At seven in the morning, Axel walks out onto the terrace he shares with his brother. He has that eight o’clock meeting with Jörgen Grünlicht in Carl Palmcrona’s old office at the National Inspectorate of Strategic Products.
The air is already warm but not yet humid. His younger brother, Robert, has opened the French doors to his apartment and come out to sit on a lounge chair. Robert hasn’t shaved yet and just lies there with his arms hanging limply. He’s staring up into the chestnut tree’s foliage, still damp from the morning dew. He’s wearing his worn-out silk bathrobe, the same one their father used to wear every Saturday morning.
“Good morning,” Robert says.
Axel nods without looking at his brother.
“I’ve just repaired a Fiorini for Charles Greendirk,” Robert says in an attempt at conversation.
“He’ll be happy, I’m sure,” Axel says. He sounds down.
“Something bothering you?”
“Yes, a bit,” Axel admits. “I might be changing jobs.”
“Well, why not?” Robert says, though his thoughts are already elsewhere.
Axel looks at his brother’s kind face with its deep wrinkles, and at his bald head. So many things could have been different between them.
“How’s your heart?” he asks. “Still pumping away?”
Robert puts his hand on his chest before he answers. “Seems to be.”
“That’s good.”
“What about your poor old liver?”
Axel shrugs and turns back into his apartment.
“We’re going to play Schubert this evening,” his brother calls out.
“How nice.”
“Maybe you could …”
Robert falls silent and looks at his brother. Then he changes the subject.
“That girl in the room upstairs—”
“Her name is Beverly.”
“How long is she going to be living here?”
“I don’t know,” Axel says. “I’ve promised her that she can stay until she finds a student apartment.”
“You always want to rescue birds with broken wings.”
“She’s not a bird, she’s a human being,” Axel says.
Axel opens the tall French doors to his own apartment and watches the reflection of his face glide past on the curved glass surfaces as he steps inside. Once behind the curtain, he silently observes his brother. He watches Robert get up from his lounge chair, scratch his stomach, and walk down the stairs from the terrace to the small garden and workshop. As soon as Robert is gone, Axel returns to his room and gently wakes up Beverly, who is still asleep with her mouth wide open.
The National Inspectorate of Strategic Products is a government agency that was established in 1996 to take over responsibility for all matters concerning arms exports and dual-usage items. Its offices are on the sixth floor of a salmon-pink building located at Klarabergs Viaduct 90. After riding up in the lift, Axel sees that Jörgen Grünlicht is already waiting for him, nodding impatiently. Grünlicht is a tall man with a blotchy face: irregular patterns of white patches contrast with his reddish skin.
Grünlicht slips his identification card in and keys in the code to admit Axel. They walk to Carl Palmcrona’s office. It’s a corner suite with two huge windows overlooking a cityscape of southbound roads behind Central Station and across from Lake Klara and the dark rectangle of city hall.
Despite its exclusive location, there’s something austere about the ISP offices. The floors are laid with synthetic carpet and the furniture is simple and neutral in pine and white—its neutrality almost an intentional reminder of the morally dubious nature of arms exports, Axel thinks with a shudder. This is the national agency entrusted with the responsibility of making sure that Swedish weapons do not wind up in war zones and dictatorships. But Axel can’t help feeling that under Carl Palmcrona’s directorship, the ISP began to drift off course. It was less inclined to cooperate with the United Nations, and more likely to behave like the proactive Export Council. Axel is not a pacifist. He is well aware that arms exports are vital for Sweden’s balance of trade. But he believes that the Swedish neutrality policy must be protected as well.
He looks around Palmcrona’s office. Being there so soon after his death feels macabre.
A high-pitched whine is being emitted from the light system in the ceiling. It sounds like an inharmonious overtone from a piano. Axel remembers he once heard the same overtone on a recording of John Cage’s first sonata.
Closing the door behind them, Grünlicht asks Axel to take a seat. He appears tense in spite of his welcoming smile.
“Good that you could come so quickly,” he says, handing over the folder with the contract.
“Of course.”
“Go ahead and read through it,” Grünlicht says as he sweeps his hand over the desk.
Axel sits in a straight-backed chair and puts the folder back down on the desk. He then looks up.
“I’ll take a look at it and get back to you next week.”
“It’s a very good contract, but this offer won’t last for ever.”
“I know you’re in a rush.”
He looks at Grünlicht’s pale, expectant face.
Axel knows there is no one in this country with a track record that can equal his own. This is perhaps the greatest argument for him to take the position. If he says yes, it will enable him to prevent some idiot from getting control over arms exports. He can stay committed to limiting the spread of weapons—and stay in Sweden with Beverly.
Grünlicht leans forward and says, with a shadow of guilt in his voice, “I know I’m pushing you, Axel, and I’m sorry for that. But the situation is a bit urgent. Palmcrona left several urgent matters hanging, and the companies are about to lose their deals, and—”
“Why doesn’t the government take over for the time being?”
“Sure,” Grünlicht says with a thin smile. “They can certainly take over, but they would still need advice, preferably from you.”
Silence fills the room. It’s as if feathers are falling all around them.
“I hear what you’re saying,” says Axel slowly. “But I’m still …”
Grünlicht slides the folder directly in front of Axel. “I just got off the phone with the prime minister. He asked if you were on board. You really should look at the agreement we’ve produced for you. It’s a pretty—”
“I believe you,” says Axel, “but you should know that I’ve been sick.”
“Who has not?”
“I mean, I have—”
“We know all about it,” says Grünlicht.
Axel lowers his eyes. “Of course.”
“But we also know that the problems are a thing of the past. ISP is an authority based on trust. You have worked against the flow of weapons to war zones, and that is precisely what ISP stands for. There is only one name at the top of the government’s list—and it is yours.”
As Axel reaches for the agreement, he wonders if it is possible that they know everything about him—except for Beverly.
Opening the folder, he tries to push away the gut feeling that this is a gold-plated trap.
He reads through the contract carefully. It’s very good, almost too good. Often he feels a slight blush as he reads through it.
“Welcome aboard,” Grünlicht says, as he hands Axel a pen.
Axel thanks him and signs his name. He stands up, turns his back to Grünlicht, and looks out the window. The three crowns of city hall are erased by the haze.
“Not a bad view, is it? Better than mine from the Foreign Office,” says Grünlicht over his shoulder.
Axel turns towards him as he continues.
“You’ve got three cases at the moment. The one with Kenya is under the greatest time pressure. It’s a big, important piece of business. I advise you to look at it right away. Carl has already done the preliminary work, so …”
Grünlicht falls silent and pushes another document towards him. He watches Axel closely with a strange gleam in his eye. Axel has the feeling that if Grünlicht could, he’d put the pen in Axel’s hand and hold it there while he signs.
“You’ll be a fine replacement for Carl.”
Without waiting for an answer, Grünlicht heads out of the door. “Meeting with the expert group this afternoon at three,” he calls as he goes.
Axel is left standing alone in the room. A heavy silence descends around him. He sits back down at the desk and begins to glance through the document that Carl Palmcrona had left unsigned behind him. It seems perfectly well-prepared. It deals with the export of one and a quarter million units of 5.56 x 45 millimetre ammunition to Kenya. The Export Control Committee had voted for a positive recommendation. Palmcrona’s preliminary decision had also been positive. Silencia Defense AB was a well-known, established firm. But without this last step of the general director’s signature on the permission form, the actual export could not take place.
Axel leans back and suddenly Palmcrona’s mysterious words come back to him: I’ll pull an Algernon so I won’t reap my nightmare.