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

Author: Jonas Jonasson

• The young man had seen two cruisers and a total of four policemen; from his perspective that was a crowd.

• And a whole stream of death threats directed at the driver’s relatives spewed out of the young man’s mouth, designed to avert any possible thought of the driver contacting the police instead of turning the bus around and continuing the journey to Flen.

• but it was important to steal electricity in moderation if you wanted to keep taking advantage of the perk for a long time.

• Allan Karlsson’s father was of both a considerate and an angry nature. He was considerate with his family; he was angry with society in general and with everybody who could be thought of as representing that society.

• Austria declared war on Serbia. Germany declared war on Russia. Then, Germany conquered Luxembourg a day before declaring war on France and invading Belgium. Great Britain then declared war on Germany, Austria declared war on Russia, and Serbia declared war on Germany. And on it went. The Japanese joined in, as did the Americans. In the months after the Czar abdicated, the British took Baghdad for some reason, and then Jerusalem. The Greeks and Bulgarians started to fight each other while the Arabs continued their revolt against the Ottomans…

• Things are what they are, and whatever will be will be. That meant, among other things, that you didn’t make a fuss, especially when there was good reason to do so:

• The former hot-dog-stand owner had been struck by love at first sight. And now, at second sight, he felt no different.

• If she had been able to talk she would have said that the previous evening she had absconded from a circus in Växjö to look for something to drink, because the elephant keeper had gone to do the same in town instead of doing his job.

• Three hours later the two men were calling each other Harry and Allan, which goes to show what a couple of bottles of tequila can do for international relations.

• The more prepared they got, the less eager the group was to set off.

• As a child, Allan had been taught to be suspicious of people who didn’t have a drink when the opportunity arose.

• —Never try to outdrink a Swede, unless you happen to be a Finn or at least a Russian.

• —Interesting, said Allan, and meant the opposite.

• The police chief and Allan worked out a plan as if they were best friends, although the police chief did stub out his cigarette in Allan’s coffee every time he felt the atmosphere became too intimate.

• Allan was his only hope of survival, since God still wasn’t answering his prayers. And it had been like that for almost a month now.

• Allan interrupted the two brothers by saying that he had been out and about in the world and if there was one thing he had learned it was that the very biggest and apparently most impossible conflicts on earth were based on the dialogue: “You are stupid, no, it’s you who are stupid, no, it’s you who are stupid.”

• Marshal Beria wasn’t the type to sit and chat about nothing. Life was too short for that (and besides he was socially incompetent).

• It was no easy matter for Allan to find somebody to talk to in the freight wagon, since nearly everybody spoke only Russian. But one man could speak Italian and since Allan of course spoke fluent Spanish, the two of them could understand each other fairly well.

• And the more I think about it, the more I think that we should just leave it at that, and you’ll see that things will turn out like they do, because that is what usually happens—almost always, in fact.

• Herbert blushed, while dismissing the praise, saying that it wasn’t hard to play stupid when you are stupid. Allan said that he didn’t know how hard it was, because the idiots Allan had met so far in his life had all tried to do the opposite.

• A few adventurous types set off, all of them in a northwesterly direction, because that was the only reasonable direction for a Russian to flee.

• A few adventurous types set off, all of them in a northwesterly direction, because that was the only reasonable direction for a Russian to flee. In the east was water, in the south the Korean War, and directly north was a town that was rapidly burning up. The only option remaining was to walk right into really cold Siberia.

• whatever you say about French food, it soon disappears from your plate without your actually having eaten much.

• Briefly, Julius and I, we had a nice evening together, until Mr. Bolt came and tried to unbolt the door, if you will excuse the pun, Mr. Prosecutor.

• —You crossed the Himalayas? At a hundred? —No, don’t be silly, said Allan. You see, Mr. Prosecutor, I haven’t always been a hundred years old. No, that’s recent.

• Politics was often not only unnecessary, but sometimes also unnecessarily complicated.

• Allan read about the so-called Watergate scandal in all the available papers at the city library in Moscow. In summary, Nixon had evidently cheated on his taxes, received illegal campaign donations, ordered secret bombings, persecuted enemies, and made use of break-ins and telephone bugging.