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

‘The napkins,’ said Chancellor Merkel.

‘Well, they were in one of those racks in the centre of the table, so I grabbed one and started writing. And then another, and another. Perhaps we don’t need to delve into their contents. Haven’t you already read them? And, after all, I’m the one who wrote them.’

Either he isn’t who he says he is, or he’s very dense, thought Angela Merkel. But then she recalled that he was said to be a little over a hundred years old, so she supposed she could give him another chance.

And with that she had lowered her guard another millimetre without even noticing.

‘If this conversation is to go on for any longer, I want to ascertain that Mr Karlsson is who he says he is. So would you please do me a kindness and tell me what you – if you are you – wrote to me. If I’m even me.’

She added the last bit in the event that she was dealing with a blackmailer. In doing so, she had refrained from acknowledging that she had any part in this bizarre conversation.

‘Now I understand,’ said Allan. ‘If you are you – and I’m assuming you are because I placed this call to you – you received a report from me about how my asparagus-farming friend Julius and I came across four kilos of enriched uranium in a North Korean briefcase. Did you know, incidentally, that all briefcases in North Korea look the same?’

‘Please go on,’ said Angela Merkel.

‘Right. Well, first, I suppose we were thinking we would hand the briefcase over to what’s-his-name, Trump, the President of the USA. But then it turned out he wasn’t really right – a far too common trait among world leaders, I’ve noticed. If you’ll forgive the observation.’

‘Go on.’

‘So then I was over him, as the kids say. But you, Madame Chancellor, I have faith in, thanks to my black tablet. I imagine you’re certain to have dealt with those four kilos in the best way possible already, and perhaps you have space for four hundred more.’

Karlsson definitely was the person he claimed to be. The proof wasn’t that he had reproduced enough of the details from the message on the napkins, but that he was sticking to the exact half-muddled tone of the letter. The chancellor let down her guard completely. ‘ Four hundred?’ she said. ‘Wasn’t it supposed to be five?’

She was right about that, the chancellor, thought Allan. He and Julius had counted the boxes, weighed and reweighed them, and a hundred kilos were missing. But surely the smugglers hadn’t sent four hundred kilos one way and the last hundred another. If it was about minimizing the risk, shouldn’t the load have been divided down the middle?

‘A perfectly correct observation, Madame Chancellor,’ said Allan, when he had finished thinking. ‘But perhaps it’s partly that my sources weren’t completely trustworthy, and partly that there may have been delivery issues. In all likelihood, it’s both.’

Allan reflected upon this for a few seconds more.

‘Still there?’ the chancellor asked, when the silence at the other end seemed a bit too lengthy.

‘Yes, I’m here. And I’ve completed my analysis. I say: delivery issues.’

Angela Merkel realized what a fix she was in. The election was three days away, and she was about to be saddled with four hundred kilos of enriched uranium. It had to be dealt with tidily and discreetly.

‘Still there?’ Allan wondered.

Yes, she was.

‘I would have liked to send over the four hundred kilos, but it was a bit easier last time – what I’ve got here won’t fit into a briefcase, North Korean or otherwise. I need an aeroplane. From Africa – that’s where I am. And a runway in Germany, if only you would be willing to pull a few strings, Madame Chancellor, so we aren’t shot down on approach. Just think how that would look. Four hundred kilos of uranium raining down on Berlin.’

The chancellor buried her forehead in her hand. And thought: Four hundred kilos of uranium raining down over Berlin days before the election.

She pulled herself together and formulated a few questions that were still hanging over her. Could Mr Karlsson tell her where, more precisely, he and the uranium were currently located? And was he perhaps working in cooperation with another representative of the Federal Republic? After all, a few of them were stationed in Africa on the matter in question.

Allan told her that he was in Kenya, that he had first considered contacting the Kenyan government, but there had just been an election – in that sense, they were a bit ahead of Germany – and it had ended so poorly that the man who had just won had immediately lost what he had just won in the Supreme Court, so now the election had to be done all over again. Either the opposition had been tricked out of winning the election, or they had tricked others so it would look like they’d been tricked. Allan would feel more secure with the uranium in the arms of the chancellor.

In her arms or on her shoulders – it was bad either way, but she understood his reasoning. Then again, it would never end well if human trouble-magnet Karlsson was allowed to fly into Germany, with or without his current cargo.

‘And how was any contact with German representatives in this matter?’ she said.

‘Good, thanks,’ said Allan.

Angela Merkel found that he was uniquely gifted at not answering questions.

‘I think it would be best if the Federal Republic picks up the cargo in question,’ she said. ‘Kindly provide the exact geographical information and I will see what I can do.’

Exact geographical information? How did you give that? And when breakfast was on the table.

‘I will absolutely provide that, Madame Chancellor. But exact geographical information isn’t exactly my speciality. I’m better at ending up wherever I end up. May I call again tomorrow morning, at the same time, and we can work out the details?’

The chancellor began to answer, but Allan was hungry and had no time. He hung up.

‘Breakfast is ready, Allan,’ said Julius.

‘I see that. I’m coming,’ said Allan.

The group’s money would soon run out, and Gustav Svensson’s arrival meant yet another mouth to feed. Sabine had known since her days as a businesswoman in Sweden that she could do calculations. First she’d had to learn about deficit, then credit, after the coffin sales had taken off, and now they were back to deficits.

And it seemed that no profitable clairvoyance plans were going to turn up. She almost had the urge to try an LSD trip to get unstuck, but the drug market was non-existent in Maasai Mara. She wouldn’t have taken that step anyway. If her mother, in that state, had hunted for ghosts in front of trains, there was a good risk she would do the same in front of the lions.

Now it wasn’t only Julius and Fredrika sitting in the lounge and talking asparagus: Gustav Svensson had joined them. Although talking asparagus was an understatement. They were worshipping asparagus.

The mutual understanding seemed to be that the climate at two thousand metres above sea level at the equator was perfect! Green, it would be. Or white. Or both, depending on whom you were listening to.

But also, everything was beyond tragic because the soil was all wrong. And had been for a long time. Remains left by humans from two million years ago had been found in the adjacent valley. In the same hard red soil that the asparagus lovers were now cursing.

‘Then buy new soil,’ Allan said, from nearby on the veranda, with his nose in his tablet. ‘Then again, don’t, because I just did it for you.’

What had Sabine and the asparagus lovers just heard?

‘You bought soil? For here? With what money?’ Sabine said.