Jonas Jonasson - The Accidental Further Adventures of the Hundred-Year-Old Man

‘First right, then left,’ said Julius.

‘Exactly, sir,’ said the boy.

And now three things happened simultaneously, within the span of a few seconds.

One: Allan noticed the nine-year-old’s longing glances at the cake and suggested that the lad run over quick and help himself. Plates and cutlery were both on the table. The boy needed no coaxing. He hopped out of the basket almost before Allan had finished speaking.

Two: Julius tested the red lever, turning it both left and right, and twisted it so hard it came off in his hand.

Three: the balloon pilot exited the hotel looking unhappy, and said that the ride would have to wait for the wind was about to become northerly. The balloon was in a poor position for such a wind.

At this, three more things happened, also rather simultaneously.

One: the balloon pilot caught sight of his nine-year-old son with his nose in the cake and scolded the poor boy for leaving his post.

Two: Julius swore at the red lever that had come off just like that. Now hot air was streaming into the balloon, which …

Three: … began to lift off the ground.

‘Stop! What are you doing?’ cried the balloon pilot.

‘It’s not me, it’s this damned lever,’ called Julius.

The balloon was at an altitude of three metres. Then four. Then five.

‘There we go!’ said Allan. ‘Now this is a party.’

It took quite some time for Karlsson, Jonsson and the balloon to float far enough across the open sea that they could no longer hear the screaming balloon pilot. After all, the wind was at his back.

They could still see him for a while, after he ceased to be audible – he was flapping his arms. They could also see the hotel manager at his side. Not quite as flappy. But likely just as unhappy. Or even more so. He was watching a hundred and fifty thousand dollars float away before his very eyes. Meanwhile, the nine-year-old boy returned to the cake while everyone else was otherwise occupied.

A few more minutes passed, and then they could no longer see land in any direction. Julius finished cursing the red lever and threw it overboard, having given up trying to reattach it.

The gas and the flame were irreversibly on. And, in certain respects, that was a positive thing. Otherwise they would certainly fall into the ocean, basket and all.

Julius looked around. On the other side of the gas tank he found a GPS navigator. This was good news! Not that there was any way to steer the craft, but now at least they would know when land could be expected.

As Julius delved into geography, Allan opened the first of the four bottles of champagne they had brought along. ‘Whoopsie!’ he said, as the cork flew over the edge of the basket.

Julius felt that Allan wasn’t taking the situation seriously. They had no idea where they were heading.

Of course they did, Allan thought. ‘I’ve been around the world so many times that I’ve started to understand how it looks. If the wind keeps up like this, we’ll end up in Australia in a few weeks. But if it turns a little that way we’ll have to wait a few more.’

‘And where will we end up in that case?’

‘Well, not at the North Pole, but you didn’t want to go there anyway. Likely the South Pole, though.’

‘What the hell—’ Julius said, but he was interrupted.

‘There, there. Here’s your glass. Now, cheers to us on my birthday. And don’t you worry. The gas in the tank will run out long before the South Pole. Have a seat.’

Julius did as Allan said, sitting down next to his friend and staring straight ahead with a vacant gaze. Allan could tell that Julius was concerned. He was in need of comfort. ‘Yes, things look dark right now, my friend. But they’ve been dark before in my life, yet here I am. You’ll see, the wind will change. Or something.’

Julius found Allan’s inexplicable calmness a little bit helpful. Perhaps the champagne could take care of the rest. ‘Pass me the bottle, please,’ he said quietly.

And he took four liberal gulps without bothering to use a glass.

Allan was correct: the gas did run out before land was in sight. The tank began to sputter and the flame danced irregularly for some time before it went out completely, just as the friends managed to drain the contents of bottle number one.

It was a gentle journey down to the surface of the Indian Ocean, which, that day, was practically a Pacific one.

‘Do you think the basket will float?’ Julius asked, as the surface of the water grew nearer.

‘We’ll soon find out,’ said Allan. ‘Look at this!’

The hundred-and-one-year-old had been digging through the balloon’s wooden box of supplies for unforeseen incidents. He held up a brand-new fitting for the red lever.

‘Pity we didn’t find this while there was still time. And look!’

Two rocket flares.

The crash landing in the sea went better than Julius had dared to hope. The balloon basket hit the water, plunging half a metre below the surface, thanks to its speed and weight, then tilted at a forty-five-degree angle, straightened again, and bobbed like a fishing float with ever-waning movements.

Both old men were knocked over by the strike and the angle, and they ended up in a communal pile along one of the basket’s walls. Julius was quick to get up, a knife in his hand to separate the basket from the deflated balloon, which would no longer be of any use. It was temporarily spreading out on the water but would soon sink and take both basket and old men with it if it could.

‘Well done.’ Allan praised him from where he lay.

‘Thanks,’ said Julius, helping his friend back onto the bench.

Then Julius dismantled the heavy gas assembly and dumped it into the sea along with the four bracings that had held it up. With that, the vessel suddenly weighed at least fifty kilos less. Julius wiped the sweat from his brow and sank down next to his friend. ‘Now what?’ he said.

‘I think we should have another bottle of champagne so we don’t sit around here sobering up. Can’t you fire off one of those flares while I uncork it?’

Water was already seeping in through the sides of the basket, but it wasn’t so dire that they would sink before a few hours had passed, Allan thought. Or even more, if only they had something decent to bail with. ‘A lot can happen in two hours,’ he said.

‘Like what?’ Julius wondered.

‘Oh, well, a little can happen as well. Or nothing.’

Julius unwrapped the first flare and tried to make sense of the Indonesian instructions. He was tipsy and didn’t have the energy to be as desperate as he should have been. On the one hand, he knew he was soon to die. On the other, he was in the company of a man who was possibly immortal. A man who had not been executed by General Franco, had not been locked up for life by the American immigration authority, had not been strangled by Comrade Stalin (although it had been a close shave), had not been put to death by Kim Il-sung or Mao Zedong, had not been shot by the Iranian border patrol, had not had a hair touched on his ever-balder head in his twenty-five years as a double agent in the inner circles of the Cold War, had not been killed by Brezhnev’s bad breath, and had not been dragged along into President Nixon’s downfall.

The only thing to suggest that Allan might actually die, after having failed to do so for so many years, was the fact that he was sitting in a woven basket that was taking in water, in the sea somewhere between Indonesia, Australia and Antarctica. But if the recently-turned-hundred-and-one-year-old survived this too, one might reasonably expect that Julius could ride shotgun.

‘I reckon you just have to pull on this,’ he said, tugging on the right string in the wrong position, at which the emergency flare shot into the water and kept going until it presumably extinguished at a depth of a few hundred metres.