Юнас Юнассон - The Accidental Further Adventures of the Hundred-Year-Old Man

‘Filth,’ said Allan. ‘Filth, dust, trash and messes. I recall one time when a poor assistant happened to spill a glass of juice on… Well, we don’t need to discuss that any further. Rest in peace. Now I’ll have to ask you to speed up. We don’t want to keep the Supreme Leader waiting.’

The trip went ever faster. Allan asked Julius, in Swedish, to become part of the action.

‘Not so fast,’ he said. ‘I get car sick.’

‘Did I mention we were in a rush?’ Allan said.

It was, of course, impossible to speed up and slow down simultaneously. The driver judged that the Supreme Leader was more important than the less elderly man in the back. Many times more important.

Once they reached the deserted highway, Julius complained about the high speeds again. The nameless driver continued to ignore him, encouraged by Allan, who spoke uninterrupted about all the fine qualities of the Supreme Leader, as well as how upset he became when faced with a mishmash of messiness.

‘I must say, your car is in fantastic condition,’ he said. ‘The Supreme Leader will be very pleased with you. One pleasant thought is that he might ask you to introduce yourself by your name, and then we’ll finally learn what it is.’

The nameless man was now steering the car with one hand and wiping the already clean dashboard even cleaner with the other.

‘I feel sick,’ said Julius, cautiously picking up the box of milk and muesli from the floor. It had become terrifically mushy during the day.

This was immediately followed by the absolute worst sound the nameless man had heard in all his fifty-two years. Julius feigned noisy vomiting and splashed the muesli mixture across the seat back, between the front seats, and onto the driver’s neck. The nameless driver completely panicked, according to plan. He swerved 180 degrees into the other lane, braked hard in a parking spot, and threw himself from the vehicle. How big a catastrophe was this?

When you’re a hundred and one, you are no longer a flexible wonder, if you ever were in the first place. Even so, Allan managed to reach across, close and lock the door after the driver. This occurred even as Julius locked the doors in the back and crawled into the front. That only went so-so too – after all, he was nearing seventy. But after a few seconds, he was in the driver’s seat. With the most astounded driver on the Korean peninsula outside.

‘Now let’s see how this machine works,’ he said, putting it into gear and driving off.

‘We need to go in the other direction,’ Allan reminded him.

So it came to be that the friends turned the car around not far down the deserted road and happened to pass the nameless driver where he stood without having worked out what was going on. Allan rolled down the window to say goodbye.

‘Farewell. We won’t need to be picked up tomorrow morning. Although you wouldn’t have anything to pick us up in, now that I think about it.’

The journey continued southwards, towards Sunan International. Allan said that they were in good shape timewise, and that Julius did not need to drive like the car thief he had once been. Also, the risk of traffic jams seemed small. Or the risk of traffic at all.

Julius nodded, and wondered if Allan had considered how they should proceed once they arrived. That was a matter both of them had repressed while so much else was standing in the way.

But Allan had already fallen back into the clutches of his black tablet.

‘Oho. Speaking of being out driving, apparently women are going to win the right to do the same in Saudi Arabia. Prince Abdulaziz seems to be a pragmatic fellow. No wonder the Saudis have a spot on the UN women’s commission.’

‘Can’t you put down that goddamn news machine and devote just one second to our survival?’ said Julius, who recognized this very type of frustration from earlier.

‘On the other hand, everything is relative,’ Allan went on. ‘The prince is a Wahhabi and Wahhabis are against most things, as I’ve understood it. Such as Shiite Muslims, Jews, Christians, music and vodka. Have you ever heard anything so awful? To be against vodka!’

Julius swore at Allan’s further exposition.

‘Would you tell me what we’re going to do? Should we drive straight through the fence and up to the minister’s plane? If we get caught, it’s all over! Or should we drive in the regular way? What will we say to the guards at the sentry gate, in that case? Should we shoot them? With what? Jesus Christ, Allan!’

The hundred-and-one-year-old turned off his black tablet and thought for a moment.

‘Wouldn’t it be best to leave the car in the short-term car park, take our briefcase and our diplomatic passports, and check in?’

One of the check-in desks was different from the rest. It was off to the side and had a gold-framed sign above the counter with Korean words and an explanation in English below: Premium Check-In.

Allan greeted the man at the counter with ‘Good day,’ introduced himself as Special Envoy and Diplomat Karlsson from the kingdom of Sweden, and wondered if Minister for Foreign Affairs Wallström’s plane had already pulled up for boarding.

The man behind the counter took Allan’s and Julius’s passports and looked at them.

‘Okay,’ he said. ‘I have not received information that you…’

‘Information isn’t exactly in keeping with the spontaneous nature of hush-hush diplomacy,’ said Allan. ‘People like us stay in the wings. Would you please be so kind as to show us to the plane?’

No, the man did not wish to be so kind.

‘One moment,’ he said, and left to find his boss.

Julius thought Allan was behaving admirably at the airport, but they hadn’t accomplished anything yet. After a minute or so, a man in uniform arrived to ask how he could be of service.

‘Good day, Colonel,’ Allan said to the man, who wasn’t a colonel at all, but the head of airport security.

‘What is this about?’ asked the head of security.

‘Are you the one who will be taking us to Minister Wallström’s plane? Wonderful! Would you please carry this suitcase for me? We’re travelling light, but I’m old and worn out,’ said Allan, placing the briefcase of uranium on the counter.

‘I won’t be leading you anywhere, not before we’ve found out who you are,’ the head of security said defensively.

At that instant, a miracle occurred.

‘Attachés Karlsson and Jonsson! Are you here already? Splendid!’ said Margot Wallström, as she strode towards them from the main entrance. ‘I’ve just come straight from lunch with the Supreme Leader. We talked almost exclusively about you, Mr Karlsson, and he sends his kindest greetings to you both and offers you a warm welcome back as soon as possible.’

The head of security went pale. He knew who Madame Wallström was – he was the one who’d met her two days earlier and welcomed her according to his orders.

‘Now, where were we?’ said Allan. ‘Will you be helping me with my briefcase?’

Two seconds of reflection. Five. Ten. Then the head of security said: ‘Of course, my dear sir.’

At which he guided the minister-slash-UN-envoy, her two attachés, the envoy’s suitcase, and the one attaché’s briefcase past all the checkpoints and all the way to the freshly refuelled aeroplane, ready and waiting.

Eighteen minutes later, thirty-six minutes ahead of schedule, the Swedish minister for foreign affairs’ plane exited North Korean airspace, carrying two more passengers than it had when it landed two days earlier.

Three hours after that, the North Korean leader Kim Jong-un flew into a rage the like of which were seldom seen. And he hadn’t even yet been informed, by the engineer at the plutonium factory, that the briefcase of enriched uranium now contained instead a diverse selection of pleasantly scented toiletry articles. This, in turn, was because the engineer had just hanged himself in his cold storage room (straight after he had deciphered Karlsson’s first formula as the main ingredient in a nylon stocking). The name- and limousine-less driver, for his part, had to spend twenty-five minutes waiting at the edge of the highway before, at last, a truck approached for him to step out and plant himself in front of. The head of airport security did not share this death wish. Even so, he was allowed to live for only two more days, before being summarily charged in court and duly executed by firing squad.