The Prize

3

THE telegram that Count Bertil Jacobsson read in Stockholm at 4.30 had been sent almost five hours earlier, at 11.43 in the morning, from a Danish modern bedroom on the sixth floor of the Tre Falke Hotel in Copenhagen. Although it was signed by Andrew Craig, he had had no part in its creation. It was written and dispatched by Leah Decker, his sister-in-law.

What awakened Andrew Craig from his slumber was Leah’s intense, high-pitched voice, in another room, reading the telegram aloud to someone unknown. She read the contents for approval, and the contents were approved. Eventually, Craig would deduce that the person unknown was Mr. Gates, the First Secretary of the United States Embassy in Copenhagen.

Fully aroused from his sleep, Craig tried to familiarize himself with his surroundings. He lay on the black quilt of a divan, his feet dangling over the edge, in a strange, overwhelmingly citron-coloured room, surrounded by severely angled, teakwood furniture, obviously produced in a factory teeming with cubists. The room was efficient, spotlessly clean, lifeless. His suit jacket, he realized, had been removed, and his shoes, also. His head throbbed, and his tongue had the leathery consistency of the tongue of a hunting boot. He had been drunk, he supposed, and now he was not quite sober, but sobering badly, and he was thirsty.

He listened to the two voices that came to him through the abbreviated hall connecting the next room.

A page arrived, and was given the telegram, and instructed to send it off posthaste. Leah worried that, having cancelled the flight, they might not obtain a train reservation. Mr. Gates assured her that the train reservation would be forthcoming, and if it was not, there was always another flight. Leah did not want to risk another flight. It was too quick. It would not give her brother-in-law time to rest. He required rest above all else. She implored Mr. Gates to try the Central Railway Station again, and Mr. Gates obliged her. He reminded the reservation desk that he was a representative of the American Embassy, and that two compartments on the Nord Express were sorely needed. There were several pauses, half-uttered phrases, and then it appeared that the compartments had been obtained.

The conversation next door was indistinct, and Craig did not strain to hear it. Suddenly, he heard light footsteps-Leah’s, he guessed-and he made an instant decision. He turned his face to the wall, closed his eyes tight, and feigned sleep. As a touch of realism, he simulated laboured breathing. Momentarily, he was aware of Leah’s unseen presence above him. He heard her sniff twice, clear her throat, and at last, he heard her leave.

When the voices in the next room resumed, this time more distinctly, he opened his eyes once more and listened again.

‘He’s out cold,’ Leah was saying. ‘He’ll be out for hours.’

‘Then we can go?’

‘I’m sure it’s safe.’

‘Very well. We’ll pick up the tickets at the Central Station. Then we’ll lunch at Oskar Davidsen’s. If there’s time, we can drive out to Elsinore. It’s no more than two hours round trip. You’re sure Mr. Craig wouldn’t want to come along?’

‘He’s got to sleep this off. Nothing else concerns me. This afternoon, and tonight on the train, will hardly be enough. I just hope the Nobel Foundation won’t be put off by the delay.’

‘They’ll be delighted to have you both at any time.’

‘I hope so.’

There was more indistinct talk, and finally movement, and the sound of the door opening and closing.

Andrew Craig lay still. He would give them plenty of time to leave, he decided. Besides, he was too enervated to rise. He wanted the beating in his temples to cease. Given time, it would. Of course, the thirst was distressing. Nevertheless, he would display willpower. He would wait ten minutes. He tried to moisten his tongue against the roof of his mouth, but that was no good, and at last he did so by rubbing his tongue along the inner lining of his cheeks. Ten minutes. He waited.

The couple of weeks in Miller’s Dam, before departure, were difficult to recall. The Nobel notification had caught him at the outset of his cycle. After Harriet’s death, when he had been recuperating, he had not drunk heavily, no more heavily than when she had lived. It was afterwards-all dressed up and no place to go-wasn’t that the old expression?-that whisky had made each day possible. In the first year, he had drunk blindly, all the time. When the pain had been replaced by conscious emptiness, he had fallen into the cycle. Lucius Mack had told him that it was a cycle. Or had it been Leah? Two weeks drunk and two weeks sober, well, mostly sober. In the last year, it had been three weeks drunk and one week sober, and he had added no more than twenty pages to the meagre pile that was entitled Return to Ithaca. He had been on his three-week drunk when the notification had come, and he was still on it, he guessed.

It was impossible to recapture more than fragments of the past, no matter how recent, when you had been steadily drinking. The whisky bottle was the all-inclusive holdall. Into it you could stuff writing, and sex, and hope, and memory, and soak and dissolve them beyond recognition. From the night of the telegram to the morning when he had been driven to Chicago, he could remember almost nothing. Somehow, certain faces were visible, those of Lucius Mack and Jake Binninger, buffers between himself and the outside press; that of Leah, fussing, nursing, complaining; that of Professor Alex Inglis, down from Joliet College, mutely worshipful, mutely imploring.

Yesterday morning-yes, yesterday-Lucius Mack had driven them to Chicago in his station-wagon. Leah had been in the best of spirits. She had worn a moss-green jersey suit, new, and the black broadcloth coat, new, that Craig had given her as a bon voyage gift and her due. (He had not actually bought it himself, but sat in a Milwaukee tavern while Lucius did the shopping and even laid out the money, an advance against the Nobel cheque.) Not the least of her good cheer was the promise Leah had extracted from Craig the night before, the promise that he would not drink, except socially, until the Nobel Ceremony was ended. These gifts, and the excitement, had served to relax Leah’s clenched, Slavic face, and her inflexible body. Her aspect was more feminine, and her pride in him-in the past he had resented it as a subtle pressure-gave him fleeting pride in himself, briefly, briefly, in the way that Harriet had so often given it to him.

The lunch in the Pump Room had been a farewell feast worthy of Lucullus-steadily enlivened by Lucius Mack’s moody speculations on the advertising inches he must sell in Miller’s Dam to pay for each course-and afterwards they had driven to the airport and entered the Boeing 720 for New York City. What had made the two-and-a-half-hour flight bearable to Craig were the two drinks that he had been permitted in the Pump Room and the two more on the plane. Upon landing, they had been met by Craig’s publisher, his agent, and his favourite book-review-page editor, and whisked to a candlelit restaurant, an expensive celebrity haven, and Craig had been miserable. He had been interested neither in the literary talk nor in his future, but only in his desperate need for refreshment. He had been allowed one double Scotch-on-the-rocks, and the mechanics of the occasion made the necessary second and third drinks impossible to obtain. The conspiracy against him was enforced by a publisher who did the ordering and who was determined to see him turn over a new leaf, an agent who had ulcers, an editor who regarded one sherry as daring, and a sister-in-law who hovered over him like an Alcoholics Anonymous convert.

The 7.30 night flight, on the Scandinavian Airlines System jet, the DC- 8C, gave more promise of sustenance. Because Leah was satisfied and mellowed, she had joined him in one champagne over Canada and another over Newfoundland, and he had gallantly pressed a third on her (refusing a third himself, and disarming her completely) somewhere early over the Atlantic Ocean. She had taken it and immediately gone off to sleep in her reclining chair, and Craig was saved.

Craig’s renown and his mission had preceded him to the aeroplane, and when he made his way to the lounge to converse and joke with the hostess, the maître de cabine, and several of the passengers, he was accepted as the party’s guest of honour. While the majority of the passengers slept, some fitfully, some soundly like Leah, Craig mounted the cycle. Waving aside the champagne-a come-on for tourists, he announced-he concentrated on Scotch. Through the joyous night, he drank. Into the dawn, come too soon, he drank. Over Scotland and England, he drank.

The fullness of the new day, ashen and remorseful outside the fogged window, found him in his seat, blinds successfully drawn against Harriet and his art, ready for the welcoming oblivion of sleep. The intercom brought the plane, and Leah, awake. Leah hurried to the washroom, and returned with her hair combed back in place, her face stencilled in, and her jersey suit unwrinkled.

When she sank down beside him, restored, she asked, ‘Did you sleep?’

‘Won’erfully,’ he mumbled.

She stretched her neck to the window. ‘That must be Denmark down there, through the clouds.’ Without turning from her country watching, she asked, ‘Isn’t it thrilling?’

‘Won’erfully.’

When the stewardess announced that there would be no more smoking and that seat belts would be fastened, Craig lighted his pipe and forgot to lock his belt. No one noticed.

They had landed-Leah congratulating herself that they were safe on earth again-and he was shuffling behind her to the plane’s exit. As he stepped out on the mobile platform, and tried to find the first step in descent, his jellied knees collapsed. He pitched against the rail, saved from a critical fall by Leah, blocking the way ahead of him, and the strong arms of two passengers.

As she and another assisted him down the stairs, Leah smelt his breath. Her face hardened; the armistice was over.

The rest was sketchy in Craig’s memory. Someone, dressed like a butcher on Sunday, had been there to meet them. Black coffee at a counter in the airport. A snatch of Leah’s dialogue to their host. ‘He never drinks. He’s not used to it. Everyone’s driving him crazy, wanting to treat, celebrating, he doesn’t know how to say no. It was too much.’ And again, at the cash register. ‘We can’t take off in two hours. I can’t let them see him in Stockholm this way. He’s not like this at all. It would be a disgrace.’ Then the phone booths, and the host emerging. He had found hotel rooms for them. They had ridden endlessly in someone’s automobile. A glossy hotel, with a curved driveway that took them to an entrance that resembled a carpark. A busy lobby reservation counter to the left, elevators to the right. Sixth floor. Right this way, please.

All else, details, were bottled in alcohol. High spirits equal low recall, he told himself. Simple equation.

He sat up on the divan. More than twenty minutes had elapsed since Leah had left him. He slipped on his shoes and tied them. He found the bathroom and doused his face with cold water, and wet his hair and combed it. He undid his tie and made it over again. He pulled on his dark grey suit coat and went into Leah’s room. It was an identical twin to his own. One suitcase was open and the rest, still strapped, on the floor.

He returned to his room for his trench coat, and then realized that there was a note pinned to the chair beside the divan. He yanked it free and read it:

ANDREW. In case you should wake up before I return, I have gone out for lunch with a man from the American Embassy. We had to cancel the aeroplane to Stockholm because you were drunk. We rented rooms in this hotel for you to rest, and are taking a train to Sweden tonight for the same reason. I’ll be back by five. Do behave. LEAH.

He studied the letterhead. He was a guest of the Tre Falke Hotel, 9 Falkoner Alle, Copenhagen.

He crumpled the note into a ball, dropped it into the wicker waste-paper basket, and went out to the elevator. After pressing the button, the wait was interminable. He took out his briar, and by the time it was smoking, the elevator door had opened. It was self-service and carried him downwards without a stop.

He inquired of a page for the bar, and the beardless young man led him through the lobby, bearing left, and pointed. The curved horseshoe of a counter, before the dining-room, was uninhabited except for the blond, chinless young man, in black suit and white apron, behind it.

As Craig approached, he saw the bartender watching him closely. He lifted himself onto a stool.

‘Double Scotch-on-the-rocks.’

The bartender hesitated. ‘Pardon, sir. Are you Mr. Craig, Rooms 607 and 608?’

‘Yes.’

‘I’m terribly sorry, sir. I have strict orders not to serve you.’

Craig was more surprised than angry. ‘How did you know me?’

‘Your wife described you, sir.’

‘She’s not my wife.’

‘The lady, then. She said you were seriously ill-beg your pardon-and the physician’s orders were-no drinks.’

‘Are you out of your mind? This is a public bar. I’m a public customer. I want a drink. Now, please oblige me.’

The chinless bartender wavered, but stood fast. ‘We could be sued, sir, If you fell ill. The hotel rules allow us to serve guests at our discretion. It’s posted in your room, sir.’

Craig’s fury was not with this fool but with Leah. He wanted no argument. He wanted a drink. ‘Okay, buddy. I’m sick, and she was kidding you, but we’ll let it go.’ He stood up. ‘Make it one, then-one shot-for the road. No one’ll see.’

The bartender hesitated. His only desire, obvious in his expression, was that his customer leave quietly. He nodded, pulled a bottle and a glass from under the bar, and filled the glass. ‘I shouldn’t,’ he said, and pushed the glass at his customer.

Craig downed it in a single swallow. The fluid, moistening his mouth, burning his throat, heating his chest, revived him. ‘What do I owe you?’

‘Nothing, sir.’ He made his solemn joke. ‘Remember, you didn’t have a drink.’

Craig smiled bitterly. ‘Best drink I never had.’ He slipped off the stool. ‘Where’s downtown?’

‘Twenty minutes away, sir. It’s called Raadhusplads. The middle of everything. You can’t miss it. You’ll find taxis in front here, or you can take the regular buses. Don’t forget to change dollars into kroner.’

‘Thanks, pal.’

In the lobby, adjacent to the reception desk, he found the female money-changer with her adding machine. He gave her a twenty-dollar note, received a handful of kroner, stuffed the Danish money into his wallet as he studied the American, English, German, and French newspapers and magazines at the news-stand, and then went outside.

The day had brightened, but the air was cold. He saw several parked cars in the area ahead, but not a single taxi. He waited, and then approached the doorman, who was busy conversing with a drably clothed porter.

‘Where’s the bus?’ Craig inquired.

‘Bus?’ echoed the doorman. ‘Ah yes, yes, the motor-coach.’ He pointed off. ‘There. It is soon to leave.’

Craig thanked him and strode hurriedly to the large blue-and-white bus that stood in the driveway before a cavernous cinema. He climbed into the bus.

The squat, bespectacled driver, polishing the huge wheel with a lint cloth, greeted him with a nod. ‘Ticket, please.’

‘I didn’t know.’

‘It is all right to pay-’

Craig extracted his wallet, pulled free a wad of Danish notes, and offered them trustingly. The driver selected several, and handed Craig his change.

Turning to the interior of the bus, Craig saw that it was almost filled, preponderantly with young Scandinavian women. He made his way to the rear, and eased into a tight seat that left little room for his legs.

In a few minutes, the bus engine sputtered and caught. The gears ground. The bus lumbered out of the driveway, wheeled right for two blocks, then wheeled left into a business thoroughfare, and moved forward.

Craig had never seen Copenhagen before. When he and Harriet had taken their six-month honeymoon after the war, they had leisurely made their way to Göteburg by steamer, spent one week in Stockholm, flown to Amsterdam, and taken the train to Paris. They had not wanted to leave Paris, even after six weeks, but had finally rented a Citroën and driven to San Sebastián, down to Madrid, up to Barcelona, then to Nice, stopped at Spezia, defied the mountain paths, and made their way down the road to Rome. Later, they had driven north to Milan and Berne, and then released their Citroën in Paris. Sailing home, they had been full of the wonders of the Grand Tour, and nightly spoke of returning the following summer. But life had closed in on them, and they had never returned, not together, and here he was, in Copenhagen, alone, and he did not look out the window because he did not give a damn.

He heard a crackle overhead, and then the driver’s voice on the loudspeaker. ‘Welcome, everyone, to our daily winter Copenhagen tour,’ the driver announced professionally. ‘It is one-thirty P.M. The tour is of three hours’ duration. It will end at City Hall Square -what we Danes call Raadhuspladsen-at four-thirty P.M. There will be five stops and visits on the tour, to accommodate camera fans. These will be at Grundtvig’s Church, Gefion Fountain, the Little Mermaid in Copenhagen harbour, the Langelinie, and Amalienborg Castle. Among the other highlights of historic interest-’

Comprehending at last, Craig was appalled. He realized that he was not on an ordinary city bus. He had stupidly stumbled into a sight-seeing motor-coach. His first impulse was to pull the emergency cord, or accost the driver, explain his mistake, and request that he be dropped off at the next red light. But then he realized that there was no reason to create a disturbance. His destination was merely a bar, any bar anywhere, and this ridiculous conveyance could bring him to one as swiftly as any other.

Despite his discomfort, and his thirst, he was still reasonable enough to be amused. He would soon establish, he decided, the world’s freestyle record for being the most briefly seated tourist in the annals of Danish sight-seeing.

The ride seemed endless, but at last they braked to a halt. The loudspeaker announced, ‘ Amalienborg Castle, the eighteenth-century residence of the King and Queen. The passengers may step outside.’ There was a mass rising and crush to the front doors. The passengers spilled out. Hopefully, Craig followed them.

Outside, the young ladies clustered about their driver-guide. Craig heard the introduction of the talk-‘The royal palaces are among the best representations, in Europe, of the rococo style’-and he drifted away. He searched about him. He was at the boundary of a great square, entirely hemmed in by four towering palaces, each looking exactly like the others. Royal guardsmen, bearskin hats perched on top of their heads, stood sentry duty. Nowhere in sight was there a building resembling a bar, a saloon, a tavern.

Craig’s good humour crumbled. He felt as frustrated as any character that he had ever met in Kafka. Scanning the arid scene again, he became aware of someone else who had separated from the other tourists and was now crouched a few yards from him, focusing her camera-it resembled Leah’s Rolleiflex-on the royal guardsmen. Picture taken, she stood up and gravely concentrated on rolling the film.

Hastily, Craig approached her. He could see, at once, that she was a young girl, looking no more than twenty-one. A white béret was tilted precariously on her head, her silken gold hair tumbling down to her shoulders. A thick, oversized, coral sweater, unbuttoned in front, covered her white blouse and the upper portion of her pleated navy-blue skirt. When Craig reached her, he saw that she was no higher than his chest.

She looked up at him with surprise. Her face was broad and pretty. The eyes were light blue, with laugh wrinkles at the outer corners, the nose was straight and wide, the cheeks shaped high and bony (as Harriet’s had been), and the chapped lips full and crimson. The dark dot of a beauty mark, to the right of the upper lip, drew one to the partially open mouth and even white teeth.

Craig was conscious of the girl’s appeal, and impatient and annoyed with it, for his mind was on more important matters.

‘Pardon, Miss,’ he said. ‘I’m one of the passengers on the tour-’

‘I just wondered-I wonder if you could tell me-is there a bar anyplace in the vicinity?’

‘A bar? You mean, the self-service restaurant?’

‘No-no-a place to drink-have drinks-whisky.’

‘Oh.’ She waved at the palaces. ‘This is Amalienborg.’

‘I know.’

‘There are no beverage places.’

‘But somewhere near?’

She shrugged. ‘I am not familiar with this square. Maybe later.’ Suddenly, she smiled with a conspirator’s enthusiasm. ‘I will show you when I see one.’

‘I’d be much obliged.’

He stuffed his chilled hands into the pockets of his trench coat, lifted his shoulders into a hunch, and trudged back to the bus. When he entered it, he observed that she was watching him. He hoped that she would keep her word.

For Craig, the motor-coach tour proceeded from tedium to monotony to boredom. The driver’s soporific phrases flattened against his ears but did not penetrate. He sat cramped in his chair, waiting, as the Ny-Carlsberg Glyptotek (‘French and Danish paintings’), the Police Headquarters, Frederiksberg Castle (‘officers’ training school’), the Zoological Gardens, Nyboder (‘built three hundred years ago by King Christian IV’) came into his vision, registered dully, and passed away again.

Once more they halted, and left the coach, and stood in a semicircle about the driver, at the edge of the harbour, facing the statue of a mermaid on a boulder. Craig, shifting his weight from one foot to the other, remained at the rear, huddled inside his trench coat, desperate for the one warmth that he desired.

Someone tugged at his sleeve. He turned his head, and she was below him, white béret on golden tresses. Her broad smile was engaging, and her coral sweater was still unbuttoned in defiance of the low temperature. Hearty little mermaid, he told himself. But then he saw that she must feel the chill, for the nipples of her breasts had hardened and were now visibly outlined through her white blouse. For the first time, he noticed the size of her breasts, pressing her blouse outwards, so that the pearl buttons were strained to the breaking-point.

She gestured off. ‘There.’

His sight followed the direction of her finger, and he saw a cluster of shops.

‘You will find it cosy in the nearest one,’ she added.

He started to touch his hat in thanks, but stopped when she winked, to remind him of conspiracy, and then he watched her return and join several girls in the crowd.

Purposefully, he strode away, crossing the street, and entering the first shop. There was a bar, and there were several tables and chairs, and no more. A stout woman appeared from the kitchen, wiping her hands on a towel. He asked for a double Scotch in a hurry. She did not understand English. He surveyed the array of bottles behind her and jabbed his finger at a bottle. She beamed, brought down the bottle, and started to pour, when he held up his hand, and did a pantomime to indicate that he wished to pour himself and to have the bottle remain on the counter.

He had three shots in a row, as the proprietress watched and counted from a dark recess, before he realized that there was no necessity for haste. He had all day. He filled the midget glass a fourth time, his muscles now eased by the liquor, and this drink he sipped slowly, pleasantly.

He heard the door open, and the jangle of the bell above it, and twisted to greet a fellow member of the club. He knew at once that it was she, white béret still tilted on the golden head.

‘The coach is leaving,’ she called. ‘They are holding it up, waiting for you!’

He knew, immediately, that he could not desert the foreign legion. It was almost un-American. Bad propaganda. They were all waiting for him. If he refused to rejoin them, chose to remain in a tavern instead of continuing the tour, it would be a move calculatedly anti-Danish, and set back the work of the White House a decade of years. It distressed him to conform, but the obligations of an American abroad weighed heavily upon him. Also, he was a little drunk.

‘Coming,’ he said.

He downed the fourth drink, splashed a fifth into the glass and took it in a big gulp, and then emptied his wallet. The stout woman separated her due. He pushed an extra note towards her-for hospitality-scooped up what remained, stuffed it in his coat pocket, and followed the golden blonde to the bus.

This time they sat together, she at the window and he with his lank legs in the aisle, in the last two seats.

The major need of his body had temporarily been fulfilled, and now he was able to study her with detached clarity. The broad face had large spaces of open beauty. Every feature was set apart from the others, without crowding, like well-placed works of art in a superior gallery. Yet the final effect was a blending to achieve a single effect-Nordic perfection, yet curiously un-Nordic in its softness and lack of aloofness and easy smile. Nothing artificial marred the face, except fresh lipstick to hide the chapped lips, and possibly the beauty mark above the corner of the mouth.

‘Is that beauty mark real?’ he asked.

They had been driving half an hour, and for most of the time, she had gazed out the window to match sights to the loudspeaker’s captions, and only occasionally had she smiled at him. Now she turned from the window.

‘Of course it is real. What do you think?’

‘Sometimes women wear them for effect.’

‘I do not need such effects.’ There was no arrogance in her speech, only practicality.

‘I don’t think so either,’ he hastily agreed. ‘You’re very pretty.’ Then he added, ‘And-you’re very kind.’

She did not acknowledge this, but stared at his eyes until he blinked. ‘Why did you need to drink?’ she asked.

The directness of the question startled him. He had never been asked that before. ‘I’ve been ill,’ he said. There were a hundred answers, and digressions, and involutions, but in the end they came to that anyway.

She nodded, satisfied. ‘That is what I thought,’ she said. ‘Are you happy now?’

‘Better.’

‘I am glad for you.’

Craig was enchanted. For the first time in months, he was interested in someone outside himself. ‘I was going to apologize,’ he said, ‘but maybe now you understand. You see, I had nothing against seeing this city-nothing against your country-’

‘This is not my country,’ she said. ‘I am Swedish.’

‘I didn’t know-’

She smiled. ‘All Scandinavian girls look the same in the dark. It is a naughty expression I once heard from an English boy. You are not English? American?’

‘That’s right.’

‘What place?’

‘ Wisconsin.’

‘Is that near California?’

‘Far from it. It is between California and New York, a state-a province, you could call it-on the Great Lakes.’

‘Ah, Chicago.’

‘Nearby.’

‘There are not really gangsters there?’

‘Not like in the movies, no. But there are some. And cowboys and Indians, too, but only some. Mostly there are people, just like in Sweden. Where are you from in Sweden?’

‘ Stockholm. It is lovely.’

‘I know.’

‘You have been to Sweden?’

Craig nodded. ‘Yes, long ago.’ He wanted to change the subject. ‘What are you doing here?’

‘Winter holiday for one week,’ she said. ‘Last year, my girl friends and I went to Dalarna for the sports.’

‘What did you do?’

‘Skate, ski, bobsled. This year, they wanted to see Denmark. It is fine, but I prefer Sweden. I like sports more than cathedrals and palaces and statues. I like to do things more than to see.’

He hardly heard her, so intent was he on her face. ‘I know who you look like,’ he said suddenly. ‘I knew I’d seen you before.’

‘Who?’

‘There was an oil painting by Anders Zorn. I saw it in Stockholm the last time. A young girl standing on a rocky ledge-she is nude-her golden hair, reddish actually, is blown from behind so that it is in her face-absolute repose as she stands looking over a blue river-’

‘Maybe I posed for it,’ she said teasingly.

‘I think you were only a gleam in your grandmother’s eye. Zorn painted it in 1904. Do you like Zorn?’

‘I have never heard of him,’ she said simply.

An earth nymph, he thought, an apparition of the present, no past, no burden of history and knowing, an unageing sprite. His own bondage to his history made him ache in envy of her.

He realized that the motor-coach had stopped, and that the passengers ahead were filing out of the doors.

‘Strøget,’ she said. ‘It is the main street. It is not a regular visit, but fifteen minutes to shop for souvenirs.’

She stood up, patting her pleated skirt. He rose above her.

‘Do you want souvenirs?’ he asked.

‘Not specially.’

‘Have a drink with me.’

She considered him, her expression solemn. ‘You will be drunk.’

‘Yes, I will.’

‘It is important to you?’

‘Yes.’

‘Why do you wish my company?’

There were several answers to this, several dishonest, and several honest and flattering. ‘I drink more slowly in company,’ he said.

She laughed. ‘It is the best reason you could give.’ She emerged from the seats, and smiled up at him. ‘Very well.’ She preceded him into Strøget.

They walked side by side through the busy street, bumping and pushing past shoppers, until they emerged into a vast, vehicle-crowded square, and this was Raadhuspladsen.

She pointed across his chest. ‘Over there is the Palace Hotel. It is where my friends and I had drinks the first night. It is comfortable.’

‘The Palace Hotel it is, then.’

They made their way slowly, for a block, and tehn went inside the Palace foyer. Craig had the impression of an old, aristocratic place, quiet and undemanding, and he was pleased with her taste.

‘There is the Winter Garden,’ she was saying, ‘or a nice friendly room in there to the left.’

‘What do you prefer?’

‘The friendly one.’

They passed through an outer room, and into the bar, staid, aged wood and grave, a retreat where you think of roaring fire-places, and they were led to a booth secreted behind a pillar, and there they sat across from each other.

She had what he had, except that she had one single and he had two doubles, and he had not failed his cycle, after all.

Half an hour had passed when he glanced at his watch. ‘We’ve missed the motor-coach, you know.’

‘Yes, I know.’

‘Won’t your friends be worried?’

‘Why? I am not a child.’

‘How old are you?’

‘Twenty-three.’

‘I don’t suppose you’re married?’

‘No. Are you?’

He saw her glass was empty, and summoned the waiter, ordering a single Scotch for her and a double for himself.

‘I was married,’ he said, finally. It was less difficult when he was becoming drunk. ‘She died-was killed-three years ago. It was a car accident. I was driving. I’d been drinking. I suppose you could say it was my fault.’

‘No one kills anyone like that. It was an accident.’

‘It was raining. I couldn’t control the car.’

‘It was an accident,’ she repeated.

He nodded, befuddled by the drinks. ‘Are you sure you won’t miss the sight-seeing tour?’

‘I told you I dislike cathedrals. I like to do things.’

‘This isn’t exactly winter sports.’

She smiled. ‘Just as exhilarating.’

The drinks were served, and when Craig took his, he ordered another double to follow quickly.

‘I’m almost forty,’ he said.

‘ “Almost” means you are thirty-nine. Why do you not say are thirty-nine?’

‘I feel like forty-fifty-sixty. All right, I’m thirty-nine. Why are you with someone who is thirty-nine? That’s like sight-seeing, visiting an old historic place.’

‘You are funny.’

‘Why did you come with me? Are you playing mother-sorry for me?’

‘Why should I be sorry for you?’

‘I dunno. Why’d you come?’

‘I find it is fun to be with you. I like fun, and so I am here.’

This evaluation of himself-fun giver-was beyond Craig’s power to grasp or believe.

‘You’re kidding me.’

‘Kidding? Oh-like joking? No. Why do you hold yourself so low?’

‘Do I? Yes, I do. You’re good for me. I should wear you like a charm.’ He held up the remnants of his drink, and the new drink arrived. ‘What do they say in your country-?’

‘Skål.’

‘Skål to you.’

He finished the drink, and went immediately to the fresh glass.

‘What is the time?’ she asked.

‘Fourish.’

‘I must return to my hotel. I have not packed. I go back to Stockholm tonight.’

‘I will take you.’ He downed his drink, and paid the waiter, and held on to her arm as they made their way through the hotel and outdoors.

In the taxi, she said, ‘How do you feel?’

‘Drunk. Good. Drunk and good, and good and sleepy.’

‘I am happy. I will leave you at your hotel first. What is it?’

‘No, thass not right. Awright. Tre somethin’-Falke.’

The taxi was reckless, and fast, and in less than twenty minutes they drew up before the Tre Falke Hotel.

‘Won’ you come in?’ he asked thickly.

‘No. I want you to rest.’

‘Yes.’

He stepped out of the taxi, aided by the doorman, and then freed himself, and came back to the open door.

‘What is your name?’ he inquired meticulously.

‘Lilly Hedqvist.’

‘What?’

‘Lilly.’

‘I’m Andrews-Andrews-Andrew Craig-C, R, A, I, G-Craig.’

‘Pleased to meet you, Mr. Craig.’

‘Pleased, too.’

Only after she had been driven off did he remember that he had not paid for the taxi, for himself or for her, and he did not know her hotel and could not remember her name, except Lilly.

He walked stiffly to the elevator, and inside punched the sixth-floor button. When the elevator opened, he found the room, the key in his pocket, opened and closed the door. He pulled off his trench coat, and suit jacket, felt his way to the divan, yanked off his shoes, and dropped back on the bed into wondrous oblivion.

How long he slept he did not know-it was more than three and a half hours, he would later learn-but the first consciousness he had was that of being shaken by someone. He opened his eyes, and above him the face was Leah’s.

‘Are you all right?’ she was asking anxiously.

His mouth was dry again, and his eyes were being pinched by something behind them. He felt all right.

‘I’m fine,’ he said, and he sat up.

‘You’ve slept nine hours. Do you know where you are?’

‘Of course I know. I got up to go to the bathroom and found your note.’

‘It’s almost eight. The train leaves at seven minutes past nine. Mr. Gates is going to drive us. Do you want a sandwich?’

‘No.’

She looked at him wearily. ‘How you abuse yourself. I had to change the reservation, you know.’

‘Thank you, Leah. I’d better clean up.’

They arrived at the hangarlike Central Railway Station with fifteen minutes to spare. Trailing their porter to the Nord Express, Craig halted briefly at a vendor’s white wagon to buy some peanuts and an American digest magazine. At their wagon-lit, a short, affable conductor, holding a clipboard, checked their names and took their passports.

Once in the carriage, Craig found their luggage divided between two adjoining rooms, compartments 16 and 17, and saw that the beds were made up, and that there was no place to sit.

Going into the aisle again, he pulled down a window for Leah and one for himself. Gates was below them, on the platform, a Foreign Service smile, like an Embassy pennant, flying from his face. Leah thanked him for lunch and dinner, and Elsinore, and Gates insisted that the pleasure was all his.

He seemed more eager to speak to Craig. ‘We’re all mighty proud of you, Mr. Craig. We’ll be looking for every word about the Nobel ceremonies.’

‘We appreciate all you’ve done,’ said Craig. ‘When I have time, I’ll write to the Ambassador and recommend a promotion.’

Gates depreciated his services with a modest shake of his head. ‘Don’t even think of it,’ he said. ‘One thing that would mean a lot, though-my wife, Esther, she’s a fan of yours like I am. We’d certainly treasure an autographed copy of your next novel.’

Brother, it’ll be done in time for your grandchildren, Craig wanted to tell him. But he was almost sober, and fixed on being gracious. ‘I’ll remember that,’ he said.

‘I’ll make a note of it, Mr. Gates,’ added Leah firmly.

Craig had already tired of leaning on the half-open window. ‘Is there a lounge or diner on this train?’ he inquired.

‘I’m sorry,’ Gates called up, ‘but European trains don’t have lounges. One of their major barbarisms. If your room is made up, you can pull down the little folding seat in the aisle and read-’

Craig had almost forgotten. The folding seat was at his knees.

‘-and as for a diner,’ Gates continued, ‘this train doesn’t carry one. They figure everyone has eaten, and you’ll be in Stockholm at a quarter to nine in the morning, in time for breakfast. But I’ll tell you what, Mr. Craig-if you’re hungry-in fifteen minutes, fifteen minutes after you leave here, they’ll be loading these cars on the Malmö ferry. It’s a seventeen-mile water crossing to Sweden and usually takes about two hours. You can get off this wagon-lit while you’re on the ferry, and if you poke around, you’ll find two or three places to eat. That should do it.’

‘Imagine,’ said Leah, ‘a train on a ferry. I can hardly wait.’

‘It’s an experience,’ said Gates. He looked off. ‘They’re buttonning up. I think you’re about to go.’

‘Thanks for everything,’ said Craig. He closed his window and went into his compartment, leaving Leah to conduct the last farewell. He sat on his bed, taking in the rich, worn brown wooden walls of the small room. He filled and lit his pipe, and a moment later, the Nord Express was moving.

Leah came to his open door. ‘We’re on our way,’ she said.

‘Thank God.’

‘Aren’t you the least bit excited?’

‘Only about getting that fifty grand.’

‘How can you be so-so commercial about it?’

‘What do you want me to say, Leah? I’m no schoolboy.’

‘It’s the greatest honour in the world.’

‘So I’m honoured. I also know I haven’t written a book in some years. I feel I’m taking the prize under false pretences.’

‘Don’t say that. I’ve been reading a biography of Alfred Nobel. It says he thought of the prize in literature to help young or middle-aged writers continue doing idealistic work-’

‘Well, I’m afraid your Alfred Nobel made a poor investment this time.’

Leah reacted with exasperation. ‘Why do you always run yourself down, Andrew?’

He looked up sharply. He remembered that the Swedish girl with the golden hair had used almost the same words to him earlier in the day.

‘I’m not running myself down,’ he said defensively. ‘I simply have a realistic evaluation of my worth-and my future.’

‘I hope you won’t carry on like this in Stockholm. They think a lot of you, and they’ll be expecting more than this.’

He felt fretful, in no mood for advice from his sister-in-law. ‘I promise you, Leah dear, I’ll be the model of a literary giant in Stockholm.’

‘Don’t joke.’

‘I’m not. Watch and see.’

She was about to leave him. ‘We should be on the ferry-boat soon. Are you going to eat?’

‘I don’t know.’

‘If you do, take me along. I’d like to be with you.’

Sure, nurse, you’ll be with me, in a pig’s eye you will, he told himself. ‘Okay, Leah,’ he told her, ‘I’ll knock if I go out.’

After she had left, and he heard her door and the rattle of clothes hangers in the next compartment, he went into the aisle. He stared out the window at the strings of light in the distance, and his throat and belly twitched in their need for drink. At last, he shoved down the folding seat, and sat on it sideways, stretching his legs and smoking. He wondered why, in the first place, he had not told Leah to go to hell, and packed a suitcase filled with whisky so that there would not be this problem. Perhaps it was the fear of losing her-although this seemed unlikely-and loneliness appeared more terrifying than sobriety. Perhaps it was something altogether different. People lived by miniature milestones: on this holiday you would begin a diet, on this birthday you would begin economy, on this New Year’s Day you would begin a programme of work. These were the little rejuvenations, game symbols, artificial hopes, with which people deluded themselves. In an effort to break free of his bondage to the bottle, to leave behind inertia and defeat, he had seized upon the Nobel award as such a turning-point. One half-drunk night, after the telegram, he had made himself believe that he would travel to Stockholm sober, accept the award sober, and after, undertake his responsibility as a recently absentee member of the human community sober.

But now he saw, lucidly, the fallacy of the dream. There was no reason on earth not to drink. What mattered it a damn if he went to Stockholm sober and received the award sober? What mattered it if he renewed his subscription to the human race, worked, voted, gave parties, attended them, read, fished, loved? For what, for whom? The argument for permanent euphoria, alcohol-induced, made better sense. It was the medicine man’s good medicine for driving away the spirits of Harriet missing and Harriet guilt, of books unwritten, of life promise unused.

The train was no longer moving. Outside the window, there stood a small-town depot, a rail siding, yellow lights, and bundled Danes. The train jolted forward, and then again, and once more. Craig rose, allowing his folding seat to jump against the wall with a bang, and he opened the window. The blast of cold air made him shiver, but he held his place. Not until he saw the railing, and gleam of water behind it, did he realize that they were boarding the Malmö ferry-boat.

Again a metallic shudder, and the train was stationary. Quietly, Craig passed Leah’s compartment, walked down the aisle to the end of the wagon-lit. The conductor helped him to the tight boat deck. Pressed between the train, suddenly large above him, and wooden cabins to his right, he felt claustrophobic and oppressed. He had forgotten his trench coat, and the night air coming through his suit was like a sheet of ice.

‘Where can I get a drink to warm up?’ he asked the conductor.

‘Stairs to the upper deck,’ said the conductor. ‘Restaurant and drinks in the first-class dining-room. At the prow.’

‘Do we have two hours?’

‘One hour and fifty minutes. You must return in one hour and fifty minutes.’

With the conductor, he backed against the train as a stream of people, all in heavy coats and sweaters, pushed through to the boat stairs. There was a tall woman with a long cigar in her mouth. There were raucous adolescents, most of them smoking cigarettes. There were well-dressed men.

‘Who are they?’ Craig asked. ‘Are they on the train?’

‘Oh, no. Our express train is from Paris,’ said the conductor. ‘The others, they are all down from the waiting-room upstairs. The young ones are vacationing, the Swedish returning to Sweden from their holiday, and the Danish leaving for Sweden to begin their fun. The older people go back and forth on business.’

Craig fell in behind the crowd, and climbed the metal steps to the top, where a door kept opening and closing. He went through it to find himself on the windy top deck of the ferry, a deck crowded with travellers, Danes and Swedes sitting on benches, standing in groups, walking, all giving off laughter and commotion.

The boat had begun to churn and creak, as he elbowed through the thickly packed deck. An illuminated sign ahead indicated the first-class restaurant, and Craig fought his way towards his goal. One glass door led into a vestibule, comforting as a decompression chamber after the force and stress of the outer cold and the milling passengers, and the second glass door led into an immense, newly decorated dining-hall. There were tables and chairs everywhere, but few of them occupied. Immediately to his left, Craig saw a circular counter, with a great array of smorgåsbord sandwiches, and sweet cakes behind it. Waiting in attendance were a grey-haired Dane and a thin young woman, both in uniforms.

Craig went to the counter. ‘I was told I could get a drink here.’

‘Coffee or tea?’ the grey-haired man asked.

‘Scotch.’

‘Whisky?’

‘Yes. Make it a double-two shots-on ice. No soda. Better serve two drinks, both two shots.’ This needed an explanation. ‘I’m expecting someone,’ he added.

The ferry was rolling slightly, and he walked, legs apart for equilibrium, to a table beside a port window. Through it, he was unable to see Sweden, but saw only the prow of the boat beneath, and the reflection of the boat’s lights in the water.

Presently, both drinks were served, one before him, and one across from him. His need was terrible, and he emptied the first glass as if he were drinking water. He exchanged it for the glass across from him, and drank that one more slowly. When he was done, he felt in harmony with his surroundings, and he felt relaxed. The glow of the Scotch was high in his head, and, for the first time, Stockholm and what it held for him seemed more probable. Yet he was not sufficiently disarmed to forget the danger that lay ahead. The black night lay ahead, and he had no wish to think.

The grey-haired waiter was nearby, setting a table, and Craig signalled him. ‘Do you sell bottles on the ferry?’

‘Not as a practice, sir.’

‘I’m on the Nord Express. We’re having a little party. I wonder if you could accommodate me?’

‘I’d have to take it out of our stock. What do you prefer?’

He tapped his glass. ‘The same. Any brand.’

‘I’ll see what we can spare.’

Waiting, Craig stoked his pipe, and absently scanned the room. He saw her before she recognized him. She was still wearing the white béret on her golden hair, a white blouse strained by her bust, and the open coral sweater. The skirt was different. Navy blue had been replaced by something grey, woollen, and fuller. She stood inside the glass door, tentatively, impermanent, seeking someone.

He leaped to his feet and crossed the dining-hall towards her. Only when he was within a few yards of her did she recognize him.

‘Hello,’ he said with real pleasure. For the life of him, he could not recall her name.

‘I am surprised, Mr. Craig.’ She extended her hand formally, and he shook it. ‘I do not think you remember my name. I am Lilly Hedqvist.’

He grinned. ‘I don’t think I was in condition to remember your name. Now I won’t forget it.’

‘I’ve been looking for my friends. They must be downstairs in the second-class café.’

‘Won’t you have a drink with me first?’

As he spoke, his eyes had gone past her, through the glass door to the outer deck door, to fix on Leah Decker. She was holding the deck door open, standing half in the vestibule, half on the deck, searching behind her for some sign of her quarry.

The sight of her galvanized Craig. He gripped Lilly’s arm so firmly that she winced. ‘We can’t stay here. Come with me. I’m trying to get away from someone.’

Swiftly, he propelled her around the circular counter, and almost pushed her out the opposite door.

‘Where can we hide?’ he implored.

‘I don’t know.’

‘Follow me.’

He went out onto the deck, with Lilly behind him. Temporarily, the drinks fortified him against the icy air. He peered down the deck, apparently discovered something, grabbed Lilly’s arm, and guided her to the sign over the second-class lounge. They entered. All the chairs and sofas were taken. They stood against a darkened wall.

Lilly’s concern was in her eyes. ‘What is the matter? Are you a criminal?’

‘Nothing so romantic. I have a guardian.’

‘What is that?’

‘My sister-in-law. She’s on this trip to look after me. She disapproves of drunkards. She’s an amateur reformer. When we were standing back there, I saw her on the hunt. I don’t want her to find me.’

‘Why are you afraid of a relative?’

He tried to find an answer for her but could not. ‘Christ, I don’t know why I’m afraid.’ He glanced about. ‘This is second-class, isn’t it?’

‘Yes.’

‘She’s too snooty to look here the first time around. But she will the second time. Look, honey, will you do me a favour?’

‘What?’

‘It’s a long night ahead on that train-I’m on the Nord Express-’

‘So am I.’

‘What room?’

‘No, it is the second-class compartment in front, for six. We sit up.’

‘You can use my bed. I’ll find somewhere-’

‘No. I am with my friends. I can sleep anyplace. What is the favour?’

‘Just before you came, I ordered a bottle of Scotch-whisky-in the restaurant. I need it. I thought-’

‘I’ll get it for you.’

He handed her the last of his kroner. ‘Go with God.’

After she had gone, he leaned against the wall, smoking nervously, waiting, and ever watchful for the appearance of Leah. After five minutes, Lilly returned. She was holding a parcel that made no pretence of being anything but a bottle.

He accepted it from her, with the change. ‘I could kiss you,’ he said. ‘Do you still want to look for your friends?’

‘You offered me a drink,’ she said.

‘Offer still stands. But where?’

Her smooth brow furrowed, and then cleared. She smiled, pleased with herself. ‘I know where to hide.’

‘You’ve been on this boat?’

‘No, but my friends have. Follow me. It is a strange place.’

He followed her from the lounge to the windy deck. She waited, while he examined the area for Leah. He nodded. She took his hand, and skilfully guided him through the groups of passengers, and then led him down the metal steps to the lower deck. The wagons-lit stood high and immobile. The place was dank and raw and desolate of life. She released his hand and hurried ahead. He strode behind her. They emerged fully into the dark, open prow of the ferry. Parked in front of the train were two rows of four automobiles each.

They stood, shivering, and she waved gaily at the vehicles. ‘Which will you have?’

‘I don’t get you.’

‘The business people drive and take their cars on the ferry. It is too cold to remain in their cars for two hours. The owners go upstairs. The cars are empty. Pick one. It is a perfect place to hide.’

‘Well, I’ll be damned,’ he said. He joined the fun. ‘What is my lady’s preference?’

‘The Volvo.’

It was a Swedish runt of a sedan in the middle of the first row, concealed by the darkness and the other vehicles, but nonetheless exposed to the wind. He preceded her, tugged open the front door, and assisted her inside. His teeth chattering, he hugged his parcel, circled the car, and got in behind the wheel. Only one window was open, on the driver’s side, and he rolled it up.

‘Sealed tight,’ he said. ‘I wonder if it has a heater.’

It had none that he could discover. He unwrapped the bottle of Scotch, ripped the seal off with his thumbnail, and removed the cork.

‘After you,’ he said. She took the bottle. His eyes had grown accustomed to the darkness, and he could see her plainly. She had been huddled against the cold, but now she straightened, and lifted the bottle to her lips, her head thrown back. Her coral sweater fell away from her breasts, and he could not help but see what had arrested his attention in the early afternoon-her prominent nipples, stiffened to points by the icy air, protruding through the white blouse.

She had finished her drink, and she saw where his eyes were.

‘I do not wear brassières,’ she said. ‘Is that wrong?’

He was taken aback by her unembarrassed frankness. ‘Wrong? It’s beautiful.’ For want of something else to say, he took refuge in intellectualism. ‘In the Restoration, the great ladies understood this. Sometimes, in the bodices of their gowns, there were holes, for the-the breasts to show through. And in France, under Napoleon, the bosom was exposed for admiration, whenever possible. Marie Antoinette had a drinking cup made from a plaster cast of one of her breasts. It’s on display in Sèvres.’

She listened, perplexed, then handed him the bottle. ‘It is not for such display, or to provoke men, that I do not wear the brassière,’ she said seriously. ‘It is for reasons of health only.’ She patted her hip. ‘I do not wear the girdle either, because of health.’

‘What’s health got to do with it?’

‘I belong to a nudist society, like my friends. Health comes from the sun outdoors and not binding the body with artificial garments.’

‘You mean you actually go around with nothing on?’

‘Twice a month, for a full Sunday each time, in the summer. The colony is on a tiny island in Lake Mälaren.’

‘Well, I must say, it agrees with you.’ He hesitated. ‘Aren’t you embarrassed?’

‘For what? I have a body. Others have bodies. We are interested in our health. Nudism is very popular in Sweden. It is one reason we are strong when we are old.’

‘Well, I can’t say I disapprove.’

‘You do not?’

‘Not at all. I think it’s fine.’

‘I had heard all Americans were prudes. Even the men.’

‘Some. Not all.’

‘Your country is obsessed with sex, like the English country, because you are ashamed of it and afraid of it. An American professor of psychology once visited the German and Swedish nudist camps and said if even one little part of the body is covered for concealment-not protection-it makes bad sex thoughts in everyone’s head.’

‘You’re a smart young lady.’

‘I only repeat what I hear at lectures of our society.’ Suddenly, disconcertingly, she cupped her breasts from underneath and peered down at them behind the blouse. ‘The nipples are gone. It means I am warm, and the drink is good.’ She released her breasts and tapped the bottle. ‘You are not drinking, Mr. Craig.’

‘I-I guess I forgot.’

He could not remember the last time that a conversation had kept him from drinking. He lifted the bottle to his mouth, and poured, and welcomed the burning fluid into his throat and lungs.

‘Whew,’ he said. ‘That was good.’

The heat of it coursed through his veins, and he laid his head back on the seat, then turned sideways to observe that she was staring at him.

‘May I ask you a private question, Mr. Craig?’

‘Right now, anything.’

‘Your wife is dead three years, yes?’

He nodded.

‘What does a man like you do for love?’ she asked.

He pulled himself to an upright posture. He was startled, and going to tease her, but he saw that her face was solemn in the darkness.

What could he tell this serious child in honesty? That he had slept with no woman in desire and love for three years? That once a month, the week that he was sober, he would drive to a boarding-house thirty miles outside of town, where Mrs. Risten had three girl boarders, and in a businesslike way, and by the clock, release his tensions with one of these girls? That he could hardly remember the faces of any of the girls because he paid twenty dollars a visit to use them as receptacles and nothing more? That he had caressed no woman in passion since Harriet?

‘A man like me does without love,’ he said simply.

‘How is that possible for a human being?’

His hand weighed the bottle. ‘Drink makes anything possible.’

‘But you sleep with some girls?’

‘Yes, but not with love. You cannot pay for love.’

‘That is dreadful.’ Her face was soft. ‘I am sorry for you.’

‘That makes two of us,’ he said lightly. ‘Besides, what do you know about all this, Lilly? Didn’t you tell me you were twenty-three? You’re still teething.’

‘I am old enough to have eight children.’

‘And to know better.’

She laughed from deep inside. ‘Yes, I know better. You drink now, and then I will have one more.’

He drank, and drank, and then again. He handed her the bottle, and slid lower in the seat. Slowly, he was being enveloped by the soft blanket of intoxication.

‘This sister-in-law,’ she was saying, ‘is she pretty?’

‘Not like you. But all right.’

‘Like your dead wife?’

‘Not exactly. She has her points, pro and con.’

‘You have slept with her?’

The question hung above his fogged brain and then penetrated it. ‘What kind of thing is that to ask?’

‘It is a normal question.’

‘No, Lilly,’ he said in a humouring way, ‘I haven’t slept with Leah.’

‘What kind of life do you live? Are you rich?’

‘I’m poor, but I live beyond my means.’

‘What is your occupation? Are you a barrister?’

‘I’m a writer, Lilly. I write-used to.’

‘I knew it!’ Her face danced. ‘I guessed it, but I was not certain.’

‘How did you guess it?’ he asked tiredly.

‘Many, many reasons. You are young but look old. You are strange. The pipe. Mainly, the way you drink. Mr. Strindberg also drank.’

‘You sound like someone who’s known writers.’

‘Some.’

He watched the slight shimmy of the car-roof, and listened to the prow of the boat slapping the water. They were silent for a while.

‘Lilly.’

‘Yes?’

‘What do you do? Live with your parents?’

‘My father is dead. He had a lace shop in Vadstena. My mother is remarried and she lives in Lund. I did not like her husband who has busy hands-so four years ago I moved to Stockholm. I have a nice one-room apartment with a kitchen and a tiny bathroom. I pay a hundred and fifty kronor a month.’

‘How much is that in America?’

‘Thirty dollars.’

‘Where do you get your money?’

‘I sell dresses in Nordiska Kompaniet.’

He could not remember. ‘What’s that?’

‘One of the biggest department stores.’

‘Are you happy?’

‘Yes. Why not?’

‘Why don’t you get married?’

‘I will when it makes me happier.’

‘No other reason?’

‘Is there one other reason to marry?’

He turned his face towards her. ‘Lilly, if you are Sweden, I am going to like Sweden.’

‘You will like Sweden.’

‘I liked it last time, but I was young-it was my honeymoon. This time, I haven’t cared.’

‘You will like it.’ They were silent a moment, and then she touched his arm. ‘Mr. Craig, we must leave the car. We are almost there.’

He sat up, rubbed his eyes, and strained them through the wind-shield. Looming before them were the lights of Malmö.

‘All right,’ he said. He started to open the door, when something came to his mind. ‘Lilly-one more favour.’

‘Your sister-in-law again?’

‘That’s right. I’d never get this bottle past her guard without a scene. Can you take it?’

She took it from him.

‘I’ll show you my carriage when we go past. I have room seventeen. Will you remember?’

‘Seventeen.’

‘Soon as we leave Malmö, once we’re under way, bring it to me. Can you do that?’

‘Of course.’

‘Do I sound terribly drunk?’

‘Not very much.’

‘Good. Thank you for the company.’

They left the Volvo, and bucked the knifing wind, which fell away when they reached the haven between the train and the cabins. Passengers were filling their path, and they were slow in reaching Craig’s carriage.

He pointed up. ‘It’s this one. Seventeen.’

She bobbed her head. ‘Tack för i kväll,’ she said. ‘Det var mycket trevligt.’

‘What’s that?’

‘Thank you. I enjoyed myself.’

Craig smiled. ‘How do you say, “I hope to see you again soon”?’

‘Jag hoppas vi ses igen snart.’

‘Well, jag hoppas-’

But she had already disappeared into the crowd.

Craig greeted the conductor, went unsteadily up the steps, and entered the wagon-lit. Leah was awaiting him in his compartment, agitated, as he had expected.

‘For God’s sake, where have you been?’ she cried. ‘I thought you’d fallen overboard. I looked everywhere, high and low-’

‘I was hungry,’ he said placidly. ‘I was eating in the second-class café.’

‘I looked there. You weren’t there.’

‘Sure I was. I was disguised as a Dane. I’m fine, Leah. Never better. All ready for Mr. Nobel.’

She eyed him suspiciously, without the nerve to move closer and smell his breath. ‘You haven’t had a drink?’

‘On my honour.’

‘I’m only thinking of Harriet. I keep thinking of her. I want to treat you as she would.’ Her voice pleaded for understanding. ‘I’m thinking of you, too, Andrew. I want you to be respected, and proud of yourself.’

‘You’re very kind, Lee.’ A hollow wooden thud reverberated through the boat, and they struggled for balance.

‘What was that?’ asked Leah, frightened.

‘Malmö. We’ll be on shore in a few minutes, hitched up and on our way. I’m going to undress and get some sleep.’

She stood at the door. ‘Don’t think I want to nag you, Andrew. When you’ve needed drink, I’ve been the first to help you, God forgive me. You know that.’

He nodded dutifully.

‘But I feel you don’t need it now, and if you do, you should conquer your weakness. There’s too much at stake.’ She allowed this to sink in, and then went on. ‘I know what you are and can be, more than anyone on earth, and that is all that’s in my heart.’

‘I appreciate that, Lee.’ He wondered what would happen if Lilly should suddenly materialize with the bottle. He prayed that she would not be too soon.

‘When you stand on that stage in Stockholm, all straight and dignified,’ Leah continued, ‘when you accept the award, it’ll make up for everything that happened before.’

She buried the shaft deep, and he avoided her prosecutor’s eyes. It’ll make up for murder, she was telling him without telling him. I, Leah Decker, am my sister’s husband’s keeper, his probation officer until he has served penance and is again responsible, and I shall release him when his time is served, if ever that be, she was saying.

‘It’ll be a new day for us,’ she concluded.

‘Good night, Lee.’

‘Good night, Andrew.’

Grimly, he shut the door, removed his jacket and tie, and waited for the train to resume its passage and for Lilly Hedqvist to appear. He listened to the train being coupled to a locomotive, and soon they were under way. When the knock came at the door, it was not Lilly but the conductor. He was beaming.

‘I told the customs inspectors who you were,’ he said. ‘They were impressed. They did not want to disturb you.’

‘Thanks, my friend.’

‘I have read all the works of Jack London and Upton Sinclair, but I am sorry to say I have not read your books. Are they translated into Swedish?’

‘Yes, they are.’

‘When I tell my wife, she will buy them.’

‘I wish I had some copies along, but I didn’t have room.’

‘No-no-my wife will buy them.’ He was reluctant to leave, but he saw Craig’s impatience. ‘If you need me in the night, you press the bell. I am at the end of the aisle, at my table. Do you wish to leave a morning call?’

‘Just wake me an hour before we get in.’

‘I won’t forget, Mr. Craig.’

After the conductor had gone, Craig remained at the open door. He bent and peered through the window. In the distance, behind the moat of darkness, a Swedish town, brightened by outdoor fluorescent lights, briefly filled the window and as rapidly disappeared from sight. Shortly, a second Swedish town, also illuminated by fluorescent lights, showed itself, and then withdrew. After the third town came and went, Craig closed his door.

Kneeling, he unsnapped his overnight case removed his pyjamas and the toothbrush and tube of toothpaste, and neatly placed them at the foot of his berth. He took off his shoes, sat on the bed, swaying with the train, and at last he lay down on his back. He was not sleepy, but neither was he wide awake. He was disoriented, not part of this time and place, but contentedly detached. He had consumed more of the bottle than he had realized. He wondered when Lilly would bring what was left of it, and how he would treat her. Was it proper or improper to invite her in to drink with him?… mycket trevligt-yes, he had enjoyed her, and it would be relaxing to drink with her as they had in the car at the prow of the ferry-boat. Still, he did not feel like talking. He wanted her female presence, and most of all he wanted to unbutton her white blouse.

The eroticism of his thoughts surprised him. He felt immature and ashamed and disloyal to Harriet. He tried to explain to her, and went back to find her, as so often he did, and at once he felt more comfortable in the past, which was all solved with its beginnings, middles, ends, than he ever could in the present, which offered him only beginnings and enigmas. It was good to go home again, where everything had happened and was done, and no burdens of proof existed, no demands, no mysteries, because it was done…

It was the winter after the end of World War II, and New York was bedded down in snow. Two days before, he had been honourably discharged from the Signal Corps at Fort Dix, New Jersey, and now he was in an old hotel on Forty-fourth Street, off Sixth Avenue, waiting for the holiday season to end-it was the week between Christmas and New Year-so that he could see the magazine editors and then leave the city that always made him feel unsure and dissatisfied.

On this day, luxuriating in his civilian status, drawing on his newly acquired pipe, he stared into the street below the hotel-even the snow was dirty here-and he could not understand the lyricists and singers of this city. What was there to recommend it? There was no sky, no earth with flowers and all things green, no private air to inhale, no aesthetic beauty, no neighbourliness, no place to daydream or meditate leisurely. But its professional spokesmen, with inverted snobbery, treated these lacks as its very virtues. It was a place alive and crackling, a place stimulating, civilization’s centre. The centre of what? He wondered. The plays were mediocre gabble, projected by over-publicized personalities rather than first-rate talents, in shameful, musty old barns. Concerts were no better, their small voices and small orchestral sounds slanted at pseudo specialists and reading aesthetes who would turn off the same sounds if heard in a private room. Businesses were the worst, because here competitors were piled on top of each other like gigantic club sandwiches, yet they were expected to disarm and treat each other civilly at lunch and dinner, which was anti-nature, and there could be no other reason for the statistics on martinis dry, ulcers bleeding, and analysts prospering.

Craig wanted no permanent part of this unnatural club. Before the war, while on the rewrite desk of a St. Louis newspaper, he had tried some short fiction on the side. When he learned the formula, and compromised his fancies sufficiently, the short fiction began to sell. He had determined to free-lance full time, but Pearl Harbor diverted him to a different employment. During his three years of service, especially the months in England and France, he had devoted his leaves to a minimum amount of whoring and a maximum amount of writing. The short stories that he wrote were better, and sold for higher prices, and now that he was free at last, he knew what he would do.

He had arranged to spend the week after New Year’s Day going about Manhattan, with his agent, meeting the current crop of editors and telling them some of his ideas. With commitments under his arm, he would return to Cedar Rapids, where he had an ailing father, a robust aunt and uncle, and friends, and he would dig in and write. With the money, he would continue westwards. He would live cheaply, but royally, in Taos or Monterey, and he would write the novels that had burned inside him during the war years.

There was one other possibility. He might visit Peru for a year. He had read that it was inexpensive. The purpose of going to Peru would be research. Among several ideas, he had entertained one about Francisco Pizarro. It would be an historical novel about Pizarro and the strange group of 183 men he had recruited in Panama. It would record the changes in the leader and his men, their conflicts and corruption as well as their strengths, from the day of their landing at Tumbez until they sailed for home. It would lay bare in human terms the whole incredible story of how a small, mortal, fanatical gang, armed with only three muskets and twenty crossbows, conquered Atahualpa and ten million Incas and won a vast empire. The idea had been further nourished by the rise and fall of Adolf Hitler and his original small band, but the Nazis were of too recent date to be examined, and a parallel tale about Pizarro might put the whole modern-day tragedy in perspective.

But then the telephone rang, and Craig turned away from the window and his speculations to answer it, and when he was finished, he was also finished with Taos and Monterey and Peru, only he did not know it yet. He did not know, either, that he had just joined the New York club, for most of four years at least.

The telephone had been an invitation to a New Year’s Eve party from an army friend, Wilson by name, with whom he had been discharged at Fort Dix. The cherubic Wilson was not a particularly close friend. He was a lightweight, and wealthy, or at least his mother was, and Craig accepted because he supposed the food would be good, and it was the only New Year’s Eve invitation he had.

Fortified by two drinks, he arrived in the plush apartment after ten o’clock. The food was, indeed, good, but what was better was Miss Harriet Decker. When Wilson had introduced him to the nearest drunks at hand, Harriet had been stretched supine on the sofa, in stockinged feet, her head in someone’s lap, as was the fashion for that age that year. She was one of many guests horizontal, but the only guest completely sober. She had acknowledged Craig by shading her eyes, passing her gaze up his lank figure, and saying, ‘Hi, up there.’

He had come to the party alone, but when he departed at three in the morning, it was with Harriet. At five in the morning of the first day of the brand-new year, he sat in the Automat with Harriet and knew that she had parents and a younger sister in Springfield, Illinois, that she had undergone a mastoid operation at age thirteen, that she had read Of Human Bondage three times and Frank Harris’s My Life and Loves in duplicated copy, that she had quit Barnard College in the third year to write copy for a large advertising agency, and that she was in love with him just as much as as he was in love with her.

Now he found that New York oppressed him less, and he wrote his stories in the day and saw Harriet every night, and four months after he had met her, they were man and wife. They leased a spacious, unfurnished flat in Long Island, and did it together for comfort, not show, and at the end of the first year, Harriet had a miscarriage, and he had money enough to give her the deferred honeymoon abroad.

The trip was wonderful. They were younger than young, and who on earth had called their new world Old World? They felt wealthy with the black-market money exchanged on street corners, and bought a brown leather-and-teak chair in Stockholm, wooden shoes in Amsterdam, a Picasso pencil sketch and antique bidet in Paris, a Toledo desk set and skin bota in Madrid, a crystal chandelier in Venice.

In Rome, the first afternoon, they had a pilgrimage to make. From the starkly modern Mediterraneo Hotel, they took a battered taxi to the Protestant Cemetery, and then dismissed the driver. At the gate they waited, until a little black-eyed boy opened it, and then they went up the gravel walk, climbing, and then turned to the left and continued to the highest rise near the ancient Roman wall, and there they found the white slab pressed in the earth-Percy Bysshe Shelley-or what had been left of Shelley saved from the pyre on the beach at Viareggio-and beside him, so eager to be beside him, the one who had buried him here, the old pirate, Edward John Trelawny.

As Harriet and Andrew Craig stood in mourning, the sun came through the great quiet trees and touched each grave, and the gentle silence that day made death seem lovely and possible, the peaceful resting after the long travail. Later, they had walked hand in hand downwards, beyond the Pyramid of Cestius, and arrived below, at the far corner of the cemetery, where stood the majestic shaft without a name-writ on water-and beside it, vigilant, faithful, the resting-place of Joseph Severn.

Shelley and Keats. That day, Craig felt an affinity for them, felt a sense of history as had they, felt that he was not one of the faceless of the world, the nonentities of time who come, stay briefly, and are blown away into nothingness, forgotten and unremembered as the flying sands on a windswept beach. He, too, would leave a shaft on earth that would stand as long as men stood or could incline their heads before it. That day, in Rome, he knew strength and purpose, and he was filled with his uniqueness and his mission.

The feeling that had seized him in the Protestant Cemetery expanded and solidified in the next days as he walked beside Harriet through the city. One afternoon, passing the Colosseum and Venus Temple, passing the Constantine Arch, they entered the remains of the Roman Forum, baked hot in the remorseless sun. Ahead of him, beyond the jagged fragments of a powerful and cruel civilization and time, Craig could see the broken colonnades and tossed stones of the once Imperial Palace. Above it was left pitifully few of the pillars behind which Julius Caesar, writhing like a helpless animal at the base of Pompey’s statue, had taken the twenty-three stabs that extinguished his life.

The greatness and smallness of man, and more than that, the continuity and eternity of man, held Craig silent. Minutes later, still looking up, he took Harriet’s arm. ‘I think, at last, I know how, how Edward Gibbon felt-how he could have been inspired to tackle the work of a lifetimes-’

Harriet nodded, and quietly, she recited the words of Gibbon. ‘ “It was at Rome on the 15th of October, 1764, as I sat musing amidst the ruins of the Capitol, while the barefooted friars were singing vespers in the temple of Jupiter, that the idea of writing the decline and fall of the city first started in my mind.” ’

Four weeks later, the Craigs arrived in New York City. Five weeks later, Andrew Craig wrote the first page of his first and best novel, The Perfect State.

The novel had its roots in history. Somewhere, Craig had read that the philosopher, Plato, having advanced his radical ideas for a Utopia to his students, in the suburban grove known as the Academy, had once been given the opportunity to practise what he had so long preached in his thirty-six Dialogues. In Syracuse, capital of Sicily, the new, twenty-five-year-old dictator, Dionysius II, had been prevailed upon to invite Plato to reform both the dictator and his government. In 367 B.C., Plato travelled to Syracuse to install Utopia. Not only did he attempt to establish a constitutional monarchy, but he tried to introduce the perfect socialized state-the Republic-where men were to be directed into certain occupations by elimination tests. The most brilliant were to continue their study of philosophy until the age of fifty, when they would be made rulers, and would live on together, without personal advantage or gain, in common quarters; children were to be taken from their parents at birth and raised by the state; women to be emancipated and allowed careers, and permitted to marry only under eugenic control; foreign trade was to be eliminated; profits to be curbed so that no single individual might acquire more than four times the wealth of the average man.

This was the perfect state that Plato had intended to experiment with in Syracuse. Dionysius II was horrified by the philosopher’s suggestions. He rebelled, sold the hapless Plato into slavery, and returned to his beloved autocracy, his drinking, and his lechery. Meanwhile, Plato was ransomed from his slavery by a pupil, Anniceris, and he returned to Athens and the Academy, considerably disillusioned, and determined to keep his Utopia theoretical thereafter.

Working from these few facts, Craig constructed the plot of his first novel. It was narrated as if the action were seen through the eyes of the young student, Anniceris, as he accompanied his teacher and hero, Plato, to Syracuse to inaugurate a formal Utopia. Taking licence with history, Craig had Plato actually put his reforms into practice. Skilfully, he showed that it was not Dionysius II who undermined Utopia, but the people themselves. Plato’s philosophic communism fought a losing battle against human nature. Men did not want their life’s work enforced and inflexible, and they did not wish limits to their incentive and their income. Women did not want love scientifically controlled, and did not wish their offspring taken from them and raised by the state. In the novel, as Utopia disintegrated all about him, even Anniceris’s faith in his master and the perfect state was shaken. In the end, after saving Plato from the fury of the mob, Anniceris returned to Syracuse, thus symbolizing man’s preference for individual freedom, despite its attendant ills.

Although his novel was laid in 367 B.C., Craig deliberately aimed his shaft at twentieth-century Communism. While the tale was a drama of ancient times, it was the perfect transmitting agent for Craig’s deepest inner feelings about the spreading ideas of Marx and Engels. The novel was published shortly after Craig’s second wedding anniversary. The reviewers welcomed it as a minor classic, one told with controlled wit, magnificent irony, and bursts of passion. But its setting, so remote in time, and its subtle allegory had little appeal to the mass of readers. There were two printings, totalling 7,500 copies, and there were no more. Craig had his literary foothold, his cult, and his meagre savings account.

It took Craig two years to produce his second book, because he was constantly stopping and starting again, forced to write formula short stories in between, to keep Harriet and himself alive. The second novel was The Savage. Again, Craig embellished a factual character and incident. The novel was set in 1782, and the hero was Simon Girty, a fierce and angry American frontiersman, who abandoned his people to become a white Indian and an Indian chief and to lead Shawnee redskins on raids through Ohio, Kentucky, Pennsylvania, and Virginia. History knew Girty for a brutal renegade. Craig saw him as something more, as a nonconformist and a defender of a lost cause. When he wrote of Girty, Craig was writing of all men, in all times, but especially in his own time, who invite crucifixion by crusading against injustice.

With this book, Craig did not make his point at all. His agent, his publisher, his reviewers, his readers, could not see what he was driving at. They saw only the surface story-an exciting, roughneck hero, an action plot, a slice of Americana, a superior Western-and that was more than enough. The novel sold 22,000 copies in hardback; it sold for a modest sum to a new paperback reprinter; it sold for $50,000 to a major motion picture studio.

The total income from The Savage was not a fortune, but even after taxes, it was sufficient to liberate Craig from the tiresome short stories. Creatively, he was bursting with projects. One, especially, appealed to him. If he could carry it off, he knew it would be a tour de force. He called it The Black Hole, and lunching at the Twenty-One club, he told it to his publisher. The framework, he explained, was historically accurate. In 1756, India rose up against the British. The new Indian ruler, nineteen-year-old Siraj-ud-daula, too young to be merciful, captured 146 English fugitives from the garrison and imprisoned them in a Calcutta military cell only 18 by 14 feet in size. In his novel, Craig wanted to dramatize the hell of that one June night in the Black Hole of Calcutta, what the calvary did to men’s characters and souls, why 23 survived the night, and how they survived it, and why 123 did not survive it, and how they died. This much Craig related to his publisher, and no more. What he withheld was the theme that lurked behind the mask of history: a polemic against colonialism and white superiority. The publisher’s enthusiasm knew no bounds, and the advance he offered was a generous one.

The Girty windfall had freed Craig from magazines; the current advance freed him from New York. Both Harriet and he had grown weary of New York, and both were filled with new life, she with the embryo of their child that she did not wish to raise in the city, and he with the new novel that had grown in his mind. Also, he had become tired of his New York literary set. He had finally agreed with George Bernard Shaw’s remark to John Galsworthy that ‘literary men should never associate with one another, not only because of their cliques and hatreds and envies, but because their minds inbreed and produce abortions.’

For months, he and Harriet had spoken wistfully of a town in Wisconsin, once visited while driving to Madison to see Harriet’s sister Leah at the university. After four years in New York, Miller’s Dam seemed the fairest paradise. When the money from The Black Hole came in, the Craigs impulsively pulled up stakes and moved back to their Midwestern beginnings.

Miller’s Dam was situated sixty miles north-west of Milwaukee. Riding inland from Lake Michigan, the countryside rose and fell gracefully, like long, lazy ocean swells. This was rich earth, rural earth, and every hillock seemed alive with small living things unseen. The actual landscape that year was bright, clear, and unvaried, except for the occasional billboards and road signs pointing to a petrol station or hamburger shack that erupted among the endless windmills and red barns, yellow haystacks, fields of bending cornstalks, and herds of speckled cows grazing indolently on the dry green slopes.

Suddenly, homesteads filled the landscape, and they were in Miller’s Dam (pop. 1,475), a cluster of shops, a drugstore, a sheriff’s station, a hotel, a bank, a pool hall, a theatre, all bisected by the little-travelled cement highway. The town was worked in, but not lived in, except for the familiar travelling salesmen in the hotel and the few old couples who dwelt in the rear of their stores. Almost everyone lived on the fringes of the town, where vacant land was plentiful, in two-storey flats or bungalows with front porches, or farther out, on parcels of worked farmland. Harriet and Andrew Craig conformed, and were glad to do so because they wanted space. They bought the Hartog house, a big stucco-and-frame structure, on two acres, located three miles north of Main Street on Wheaton Road.

From the first day, they felt that they belonged in this isolated, idyllic place, and their feeling of having come home again survived even the pain of Harriet’s second miscarriage in her fifth month. Not long after that heartbreak, the routine was once more pleasant and productive. Craig wrote furiously on his typewriter in the mornings, and again after lunch until two o’clock in the afternoon. Then he would read in the back garden, or hit golf balls, or snip at his hedges and plant in his gardens. Often, he would drive into town to pass the time with Lucius Mack, or look in on Randolph ’s pool hall to learn the baseball scores from Chicago or play a game of snooker, or pick up Dr. Marks and go for a swim at Lawson Lake. Harriet joined the Ladies’ Aid Society, and exchanged visits with the faculty wives at Joliet, and sometimes she worked with the summer repertory company at Lawson Lake in Marquette County. They belonged to the Lawson Country Club, and faithfully attended the Friday night dances, and when they wanted more excitement, they spent their weekends in Milwaukee or Chicago.

Until Harriet’s parents moved to California, they came up frequently from Springfield. Eventually, they were supplanted by Harriet’s sister Leah, who had graduated from Wisconsin University and was teaching in a school on Chicago ’s North Side. In the four years of Leah’s comings and goings, Craig was hardly aware of her. He knew that she was in awe of him as a professional writer. He knew that she worshipped her sister. He did not know, until Harriet told him, that she was unhappy. She disliked teaching. She disliked her life in Chicago. She disliked being single, yet could not make up her mind to marry the diffident, shy young man, Harry Beazley, a teacher also, to whom she had been engaged for one year.

Craig was writing well in Miller’s Dam. The Black Hole was completed in a year, and Craig was proud of it. His publisher had high hopes, and offered a first printing of 10,000 copies. But the public was not interested, and 3,000 copies were remaindered on the bargain counters. There were two play options, but they came to nothing. By then, Craig did not care, for he had researched and was already writing Armageddon.

The fourth novel was based on the actual volcanic explosion of the tropical island of Krakatoa, in the Dutch East Indies, in August of 1883. The explosion, which wiped Krakatoa off the map, had sent a tidal wave eighty feet high around the world. It dropped blocks of pumice on Australia. It capsized fishing vessels in the English Channel. It created the sounds of thunder over Texas. It broke barographs in Moscow. It blotted out 163 villages and 36,380 lives. Craig’s narrative told the story of the behaviour of a seemingly unrelated chain of people, scattered from the Strait of Sunda and Singapore to Washington, D.C., under the pressure of a natural catastrophe greater than the lava that covered Pompeii or the earthquake that brought down San Francisco.

The novel was published during Craig’s fourth year in Miller’s Dam. His parable was missed by no one. Krakatoa was a fore-shadowing of the hydrogen bomb and nuclear warfare. What made the terrifying warning and lesson acceptable was that the described event had occurred in the past, and could be digested and understood while there was still hope. Armageddon sold 40,000 copies. It received a large advance from a paperback publisher. There were nineteen foreign editions, and it sold to a television network for a two-hour dramatic spectacular.

The money came when it was most needed. Craig invested in stocks and bonds against the unpredictable future of his next novels, painted and repaired his house, allowed Harriet to buy new furniture, and indulged himself in the latest-model low-priced station-wagon.

This was their happiest year in Miller’s Dam, and the best of their eight years of married life. The month before his birthday, late that year, encouraged by Harriet, Craig accepted the one inner challenge that had so long nettled him. He had been disturbed by his own persistent retreat into the past for settings for his novels. This seemed to be an unconscious avoidance of current hard realities, a continual hiding of today’s people and their problems, and himself, too, behind period costumes. The new novel would be a modern one, and tentatively he called it Return to Ithaca.

The morning of his birthday, he allowed Harriet to read the first chapter. The afternoon of his birthday, they hiked in the meadows and talked and talked and decided to adopt a child. The night of his birthday it rained, and over his protests Harriet dragged him out to the Lawson Country Club, where he was genuinely overwhelmed by the surprise party that she had arranged. They ate, he cut the cake and opened the presents. They danced. He had four drinks and Harriet had two. He rarely drank, except at parties, and this was twice as many as he usually drank. He felt good and told Harriet that he wanted to get home and make love to her. The midnight of his birthday they slipped out of the party, and he started the station-wagon across the slippery highway back to home and bed. Ten minutes later, Harriet Craig was dead and Andrew Craig lay unconscious over the broken steering wheel of the new station-wagon.

It was Leah Decker who buried Harriet, and attended Craig in the Joliet hospital, and it was Leah who brought him back to the empty, mocking house. In the months that he was in bed, and then on crutches, he was neither depressed nor moody. His head was vacant, unthinking, and he performed like a post-lobotomy case. Leah was always present, cleaning, sewing, cooking, and listening when he wanted to talk. Once, when his convalescent period was almost over, she said that she would be away overnight. She drafted Lucius Mack to stay with him.

When Leah returned, he remembered to ask where she had been. ‘ Chicago,’ she said.

‘What were you doing there?’

‘I gave up my apartment. I packed my things and had them sent here.’

‘What about your job?’

‘Oh, I quit that two weeks after the accident. I didn’t like it anyway.’

‘What about your young man-Beazley-Harry Beazley?’

‘He’ll manage.’

‘Aren’t you engaged?’

‘Not really. Harriet used to call it that. Harry’s all right. I’m not sure he’s my type. But anyway-he might come up here in the summer, for a week, when school’s over.’

‘It’s not right, Lee. I don’t want you in bondage.’

‘It’s not bondage. It’s what I want. You need me.’

‘Yes. But there’s no reason to turn over your whole life.’

‘I’m doing what I want to do.’

‘I don’t like it. It’s not fair. I can never repay you.’

‘Just get well and write again. That’s all I want.’

In the three years that followed, they had never discussed her leaving again. In those years, Craig was not ever sure if he needed Leah, because he needed someone, or if she had made herself indispensable to him, because she needed someone. Certainly, when he had laid aside his crutches, he had not laid them away at all, because figuratively he still had two more. One was Leah. The other was whisky.

The worst period came when Dr. Marks withdrew the sleep-inducing drugs, and when Craig was well and on his feet. It was then that the full impact of his loss hit him. Harriet’s departure from his life had been too unreal to accept, and when he was unwell, and filled with sedatives and sleeping pills, he did not have to accept it. But now he was ready for her again, restored, clear-headed, and she would not come home. No matter where he looked, she was not there. She was in a hole in the ground, as inanimate and wooden as the casket that enclosed her, and there she would be for the rest of his life and for all eternity. The reality was so incredible that he wanted to weep. He could not sleep, and when he slept, he would not wake. He breathed because he did not know how to stop breathing, and he lived only for the passing of the hours and the days. He had no patience for his work or for Leah or for his old friends and old routine.

It was Leah who brought the first bottle of whisky into the house and who, at least in the early months, drank with him. Later, because she had no taste for alcohol, she gave over her place to Lucius Mack.

In the beginning, the whisky was of little help, because Craig drank as he used to drink socially, and sobriety came back too swiftly. Gradually, he was able to consume more, and that was better, and gave him something to look forward to when he lifted himself out of bed each morning. The drinking made Harriet’s disappearance unreal again, which in some ways was helpful but in other ways cruel.

In the first year alone, after the day’s early intoxication, he tried to resume his long walks. Often, he would return to the house, half drunk, half sober, and trudge up to his room, and sit at his desk and stare at the photograph of her face in its leather frame. He would stare at her face and want to share some minute pleasure of the new day, something seen, heard, read, felt, and in his head he would talk to her, and then he would realize with a clutch of inner pain that she understood nothing, heard nothing, that she was only a flat image in black-and-white on glossy paper size eight by ten.

In the moments after, he would suffer a bottomless despair at life’s futility. He would drink again, still at the desk, staring at her, realizing that they had shared nothing since, not gossip and not news, that edicts had been issued from Washington and Moscow and Peiping, that discoveries had been made, that new films and books had been released, that a World Series had come and gone, and of all these things that he knew, she did not know and would never know. The trick of the mirage happened, too, in the mornings. Sometimes when he read the newspaper, he looked up intending to read an item aloud that would amuse her, and she was not across from him to enjoy it with him, because she was not there and never would be again. He had led a whole special life since her death, filled with unshared information and feelings, and he hated every part of it.

Sometimes, when he was drinking more heavily, and there was an infrequent respite, the parched desert of a sober day, he wanted to live too much. It was an odd perversity. On such a day, he would become neurotic about the possibility of dying-move the bristles of his toothbrush across his teeth twelve times, no more, no less, against death, or set the toothpaste tube at a certain angle, against death, or touch the doorknob twice in the same spot, against death. At such times, he wondered about his anxiety for life. Consciously, he would cease his compulsive little acts, and marvel that there still survived within him some fluttering hope that he was valuable to himself and to others. When he sought to approach this hope, to study it, perhaps to use it, he would become frightened and return to the bottle. He did not want to die, but even more, he was afraid to live.

With fear, and self-hatred because of fear, came his new evaluation of the place where he lived. With Harriet, it had been paradise. Alone, it was limbo. In the sober week of each month, he was critical of Miller’s Dam and wondered if he belonged here after all. There was something archaic about these small, sparse, slow Midwestern settlements. They fed the big city markets, true, and there was always talk of the important farm vote and subsidizing the farmer, and learned writings spoke of agrarian economy, but underlying was the feeling that all the fuss was about a museum, really. Craig wondered what would happen when the produce of the earth was inevitably supplanted by produce of the chemical laboratory. Would Miller’s Dam cease to exist? How would the people who lived in Miller’s Dam-‘hid’ was the better word-justify hovering outside the mainstream of the country?

He tried not to deceive himself. He tried to be blunt with himself. The thousands or the millions who populated the Miller’s Dams of the nation did so because they were afraid of life. That was it. They were anti-life. Perhaps Thoreau would have disagreed with him. Perhaps Thoreau, whom he admired, would say here was the essence of life, with the sky and earth so near and the meadow smells and the brooks and the freedom to contemplate. But in all honesty, what in the devil did these people have to contemplate with? No, he was positive that he was right, and that his poor, misguided friend from Walden’s Pond was wrong. In the twentieth century, Miller’s Dam was anti-life, a perfect hideout from competition, judgment, action, the gauntlets of urban existence. Miller’s Dam was a refuge for cowards. Men stayed here because they were scared of leaving, scared of what they might learn about themselves, and this rural womb was a better preparation for dying without disillusion. Over and over he asked himself: why am I still here? And he answered: because here no questions are offered and no demands are made. Because here was Sydney Smith’s ‘healthy grave’, the elephant’s burial ground, where the beast could die alone, out of sight and far from pity…

What aroused him, transported him in a flash from Miller’s Dam to the Malmö train bound for Stockholm, was the series of sharp rappings on his door.

Lilly.

He leapt from the berth, and shook himself alive. She had come in time, and he blessed her. There had been too much memory, too much introspection, and there would be more in the night, unless he was diverted. Lilly and the bottle were the saving smorgåsbord.

He stepped to the door and pulled it open. There was no one in sight. He looked up the train corridor. It was empty. He turned his head, and saw only the conductor at the far end, capless now, dozing over his folding table. Then, at his feet, he saw the bottle.

He took it up and retired, shutting the door, and lifting the bottle, saw that a piece of paper was fastened to it by a rubber band. He removed the paper and opened it. It read: ‘Welcome to Sweden. Lilly Hedqvist. Polhemsgatan 172C, Stockholm.’

He had looked forward to seeing her, but it did not matter, because he was tired, and the bottle was enough. It was still half filled. He propped it on the berth, stuffed her note in his pocket, and then changed into his pyjamas and brushed his teeth.

The drinking-cups were paper, and when he poured his whisky, he watched with fascination as the cup blotted up the liquid. Discarding the foolish cup, he sat down on the middle of the berth, legs crossed, and swallowed straight from the bottle. The fluid was welcomed by every taut nerve in his system, and he continued to gratify his body by drinking steadily.

In an hour the bottle was empty, and he was satisfied. Thank you for me, he told the bottle without speaking, and thank you for my body. He pushed the bottle under the berth, turned down the lights, and crawled under the cover.

Stretched flat and inert, he was momentarily nauseated. Behind his eyelids the scene loomed. Their speed was moderate, because the highway was wet. The curve, which was sharp, he had met and traversed hundreds of times. Unthinking, he had flicked the wheel, and the station-wagon had left him, gone out from beneath him, as a child’s legs the first day on roller skates. Harriet, head thrown back on the seat, had been saying lazily, ‘I had a lovely day, didn’t you?’ But he could not reply, because there was this unruly, shocking thing happening to him. They had skidded completely around, smashed into the fence along the embankment, rolled over once into the ravine, and pancaked in a geyser of metal and wood and glass against an oak tree. That was it, and that was all, and later he remembered that he had taken four drinks and that he had meant to reply to Harriet, ‘Yes, yes, my darling, the loveliest day of my life with you.’

The nausea passed, and the scene, and he curled on his side to sleep. It did not come immediately. Instead, a memory he had missed floated to the surface. The last time he had slept with Harriet had been three days before his birthday, in the morning, when he had kissed her awake, and she had pulled him down.

His mind weakly groped to recall the details of their last loving. He threw aside the blanket, and she lifted her nightgown above her breasts. The room was night-chilled, and he hurried for their flesh to warm them, and poised above her he saw that the nipples had hardened to points in the cold, and the cold had come across the prow of the ferry and into the car. He searched the face and was not surprised it was Lilly’s.

He pressed his head into the golden-haired pillow and remembered no more, except-

Welcome to Sweden.