“But that’s fantastic news,” said the receptionist, in a tone so genuine that the priest was shocked. “Let us come and pick you up on the day you’re freed. I think I have a job for you,” he said, to the priest’s double shock.
“God be with us!” said Hitman Anders.
The priest said nothing. She had lost the ability to speak.
* * *
Per Persson had, during the present meeting, noticed something that had not occurred to the priest. Thanks to Leviticus 19:27–28, Hitman Anders had transformed himself into an exact copy of Santa Claus. All they would have to do was groom his tousled hair and put a more Santa-like pair of glasses on him. The beard was real, of course, and it was just the perfect shade of white.
The receptionist took this as a sign from . . . someone . . . and one instant later, the Santa Concept came to him. It was as though a higher power had been involved, if only he hadn’t known beyond all shadow of a doubt that no higher power, no matter how high, would ever lift a finger to help either him or his priest.
CHAPTER 69
As soon as the receptionist and the priest were alone again, one explained to the other what had been revealed to him in the visiting room at the prison. Once they got home, they sat down to page through some old issues of the local Gotlands Allehanda and more or less immediately found reason to believe that the receptionist’s idea would hold water. It was an article about a man who could not continue to live in his rental apartment because the walls were full of bedbugs. The landlord refused to consider the bedbugs his problem, and now the man had nowhere to live, yet he was forced to keep paying rent.
“All I have to live on is my retirement pension,” said the old man to the newspaper, feeling sorry for himself with good reason.
The old man’s miserable situation didn’t much interest the receptionist or the priest. He was far too wrinkled and stooping to have any sort of commercial value. He and his bedbugs, therefore, would have to manage as best they could, although the receptionist spent a second or two considering whether he should phone the old man and tell him about bleach, which seemed to kill just about anything.
But the fact that the old man had told his sob story to a local newspaper and that another unfortunate soul of a different sort had done the same in the competitor paper, Gotlands Tidningar, just a few issues later, gave the priest and the receptionist all the confirmation they needed.
The number of distressing stories in daily publications across the country ought to be nearly infinite. Even if they didn’t count old men with bedbugs, millionaires with Spanish slug infestations in their yards, and wounded rats tossed into garbage cans by emotionally disturbed teenagers with airguns, there would still be an infinite number.
The receptionist took out one of the two tablets he had purchased a few years earlier with money from the collection buckets and got to work.
* * *
“How’s it going?” the priest asked, as she rubbed her belly and watched her husband, who had his nose in an iPad and a notebook at his side.
“Good, thanks,” said the receptionist, telling her that the final order of an electronic copy of a Swedish daily paper was done and done.
“Ljusdals-Posten,” he said. “One hundred and ninety-nine kronor per month.”
Well, why not? the priest wondered. Ljusdal was lovely, but that didn’t mean there weren’t people there for whom one might feel sorry. And then she made the mistake of asking to which other newspapers they had electronic access (because the answer almost never ended).
“I’ve got the list here,” said the receptionist. “Let’s see . . . Okay, Östersunds-Posten, Dala-Demokraten, Gefle Dagblad, Uppsala Nya Tidning, Nerikes Allehanda, Sydsvenskan, Svenska Dagbla—”
“Stop! That’s enough,” said the priest.
“No, it’s not, if we’re going to build up the infrastructure we need to represent every little corner of the nation. I’ve got more here and just as many again on the other side of this piece of paper. There must be around fifty altogether. And it’s not free, although a few have introductory offers. Hats off to Blekinge Läns Tidning, by the way. One krona for a month-long trial period.”
“We could practically afford two of those,” said the priest. “Too bad it would probably say the same thing in both.”
The receptionist smiled and called up his internal Excel spreadsheet. In the long run, their subscription budget would cost around a hundred thousand kronor for the whole year, but introductory pricing, short-term subscriptions, and trial periods had brought their initial investment down to an amount their available funds would allow. This would probably end well for both giver and (above all) taker. Other people’s generosity was generally a bit greater than their own, which guaranteed a positive number on the bottom line. Maybe not from the start, but within a time frame short enough that they could feel good about it.
“Aside from the fact that I think other people’s generosity is generally much greater than our own, I am in complete agreement, my dear,” said the priest.
The greatest threat to their success, she thought, was Santa Claus himself. Hitman Anders was and remained a security risk. But if their plan went to Hell for one reason or another, they’d just have to accept it. The receptionist’s idea was far too attractive not to try out on a full scale immediately.
“So let tomorrow bring worries of its own. Today’s trouble is enough for today. Matthew six, verse thirty-four.”
“Did you just voluntarily quote the Bible?” asked the receptionist.
“Yes. Imagine that.”
* * *
Humanity, in general, is a potpourri of many traits. For example: stinginess, self-involvedness, jealousy, ignorance, stupidity, and fearfulness. But also: kindness, cleverness, friendliness, forgivness, considerateness—and generosity. Not all of these traits find room in every soul, as the priest and the receptionist knew, not least from personal experience. Philosopher Immanuel Kant very possibly hypothesized that each person bore a functional moral compass within himself only because he never had occasion to meet our priest or our receptionist.
The new take-and-(by all means)-give plan, which had vague origins in a fake commercial Santa in Visby whose sole gift was gingerbread for children, was now fully cobbled together, polished, and ready.
First the receptionist had opened an investigation, led and implemented by himself. He needed to gather knowledge of what the market and any potential competitors looked like.
There were several competitors out there to consider. For example, it turned out that the Swedish postal service accepted more than a hundred thousand letters to Santa Claus each year, addressed to “Tomten” (Santa’s Swedish name) at “17300 Tomteboda, Sweden.” The postal representative proudly told the receptionist, over the phone, that everyone who wrote received an answer—along with a small present.
The receptionist said, “Thank you for the information,” hung up, and mumbled that the value of that “present” must surely be less than the cost of the postage. Which meant that it entailed a combination of extremely limited goodness and extremely limited profitability. Not such a bad idea, at the heart of it, but it wouldn’t quite do. Taking into account administrative costs, such an enterprise would likely result in zero profit at best. And the only numbers the priest and the receptionist disliked more than zero were those that began with a minus sign.
Beyond the postal service, there was Santa Land in Dalarna. Because the receptionist read what he wanted to read into what Santa Land had to offer, he came to the conclusion that it was an amusement park in which a person who paid the entry fee, ate and drank at a cost of a few hundred kronor, and stayed overnight for a few thousand, was allowed to hand over a wish list to a fake Santa, who in turn could use said lists as kindling later that evening.
This idea wasn’t so bad either, but it was clearly biased towards taking rather than giving. Balance was crucial in this matter!
Another Santa Claus, with a polyester beard, li
ved in Rovaniemi, Finland. The concept seemed similar to that in Dalarna. With the same problems and shortcomings.
Incidentally, it turned out the Danes were of the opinion that Santa lived in Greenland. The Americans bet on the North Pole, the Turks on Turkey, and the Russians on Russia. Out of all of these, only the Americans made a proper industry out of their Santa, partly in the way he seemed to prefer Coca-Cola over all other beverages, and partly in the form of at least one annual Christmas film in which Santa first screwed everything up and then, at the last minute, made all the children in the entire world happy. Or at least one of them. For pretend. For twelve dollars per movie ticket.
Then, of course, there was also Santa’s cousin, Sinterklaas, or St. Nicholas. According to what the receptionist learned, he had begun as the patron saint of all former thieves, and that was certainly a lovely thought. But, still, he didn’t really count because he brought children presents too early—on December 6.
“Though doesn’t it depend on how global we want to go with this?” said the priest.
“One country at a time,” said the receptionist. “Just take Germany, with ten times as many citizens as Sweden has. That would probably require ten Santas of a Hitman Anders nature, and all would need the ability to say at least “Frohe Weihnachten” without going totally off the rails.”
Two words in foreignese. That was two more than Hitman Anders would be capable of dealing with, as both the priest and the receptionist were aware (unless they were talking about the Latin names of mushrooms). There was also the risk that “Hosanna” was German for “Hosanna” as well.
***
So, for a Santa who gave out presents for real, without being paid ahead of time, competition was limited if not non-existent.
The profitability of this business venture would depend on how many sob stories they could find in the papers. Preferably involving single mothers, sick children, or abandoned pets of every adorable ilk. Ugly old men with bedbugs would not set quite as many hearts afire; neither would tortured rats in a trash can. When it came to multimillionaires with Spanish slugs in their yards, Swedish tradition would seem to hold that the millionaires deserved it.
The plan to proceed, based on carefully selected stories in the local paper, was truly brilliant in that the recipient in question had by definition already spoken to the media once, and thus ought to be willing to do it again, following a surprise encounter with Santa Claus.
This, in turn, would generate traffic to the website where one would discover Santa—with a beard that could withstand tugging.
And if God was adequately good (the receptionist was about to say), this, in turn, would lead to a donation or two. Or a hundred. Or why not a thousand?
All that remained before the plan could be set in motion was for the Prison Service to follow through with its own plan—as crazy as it was splendid—to set Hitman Anders free.
CHAPTER 70
The basic idea of Project Santa Claus, of course, was that the only thing that could possibly be more fun than giving was taking. A person who managed to do both, as the priest and the receptionist saw it, should have every chance of living a long and happy life. After all, it wasn’t exactly their goal to starve to death along with their as-yet-unborn child. Not even Hitman Anders deserved that sort of fate.
With that in the back of his mind, the receptionist created a Facebook page with the slogan “The real Santa Claus—spreads joy year-round.”
The page was full of messages of love in varying tenors (none of which was of a religious nature). In the space that was left, a message ran that everyone was free to open his heart (that is, his wallet) to help Santa in his mission. This could occur via bank transfer, credit card, direct transfer, smartphone, or one of a few other methods. No matter which it was, the money ended up in an account at Handelsbanken in Visby. The account belonged to the Swedish firm Real Santa Claus AB, which was held by an anonymous Swiss foundation. Under no circumstances could they allow word to get out of who was spreading joy in people’s lives; the Hitman Anders brand had been run into the ground. Meanwhile, Santa Claus’s own brand had been way up there for ages, along with Nelson Mandela, Mother Teresa, and the guy who would remain nameless.
Thus far, the plan was remarkably similar to the internet-based division of Hitman Anders’s previous donation site. (These days, that site was full of comments from people demanding their money back.)
To be on the safe side, the receptionist had also ordered the taxpayer’s directory, all of Sweden’s twenty-three editions of it, for 271 kronor a pop. This had cost more than 6,200 kronor, but it was worth it. In doing so, he gained access to names, addresses, and taxable employment income, plus capital income, for every taxpayer in the country. That was how Sweden worked. Nothing was a secret. Aside from the identity of Santa Claus. It would never do to donate money to someone the newspaper felt sorry for, then discover that this person was sitting on an annual income of two million kronor in a yellow turn-of-the-century thirteen-room manor house in Djursholm. With or without Spanish slugs.
Santa Claus’s very first mission would instead come to involve a young woman with an address that spoke of apartment living. Further investigation revealed that the apartment was rented and the woman’s taxable income was 99,000 kronor per year.
CHAPTER 71
Thirty-two-year-old Maria Johansson lived in a cramped two-room apartment in Ystad, as far south as you can get in Sweden, with her five-year-old daughter, Gisela. The dad was not at home; he hadn’t been for over a year. Mama Maria was unemployed and someone, according to Ystads Allehanda, had thrown a stone through her bedroom window. There was a problem in getting the insurance money to repair it because the insurer considered it proven that Gisela’s father had thrown that stone one Saturday night. The main point of evidence was that he had confessed during a police inquiry, in which he admitted that after visiting a restaurant he had gone to the home of his former girlfriend, screamed at her, and accused her of being a prostitute when she refused to open the door and allow him to have sex with her, even if he gave her money. He had rounded off his visit with that stone through the window.
The problem, from an insurance perspective, was that Gisela’s father was still listed as living at the address in question. One who knowingly breaks items in his own home cannot expect reimbursement from the insurance company. Thus Maria and little Gisela would be forced to celebrate Christmas with a sheet of Masonite covering the bedroom window, or spend the last of Maria’s savings on a new window and cancel Gisela’s Christmas. Since winter was cold even way down south, Gisela would end up with neither presents nor tree. That was how things stood when there was a knock at the door of Maria and her daughter’s home. Mama Maria opened it cautiously, in case it was . . .
But it wasn’t. It was Santa Claus. The real Santa Claus, it appeared. He bowed and gave Gisela an interactive doll, one she could talk to! The doll was given the name “Nanne” and became Gisela’s most cherished possession, even though Nanne’s programming had been rather sketchy.
“I love you, Nanne,” Gisela might say.
“I don’t know. I can’t tell the time,” Nanne would reply.
With the doll, Santa handed over an envelope containing twenty thousand kronor to Gisela’s mom. And then he said, “Merry Christmas!” because that’s what Santa says. After that, he happened to add, “Hosanna!” in violation of his instructions, because this Santa was one reindeer short of an airborne sleigh.
He vanished as quickly as he’d come, in a taxi driven by a man called Taxi Torsten. In the back seat sat two happy elves, neither in elf clothing, one eight months pregnant.
Operation Santa Claus had begun in Ystad. After this, the journey continued northward. Next stop, Sjöbo. Followed by Hörby, Höör, Hässleholm, and on up through the country. On average, another gift of between ten and thirty thousand kronor was given each day, for four weeks in a row. Sometimes in the form of money, sometimes Christmas presents, sometimes both.<
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Single mothers were good. Orphaned refugee children were almost better, though girls were preferable, and the younger they were, the more financial potential there was. The sick and the handicapped worked well, too. Cute little boys and girls with cancer—bingo.
As it happened, Santa Claus had been to Hässleholm in a former life. Taxi Torsten drove to a particular address, Santa entered the stairwell and rang the bell at the home of the elderly Salvationist he had rained money over once before.
The Salvationist opened the door, accepted a fat envelope containing a hundred thousand kronor, looked inside, and said, “God bless you. But haven’t we met before?”
At this, Santa hurried off to his taxi and was gone before the Salvationist could say, “May I offer you some mashed turnips?”
According to the budget, the first month’s expenses ought to come very close to the five hundred thousand kronor they had left. And that would mean their adventures and their money would be gone by February—assuming they received nothing in return.
But for the period from December 20 to January 20, the overall expenses were no higher than 460,000 kronor, despite the extraordinary outlay in Hässleholm and the fact that they had worked nonstop for those first four weeks. Beyond this, the plan for the future was to spend three weeks of each month on the Swedish roads and the fourth week resting at home on Gotland. Assuming—again—that they didn’t go bankrupt. In which case their only recourse would be to produce children as rapidly as possible.
“Better than we budgeted for!” said the priest, becoming so excited that her waters broke. “Ow! Whoa! We have to go to the hospital now.”
“Hold on! I’m not ready yet,” said the receptionist.
“Hosanna!” said Santa Claus.
“I’ll bring the car around,” said Taxi Torsten.