The Prize

11

FOR important business occasions, Nicholas Daranyi always wore the single-breasted, metallic-grey suit, of best English fabric, made for him via mail order by a Chinese tailor in Hong Kong. It was a suit which, had it been fashioned in London for one like the Duke of Windsor, might have cost between seventy and eighty pounds. By sending halfway around the world, and trusting the post, Daranyi had obtained the suit for twelve pounds, plus duty, plus the expense of a minor alteration across the shoulders.

Tonight, standing outside Carl Adolf Krantz’s apartment door on the fourth floor of the fashionable orange building with white balconies and white flower boxes, located on the Norr Mälarstrand, Daranyi wore his Hong Kong suit. He had groomed himself carefully for the occasion, applying his favourite imported oil to his sparse, flat hair, and talcum and cologne to his smooth jowls. The suit draped beautifully, except for the right jacket pocket which held his folded sheaf of memoranda. He had taken care to look prosperous because, after tonight, he intended to be prosperous. Tonight, he reassured himself, would be his night of liberation from want.

Krantz had required the information by the evening of December the ninth, and now it was seven o’clock of the evening of December the ninth, and Daranyi had kept his pledge and met his deadline.

The door opened, and Krantz’s maid, Ilsa, a broad peasant woman from Westphalia, a woman of indeterminate years but many, whose face had the appearance of a dried prune and whose upper lip bore down, bowed respectfully from the waist and admitted Daranyi to the vestibule. Daranyi gave her his hat, and the overcoat that he had been carrying on his arm since leaving the elevator, and then followed her through the parlour, with its embroidered lace doilies on every dark heavy mahogany piece, to the door of Krantz’s study.

Ilsa pushed in this door, and stood back until Daranyi had entered, and then she closed it, and Daranyi was alone in the study. Only once before, during his long but erratic relationship with Krantz, had Daranyi ever been inside this study. He recalled that against one wall there had been a sixteenth-century German oak cupboard with ornate locks and hinges of iron that had once belonged to Krantz’s father, and that over the oak cupboard had been a perfect square of framed photographs of Pope Pius XI, Fritz Thyssen, Franz von Papen, Paul von Hindenburg, Dr. Max Planck, and Hermann Göring, all autographed to Krantz. As if to prove his memory, Daranyi glanced at the right wall and was pleased to see the oak cupboard and the square of photographs above it.

He heard a rustling movement to his left, and realized that he was not alone, after all. Carl Adolf Krantz, more dwarfed than ever by his furniture, had turned from the lace curtains and potted palms before the glass doors of the balcony, and, hands clasped behind him, had spoken.

‘I see you are on time, Daranyi.’

‘As I promised you, Dr. Krantz.’ Daranyi hastily went to his patron and took the perfunctory handshake. He observed that Krantz’s mouth, wet between the moustache and goatee, was nervous, and this reinforced Daranyi’s deduction that whatever he had obtained for the physicist was valuable and worth what he would eventually demand.

‘I was looking out on the water,’ said Krantz. ‘It is pleasant at this hour.’

Daranyi joined him, peering across the balcony at the Mälaren. The lights and silhouette of a freighter, going sluggishly towards the Baltic, could be seen, and then the reflection of a white ferryboat.

‘You are fortunate to own an apartment with such a view,’ said Daranyi.

‘Yes,’ said Krantz, but he did not seem happy. Suddenly, with effort, he brought himself away from the window. ‘Well, we must not waste our precious time with aesthetics. You said on the telephone that you have the dossier on each of our subjects?’

‘I have.’

‘But did not have time to typewrite them for me?’

‘That is correct, Dr. Krantz. With so much research to do and so little time-’

‘Never mind,’ said Krantz. ‘I am prepared to register on my pad what you have to say. You will sit there.’

He gestured to a squat leather chair that faced the great circumference of black coffee table. Daranyi sat down and admired the thick and lush green fern planted in a long iron antique basin, that dominated the far end of the table and all but obscured Krantz when he took the chair behind it.

‘I trust you do not require alcoholic beverage before dinner,’ said Krantz. ‘I prefer you to keep a clear head. Ilsa has left a pot of tea.’

Daranyi became aware of the tray, with its tea-service and plate of cheese patties, on the table before the fern, and he nodded.

‘Thank you. Perhaps later.’ He drew the folded sheaf of jottings from his pocket, and he saw Krantz match his action by taking up a yellow tablet and a pen. ‘I have been limited, by your deadline, to only the personal histories-as far as they were available-of the parties you are concerned with. I have omitted anything that might be known to you. I have pursued what might be useful to a committee fearful of a scandal before tomorrow.’

‘Excellent,’ said Krantz.

‘I am proud to say that I not only have information of the laureates and their relatives up to today, but all through today. Besides the usual trusted informants, I employed several practised operatives. I thought that the movements of the subjects, a day before the Ceremony, might lend some clues. I do not know. Perhaps I am over-conscientious.’

‘We shall see,’ said Krantz, fidgeting restlessly behind the fern. ‘Please proceed, Daranyi. We do not have all night.’

Daranyi examined his first page of scribblings. ‘Dr. John Garrett of Pasadena, California-’

‘Speak up, speak up plainly,’ said Krantz with some testiness. ‘I must have everything accurate.’

Daranyi cleared his throat. ‘Dr. John Garrett, the Nobel winner in medicine. His background, outside of his career, was singularly unproductive, except for one fact. For some months, Dr. Garrett has been having psychiatric treatment in the city of Los Angeles. His physician is Dr. L. D. Keller. His treatment is not individual, but as part of a group. There are seven persons in this group, including Dr. Garrett. Because I thought that it might be useful for you to have the names and some data on the others-in the event one might be linked with Dr. Garrett in some way-I went to the trouble of obtaining information on the other six, too.’

With loving care, Daranyi read aloud the names of Miss Dudzinski, Mrs. Zane, Mrs. Perrin, Mr. Lovato, Mr. Ring, Mr. Armstrong, identifying each with a dry sentence or two. Daranyi went on to reveal facts concerning Dean Filbrick and several of Garrett’s medical colleagues at the Rosenthal Medical Centre in Pasadena. Daranyi admitted that he could locate nothing to show that Garrett and Dr. Carlo Farelli had known each other before Stockholm. There was evidence that they had first met at the Press Club, and several reporters then present had felt that the pair were not on friendly terms. This was corroborated by a brief quarrel between them at the King’s banquet.

With true dramatic flair, Daranyi was saving his bombshell, acquired from Hammarlund’s secretary, for the last. ‘As you doubtless know,’ Daranyi was saying, ‘Mr. Hammarlund gave a dinner for the laureates-Miss Märta Norberg was his hostess-on the evening of December sixth. There was a cocktail period before the dinner, and here the antagonism between Dr. Garrett and Dr. Farelli came to a head. They went into the garden, for privacy, and there Dr. Garrett accused Dr. Farelli of pirating his medical discovery. Harsh words-curses even-were exchanged. During the fracas, Dr. Farelli knocked Dr. Garrett down. Further violence was halted by the intervention of Mr. Craig, the literary laureate.’

Daranyi stopped and looked up, pleased, expecting an exclamation of congratulations from Krantz for this deplorable and scandalous detail. Krantz was hunched over his pad, writing, and he said nothing. Daranyi’s disappointment was keen.

‘Interesting, is it not?’ he asked hopefully.

Krantz glanced up with annoyance. ‘Yes-yes-what are you waiting for? Is there anything more on Garrett?’

Daranyi wanted to counter by saying: is this not enough? But he could not afford insolence. And then the thought struck him that Krantz’s lack of enthusiasm about the Garrett and Farelli fight was an indication that Krantz either knew about it, or was not really interested in Garrett or Farelli. This was of some value to Daranyi. He could eliminate both of them, and he was closer to the truth of his assignment.

‘More on Garrett?’ repeated Daranyi. ‘Nothing significant, except his activity today. This morning at nine-twenty, he received a telephone call from your Foreign Office requesting him to appear in the Audience Chamber of the Royal Palace at eleven o’clock. I was unable to learn why he had been summoned or by whom.’ Daranyi looked up apologetically. ‘Reliable informants who are highly placed inside the Palace are, you will acknowledge, difficult to come by.’

Krantz took out a handkerchief and blew his nose and scowled over the fern.

‘Well-well-?’

Daranyi returned to his jottings. ‘At any rate, for whatever it means to you, Dr. Garrett arrived at the Palace at five minutes to eleven this morning, and was welcomed by the equerry…’

The equerry, impressive in his regimental uniform, had departed, and now, at 10.59 in the morning, John Garrett was briefly alone in the Audience Chamber of the Royal Palace, and gratified to the point of self-complacency. He wandered about the resplendent and baroque room, hearing his heels on the floor, and wishing that Dr. Keller and Adam Ring and his friends at the Medical Centre and Carlo Farelli, above all Carlo Farelli, could see him now.

Garrett touched the magnificent tapestries on the walls, executed in Delft for Queen Christina, examined the oil portraits done by Frans Hals, gazed up at the angel above the dazzling chandelier, and then he stood on the carpet before the gold-and-velvet throne-an actual kingly throne!-and then he inspected the canopy high above the throne.

At His Majesty’s request, the Foreign Office spokesman had told him earlier, on a matter of business personal to the King, could Dr. Garrett appear in the Audience Chamber for a private meeting at eleven o’clock? The meeting, the spokesman promised, would be of short duration, so as not to disturb Dr. Garrett’s schedule, but it was on a matter of great concern to the King.

Garrett had been elated and was still elated. He was tempted to sit on the throne, for this was the way he felt, but he restrained himself for fear of being so discovered by the monarch. He wondered what the Swedish ruler wanted of him. It did not matter, actually. All that mattered-and this he had ascertained on the telephone-was that he, alone, had been called to the Audience Chamber at eleven o’clock, and now his ego puffed and strutted inside him. Poor, poor Farelli, he thought-to see the Italian’s face when he read the story of this…

Lost, as he was, in his reverie, Garrett did not hear the heavy carved oak door of the Audience Chamber as it was opened and closed behind him. What he heard, after, were the footsteps, and he swung around, erect as possible, to meet the King man to man.

‘Good morning, Dr. Garrett. It is gracious of you to come so promptly.’

It was not the King of Sweden who spoke to him, and now approached him, but a shorter, stockier man, in his sixties, wearing a disappointing dark blue business suit.

He shook Garrett’s hand. ‘I do not know if you remember me,’ he was saying. ‘I am the Baron Johan Stiernfeldt. We were introduced at Mr. Hammarlund’s dinner.’

‘Yes, of course,’ said Garrett. ‘The Foreign Office phoned this morning-’

‘At my urgent request,’ said the Baron. ‘I am really acting, as so often I do, on behalf of His Majesty. I will detain you but a minute or two. Shall we be seated?’

There were two low velvet stools, with crossed gold legs, against the tapestry that depicted a pastoral scene, several feet to the right of the throne. They walked to the stools and sat, the Baron Johan Stiernfeldt easily, Garrett uncomfortably and still chagrined by the absence of the one whom he had expected.

‘It is my understanding,’ said the Baron, ‘that you are a close acquaintance of Dr. Erik Öhman, our cardiac specialist at the Caroline Institute, who has followed in your footsteps. He has spoken highly of you and gratefully of your contribution to his own work.’

‘I’ve been only too glad to be of some small assistance to him,’ said Garrett modestly, his ego rising once more.

‘Perhaps it is presumptuous of us, then, when you are a guest of our nation and here on pleasure, to request your assistance in a personal matter. His Majesty was troubled about the propriety of this, and Dr. Öhman was consulted at length, and at last it was decided that we might take the liberty of hoping for one more favour from you.’

Unconsciously, Garrett preened. ‘I certainly don’t know what favour I can do for a King, but whatever is commanded, I am at His Majesty’s service.’ He liked the gracious roll of his reply, and hoped that he would remember it for Sue Wiley.

‘Excellent! In advance, we thank you,’ said the Baron. ‘Now to the favour. Dr. Öhman informs us that he has already spoken to you of his next transplantation case.’

Garrett tried to remember. ‘There was a Count, if I recall-’ He gave up. ‘I’m afraid you’ll have to refresh my memory.’

‘The patient is Count Rolf Ramstedt, a distant relation to His Majesty and a relation for whom His Majesty has the deepest affection. Count Ramstedt is seventy-two, an athletic person of strong constitution and in the finest health-that is, until recently when he was stricken by an incurable heart ailment. I am a layman and cannot properly explain his illness, but I am told that it is grave and his situation critical. Perhaps you will remember the case from widespread newspaper accounts recently when Dr. Farelli, accompanied by an American newspaperwoman, visited the patient and gave an interview on the possibilities.’

Garrett’s face constricted. ‘Yes, I remember now.’

‘Dr. Öhman has been the soul of candour with His Majesty. For reasons beyond my comprehension, the case provides certain difficulties-’

‘Yes, so Dr. Öhman told me.’

‘-but, nevertheless, Dr. Öhman feels, after numerous tests, that Count Ramstedt qualifies for transplantation surgery, that organ transplantation can be successfully effected because the patient’s immunity mechanism will respond to the serum. With this assurance, the King has seen fit to allow Dr. Öhman to proceed with surgery tomorrow morning. However, His Majesty feels that as if by some kind fate, the world’s two foremost authorities-the discoverers, in fact-of this heart transplantation happen to be in Stockholm to reap the rewards of their genius. The King would like to avail himself of the knowledge that you and Dr. Farelli possess. Since the operation is one that involves him emotionally, and beyond that will be widely reported in the world press, His Majesty feels a responsibility to see that the patient has every advantage. As much as he has faith in Dr. Öhman-and he has absolute faith in that young man-he would feel more secure if you could attend the surgery tomorrow morning, stand by, so to speak, in order that Dr. Öhman may draw upon your assistance and experience if necessary.’

‘Does Dr. Öhman know of this?’

‘He has given his wholehearted approval,’ said the Baron, ‘and would be much relieved if you would share his responsibility.’

‘I will share it, of course,’ said Garrett. ‘I will be on hand.’

‘Capital!’ exclaimed the Baron. ‘Surgery was originally scheduled for seven tomorrow morning. It will now be delayed until nine in the morning, so that Dr. Öhman may have time to go over his charts and plan with you.’

Garrett saw, at once, the advantage of his participation, his collaboration, so dramatic, to save a relative of the King through the discovery that he had made. Before the entire world, he would be able to demonstrate why he had won the Nobel Prize and why he deserved it alone. It was this last that troubled him now. The Baron had said that the King wished Öhman to avail himself of the services of both himself and Farelli. That would not do, and he must be firm and make it a condition of his co-operation.

Baron Johan Stiernfeldt had risen, and that was when Garrett spoke his mind.

‘There’s just one thing,’ he heard himself saying. He came off the velvet stool and joined the aristocrat. ‘Few laymen are acquainted with the tension that accompanies this difficult surgery. Speed and precision are the saving virtues. I have found, in my long experience in heart transplantations, that two make for good surgery, but three is a crowd.’

‘I am afraid I do not understand, Dr. Garrett. What are you suggesting?’

‘I assume you mean to confine the assistance given Dr. Öhman to myself alone. Since Dr. Öhman and I have exchanged notes on our work, and know each other, we will be able to perform at maximum efficiency together. A team of two-Dr. Öhman and I-will guarantee successful outcome. A third surgeon might make the undertaking extremely difficult.’

Baron Johan Stiernfeldt’s visage was stern. ‘Do you mean that you do not wish Dr. Carlo Farelli to attend the surgery?’

Garrett felt a wave of relief. It was understood. His victory was within his grasp. ‘Exactly, that is exactly what I mean.’

‘I am afraid that is impossible, Dr. Garrett.’

The reply was unexpected. ‘Why is it impossible?’ he wanted to know petulantly.

‘Because at eight-thirty this morning, the King had Dr. Carlo Farelli in his private quarters for breakfast, and together, at some length, they discussed the details of the impending surgery. The King has already accepted Dr. Farelli’s gracious offer to be of assistance.’

Garrett stood aghast. ‘The King himself saw Farelli?’

‘Oh, yes,’ said Baron Johan Stiernfeldt, ‘and quite relieved was His Majesty. You see, as I have explained, the King was reluctant to make any imposition upon your time and Dr. Farelli’s time. Then, at last, he was convinced that the requests should be made. But before he could do so, Dr. Farelli relieved His Majesty of any embarrassment by voluntarily coming forward and offering his services to the King. You can imagine His Majesty’s delight and appreciation. And-I suppose I can tell you this-it was Dr. Farelli’s assurance at breakfast, that you would be as honoured as he was himself to co-operate, that induced the King to have me meet with you forthwith… Is anything the matter, Dr. Garrett? Are you having a dizzy spell?’

In Carl Adolf Krantz’s apartment overlooking the Mälaren, fifteen minutes had passed since Daranyi’s arrival, and now the Hungarian looked up once more from his memoranda and waited while his host finished his writing behind the obstructing fern.

‘So much for Dr. Garrett and so much for Dr. Farelli,’ said Daranyi. ‘Next, I have the names of your chemistry laureates, Dr. Claude Marceau and Dr. Denise Marceau, of Paris. What I have learned of them, while not of considerable quantity, has quality, at least the quality I trust you will consider useful.’

‘Permit me to be the judge,’ said Krantz grouchily.

‘Very well.’ He held up his sheaf of papers. ‘This is lurid enough to make one blush. The Marceaus seem to have led spotless lives, entirely dedicated to their investigations and experiments, until recently. Dr. Claude Marceau committed adultery in Paris, and his wife seems to have retaliated by having an illicit affair here in Stockholm.’

‘Decadent frogs,’ muttered Krantz from behind the greenery.

‘I do not have the details, and so I will spare you that,’ said Daranyi, ‘but I do have in my possession certain facts. To begin with, Dr. Marceau’s little amour…’ With a free sense of staging, Daranyi released his facts one by one, each like a gaudy helium balloon floating skyward. He covered Dr. Claude Marceau’s indiscretions with the compliant Mademoiselle Gisèle Jordan from their start in Paris to their forthcoming rendezvous this afternoon at the Hotel Malmen in Stockholm.

‘I do not know for certain if Dr. Denise Marceau is aware of this rendezvous,’ admitted Daranyi, ‘but from the nature of her own behaviour, I would suspect that she knows what is going on. In any case, she-and my source is unimpeachable-has committed two infidelities with one of your countrymen, Dr. Oscar Lindblom, a young chemist in the employ of Ragnar Hammarlund. One infidelity, was performed in Hammarlund’s private scientific laboratory three days ago, and the second was performed last night, on the occasion of Dr. Claude Marceau’s absence from the city, when his wife received young Lindblom in her suite at the Grand.’

‘Disgusting,’ snarled Krantz, his pen busy.

‘If you worry about a scandal,’ said Daranyi, ‘this may be it. I keep thinking Dr. Denise Marceau means for her husband to know of her own violation of the marital bed, and I keep wondering what Dr. Claude Marceau will do when he does find out…’

At 1.02 in the afternoon, Claude Marceau had learned that his loyal spouse of ten years had become an adulteress.

At 1.08 Claude Marceau had extracted from her the name of her vile seducer.

At 1.29 Claude Marceau, linked in step with Hammarlund’s butler, Motta, was striding over the forest path behind Åskslottet to the isolated laboratory, the den of sin in the Animal Park, where he would find the infamous, lustful, treacherous Swede, Oscar Lindblom, and give him the thrashing of his life.

Claude Marceau, protector of home and hearth, was boiling mad. Nor was his rage misdirected. Denise, ever timid and fearful of violence, had tried to protect her lover by protesting his innocence and presenting herself as a femme fatale. The gesture might have been laughable had it not been so transparent and pathetic. Claude had known his wife too long and too well to be fooled. Denise was essentially provincial, bourgeois, naïve, unworldly. There had been no doubt in Claude’s mind where the blame must be put: the Swedish snake had taken vicious and caddish advantage of her distress, her weakness, and through his practised wiles had hounded her into an infidelity.

Striding beside Motta, Claude reviewed the accident that had revealed all. He had returned from Uppsala after midnight, and immediately fallen into an exhausted sleep. He had awakened too late for breakfast and too early for lunch, to find Denise lounging in the sitting-room, taking coffee and leafing through an imported Paris Match, and what had caught his eye was the flimsy pink négligé that he had not seen before and that ill became her, a married woman. She had been unaccountably vivacious, as she had been since the Hammarlund evening, and again he guessed that she had determined to show him her best side in order to woo him back.

Now, remembering: the door buzzer had sounded, and he had gone to see who it might be. The caller had proved to be a hotel servant, some relic fugitive escaped from Balzac’s La Comédie Humaine, who held before him a bottle of something or other, gift-wrapped in red.

‘I am one of the room-service help,’ the servant had announced. ‘I have the champagne Madàme requested for her husband.’

Claude had tried to think if it was his birthday. It was not. ‘I am Madàme’s husband. I will take it.’

The servant had pulled the champagne away from the stranger’s outstretched hand. Madàme had been explicit, the night before, about this. ‘No-it is not for you. I have seen her husband.’

Claude had then realized that this was a mistake. ‘I am sorry, but you have the wrong room.’

‘This is the right room,’ insisted the witless servant. ‘I spoke to Madàme here last night.’

Claude had become impatient with this tomfoolery. ‘What makes you think I am not her husband?’

‘I saw him in there last night.’ He peered past Claude just as Denise rose from the sofa, and he recognized her. ‘Madàme, here is the gift you ordered for your-’

Something had begun to penetrate Claude’s head, and he wheeled about in time to see his wife desperately waving off the room-service relic.

‘I-I-yes, it is the wrong room.’ The servant had begun to retreat when Claude was galvanized into action. He had gone after the man in the corridor and roughly collared him.

‘You saw a man in the room with my wife last night?’

The servant had been struck speechless, but a severe shaking had rattled the truth out of him, quickly, stumblingly, even to the admission that the tall young man glimpsed with Denise had been in pyjamas.

Claude had returned to the suite, slamming the door behind him, and advanced on Denise like the procureur général on a quaking defendant. The skirmish had been brief, and the defence had collapsed entirely. Foolishly, Denise had tried to take the whole burden of guilt upon herself, had even tried to transfer some of it to him. If she had not been so widowed and hurt by his affair, if she had not been so needful of love and reassurance, she would not have succumbed so easily to Oscar Lindblom’s blandishments. There, the name was out-Lindblom! The betrayer, the traducer, the Nordic Casanova! For now, to absolve herself, the truer truths poured out-Lindblom’s silken persuasion, his ardent whisperings and practised hands, his strong and urgent body, his overwhelming and irresistible passion-Lindblom!

‘There is the laboratory, Dr. Marceau,’ the butler was saying.

‘Thank you,’ snapped Claude. ‘That will be all.’

He left Motta behind, and strode vengefully to the door, gripping the knob with a strong hand that would, in seconds, bash in the face of the rapist. Since Count Axel von Fersen had played his little game with Marie Antoinette, every young Swede had fancied himself a Fersen. Au revoir, Lindblom, you will be the last of the line, Claude promised himself, and he burst into the large laboratory work-room.

At first, to his stinging disappointment, he thought the place vacant, and then, from behind the far row of beakers, he heard a voice.

‘Who is it?’

Claude rushed around the counter, and then pulled up short.

Not Lindblom, but Ragnar Hammarlund, ridiculous in a onepiece suit of overalls such as Winston Churchill had once affected, confronted him.

‘Dr. Marceau-what a delightful surprise!’

‘Where’s this chemist-this Oscar Lindblom of yours?’

‘Lindblom? Out. I sent him out on an errand. He should return shortly. May I be of service, Dr. Marceau?’

‘No, it is this Lindblom I want,’ said Claude belligerently.

Hammarlund pretended not to notice his visitor’s vexation. ‘Does he expect you?’

‘I think not.’

‘He will be honoured by your appearance, as am I. His admiration for you and your wife exceeds worship.’

Claude was too irritable to enjoy insincerity. ‘You flatter us.’

‘Not enough,’ said Hammarlund, bringing a silk handkerchief from his hip pocket and brushing his forehead. ‘Dr. Lindblom is a shy, retiring young man of modest attainments who is well acquainted with your work, and for years you have been his idol.’

This did not coincide with Claude’s picture of a lecher. ‘I had a different impression of him at your dinner-a brash, over-confident fellow-’

‘Surely you must be thinking of someone else,’ interrupted Hammarlund. ‘Why, when your wife came to visit the laboratory the other morning, Dr. Lindblom was incoherent with excitement.’

‘My wife came here?’ Claude glanced coldly about the laboratory. So this was the sordid scene of the seduction. This was where it began-and the egotism of the lecher, to celebrate the insult further, in the husband’s own hotel suite last night!

‘Yes,’ Hammarlund went on, ‘your wife was intrigued by Dr. Lindblom’s findings in the field of synthetic foods.’

‘I can imagine,’ said Claude bitterly. He looked about again, and a thought came to him: where had the seduction taken place? On the hard floor? Too incredible to conceive. ‘Is this the only room here?’

‘No, by no means. We have what we call our “think” room. Come, you can wait there for Dr. Lindblom. It will be more comfortable.’

They walked into the adjoining office, and Claude stared at the offending sofa, and it all became clear.

‘Have a seat,’ said Hammarlund. ‘May I order you something from the house?’

Although he had not yet eaten this day, Claude wanted no hospitality from a host whose employee he would momentarily reduce to minced sausage. ‘No, thank you.’ He sat stiffly on the sofa, and was somehow glad it did not squeak. He extracted an English cigarette from his silver case, and accepted the flame from Hammarlund’s lighter.

‘Have you come to see Dr. Lindblom on a matter of professional interest?’ inquired Hammarlund, finding a place at the far end of the sofa.

Claude wished that the hideous man would remove himself from the premises, but then good reason reminded him these were, indeed, the hideous man’s own premises, and that he would have to be answered. For a moment, Claude considered revealing to Hammarlund the real motive for his visit. But he wanted no forewarning, no bickering, no alarm. He wanted only one swift punch at Lindblom’s leering superior blond face-one would do it-put him down whimpering, and salvage all pride and honour. Underlings simply did not cuckold Nobel laureates, he told himself, and the rebellious ones must be put in their places, even if by violence.

He tried to recall Hammarlund’s question, and then he did. ‘Yes, you might say I have a professional interest in seeing your Lindblom.’

‘Stimulated by your wife’s visit here, I hope?’

‘You might put it that way,’ answered Claude wryly.

‘Then she informed you of Dr. Lindblom’s remarkable talent?’

‘Only too well.’

This was deteriorating, Claude saw, into one of those sex skits at the Concert Mayol all full of innocent questions and answers that had double meanings, and elicited from French audiences rollicking merriment. Although the immediacy of his anger had abated for lack of outlet, Claude was in no humour for this nonsense. He wanted to change the tenor of conversation. Now Hammarlund gave him the cue.

‘Well, before Dr. Lindblom returns to speak of his work in person,’ Hammarlund was saying, ‘perhaps I could brief you on some aspects of it that might be of interest.’

‘By all means-do,’ said Claude, trying to display interest, but only eager to pass the time as quickly as possible.

At once, with the enthusiasm of a monomaniac, Ragnar Hammarlund began to expound on the necessity and value of discovering basic food synthetics. Edibles produced by chemical means would be healthier, would be cheaper, would bring an end to undernourishment, even to starvation, throughout the world. Once chemists could discover the synthesis for fats, proteins, carbohydrates, utopia would be on the earth.

‘I am not alone in believing this,’ said Hammarlund. He jumped to his feet, went to the desk, ran a finger across a row of books and found what he was looking for. ‘Here is an American chemist, Jacob Rosin, who wrote a fine book on the subject, The Road to Abundance.’ Hammarlund was turning the pages, until he had what he sought. ‘Listen to him. “Once the industrial synthesis of the carbohydrates, proteins, and fats is achieved, the bondage that chained mankind to the plant will be broken. The result will be the greatest revolution in history since man learned how to make fire. Hundreds of millions of hard-working farmers and farm workers will be replaced by chemical machinery. The surface of our earth will be freed from its dedication to food production. A new way of life will emerge.” ’ Hammarlund cast the book aside. ‘You see what is possible?’

At first, Claude had not listened carefully, but now Hammarlund’s condescension as he assumed a pedagogue’s lecture stance irritated him into a certain attentiveness. He was not, he reminded himself, a callow student. He was the winner of the Nobel Prize in chemistry. ‘I know the goal well enough, Mr. Hammarlund. There are always these dreamers’ goals. The problem comes down to the obstacles-the hard obstacles we find in the laboratory-that usually make the end of the road unreachable.’

Now that he had the laureate engaged, Hammarlund became more forceful. It was almost as if his invisible face had taken on human colorations of emotion. ‘Of course, Dr. Marceau, I am not so impractical as to ignore the obstacles. But what are these in the field of synthetic foods? First, we must overcome the belief of the public-coveted also by too many scientists-that the only healthy foods are nature’s foods. You know that is rot, and so do I. Cauliflower, beans, peas, raw eggs, whole wheat, coffee are all hoaxes, filled with countless poisons that we have survived only because of restraint in our eating habits. Synthetic foods could be manufactured without these poisons. Second, we must sell the world the belief that chemical substitute nutriments can be as pleasurable as doctored meats and vegetables and bakery products, can look as attractive, smell as good, and taste as wonderful as the so-called natural foods. Third, we must prove to mankind that synthetic foods can be made to contain all the necessary values of known foods-carbohydrates, proteins, fats, water, vitamins, minerals.’

What was annoying to Claude Marceau was that Hammarlund was making it all child’s play. He was an industrialist and a superficial dabbler in the sciences. What did he know of the real problems of synthesis? For the first time in years, Claude began to recollect his early trials in the laboratory with Denise by his side, the days of toil, the weary nights of monotonous persistence, the tumbling into bed fatigued to the marrow, eyes bleary and neck constricted and bones almost arthritic, and in the brain, a chaotic spinning.

He was sorely tempted to expose Hammarlund to himself. He began to bait the millionaire, and to his surprise, Hammarlund delighted in the challenge and fought back with an amazing fund of case histories, facts, figures. It became evident, as the time passed, that while Hammarlund had no creative scientific imagination, he had sound knowledge of what had been done and what, indeed, might be done.

Gradually, without being fully aware of what was happening to him, Claude found himself locked in a rigorous debate with Hammarlund on the limitations of algae as a natural food substitute, on the degree to which synthetic edibles could be produced wholesomely and free of dangerous poisons, on the value of the findings in the synthesis of vitamins as they might be applied to foods as yet undiscovered, on the probability of breaking down the chemical structure of various proteins and inventing cheap man-made substitutes, on the usefulness of Chlorella and soyabeans as springboards to other nutrients.

The minutes sped by, but so engaged and absorbed was Claude Marceau that he had no realization of the passage of time. It had been months since he had truly discussed a new field in biochemistry. After the discovery that he and Denise had made in the sperm field, their interest in that subject, already worn thin, had flagged. Lectures in France, and speeches and panels here in Sweden, had been undertaken as duties. The old subject had been discussed publicly as if by rote. For so many months now, it was as if Claude Marceau’s scientific mind had been an arid desert, where nothing living could be seen, where nothing living stirred. And now, suddenly, so unpredictably, the desert was being populated by a clamouring mob, materialized divinely from nowhere, begging for the sustenance of life, dinning their desperation and their problem, an unknown civilization on the desert to be organized and led and saved.

And then, out of the anarchy of this new population, there appeared, lo, a leader with an Idea, and the leader was plainly Claude himself-he saw that it was he, himself, and no other-and the Idea was a way, an inspiration, a way to feed them and help them survive in a place so unnatural and antagonistic to life.

Hammarlund had gone on talking, but Claude no longer heard him, for he was thinking hard.

‘Hammarlund,’ he said suddenly, ‘be quiet a moment.’

The industrialist immediately fell silent, unoffended, for he observed the strange distant look on the laureate’s face and acknowledged subservience to the mystique of the Idea.

‘Hammarlund,’ Claude said slowly, almost to himself, ‘you and this fellow of yours, and all the people you have labouring for you in this synthetic field, are off on the wrong foot. Something so obvious occurs to me-I will tell you. Allow me to speak my mind aloud-feel my way. Do not interrupt. The mistake, I think, I am almost positive, is that you are attempting to imitate nature, all the processes of nature, in the invention of your substitute foods. It would seem to me you must make a clean break from enslavement to nature. If you do not, you will always run a poor second and get nowhere. Why try to improve on God? No. I should think it would be wiser to let God be and to go off on your own. I repeat, a clean break. Start from scratch. Do not make food in imitation of nature but as totally new and daring creations of your own, a chemical larder.’

He lapsed into thought.

Awed, Hammarlund took the risk of intrusion. ‘I am not sure what you mean, Dr. Marceau. Do you mean-?’

‘This,’ said Claude, not to Hammarlund but to himself. ‘Take the problem of creating a synthesis of carbohydrates. Why do indoors what nature has already accomplished out of doors? Why bother to create artificial photosynthesis? Why try to create artificial atmosphere that plants require? Why not go directly to the source-glucose molecules-and from there build an entirely new chemical process that would lead to the discovery of manmade starches?’ He paused. ‘And as to inventing the proteins we find in meat by imitating meat-why meat at all? Why not a new and improved type of product with the same protein values and unencumbered by wasteful sinews and bone?’

Through the haze of concentration, he became aware of Hammarlund, staring down at him, jaw slack. How he wished that Denise stood in Hammarlund’s place, so that he could go on-on and on-throwing the Idea to her and catching it from her until they had their hypothesis. If Denise-Denise!

At once, he returned to his time and place, and remembered where he was and his mission.

‘What is the time, Mr. Hammarlund?’

‘The time? Why’-Hammarlund peered down at his wafer-thin gold wristwatch-‘it is ten minutes to three.’

‘Mon Dieu!’ Claude leaped to his feet. He had been here almost one hour and a half. He had completely forgotten his date with Gisèle. She had flown in from Copenhagen hours ago, and was awaiting his call and his person at the Hotel Malmen in South Stockholm. ‘I have a date-I must rush-I am late.’

Hammarlund was beside him, apologetic. ‘What a pity. Your approach to the problem-the brilliance-’

‘Never mind, I will know more when I discuss it with Denise. Call me a taxi.’

‘I can send you with my chauffeur-’

‘No, a taxi. I will be out in front.’

Hammarlund had gone to the telephone on the desk. ‘I do not know what has kept Dr. Lindblom-’

Claude stopped at the doorway. Lindblom. He had forgotten Lindblom, too. Of all things. He tried to summon forth the rancour that he had felt more than an hour ago. But it was no longer there. Lindblom was merely a bothersome beetle, one more minor disturbance with which the true scientist had always to cope. Still, as a matter of intellectual pride, Lindblom must not believe that he had not been found out.

‘Yes, your Lindblom,’ Claude said to Hammarlund. ‘You can give him a message for me. You tell him that I came here to punch him in the nose, and that if I ever find him making advances to my wife again, I shall break his neck. Good day, Mr. Hammarlund!’

Denise Marceau, still in her pink négligé, examined her nicotine-stained fingers, and realized that she had smoked an entire packet of cigarettes since Claude had stormed out of the suite in a frenzy of injured manhood.

The suspense, since, had been unbearable. She had paced, she had smoked, and she had wondered how her plot had unfolded at Åskslottet. She had made progress, of that she was certain. Claude’s reaction to her affair had exceeded her fondest hopes, and for a while, she had believed that Craig’s prognosis had been incorrect, and her own infallible. But now, with all this time gone, and no word of what had happened, she had begun to entertain serious doubts.

If her plot had worked, she would have known already. Claude would have salvaged his pride by knocking down Lindblom. After that, in a rage of righteous possession, he would have returned here, to the suite, and maybe knocked her down, too, and then would have regretted his fury and would have taken her to bed, and there would have been tender sweetness with all wounds repaired.

But he had not returned, and now she could only guess that he had behaved otherwise, after knocking down Lindblom. Duty performed, manhood restored, he had probably then regained his equilibrium, and determined that now it would be easier, more guiltless, to divorce her, and had gone on to enjoy his assignation with Gisèle Jordan, wherever that was taking place.

Grieved that Craig had likely been right, that her adultery had finally filled her husband with disgust rather than jealousy, Denise walked restlessly to the closet, located a fresh packet of cigarettes in her coat pocket, tore it open, and with pained sadness at the infinity of loneliness that confronted her, she lit a cigarette.

It was then that the telephone rang.

Her heart prayed: Claude.

She ran to the telephone, catching it before the third ring, and spoke into the mouthpiece with wariness.

‘Allô?’

‘Denise?’ The high-strung voice was male, but it was not Claude’s voice. ‘Are you alone?’

‘Qui est là-who is there?’

‘Oscar-Oscar Lindblom.’

She sighed. Then he was alive. He would know her fate. ‘How are you, my dear? Of course, I am alone.’

‘Your husband-your husband has found out about us!’

‘I know-I know. He found out by accident. Through the waiter who served us last night.’

‘He came to the laboratory to kill me.’

‘Apparently he did not succeed,’ said Denise dryly. ‘Well-what did he do to you?’

‘Nothing. I was not there.’

Denise’s heart sank. He was not there. The third act had been a dud. ‘How do you know he went after you?’

‘He found Hammarlund in the laboratory. He waited for me for about an hour and a half, and then he had to leave. He had a date.’ Denise’s heart sank further. A date? Gisèle. And for herself? Alimony.

Lindblom’s voice continued tinnily through the receiver. ‘I missed your husband by ten minutes. Hammarlund was pleased as punch. He said that he and Dr. Marceau had the longest talk-’

‘About us?’

‘No-no-about synthetic food.’

‘Synthetic food?’ Denise exploded. ‘That-that-that worm!’

‘What-what did you say?’

‘Nothing. Oscar, listen.’ She had lost, she knew, but she would not retreat without inflicting the greatest casualties possible upon the foe. The old plot had failed, but a fresh one had formed. ‘Tell me, where are you now?’

‘About a mile from you. I had to return to-’

‘Can you come right over?’

‘But your husband-’

‘He’ll be out all afternoon-he will not be back until after dinner.’

‘Denise, please, it is dangerous. He might-’

‘Oscar, I know where he is, and he will not be back. I am quite alone.’

‘But, Denise-as much as I want to see you-in fact, I was up all last night thinking about us-’

‘I was too, darling.’

‘-it could be terrible, if he came on us. Hammarlund warned me.’

‘Warned you? Of what?’

‘About seeing you again. Just as your husband was leaving, he told Hammarlund to tell me that he would break my neck if he ever found me with you again.’

Denise’s sunken heart lifted and soared. ‘He said that?’

‘Exactly.’

‘Bravado, Oscar, mere bravado. He would not touch a flea. He knows that he is impotent, and that I cannot bear it-and he knows that I love you. I told him so.’

‘You told him?’

‘Why not? It is true.’

‘Oh, Denise-’

‘Darling, I am desolate without you. If I cannot have you here now-’

‘Denise-Denise-’ His voice broke off, and then was heard again. ‘Are you absolutely positive that he will not be back?’

‘I swear to it on the Bible. You are safe, and so am I. Come at once. I must know everything that transpired at the laboratory. And I want you-do you hear? I want you.’

She could hear the choking emotion of Lindblom’s voice. ‘I-I-I will be right there.’

The moment that she returned the receiver to the cradle, she regretted the invitation. She had thought that last night would be the last of Lindblom’s pitiful acrobatics. But on instinct, when she understood that all was lost, she had wanted to leave Claude with a picture that would haunt him the rest of his days. She had invited Lindblom with the intention of keeping him in the room, delaying him, and then going to bed with him at the time Claude would be returning. She did not consider what might happen after that. She considered only the humiliation to which he would be subjected. But now, that necessity seemed foolish, and worse, dangerous, especially if she still had the chance to save their marriage. For now, there was one ray of hope. Claude had, after all, displayed a flare-up of husbandly possessiveness in his last words to Hammarlund. This parting threat might have meant one of two things-a defence of pride or honest jealousy.

Why had she so blindly insisted on that child’s coming to her room again, enticed him with the lure of one more fornication? It was some inexplicable intuition and nothing else, a yearning to know, firsthand, at length, what had taken place between Claude and Hammarlund. She could not believe that Claude, in such a wrath, could have coolly sat for an hour and a half and discussed synthetic food. There must have been more, and she would find out. She must trust her feelings and not her sensibility. She would learn if Claude had given any indication of a future for them. If he had not-well, the rest was clear-Gisèle the victor.

She trudged slowly to the bathroom, her slippers plopping against her heels. As to her promise to perform sexual intercourse with Lindblom, she would find a way out of that. She would be attractive, she would permit him to kiss her, even pet her, but beyond such innocence, she would have to say no. She would extract the information that she suspected he possessed, and bid him good-bye. With this last visit, his usefulness would come to an end.

In the bathroom, she discarded her négligé, and then, after giving the matter some thought, she decided on limited provocation. She unclasped her brassière, pulled it off, and allowed her full breasts to drop unhampered. With care, she washed and dried, improved her face bit by bit from eyebrow pencil and eye-shadow to powder and lipstick. Then she doused herself with Arpège, behind the ears and neck, across her shoulders and collarbone, under her armpits, between her breasts and beneath them.

She had just pulled on her négligé, and was drawing it about the pink nylon pants, when she heard the door buzzer. Hastily, she secured the négligé, and went, in a trot, to the door.

The minute that Lindblom came into the room, hair dishevelled and eyes too bright, and she closed the door and realized that he was staring at the movement of her breasts, she knew that she might not have everything her way.

‘Denise-’ he panted, and clutched at her, holding her so tightly to him that she could hardly breathe, pressing her bosom deep into his chest and running his hand down the arch of her back and across the curve of her buttocks.

In their previous two assignations, he had shown none of this impulsive aggressiveness, and now she tried to fathom it. Either she had aroused him to this pitch with her telephonic promise, or the combination of her attire and the dangers inherent in his visit had stimulated him beyond reason. Whatever lay behind his excitement, there was going to be a bout.

‘Denise,’ he was whispering, ‘I could not come to you fast enough. I must have you at once.’

She tried to push him away. ‘Oscar, what has got into you? Not so fast-’

‘I must-I must-immediately. You do not know how it is!’

She was separated from him, and she saw his face and stance, that of an anæmic Mellors who was a keeper of white mice, not game.

‘Denise, you said you loved me.’

‘I do, silly boy, of course I do. It is just that I am no longer in the mood for-’

‘Denise, on the telephone-’

‘You have my affection, Oscar, but understand-I have been upset all day, so worried about you, what my husband might do to you-to you, my precious one, and no one else.’

‘Please, Denise-’

You give a teetotaller his first two drinks, thought Denise, and look what happens. She must put a stop to this. It was Claude who was on her mind. She must know about Claude. ‘Oscar, listen. I want to hear-’

‘Jag vill att du skall ligga med mig-come to bed with me.’

‘I told you-I am not in the mood.’

‘A kiss at least-an embrace-’

‘Very well. But first you must tell me everything that passed between my husband and Hammarlund.’

‘Anything.’

‘All right. No, wait-not here where the chambermaid may-’ She squirmed out of his arms. ‘Come along. But remember-behave.’

She went into the bedroom, and he hurried after her. She secured the door, wondering what he would have to say of Claude, but at once Lindblom was upon her, his hands on her négligé, his moist lips and short breath on her face. She favoured him with a single kiss, then pushed at his arms, and slipped free.

‘You must behave, Oscar-you promised,’ she said, distractedly. ‘Now, no more of this until you tell me what happened. Be a gentleman. Keep your distance.’ She began to pace the room, avoiding his hot eyes, his fervour, determined that he cool down, become rational, give her what information he could. She strode forth and back, still not looking at him. ‘Now, go ahead, Oscar,’ she said in her practical voice. ‘What did my husband say about me?’

‘Only what I told you.’ Tie.

‘Nothing more-you are certain?’

‘Only that he would break my neck if he found me with you. Not another word.’ Shirt.

‘I cannot believe it.’

‘I only tell you what Hammarlund told me. Dr. Marceau was there an hour and a half, and all he talked about was synthetic foods.’ Shoes.

‘He does not care a bit about synthetics. Why should he spend an hour and a half-?’

‘Because something Hammarlund was saying suddenly got him interested.’ Socks.

‘What do you mean? I do not understand. Be more explicit.’

‘Denise, I cannot think!’ Trousers.

‘You must think. I have to know.’

‘Hammarlund said your husband got an inspiration-’ Shorts.

‘Inspiration about what? Synthetics?’

‘What? I do not know. Yes. Please, Denise, stop running-stop ignoring-look at me.’ The compleat man.

‘Oscar!’

‘You see, Denise, I must-I am out of my mind.’ The compleat lover.

‘I will not have it… No, stop-you promised. Now, please, stop. Put on your clothes. Oscar, take your hands off-you will tear my beautiful new-’ Sash.

‘I have never desired you more. I will devour you. I will not live without you.’

‘You must. We cannot do this. Please behave. You promised to tell me, tell me-is Claude actually contemplating the beginning of actual research in-’ Négligé.

‘Ah, Denise, what divinity-your breasts-no woman on earth-’

‘Oscar, wait. Oh, why did I let you in here? This is impossible. Let me off the bed. Will you stop? I refuse to let you take them off. No-no-’ Nylon panties.

‘Denise, my love-my only love-’

‘Let go… Are you mad?… I cannot breathe.’

‘Denise, be mine forever-leave Claude-’

‘I will not leave Claude. I will not be so cruel. Oscar-Oscar-this is wrong.’

‘What?’

‘This is wrong.’

‘It was not wrong last night, my love-not wrong in the laboratory. Love is never wrong.’

‘But this is different. Poor Claude… I cannot… no, we will talk. You have not finished telling me. You implied he has some new project. Has he, Oscar? Has he something-?’

‘Something-what?’

‘Do you think he has found something at last?’

‘Oh, yes, of course he has-oh, Denise, I must-it is too painful.’

‘Contain yourself, Oscar-stop it.’

‘Live with me, Denise-leave him-forever us-like this.’

‘You say a project-a discovery? Could it be that-has he an idea about a new discovery-a hypothesis-?’

‘What? I cannot hear you. Oh, Denise-’

‘Oscar, wait. Ralentiez-let go, you are hurting me.’

‘It is my love-I cannot control-’

‘I demand to know of my husband and his hypothesis.’

‘His hypothesis-?’

‘Go on-go on-tell me.’

‘He and Hammarlund argued-synthetics-possibilities-everything-oh, Denise-debated all the while-your husband-fascinated-suddenly inspired with a concept on synthesis of foods-then-oh, Denise, my love, my love-jag älskar dig-I love you.’

‘You are nice, Oscar, yes. But talk-only talk.’

‘He kept saying we are all wrong-imitating nature-copying-must strike out to create new foods-not make substitutes for-’

‘And you are sure he was sincere-completely absorbed-interested?’

‘Hammarlund said he has never-seen-a scientist more excited-is sure-is sure-is sure-’

‘What? What, my darling-?’

‘Oh, Denise-yes, is sure your husband will embark on the greatest exploration of synthetics yet-yet-yet-’

‘Go on, Oscar.’

‘-yet attempted by a science-scientist-in fact, he-Denise, I cannot-I must have you. Enough of this-’

‘No, stop it, Oscar. I will not permit this-you are simply over-sexed. You should be thinking of work, day and night, not this-’

‘But in the laboratory you said-Denise, Denise-’

‘Where is your honour? I am a married woman.’

‘You are body-starved. You are withering for love.’

‘Respect-respect. Release me. I am a Nobel laureate.’

‘You are a woman-not embalmed in history books-not mummified by a prize. A woman-a woman.’

‘With a husband-with Claude.’

‘He is impotent-we are alive. He has his new inspiration. In fact, he-Denise, love me now-’

‘You must tell me, Oscar. You were saying that “In fact he”-’

‘He was late for wherever he was going-for his date-he was so filled with his inspiration-’

‘No? Is it true? Tell me-is it true?’

‘Yes, for heaven’s sake, Denise, I cannot talk. I cannot-’

‘But-’

‘He will explain it all-all to you-himself. He told Hammar-ah-lund he would discuss it with-’

‘With me? With me?’

‘Yesss-oh, Denise-’

‘I adore you, Oscar! You have said so much. I am happy-I have never been happier.’

‘At last, at last-’

‘Oscar! I only meant-’

‘At last, at last-’

‘Mon Dieu!’

‘At last, at last-’

‘Voila, c’est la guerre… N’importe, Oscar, only be quick. I think my husband may be coming back earlier than I thought. I am not sure, but there is a chance.’

The Hotel Malmen, an imposing white square building on busy Götgatan, proudly advertised that its 250 guest rooms, equipped with bathtubs or showers and four-station radios, were among the most modern in all Sweden. For many tourists, the only disadvantage to the hotel was that it was some distance removed from Stockholm’s centre. For Gisèle Jordan, out of consideration of her lover’s position, and her relationship with him, this isolation was a major advantage, and once she learned of it, she had reserved a double room on the second floor for the afternoon of December ninth.

Now, in that double room on the second floor, Claude Marceau sat lost in thought, sipping an Armagnac that Gisèle had so considerately brought for him, and listening to the distant splash of the water from the tap in the bathroom to which Gisèle had just retired.

Except for the first few minutes after his tardy arrival, Gisèle had been, he had to admit, admirable. In the first few minutes, when he had entered her room in a trance, after the mechanical embrace and kiss, she had pouted and shown dissatisfaction, rare in one so even-tempered.

‘But so late?’ she had said. ‘I did not fly all the way up here to the North Pole simply to sit for hours alone in some dreary hotel room. You had promised-the least you could have done was to call me, explain, I did not know what to think.’

‘I was tied up,’ Claude had said.

‘With what? What could be more important than us?’

To explain to her what could be more important, or at least as important, was plainly an impossibility. Could he convince her that his brain, stultified, almost atrophied, these last months, had begun to grow, to burst forth with life this day? Could he tell her that until this afternoon he had been alive only from the neck down, and that this afternoon he had found his head? Could he tell her that one of the next great miracles of the chemistry laboratory would not be found in trying to synthesize carbohydrates through imitation of nature’s sunlight, but by developing the photosynthesis process in glass tubes? Would his mannequin consider glucose molecules as more important than himself or herself?

It was no use, for this was the part of him that she had never known or even met, ‘Gisèle,’ he said instead, ‘nothing is more important than we are, and I apologize once more. I tried to warn you on the long-distance call-this is Nobel Week, and people throughout Stockholm, from all over the world, are tearing at me, demanding my time, my opinion, my attention, and I-’

This had seemed to touch her, his fame and her petty demands, and she had immediately become contrite and gone into his arms. ‘Claude, I am the one who is sorry. I know how important you are, and how proud I am of it. I know you cannot belong to me alone. That is what bothers me always, I think, the realization that you are not all mine. I suppose that is part of what worries a woman when a man is late-that she does not matter enough-and so she becomes insecure.’ She had kissed him. ‘It is only that I have missed you so and looked forward to every minute of this. Do you still love me, Claude?’

He had kissed her gently, in return, and then had held her off, studying her, and for a moment the glucose molecules, the chain of them, had disintegrated before her beauty. Yes, he had almost forgotten her beauty-the beauty that had made him lose his head-in the finding of his head this afternoon. She had stood so tall and chic before him, pleased with this attention, her crocheted brown wool tweed displaying her lissom and supple showcase figure at its best.

She had taken his hand. ‘Come, Claude, let us sit and talk. You must tell me everything.’

They had settled side by side, on the two-cushioned love seat, holding hands, fingers intertwined, and she had spoken of Paris, and of the preparations for Copenhagen, and of Copenhagen itself. And then she had asked him about the week in Stockholm, carefully avoiding any mention of his wife, and he had spoken of Stockholm, the officials that he had met, the other laureates, the sights he had visited, the appearances he had made, the dinner at the Royal Palace and the dinner at Ragnar Hammarlund’s mansion, and he, too, had carefully avoided any mention of his wife.

As he spoke, he had retreated from her. It was as if he had addressed the room, and not her. Except for the play of her slender fingers between his own, he might have been unaware of her presence. And even when he had related an anecdote about Max Stratman, he had done so inattentively, with no conscious effort to please her and keep her by this sharing, so that their histories might become one. His deeper mind had churned with the entire protein question, the necessity of proteins at all in synthetics, the probability that development of chemically produced amino acids might be sufficient. Was this possible?

His consciousness of her presence had returned when he realized that his hand was empty, and he looked down and saw that she had removed her hand and was twisting the ruby on one finger. He had looked up, sheepishly, knowing her sensitivity to his every mood and to any withdrawal, and her pale blue eyes and usually emotionless mouth had offered him the briefest smile of understanding.

‘You look so far away, Claude,’ she had said. ‘Let me change into something more comfortable. Maybe I can find a way to bring you back to me.’

She had slid out of the seat with fluidity, and then, with her erect carriage, her lazy, teasing mannequin walk that had always aroused him, she had made her way to the bathroom and out of his sight.

Now he had finished two Armagnacs in his waiting, and poured a third, and wondered where they would begin-the experiments, that is-and had almost decided that, perhaps to avoid discouragement, they should begin where advances had already been substantial-with fat acids, employing petroleum to develop a stearic acid that might be wedded to already synthesized glycerol.

He heard the bathroom door open, and when he lifted his head, she was standing in the middle of the room. She was staring at him curiously. He observed that she had brought the sheer peignoir from the rue du Bac, a street that now sounded unfamiliar, and that the flat moon breasts beneath the peignoir had been more promising when she had worn the crocheted tweed.

‘Claude-’ she said.

‘Yes?’

‘-you have not moved since I left you.’

‘What?’

She glided noiselessly towards him. ‘I thought you would be ready.’

‘Yes, that will take only a minute.’ He made as if to rise, but her hand touched his shoulder and kept him to his place, and she sat beside him and crossed her lean legs.

‘Tell me-sitting here all this while-of what were you thinking?’

‘Of you,’ he said.

‘You have always been truthful with me.’

He nodded, and then fell silent, and then, quietly, he tried to tell her. He had devoted so many years to vitrification of spermatazoa, and when that was done, there was nothing more, for he had been unable to consider another project seriously. What had saved him had been Gisèle, her love, her kindness. For a man, this was almost a great sufficiency, but there was always the parallel yearning. A job to do. An identity to be fulfilled. This had been missing, and yet he had not known its lack, because he had been so filled with Gisèle. But this afternoon, before their reunion, the miracle had taken place, and now he was filled with that, too. With rising intensity in his speech, he tried to clarify various aspects of the new miracle. He spoke of natural food and synthetic food, he spoke of carbohydrates and proteins and water and fats. He spoke of autoclaves and centrifuges and sublimation chambers. He spoke of freedom from want.

Gisèle listened diligently, hands in repose, the slightest curve of a set smile on her lips.

When she thought that he was finished, she said quietly. ‘I wish I had been born you.’

‘What an odd thing to remark.’

‘To be born you-and have many loves-equally loved-not one.’

‘You are mistaken, Gisèle, dearest. This is another matter, a different preoccupation. I have but one love, and that love is you.’

The smile remained set, unchanged. ‘No, Claude,’ she said.

‘But of course! What has got into you? I will prove it-you will see. Here, let me undress-’

Her hand darted out and restrained his hand. ‘No, Claude, not now. I do not feel you want to-to possess me now.’

‘But I do.’

‘You have no talent for deception. You are not in the mood, Claude. I can tell. Do not lie to me. And more important, do not insult what is between us by attempting to service me without love.’

‘Gisèle-’

‘You are in another world.’

‘Well, I have been excited-and besides, this has been a week-’

‘Claude, it requires no apology. You are exhausted-not from the week but from the new passion. You are forgiven.’

‘Gisèle, believe me from my heart-I would like nothing more than to lie down with you, but perhaps you are right-it would be best when my mind, when-it will be best when I am back in Paris again.’

She had risen. ‘You had better go now. I think you will want to discuss your new miracle with-with ones who can appreciate it with you.’

He rose quickly and took her hands. ‘It does not feel right.’

‘With me, it does. You must give me some time to myself now. I have never been here before. I want to shop, buy many things. There are only a few hours before plane time.’

‘I will go with you-carry your parcels-’

She shook her head. Often, the bereaved prefer solitude. Could he know? ‘I would rather be alone.’

‘Well, if you insist-’

‘I do insist.’

‘Voilà.’ He released her hands and took up his hat and coat. He hesitated. ‘I will see you next week in Paris.’

She walked to the door and opened it. ‘There will be no next week in Paris, Claude.’

‘Why do you say that?’ He had reached her side.

‘Because you are through with me. I know it. You know it. I am not a self-deluding youngster.’

‘I am not through with you. If you mean my wife-’

‘You know what I mean, you know exactly what I mean. You have taken back your passion. You have now given it to your work. I knew it would happen, Claude. Of course, I knew from the start. My pleasure was that I did not know when. But now I know when. It is now.’

She leaned forward and kissed him, and at once drew back.

‘Thank you for everything. Now, go to your work. Some day-some year-between jobs-you might look me up.’ Her smile was bittersweet. ‘I just may be around-if I am unlucky.’

He sighed and left, and she closed the door, and leaned against it. After a while, she went to the love seat, and saw his Armagnac, unfinished, and she finished it. Then she untied her peignoir and removed it, and walked in nudity-without provocation, for there was no audience-to the bathroom to clothe herself against the cheerless winter afternoon.

In the study of Carl Adolf Krantz’s apartment, Daranyi had finished reading aloud from his dossier on Leah Decker, considerably less interesting than those he had read on the Marceaus, but necessary to show evidence of his thoroughgoing method. Because he had read swiftly, he knew that Krantz had fallen behind him in recording his report, and so he sat back in the leather chair for a respite.

The watch on his wrist told him that it was past 7.30. Well, only Andrew Craig, Professor Max Stratman, and Emily Stratman, and he would be done and have his reward by eight o’clock. Where to celebrate his riches? Perhaps a late dinner at Stallmästargården, near Hagaparken, with Lilly. He could almost smell the steaks on the charcoal grill. Then, reconsidering the gourmet indulgence, he knew that he had more vital uses for the money. Well, he would see, his throat and lungs felt parched. Ilsa’s tea service still rested on the black table.

Daranyi pushed himself forward in the leather chair, and he poured the tea, now too dark and tepid, then took a cheese patty and munched it genteelly, and washed it down with some of the tea.

Krantz’s head lifted from behind the green fern.

‘I am ready for the next,’ he announced.

Daranyi put down his cup, and took up his sheaf of papers. ‘Next, we have Mr. Andrew Craig, your literary laureate.’

‘I will not require too much on him,’ said Krantz. ‘We have already investigated him. The high points will do.’

Daranyi was grateful. The investigation of Craig had pained him, for Craig was Lilly and therefore of his own personal life. This was the area of loyalty, and he would not abuse it, at least not too severely. Lilly, he had decided from the first, must be kept out of the report. She must remain removed from this and unmarked.

‘You will remember,’ said Daranyi, ‘the notice in one newspaper of an exchange between a female American reporter and Mr. Craig at the press conference? The reporter seemed to imply that Mr. Craig was a drunkard. I have checked this carefully. The reporter was inaccurate. Mr. Craig is by no means an alcoholic, but, at least before he came to Stockholm, was addicted to cycles of heavy drinking. A fine point, I know, but still, a difference.’

‘Go on,’ said Krantz.

‘He was in an automobile crash with his wife three years ago. The place? In the southern part of the state of Wisconsin, which is unfamiliar to me. His wife-her maiden name was Harriet Decker-was instantly killed. Mr. Craig was injured and a convalescent for several months. His wife’s younger sister, the Leah Decker of whom I spoke, has been his nurse and companion ever since.’

‘How has he comported himself this past week?’

‘I was not able to obtain too much information that would have any value to you.’

‘Again, Daranyi, let me make the judgments, and you please confine yourself to the facts.’

‘Yes, Dr. Krantz,’ said Daranyi, chastened. ‘I am told that Mr. Craig spent one night drinking heavily with Gunnar Gottling.’

Krantz made the ugly sound of spitting. ‘Gottling-pig!’

Daranyi waited respectfully, and then continued. ‘Mr. Craig spent another evening in the villa of Märta Norberg.’

‘He moves in high company.’

‘Indeed, he does. There is a rumour-I can find no verification-I give it to you as gossip-that Mr. Craig had an affair with Miss Norberg.’

‘Back to her old tricks, eh?’

‘As I said, I cannot prove it. Moreover, there is better evidence that Mr. Craig has frequently been in the company of Professor Stratman’s niece, Miss Emily Stratman, who-’

‘How serious is that?’

‘There is no way to know, at least not yet. They dined one evening at Den Gyldene Freden. Oh yes, and also-my scribbling is difficult to read here-but-here-Mr. Craig and Miss Stratman were off alone at the Hammarlund dinner, and he showed unrestrained affection for her.’

Krantz chuckled in what Daranyi considered an evil way. ‘Ach, Daranyi, you poke your nose into everything, do you not? One second-’ He began to write.

‘It is my business,’ said Daranyi, offended.

‘Your skin is thin,’ Krantz called up from his yellow pad. ‘I meant a compliment.’ He peered over the fern. ‘What is the latest on this Craig romance with Miss Stratman? Did he see her yesterday or today?’

‘To my knowledge, no, not in public anyway. The last I have on Mr. Craig was as of four o’clock this afternoon. He was seen entering the building of the Nobel Foundation. I believe he had an appointment with Count Jacobsson…’

Andrew Craig had been in no humour for this appointment with Count Bertil Jacobsson.

The riddle of Emily Stratman’s personality, her unreasonable rejection of him, had left Craig almost destitute of will to live. The drinking of the evening before had not alleviated his desperation, and the enjoyment of Lilly’s body in the night and the solace of her comforting extroversion had been all too brief.

In the morning his resentment of Leah’s meddling and her dangerous jealousy had hardened him, and he had returned to the hotel with every intention of a showdown. But Leah, no doubt anticipating his fury, had been too clever to present herself before him so soon. A flippant note, left on the stand beside his bed, advised him that, in the company of Margherita Farelli, and under the guidance of Mr. Manker, she was off for the day and the night to the province of Dalarna, north of Stockholm, to tour the Lake Siljan district. Her note begged Craig not to worry about her-this was the flippancy-for she would be back early the morning of the tenth, in time to help dress him for the Nobel Ceremony.

The day had been vacant, haunting, and he had read and wandered and avoided all bars, entertaining Emily constantly in his thoughts, resenting her and loving her and hating her responsibility for the resumption of his torment.

He had not been unmindful of his four o’clock appointment with Jacobsson, a date made several days before, and every hour he had considered cancelling it on some pretext. Jacobsson had wanted Craig to visit his private apartment above the Foundation offices, and see his museum-whatever that was-and at the time, Craig had agreed, had even looked forward to the visit, assuming that Emily would accompany him. But, with circumstances as they were, it was a dull duty. What had made him keep the date, finally, was boredom-that, and no wish to disappoint the fine old gentleman.

Now, nearly half an hour had passed among the books and glass cases of Jacobsson’s spacious library in his apartment at Sturegatan 14. To his surprise, Craig had not found the visit disagreeable. The tranquillity of the room, as removed from wordly cares as a station in space, the literacy of the host, had eased Craig’s nerves and absorbed his attention.

They stood before the last of the glass cases. Jacobsson pointed his cane at a yellowed letter. ‘Romain Rolland wrote that on behalf of Carl Spitteler of Switzerland. More than anything, that helped Spitteler win the literary award in 1919… Next to it, an 1882 first edition of Det Nya Riket-The New Kingdom-signed by Strindberg himself. Why is it here when Strindberg was never a laureate? Because of the book’s association. In this non-fiction work, Strindberg used Wirsén badly-you recall, the chairman of the Swedish Academy-and it was one more reason why Wirsén kept Strindberg from getting the prize… And here-look closely, Mr. Craig-the cancelled Nobel Peace Prize cheque for $36,734 that was given to Theodore Roosevelt. It is signed by him. Do you know what he did with that cheque? Originally, he gave it to a special committee that was formed to further industrial peace in the United States. But, I am told, the committee dragged its heels, and your Rough Rider was not a patient man. Ten years later, Roosevelt demanded the money back and presented it to a fund for the comfort of the American soldiers fighting the First World War-the Peace Prize, mind you.’

A cautious rapping on the door interrupted them, and Jacobsson excused himself and opened the door. His secretary, Astrid Steen, had a message, and she delivered it verbally, in an undertone. Jacobsson listened, frowning, and then considered the message a moment.

Turning suddenly to Craig, he said, ‘Miss Sue Wiley is outside. She has requested permission to see me for a moment, to authenticate some piece of information or other. Do you mind if I have her in here and get it over with?’

‘Of course not,’ said Craig. ‘I’m inoculated against all Typhoid Marys.’

Jacobsson chuckled and turned back to the door. ‘Very well, Mrs. Steen, show her in, but tell Miss Wiley it will be only for a moment.’

He waited at the open door, and Craig occupied himself with kindling his pipe.

Sue Wiley entered breezily, thanking Jacobsson, and briefly disconcerted by Craig’s unexpected presence. ‘Well, I didn’t think I’d find you here,’ she said to Craig. ‘What’s up? Counting your money?’

Craig kept his temper. She was not worth it, and she was too ridiculous in some kind of newly purchased fur Cossack hat, with a matching fur muff that she carried looped over one wrist. ‘If it’s private, I’ll step outside,’ said Craig.

‘None of my comings and goings are private, Mr. Craig. Stay put. I’ll be out in a flash.’ She pivoted on her spiked heels towards Jacobsson. ‘Just a point of information, Count. I’m becoming a historian-and I’m strictly contemporary-so every once in a while, I get shaky about a fact. This one concerns George Bernard Shaw. Remember him?’

‘I certainly do’, said Jacobsson courteously.

‘Somebody told me he turned down the Nobel Prize flat. That’s it. True or false?’

‘I am afraid I must disappoint you, Miss Wiley. What is true is that we voted Mr. Shaw the prize in 1925. When the Swedish Minister in London notified him of the award, Mr. Shaw, who was often critical of prizes in general and our own prize in particular, replied in strongest terms, “No, I do not want it. What do I need the money for?” The untrue part is your information that he actually turned it down. He did not. After giving the matter more mature consideration, for one week, he changed his mind and accepted the prize. I will add that he was most gracious about the money we gave him. He assigned it for use in the creation of an Anglo-Swedish Alliance that would encourage literary and artistic understanding between Great Britain and Sweden.’

‘Thank you,’ said Sue Wiley, ‘and, may I add, you are wrong to think I am disappointed. If I didn’t know you were such a nice person, I’d believe you were letting people poison your mind against me. What do you think I’m after, Count Jacobsson-scandal and nothing else? I’m anything but an advocate of yellow journalism. I’m simply after the truth.’

‘Miss Wiley,’ said Jacobsson with infinite restraint, ‘in my experience I have found that truth has three faces-a whole truth, a half-truth, and a white lie that is barely truth.’ He paused. ‘As a matter of fact, I am glad you brought the word up. I have meant to invite you in for a little orientation talk. It has come to my attention-or would you prefer to converse at another time in private?’

‘Not at all. Anything you have to say to me, you can say in front of Mr. Craig or anyone else.’

‘Then, what I have been meaning to say to you is this-and only the pressure of my responsibilities during this week of festivity has prevented my saying it sooner-it has come to my attention that you have been making numerous inquiries about the city concerning one type of information and one type only.’

‘What is that supposed to mean?’

‘The inference has been, and I have heard it from several reliable sources, that you are attempting to acquire only such information as will be detrimental to the Nobel institutes.’

‘Says who?’ snapped Sue Wiley, colouring. ‘That’s ridiculous. I’m an objective reporter doing an objective job. I don’t invent material. I take it as it comes. If it sometimes turns up black instead of white, well-as I said-truth.’ Suddenly, her eyes began to blink, and they narrowed. ‘You wouldn’t be suggesting that I leave out some of the things I find, to conform to your ideas of-of censorship, would you?’

Craig found this unbearable, and shifted from one leg to the other, irked by her tone, her obvious attempt to force a censorship angle out of Jacobsson. But Jacobsson remained unruffled and diplomatic. ‘I am suggesting no such thing, Miss Wiley, and do not even dream of it. You are in a free country, among a free people, and we encourage you to write as you please. I only say that it distresses me to have our guests seek half-truths about us, and offer them to the world as whole truths.’

‘If that’s all that is worrying you, have no fears about me. I’m sticking strictly to the facts. If you find lies or libel in my copy, you can sue. That’s how sure I am.’

A smile flickered across Jacobsson’s wrinkled features. ‘The Nobel Foundation is a quasi-government institution, Miss Wiley. We approve or disapprove, but we do not sue.’

‘Then we understand each other. Well, I guess I’ve taken enough of your-’

‘One moment, Miss Wiley. Something occurs to me. Since you have been gathering so much information from so great a variety of sources, perhaps it would be to your benefit to add one more story that comes to you straight from the headquarters of the awards.’

Sue Wiley brightened. ‘A story! Any time!’

Jacobsson looked off. ‘If you do not mind, Mr. Craig-’

‘I’m as interested as Miss Wiley.’

‘Please sit down, Miss Wiley. You too, Mr. Craig. I will make it as short as possible. Do you have a pencil, Miss Wiley?’

‘I’m all set.’ She had seated herself across from Jacobsson’s antique walnut desk, fishing pen and notebook from her handbag. Craig stayed on his feet, lighting his pipe again, Jacobsson busied himself with the row of green ledgers on the shelf above his desk, removed a single ledger, and brought it down to the desk behind which he now seated himself. He leafed through the pages until he had located what he was after. He looked up.

‘Miss Wiley,’ he said, ‘as you know, there are five Nobel Prize awards, and they have been given with some regularity almost every year since 1901. The world has come to look upon these awards as the highest achievement-highest honour on earth man can confer upon man. Therefore, the Nobel Prize awards have become a sacred cow. The temptation to journalists, every so often, to prove this sacred cow only a common bovine is irresistible. You will go around the city, and you will find it all too easy to learn our shortcomings-how many times in my too many years I have heard them repeated and broadcast with relish and glee-how we are anti-Russian, how we are pro-German, how we indulge ourselves in nepotism-above all, first and the worst of it, how we vote our prizes out of prejudices and politics and fears. Some of this is truth, and I am the very first to admit it. In fact, whenever I have the honour to take visiting laureates on tours of our academies, I always make it a point to let them know our worst side as well as our best, and Mr. Craig will confirm this. What bothers me, all of us here, the most is that our visitors seize upon our worst side, and too often ignore our best side. I am going to take the liberty of giving you one instance, my favourite, of our best side. I promised you a story, did I not?’

‘You did,’ said Sue Wiley, less brash than earlier.

‘You came here this afternoon wondering if George Bernard Shaw had actually turned down the prize, and I told you he had not. Now, I will tell you the story of another man who was prevailed upon to turn down the prize, and did not, and of his prize that was by all logic and commonsense not to be voted and given, and was voted and given. I will tell you about Carl von Ossietzky, and I will write the name down for you, because I want you to spell it right and not forget it and not let your readers forget it.’

Unhurriedly, Jacobsson block-printed the name Carl von Ossietzky on a piece of notepaper and handed it to Sue Wiley, who accepted it and studied it with bewilderment. Hearing the name, Craig tried to remember where he had heard it before-either at the Royal Banquet or the Hammarlund dinner, one or the other-but still, the name was foreign to his ears, and he was curious about what Jacobsson might have to say of this unknown name.

Jacobsson gazed at his open green ledger, and then he resumed speaking. ‘There is an expression that has gained currency in our day that refers to “the little man”. There are variations on this expression like “the common man” or “a member of the masses”. This is supposed to mean, I presume, the average man on earth who is not distinguished by wealth or fame or authority. From cradle to the grave, he eats and sleeps, does drone’s labour, propagates the species, makes no policies or headlines or scandals, and when he dies, is mourned by none but relatives and a handful of friends, and disappears from the planet as casually and unmissed as the ant one inadvertently steps on every day. Such a man, for forty-two years, was Carl von Ossietzky, a German national who wrote mediocre articles for his bread, and whose one foible-we all of us have one foible-was that he hated militarism after having served four years in the Imperial German Army during the First World War. What lifted Ossietzky from the obscurity of the ranks of “the little man” was his growing obsession that all soldiers were, in his words, “murderers”, and that there was “nothing heroic” about war. Most men know this and think it and hate any memory of killing, and most men live on, doing nothing about it. Ossietzky was the one who decided to do something about it, to eliminate the evil, to practise and preach what he believed.’

Jacobsson looked up from the ledger at Craig, and then at Sue Wiley.

‘His history is brief,’ said Jacobsson, ‘and his accomplishments few. He was a reporter on the Berliner Volkszeitung. He was an editor of Weltbuhne. He was a secretary of the German Peace Society. He was one of the founders of the international No More War Society. He was an advocate of a new holiday to be called Anti-War Day. So far, admirable, yes, and obsessive, but not particularly meaningful. Then, one day in 1929, with more courage than commonsense, he published an article in German exposing disarmed Germany’s secret war budget, and telling the world that his Fatherland was breaking its treaty pledges by secretly building an army and an air force. For this, Ossietzky was charged with treason in 1931 and thrown into prison for almost two years. The confinement was shattering, not only because he had weak lungs and suffered from the early ravages of tuberculosis, but because he knew what evil was afoot and wanted freedom to shout a warning to the duped world.

‘When he came out of prison, there was a new name and power on the land, and the name and power was that of Adolf Hitler. Ossietzky blindly resumed his pacifistic campaign. Friends reminded him of the consequences and begged him to flee across the border. To them Ossietzky replied, “A man who speaks from across a border has a hollow voice.” He stayed in Germany. He hooted Hitler when others cheered him. He told his countrymen that “German war spirit contains nothing but the desire for conquest.” He was a tiny thorn to Hitler, but a thorn, and he must be plucked.

‘On the night of February 27, 1933-it is here in my Notes-the German Reichstag building in Berlin went up in flames, and out of the ashes rose the Third Reich. On that night the thorn was plucked, for on that night Carl von Ossietzky, among others, was arrested once more and imprisoned as an enemy of the state. For the first time, there were those who realized that a voice of sanity had been stilled. As Ossietzky suffered torture in the Sonnenburg concentration camp, the German League for the Rights of Man sent his name to Oslo as a nominee for the Nobel Peace Prize. But he was “the little man”, and my colleagues ignored him. The following year, news of Ossietzky’s suffering and martyrdom circled the globe, and suddenly the Nobel Peace Committee found itself inundated with official nominations of his name. Romain Rolland nominated him. Albert Einstein nominated him. Thomas Mann nominated him. Jane Addams nominated him. The National Assembly of Switzerland nominated him. The Labour Party of Norway nominated him. I could go on for hours with the nominations that poured into Oslo. No longer could “the little man” be ignored.

‘Now, Miss Wiley, you will see the difficulties that confront a Nobel Prize committee. On the one hand, the intellects of the world were urging the Norwegians to honour and reward a man who had defied the leader of the nation that was Norway’s greatest threat to existence. On the other hand, the Nobel judges were being reminded of the possible outcome of such an award. Inside Norway itself, Knut Hamsun, who had become a Fascist, was writing against Ossietzky, and Vidkun Quisling was calling “the little man” a traitor, in print. The League of Patriots in Norway were demanding that Hitler or Mussolini, not the detestable Ossietzky, receive the 1935 Peace Prize. And outside Norway, the pressure was as strong, stronger. Goebbels was cursing Ossietzky as Jew and Communist, although he was neither a Jew nor a Communist. Hitler’s Schwarzes Korps was warning the Nobel judges that a vote for Ossietzky “would be a slap in the face of the German people.” Göring who knew the Nobel family through his first wife-the Swedish Baroness Karin Fock, who died of tuberculosis in 1932-put himself in touch with the Nobel heirs, and they allegedly advised the Nobel Peace Committee to turn down the Ossietzky nomination.

‘Try to imagine, if you can, the state of mind of each of the five judges on the Nobel Peace Committee. One of the judges was Dr. Halvdan Koht, Foreign Minister of Norway. Another judge was Johan Ludwig Mowinckel, who had been Prime Minister of Norway and was the leader of the Left. Both were powerful men who favoured Ossietzky, but both were practical politicians who knew that if they made Ossietzky a laureate, they were insulting Hitler and inviting him to break off diplomatic relations with their country. In its voting session, the five committee-men debated themselves hoarse. At last, the decision was made. It could not be Ossietzky. The survival of Norway came first. There was talk of giving the prize to Toméš Masaryk, of Czechoslovakia, but even this seemed unsafe. At last, to squirm out of the trouble, the committee determined to give the prize to Prince Carl, of Sweden, for some Red Cross activities of his a decade and a half earlier. But before the vote, it was found that Prince Carl was ineligible, since his nomination had reached Oslo two days after the final deadline. And so the committee threw up its collective hands, and told the world there would be no Peace Prize in 1935-as there is none this year-because there was a war in Africa, and the time was “inappropriate”.’

Throughout this recital, Sue Wiley and Craig had not moved from their places. Jacobsson stared at them meditatively.

‘You wonder about Ossietzky himself, perhaps?’ he went on. ‘Ossietzky was now in the Papenburg concentration camp. The Nazi tortures had ceased, but they did not matter. He was dying of tuberculosis. Had he died at once, the controversy would have been solved, and the world and ourselves the worse off for it. But he did not die yet. He was of indomitable spirit. He lived on, and so, quickly, it was the year 1936, and once more the Nobel Peace Committee was faced with his nomination. Again, it seemed that everyone outside Germany was presenting his name, and you will be happy to know that the names of United States citizens were among the foremost who nominated him. The Nobel Committee polled itself. Two were against Ossietzky, two were for him, and one judge was undecided. Then, overnight, the two who were against Ossietzky because of their political positions-Dr. Koht and Johan Mowinckel-resigned from the committee, and were replaced by substitute judges with no diplomatic entanglements. The day of November 23, 1936, as Germany shouted its threats, the final vote was taken. Yes, Miss Wiley, Carl von Ossietzky was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for 1935.

‘Our judges had shown their courage, and now the last act of courage was in the hands of the frail Ossietzky. What would he do? Because of his notoriety, Goebbels had moved him from the concentration camp to the West End Hospital in Berlin. There Göring called on him, stood over him, commanded him to turn down our prize. Ossietzky would not give Göring his answer, but he gave us and our colleagues in Oslo his answer. He smuggled out a cable thanking us and accepting the Nobel Peace award. Hitler’s newspapers ranted, but Ossietzky was defiant to the end. When foreign correspondents, in the presence of the Gestapo, questioned him, he told them that he was proud and reminded them that the armaments race was “insanity”. From his bed, he received a Nobel delegation which congratulated him. His prize of $39,303 he never saw. He signed a power of attorney to have a man in Oslo, who represented a lawyer in Berlin, accept his money for him. It was transferred to a Berlin bank. It was embezzled. It did not matter to Ossietzky. He had won the greater prize. Because of “the little man”, Hitler banned the Nobel awards from Germany and invented his own National State Prizes for the two leading Aryan scientists and a leading Aryan author. But still, Hitler was not satisfied. In 1940, when he marched into Norway and conquered that country, he arrested the entire Nobel committee. It did not matter, because by then the entire free world had been awakened and was fighting, and preparing to fight, for peace. By then, also, Ossietzky had been dead for two and a half years. But I like to think that he has never died.’

Jacobsson paused, and gently closed his green ledger.

‘We have had more famous laureates who have won our Nobel Peace Prize,’ he said. ‘So many more famous names. Jean Henri Dunant. Elihu Root. Woodrow Wilson. Fridtjof Nansen. Aristide Briand. Cordell Hull. Ralph Bunche. Albert Schweitzer. General George Marshall. Philip Noel-Baker. Yes, famous names. But I suspect that of them all, Carl von Ossietzky was the greatest. And because of him, this one moment in our history, our Nobel committees and judges knew greatness, too.’

Jacobsson smiled an indulgent, wrinkled smile.

‘Do spell his name correctly, Miss Wiley, please,’ he said.

She sat moved, but unmoving, features suffused by an embarrassment she could not understand and pen frozen to her fingers. Behind her, Craig stood where he had been standing from the beginning, cold pipe in his hand, touched and shaken at his deepest core.

Sue Wiley swallowed, and it could be heard, and then she emitted one word. ‘Whew,’ she said.

‘If there are any questions-’ Jacobsson began.

But then came the knocking at the door, and Jacobsson freed himself from his chair and opened the door, and it was Mrs. Steen once more. She whispered to him, and he turned to his two guests.

‘I am wanted downstairs a moment,’ he apologized. ‘Always, before the final Ceremony, there are the invitation anglers. Please relax here as long as you-’

‘Thank you, Count,’ said Craig, ‘but I had better be on my way.’

‘Thank you, Count Jacobsson,’ said Sue Wiley.

He was gone, and the two of them were alone in the high, quiet room. Craig walked to the coat-rack, and removed his hat and overcoat. He realized that Sue Wiley had not left her chair, but remained seated, watching him speculatively.

When he turned to depart, she spoke. ‘I suppose you think that story makes me look rotten, don’t you?’

‘Does it matter to you what the devil I think?’

This seemed important to her, and her eyelids palpitated nervously, ‘I have my job, Mr. Craig, can’t you see that? I have my job to do.’

‘No one’s stopping you from doing it.’

‘I don’t like the way you and Jacobsson and some of the others look at me-like I’m some kind of reptile or adder or something crawly. Well, I don’t like it, and neither would you. I’m a person the same as anybody. I know you’re sore at me because of that question I asked at the press conference. I got a lead on you, and I wanted to know if it was true or not. Maybe I should have asked you personally, instead of in front of all the others-’

Craig stood beside the door. ‘I assure you, it doesn’t matter, Miss Wiley.’

‘But it matters to me. I work from information that is picked up all over, from Consolidated’s bureaux, just the way Associated Press and Time magazine and Newsweek magazine put together a story from leads they get from their bureaux. Before I saw Schweitzer, I didn’t just depend on questions I might think of, or ones based on what I’d read, or just depend on anything we might talk about. All of our bureaux and stringers pitched in. They went digging in Kayserberg, in the German Alsace, where he was born-in Günsbach, Strasbourg, Berlin, Paris, Aspen, Colorado-wherever Schweitzer had lived, studied, worked, and then they shot me all the dope, some good, some not so good, and then I was able to get up my questions and go to Lambaréné and get the true story.’

‘The true story, Miss Wiley?’

‘That’s right. It comes in from all over-interviews, gossip, tips, leads, solid research-and I sift it, and check it out, and there’s the true story. That’s exactly the way I went about getting information on all you Nobel laureates. Take you. How do you think I got the idea that maybe you take a nip at the bottle now and then? Do you think I made it up? Not on your life. We put your name on the wire, and pretty soon our bureaux were spading up every day of your life-on the newspaper in St. Louis, London and Marseilles and New Jersey in the war, Long Island with your wife, and your honeymoon in Europe, and finally the whole rural bit in Wisconsin.’

Although he would not admit it to her, Craig was impressed at the breadth of research. It was discomforting to know how much they must know, but yes, it was impressive.

Sue Wiley was going on compulsively. ‘Don’t think our Chicago bureau didn’t yell about having to send a reporter up to a one-horse town like Miller’s Dam. You’d think we were sending someone to Tibet. But after you won the prize, there was this man of ours snooping around Miller’s Dam for material to feed me-he got there a few days before you took off for Stockholm, and he stayed on through most of this week-and he was all over the county, casually asking questions, looking in here and there, searching back issues of newspapers and all kinds of documents. Mr. Craig, what I could tell you about yourself would make you blush. At least three people hinted that you got pickled to the gills every day, morning till night. At least one person tipped us that you visited a house of prostitution once in a while. I know your sister-in-law’s shopping list at the grocery store, so I know what you eat, and I know who your friends are, and I have photocopies of the mortgage on your house, and I know the words chiselled on your wife’s tombstone. I even know how she got there-’

Craig’s heart quickened, and he wished that he was out the door, so that he need not hear the sickening secret again, and from someone other than Leah. He waited.

‘-because I know every detail of the accident,’ Sue Wiley went on, ‘and we dug it out because-painful as it is for you to be reminded-it’s dramatic and will make good reading, and it is truth, and that’s my business. I can reconstruct that accident better than you can remember it-tell you how many inches of rain there was that night, tell you how much time you spent at the Lawson Country Club, tell you how the birthday cake looked and how many presents your wife gave you, tell you the exact time you left the party, and the exact time your car smashed into that oak tree, and even how that tie rod dropped off under your car and put you in that skid-though I am no mechanic-and then I can tell you-’

Craig felt the chill from his knees and chest to his scalp. He could not have heard her right. It was a mistake. Automatically, he moved towards her, and the incredulous expression on his gaunt face made her words hang in the air.

‘What’s the matter?’ she said, frightened. ‘Are you sore at me again or something?’

‘Miss Wiley, repeat what you were just saying.’

‘About what? Repeat what?’

‘The accident.’

‘Why, I was just saying I knew-’

‘The car,’ said Craig. ‘What did you say about the car-your not being a mechanic-the skid-’

‘Oh, that,’ said Sue Wiley with relief. ‘I was just showing off how thorough we are, and how I don’t talk through my hat like maybe you think. You had lousy luck with the accident, that’s all. When you came around the curve, your tie rod-you know, that thing underneath, under the front, that controls the wheels-’

‘I know. I know-’

‘It must’ve been defective or something, because when you came around the curve it broke-that happens to other people, too-and zing-one front wheel kind of buckles, goes out of control, you can’t steer it-and if you’re on a curve-well, I don’t have to tell you, you know what can happen.’

‘Where did you hear this?’ said Craig with agitation. ‘How do you know it’s true?’

‘How do I know? Well, don’t you know? After all, it was your accident. Our man from Chicago went to the county sheriff’s office, that’s all, to find out about the crash and how your wife was killed-and there it was, with everything else-including their routine police report on your car after you smashed it up. The phrase on the report, as I remember, was “accident due to mechanical failure”, and something about the tie rod snapping, and your inside wheel going flooey, and then the measurement of the skid marks on the wet road. I have the photocopies right in my hotel. Also, the coroner’s report waiving inquest, because there was no criminal liability, it was all open and shut, and they knew you anyway.’

‘Yes, we’re all neighbours. I never bothered learning the details. I was laid up in the hospital-at home-a long time. And there was no reason to go into it afterwards. I think my sister-in-law handled everything.’

‘That’s right,’ said Sue Wiley. ‘Somebody in the sheriff’s office told our man that they called Miss Decker down there, after the funeral, while you were still half-conscious in the hospital, and gave her a copy of their police report on the case for you, to close it up.’ Sue Wiley stared at him. ‘Didn’t you see it? What did you think caused the accident?’

‘What?’ he said vaguely. His mind was stumbling backwards, groping backwards through the months and the years, trying to remember every detail, and knowing with frigid certainty that Leah had hidden the truth from him, and in its place offered the guilt of his drunkenness and irresponsibility. The lie, half told him at first, then fully told him, then constantly told him, had been her hold on him and her insurance, and the enormity of her evil, and the depths of her unbalance and sickness, made the years a nightmare and made the memory of his self-hate a nightmare, and he knew his face was bloodless and the gorge was in his throat.

‘I said-what did you think caused the accident?’

‘This,’ said Craig weakly. ‘I guess I never thought about it, but I guess later I was told it was this. It-it was just-I don’t know-strange the way you brought it all back to me today.’

‘I’m sorry if I threw you off.’

‘It’s all right,’ he said, hardly aware of her. His mind was on Leah, and almost to himself, more to himself than to her, he said, ‘Yes, Leah, Leah took care of-of everything.’

‘What?’

‘I said-’ The shock was receding, and his surroundings were taking on their perspective, the walnut desk, and shelf of green ledgers, and the wall of books, and the glass cases, and Sue Wiley so confused with her eyes eternally blinking. ‘I forget what I said. I’d better be moving along. Thanks for everything. I hope you write as fairly as you research.’

‘I only wanted to show you how we work, so you’d understand-’

‘I understand a lot now, Miss Wiley. Good-day.’

In the study of Carl Adolf Krantz’s apartment on Norr Mälarstrand, Daranyi observed that the time was 7.41 and that he had only two more dossiers to report, and after that, one more odious task, and after that he would be free, free of the oppressive room with its crowded furniture and lukewarm tea and suddenly grubby fern, and its disgusting owner.

‘So,’ said Daranyi, lowering his trouser belt to make his stomach more comfortable, and picking up his sheaf of memoranda once more. ‘If you are ready, we will proceed with the last of the two names on my list.’

‘I am ready,’ said Krantz. ‘Proceed.’

‘We come now to the redoubtable Professor Max Stratman, formerly of Berlin, now resident of Atlanta, Georgia. By the biography you left with me, I see that you have already acquired most of the pertinent data on this great man.’

‘Yes. Our Nobel committee has researched the obvious facts, which are public, on his past. However, as to personal insights-’

Daranyi nodded. ‘I understand. I have done my best, but there was nothing I could find that bore the slightest hint of impending scandal. However, I will pass on to you the few items I have acquired. Only one of these, as I see it, might be of even passing interest. I refer to Professor Stratman’s heart condition.’

He waited, and was pleased with the instant heed that Krantz had given to this information.

‘Heart condition? Do you mean he is ill? Are you certain?’

‘I am certain,’ said Daranyi complacently. ‘I have my connections at our Southern Hospital, and that is where Professor Stratman has been to visit for examinations and shots. I do not know the particulars of his condition. I am informed there is an irregularity, but no immediate danger. I am told that if he takes care, he will have some useful years ahead.’

Krantz was writing furiously. ‘Anything else on that?’

‘I am sorry, but no more. Except this afternoon-this afternoon, Professor Stratman visited the Southern Hospital a third time. I can only presume this was for further treatment, necessitated by the excessive excitement of the week and tomorrow’s Ceremony.’

‘What else?’ demanded Krantz.

‘Little else, I am afraid. His activities in this city have not been unusual. He is rarely without his niece beside him. I believe his affection for her is genuine, but there seems some indication that he feels a moral obligation to care for her, some debt he owes her father, his brother-’

‘We know about that,’ said Krantz impatiently.

‘With one exception,’ said Daranyi, ‘the people here whom Professor Stratman has seen are people well known to Scandinavian science or officials of the Academy. The exception is this. In the early afternoon of December fifth, Professor Stratman lunched at Riche with a Dr. Hans Eckart. I made an effort, in my limited time, to learn something of this Eckart, but current biographical dictionaries have nothing on him. A prewar dictionary listed him as a German physicist. I then checked the Bromma Airport and learned that he had disembarked from a Czech aeroplane that had taken off from East Berlin. I do not know if this has any value-’

‘None,’ said Krantz sharply, massaging the back of his neck.

‘I only mentioned it because this was the one person with whom Professor Stratman had met who was not known to me.’

‘Unimportant,’ said Krantz. ‘What else?’

‘That is all I have on Professor Stratman.’

Daranyi could see the flashing dip of disappointment on Krantz’s features, through the leaves of the plant, and instinctively, he comprehended that the object of his entire assignment had been to research this one man. All the rest had been camouflage. One man: Stratman.

Daranyi revelled in his secret knowledge, and tried to retain his professional, non-committal demeanour. ‘This brings us to the last name,’ he said. ‘Professor Stratman’s niece, who is Miss Emily Stratman.’

‘Go on.’

‘The contact you suggested to me, Miss Sue Wiley, the American journalist, proved helpful in gathering this brief dossier. There is not much, of course.’ Daranyi had made the decision to withhold his most dramatic find for the very end. It would make his bargaining position the stronger.

He ran a finger down his jottings. ‘Miss Stratman resides with the Professor in a bungalow in the city of Atlanta. Several days a week, she works, as a nurse’s aide, without salary, in the Lawson General Hospital, a government establishment where American war veterans are kept. This appears to be her principal outside interest, except an occasional film and the social affairs she sometimes attends with her uncle. You have seen her, so you know that she is beautiful. Yet, she has never been married. And she has not been engaged. She has not been seen alone in the company of men. It is Miss Wiley’s opinion that she is a virgin.’

‘It takes one to know one,’ said Krantz grumpily. ‘How has this niece behaved in Stockholm?’

‘Exactly as I told you when I discussed Mr. Craig. She has been seen in his company. Apparently, they do have interest in one another. She has seen no one else alone, to the best of my knowledge. I do not think Professor Stratman would permit it. As I have indicated, he is over protective. In the case of Mr. Craig, I should imagine that Professor Stratman would trust a fellow laureate. This is her record here. I have been thorough, Dr. Krantz. I know of her movements up until a quarter to five this very afternoon. That was when she left the hotel on foot, by herself, and walked across Kungsträdgården, and crossed Hamngatan, and went into Nordiska Kompaniet, along with all the other late shoppers…’

Emily Stratman had been sitting at the table beside the window, in the fourth-floor grill-room of the Nordiska Kompaniet department store, for five minutes, waiting.

Suddenly, now, she had an impulse to run.

She could not go through with the embarrassment of this meeting, she told herself. She should not have agreed to it. Her mind was a turmoil. She had cried herself to sleep last night, and her eyes were a fright. And worst of all, she felt inadequate for the encounter.

Why had she consented?

Nervously, her hand kneaded the handbag on the table, almost knocking off the menu, as she recalled the telephone call.

Only a few hours ago, she had lain listlessly on the sofa of the hotel sitting-room, trying to read, when the telephone behind her rang. She had taken up the receiver, still reclining and still morose.

‘Yes?’

‘Miss Emily Stratman, please.’ The voice on the other end was young, female, possibly Swedish, and unfamiliar to Emily.

‘This is she.’

‘I am Lilly Hedqvist,’ said the voice.

The name had already been branded distinctly in Emily’s mind since Andrew Craig’s confession, but the reality of hearing the name spoken aloud by its possessor was paralysing.

So disconcerted that she was at a loss for words, Emily could not reply. Her knuckles whitened on the receiver, but her vocal chords were mute.

Apparently, her silence had disconcerted Lilly Hedqvist, too. ‘You know of me, I believe?’ asked Lilly.

Emily’s response was automatic, unsteered by thought. ‘Yes, I know about you.’

‘Mr. Craig came to me last night to speak of you, and to tell me what happened between you. You may believe it is none of my business, but it has been on my mind today, and I believe it is some of my business. This call is not easy for me to make, Miss Stratman, but my conscience tells me I must make it. I do not know you, but I do know Mr. Craig, and if he thinks highly of someone, then I tell myself that someone must be a good person. I would like to meet you for a few minutes today, Miss Stratman.’

Emily did not know what to say. The voice sounded younger and cleaner and more simple than she had imagined it in her fantasies. After Craig’s revelation, the name Lilly Hedqvist had become the name of all on earth who were abandoned and wanton and experienced. But this was not Lili Marlene or Cora Pearl or Märta Norberg. This was a girl.

‘I-I don’t know-I don’t know if it’s possible,’ said Emily. ‘I wouldn’t know what to say to you.’

‘You do not have to say a thing,’ said Lilly. ‘I want you to see me. I want you to hear me. For a few minutes. And that is all.’

At once, Emily was recklessly tempted. She did wish to set eyes on a girl who could give Andrew Craig kindness and love with nothing in return. She did want to see this girl and to hear her. But it was less these desires than another that was now influencing Emily. Above all, she wanted to find out about herself, why she still was as she was, and why yesterday had happened, and Lilly might be her fluoroscope. And then one more faint thought. If she said no to Lilly, that was the end of it forever. On the other hand, the Swedish girl was a part of Craig now, and to see her would be to see Craig one bitter time more.

‘All right,’ she said suddenly, and it was as if another person had uttered the sentence on herself. ‘All right, I’ll see you. Where and when?’

‘I work in the Nordiska Kompaniet, the biggest department store, only a few blocks from your hotel. You turn to your right when you leave the hotel, and follow the pavement, and go across the park diagonally, and it is the seven-storey store on the other side of the street. It is only a few blocks. If you are lost, ask someone for En Ko-that’s how Swedes pronounce NK-and they will direct you. Inside, there is an escalator in the centre. It will take you to the eating grill-lunchrummet. You pick a table if you are there first, and I will come. Can you be there at ten minutes to five?’

‘Yes.’

‘I will sneak off from my work at ten minutes to five, and we will have coffee and talk a little.’

Emily began to panic. ‘I still don’t know what we can possibly say-’

‘Then we will say nothing,’ said Lilly. ‘But the meeting will be good. Good-bye, Miss-oh, wait-one thing I almost forgot. How do you look?’

‘How do I look?’

‘So I can find you.’

‘I-I’m a brunette-bobbed hair-and-I don’t know-I’ll be wearing a jacket, a suede jacket.’

‘If I am first, you will see me with blonde hair, also a white sweater and blue skirt. We will find each other.’

‘Yes.’

‘Good-bye then, until ten minutes to five.’

All the interminable time after that, Emily had meant to call the store pronounced En Ko and ask for Miss Hedqvist and cancel the meeting, but in the end, she had not. And now here she was in the half-filled grill-room, at the table beside the window, with her red eyes and suede jacket, and her desire to run from here, quickly and far away.

It was four minutes to five, and she told herself: I will give her one more minute and that is all.

‘You are Miss Stratman?’

Emily’s head tilted upward with genuine alarm, and there was a child of a girl, with golden hair, long and caught by a blue ribbon, and alive blue eyes, and a young mouth and attractive beauty mark above it. She wore a thin white sweater that hung straight down from her breast tips, and a pleated dark blue skirt, and low-heeled shoes, and she extended her hand and said, ‘I am Lilly Hedqvist.’

Emily accepted the firm grip, but briefly, for this was the hand that had caressed Craig, and then watched with wonder as the Swedish girl, so fresh and flaxen and blue like the Swedish flag, matter-of-factly took the place opposite her.

‘You have ordered?’ inquired Lilly.

‘No-’

‘I will order. Is there anything with the coffee?’

‘No.’

Lilly waved to a passing waitress, who appeared to know her, and called ‘Kaffe,’ holding up two fingers.

Now she returned her attention to Emily, leaning elbows on the table, cupping her chin with her hands. She considered Emily frankly. ‘You are very beautiful,’ she said.

‘Well, I-well, thank you.’

‘It does not surprise me. I knew you would be beautiful, but I did not think in this way.’

‘In what way?’

‘Like the lovely fawns I have seen in Värmland. They are delicate and withdrawn. And besides, you look like you are nice. I thought you would be more bold and sure.’

Had she not been so tense, Emily might have been amused, remembering as she did, after the phone call, her first imagined image of Lilly as the one who might be bold and sure.

‘Now it is easier to understand,’ Lilly went on, ‘because you are beautiful.’

The irony of it came to Emily’s mind-we are always, she thought, not what we are through our eyes, but only as we are to other eyes-for she felt anything but beautiful. In fact, she felt more inhibited than ever by Lilly’s peach-coloured natural freshness, and it seemed incredible that Craig could have been so attentive to her after spending time with this bursting, outdoor child, and suddenly she was glad that Craig could not see them together like this.

‘Mr. Craig is beautiful, too,’ Lilly was saying, ‘in the same way. He is secretly shy. It is appealing. I do not know how you could send him away yesterday, when he loves you from the heart so much.’

‘What makes you think he loves me?’

‘My eyes and ears and woman’s sense.’

The waitress had arrived with coffee, silver, and napkins, which she dispensed from a tray. Neither paid attention to her, and when she left, Lilly resumed.

‘When Mr. Craig went away from you last night, he became very drunk, which is natural. Then he visited me and offered to marry me because that was like committing suicide.’ She had said the last with a twinkle, and then with tiny laughter. ‘He was not serious, and I knew he was not serious. I made him confess the truth, and he admitted how much he loved you, and he told me everything about that.’

‘I-I cannot believe he means it.’

‘Why, Miss Stratman? You cannot believe a man loves one woman from the heart, when he is also in another woman’s bed?’

The naked question seemed to carry with it some implication of a personal failure in Emily, and she was less appalled by its asking than by this implication. ‘I wish I knew the right answer. I only know my answer. I was-yes, it upset me.’

‘You are now an American woman,’ said Lilly, ‘and I am a Swedish woman, and we are different. I must explain to you how I behave as I behave. On the outside, the Swedish girl is like the Swedish man-she is stiff, formal, with traditional manners. But with sex, she is open and free, because she is raised up with no prudishness. Education is honest about sex. In the country, we swim naked in summer. In the magazines, there is no censorship. And because there are so many women for so few men, it is a necessity not to make sex so difficult and rare-if you hold back the sex love, the man will find it easy in the next woman he meets. But that is not the main thing.’

She paused and sipped her hot coffee, and Emily waited.

‘In America, the heart love comes first, and if that is good, then you go until you have the sex love, which is last and made most important, and which the American woman saves for the final precious gift. In Sweden, it is the opposite way around. In Sweden, the sex love comes first, and if that is good, you wait to see if it grows to heart love, which is forever and to us the most important. Do I explain myself, Miss Stratman?’

‘Yes, you explain yourself well,’ said Emily, envying her.

‘I could so easy give Mr. Craig my sex love,’ said Lilly earnestly, ‘because it is not the important thing, and I think less of it, like kissing. The important thing, for me, was to see if our sleeping in bed would become more to us, would become heart love, so it would be a part of a greater love that would last always. But it did not grow and become more for Mr. Craig or for me, because he did not love me. He loved you.’

For the first time, fully, Emily had grave doubts about her standards in relation to Craig.

‘I tell you the truth, Miss Stratman,’ said Lilly. ‘If I had known that Mr. Craig loved me above the sleeping together, and if I had known my own love for him was more than that, we would not be here having coffee together, because he would be my husband forever. But I have told you, it did not happen and could not happen, because his real love was for you. I am telling you of myself, and I am telling you of Mr. Craig and myself, and now I will tell you of Mr. Craig and yourself.’

Emily waited outside Lilly, as if waiting outside the Oracle of Venus at ancient Paphos.

‘Mr. Craig showed his heart love for you immediately, Miss Stratman. If you had welcomed this, and loved him back from the beginning, he would never have come to my bed to be warm with someone, because he would not have needed another woman. He would have had, for his heart and his manhood, all he wanted in the world. It is you who sent him to me. It is you who have had the power to send him or keep him.’

‘But I couldn’t,’ said Emily wretchedly.

‘You could not-what? Keep him with love?’

Emily was helpless. ‘That’s right, Lilly.’

‘Why not? Is it because you are a virgin, or afraid to give your heart and life to someone’s hands?’

‘Neither and both. It is something more.’

‘Then I do not understand you.’

Emily tried to smile gratefully. ‘How can you? I don’t understand myself.’

‘You must change, or there will be no hope for you.’

‘I cannot change,’ said Emily simply.

She had gone beyond Lilly’s depth, she knew, because she had guarded what was within her and had chosen to hide behind enigma, and now, watching the wholesome Swedish girl finish her coffee and prepare to return to work, she felt the blackness of despair. For the conversation, so one-sided, open on Lilly’s side, closed on her own, made it clear to her at last, the extent to which the fault was her own and not the fault of Andrew Craig. To have turned him away, when she had known that she loved him, and now, to keep him away, when she knew that he loved her, was the stark revelation of the illness within that had not been healed.

She had never believed that she would hear the final dooming toll of the death of the heart, but she heard it now. She listened. It was against her eardrums, heavy as the beat of her heart, and she surrendered to the knowledge that she was incurable, and she would not have Craig or any man, because the disease had eaten away her ability to love, and there was nothing more to give, because there was nothing left.

In Carl Adolf Krantz’s apartment, it was now a few minutes before eight o’clock in the evening.

Daranyi had pretended to be finished with Emily Stratman, and then he had reported a few bits of scattered gossip on this one and that one, and then suddenly, as he folded his sheaf of papers, ‘Oh, there is one more thing.’

Deliberately, he returned the sheets to his right-hand jacket pocket, and as deliberately, he tugged two large photocopies and six smaller ones, folded and held together by a brass paper-clip, from his left-hand pocket.

He held the photocopies a moment, disliking this part of it and sorry for himself, and aware of Krantz’s wondering face behind the fern.

‘About Miss Stratman,’ said Daranyi. ‘I had almost forgotten. Your short biography of her interested me, the fact that she had been interned in Ravensbruck concentration camp during her adolescence. It occurred to me that it might be useful, on a long chance, to learn something of the people Miss Stratman had known in those years, and if any of her old associations had carried over, for her or Professor Stratman, to the present day. It occurred to me, also, that among the millions of old SS documents that had not been destroyed, that had been confiscated after the war, there might still exist one on Miss Stratman’s history. Since I had a friend who has the proper connections in West Berlin, I suggested that he do what he could. His success was remarkable. Photocopies of Miss Stratman’s SS file came to my hands late this afternoon. The dossier may have no real value to you, but still, one never knows, and I thought it might be of certain interest.’

‘Let me have a look,’ said Krantz.

Daranyi half rose and handed the two large photocopies and the six smaller ones across the top of the plant to his employer.

‘You will note,’ explained Daranyi, ‘that there are two sets of photocopies. The larger set is the copy of a summary of the report of Miss Stratman’s military psychoanalyst. You may find something useful in several unfamiliar names referred to-Frau Hencke, Dr. Voegler, Colonel Schneider. I am sorry I had no time to trace their histories. The smaller sheaf of photocopies represents a copy of an exchange of formal correspondence between departments of the Red Army and the American Army. Since the correspondence concerns Miss Stratman, it was also found in her file. Only one new name springs up in that correspondence-Dr. Kurt Lipski-not identified, but presumably a physician. I made a cursory check of my German library and found mention of three K. Lipskis of some importance in science today-one a naturalist, one a dermatologist, and one a bacteriologist. Nothing significant.’

Now Daranyi sat back, fingertips touching, eyes never leaving Krantz, as the other read the documents to himself. Krantz’s upper lip wriggled beneath his moustache, but his face betrayed no other reaction. At last, he looked up.

‘Where did you get these?’ he asked, and Daranyi detected that his tone was over casual.

‘You know, Dr. Krantz, I try to keep my sources-’

‘It does not matter. Merely personal curiosity as to how authentic-’

Yes, Daranyi decided, over casual, and therefore, it has value. ‘It is completely authentic,’ he said. ‘I will say this much. I have an English friend, a newspaperman now in Stockholm, who is down at the heels. He is underpaid and forever in debt. He, in turn, has a friend who works in British Intelligence in West Berlin-a Scotch girl-a filing clerk. My newspaper friend offered to telephone her, and I supported this. When he advised me what was available, I agreed to give him-he must give half to her-nine hundred kronor of the expense money you gave me. That is steep for something that may have no value, but I thought I would risk the investment. I hoped you would find it illuminating in some way.’

Krantz shrugged. ‘I cannot tell.’ And then-over casual, over casual-‘By the way, has anyone else seen this?’

‘No, of course not.’

‘Well, no matter. It really gives us nothing, but I will retain it as a curiosity.’

‘As you wish.’

Krantz stood up, to indicate that the interview was terminated and the business of the evening was concluded. ‘For your part, Daranyi, you are to be congratulated, as ever, a thorough job well done. For our part, and I hate to say this, you have uncovered nothing of real value, nothing that can solve our little problem. Still, you have done what you could in a limited time, and for that, we on the committee concerned with this are grateful. I told you, the other day, your recompense would be generous. I believe you will be more than satisfied. I have discussed payment with my colleagues, and they have agreed with me that your services-considering the small amount of your time we have taken-are worth ten thousand kronor. I have the envelope-’

Daranyi had remained in the leather chair, and he remained seated still. ‘No,’ he said plainly.

Krantz had begun to move towards the mantelpiece, but now he halted and turned. ‘What was that?’

‘I said no-meaning ten thousand kronor is insufficient for what I have done.’

‘What do you expect?’

This was the long-awaited moment at last. ‘Fifty thousand kronor,’ said Daranyi.

Krantz looked stricken. ‘Are you mad, Daranyi? You are pulling my leg.’

‘Your wallet, perhaps, but not your leg.’

‘You seriously think we would give you fifty thousand for that batch of prattle and pap?’

‘I seriously think you will. I have a notion I have done well for you.’

‘You have done nothing. Fifty thousand kronor? Why, you will consider yourself fortunate if I can have your fee raised to fifteen thousand.’

Daranyi sat Buddhalike, as immovable, as superior, on the chair. ‘The price is fifty thousand for my work’-he paused, and concluded-‘ and my discretion.’

‘Discretion, is it? I have never dreamed you would stoop so low as blackmail. Do you understand the position you are in? I could have you thrown out of this country in two minutes.’

‘I have counted on that. Eviction would coincide with my own plans. You see, the moment you have paid me, I will buy my air ticket to Switzerland. A second cousin of mine has taken residence there and plans to open a rare-book shop, and wants a partner. I think Lausanne will be more healthy than Stockholm. And I think there is more of a future today in rare books than in-research-and documents.’

Krantz was livid. ‘Now you want to jew me out of the money to finance you?’

‘Exactly.’

‘You are a greedy devil. Where is your sense of proportion and self-respect?’

‘I have just regained both.’ He smelt his victory, and he came lightly to his feet. ‘I have done my part. Now you do yours. Fifty thousand.’

Krantz stared at Daranyi with distaste. ‘You cannot be dissuaded from this crime?’

‘No.’

‘I would have to talk to my friends first. It could not be fifty thousand in any case, perhaps closer to thirty thousand.’

‘Forty thousand is my bottom.’

‘I will not bargain like a tradesman,’ said Krantz. ‘All right then, forty thousand.’ He picked up a Spanish hand-bell and shook it. ‘Ilsa will show you out.’

Daranyi made no move. ‘When do I have my fee? Tomorrow is my deadline, tomorrow before the Ceremony.’ He would remind Krantz of the price of forfeit. ‘While the world press is still here.’

‘You will have your Judas money. I will send the cash in a plain envelope by messenger to your apartment… You know this is our last meeting.’

‘I had hoped it would be. Good-night to you, Dr. Krantz. And if ever you are in Lausanne, and in need of a rare edition-’

Daranyi permitted himself to smile, and Krantz glared and said, ‘Good-night!’

Daranyi opened the door, took his coat and hat from Ilsa, and hurried out.

Krantz went to his study door and closed and bolted it. Then he hastened across the room to the glass door and peered down into Norr Mälarstrand. Not until Daranyi was briefly visible, below, did he leave the point of vantage.

Hurrying on his short legs, he went to the sitting-room door behind his chair and knocked three times. He heard the tumble of the lock, and stepped back. The door opened.

Briskly, polishing his monocle with a handkerchief, Dr. Hans Eckart came into the study.

‘You heard everything?’ Krantz asked anxiously.

‘Every word.’ Eckart placed the handkerchief back in his pocket and adjusted his monocle.

‘He kept staring at the plant,’ said Krantz. ‘I was nervous all the time that he would see the microphone.’

‘No one could see it,’ said Eckart.

Krantz danced closer to his patron, jittering. ‘You heard him about the money-’

‘Never mind about the money. That Hungarian nincompoop’s usefulness is ended anyway. I will see that he is paid.’

‘Was there anything in his information that-?’

‘Yes,’ said Eckart curtly. ‘The SS file on Emily Stratman. Let me see it at once.’