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

But it didn’t. Towards the end of the year, the president averaged five point five false statements each day. In his defence, it should be pointed out that he kept the average up by repeating the same falsehood many times over. The Washington Post was rude enough to count each untruth as an untruth, even though it had also been put forward the day before and the day before that.

Thus counted, the president had lied, made things up or twisted the truth about the former president’s health-care reform at least sixty times. And when he expressed himself about the tax burden in the United States it had gone wrong 140 times, even though he was corrected on each occasion. Fake media were, once and for all, evil personified.

Gena and Volodya celebrated the New Year together, as always. Tradition dictated that they toast with a cup of tea at midnight. Their common goal of giving Russia the world position it deserved (and preferably a little more) was too important to booze away.

Exactly twelve months earlier, their toast had been to the developments in the United States, and the approaching inauguration of Donald J. Trump. Ever since election night, a whole division of Gena’s internet-based army of young men and women had been devoted to covering all their tracks, while three other divisions constantly took up new positions to make sure the collapse of the United States wouldn’t get derailed.

Another twelve months previously, the friends had celebrated Brexit. Two enormous victories in as many years.

2017 had not been as successful. The chaos in the USA was, of course, fantastic in many respects, but it was also frightening. It prompted humility in facing the future. High up on the agenda was the question of whether it was time to get rid of Trump. And, if so, then preferably Kim Jong-un as well. There was an alternative solution, but Volodya and Gena had to sleep on it.

Beyond this, they had to admit that they had missed their chance, over the past year, to sink Europe as well. The developments in France were what bothered them most. The stage had been set for a duel between François Fillon and Marine Le Pen. Right against super-right. Gena was sitting on information about Fillon that could have given Le Pen an edge. And then some jerk at Le Canard Enchainé figured out the same thing and published it – too damn early! Paying his wife five hundred thousand euros of taxpayers’ money to do nothing did not, of course, turn out to be popular. Fillon was done for, and with him went Russia’s chances of sinking Europe by way of Paris.

Berlin went better, later on. But it seemed that the cat with nine lives, fucking Merkel, would succeed at forming a coalition government despite the odds.

Oh, well, you couldn’t have it all. The relative calm in the Middle East remained. The fools in the EU and NATO refused to comprehend that Bashar al-Assad would be taken away in the long run, and in an orderly fashion. To bomb him away would be tantamount to bombing Russia out of having influence, not to mention the monumental chaos that would arise in Syria’s place. Given the circumstances, you had to take the occasional bad chemical weapons attack with the good. The quasi-democracy in the West had not learned a thing from Libya: that much was clear. What was more, the constant stream of refugees into Europe served Russia’s purpose. Each poor wretch who managed to get a residency permit in any of the continent’s stupidest countries only fed the xenophobia in the neighbouring country. The unwillingness to help was greatest in those places that had never helped yet. That was how human resentment worked.

‘Cheers to you, my dear friend,’ said Vladimir Putin, raising his teacup.

‘Happy new year,’ said Gennady Aksakov.

At which they exchanged novogodnye podarki – New Year gifts – and looked to the future.

‘Where in the world is our next project, do you think?’ asked Gena. ‘Italy?’

‘No, they’re doing fine on their own.’

The advantage to toasting with tea on New Year’s Eve is that you are alert and clear-headed the next morning. Vladimir Putin didn’t know how things were on that front with Kim Jong-un when he lifted his presidential phone for a direct call between leaders.

The context of the call was the off-the-rails developments between the fools in Pyongyang and Washington. This had to end now! Grotesque amounts of necessities were packed up each day in Vladivostok and smuggled over the border to North Korea so that the little big man and his people wouldn’t have to starve while they battled the world on Russian orders.

Kim Jong-un picked up after two rings.

‘Good morning,’ said President Putin. ‘Or afternoon, if you will.’

‘Good afternoon, Vladimir Vladimirovitch,’ said Kim Jong-un. ‘What a nice surpr—’

‘Shut up,’ said Putin. ‘From now on you will do exactly as I say. First you will announce that your shitty country will attend the Olympic Winter Games in Pyeongchang. Then you will—’

He didn’t have time to order the mounting of a charm offensive on the United States before it was Kim Jong-un’s turn to interrupt.

‘With all due respect, Vladimir Vladimirovitch, you can’t tell—’

‘Of course I can,’ said Putin. ‘And that is what I have just begun to do.’

‘Fredrika Langer’s locally grown asparagus’ was sold across half of Germany, in lovely bunches with black, red and yellow ribbons around their middles. Her price was 20 per cent lower than that of all her competition, each of whom was at the economic disadvantage of actually growing their German asparagus in Germany. Fredrika’s local product, incidentally, was not as locally grown as she would have liked: it would take time for the Kenyan plants to deliver. In the meantime the Indonesian ones would have to do – they were, after all, equally German.

Gustav Svensson was no longer a valid brand in Sweden, but that was fine with Julius Jonsson. Gustav was much needed at the Kenyan operations anyway. He was the one who knew how much distance there had to be between each furrow; he knew how deep they should be, and how wide at the bottom. He was the one who patiently spoke to every single plant, in Hindi. And he was the one who, just as patiently, experimented his way to the optimal blend of fertilizers: two parts elephant dung and one part buffalo for the white asparagus; two parts buffalo and one part wildebeest for the green.

Sabine spent her days at the office just beyond the lounge. It turned out she really was useless as an entrepreneur, but she was a superstar at calculating and administrating what other entrepreneurs accomplished. She reinvested 80 per cent of the overage in fresh soil. With the last 20 per cent she bought the camp from the man who had inherited it from his father and was never around anyway. He needed the money to continue living his deeply destructive life in Kinshasa, with wine, women and Congolese song.

Meitkini sent Fredrika Kenyan red roses every day for three months before her heart finally melted. Five months after that it turned out she was pregnant. If it was a boy, Meitkini wanted to name him Uvuvwevwevwe.

Fredrika said she would hope for a girl.

All this happened while Allan spent his days on the veranda with a view of the watering-hole. His new hobby was Twitter. Not only had he discovered what it was, he had also ventured onto it himself. He did not, however, understand that in doing so he was telling the whole world where he was.

He was glad to see how satisfied the kids were with life. But there was something gnawing at him. He had started to see a pattern in the flow of news on his black tablet.