Suddenly, turning a er, I ran into a unit of the Swedish Army. Their vehicles were parked in orderly rows and filled the street, mostly six-by-sixes and jeeps, an occasional APC, all painted a sand color quite different from the Ameri Armys dark green. To the left of the vehicles, on a big school playground, they had set up two-mas of the same sand color, and the soldiers, blond red-faced men, lounged about among the tents, making not muoise. It was strao see them there, I assumed they were on their way to some sort of joint maneuvers with our own troops. But it was strao see them there.
I began talking to a lieutenant, a young, pleasant man; he showed me a portable chess clock hed made himself, which was for some reason covered in matchstick bamboo painted purple. I told him I was building an addition to the rear of my house, as a matter of fact I had with me a carpenters level Id just bought, and I showed him that. He said he had some free time, and asked if I needed help. I suggested that probably his unit would be moving out fairly soon, but he waved a hand to indicate that their departure was not immi. He seemed genuinely ied in assisting me, so I accepted.
His name was Bengt and he was from Uppsala, Id been there so we talked about Uppsala, then about Sto and Bornholm and Malmo. I asked him if he khe work of the Swedish poet Bodil Malmsten; he didnt. My house (not really mine, my sisters, but I lived there and paid rent) wasnt far away, we stood in the garden looking up at the rear windows on the parlor floor, I utting new ones in. So I climbed the ladder and he began handing me up one of the rather heavy prefab window frames, and my hammer slid from the top of the ladder and fell and smashed into his chess clock, which hed carefully placed on the ground, against the wall.
I apologized profusely, a told me not to worry, it didnt matter, but he kept shaking the chess clod turning it over in his hands, trying t it to life. I rushed down the ladder and apologized again, and looked at it myself, both dials were shattered and part of the purple matchstick g had e off. He said again not to worry, he could fix it, and that we should get on with the job.
After a while Bengt on the ladder tag the new frames to the two-by-fours with sixteen-penny nails. He was very skillful and the work was going quickly; I was standing in the garden steadying the ladder as he was sometimes required to lean out rather far. He slipped and tried to recover, and bashed his face against the wall, and broke his nose.
He stood in the garden holding his h both hands, the hands as if clasped in prayer over his nose. I apologized profusely. I ran into the house and got some ice cubes and paper towels and told him Id take him to the hospital right away but he shook his head and said no, they had doctors of their own. I wao do something for him so I took him in and sat him down and cooked him some of my fried chi, which is rather well-known although the secret isnt much of a secret, just lots of lemon-pepper marinade and then squeezing fresh lemon juice over it just before serving. I could see he was really very disced about his nose and I had to keep giving him fresh paper towels but he plimented me very highly on the chi and gave me a Swedish recipe for chi stuffed with parsley and butter and stewed, which I wrote down.
The told me various things about the Swedish Army. He said that it was a tough army and a sober one, but sm