The Hundred-Year-Old Man Who Climbed Out of the Window and Disappeared (25 page)

Allan’s thoughts were suddenly interrupted when young Mr Kim burst into tears. He put the phone down, and rushed over to Allan, crying:

‘Uncle Stalin is dead! Uncle Stalin is dead!’

Allan thought that such luck bordered on the absurd, and then he said:

‘There, there, young Mr Kim. Come now and Uncle Marshal will give the young Mr Kim a hug. There, there…’

When the young Mr Kim was more or less consoled, he no longer seemed so precocious. It was as if he couldn’t manage to
be adult any longer. Sniffling, he reported that Stalin had had a stroke several days earlier and that according to Auntie Stalin (that is what he called her), Uncle had died just before the young Mr Kim phoned.

While the young Mr Kim sat on Allan’s knee, Allan talked with feeling about the bright memory of his last meeting with Comrade Stalin. They had eaten a banquet meal together, and they had got into that really good mood that only arises between true friends. Comrade Stalin had danced and sung before the evening was over. Allan hummed the Georgian folk song that Stalin sang on that occasion, just before something short-circuited inside his head. And the young Mr Kim
recognised
the song! Uncle Stalin had sung that song for him too. Thus – if not before – all doubts were swept away. Uncle Marshal was quite clearly who he said he was. The young Mr Kim would make sure that his father, the prime minister, received him the next day. But now he wanted another hug…

In fact, the prime minister wasn’t exactly sitting and governing his half country from an office next door. That would have been far too great a risk. No, if you were going to meet Kim Il Sung you had to embark upon a longer journey which for reasons of security were undertaken in an SU-122 self-propelled howitzer, because the prime minister’s second-in-command would come along too.

The vehicle was not at all comfortable, but that’s not really the point of self-propelled howitzers, of course. During the journey, Allan had plenty of time to ponder two not entirely unimportant things. The first was what he would say to Kim Il Sung, and the second was what result he hoped for.

In front of the prime minister’s second-in-command (and son), Allan had claimed that he came with an important message from Comrade Stalin, and thanks to an amazing stroke of luck it had
become easy to deal with this. The false marshal could now say anything at all; Stalin was far too dead to be able to deny it. So Allan decided that the message to Kim Il Sung would be that Stalin was going to give Kim Il Sung two hundred tanks for the communist struggle in Korea. Or three hundred. The higher the figure, the happier the prime minister would be, of course.

The other thing was more awkward. Allan was not
particularly
interested in travelling back to the Soviet Union after having accomplished his mission with Kim Il Sung. But to get the North Korean leader to help Allan and Herbert to South Korea would not be easy. And staying in the vicinity of Kim Il Sung would be more and more unhealthy for every day those tanks didn’t turn up.

Could China be an alternative? As long as Allan and Herbert had been wearing black-and-white prison clothes, the answer was no, but they weren’t any more. Korea’s gigantic neighbour had possibly been transformed from a threat to a promise, since Allan had become a Soviet marshal. Especially if Allan could trick Kim Il Sung into providing them with a nice letter of introduction.

So, next stop China? And then things would just have to turn out however they did. If no better option turned up en route, they could always traipse over the Himalayas once more.

With that, Allan felt he had reflected enough. First, Kim Il Sung would get three hundred tanks, or even four – there was no need to be stingy. Thereafter, the pretend-marshal would humbly ask the prime minister to help him with transport and visas for his journey to China, since the marshal had
business
with Mao Tse-tung too. Allan was pleased with his plan. Towards the evening, the armoured convoy with passengers Allan, Herbert and the young Kim Jong Il rolled into what seemed to be some kind of military camp.

‘Do you think we’ve ended up in South Korea?’ Herbert asked hopefully.

‘If there is anywhere in the world where Kim Il Sung is NOT sitting and keeping his head down, then it is South Korea,’ said Allan.

‘No, of course not. I just thought… no, I don’t suppose I did really,’ said Herbert.

Then the ten-wheel tracked armoured vehicle jerked to a halt. The three passengers crawled out. They were in a military airfield outside a building that looked like a command centre.

The young Mr Kim held the door open for Allan and Herbert, after which he daintily trotted past the two gentlemen and even held open the next door. With that, the trio had reached the holiest of holies. Inside stood a large writing desk covered with papers. On the wall behind it hung a map of Korea, and on the right were two sofas. Prime Minister Kim Il Sung sat on one sofa, talking to a guest on the other. On the other side of the room, two soldiers armed with machine guns stood to attention.

‘Good evening, Mr Prime Minister,’ said Allan. ‘I am Marshal Kirill Afanasievich Meretskov of the Soviet Union.’

‘You certainly are not,’ said Kim Il Sung calmly. ‘I know Marshal Meretskov very well.’

‘Oh,’ said Allan.

The soldiers immediately stopped standing to attention and instead pointed their weapons at the false marshal and his presumably equally false aide. Kim Il Sung was still calm, but his son broke out into a combination of tears and fury. Perhaps this was the moment when the last fragments of his childhood disappeared. Never trust anybody! And he had sat on the false marshal’s lap! Never trust anybody! He would never, ever, trust a single person again.

‘You will die!’ he shouted at Allan amidst the tears. ‘And you too!’ he said to Herbert.

‘Yes, you will certainly die,’ said Kim Il Sung in his still calm manner. ‘But first we want to find out who has sent you.’

This doesn’t look good, Allan thought.

This looks good, Herbert thought.

The real Marshal Kirill Afanasievich Meretskov and his aide had had no choice but to walk towards what might remain of Vladivostok.

After several hours, they came to a campsite set up by the Red Army outside the destroyed city. There, the humiliation had been even worse as the marshal had been suspected of being an escaped prisoner who had regretted his escape. But soon enough, he was recognised and treated in the manner that his position demanded.

Only once in his life had Marshal Meretskov allowed an injustice to pass by, and that was when Stalin’s second-
in-command
, Beria, had had him arrested and tortured for nothing, and would certainly have let him die if Stalin himself had not come to his rescue. Perhaps Meretskov ought to have done battle with Beria after that, but there was a world war to win and Beria was too strong in any case. So he had been obliged to forget it. But Meretskov had said to himself that he would never again allow himself to be humiliated. So now he had to seek out and destroy the two men who had robbed him of his car and his uniform.

Meretskov could not start the hunt immediately because he didn’t have his marshal’s uniform. And it was not the easiest matter to find a tailor in one of the tent camps, and then they still had problems finding something as trivial as needle and thread. All of Vladivostok’s sewing workshops – together with the rest of the city – had ceased to exist.

But after three days the marshal’s uniform was ready. Of course his medals were missing because the false marshal was flaunting them. Nevertheless, Meretskov would not let that stop him.

Marshal Meretskov managed with some difficulty to arrange a new Pobeda for himself and his aide (most military vehicles had of course been lost in the fire) and set off southwards at dawn, five days after the dreadful business started.

At the Korean border he had his suspicions confirmed. A marshal, just like the marshal, and in a Pobeda, just like the marshal’s, had crossed the border and continued southwards. The border guards didn’t know any more than that.

Marshal Meretskov came to the same conclusion that Allan had done five days earlier, namely that it would be suicide to continue towards the front. So he turned off towards Pyongyang, and after a few hours was able to confirm that he had made the right decision. The guards at the outer defence ring told him that a Marshal Meretskov with aide had asked for a meeting with Prime Minister Kim Il Sung, and been given an audience with the prime minister’s second-in-command. Marshal Meretskov and his aide continued on their way towards Pyongyang.

The real Marshal Meretskov met the second-in-command of the prime minister’s second-in-command after lunch the same day. With all the authority that only a Soviet marshal is able to muster, Marshal Meretskov had soon convinced the
second-in
-command of the second-in-command that both the prime minister and his son were in imminent danger of losing their lives, and that the second-in-command of the second-in-command must now without delay show them the way to the headquarters of the prime minister. Since no time could be lost, they would use the marshal’s Pobeda, a vehicle that must be at least four times faster than the self-propelled howitzer in which Kim Jong Il and the criminals were travelling.

‘Well,’ said Kim Il Sung haughtily but with interest. ‘Who are you, who has sent you and what was the purpose of your little deception?’

Allan didn’t have time to answer before the door opened and the real Marshal Meretskov rushed in, shouting that the two men in the middle of the room were criminal camp prisoners and were planning an assassination.

For a second, there were too many marshals and aides for the two soldiers with machine guns. But as soon as the prime minister satisfied himself that the new marshal was the real one, the soldiers could again focus on the imposters.

‘Take it easy, dear Kirill Afanasievich,’ said Kim Il Sung. ‘The situation is under control.’

‘You are going to die!’ said the furious Marshal Meretskov when he saw how Allan stood there in the marshal’s uniform with all his medals on his chest.

‘Yes, so they all say,’ Allan answered. ‘First the young Kim here, then the prime minister, and now you, Mr Marshal. The only one who hasn’t demanded my death is you,’ said Allan and turned to the prime minister’s guest. ‘I don’t know who you are, but I’m hoping you have a different opinion on that issue.’

‘I most certainly do not,’ the guest smiled back. ‘I am Mao Tse-tung, the leader of the People’s Republic of China, and I do not have any particular sympathy with somebody who wishes to harm my comrade Kim Il Sung.’

‘Mao Tse-tung!’ said Allan. ‘What an honour. Even if I am soon to be done away with, you mustn’t forget to give my regards to your beautiful wife.’

‘Do you know my wife?’ said Mao Tse-tung, amazed.

‘Yes, unless Mr Mao has changed wives recently; you’ve done that from time to time. Jiang Qing and I met in the Sichuan province some years ago. We hiked a bit in the mountains, together with a young boy called Ah Ming.’

‘Are you Allan Karlsson?’ said Mao Tse-tung, astonished. ‘My wife’s saviour?’

Herbert Einstein didn’t understand very much, but he
did
understand that his friend Allan had nine lives, and that their certain death was on the way to being transformed into
something
else, again! This must not be allowed to happen! Herbert now acted in shock.

‘I’m escaping, I’m escaping, shoot me, shoot me!’ he shouted and rushed right through the room, opened the wrong door and hurled himself into a cleaning cupboard where he
immediately
fell over a bucket and mop.

‘Your comrade…’ said Mao Tse-tung. ‘He’s not exactly an Einstein, is he?’

‘Don’t say that,’ said Allan. ‘Don’t say that.’

There was nothing strange about Mao Tse-tung being in the room, because Kim Il Sung had set up his headquarters in Manchurian China, just outside Shenyang in the Liaoning Province, about 500 kilometres north-west of Pyongyang. Mao liked to spend time in that area, where he had perhaps his strongest support. And he liked to be with his North Korean friend.

Nevertheless, it took quite a while to sort out everything that must be sorted out, and get all those who wanted Allan’s head on a platter to reconsider.

Marshal Meretskov was the first to hold out a forgiving hand. Allan Karlsson had after all suffered from Marshal Beria’s madness just like Meretskov himself (to be on the safe side, Allan omitted the little detail about how he had burned down all of Vladivostok). And when Allan proposed that he and the marshal should swap uniform jackets so that the marshal got back his medals, the marshal’s anger
evaporated
.

Nor did Kim Il Sung, for his part, feel he had cause for anger. After all, Allan had never intended to harm the prime minister. Kim Il Sung’s only worry was that his son felt so betrayed.

Young Kim still cried and shouted and continued to demand Allan’s immediate, and preferably violent, death. In the end, Kim Il Sung just boxed his son’s ear and told him to shut up immediately, or else he would get another wallop.

Allan and Marshal Meretskov were asked to sit down on Kim Il Sung’s sofa, soon to be joined by a downhearted Herbert, once he had untangled himself from the contents of the cleaning cupboard.

Allan’s identity was confirmed definitively when Mao Tse-tung’s twenty-year-old cook was called into the room. Allan and Ah Ming hugged each other for a long time until Mao ordered Ah Ming back into the kitchen to make some noodles.

Mao Tse-tung’s gratitude to Allan for saving his wife’s life knew no bounds. He was prepared to help Allan and his comrade with whatever they wanted, without limit. That included staying in China, if Allan wished, where Mao Tse-tung would ensure that he, and his comrade too, would live a comfortable life in a position of dignity.

But Allan answered that just now – and Mr Mao would have to excuse him for this – he had had all he could take of
communism
, and he longed to be able to relax somewhere where he could drink a glass of something strong without an
accompanying
political lecture.