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

activities – assuming that Mr Karlsson was interested.
    Dr Eklund was not at all pleased with the prime minister involving himself in the atom project. He even suspected that Allan Karlsson might be a Social Democratic spy. But he promised to interview Karlsson, even though, oddly, the prime minister would not say anything about the man’s qualifications. Erlander had just emphasized the word ‘thoroughly’ when he said that Dr Eklund ought to thoroughly question Mr Karlsson about his background.
    Allan, for his part, said that he had nothing against meeting Dr Eklund or any other doctor, if that would please the prime minister.
    Ten thousand crowns was an almost excessive amount of money, Allan thought, and checked in at the most expensive hotel he could find.
    The receptionist at the Grand Hotel had his doubts about the dirty and badly dressed man, until Allan showed proof of his identity with a Swedish diplomatic passport.
    ‘Of course we have a room for you, Mr Military Attaché, sir,’ the receptionist announced. ‘Would you like to pay cash or should we send the bill to the Foreign Ministry?’
    ‘Cash would be fine,’ said Allan. Did he want payment in advance?
    ‘Oh, no, Mr Attaché, sir. Of course not!’ The receptionist bowed.
    If the receptionist had been able to see into the future, he would most certainly have answered differently.
     
    The next day, Dr Eklund welcomed a newly showered and more-or-less well dressed Allan Karlsson to his Stockholm office. The doctor offered him coffee and a cigarette, just as the murder boss in Tehran used to do. (Eklund, however, stubbed his cigarettes out in his own ashtray.)
    Dr Eklund was unhappy with the way the prime minister had interfered with his recruiting process. And Allan, for his part, felt the negative vibe in the room and for a moment was reminded of the first time he met Soong May-ling. People could behave how they liked, but Allan considered that in general it was quite unnecessary to be grumpy if you had the chance not to.
    The meeting between the two men was short:
    ‘The prime minister has asked me to question you thoroughly, Mr Karlsson, to ascertain whether you would be suited to work in our organisation. And that is what I shall do, with your permission, of course.’
    Yes, that’s fine, Allan thought. It was quite in order for the Mr Doctor to want to know more about Allan and thoroughness was a virtue, so Mr Doctor should simply ask away.
    ‘Well, then,’ said Dr Eklund. ‘If we can begin with your studies…?’
    ‘Not much to boast of,’ said Allan. ‘Only three years.’
    ‘Three years!?’ exclaimed Dr Eklund. ‘With only three years of academic studies, Mr Karlsson, you can hardly be a physicist, mathematician or a chemist?’
    ‘No, three years altogether. I left school before my tenth birthday.’
    Dr Eklund made an effort to retain his composure. So the man didn’t have any education! Could he even read and write?
    ‘Do you, Mr Karlsson, have any professional experience that might be seen as relevant for the work that you might assume we carry out here at Atomic Energy PLC?’
    Well, yes, in a manner of speaking, Allan did. He had worked for a while in the USA, at Los Alamos in New Mexico.
    Now Dr Eklund’s face lit up. Erlander might have had his reasons after all. What had been achieved at Los Alamos was general knowledge. What had Mr Karlsson worked on there?
    ‘I served coffee,’ Allan answered.
    ‘Coffee?’ Dr Eklund’s face darkened again.
    ‘Yes, and on occasion tea too. I was a general assistant and waiter.’
    ‘Were you ever involved in any decisions at all that were connected to nuclear fission?’
    ‘No,’ Allan answered, ‘the closest I came was probably that time I happened to say something at a meeting when I was really meant to be serving coffee.’
    ‘So Mr Karlsson happened to say something at a meeting where he was in fact a waiter… and then what happened?’
    ‘Well, we were interrupted… and then I was asked to leave the room.’
    Dr Eklund was utterly dumbfounded. Did the prime minister think that a waiter who had dropped out of school before he was ten years old could be put to use to build atom bombs for Sweden?
    Dr Eklund thought to himself that it would be a sensation if this beginner of a prime minister would even last the year out, then he said to Allan that if Mr Karlsson had nothing to add then their meeting could end now. Dr Eklund did not think that at present there