The 100-Year-Old Man Who Climbed Out the Window and Disappeared

With the help of forged passports and a large sum of American money that Mao confiscated, Allan and Herbert travel to Bali, where they spend their time sitting on the beach, drinking cocktails. Herbert falls in love with their server, a young woman from the lowest social caste who’s only slightly smarter than him. They marry, and Herbert changes her name to Amanda because he can’t pronounce Ni Wayan Laksmi. Desiring to do something nice for her new groom, Amanda informs him that “in Indonesia everything was for sale, and so anyone who had money could get anything he wanted” (276). She buys Herbert a car and a driver’s license. Herbert opens a driving school, to which students flock, though his driving lessons are quite general since he’s totally unfamiliar with Indonesian driving laws.

Amanda buys herself a college degree in economics. She gets Herbert to agree to give her most of his remaining money so that she can run for governor of Bali. By bribing officials and defaming her opponents, Amanda wins. Herbert and Amanda have two sons, Allan and Mao Einstein. When Suharto becomes president of Indonesia, he appoints Amanda his ambassador to France. She accepts and tells Allan he must come along as her translator.

Aronsson shows up alone at the Bellringer Farm and spies Allan sitting in a hammock. He introduces himself to Allan, who offers him coffee and pastries. Aronsson realizes that if the other suspects are present, he’ll need additional officers to arrest them all. As he reaches for his cell phone, Prosecutor Ranelid calls him.

This chapter fills in the backstory of the two deceased Never Again henchmen, Bolt and Bucket. The steel container containing Bolt’s body develops a terrible odor as it passes through the Suez Canal. An Egyptian sailor discovers the body and dumps it into the water after removing Bolt’s billfold and Swedish money. While celebrating in Djibouti, the sailor unfortunately stands next to a nervous suicide bomber who accidentally detonates himself. All that remains of the sailor is Bolt’s billfold and Swedish money. Meanwhile, in Riga, Latvia, the operator of a car-crushing machine sees a human arm protruding from a flattened Mustang. The ID on the body indicates that it is Bucket.

The discovery of the two bodies devastates the prosecutor, whose dream triple-murder case begins to unravel. He calls Aronsson to beg him to find the third body so that he can tie it to Allan. During this conversation, Pike comes out of the house and greets the inspector, who says to the prosecutor, “I think that number three has just found me” (292).

During his time in Bali, Allan allowed his beard and hair to grow unabated. Because of riots and work stoppages in Paris when the Indonesians first arrive, Allan can’t get a haircut before Amanda’s installation. French President Charles de Gaulle schedules an introductory meal with Amanda and US President Lyndon Johnson. During the meal, Allan translates for Amanda all the questions they ask her. He ignores her real answers and responds with what she should have said. Jonasson writes of the French and American presidents:

[B]oth thought that Madam Ambassador Einstein was entertaining, enlightened, interesting, and wise. She might, of course, have shown better judgment when it came to a choice of interpreter, because he looked like the Wild Man of Borneo (299).

After the banquet, as the presidents stand together, Allan approaches them with important information: Claude Pennant, a close advisor of French Interior Minister Christian Foucet, is a Russian spy. Allan remembers him as the translator from his meal with Stalin, though Pennant doesn’t recognize him. Johnson invites Allan to the US embassy, where Allan eventually explains that he accidently gave the Russians the secret to building an atomic bomb. Johnson’s advisor, CIA officer Ryan Hutton, convinces the president to pay Allan to go to Russia and turn Yury Popov into an American spy. When de Gaulle looks for Allan to thank him and give him a medal, the Indonesian embassy says that Allan is gone.

Inspector Ranelid calls a press conference to explain that all charges against Allan and his crew have been dropped. The information he offers to the press is brief and cryptic, though he makes it clear that Allan and the others couldn’t be guilty of three murders. He cites “technical reasons” to explain why he can’t dispense more information. A reporter asks, “How can it be secret ‘for technical reasons’ to tell us what a number of innocent people have been doing?” (310).

As the inspector, who now instructs Pike simply to call him Göran, sits on the veranda, the remaining characters in Allan’s crew appear, and they converse genially—until the prosecutor calls Göran and says that he needs to meet with the former suspects. Göran explains to the group that they really should meet with Ranelid the next day to put the entire matter to rest and (with any luck) keep the media at bay: “Besides, we’ve got all evening to come up with a story, said Allan” (315). Benny drives the inspector to his hotel, since Göran has been drinking champagne with the gang.