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

Sweden

Too much had happened for one day. East of Eskilstuna, Sabine found a pension where they could check in to catch their breath and take stock.

The problem was, they had just lost their home, workshop, business and future. All that remained: one hearse.

The manager of the pension, Mrs Lundblad, was a plump woman of around seventy-five. She was glad to receive unannounced guests. ‘Of course I have available rooms for Messrs and Mrs Undertaker. There are five rooms in all and all five happen to be empty, so take your pick. Would you like dinner? I can offer pea soup with ham, or… Well, pea soup with ham.’

In Allan’s opinion, pea soup with or without ham had never brought anyone joy. But perhaps there was something to wash it down with. ‘That sounds good,’ he said. ‘What will be served in the glasses? Beer, perhaps?’

‘Milk, of course,’ said Mrs Lundblad.

‘Of course,’ said Allan.

After the soup, Sabine called a meeting in the room she was sharing with Julius. She began by stating what Julius had already realized: their coffin operation was as dead as someone out there wanted them to be. One had to assume that the Nazi at least knew Sabine’s name: she was, after all, the firm’s frontwoman. Unless he was totally useless he would have found Allan as well, via the Companies Registration Office. But not Julius.

‘We need a new source of income,’ said Sabine. ‘New lives altogether. Preferably before we run out of money. Any ideas?’

Julius had touched upon an idea earlier, without being very serious about it. At the time. But now? ‘What about honouring the memory of your mother and starting again in the clairvoyance industry?’

Allan was on the verge of becoming excited. He thought it sounded thrilling to talk to the dead: what came out of the living was seldom of much interest. There were exceptions, of course. At the old folks’ home back in Malmköping, the man in the neighbouring room had dug trenches in Finland’s Winter War. An intriguing job. Or not, really, but the man told a good story. They’d had one ten-minute break per hour, which they devoted to more digging so they didn’t freeze to death.

Sabine turned off her ears to Allan while she thought.

‘Would that be a feasible path?’ Julius asked.

‘Trenches?’

Sabine glared at the hundred-and-one-year-old and replied to Julius. ‘No,’ she said. ‘Or maybe. It depends.’

If their assumption was that her mother had truly been clairvoyant, there was no way for them to move forwards. After all, Sabine hadn’t inherited an ounce of her mother’s talent.

But if in fact she had been a charlatan or, alternatively, believed in her own fantasies, thanks to her regular intake of happy pills, well, that put things in a different light.

Julius belonged to the small group of people who think that charlatans are a lovely thing. So he said encouragingly that Sabine shouldn’t worry that her mother had been anything but.

Sabine thanked Julius for his kind words but said that the fantasy explanation was the most likely. ‘And it’s possible to copy those. Or even develop them further.’

For all those years, her mother had talked about how she wanted to take her operation and herself to new heights; Sabine knew her stories by heart. There were reasons nothing ever happened on that front. Towards the end, she could hardly get out of bed.

Her favourite story was the one about Olekorinko.

What if he was still alive? And she could find him and his operation via the internet?

‘You’re not touching my tablet,’ said Allan.

‘Oh yes I am.’