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

his drunkenness he didn’t just choose any old folk song, but instead the aria ‘Nessun Dorma’ from Puccini’s Turandot .
    ‘That was quite something,’ said Allan when Yury had finished.
    ‘Nessun dorma !’ said Yury solemnly. ‘Nobody is allowed to sleep!’
     
    Regardless of whether anybody was allowed to sleep or not, they did both soon drop off in their berths beside the officers’ mess. When they woke up, the submarine was already docked in Leningrad harbour. There, a limousine was waiting to take them to the Kremlin for a meeting with Marshal Beria.
    ‘Saint Petersburg, Petrograd, Leningrad… Couldn’t you make up your mind?’ said Allan.
    ‘And a good morning to you too,’ said Yury.
     
    Yury and Allan got into the back seat of a Humber Pullman limousine for a day-long journey from Leningrad to Moscow. A sliding window separated the driver’s seat from the luxurious compartment where Allan and his newfound friend were sitting. The compartment boasted a refrigerator with water, soft drinks and all the alcohol that these two passengers were not in need of at the moment. There was also a bowl of red gummy sweets and a whole tray of fancy chocolates. The car and its fittings would have been a brilliant example of Soviet socialist engineering if it hadn’t all been imported from England.
    Yury told Allan about his background. He had studied under Nobel-prize laureate Ernest Rutherford, the legendary nuclear physicist from New Zealand, which was why Yury Borisovich spoke such good English. Allan, in turn, described (to an increasingly astounded Yury Borisovich) his adventures in Spain, America, China, the Himalayas and Iran.
    ‘And what happened to the Anglican priest?’ Yury wondered.
    ‘I don’t know,’ said Allan. ‘He has either Anglicanized all of Persia, or he’s dead. The least likely is probably something in between those two.’
    ‘That sounds a bit like challenging Stalin in the Soviet Union,’ said Yury candidly. ‘Setting aside the fact that it would be a crime against the revolution, the chance of survival is poor.’
    On this particular day and in this particular company, Yury’s candidness seemed to know no bounds. He opened his heart about what he thought of Marshal Beria, the boss of the secret service who had suddenly become the head of the project to make an atom bomb. Beria had no sense of shame at all. He abused women and children sexually and as for undesirable people, well, he sent them to prison camps – if he hadn’t had them killed first.
    ‘Undesirable elements must of course be weeded out as soon as possible, but they must be undesirable on the correct, revolutionary grounds. Those who don’t further the aims of socialism must be got rid of! But not those who don’t further the aims of Marshal Beria. No! Allan, that is dreadful. Marshal Beria is no true representative of the revolution. But you can’t blame Comrade Stalin for that. I have never had the privilege of meeting him, but he has the responsibility for an entire country, almost an entire continent. And if amidst all that work, and in a hasty moment, he gave Marshal Beria more responsibility than he is capable of shouldering… well, Comrade Stalin has every right to do that! And now, my dear Allan, I shall tell you something really fantastic. You and I, this very afternoon, are going to be honoured with an audience not only with Marshal Beria, but also with Comrade Stalin in person! He has invited us to dinner!’
    ‘I look forward to that,’ said Allan. ‘But how are we going to manage until then? Are we supposed to survive on red gummy sweets?’
     
    Yury saw to it that the limousine stopped in a little town on the way, to pick up a couple of sandwiches for Allan. Then their journey continued.
    Between bites of his sandwich, Allan thought about this Marshal Beria character who, from Yury’s description, seemed to resemble the recently deceased boss of the secret service in Tehran.
    Yury, for his part, sat there trying to figure out his Swedish colleague. The Swede would soon be eating dinner with Stalin, and he had said that he was looking forward to it. But Yury had to ask whether it was the dinner he meant, or the leader.
    ‘You have to eat to live,’ Allan said diplomatically and praised the quality of the Russian sandwiches. ‘But, dear Yury, would you allow me to ask a question or two?’
    ‘But of course, dear Allan. Ask away, I’ll do my best to answer.’
    Allan said that