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

for.
    And he wouldn’t freeze to death on the Siberian tundra either, the extra blankets would see to that. Besides, January 1948 was the mildest January for many a year. But Allan promised that there would be many new possibilities for Herbert. They were on their way to a labour camp after all, so, if nothing else, he could work himself to death. How about that?
    Herbert sighed and said that he was probably too lazy for that, but he wasn’t really sure because he had never worked in all his life.
    And there, Allan could see an opening. In a prison camp you couldn’t just hang around, because if you did then the guards would shoot you.
    Herbert liked the idea, but it gave him the creeps at the same time. A load of bullets, wouldn’t that be dreadfully painful?
     
    Allan Karlsson didn’t ask much of life. He just wanted a bed, lots of food, something to do, and now and then a glass of vodka. If these requirements were met, he could stand most things. The camp in Vladivostok offered Allan everything he wished for except the vodka.
    At that time, the harbour in Vladivostok consisted of an open and a closed part. Surrounded by a two-metre-high fence, the Gulag correction camp consisted of forty brown barracks in rows of four. The fence went all the way down to the pier. The ships that were going to be loaded or unloaded by Gulag prisoners berthed inside the fence, the others outside. Almost everything was done by the prisoners, only small fishing boats and their crews had to manage on their own, as did the occasional larger oil tanker.
    With few exceptions, the days at the correction camp in Vladivostok all looked the same. Reveille in the barracks at six in the morning, breakfast at a quarter-past. The working day lasted twelve hours, from half-past six to half-past six, with a half-hour lunch break at midday. Immediately after the end of the working day, there was supper, and then it was time to be locked up until the next morning.
    The diet was substantial: mainly fish admittedly, but rarely in the form of soup. The camp guards were not exactly friendly, but at least they didn’t shoot people without cause. Even Herbert Einstein got to stay alive, contrary to his own ambition. He did of course work more slowly than any otherprisoner, but since he always stayed very close to the hardworking Allan, nobody noticed.
    Allan had nothing against working for two. But he soon introduced a rule; Herbert wasn’t allowed to complain about how miserable his life was. Allan had already understood that to be the case, and there was nothing wrong with his memory. To keep on saying the same thing over and over again thus served no purpose.
    Herbert obeyed, and then it was okay, just as most things were okay, apart from the lack of vodka. Allan put up with it for exactly five years and three weeks. Then he said:
    ‘Now I want a drink. And I can’t get that here. So it’s time to move on.’      

Chapter 17
    Tuesday, 10th May 2005
    The spring sun shone brightly for the ninth day in a row and even though it was cool in the morning, Bosse set the table for breakfast out on the veranda.
    Benny and The Beauty led Sonya out of the bus and into the field behind the farmhouse. Allan and Pike Gerdin sat in the hammock sofa and rocked gently. One of them was one hundred years old, and the other just felt as if he was. His head throbbed, and his broken ribs made it hard to breathe. His right arm was good for nothing, not to mention the worst of all – the deep wound in his right leg. Benny came by and offered to change the dressing on the leg, but he thought it was perhaps best to start with a couple of strong painkillers. They could then resort to morphine in the evening if necessary.
    After which Benny returned to Sonya and left Allan and Pike to themselves. Allan thought that it was high time that the two men had a more serious conversation. He was sorry that – Bolt? – had lost his life out there in the Södermanland forests and that – Bucket? – ended up under Sonya. Both Bolt and Bucket had however been threatening them, to put it mildly, and perhaps that could be a mitigating factor. Didn’t Mr Pike think so?
    Pike Gerdin answered that he was sorry to hear that the boys were dead, but that it didn’t really surprise him that they had been overpowered by a hundred-year-old geezer, with a little assistance, because they had both been hopelessly daft. The only person who was even more daft was the fourth member of