The 100-Year-Old Man Who Climbed Out the Window and Disappeared

for Sonya. But an hour after landing, the entire group was in place at family Einstein’s hotel, including Sonya who had been transported there with Benny and The Beauty in one of the airport’s catering trucks (that afternoon’s flight to Singapore, incidentally, unfortunately lacked lunch trays).
    Amanda, Allan and Mao Einstein received their guests, and after a bout of hugging and kissing, they were shown to their rooms. Sonya and Buster could meanwhile stretch their legs in the hotel’s enormous fenced-in garden. Amanda had already expressed her regret at the lack of elephant friends for Sonya on Bali, but she would immediately arrange that a potential boyfriend be delivered from Sumatra. When it came to girlfriends for Buster, he would probably find them himself; there were lots of pretty girl-dogs roaming around the island.
    And Amanda promised that towards the evening there would be one hell of a Balinese party for them all, and she urged them to have a nap first.
     
    All except three abided by that recommendation. Pike and Pike’s mamma couldn’t wait any longer for that parasol drink and the same applied to Allan, minus the parasol.
    All three made their way to the deckchairs beside the water, made themselves comfortable, and waited for the delivery of what they had just ordered from the bar.
    The waitress was eighty-four years old and had taken over from the barman.
    ‘Here’s a red parasol drink for you, Mr Gerdin. And a green parasol drink for you, Mrs Mamma Gerdin. And… but wait a moment… You didn’t order milk, did you, Allan?’
    ‘I thought you had promised not to get involved with serving the drinks, dear Amanda,’ said Allan.
    ‘I lied, dear Allan. I lied.’
     
    Darkness descended upon the paradise and the friends gathered for a three-course meal, invited by their hosts Amanda, Allan and Mao Einstein. For starters they were served sate lilit , for the main course bebek betutu and for dessert a jaja batun bedil . They drank tual wayah , palm-tree beer, except for Benny who drank water.
    The very first evening on Indonesian soil was almost as long as it was pleasant. The food came to an end and it was rounded off with pisang ambon for everyone except Allan who had a vodka and Benny who had a cup of tea.
    Bosse felt that this day and evening of excess needed a bit of spiritual balance so he stood up and quoted Jesus from the Gospel according to Matthew (‘Happy are they… their spiritual needs’). Bosse believed they would all benefit from listening to God and learning from God. And then he put his palms together and thanked the Lord for an extremely unusual and unusually good day.
    ‘Everything will work out just fine,’ said Allan in the silence created by Bosse’s words.
     
    Bosse had thanked the Lord and perhaps the Lord thanked them in return, because their good fortune lasted and grew. Benny asked The Beauty if she would marry him, to which she replied: ‘Yes, damn it! Now, straight away!’ The ceremony took place the following evening and lasted three days. Rose-Marie Gerdin, eighty years old, taught the members of the localpensioners’ club how to play the Treasure Island Game (but no better than her so that she herself could win every time); Pike lay on the beach under a parasol day in and day out, drinking parasol drinks in all the colours of the rainbow; Bosse and Julius bought a fishing boat which they rarely left, and Chief Inspector Aronsson became a popular member of the Balinese upper classes: he was a white man after all, and a detective chief inspector too, and if that wasn’t enough, he had come from the least corrupt country in the world. You couldn’t get more exotic than that.
    Every day, Allan and Amanda went on suitably long walks along the glowing white beach outside the hotel. They always had lots to talk about, and they felt better and better in each other’s company. They didn’t go very fast, because she was eighty-four years old and he was now in his hundred and first year.
    After a while they started to hold each other’s hand, for balance. Then they decided to dine, just the two of them, on Amanda’s terrace in the evenings, as it got too much with all the others. And in the end, Allan moved in with Amanda for good. In that way, Allan’s room could be rented to a tourist instead, and that was good for the hotel’s balance sheet.
    During one of the following day’s walks, Amanda raised the question of whether they should just do the