The Girl Who Saved the King of Sweden

The engineer drained the entire medicine bottle and immediately felt better. Meanwhile, Prime Minister Botha looked wide-eyed at the servant.

‘You know about the tritium problem?’

‘Goodness, no.’ Nombeko laughed. ‘You see, I clean this room every day and the engineer spends almost all his time rattling off formulas and other strange things to himself. And apparently some of it got stuck even in my little brain. Would you like a refill, Mr Prime Minister?’

Prime Minister Botha accepted more sparkling wine and gave Nombeko a long look as she returned to her wallpaper. Meanwhile the engineer cleared his throat and apologized for the asthma attack and for the servant’s impudence in opening her mouth.

‘The fact is, the half-life of tritium is not relevant to the bomb’s explosive effect,’ said the engineer.

‘Yes, I just heard that from the waitress,’ the prime minister said acidly.

Botha didn’t ask any difficult follow-up questions; he was soon in a good mood again thanks to Nombeko’s eager refills of bubbly. Engineer Westhuizen had made it through another crisis. And so had his cleaning woman.

When the first bomb was ready, the next phase of production went as follows: two independent, high-quality work teams each built a bomb, using the first one as a model. The teams were instructed to be extremely accurate when it came to accounting for the steps they took. In this way, the production of bombs two and three could be compared in detail – first compared to each other and then compared to number one. It was the engineer himself, and no one else (except a certain woman who didn’t count), who was in charge of the comparison.

If the bombs were identical, then they would also be correct. It was highly unlikely that two independent teams could make identical mistakes at that high level. According to whatshername, the statistical likelihood of that was.0054 per cent.

* * *

Nombeko continued to search for something that would give her hope. The three Chinese girls knew some things, like that the Egyptian pyramids were in Egypt, how to poison dogs, and what to watch out for when stealing a wallet from the inner pocket of a jacket. Things like that.

The engineer frequently mumbled about progress in South Africa and the world, but the information from that source had to be filtered and interpreted, since for the most part all the politicians on earth were idiots or Communists, and all of their decisions were either idiotic or Communistic. And when they were Communistic, they were also idiotic.

When the people chose a former Hollywood actor to be the new American president, the engineer condemned not only the president elect but also all of his people. However, Ronald Reagan avoided being labelled a Communist. Instead the engineer focused on the president’s presumed sexual orientation, based on the hypothesis that all men who stood for anything different from what the engineer stood for were homosexuals.

All due deference to the Chinese girls and the engineer, but as sources of news they couldn’t compete with the TV in the waiting room outside the engineer’s office. On the sly Nombeko would often turn it on and follow the news and debate programmes while she pretended to scrub the floor. That corridor was by far the cleanest in the research facility.

‘Are you here scrubbing again?’ the irritated engineer once said as he came strolling in to work at ten thirty in the morning, fifteen minutes earlier than Nombeko had counted on. ‘And who turned on the TV?’

This could have ended poorly from an information-gathering perspective, but Nombeko knew her engineer. Instead of answering the question, she changed the subject.

‘I saw a half-empty bottle of Klipdrift on your desk when I was in there cleaning, Engineer. I thought it might be old and I should pour it out. But I wasn’t sure; I wanted to check with you first, Engineer.’

‘Poured out? Are you nuts?’ said the engineer, rushing into his office to make sure that those life-giving drops were still there. To make sure that whatshername wouldn’t get any other dumb ideas, he immediately transferred them from the bottle to his bloodstream. And he soon forgot the TV, the floor and the servant.

* * *

Then one day it finally showed up.

The opportunity.

If Nombeko played all her cards right, and also got to borrow a little of the engineer’s luck, she would soon be a free woman. Free and wanted, but still. The opportunity – unbeknown to Nombeko – had its origins on the other side of the globe.

The de facto leader of China, Deng Xiaoping, had early on displayed a talent for outmanoeuvring out his competition – before the senile Mao Tse-tung even had time to die, in fact. Perhaps the most spectacular rumour was that he hadn’t let Mao’s right-hand man, Zhou Enlai, be treated when he got cancer. Being a cancer patient with no cancer treatment seldom leads to a positive outcome. Depending on how you look at it, of course. In any case, Zhou Enlai died twenty years after the CIA failed to blow him to smithereens.

After that, the Gang of Four were about to intervene, with Mao’s last wife at the forefront. But as soon as the old man finally drew his last breath, the four were arrested and locked up, whereupon Deng purposely forgot where he’d put the key.

On the foreign-affairs front, he was deeply irritated by that dullard Brezhnev in Moscow. Who was succeeded by that dullard Andropov. Who was succeeded by Chernenko, the biggest dullard of them all. But luckily, Chernenko didn’t have time to do more than take office before he stepped down permanently. The rumour was that Ronald Reagan had scared him to death with his Star Wars. Now some fellow called Gorbachev had taken over, and… well, from dullards to whippersnappers. The new man certainly had a lot to prove.

Among many other things, China’s position in Africa was a constant concern. For several decades, the Soviets had been poking around in various African liberation movements. The Russians’ current engagement in Angola was a prime example. The MPLA received Soviet weapons in exchange for getting results in the right ideological direction. The Soviet direction, of course. Blast!

The Soviets were moving Angola and other countries in southern Africa in a direction that was the opposite of what the United States and South Africa wanted. So what was China’s position in all this mess? To back up the renegade Communists in the Kremlin? Or walk hand in hand with the American imperialists and the apartheid regime in Pretoria?

Blast, once more.

It might have been possible not to take any side at all, to leave a walkover, as the damn Americans liked to say. If it weren’t for the contacts South Africa was presumed to have with Taiwan.

It was an open secret that the United States had stopped a nuclear weapons test in the Kalahari Desert. So everyone knew what South Africa was up to. In this case, ‘everyone’ meant all intelligence organizations worth their name.

The crucial problem there was that, in addition to the Kalahari information on Deng’s desk, there was an intelligence briefing noting that South Africa had communicated about the weapon with Taipei. It would be completely unacceptable for the Taiwanese to procure missiles to aim at mainland China. If this happened, it would lead to an escalation in the South China Sea, and it was impossible to predict how that might end. And the US Pacific Fleet was right around the corner.

So somehow or another, Deng had to manage the loathsome apartheid regime. His chief intelligence officer had suggested they do nothing and let the South African government die on its own. Thanks to that piece of advice, his chief intelligence officer was no longer a chief intelligence officer – would China really be more secure if Taiwan was doing business with a nuclear nation in freefall? The former chief intelligence officer could ponder this as he worked at his new job as a substitute station attendant in the Beijing subway.

‘Manage’ was the name of the game. Somehow or another.

Deng couldn’t possibly travel there himself and let himself be photographed alongside that old Nazi Botha (even if the idea was a bit tempting: the decadent West did have its charm, in small doses). And he couldn’t send any of his closest men. It must absolutely not appear that Beijing and Pretoria were on friendly terms.

On the other hand, there was no point in sending a pencil-pushing lower official with neither the ability nor the sense to make observations. Of course, it was also important that the Chinese representative was important enough to be granted an audience with Botha.

So: someone who could get things done – but at the same time was not close to the Politburo Standing Committee and who couldn’t be considered an obvious representative of Beijing. Deng Xiaoping found the solution in the young party secretary of the province of Guizhou, which had practically more ethnic groups than people. The young man had just proven that it was possible to bring together peevish minorities like the Yao, Miao, Yi, Qiang, Dong, Zhuang, Bouyei, Bai, Tujia, Gelao and Sui.

Anyone who could keep eleven balls in the air like that also ought to be able to handle the ex-Nazi Botha, Deng thought, and he made sure to send the young man in question to Pretoria.

His task: to get the message to South Africa, between the lines, that collaborating on nuclear weapons with Taiwan was unacceptable, and to get the South Africans to understand who they were picking a fight with, should they choose to pick a fight.

* * *

P. W. Botha was not at all excited to receive the leader of a Chinese province; that was below his station. Furthermore, Botha’s station had just become even higher – the title of prime minister had been replaced by president. What would people think if he – the president! – were to welcome just any old Chinese like that? If he were to receive all of them, for a few seconds each, it would take him more than thirteen thousand years. Botha didn’t think he would live that long. In fact, despite his new title, he felt rather worn-out.

At the same time, he understood why China had chosen the tactic of sending over a minion. Beijing didn’t want to be accused of embracing the government in Pretoria. And vice versa, for that matter.

The question remained: what were they up to? Did it have something to do with Taiwan? That would be funny, because their collaboration with the Taiwanese had been over before it had led anywhere at all.

Oh well, perhaps Botha would go and meet that errand boy after all.

Why, I’m as curious as a child, he said to himself, smiling even though he really didn’t have anything to smile about.

To lessen this great breach of etiquette, a president meeting with a gofer, Botha got the idea of rigging a meeting and a dinner on the Chinese man’s level – and Botha himself would happen to stumble across it. Oh, are you here? May I sit down? Something like that.

So Botha called the director of the top secret nuclear weapons programme and ordered him to receive a Chinese guest who had requested a meeting with the president. He said that the engineer and the guest would go on safari together and then have a fancy, delicious meal in the evening. During the dinner, the engineer must make the Chinese man understand that one oughtn’t underestimate South African military engineering, without actually telling the nuclear truth straight out.

It was important for this message to make it through. They had to show strength without saying anything. It would just so happen that President Botha was in the vicinity, and a person has to eat, so he would be happy to keep the engineer and the Chinese man company.

‘If you don’t mind, of course, Engineer Westhuizen.’ The engineer’s head was spinning. So he was supposed to receive a guest the president didn’t want to meet. He would tell the guest the truth of the matter without saying anything, and in the middle of all this the president, who didn’t want to meet the guest, would show up to meet the guest.

The engineer realized he was getting into a situation in which one might make a fool of oneself. Other than that, he didn’t understand anything beyond that he must immediately invite the president to the dinner the president himself had just decided should take place.

‘Of course you’re welcome to come to the dinner, Mr President!’ said Engineer Westhuizen. ‘You really must be there! When is it, by the way? And where?’

This is how what started out as Deng Xiaoping’s concern in Beijing became a problem for Engineer Westhuizen in Pelindaba. The fact was, of course, that he knew absolutely nothing about the project he was directing. It isn’t easy to sit and chat and seem gifted when you’re rather the opposite. The solution would be to bring along whatshername as a servant and briefcase-carrier. Then she could discreetly feed the engineer clever facts about the project, carefully considered so that he didn’t say too much. Or too little.

That sort of consideration was something whatshername would manage splendidly. Just like everything else that cursed person set out to do.

* * *

The engineer’s cleaning woman received strict instructions before the Chinese safari and the following dinner, at which they would be joined by the president himself. To be on the safe side, Nombeko helped the engineer with the instructions so that they would turn out correctly.

She was to remain an arm’s length away from the engineer. Each time an opportunity presented itself, she would whisper conversationally appropriate wisdom in his ear. The rest of the time, she would keep quiet and act like the nonentity that she basically was.

Nombeko had been sentenced to seven years in service to the engineer nine years ago. When her sentence came to an end, she didn’t bother to remind him, since she’d decided it was better to be alive and imprisoned than dead and free.

But soon she would be outside the fences and the minefield; she would be miles from the guards and their new German shepherds. If she managed to break away from her chaperon, she would turn into one of South Africa’s most wanted. Police, intelligence agents, and the military would look for her everywhere. Except maybe in the National Library in Pretoria. And that was where she would go first of all.

If she managed to break away, that is.

The engineer had been kind enough to inform her that the chauffeur-slash-safari guide was carrying a rifle and he was instructed to shoot not only attacking lions but also fleeing cleaning ladies, should any appear. And as an extra precaution, the engineer made sure to carry a pistol in a holster. A Glock 17, nine by nineteen millimetres with seventeen bullets in the magazine. Not something you can take down an elephant or a rhinoceros with, but it would do for a 120-pound servant.

‘One hundred and fifteen, if you please,’ said Nombeko.

She considered waiting for a convenient moment to unlock the safe in the engineer’s office where he kept his pistol and empty it of the seventeen bullets, but she didn’t. She would be blamed if the drunk happened to discover it in time, and then her escape would be over before it had even begun.

Instead she decided not to be too eager, to wait for the right moment – but when it came, she would take off into the bush as fast as she could. Without taking a bullet in the back from either the chauffeur or the engineer. And preferably without encountering any of the animals that were the point of going on a safari.

So when would the right moment be? Not in the morning, when the chauffeur was on his toes and the engineer was still sober enough to manage to shoot something other than himself in the foot. Maybe right after the safari, just before the dinner, when Westhuizen was sufficiently blotto and nervous about the meeting with his president. And when the chauffeur was done being a guide after many hours on the job.

Yes, then the time would be right. She just had to recognize the moment and seize it when it came.

* * *

They were ready to start the safari. The Chinese official had brought along his own interpreter. It all began in the worst possible way when the interpreter was foolish enough to walk into the tall grass to take a leak. It was even more foolish to do this in sandals.

‘Help, I’m dying,’ he said as he felt a sting on his left big toe and saw a scorpion crawling away in the grass.

‘You shouldn’t have walked into five-inch grass without real shoes – or at all, really. Especially not when it’s windy,’ said Nombeko.

‘Help, I’m dying,’ the interpreter said again.

‘Why not when it’s windy?’ wondered the engineer, who didn’t care about the interpreter’s health but was curious.

Nombeko explained that insects take shelter in the grass when the wind blows, and this means that the scorpions crawl out of their holes for a bit of food. And today there was a big toe in the way.

‘Help, I’m dying,’ the interpreter said once more.

Nombeko realized that the whimpering interpreter actually believed what he was saying.

‘No, I’m pretty sure you’re not,’ she said. ‘The scorpion was little, and you’re big. But we might as well send you to the hospital so they can wash your wound properly. Your toe will soon swell up to three times its size and turn blue, and it will hurt like hell, if you’ll pardon my language. You’re not going to be much good as an interpreter, anyway.’

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