‘How short he is,’ someone was heard to remark.
He was relatively casually dressed, no medal-weighted uniform, but he moved jerkily, perhaps because he was not in control of where he was going. An experienced aide-de-camp in a white uniform led him around.
The noise level resumed after a while and the approximately three hundred returned to the gossip and easy chatter so characteristic of an event such as this. Sometimes, however, faces lit up with a genuine joy, old friends reunited.
A handful of photographers circulated in the crowd, but mostly around the king and those who had managed to capture his attention. It was obvious that the goal for many was to be photographed with the famous guest.
‘A spectacle,’ Jan Svensk commented to a co-worker.
‘And we get bread,’ the latter said, skillfully snatching a toothpick-pierced morsel from a passing plate.
A number of people from the Swedish Trade Council were gathered in a circle like a flock of schoolboys, one peal of laughter ringing out after another.
It was a relaxed atmosphere. Young and old jostled at the bar, Indians and Swedes, like gnus at the watering hole.
The king was led around, a strained, somewhat uncertain smile on his lips.
‘Poor man,’ someone said.
‘He probably would like nothing better than to have a drink and take it easy,’ said a young woman, whom Jan Svensk had noticed already when she arrived.
He approached the group she belonged to, and looked to see if he could spot anyone in her midst that he recognised.
An Indian man, dressed in what appeared to be a down jacket and a long kurta, and his friend, with a narrow face, thin moustache, and kind eyes, were introduced to the king. Jan Svensk drew closer in order to listen in. They turned out to be theatre people from Mysore.
A man with a blond crew cut, wearing a Nehru jacket, was explaining their work to the king.
‘Ah, children’s theatre,’ the regent said finally.
The men nodded and smiled.
‘Very good,’ the king said, and then that audience was over.
Jan Svensk drew back, mingled, but mostly longed for the buffet. An old acquaintance, whom Svensk had got to know when they worked together at Arcore but had not seen since then, came over and thumped him on the back.
‘It wasn’t exactly yesterday,’ he said.
Svensk examined his former colleague. He was one of the ones who had sold in time. It was rumoured that his profit was close to 70 million kronor. He was the same, the same smile and boyish appearance. But Svensk would never again allow himself to be taken in by such appearances. He had lost some of those kronor.
‘Feeding at the trough, I see,’ Svensk said.
‘Of course,’ his former colleague replied. ‘What are you up to these days?’
Svensk suddenly felt that he had no desire to discuss what he had done since they last met, not what he was up to, nor what he was doing in Bangalore, not anything actually that had to do with work.
‘Various things,’ he said.
‘Good stuff,’ his former colleague said, and sailed off. The message had gone through.
Elise, he thought, you should be here. An unexpected longing for her made him withdraw, back up for a party crossing his path, and set his sights on the buffet that had not yet been opened up. Then he went around and read from the small labels what was hiding under the well-polished lids.
‘Hungry?’ he heard a woman say behind his back, and he was taken with the thought that it was the young woman he had spied earlier and he turned expectantly.
Before him stood a woman in her sixties. She was wearing a light blue sari folded around her generous body.
‘Well, well,’ he said.
‘I don’t recognise you,’ she went on.
He pulled out the same old story again, for God knows which time, who he was and why he had come to Bangalore.
‘Gunlög Billström,’ she said, introducing herself. ‘I belong to the residents. I was “bangalored” long before most of the others.’
‘How long have you lived here?’
‘In India almost eighteen years, in Bangalore fourteen.’
‘Then you know most of the Swedes in the city?’
‘It is my area,’ she said with a smile. ‘I am the one who keeps tabs on the colonials.’
‘Sven-Arne Persson?’ he said.
The woman shook her head and her large earrings rattled.
‘From Uppsala. Around sixty, tall, fairly thin…’
A new shake.
‘He may have been here ten years.’
‘Strange,’ she said.
‘I thought you kept tabs on everyone,’ Svensk teased.
His comment had the desired effect. He saw her make an effort to play out the role she had laid claim to.
‘What does he do?’
‘I’ve no idea. He disappeared from Uppsala some ten, twelve years ago. I think it was 1993. Without a trace. And now I saw him here yesterday.’
‘That sounds exciting. A man who disappears.’
‘He was a county commissioner in Uppsala.’
The woman took a step closer. ‘Where did you see him?’
‘At Koshy’s.’
‘Strange,’ she repeated.
Then the lids to the food came off and the human wave that welled forth came between them. He saw her grab hold of a plate and be carried off by the race to the dishes that caused the ravenous masses to stream over to Svensk’s side of the festively lit ballroom. In the background, the Adolf Fredrik Boys’ Choir was singing ‘Uti Vår Hage’. The sound of talking in the room had died down. The focus was now on the food. Jan Svensk lingered in the background for a while observing the action, although he was very hungry. He exchanged a glance with the kitchen staff and they smiled at each other.
When the worst of the rush was over, he took a plate and helped himself to the delicacies.
When the time was approaching eleven, the crowd had thinned considerably. The king had retired. A couple of Svensk’s colleagues were standing around the bar, but he did not feel like joining them. It was enough with work during the day.
Gunlög Billström had also stayed behind. She was talking with the Swedish ambassador and the general consul of Chennai. Their gazes met and it made Svensk think of something important.
He approached the trio of women.
‘Excuse me,’ he said, and it was only the wine that allowed him to be so forward.
He introduced himself, told the ambassador and consul that he was looking for a Swedish man, missing for many years, and then turned to Gunlög Billström.
‘There was a piece of information I forgot to give you. Sven-Arne Persson is wall-eyed.’
‘Wall-eyed?’
‘Cross-eyed, only his eyes go in different directions,’ Svensk clarified.
‘Oh, then I know!’ Billström exclaimed. ‘I have seen him. It was at Lal Bagh. An extraordinary thing.’
She grabbed his arm, looking from the ambassador to the consul, and nodded enthusiastically, clearly satisfied to be someone who knew what was going on, before she turned her attention back to Svensk.
The ambassador and consul took the opportunity to slip away.
‘You see, it was perhaps three years ago. I was walking in Lal Bagh…’
‘What is Lal Bagh?’ Svensk interrupted.
‘The botanical gardens. I was there with a couple of girlfriends and then we see a man who is standing in some kind of thicket. Maybe it was bamboo, I don’t know. In the middle of that mess, with a big knife in his hand, or perhaps a saw, hacking wildly around him. It looked very funny. Suddenly, just as we were walking past, he called out. In Swedish! As you can guess, I was flabbergasted. A worker at Lal Bagh who speaks Swedish, can you imagine?’
‘What did he say?’
Gunlög Billström lowered her voice. ‘He said “Fucking hell.” He had cut his arm, not anything serious from what I understood, but there was some blood. We stopped and one of my friends asked him if he was all right.’
‘In Swedish?’
‘No, no, she is Indian. She was speaking English, not fluently of course, but fully comprehensible English. He was very polite, thanked her for her concern, and explained that it was a minor laceration. He actually used the Swedish word “a minor blessyr”.’