The Girl Who Saved the King of Sweden. Jonas Jonasson

park bench not far from the police station, with paint and brush in hand.

      In the courtroom, sparks had flown between the defending Ingmar and the spectating Henrietta. This was probably partly because she was tempted by the forbidden fruit, but above all it was because Ingmar was so . . . full of life . . . unlike her father, who just went around waiting for everything to go to hell so that he and Communism could take over, at least in Södertälje. Her father had always been a revolutionary, but after 7 April 1937, when he signed what turned out to be the country’s 999,999th radio licence, he also became bitter and full of dark thoughts. A tailor in Hudiksvall, two hundred miles away, was celebrated the very next day for having signed the millionth licence. The tailor received not only fame (he got to be on the radio!) but also a commemorative silver trophy worth six hundred kronor. All while Henrietta’s dad got nothing more than a long face.

      He never got over this event; he lost his (already limited) ability to see the humour in anything, not least the prank of paying tribute to King Gustaf V on the wall of the Communist Party’s meeting place. He argued the party’s case in court himself and demanded eighteen years of prison for Ingmar Qvist, who was instead sentenced to a fine of fifteen kronor.

      Henrietta’s father’s misfortune knew no bounds. First the radio licences. And the relative disappointment in Södertälje District Court. And his daughter, who subsequently fell into the arms of the Royalist. And, of course, the cursed capitalism, which always seemed to land on its feet.

      When Henrietta went on to decide that she and Ingmar would marry in the church, Södertälje’s Communist leader broke off contact with his daughter once and for all, upon which Henrietta’s mother broke off contact with Henrietta’s father, met a new man – a German military attaché – at Södertälje Station, moved to Berlin with him just before the war ended, and was never heard from again.

      Henrietta wanted to have children, preferably as many as possible. Ingmar thought this was basically a good idea, not least because he appreciated the method of production. Just think of that very first time, in the back of Henrietta’s father’s car, two days after the trial. That had been something, all right, although Ingmar had had to pay for it – he hid in his aunt’s cellar while his father-in-law-to-be searched all over Södertälje for him. Ingmar shouldn’t have left that used condom in the car.

      Oh well, what’s done is done. And anyway, it was a blessing that he’d happened across that box of condoms for American soldiers, because things had to be done in the proper order so that nothing would go wrong.

      But by this Ingmar did not mean making himself a career so he could support a family. He worked at the post office in Södertälje, or the ‘Royal Mail Service’, as he liked to say. His salary was average, and there was every chance that it would stay that way.

      Henrietta earned nearly double what her husband did, because she was clever and quick with both needle and thread. She had a large and regular clientele; the family would have lived very comfortably if it weren’t for Ingmar and his ever-growing talent for squandering everything Henrietta managed to save.

      Again, children would be great, but first Ingmar had to fulfil his life’s mission, and that took focus. Until his mission was completed, there mustn’t be any extraneous side projects.

      Henrietta protested her husband’s choice of words. Children were life itself and the future – not a side project.

      ‘If that’s how you feel, then you can take your box of American soldiers’ condoms and sleep on the kitchen sofa,’ she said.

      Ingmar squirmed. Of course he didn’t mean that children were extraneous, it was just that . . . well, Henrietta already knew what. It was, of course, this matter of His Majesty the King. He just had to get that out of the way first. It wouldn’t take for ever.

      ‘Dear, sweet Henrietta. Can’t we sleep together again tonight? And maybe do a little practising for the future?’

      Henrietta’s heart melted, of course. As it had so many times before and as it would many times yet to come.

      What Ingmar called his life’s mission was to shake the hand of the King of Sweden. It had started as a wish, but had developed into a goal. The precise moment at which it became a true obsession was, as previously mentioned, not easy to say. It was easier to explain where and when the whole thing started.

      On Saturday, 16 June 1928, His Majesty King Gustaf V celebrated his seventieth birthday. Ingmar Qvist, who was fourteen at the time, went with his mother and father to Stockholm to wave the Swedish flag outside the palace and then go to Skansen Museum and Zoo – where they had bears and wolves!

      But their plans changed a bit. It turned out to be far too crowded at the palace; instead the family stood along the procession route a few hundred yards away, where the king and his Victoria were expected to pass by in an open carriage.

      And so they did. At which point everything turned out better than Ingmar’s mother and father could ever have imagined. Because just next to the Qvist family were twenty students from Lundsbergs Boarding School; they were there to give a bouquet of flowers to His Majesty as thanks for the support the school received, not least because of the involvement of Crown Prince Gustaf Adolf. It had been decided that the carriage would stop briefly so that His Majesty could step down, receive the flowers and thank the children.

      Everything went as planned and the king received his flowers, but when he turned to step up into the carriage again he caught sight of Ingmar. And stopped short.

      ‘What a beautiful lad,’ he said, and he took two steps up to the boy and tousled his hair. ‘Just a second – here you go,’ he went on, and from his inner pocket he took a sheet of commemorative stamps that had just been released for the king’s special day.

      He handed the stamps to young Ingmar, smiled, and said, ‘I could eat you right up.’ Then he tousled the boy’s hair once more before he climbed up to the furiously glaring queen.

      ‘Did you say “thank you”, Ingmar?’ asked his mother once she’d recovered from the fact that the king had touched her son – and given him a present.

      ‘No-o,’ Ingmar stammered as he stood there with stamps in hand. ‘No, I didn’t say anything. It was like he was . . . too grand to talk to.’

      The stamps became Ingmar’s most cherished possession, of course. And two years later he started working at the post office in Södertälje. He started out as a clerk of the lowest rank possible in the accounting department; sixteen years later he had climbed absolutely nowhere.

      Ingmar was infinitely proud of the tall, stately monarch. Every day, Gustaf V stared majestically past him from all the stamps the subject had reason to handle at work. Ingmar gazed humbly and lovingly back as he sat there in the Royal Mail Service’s royal uniform, even though it was not at all necessary to wear it in the accounting department.

      But there was just this one issue: the king was looking past Ingmar. It was as if he didn’t see his subject and therefore couldn’t receive the subject’s love. Ingmar so terribly wanted to be able to look the king in the eye. To apologize for not saying ‘thank you’ that time when he was fourteen. To proclaim his eternal loyalty.

      ‘So terribly’ was right. It became more and more important . . . the desire to look him in the eye, speak with him, shake his hand.

      More and more important.

      And even more important.

      His Majesty, of course, was only getting older. Soon it would be too late. Ingmar Qvist could no longer just wait for the king to march into the Södertälje Post Office one day. That had been his dream all these years, but now he was about to wake up from it.

      The king wasn’t going to seek out Ingmar.

      Ingmar had no choice but to seek out the king.

      Then he and Henrietta would make a baby, he promised.

      * * *

      The Qvist family’s already poor existence kept getting