The Hundred-Year-Old Man Who Climbed Out of the Window and Disappeared
Jonas Jonasson
‘Things are what they are, and whatever will be will be.’
Contents
The Hundred-Year-Old Man Who Climbed Out of the Window and Disappeared
Title Page
Epigraph
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Epilogue
Acknowledgements
Biographical note
International Praise
Interview with the Author
Reading Group Discussion Questions
Copyright
The Hundred-Year-Old Man Who Climbed Out of the Window and Disappeared
Chapter 1
Monday, 2nd May 2005
You might think he could have made up his mind earlier, and been man enough to tell the others of his decision. But Allan Karlsson had never been given to pondering things too long.
So the idea had barely taken hold in the old man’s head before he opened the window of his room on the ground floor of the Old People’s Home in the town of Malmköping, and stepped out – into the flowerbed.
This manoeuvre required a bit of effort, since Allan was one hundred years old. On this very day in fact. There was less than an hour to go before his birthday party would begin in the lounge of the Old People’s Home. The mayor would be there. And the local paper. And all the other old people. And the entire staff, led by bad-tempered Director Alice.
It was only the Birthday Boy himself who didn’t intend to turn up.
Chapter 2
Monday, 2nd May 2005
Allan Karlsson hesitated as he stood in the flowerbed that ran along one side of the Old People’s Home. He was wearing a brown jacket with brown trousers and on his feet he had a pair of brown indoor slippers. He was not a trendsetter; people rarely are at that age. He was on the run from his own birthday party, another unusual thing for a hundred-year-old, not least because even being one hundred is pretty rare.
Allan thought about whether he should make the effort to crawl back in through the window to get his hat and shoes, but when he felt his wallet in his inside pocket, he decided that that would suffice. Besides, Director Alice had repeatedly shown that she had a sixth sense (wherever he hid his vodka, she found it), and she might be nosing around in his room even now, suspicious that something fishy was going on.
Better to be on his way while he could, Allan thought, as he stepped out of the flowerbed on creaking knees. In his wallet, as far as he could remember, he had a few hundred-crown notes saved – a good thing since he’d need some cash if he was going into hiding.
He turned to take one last look at the Old People’s Home that – until a few moments ago – he had thought would be his last residence on Earth, and then he told himself that he could die some other time, in some other place.
The hundred-year-old man set off in his pee-slippers (so called because men of an advanced age rarely pee further than their shoes), first through a park and then alongside an open field where a market was occasionally held in the otherwise quiet provincial town. After a few hundred metres, Allan went around the back of the district’s medieval church and sat down on a bench next to some gravestones to rest his aching knees. It wasn’t such a religious town that Allan worried about being disturbed in the churchyard. He noted an ironic coincidence. He was born the same year as a Henning Algotsson who lay beneath the stone just across from his bench. But there was an important difference – Henning had given up the ghost sixty-one years earlier. If Allan had been more curious he might have wondered what Henning had died of, at the age of thirty-nine. But Allan left other people to themselves, dead or alive. He always had and he always would.
Instead, he thought that he had probably been mistaken all those years when he’d sat in the Old People’s Home, feeling that he might as well die and leave it all. However many aches and pains he suffered, it had to be much more interesting and instructive to be on the run from Director Alice than to be lying rigid six feet under.
Upon which thought the Birthday Boy, despite his complaining knees, got up and said goodbye to Henning Algotsson and continued on his badly planned flight.
Allan cut across the churchyard to the south, until a stone wall appeared in his path. It wasn’t more than a metre high, but Allan was a centenarian, not a high jumper. On the other side was Malmköping’s bus station and the old man suddenly realised that his rickety legs were taking him towards a building that could be very useful. Once, many years earlier, Allan had crossed the Himalayas. That was no picnic. Allan thought about that experience now, as he stood before the last hurdle between himself and the station. He considered the matter so intently that the stone wall seemed to shrink before his eyes. And when it was at its very lowest, Allan crept over it, age and knees be damned.
Malmköping is not what you’d call a bustling town, and this sunny weekday morning was no exception. Allan hadn’t seen a living soul since he had suddenly decided not to show up at his own hundredth birthday party. The station waiting room was almost empty when Allan shuffled in. Almost. On the right were two ticket windows, one closed. Behind the other sat a little man with small, round glasses, thin hair combed to one side, and a uniform waistcoat. The man gave him an irritated look as he raised his eyes from his computer screen. Perhaps he felt the waiting room was becoming too crowded, because over in the corner there was already another person, a young man of slight build, with long greasy blond hair, a scraggly beard and a denim jacket with the words Never Again on the back.
It seemed as if the young man might not be able to read, since he was pulling the door of the handicapped toilet, even though there was a sign saying ‘Out of order’.
After a moment, he moved to the other toilet, but there he faced a different problem. Evidently he didn’t want to be parted from his big grey suitcase on wheels, but the cubicle was simply too small for the two of them. It seemed to Allan that the young man would either have to leave the suitcase outside while he relieved himself, or allow the suitcase to occupy the cubicle while he himself remained outside.
But Allan had more pressing concerns. Making an effort to move his legs in the right sequence, he shuffled with small steps up to the little man in the open ticket window and enquired as to the possibility of public transport in some direction, any at all would do, within the next few minutes, and if so, what would it cost?
The little man looked tired. He had probably lost track of things halfway through Allan’s enquiry, because after a few seconds, he said:
‘And where is it you want to go?’
Allan took a deep breath, and reminded the little man that he had already stated that the actual destination, and for that matter the means of transport, were of less importance than a) the time of departure, and b) the cost.
&
nbsp; The little man silently inspected his timetables and let Allan’s words sink in.
‘Bus number 202 departs for Strängnäs in three minutes. Would that work?’
Yes, Allan thought it would. The little man told him that the bus left from outside the terminal door and that it would be most convenient to buy a ticket directly from the driver.
Allan wondered what the little man did behind the window if he didn’t sell tickets, but he didn’t say anything. The little man possibly wondered the same thing. Allan thanked him for his help and tried to tip the hat he had in his haste not brought along.
The hundred-year-old man sat down on one of the two empty benches, alone with his thoughts. The wretched birthday party at the home would start at three o’clock, and that was in twelve minutes. At any moment they would be banging on the door to his room, and then all hell would break loose. He smiled at the thought.
Then, out of the corner of his eye, Allan saw that somebody was approaching. It was the slightly built young man heading straight for Allan with his big suitcase trailing behind him on four small wheels. Allan realised that he might not be able to avoid engaging the long-haired youth in conversation. Perhaps that wasn’t so bad. He might gain insight into what today’s young people thought about this and that.
A conversation did take place, but without the depth of social analysis Allan had anticipated. The young man came to a halt a few yards away, seemed to study the old man for a moment, and then said:
‘Hey.’
Allan replied in a friendly tone, saying that he wished him a good afternoon, and then asked him if there was some way he could be of service. It turned out that there was. The young man wanted Allan to keep an eye on the suitcase while he relieved himself. Or as he expressed it:
‘I need to take a dump.’
Allan replied that, although he was old and decrepit, his eyesight was still in good repair and it did not sound like too arduous a task to keep an eye on the young man’s suitcase. He did recommend that the young man relieve himself with some urgency – without, of course, using the young man’s own terminology – as Allan had a bus to catch.
The young man did not hear the last bit. His urgent need drove him towards the toilet before Allan had finished speaking.
The hundred-year-old man had never let himself be irritated by people, even when there was a good reason to be, and he was not annoyed by the uncouth manner of this youth. But he couldn’t warm to him either, and that probably played some part in what happened next.
Bus number 202 rolled up outside the entrance to the terminal, just a few seconds after the young man had closed the toilet door behind him. Allan looked at the bus and then at the suitcase, then again at the bus and then again at the suitcase.
It has wheels, he said to himself. And there’s a strap to pull it by too.
And then Allan surprised himself by making what – you have to admit – was a decision to say ‘yes’ to life.
The bus driver was conscientious and polite. He stepped down and helped the very old man with the big suitcase to get on the bus.
Allan thanked him and pulled out his wallet from the inside pocket of his jacket. The bus driver wondered if the gentleman was possibly going all the way to Strängnäs, while Allan counted out six hundred and fifty crowns in notes and a few coins. But Allan thought it best to be frugal and so he held out a fifty-crown note and asked:
‘How far will this get me?’
The driver said jovially that he was used to people who knew where they wanted to go but not what it would cost, but this was quite the opposite. Then he looked in his schedule and replied that for forty-eight crowns you could travel on the bus to Byringe Station.
Allan thought that sounded fine. The driver put the newly stolen suitcase in the baggage area behind his seat, while Allan sat down in the first row on the right hand side. From there he could see through the window of the station’s waiting room. The toilet door was still closed when the bus rolled off. Allan hoped for the young man’s sake that he was having a pleasant time in there, bearing in mind the disappointment that awaited him.
The bus to Strängnäs was not exactly crowded that afternoon. In the back row there was a middle-aged woman, in the middle a young mother who had struggled on board with her two children, one of them in a pram, and at the very front an extremely old man.
This passenger was wondering why he had stolen a big grey suitcase on four wheels. Was it because he could and because the owner was a lout, or because the suitcase might contain a pair of shoes and even a hat? Or was it because the old man didn’t have anything to lose? Allan really couldn’t say why he did it. When life has gone into overtime it’s easy to take liberties, he thought, and he made himself comfortable in the seat.
So far, Allan was satisfied with the way the day had developed. Then he closed his eyes for his afternoon nap.
At that same moment, Director Alice knocked on the door to Room 1 at the Old People’s Home. She knocked again and again.
‘Stop fooling around, Allan. The mayor and everyone else have already arrived. Do you hear me? You haven’t been at the bottle again, have you? Come out this minute, Allan! Allan?’
At about the same time, the door opened to what was, for the time being, the only functioning toilet in Malmköping station. Out stepped a young man who was doubly relieved. He took a few steps towards the middle of the waiting room, tightening his belt with one hand and combing his hair with the fingers of the other hand. Then he stopped, stared at the two empty benches, and looked left and right. Upon which he exclaimed:
‘What the bloody damned hell…!’
Then words failed him, before he found his voice again:
‘You’re a dead man, you old bastard. Once I’ve found you.’
Chapter 3
Monday, 2nd May 2005
Just after three o’clock in the afternoon on 2nd May the calm of Malmköping was shattered. At first Director Alice at the Old People’s Home was worried rather than angry, and pulled out her master key. Since Allan had not concealed his escape route, it was immediately obvious that the Birthday Boy had climbed out of the window. Judging by the tracks, he had then stood among the pansies in the flowerbed, before disappearing.
By virtue of his position, the mayor felt he should take command. He ordered the staff to search in pairs. Allan couldn’t be far away; the searchers should concentrate on the immediate vicinity. One pair was dispatched to the park, one to the state-run liquor store (a place that Allan had occasionally frequented, Director Alice knew), one to the other shops on Main Street, and one to the Community Centre up on the hill. The mayor himself would stay at the Old People’s Home to keep an eye on the residents who hadn’t vanished into thin air and to ponder the next move. He told the searchers that they should be discreet; there was no need to generate unnecessary publicity about this affair. In the general confusion, the mayor forgot that one of the pairs of searchers he had just sent out consisted of a reporter from the local paper and her photographer.
The bus station was not included in the mayor’s primary search area. In that location, however, a very angry, slightly built young man with long, greasy blond hair, a scraggly beard and a denim jacket with the words Never Again on the back had already searched every corner of the building. Since there was no trace of either a very old man or a suitcase, the young man took some decisive steps towards the little man behind the only open ticket window, to find out where either or both had gone.
Although the little man was generally bored with his work, he still had his professional pride. So he explained to the loud-mouthed young man that the passengers’ privacy was not something that could be compromised, adding firmly that under no circumstances whatsoever would he give him any information of the type that he wished to obtain.
The young man stood in silence for a moment. He then moved five yards to the left, to the not very solid door to the ticket office. He didn’t bother to check whether it was locked. Instead h
e took a step back and kicked the door in with his boot, sending splinters flying in every direction. The little man did not even have time to lift the telephone receiver to phone for help, before he was dangling in the air in front of the young man, who had grasped him firmly by the ears.
‘I might not know anything about privacy, but I’m good at getting people to talk,’ said the young man to the little ticket seller before he let him drop down with a bump onto his revolving office chair.
At which point the young man explained what he intended to do with the little man’s genitals, with the help of a hammer and nails, if the little man did not comply with his wishes. The description was so realistic that the little man immediately decided to say what he thought, namely that the old man in question had presumably taken a bus in the direction of Strängnäs. Whether the man had taken a suitcase with him, he couldn’t say, as he was not the sort of person who spied on his customers.
The ticket seller then stopped talking to ascertain how satisfied the young man was with what he had said, and immediately determined that it would be best for him to provide further information. So he said that on the journey between Malmköping and Strängnäs there were twelve stops and that the old man could of course get out at any one of those. The person who would know was the bus driver, and according to the timetable he would be back in Malmköping at ten past seven that same evening, when the bus made its return journey to Flen.
The young man sat down beside the terrified little man with the throbbing ears.
‘Just need to think,’ he said.
So he thought. He thought that he should certainly be able to shake the bus driver’s mobile phone number out of the little man, and then call the driver and say that the old man’s suitcase was actually stolen property. But then of course there was a risk that the bus driver would involve the police and that was not something the young man wanted. Besides, it was probably not so urgent really, because the old man seemed dreadfully old and now that he had a suitcase to drag around, he would need to travel by train, bus or taxi if he wanted to continue his journey from the station in Strängnäs. He would thus leave new tracks behind him, and there would always be somebody who could be dangled by the ears to say where the old man was heading. The young man had confidence in his ability to persuade people to tell him what they knew.