The Girl Who Saved the King of Sweden by Jonas Jonasson Read Free Book Online Page A

perhaps this arrangement was the solution to Nombeko’s dilemma. She could move in with the engineer, let her wounds heal and run away on the day she felt that the National Library in Pretoria could no longer wait. After all, she was about to be sentenced to domestic service, not prison.
    She was considering accepting the judge’s suggestion, but she bought herself a few extra seconds to think by arguing a little bit, despite her aching jaw: ‘That would mean eighty rand per month net pay. I would have to work for the engineer for seven years, three months and twenty days in order to pay it all back. Your Honour, don’t you think that’s a rather harsh sentence for a person who happened to get run over on a pavement by someone who shouldn’t even have been driving on the street, given his alcohol intake?’
    The judge was completely taken aback. It wasn’t just that the girl had expressed herself. And expressed herself well . And called the engineer’s sworn description of events into question. She had also calculated the extent of the sentence before anyone else in the room had been close to doing so. He ought to chastise the girl, but . . . he was too curious to know whether her calculations were correct. So he turned to the court aide, who confirmed, after a few minutes, that ‘Indeed, it looks like we’re talking about – as we heard – seven years, three months, and . . . yes . . . about twenty days or so.’
    Engelbrecht van der Westhuizen took a gulp from the small brown bottle of cough medicine he always had with him in situations where one couldn’t simply drink brandy. He explained this gulp by saying that the shock of the horrible accident must have exacerbated his asthma.
    But the medicine did him good: ‘I think we’ll round down,’ he said. ‘Exactly seven years will do. And anyway, the dents on the car can be hammered out.’
    Nombeko decided that a few weeks or so with this Westhuizen was better than thirty years in prison. Yes, it was too bad that the library would have to wait, but it was a very long walk there, and most people would prefer not to undertake such a journey with a broken leg. Not to mention all the rest. Including the blister that had formed as a result of the first sixteen miles.
    In other words, a little break couldn’t hurt, assuming the engineer didn’t run her over a second time.
    ‘Thanks, that’s generous of you, Engineer van der Westhuizen,’ she said, thereby accepting the judge’s decision.
    ‘Engineer van der Westhuizen’ would have to do. She had no intention of calling him ‘ baas .’
    * * *
    Immediately following the trial, Nombeko ended up in the passenger seat beside Engineer van der Westhuizen, who headed north, driving with one hand while swigging a bottle of Klipdrift brandy with the other. The brandy was identical in odour and colour to the cough medicine Nombeko had seen him drain during the trial.
    This took place on 16 June 1976.
    On the same day, a bunch of school-aged adolescents in Soweto got tired of the government’s latest idea: that their already inferior education should henceforth be conducted in Afrikaans. So the students went out into the streets to air their disapproval. They were of the opinion that it was easier to learn something when one understood what one’s instructor was saying. And that a text was more accessible to the reader if one could interpret the text in question. Therefore – said the students – their education should continue to be conducted in English.
    The surrounding police listened with interest to the youths’ reasoning, and then they argued the government’s point in that special manner of the South African authorities.
    By opening fire.
    Straight into the crowd of demonstrators.
    Twenty-three demonstrators died more or less instantly. The next day, the police advanced their argument with helicopters and tanks. Before the dust had settled, another hundred human lives had been extinguished. The