in the book go by their real names. Others, I have spared.
Since these leaders sometimes look down upon, rather than up at, ordinary folks, it’s reasonable to poke a little fun at them. But that doesn’t make them less than human, every one, and as such they deserve a moderate amount of respect. To all these potentates, I would like to say: I’m sorry. And: Deal with it. It could have been worse. As well as: What if it is?
Jonas Jonasson
A life of luxury on an island in Paradise ought to be satisfactory to just about anyone. But Allan Karlsson had never been just anyone, and his hundred-and-first year of life wasn’t the time to start.
It was, for a certain amount of time, gratifying to sit in a lounger under an umbrella and be served drinks of various colours at whim. Especially when one’s best and only friend, the inveterate petty thief Julius Jonsson, was right next to one.
But soon old Julius and the much older Allan grew tired of doing nothing but frittering away the millions from the suitcase they’d happened to bring with them from Sweden.
Not that there was anything wrong with frittering. It just got so monotonous. Julius tried renting a fully staffed hundred-and-fifty-foot yacht so he and Allan could sit on the foredeck with fishing rods in hand. It would have been a pleasant break if only they enjoyed fishing. Or, for that matter, eating fish. Instead, their yacht excursions involved doing the same thing on deck as they’d already learned to do on the shore. Namely, nothing at all.
Allan, for his part, made sure to fly Harry Belafonte in from the United States to sing three songs on Julius’s birthday – speaking of too much money and not enough to do. Harry stayed for dinner even though he wasn’t paid extra for it. Altogether, this constituted an entire evening of pattern-breaking.
By way of explanation for his selection of Belafonte over anyone else, Allan pointed out that Julius had a soft spot for this newer, youthful sort of music. Julius appreciated the gesture and didn’t mention that the artist in question hadn’t been young since the end of the Second World War. Compared to Allan, he was, of course, a child.
Although the superstar’s visit to Bali provided no more than a speck of colour in their otherwise dull grey existence, it would prove to affect Allan and Julius for a long time to come. Not because of what Belafonte sang, or anything like that, but because of what he brought along and devoted his attention to during breakfast prior to his journey home. It was a tool of some sort. A flat black object with a half-eaten apple on one side, and on the other a screen that lit up when you touched it. Harry touched and touched. And grunted now and again. Then tittered. Only to grunt once more. Allan had never been the nosy sort, but there were limits.
‘Perhaps it’s none of my business to pry into the young Mr Belafonte’s private matters, but if I may be so bold as to enquire what you’re doing there … Is something happening in that … well, in that?’
Harry Belafonte realized that Allan had never seen a tablet before and was delighted to demonstrate. The tablet could show what was going on in the world, and what had already gone on, and it verged on showing what was about to happen. Depending on where you touched, up came pictures and videos of all imaginable sorts. And some unimaginable ones. If you touched other buttons, out came music. Still others, and the tablet began to speak. Apparently it was a ‘she’, Siri.
After breakfast and the demonstration, Belafonte took his little suitcase, his black tablet and himself, and headed to the airport for his trip home. Allan, Julius and the hotel manager waved adieu. The artist’s taxi had no more made it out of sight before Allan turned to the manager and asked him to procure a tablet of the same sort Harry Belafonte had been using. Its diverse contents had amused the hundred-year-old and that was more than could be said about most things.
The manager had just returned from a hospitality conference in Jakarta, where he had learned that the main duty of hotel staff was not to deliver but to over-deliver. Add to this that Messrs Karlsson and Jonsson were two of the best guests in the history of Balinese tourism, and it was no wonder that, by the very next day, the manager had a tablet ready for Karlsson. And a cellular phone to boot. As a bonus.
Allan didn’t want to seem ungrateful, so he didn’t mention that he had no use for the phone since everyone he could imagine dialling had been dead for at least fifty years. Except Julius, of course. Who had nothing to answer with. Although that particular point could be remedied.
‘Here you are,’ Allan said to his friend. ‘It’s really a gift from the manager to me, but I have no one to call but you, and until this moment you didn’t have any way to answer.’
Julius thanked him for his kindness. And chose not to point out that Allan still couldn’t call him, but for the opposite reason.
‘Just don’t lose it,’ Allan said. ‘It looks expensive. It was better before, when phones were stuck to the wall with a cord so you knew what they were up to.’
* * *
The black tablet became Allan’s most treasured possession. What was more, it was free to use since the hotel manager had instructed the staff at the computer store in Denpasar to set up the tablet and phone with all the bells and whistles. This included, among other things, linking the SIM cards to the hotel, which found its total telephone costs doubled, although no one understood why.
Once the hundred-year-old man learned how the remarkable contraption worked, he no sooner woke for the day than he turned it on to see what had happened overnight. It was the minor delightful news items from all the corners of the world that amused him most. Like the one about how a hundred doctors and nurses in Naples took turns signing each other in and out so no one had to work but everyone still got paid. Or the one about Romania, how so many government officials had had to be locked up for corruption that the country’s prisons were full. And how those officials who had yet to be arrested had a solution to the problem: legalize corruption so they would avoid the need to build more prisons.
Allan and Julius developed a new morning routine. The old one had involved Allan launching into every breakfast with complaints about his friend’s loud snoring, which he could hear through the wall. The new one involved the same, but with the addition of Allan’s reports about what he’d found out on his tablet since last time. At first Julius enjoyed the brief news updates, not least because they took the focus off his snoring. He was immediately delighted by the Romanian notion of making the illegal legal. Just think how much easier it would be as a petty thief in such a society.
But Allan quickly disabused him of that thought, because if petty thievery were to become legal then the concept would cease to exist. Julius, who had been on the verge of suggesting that he and Allan leave Bali and move to Bucharest, immediately deflated. The joy in being a small-time thief was, of course, mainly derived from tricking someone out of something, preferably someone who deserved it or at least wouldn’t suffer too much from it. If swindling could no longer be considered a swindle, what was the point?
Allan consoled him with the information that the Romanians had turned out to a man to protest against the politicians’ and officials’ plans. The average Romanian was not as philosophically inclined as those in power. He or she reasoned that those who stole should be locked up, no matter their title or position, and whether or not there was anywhere to lock them up.
Breakfast times at the hotel in Bali ended up revolving ever more often around where in the world Julius and Allan should go now that life had become so humdrum in their current location. When the leading news story on the morning in question told him that it was twenty degrees warmer than usual at the North Pole, Allan wondered if that might be an option.
Julius stuffed fried noodles into his mouth, finished chewing, then said he didn’t think the North Pole was the right place for him and Allan. Especially not if the ice was about to melt. Julius caught a cold whenever his feet got wet. And there were polar bears, and all Julius knew about polar bears was that they seemed to get