The Egyptian delegation had just left, and the Fifa officials were beside themselves with delight. The complimentary flyswatters shaped like the Nile Delta had been a resounding success, but the complimentary flies, encrusted around the complimentary date cookies, added an air of glamorous authenticity that everyone agreed really topped off a splendid presentation.
They had just finished marking out a racetrack on the rug and were winding up their new clockwork camels when a head popped around the door.
”About bloody time,” said Sepp Blatter’s masseur, Monsieur Dafarge, who was also the senior bid adjudicator. ”Three sugars in mine. Leave the donuts on the desk and close the door on the way out.”
”I’m Danny Jordaan,” said the head. ”The South African bid delegation?”
”Go away and come back in 10 minutes,” said M Dafarge.
Ten minutes later the mood was sombre. Three camels had bogged down in the rug and disintegrated, and the fourth had haemorrhaged a mainspring that had shot it, hump and all, over the bar fridge and out of the window. Some complimentary flies were floating face down in a glass of sherry. Jordaan and his advance team were ushered in.
”What have you got for us?” asked Fifa’s director of acquisitions, lugubriously thumbing the already rusting head of his camel.
”Well,” said Jordaan. ”There’s a presentation, and then there are a few people…”
”No, I mean, what have you got for us? Ostrich-egg clocks, bushman thumb-pianos, that sort of thing. Pierre here is awfully fond of those Zulu girls, the ones with no clothes on. I don’t suppose you brought one of those?”
”I’m sorry, we didn’t think…”
”Oh, just get on with it.”
Two pages and six pie-charts into the presentation, things were looking grim. Irvin Khoza kept clutching at his tie-knot and coughing, and M Dafarge was playing Snake on his cellphone. It was time for Operation Witblitz Koeksister. Jordaan gave the pre-arranged signal — a rapid clicking of his fingers while peering over his shoulder at the door — and Charlize Theron entered.
”Mr Dafarge, gentlemen,” she said, her Benonican accent crisp as an East Rand winter morning and twice as smoky. ”This bid means the world to me, because it means the world to my country. Like all my fellow South Africans I love this great sport, this noble game, and if you give your support to South Africa, we have the human spirit, the love, to make this the greatest ice-hockey world championship ever.”
A tear gleamed in the corner of her eye and then plopped on to the cookie crumbs at her feet.
”That’s what I’m talking about!” cried M Dafarge, hammering on the table-top with a shoe. ”Damn good presentation. Especially the dress. Call me.”
Jordaan had been to enough Congress of South African Trade Unions meetings to know what Iscor shop-stewards always said: strike while the iron is hot. In a flash Charlize was gone and a stately figure appeared at the door.
”Holy crap!” cried the panel. ”It’s Morgan Freeman!”
”Actually, it’s Nelson Mandela,” said Jordaan.
”Who?”
”Do the little dance, Madiba. The little shuffly one.”
M Dafarge yawned.
”That’s a dance? Looks more like the Tin Man from The Wizard of Oz before he got oiled.”
”But it’s Nelson Mandela!”
Dafarge shrugged. ”Look, Danny, he seems like a nice old man, but let’s be honest: he’s no Justin Timberlake, is he now? I mean I think it’s lovely about the Nobel Prize and all that, but there’s no X-factor, you know?”
”He’s an ex-political prisoner.”
”Don’t get cute, son. Not with me. I’ll be frank, you should have got Morgan Freeman.”
A large man in dark glasses appeared through a side door and started helping Jordaan pack up his documents.
”I’ve got FW de Klerk out there!” cried Jordaan as he was lifted to his feet. ”How about Desmond Tutu?”
”Sure, pal, great. An apartheid politician and a stand-up comic in a cassock. Top stuff. Hey, next time bring a crack whore and a monkey with a banjo.”
Outside, the sun was setting. Soon the lepers of Zurich would be starting their nightly hunt for cheese offcuts. With a final effort Jordaan wrenched himself free and flung himself back through the doors.
”Did I mention that we expect visitors to spend around a billion pounds in two months?”
There was a long silence, and then M Dafarge offered him a date cookie.
”Let’s talk,” he said.