of German intelligence in the United States.

The chancellor, who had thought her day couldn’t get any worse, realized that it absolutely could. The intelligence officer was leading the meeting.

The issue was, as the chancellor had already been informed, that North Korea had succeeded in smuggling four kilos of enriched uranium to Pyongyang via a ship called Honour and Strength . The Swiss nuclear weapons expert, whom Kim Jong-un had put on display at a press conference, had turned out to be Swedish. His name was Allan Karlsson and he was not on Kim Jong-un’s side, as they had feared earlier. Instead he had managed to leave Pyongyang and make it to New York. And he’d brought the enriched uranium with him.

‘To America? The uranium is here ?’ said the chancellor.

‘Yes,’ the intelligence officer confirmed. ‘It’s very much here.’

A few days earlier, Allan Karlsson had met President Trump, with Swedish Minister for Foreign Affairs Margot Wallström, who was also Sweden’s representative on the UN Security Council.

‘Yes, I know who she is,’ said Angela Merkel. ‘A competent woman. Do we know what was said during the meeting?’

‘Not exactly. It seems President Trump stated that Wallström and Karlsson had not done anything wrong, and warned them not to do it again.’

‘Sounds like President Trump,’ said Angela Merkel. The chancellor had been around the block. She could sense in the air that there was more to come. ‘And?’ she said.

‘Well, after that meeting, Ambassador Breitner ran into Allan Karlsson outside UN headquarters. Admirably enough, the ambassador recognized a possibility for gaining intelligence and invited him and his friend Jonsson to dinner.’

The intelligence officer looked unhappy. But not as unhappy as the UN ambassador at his side.

‘And?’ said Angela Merkel again.

‘The ambassador promised to help Karlsson and his friend with a briefcase they wished to turn over to the Federal Republic. They said it contained important nuclear weapons-related information that Karlsson had originally intended to give President Trump, but he changed his mind after meeting the president in person.’

The chancellor felt a certain sense of solidarity with Karlsson. They seemed to have had similar experiences with the American president. ‘And now you’re going to hand the information to me so that I may consider sending it on to our analysts in Berlin.’

‘Well,’ said the intelligence officer, ‘the briefcase turned out to contain… the four kilos of enriched uranium. And a letter to you, Frau Chancellor. Written on three napkins.’

‘Three napkins?’ said the chancellor.

But what she was thinking was, Four kilos of enriched uranium? Here? At the German embassy in Washington?

By the time the intelligence meeting concluded, the chancellor had also learned that the previously intercepted code word ‘asparagus’ referred to actual asparagus, nothing more. And that Karlsson, by his own word, had heard Pyongyang was expecting a larger shipment of enriched uranium, five hundred kilos’ worth this time. The intelligence officer in Dar es Salaam had already been duly informed. Since the test shipment had made it all the way to Pyongyang from Africa, there was reason to believe the North Koreans would try the same route again.

Chancellor Merkel knew most things but she didn’t know whether UN Ambassador Breitner should be considered a national hero or one of the greatest idiots in the Federal Republic. She decided, for the time being, to view him as something in between.

The days came and went. Julius opened the shop each morning, while Sabine laid out breakfast for herself and the gentlemen one hour later. Then Julius and Sabine spent some time outdoing each other with sighs, as Allan took out the black tablet for reading-aloud time. After the meal, Sabine sat at the cash register while Julius went to work as a coffin-producer and Allan settled in on his sofa.

Now that the diplomats were making themselves at home, Sabine saw fit to come up with a few rules. Especially when it came to hygiene. She put out four sets of clothes, left behind by her grandfather, and required a shower followed by a change of clothes each day.

Quite strict, thought Allan and Julius. But they obeyed.

The luck Julius had brought, attracting four customers during one single breakfast, turned out to be temporary. The stream of people who thought they needed food to live was limited. As for customers who wanted to prepare for death instead, not one turned up.