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

revolution in Iran and the whole world; we will build a society based upon the economic and social equality ofall people: from each according to his ability, to each according to his need.’
    ‘I see, comrade,’ said Allan. ‘Do you happen to have any spare vodka?’
    The men did. The bottle went from camel-back to camel-back and Allan began to feel that the journey was working out nicely.
    Eleven months later, the four men had managed to save each other’s lives at least three times. They had survived avalanches, pirates, extreme cold and repeated periods of hunger. Two of the camels had died, a third had had to be slaughtered and eaten, and the fourth had been given to an Afghan customs officer so that they would be allowed to enter the country instead of being arrested.
    Allan had never imagined it would be easy to cross the Himalayas. But later he had realised just how lucky he had been to bump into those kind Iranian communists. It would not have been pleasant to wrestle alone with the valley sandstorms and the flooding rivers, and the -40°C in the mountains – even if he could have managed the bitter cold on his own, with his long experience of the Swedish winters. The group had set up camp at an altitude of 2,000 metres to wait for the 1946–47 winter to end.
    The three communists tried to get Allan to join their struggle, especially after they discovered his talent for working with dynamite. Allan wished them the best of luck, but said that he had to go home to Sweden to look after his house in Yxhult. (Allan momentarily forgot that he had blown the house to bits eighteen years earlier.)
    In the end, the men gave up their attempts to persuade Allan of the rightness of their cause, and settled for his being a good comrade, and someone who didn’t complain about a bit of snow. Allan’s standing improved further when, while the groupwas waiting for better weather, he figured out how to make alcohol from goats’ milk. The communists couldn’t fathom how he managed, but the end result was definitely potent and made everything a bit warmer and less boring.
    In the spring of 1947 they finally made it over to the southern side of the world’s highest mountain chain. The closer they came to the Iranian border, the more eager the communists were to talk about the future of Iran. Now was the time to chase the foreigners out of the country once and for all. The Brits had supported the corrupt shah for years and years, and that was bad enough. But when the shah finally tired of being their lapdog and started to protest, then the Brits simply lifted him off his throne and put his son there instead. Allan was reminded of Soong May-ling’s relationship to Chiang Kai-shek; he reflected that family relations could be weird out in the big wide world.
    The shah’s son was evidently easier to bribe than the father, and now the British and Americans controlled the Iranian oil. Inspired by Mao Tse-tung, these Iranian communists were determined to put a stop to that. The problem was that some other Iranian communists leaned more towards the brand of communism practised in Stalin’s Soviet Union, and there were other irritating revolutionary elements who mixed religion into it all.
    ‘Interesting,’ said Allan, and meant the opposite.
    They replied with a long Marxist declaration on the theme that the situation was more than interesting. The trio would, in short, be victorious or die!
     
    The very next day, the latter turned out to be the case, because as soon as the four friends set foot on Iranian soil they were arrested by a border patrol. The three communists unfortunately each had a copy of the Communist Manifesto (in Farsi), and that got them shot on the spot. Allan survived becausehe had no literature with him. Besides, he looked foreign and required further investigation.
    With the barrel of a rifle in his back, Allan took his cap off and thanked the three dead communists for their company across the Himalayas. He couldn’t really get used to the way people he befriended went and died right in front of his eyes.
    Allan didn’t have time for a longer period of mourning. His hands were tied behind his back and he was thrown into the rear of a truck. With his nose buried in a blanket he asked in English to be taken to the Swedish Embassy in Tehran, or to the American one if Sweden didn’t have any representation in the city.
    ‘Khafe sho !’ was the answer, in a threatening tone.
    Allan didn’t