The Prize

5

IN a corner of his restfully quiet, lamp-lighted library, Count Bertil Jacobsson, attired in starched shirt, white braces, cummerbund, and formal trousers, sat at his antiquated walnut desk-a reproof to the new generation’s intense modernism-and thoughtfully tapped the capped end of his pen against the open green ledger before him.

He contemplated the shadows cast on the high ceiling, and across a wall of books, and on the nearby glass case that held his Nobel award souvenirs, and at last, knowing the hour was late and the limousine would soon arrive, he resumed his Notes. In his pinched chirography, he wrote:

– was one of the rare occasions in which I had to intercede between a laureate and the press. It may be true that Craig drinks-I do not know yet-but if it is true, his resultant behaviour could damage us and ruin him. The Knut Hamsun incident still haunts me. We shall see how matters develop tonight.

He read over what he had written, and was about to put the pen back in its holder when he decided to add a paragraph less speculative and more factual.

The Royal Banquet has been moved up to tonight, which is December 3, and will formally inaugurate Nobel Week. Except for the afternoon of the climactic Ceremony, and the Town Hall dinner that follows it, the Royal Banquet, highly exclusive and dominated by the presence of the King, is often the most memorable social event of our winter season. I remember that after he had received the prize for literature in 1923, William Butler Yeats, the Irish poet, wrote of the Banquet, ‘I, who have never seen a court, find myself before the evening is ended moved as if by some religious ceremony.’ I trust that this year’s winners will be similarly impressed.

Carefully, Jacobsson blotted the page, closed the green ledger, and placed it in the middle drawer of his desk.

With an indistinct complaint, he stood up, pulled on his formal jacket, and then started for the bedroom to find the decorations that he must wear. The decorations, he knew, would soothe him. They would remind him of long experience and exemplary performance, in the service of the throne, in handling all manners and nationalities of men. He hoped that he would not need the confidence of these decorations this night.

It was almost seven o’clock when Andrew Craig finished changing from his single-breasted tuxedo into his freshly pressed dark blue suit, and it was the second time he had dressed for the evening.

The half-bottle of Scotch that he had consumed through the late afternoon, sparingly and in the privacy of the bathroom, out of sight of Leah’s disapproving gaze, had made him forgetful of the duplicated instructions about attire for the Royal Banquet. It was only after he had answered the door earlier, and admitted Mr. Manker, the prim and punctilious young attaché with the high pompadour who had been assigned to him by the Swedish Minister of Foreign Affairs, that he had been tactfully reminded of protocol.

Mr. Manker had removed his felt fedora and overcoat, and placed both neatly on a maroon chair, and had sat stiffly on the sofa, while Craig, his mouth cottony from the drinking, had tried to think of conversation. The awkward pause had been filled by Leah’s zestful entrance from her bedroom.

‘Hello, Mr. Manker! Have you come for inspection? How do I look?’ She pirouetted once, gaily, rather clumsily, Craig thought. Her brown hair was swept back and bunned more tightly than usual, her face unlined and flawless and unsoftened by the make-up, and the evening gown of red satin that hung straight down along her rigid figure.

Mr. Manker had leaped to his feet, clucking approval, then gallantly clicked his heels and bent over her hand. ‘Exquisite,’ he had murmured, and Craig, watching hazily, detected false professionalism and disliked it. ‘It is a terrible bother, this protocol,’ Mr. Manker went on, ‘but it is the way of monarchies, no matter how democratic. I, for one, approve. It gives us islands of dignity in the drab land mass.’

‘I approve, too,’ said Leah with pleasure.

Mr. Manker took brief stock of Craig, and his lower lip worked in and out. ‘For the annual Royal Banquet,’ he said, ‘His Majesty the King wears formal evening dress-’

‘And a crown?’ asked Leah.

‘Heavens, no. The crown is there, but as a symbol,’ said Mr. Manker. ‘You shall see for yourself at the dinner. The King’s family and relatives, and the few higher-ranking members of royalty who have been invited, also are in formal evening garments. Perhaps some will wear the uniforms of their station. The Ambassadors whose nations are represented in the Nobel awards, and our Cabinet members, wear dark but informal suits. The ladies of the court, and commoners, all wear similar dresses-black taffeta or velvet with puffed sleeves. This is to prevent one from outdoing the other. The wives or relatives of the laureates may wear evening gowns of any design or colour. Miss Decker is handsomely attired. The male laureates, like our Cabinet members, are expected to wear informal dark suits. Full dress is only expected at the Nobel Ceremony on the tenth.’

Craig realized that Mr. Manker had been addressing him, and suddenly he realized what was wrong. ‘I’m not supposed to have a tux on for this brawl, is that it?’

‘You will not be barred,’ Mr. Manker said with his trained smile, ‘but you may be mistaken for a member of the royal family. Yes, as you understand it, a plain dark suit is preferred.’

‘I’ll change,’ said Craig.

‘As you wish,’ said Mr. Manker, his face reflecting relief. ‘But before you go, while we have the time-I came early for this-a few words about further protocol. I hope you do not think me insufferable, but it is my duty. I extend this briefing to laureates every year.’

‘Go on,’ said Craig.

‘Cocktails will be served in one of the salons off the dining-hall. This will take place for half an hour to perhaps one hour before the dinner. The purpose is really for our laureates to meet distinguished members of our government, and to meet each other.’

‘I already met the other winners at the Press Club this afternoon,’ said Craig.

‘Ah, yes, but this will be, it is hoped, a more social and relaxed meeting. After the cocktails, and immediately before dinner, the King and princesses and princes will appear. For Mr. Craig, it is only necessary to take the King’s hand when it is offered, to speak after being spoken to, and to address him as Your Majesty or Your Royal Highness-either one will do. Our King is not withdrawn, and his informal cordiality will please you. At dinner, there will be place cards. You will remain standing until His Majesty is seated, and then, of course, you may sit, too. As for you, Miss Decker, when the introduction to the King is made, you will curtsy deeply-’

‘I’ve never done that, I wouldn’t know what to do!’ Leah cried out. Her concern was genuine.

‘That is why I am here,’ said Mr. Manker calmly. ‘I will demonstrate the curtsy, and then we will rehearse it together while Mr. Craig is changing.’

Craig regarded the cue as a form of insolence, but his alcoholic intake allowed him to accept it with equanimity. He left the sitting-room, pulled the sliding drapes across his bedroom entrance, and began to undress.

Now he stood before the full length mirror in his dark suit and knew that only one thing was missing. One leg, he told himself, was still hollow. He went into the large bathroom, located the half-empty bottle of Scotch on the tile behind the bidet, unscrewed the cap, and swallowed once, twice, three times. This meant three ounces, and this meant he was fortified and informal.

He hid the bottle again, and returned to the bedroom. Momentarily, he eased himself into the chair across from the double bed. He wanted the good feeling to invade and occupy every limb. He thought that he could hear the creaks and compliments that accompanied the art of the curtsy from the sitting-room. Above his bed, he noticed for the first time, hung a copy of a painting in a mahogany frame appropriately royal. Napoleon Bonaparte was playing with his ill-fated son, L’Aiglon, as set on canvas by Jules Girardet. It struck Craig not as a work of art but as a sigh for a past glory, and, somehow, it was as much an anachronism as the night that lay ahead.

Craig reached over and took the duplicated sheet from the bedstand. Once more, he read it:

His Majesty the King has been graciously pleased to invite the Nobel Prize laureates with their husbands, wives, or relatives to a banquet at 7.30 P.M., December 3, in the Royal Palace of Stockholm.

Car will be in waiting at the hotel at 7.10 P.M., and the persons invited will be accompanied to the Palace by the attachés attending.

Dress for the evening will be…

The words had begun to cloud. Craig crunched the sheet into a ball, and in pleasant emulation of a basketball idol of his youth-was it Hyatt of Pittsburgh? Murphy of Purdue? McCracken of Indiana?-he aimed the wad of paper at the distant waste basket, and missed.

His watch read 7.07. Unsteadily, he rose to attention before the mirror, and was satisfied that nothing was missing now.

Throwing aside the drape, he entered the sitting-room. ‘Okay, Mr. Marker-Manker,’ he said thickly, ‘take me to your leader.’

Their noiseless limousine sped across the Strömbron bridge in the bitter-cold blackness of early evening, and swiftly approached the festively illuminated, massive Royal Palace on Skeppsbron that guarded the medieval island of the Old Town.

‘Kungliga Slottet,’ announced Mr. Manker, unnecessarily giving the Royal Palace its Swedish name, as they drove into the vast main courtyard bathed white in the blaze of lights. The towering guards were wearing gleaming spiked steel helmets, and black leather boots, and traditional dark uniforms adorned with white epaulettes. They seemed forbiddingly Prussian, until you discerned that the faces were bland Swedish, like the faces of a million boy children who required no gun permits for their toy weapons. The guards snapped to attention as Craig emerged from the limousine, followed by Leah and Mr. Manker, and for a moment, Craig enjoyed this unreal play-acting, enjoyed his impending coronation, and regretted the French Revolution, and wished the drabber parts of democracy dead.

Hastily, a resplendent officer helped Mr. Manker lead them across the uneven stone paving, up three steps, and out of the relentless cold into the small reception room of the Royal Palace. A servant took Craig’s hat and overcoat, and Leah’s coat, and disappeared. Mr. Manker, retaining and carrying his overcoat, escorted them to a business office where an equerry, in regimental garb, greeted them effusively.

There was a singsong exchange between Mr. Manker and the equerry in Swedish, and when it was done, the attaché turned to Craig. ‘You are the first of the laureates to arrive. Would you like to go immediately to the salon, or perhaps spend ten or fifteen minutes seeing a portion of the palace?’

Still chilled by the ride, Craig desired the salon and the comfort of the drinks, but he did not wish the strain of being the first of the guests, either. Before he could make his decision, Leah had his arm. ‘Oh, let’s see some of the palace while we can!’

‘So long as it’s not draughty,’ added Craig glumly.

Mr. Manker led them to a curving marble staircase, made all the more magnificent by the two stiff guards flanking the bottom steps, their silver breastplates glistening over their Charles XII uniforms.

They climbed between walls decorated with ancient, yellowed tapestries, and when they reached the top, and moved through the gaping corridors and ornate museum rooms, Craig’s impression was of enormousness, mediocrity, and expensive shabbiness. As they walked and walked-here King Oscar II’s bed, there Charles IV’s dishware, here objets d’art belonging to Gustavus III-Craig felt smothered by prosaism and commonplaceness. Sweden was a small and remote land, yes, but it had spawned better names than these palace puppets-it had spawned Tycho Brahe and Emanuel Swedenborg, Jenny Lind and Carolus Linnaeus, and yes, even his patron, Alfred Nobel.

As they progressed from room to room, inundated by medieval furniture and French rococo and more tapestries and porcelain and classical sculpture that Gustavus III had permanently borrowed from Italy, Mr. Manker attempted to enliven the tour with a running commentary. It was made without hesitation, almost without inflection, and Craig knew that the attaché had dutifully led many other Nobel laureates across this path before.

‘This Royal Palace is the largest still inhabited palace in the world,’ Mr. Manker was saying. ‘There are six hundred and eighty rooms here. Our present King uses thirty of them for his private quarters. In the thirteenth century, there was a castle here. The royal family moved in about 1754, and their descendants have lived here ever since.’

‘Why all those paintings of Napoleon and Josephine?’ inquired Craig, interested for the first time. And then, he remembered his history. ‘Because of the Bernadotte family?’

‘Exactly,’ said Mr. Manker.

Leah, whose reading of history had ceased on the day of her graduation from college, spoke up. ‘I’m afraid I don’t know what you two are talking about.’

‘Our present royal line,’ said Mr. Manker, ‘derives from France, and has since 1818. It is a curious story. By 1809, we had suffered reverses inflicted by Napoleon and Russia, lost our empire, and our Gustaf IV was overthrown and sent into exile in Switzerland, where he died in poverty. Some of our insurgent noblemen were dissatisfied with the heir of our ruling family and wanted to import a new one. One of these noblemen, Count Carl Otto Mörner-a distant relative on my father’s side, I am pleased to say-went to France on a mission. There, he met one of Napoleon’s favourite military aides, Jean Baptiste Jules Bernadotte, a sergeant who had risen to the rank of field marshal. Count Mörner was impressed, and took it upon himself to sound out Bernadotte on the possibility of his occupying the Swedish throne. I do not believe Bernadotte took him seriously. But Count Mörner was very serious. He returned to Stockholm and began to make propaganda for Bernadotte. At first, the idea was resented. The ruling class had another outsider in mind for the throne-a Dane-Prince Christian August. But before the Dane could be elected, he pitched off his horse one day, dead from a stroke, although there was a suspicion that he had been poisoned. That left the door open for Bernadotte, and gradually his name grew in popularity. Eventually, Bernadotte was offered the throne, elected crown prince, and adopted by old King Charles XIII. Bernadotte changed his name to Charles John, and in 1818, he became King Charles XIV John of Sweden. He turned against his former commander, Napoleon, sided with England and neutrality, and regained Norway for us.

‘Incidentally, Bernadotte’s wife was Désirée Clary, the daughter of a Marseilles merchant. She had been Napoleon’s first love. When Bernadotte became heir to our throne, and later our ruler, Désirée refused to follow him from Paris to Stockholm. She adored Paris and had the idea that Stockholm was a primitive outpost of civilization. After ten years alone, she thought that she would see for herself, and, reunited with her husband, she found that she preferred Stockholm to Paris, at least for a while. She demanded, and received, a separate coronation as Queen of Sweden. She was extremely irregular-used to wander the streets incognito-outlived her husband, most of her contemporaries-and in her old age was found dead, of natural causes, in someone’s doorway. Such were the first Bernadottes, Mr. Craig, and we have had them ever since. Our present King is of French origin.’

‘It’s a most unusual story,’ said Leah. She turned to Craig. ‘It would make a wonderful book.’

Craig shook his head. ‘No thanks.’ Drunkenly, he apologized to Mr. Manker. ‘No offence intended. I like your rulers, but their virtues destroy them for the novelist. They’re all too do-good, too amiable, too pacifistic. There’s not a hell raiser or a son of a bitch in the lot.’

‘Please, Andrew, your language,’ Leah protested, and worried over whether he had been drinking.

Mr. Manker ignored her and went directly at Craig. ‘You are wrong-forgive me, Mr. Craig. You do not know our history. It was not always so. We have had many-very many-uh-colourful rulers. I can think of three immediately.’

‘Name one immediately,’ Craig challenged with mock belligerence.

Mr. Manker pointed to a wall that they were nearing. ‘There you see a painting of Gustavus Adolphus. Our Sweden had only two million inhabitants when he made it the greatest power in all of Europe. After that, there was his daughter, Queen Christina-’

Craig snapped his fingers. ‘I forgot about her.’

‘-and certainly, she was by no means colourless. At eighteen, she refused to take the oath as Queen of Sweden, but took it as King of Sweden. She refused to marry. “I would rather die than be married,” she used to say. “I could never permit anyone to use me as a peasant uses his field.” She worshipped scholarship. It was she who brought Descartes to Stockholm, where he died. Because her health was poor, she travelled through the warm countries of Europe. She fell in love with Italy, became converted to Catholicism, and abdicated the throne of Sweden. She was received in splendour by the Pope of Rome and by King Louis XIV of France. Her eccentricity got worse. She dressed like a man, planned to become Queen of Naples, and allowed two members of her royal household, Santinelli, her Grand Chamberlain, and Monaldeschi, her Grand Equerry, to compete for her favours. When Monaldeschi incurred her wrath, she encouraged Santinelli to murder him. She is the only one of our rulers not buried in the Riddarholm Church-you have seen it-located about a kilometre from the palace. Her father, Gustavus Adolphus, rests there. So, also, does Charles XII-another colourful figure-who, at the age of eighteen, with a cavalry of four hundred, routed eight thousand Russians led by Peter the Great-they are all there, except Christina. She died in Rome, impoverished, and in Rome she is buried.’

The liquor was mellowing Craig, and he had grown sorry for the attaché, who was trying so hard, and he relented. ‘Maybe I was hasty in my judgment. Too many of us know too little about Sweden. Yes, Christina was quite a character. From the writer’s point of view, certainly the best of the lot. Of course, in a sense she wasn’t really a Swede-’

‘She was as Swedish as I am,’ Mr. Manker insisted. ‘She was merely seduced by the passion of Latinism.’

‘But that’s interesting,’ said Craig. ‘That means all of you up here are not simple little igloos. Inside each igloo burns a fire. Properly fed, it becomes a bonfire.’

Leah frowned. ‘I don’t think that’s nice, Andrew, saying those things to Mr. Manker.’

‘No, it’s all right, Miss Decker,’ said the attaché. ‘I appreciate Mr. Craig’s frankness. It is stimulating, like his writings.’ He addressed himself to Craig again. ‘No, we are not simply igloos, as you so curiously put it. We are as warm as citizens of any country, perhaps more so. And we are enlightened about our passions, also. Swedish children are given sex education their first year in elementary school. High-school students-what you call teenagers-are taught in the use of contraceptives. We are healthy and open and normal about sex. From what I have read, you Americans are quite the opposite, you are quite furtive about sex.’

‘We’re furtive as all hell,’ Craig agreed cheerfully. ‘No nation on earth talks and thinks as much about sex, and does so little about it, as Americans-per capita, that is.’

‘What kind of conversation is this, anyway?’ interrupted Leah, blushing.

‘My sister-in-law is right,’ said Craig to Mr. Manker. He waved his hand at another assembly of paintings, tapestries, and historic furniture. ‘It ill befits us to bicker about carnality amid the grandeur of Kings.’ He halted. ‘Mr. Manker, my thirst for knowledge is quenched. Thank you. Now, let us satisfy a lesser thirst. Where in the devil is the Banquet?’

‘I apologize for detaining you so long, Mr. Craig. Right this way.’

He led them to a marble staircase, and then started down. Craig was about to follow when he felt Leah’s restraining hand on his arm.

‘Andrew, please,’ she whispered, ‘you’re behaving rudely, baiting the nice man. Have you been drinking? You have, haven’t you?’

‘Lee, dear, I’m a wasteland-in need of irrigation still.’

‘You’re drunk. I can tell, when you talk like that, so loose and crazy.’ Her features bore the suffering of all Motherhood. ‘Please, Andrew,’ she implored, ‘don’t make a spectacle of yourself before the King.’

The word spectacle conjured up for him the marvellous picture of his predecessor, Knut Hamsun, gaily snapping Miss Lagerlöf’s girdle, one Nobel laureate to another. He smiled inwardly at the tableau.

‘I’ll behave, Lee,’ he promised. ‘Miller’s Dam will be proud of its hero son.’ He started down the steps. ‘I’ll remember to nurse my drink, and you remember to curtsy.’

‘Don’t joke. If not for my sake, then for Harriet’s. Your whole future depends on how you act this week, and this week starts tonight, right now.’

‘You take care of the curtsy, and I’ll take care of the drink,’ Craig called over his shoulder, ‘and neither of us’ll fall on our face.’

Mr. Manker had led them to the doorway of the large salon, adjacent to the royal dining-room, and then he had summoned Count Jacobsson and had excused himself. Mr. Manker’s rank, that of third secretary, was not sufficiently high to warrant invitation to the Banquet.

Count Jacobsson had brought Craig and Leah into the spacious salon. ‘This is Vita Havet-the White Sea room,’ explained Jacobsson. ‘It was once used for court balls, and Oscar II liked to distribute his Christmas presents here. Beyond is Charles XI’s Gallery-the dining-hall. And over there, through the small chamber or cabinet room-if you follow the narrow corridor-you will come upon Sofia Magdalena’s state bedchamber. You might have a look later.’

At the moment, Craig took in the large salon called the White Sea. The room appeared to be designed in Empire style, blue and white, made loftier by gold-and-white pillars, softly illuminated by burning candles in the sparkling chandeliers, and heated by roaring fires in two huge open fireplaces. Despite the density of guests, Craig could make out enormous unfamiliar oils, marble-topped commodes, faded divans, tables and chairs. Jacobsson pointed to the three rugs covering the floor-‘Gustavus III received them as gifts in France almost two centuries ago.’ Craig became aware of a small balcony, filled with onlookers, above the entrance. He inquired about these spectators. Jacobsson explained they were the more distinguished members of the press corps. Craig tried to locate Sue Wiley among them, and could not, and felt easier.

Now, with Old World correctness, Jacobsson manoeuvred Craig and Leah about the room, smoothly introducing them to knots of the select. As they made headway, from someone in formal dress to someone in business black to someone in yellow court knicker-bockers, steadily hand shaking, the names fell back from Craig’s ears, but the titles remained: a Prince, a Bishop, a Baron, a Professor of the Nobel Committee of the Royal Caroline Institute, the French Ambassador, the Prime Minister’s wife, the Swedish Minister of Foreign Affairs, the Permanent Secretary of the Swedish Academy, and a dozen others.

Along the way, Leah had accepted the invitation of a prodigious lady-in-waiting to the court, who had relatives in Minnesota, to join in a discussion that was then going on about child welfare in Sweden. Craig and Jacobsson had reached, at last, the liveried servant with his tray of effervescent French champagne, and now, at this oasis, both held their goblets, sipping the wine as they surveyed the scene about them.

There were forty to fifty people in the salon, and conversational groups everywhere-Craig could see Professor Stratman almost hidden from view by his admirers-and yet there was no raucous babel of talk. There was the hum of voices, stray sentences that floated high and indistinctly and evaporated, an occasional careful chuckle, a muffled exclamation, but in total resonance the salon was as reserved and hushed as any library reading-room.

‘Now, over there is a pair you should meet,’ said Jacobsson, nodding off in a direction past Craig.

Craig tried to follow his direction, but could distinguish no pair in particular. ‘Which ones?’

‘The toothpick man with greased reddish hair-he is in full dress-is Konrad Evang. He is a Norwegian millionaire, the owner of many department stores in Scandinavia. Several years ago, he was in the United Nations. He is an important member of the Stortings Nobelkomite in Oslo-the Nobel Peace Prize Committee. Since there is no peace award this year, he has the time to represent his country at this affair. The one he is speaking to, the bald-headed one in the pin-striped suit, he is Sweden’s wealthiest man today, no doubt a billionaire. Perhaps you have heard of him. He is quite world famous. He is the industrialist, Ragnar Hammarlund. Do you see them?’

Now Craig saw them, and was surprised that he had not identified them before. They were a bizarre pair in a room of figures so alike and monotonous. Suddenly, he remembered Hammarlund’s name from news stories and magazine articles, although he could not recall his face.

‘Yes, I know Hammarlund’s name,’ he told Jacobsson, ‘but I never knew what he looked like.’

‘He does not permit photographs,’ said Jacobsson. ‘He is a fabulous figure, most mysterious. I suppose everyone who has made his first billion inevitably becomes mysterious. He is ageless, but possibly sixty. He was at the Hotel de Paris, in Monte Carlo, negotiating his first international deal with Sir Basil Zaharoff, when the munitions king died there in 1936. Hammarlund became interested in high finance when, in his youth, he was briefly employed by our Ivar Kreuger, whom you admire. In 1928, I think, four years before Kreuger shot himself through the heart in Paris, he hired Hammarlund to set up a holding company, the Union Industrie A.G., in the tiny principality of Liechtenstein, next to Switzerland. This was at a time when Kreuger had loaned seventy-five million dollars to France, had big factories in thirty-four countries, and was making sixty-five per cent of the world’s matches. But I think Hammarlund smelled the rat. He considered Kreuger the world’s first money wizard, but he also guessed that he might be a super-swindler. So he got out in time and went off on his own. He enjoys to speak of Kreuger, and the old days, but I have heard him say many times, with pride, it is not necessary to emulate Kreuger to become wealthy. Shrewdness is better, even easier, than thievery, he likes to say. And I do believe he is honest, ruthless perhaps, but honest, anyway as honest as a man can be who has made so many millions.’

‘Does he manufacture matches?’

‘Nothing so fragile. He is in everything, I am told, in Scandinavia, in America, everywhere in the world. He once owned a part of Bofors with Axel Wenner-Gren and Krupp. He has hydroelectric power plants, a merchant shipping fleet, forests, iron mountains, several airlines, newspapers, oil wells, banks-endless banks. I could not begin to enumerate his holdings. You will learn more of him, when you visit his villa in Djurgården-the Animal Park not far from here-on the sixth. It is Hammarlund’s dinner for the Nobel laureates. Surely you will attend?’

‘I wouldn’t miss it.’

‘I think maybe it would be proper to meet him now. However, I must warn you, he is not an easy talker when he is away from the villa. At home, he is engaging and outspoken. Elsewhere, he is reticent and on guard. No, Hammarlund will not offer much tonight. But I do think you will enormously enjoy Konrad Evang. He is a delightful man, but serious. He is a virtual encyclopaedia of information on his Oslo Peace Prizes-perhaps I value this trait in him too highly, since information on the prizes is my own field, too. Would you like to meet them?’

‘Yes, I would,’ said Craig, ‘but first, I’d like another drink.’

A flicker of apprehension showed on Jacobsson’s face, but then he signalled the liveried servant, who came with the tray. Craig placed his empty goblet on the tray, and taking one filled with champagne, began to drink it at once.

‘All right,’ he said finally, ‘let’s find out about peace-and money.’

The four of them had been talking-or rather the three of them talking, with Hammarlund, for the most part, listening-for five minutes, Evang had governed the conversation, graciously discussing and praising Craig’s novels, with occasional interjections of assent from Jacobsson and Hammarlund. Craig, his reactions dulled by a morning and afternoon of whisky and two recent champagnes, pretended attention but remained indifferent.

Concealing his impatience, he found his eyes seeking the servant with the tray, but the man was nowhere in the immediate vicinity. With effort, Craig tried to concentrate on Evang, who was extolling the merits of Oslo. He observed that Evang’s rust hair was touched with bleach, and the pince-nez on his thin nose had a golden chain, and a network of veins showed through his cheeks, and the cords of his throat stood out as he spoke.

Almost stealthily, Craig transferred his scrutiny to Ragnar Hammarlund. He could not help but stare. The abnormally albescent skull and face were entirely devoid of a single bristle. Hammarlund’s head was glabrous and his face hairless. Peering hard, Craig thought that he detected white eyebrows of almost invisible down above the eyes, but he could not be sure. No wrinkle added character to the face, no wart, no scar, and almost, or so it seemed, no human feature. The eyes lay evenly pressed into the head, neither concave nor convex, miniature flat mirrors of watery grey. The broad nose was shapeless, melting into the centre of the face, so that only the nostrils showed. The mouth was a delicate roseate. No more than an inch beneath the lower lip, the pretension of a chin receded, giving the disconcerting effect of no chin at all. In summary, a soft, smooth larva countenance, the consistency of a white slug. The frame beneath the remarkable head was medium in height and width, and garbed impeccably in an old-fashioned, expensive custom-tailored suit.

Craig tried to detect something human about this legendary figure. The feminine hands held a silk handkerchief, and several times, quickly, almost unobtrusively, the handkerchief was touched to the place where Hammarlund’s forehead must be. The forehead perspired, Craig was pleased to note, and then he remembered that on their introduction, he had shaken Hammarlund’s limp hand, and it had been clammy and repellent.

Raised on the traditions of Commodore Vanderbilt and Gould and Fisk, the blustering and savage robber royalty, Craig could not conceive of how this pulpy being had made his first billion. Fleetingly, he wondered what Hammarlund was doing at this affair. What was his connection with Nobel? Or the King? And what was his interest in the laureates, anyway?

He realized that Hammarlund’s head had turned to meet his stare, and quickly he returned his attention to Konrad Evang, apostle of peace.

‘Yes, my friend,’ Evang was saying to Jacobsson, ‘you get all the attention in Stockholm. I suspect most of the world hardly knows that we in Oslo are responsible for possibly the most important of the five prizes.’

‘If you wanted attention, you should have given a prize this year,’ Jacobsson chided him.

‘It is not so easy, not so easy, my friend,’ said Evang. ‘Ours is a perilous task, and infinitely more controversial-political-than any of the four under your guardianship.’

‘Well, why did you skip this year?’ Craig inquired.

‘We were hopelessly deadlocked over three candidates,’ said Evang. ‘Not one could win a majority of the votes. It is just as well, I believe. How could we honestly give a prize for peace in a time like this?’

‘I should think there would be no better time,’ said Craig. ‘There are plenty of men and organizations working to keep the world from being blown apart. Why not recognize and encourage them?’

‘Because,’ said Hammarlund, speaking at last, in a tone so satiny and faint that it automatically forced everyone to lean closer to him, ‘our Norwegian neighbour prefers to keep peace rather than honour peace. An award to any party, no matter how neutral, might be interpreted as an affront to the Soviet Union or the United States.’

‘Come now, Ragnar, that is not so,’ said Evang without anger. ‘We are judicious men, not frightened men, and you know it.’

‘I am not so sure.’ Hammarlund’s handkerchief flicked his forehead. ‘I know your awards very well. You gave your first one to a seventy-three-year-old Swiss, Henri Dunant, because he founded the International Red Cross. I have heard it said that he deserved not the Nobel Peace Prize, but the Nobel Prize in medicine. You could have done better, but you were playing it safe. In 1946, after World War II, you honoured the American Quaker, Emily Greene Balch, who had done her best work in World War I, and John Raleigh Mott, the Protestant, who was in retirement. You would not honour an active worker, because you feared controversy. You reached into the forgotten past. As for you and your colleagues being judicious men-’

‘Now, now, Ragnar,’ protested Evang, ‘do not start in on us again.’

‘I am speaking for the benefit of our guest, Mr. Craig,’ said Hammarlund softly. His glance included Craig, but he continued to address the Norwegian. ‘In 1906, you gave thirty-six thousand dollars and a Peace Prize to Theodore Roosevelt-to the Rough Rider-an obvious warmonger like all the others. Did not this Roosevelt once say, “No triumph of peace is quite so great as the supreme triumph of war”?’

‘He mediated the Russo-Japanese War,’ said Evang.

‘Mediators are not good enough for me,’ said Hammarlund. ‘Then go and honour all referees and umpires on earth. They are mediators, too. I know your list of Rough Riders-you honoured Elihu Root, Aristide Briand, Gustav Stresemann, General George Marshall-you call them all genuine pacifists?’

‘You must be fair, Ragnar,’ interrupted Jacobsson. ‘Our Norwegian friends have also honoured Woodrow Wilson, Fridtjof Nansen, Albert Schweitzer, Ralph Bunche, Cordell Hull-’

‘I know about Hull,’ said Hammarlund placidly. ‘Franklin D. Roosevelt wrote to Oslo every year between 1938 and 1945, nominating Hull, before Mr. Evang’s committee saw fit to elect him.’ He turned to Craig. ‘This may interest you, Mr. Craig. In 1937, Cuba nominated Franklin D. Roosevelt for the Peace Prize, and Hull seconded it. That was one election your Roosevelt lost. The Peace Prize went to Viscount Cecil of Chelwood instead, a League of Nations man.’

Evang appealed to Craig. ‘My friend Hammarlund is teasing. He knows of our courage. Take the year 1961. Did we not defy the white supremacy people of South Africa to give our honour to Albert Luthuli, a dark-skinned former Zulu chief who fought apartheid?’

‘Too easy,’ said Hammarlund. ‘You were not afraid of South Africa. You were picking on someone your own size.’

‘All right, then,’ persisted Evang, ‘let us speak of someone bigger. In 1946, the Finns nominated Aleksandra Kollontai, Russia’s first female Ambassador, an advocate of free love, for helping to shorten the war between Finland and Russia. It was outrageous, a Russian propaganda move. We voted her down, despite the threats of Pravda. And long before that, we had suffered when the Czar of Russia and Kaiser Wilhelm of Germany were nominated for the Peace Prize, and we had voted them down, too.’

‘How did you ever get saddled with that award?’ asked Craig. ‘Why was that single one taken away from Sweden?’

‘Nobel had intended that Sweden give the Peace Prize, too, with the other four awards,’ said Evang, ‘but at the last moment, he had a change of heart. At the time, Sweden and Norway were under a single ruler, King Oscar II and Nobel wanted to bind the countries more closely together. Also, he felt that we in Norway could be more impartial about a political hot potato than his fellow Swedes. There were other reasons, but those were the principal ones.’

Abruptly, Evang turned away from Craig to face the bland Hammarlund once more. ‘I will tell you this, Ragnar-we have made our blunders, yes, but we have had our moments of truth, too, truth and courage. I will mention one name, and then you judge us as you wish.’ He paused, and then he said slowly, ‘Carl von Ossietzky.’

There was a silence. Hammarlund remained imperturbable. His handkerchief flicked. His hairless head moved ever so slightly up and down.

‘Yes, Konrad,’ he said, ‘Ossietzky was your finest hour. For giving the prize to him, I forgive you all else.’

Craig tried to identify Ossietzky in memory, and failed, and was about to inquire who he was, when the liveried servant materialized with a tray, freshly filled with goblets of champagne. Gratefully, Craig traded his empty glass for a full one. By the time the servant moved on, the thread of conversation had been lost.

He prepared to speak to Hammarlund, when he saw that Hammarlund was gazing intently off towards a far corner of the room.

‘Bertil,’ Hammarlund murmured, and Jacobsson was immediately alert. ‘Bertil, that couple over there before the fireplace-the handsome gentleman and his Gallic lady in light blue décolletage-would they be the Drs. Claude and Denise Marceau, your chemistry winners?’

Jacobsson squinted off. ‘Yes, the Marceaus.’

‘Introduce me,’ said Hammarlund. It was not a request, but a command. ‘Introduce me,’ he repeated. ‘I am keenly interested in them. I must know them tonight.’ He nodded at Craig. ‘Forgive me, Mr. Craig. It has been a pleasure.’ He glanced off at the Marceaus again, and then added enigmatically, ‘It is ever thus-business before pleasure.’

The moment that the Ambassador had left them, and they were alone for the first time this evening since leaving the Grand Hotel suite, Denise Marceau flung her accusation at Claude.

That same moment, as he stammered in his bewilderment at her charge, she saw two men approaching them. One she recognized as the Swedish Count who had been on the Nobel reception committee and who had welcomed them at the afternoon press conference. The other, a fantastic, so bald, so white, so singular, she had never seen before. Suddenly, nearing, the Count had whispered to the other, and they had veered off in another direction and attached themselves to a group nearby.

Immediately, Denise perceived what had kept the two men from joining Claude and her. They had seen her face, distorted with rage, when she had spat her accusation at her husband. They had deduced that a family quarrel was in the making. Tactfully, they had steered clear of the battle. Thank God, Denise thought. She wanted to settle this with Claude alone, uninterrupted, and right now, here and now.

‘You have not answered me,’ she challenged Claude. ‘Did you or did you not arrange an assignation with that girl, in Copenhagen?’ Then, without waiting for his reply, she went on angrily. ‘It is not enough to insult me in Paris. Now, you throw discretion to the winds. Now, you must have your favourite courtesan follow you through Europe, always near, always at your beck and call. I do not know what has got into you. I swear, you must be insane.’

Claude listened to the tirade in befuddled silence. What he had feared the most was happening before his eyes. Denise had been too distraught to reveal, in continuity, what new fantasy was troubling her. She was making charges that were not only riddles but utterly senseless.

‘Denise,’ he pleaded, again fearful of a scene, ‘what are you going on about this time?’

‘Do not lie to me. I am sick of lies.’

‘Denise, I swear, I simply do not know what you are talking about. Qu’est-ce que c’est?’

‘Oh, yes, I can imagine you do not know.’ She had unsnapped her sequin evening bag, and pulled out a crumpled envelope. She thrust it at him. ‘Voilà. Now tell me you do not know.’

He flattened the envelope in his palm. The envelope was addressed to him, typewritten. It bore a French stamp, and a Paris postmark, and the imprint Par Avion. He turned the envelope over, unable to guess its contents, and saw that the back flap had already been torn open. He fingered inside for the letter, and found only a short newspaper cutting. Across the top, in block lettering had been printed in pencil, Figaro.

With anxiety over an unknown threat, heightened by Denise’s accusing eyes, he read the cutting. It told him that the French government, in a gesture of goodwill towards Denmark, had arranged to transport ten of its foremost Parisian mannequins, and the latest Paris fashions, to a Copenhagen winter fair. The mannequins would be guests of the Danish government, at the Hotel d’Angleterre, for three days, commencing December 6. The names of the ten mannequins from Balmain, Dior, Balenciaga, Ricci and La Roche were listed. The fourth name in the list of ten read, ‘Mlle Gisèle Jordan, Balenciaga.’

The news of Gisèle’s impending nearness stunned Claude. He kept his eyes fixed on the cutting, to give himself time to regain his composure before the inquisition continued.

‘Well,’ Denise was saying, ‘how long ago did you arrange that little rendezvous?’

‘I arranged nothing. Can you not read? This was arranged by the French government.’

‘Est-ce que tu veux me faire prendre des vessies pour des lanternes?’

‘No, I am not trying to prove to you that black is white. I am simply saying I knew nothing.’ He held off the cutting as if it were contagious. ‘This is the first I know of it.’

‘Parbleu?’

‘I am sorry. It is the truth.’

‘That skinny putain sent it to you-you will not deny that.’ And then Denise added. ‘Or do you have some concierge for a go-between?’

Claude examined the envelope. There was no doubt that Gisèle had posted it. Such indiscretion was unlike her. Yet, no doubt, she had assumed, as a single person who knew privacy, that in all marriages this privacy was maintained. She had believed Claude opened his own mail, and Denise her own. She could not know that, in the long years of their work, with most of their correspondence scientific and technical and meant for their collaborative eyes, they had always opened each other’s mail. His bad luck, he told himself. It was done, and he would have to make the best of it.

‘I will not deny it is from Mademoiselle Jordan,’ he said at last. ‘There is no one else who could have sent it. But I assure you, Denise, I had no idea of her visit to Copenhagen. I suppose it just came up-’

‘-and now she lets you know she is waiting, flat on her bed, ready, your divine sous-maîtresse.’

‘I can endure anything from you, Denise, except crudeness.’

‘And I can endure anything from you except humiliation.’ Denise’s lips trembled. ‘When have you agreed to see her?’

‘Please. We have agreed to nothing. She will be in Copenhagen, at work with her friends. I am in Stockholm with you.’

‘Copenhagen is an hour or two from here. Like taking the métro.’ She paused. ‘You intend to see her, do you not?’

‘I am not seeing her,’ Claude said firmly.

‘If you humiliate me once more while we are in Stockholm, you can go on that stage yourself and take the whole damn prize for yourself.’

‘You are suddenly generous,’ said Claude, weary of his defensive position. ‘You were less so this afternoon.’

‘What does that mean?’

‘At the press conference,’ said Claude, bitterly. ‘You certainly did your best to castrate me-’

‘I would not do it with words-I would do it with a dull spoon, if I had one,’ Denise interrupted.

‘-to make a fool of me in public,’ Claude went on. ‘I would like to see a transcript of that interview. One would think you had won the Nobel Prize alone, and I had come along to help you carry the medallions.’

‘I told them nothing but the truth,’ said Denise.

‘We did the work together, and you know it. Since when do we say, “I have done this” and “You have done that”? What have we come to, Denise, even to have to discuss this? We are a team of two-’

‘I thought it was three. My roll call shows three.’

‘Mon Dieu, stop it!’

‘I married you to collaborate not only in work but in pleasure. When you take your pleasure elsewhere, and leave only the work part for us, then there is not enough for me. I am left alone. I have to think of myself alone, now and in the future, and so I spoke for myself.’

‘Denise, I told you we would work things out.’

‘How?’

‘I do not know yet,’ he said miserably, ‘but we will, I guarantee it.’ His hand took in the salon. ‘Surely this is not the time and place to make decisions.’

‘I am telling you this-I am not waiting for your decisions. Henceforth, I shall make my own.’

‘Then make your own,’ he said.

Her eyes blazed at him, and she wanted to say many cruel and important things, but she suppressed further combat. ‘Get me a drink,’ she said.

He searched the room until he located a servant, and then summoned him. When the tray appeared, and they took fresh champagne, Denise became aware that the pair of men who had originally approached them, and then detoured, had now decided that the family quarrel had ended.

Count Bertil Jacobsson joined the Marceaus with a slight bow. ‘How do you do? One of our most celebrated citizens is eager to make your acquaintance.’ He brought Hammarlund forward, as if from the wings. ‘Dr. Denise Marceau-Dr. Claude Marceau-our eminent industrialist, Mr. Ragnar Hammarlund.’

Hammarlund took Denise’s hand, prepared to kiss it, but since this was a gesture of greeting which she habitually resisted in France (as being archaic and insincere), she brought the industrialist’s smaller hand down sharply and converted the gesture into a masculine handshake. Having gripped his hand hard, she found that it squashed in her palm like a broken snail, and she withdrew quickly. Next, Hammarlund offered his clammy grasp to Claude, who took it without attention.

Hammarlund addressed Denise. ‘Count Jacobsson tells me you were brilliant at the press conference this afternoon.’

‘He is unnecessarily flattering,’ said Denise, with a smile for Jacobsson and a triumphant sidelong glance at her husband.

‘It is so,’ said Jacobsson enthusiastically. ‘I have heard many chemistry laureates, but few more articulate than Madame le docteur.’ He turned to Claude. ‘I hope you are having a pleasant time this evening.’

‘It would be more pleasant,’ said Claude lightly, ‘if I could have a Swedish drink instead of champagne. For a Frenchman-champagne is like milk for an American.’

‘But of course, you may have anything,’ said Jacobsson, fussing nervously.

‘Also, where is the lavabo?’ Claude asked. He nodded to his wife. ‘Darling,’ he said, and then to Hammarlund, ‘Mr. Hammarlund, do excuse me for only a minute. I shall be right back.’

He backed away, and then went hastily off with Jacobsson.

Denise watched him leave, more annoyed than ever with him for having stranded her with a perfect stranger, and wondering if he could no longer endure her company and merely wanted a respite from her.

‘I have followed your work in the journals for years,’ she heard Hammarlund saying. ‘No chemists on earth more deserved this recognition.’

‘And I have read about you for years,’ said Denise with effort. ‘Is it true you were once with Ivar Kreuger?’

‘An early and instructive phase of my life. It convinced me that honesty is, indeed, the best policy.’

‘I was a little girl in Paris when the scandal unravelled,’ said Denise. ‘I remember my father pointing out the apartment in the Avenue Victor-Emmanuel where he shot himself. What happened to you after that? And to all Kreuger’s holdings?’

‘I had got out months before,’ said Hammarlund. ‘I left Kreuger with his matchstick empire and made a connection in munitions. Much less breakable, and much more in demand. As to Kreuger’s holdings, only his home firm, the Swedish Match Company, survived the scandal. It still owns, I believe, over one hundred factories in three dozen countries. However, I have little interest in matches-though several of my researchers have laboured several years trying to produce a permanent match, one that will last its owner’s lifetime.’

‘I did not know you were interested in research,’ said Denise, and because she was too impatient to be polite, she added, ‘I thought men like yourself were only interested in money.’

‘But we are,’ agreed Hammarlund, without humour. ‘Men such as I also have foresight. In the end, research means money. I own nine industrial laboratories in Sweden alone. I even have two in your native France. They do not carry my name, but they are supported by my endowments.’

‘This is not altruistic, I presume?’

‘Not one bit. We work towards a practical end. Most of the alchemy is hopeless and wasted, but one day, one of my laboratories will produce a perfume that stays on the skin indefinitely or a textile that never wears out or an automobile tyre that lasts forever-and my enormous investment in improbability will pay off. Right now, I am interested in synthetic foods. I still have an old paper, in my files, that you and your husband published. It concerns experiments you made with a certain strain of algae, as a possible food substitute.’

‘Yes, that was shortly after our marriage.’

‘Why did you abandon the work?’

‘We saw no future in it, and we were young and filled with a thousand hopes. We worked at a dozen projects until we found the one we could fully embrace.’

‘I cannot say you were wrong. After all, here you are for the Nobel Prize.’

‘Yes.’

‘But from a selfish point of view, I wish you had gone on in synthetics. I believe it is the most promising field of the immediate tomorrow, and there are too few genuises in the field. Although, I must say, I do have one excellent analytical chemist working directly under me, in my private laboratory behind my villa. His name is Dr. Oscar Lindblom, an unknown young man who will one day have a reputation. This very morning, we were preparing a homogenate together. Food synthetics are rather a hobby of mine. Would you care to know why I became so interested in the problem?’

Denise did not care to know. She searched off for Claude, seething at him, and then remembered her companion’s question. ‘Why you became interested? Money, I suppose.’

‘This time, in all honesty, no, at least, not at first. You see, Dr. Marceau, I am anticreophagous-anti-flesh eating-a lifelong practising vegetarian.’

Somehow, aware of his bizarre appearance again, she was not at all surprised. ‘Is that sensible?’ she asked.

‘Oh, I enjoy good company. Plutarch was a vegetarian, and so were Voltaire and Schopenhauer and Tolstoy and our own Swedenborg. I have never gone as far as Shelley, who would not eat crumpets because they were likely to be buttered-but I simply will not eat anything that I can pet. Curiously, this attitude made me speculate on synthetic foods-including algae, which I classify with the synthetics, and then, gradually, I saw that the commercial importance of such products was more important than the aesthetic benefits. One day, soon, no one on earth will go hungry or be ill-nourished, thanks to cheap synthetic foods.’

‘Which you will manufacture?’

‘It is my dream. At any rate, I hold almost a hero worship for superior chemists, and since it was announced that you were coming to Stockholm, I have looked forward to meeting you.’

‘You are kind, Mr. Hammarlund.’

‘Not kind, never kind.’ He dabbed his face with his silk handkerchief. ‘If you have read your programme, you know, perhaps, that I am having a dinner this week for the visiting laureates-’

‘Of course. I had forgotten.’

‘We would be honoured-’

‘You say “we”. You are married?’

‘I am quite alone, by choice. I hold with our Ibsen, “A strong man is strongest alone.”’

‘And a strong woman?’

He stared at her, the flat mirror eyes catching a vision of her dissatisfaction and bitterness. ‘I am not so certain about a woman-a woman is different.’ He waited for her comment, but she was contained again. ‘By “we”,’ he went on, ‘I mean my friends and I will be honoured to receive you. Dr. Lindblom will be at the dinner, of course-I think he will interest you-and Miss Märta Norberg will graciously act as my hostess.’

‘Märta Norberg-the actress?’

‘None other.’

‘I am not a dévote of the stage or cinema, but when I have attended, it has most often been to see her. I have not seen her for several years. Is she in retirement?’

‘An actress is never in retirement. She is always awaiting the proper role. It is like asking an actress about her comeback. Inevitably, she will say, “Comeback? But I have never been away.” You and your husband will be my guests?’

‘I never speak for my husband,’ said Denise. ‘You must invite him yourself. As for me, yes, I will be delighted-on two conditions-that you do not insist that I visit your laboratory, and that you do not serve me a meal either synthetic or vegetarian.’

Hammarlund patted his glistening albino face with the handkerchief, almost merrily, and then replied, ‘I promise you-no laboratory-that would be rather a busman’s holiday, would it not?-and the meal, strictly food you can pet.’ He studied her a moment. ‘If your husband is otherwise occupied, and you come alone, I assure you, you will not be sorry. Our Swedish young men are most gallant and attentive-and appreciative of the best France has to offer.’

Her face grew suddenly grim. ‘Mr. Hammarlund, I may have my problems, but a need for gigolos is certainly not one of them.’

Hammarlund opened his hands towards her, at once self-reproachful and penitent. ‘Forgive me, Dr. Marceau-at times, I am so clumsy with the language-but I meant to imply no such thing. I apologize, believe me, if I exceeded good taste in a mere desire to be hospitable.’

Convinced of his sincerity, Denise softened. ‘No, the fault is mine. I am afraid I am overwrought. Blame it on the trip, the excitement, this whole royal formality-’ Beyond him, she saw Claude and Jacobsson walking towards her. ‘Here they come now. You will enjoy my husband. He is better-behaved at these social affairs.’

When Claude, holding a new drink almost colourless, arrived, with Jacobsson a step behind, Denise immediately spoke to him. ‘Mr. Hammarlund has been most engaging, but I have given him a difficult time.’

‘Quite the contrary,’ Hammarlund protested.

Denise continued to address her husband. ‘You will find Mr. Hammarlund a patron of chemistry, and you will be flattered to know that he is acquainted with our earliest work.’ She turned abruptly to Jacobsson. ‘I have exchanged hardly a word with the other winners. I think I should do so.’ She took Jacobsson’s arm. ‘Will you escort me, Count?’

The gathering, the largest in the White Sea Room, had been kneaded into a tight circle by the comings and goings at its periphery and by a common desire to keep the discussion informal. Included in the gathering, from the point where Denise Marceau had been admitted to it five minutes before, were-left to right-Saralee Garrett, John Garrett, an earnest and acne riddled young Swedish Prince in uniform, Margherita Farelli, Carlo Farelli, Konrad Evang, Emily Stratman, Max Stratman, Carl Adolf Krantz, and Count Bertil Jacobsson.

The young Prince, in a learned falsetto, was giving a biographical discourse on Alfred Nobel, in response to Margherita’s thickly accented question about the donor. John Garrett listened with impatient courtesy, shifting his weight from one leg to the other. Garrett was interested in neither information nor entertainment, but in assassination. Like a hunter in hiding, he had no time for the appearance of the minor animals. He wanted only the king of beasts.

Since his fiasco at the press conference, Garrett had revaluated his own worth and decided that he was deserving of a defence to the death. Never again, he had vowed, would he let the Italian treat him as a satellite ally. Now, as the talk flowed, he waited for Farelli to speak up, so that he might interrupt or contradict him and thus reveal him as unworthy of invitation to this select circle. The wait was irritatingly protracted. Eager as Garrett was to pounce, there was no prey. The Farelli of the afternoon, vocal and vulnerable, was no longer in evidence. Tonight, he was subdued. Tonight, handsome in a black wool suit, English-tailored in Rome, he listened. It was as if he scented a lurking danger and preferred to hide behind anonymity. Garrett ground his teeth and marked time.

The young Prince was going on shrilly about Alfred Nobel. ‘-is another reason we so fervently admire him. He overcame all odds. His father was twice a bankrupt. Nobel, himself, had no formal education, never once graduated from a school. This will interest you especially, Professor Stratman. You were speaking of John Ericsson-the builder of the Monitor for Lincoln-and his early experiments in trying to accomplish what you accomplished, harness the sun’s rays. Did you know that Nobel met Ericsson in America?’

‘That is really true?’ asked Stratman.

‘It is in our histories,’ said the young Prince. ‘Nobel was only seventeen. Ericsson showed him the engine he hoped to run with solar energy, and this inspired the inventive streak in Nobel.’

‘And then Nobel invented nitroglycerine,’ said Garrett importantly.

‘I do not believe that is quite correct, Dr. Garrett.’ It was Farelli who had entered the conversation. ‘Nitroglycerine-blasting oil-was discovered by one of my countrymen, some time before Nobel-Professor Ascanio Sobrero, of Turin.’

‘True,’ the young Prince confirmed.

Garrett’s confidence sank beneath the new setback. He had been over eager. The prey had stalked the hunter. Farelli was again ahead. Garrett determined not to make the same mistake twice.

‘What Nobel accomplished was to invent the blasting cap,’ the young Prince was saying, ‘and later safety powder, made of nitro combined with German clay, which was what started the great dynamite business and made him a millionaire. But as I was remarking, for him it was always a battle against odds. In the pioneer stages, the explosive blew up his factory and killed his younger brother. He had to move his laboratory to a pontoon raft in the middle of a Swedish lake. By accident, this liquid exploded ships off Germany and Panama, a whole city block in San Francisco, a warehouse in Australia. Once, I am told, your American Senate’-he spoke to Garrett now-‘seriously debated a bill to make the shipping of Nobel’s liquid a crime to be punished by hanging.’

‘Yes,’ said Garrett, ‘my fellow Americans are often very suspicious of science. When I was doing my work in heart transplants, I received many threatening crank letters warning me not to try to compete with God.’

Farelli said nothing, and Garrett felt the warmth of a small victory.

‘Fortunately, Nobel learned to tame and control his dynamite,’ said the young Prince, ‘and in ten years, he had fifteen factories and was one of the richest men in the world-almost as rich for his day as our celebrated Mr. Hammarlund is in this day.’

Farelli moved to speak, and immediately Garrett was ready. ‘Most interesting,’ Farelli said. ‘But I am curious about another thing. Here we all are, the laureates from the ends of the earth, the benefactors of Nobel’s generosity. Yet I know next to nothing about my benefactor himself, his personal character, life. What was he really like?’

Garrett pounced. ‘Surely, Dr. Farelli, you have read at least one of the countless articles or books on Nobel? They are there for all to see. I have read many, and I feel I know him as well as I know any of my relatives.’

‘You must read between the lines then, Dr. Garrett,’ the Italian replied. ‘I was not saying that I had not read about Nobel. I was saying that, despite all I have read, I still know nothing about him. What kind of man is it who can put forth dynamite, so destructive, and also put forth prizes for peace on earth and idealism in literature and discoveries that benefit mankind?’

‘Guilts, all guilts,’ said Garrett in a fading tone, desperately drawing on the patois of Dr. Keller and the therapy group. ‘He was compensating for his guilts. It is obvious to see.’

Count Bertil Jacobsson cleared his throat. ‘If I may comment-’

‘Count Jacobsson knew Nobel personally,’ the young Prince interjected.

All eyes were on Jacobsson, as he went on. ‘-I would be inclined to agree with Dr. Farelli that Nobel remains, to this day, an enigma. No book has captured his contradictory nature. Yes, I knew him briefly, but in a sense, I have lived with him all of my life, yet I doubt that I know him at all.’

Listening, Garrett hunched his shoulders, to bury his head, as had been his habit when teachers had rebuked him in school. He felt Saralee’s sympathetic arm link inside his, but it was not enough.

‘Nobel was an atheist, but he read the Bible,’ Jacobsson was saying. ‘He was a bachelor who regarded women as repulsive, yet he admired the shapeliness of American young ladies. He would have been much impressed by Miss Stratman here.’

Farelli, Krantz, Evang, and the young Prince obeyed Jacobsson’s implied directive, and as one, appraised Emily Stratman’s endowments. Momentarily, she lost her poise, blushing, and then, automatically, she brought a hand up to hide the deep cleft between her breasts revealed by the low-cut gown that she had hesitated to wear and then defiantly worn.

Cognizant of her acute embarrassment, and sorry he had caused it-having wished only to crown her quiet beauty-Count Jacobsson quickly resumed his recital. ‘Nobel was a Socialist, but on the other hand, he believed in an elected dictator and in suffrage limited to the educated minority. As to prizes, Nobel ridiculed them. He liked to say that he owed his award of the Swedish Order of the North Star to his cook, because his cook’s dishes had seduced those who gave the medal. He insisted that he received the Brazilian Order of the Rose only because he knew Dom Pedro, ruler of Brazil. He detested publicity, and would not give interviews or allow himself to be photographed. “That is for actors and murderers,” I once heard him say. Yet he created his world-famous Nobel Prize. I wonder what he would have thought of our press conferences this afternoon.’

Stratman spoke. ‘And I have wondered, Count Jacobsson, why he settled on merely five awards. One would think he would have thought to honour also the best in botany, biology, zoology, psychology?’

‘His omissions were even more numerous,’ admitted Jacobsson. ‘He also neglected to will money in such categories as architecture, economics, music, and art. This was not accidental. He wanted to reward only the fields that intensely interested him. Caruso would never win a Nobel Prize in music, because Nobel himself had no interest in singing. Paul Cézanne would never be honoured, because Nobel had no interest in painting. Luther Burbank would not receive a prize, because Nobel had no interest in botany. To be perfectly honest, an earlier will even omitted literature-but Nobel corrected that omission when he began to read and write in his last years, and his interest in literature revived.’

‘His will, it caused trouble, I understand,’ said Stratman.

‘Yes, I am afraid so.’ Jacobsson wanted to be discreet, but the pedagogue inside him elbowed aside all prudence. ‘He had a distrust of legal minds, so he wrote an amateur’s will by himself. He left a fortune, but named no one to-to dole it out. Fortunately, the King took over this responsibility. Nobel had relatives in Russia and Sweden, and the Swedish branch objected to the will and for five years fought it. At last, the matter was settled, and the prizes were given for the first time in 1901, in the Academy of Music, six years after Nobel’s cremation.’

‘I, for one-Margherita and I-are grateful,’ said Farelli cheerfully. ‘Not only the honour-Nobel was wiser than that-but the lire, I should say kronor, will be useful in a time when money seems the only honour.’

‘What are you going to do with your share?’ asked Garrett, aggressively, across the group, of Farelli.

‘I am giving it all to my favourite charity,’ said Farelli, ‘the Carlo Farelli Fund to keep Carlo Farelli and all little Farellis alive.’

‘You’re going to keep it?’ demanded Garrett accusingly.

‘Certainly.’

Saralee Garrett tugged at her husband. ‘John, I think how people spend their money is a private affair.’

Garrett ignored her, still intent on the prey. ‘Every man to his own taste. I’m giving my share to the Rosenthal Medical Centre in Pasadena-for basic research. Basic research needs every dime it can get.’

‘Good for you,’ said Farelli, ‘I am in envy that you can afford to do this.’

‘A scientist has no choice,’ said Garrett pompously.

Carl Adolf Krantz made a gesture towards Stratman. ‘And you, Herr Professor, do you wish to speak of this?’

‘I must side with my friend from Rome,’ said Stratman. ‘I will keep the cash prize. The world has had sufficient contribution from me. The world can keep solar energy, but I will keep its money.’

‘Bravo, I approve,’ said Krantz with worshipful enthusiasm.

Garrett flushed. ‘All right, the vote is two to one, but I still think-’

Count Bertil Jacobsson saw that the moment for diplomatic intervention had come, and he broke into the American’s protest smoothly. ‘There is no right and wrong on what is done with the prize money,’ he said. ‘There is no morality about such income. Each laureate has his own needs and requirements. Many, like you, Dr. Garrett, have turned their winnings over to admirable causes. Albert Einstein kept none of his Nobel cheque. With the approval of Elsa, his second wife, who was also his cousin, he gave half the money to his first wife, Mileva, for her devotion in his struggling early years. The remainder he presented to charities in Berlin. Romain Rolland gave his cheque to pacifist organizations. Fridtjof Nansen gave his money to build two agricultural schools in Russia. Sir Rabindranath Tagore turned over his Nobel money to his international school in India-’

‘Jane Addams,’ interrupted Konrad Evang, ‘gave her half-share of $15,755 to the Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom.’

Jacobsson nodded. ‘Yes. But on the other hand, an equal number have preferred to keep the money. Selma Lagerlöf bought back her three-centuries old ancestral home. Björnson paid off the mortgage on his farm in Norway. Marie Curie installed a new bathroom in her place, and her husband kept the money so that he could give up teaching. Yeats wanted the security, and the physicist, Dr. Clinton Davisson, paid off his debts. Knut Hamsun was impoverished, and the award saved him. So you see, gentlemen, there is no rule, no precedent.’

‘The important thing to remember,’ said the young Prince, ‘is that Nobel’s nine million dollars, except for a quarter of a million in American stocks, has been soundly invested in Swedish securities, railroads, real estate, and that there is always a large amount of interest to divide and give to prize winners. I cannot recall any year when an individual prize was less than thirty thousand in American dollars, and this year it is over fifty thousand. I believe that is a tribute to our sound economy-and our years of neutrality.’

Jacobsson squirmed at the mention of neutrality-a touchy subject with him, for he had been so passionately on the side of England, America, and France, in two wars-and he was sorry that the rash young man had brought it up with such vanity. Without offending the Prince, Jacobsson felt that he must correct the impression that was being made.

‘I do not know how much our economy has been aided by our so-called neutrality,’ Jacobsson found himself saying, ‘and I am less sure that our highly publicized neutrality was quite so neutral. The majority of Swedes favoured the Allied cause in the Second World War, and-’

‘Nonsense,’ said Carl Adolf Krantz in a harsh undertone.

‘-and, despite the objection of my colleague, the majority of Swedes aided the Allied cause whenever they could. We sent a hundred million dollars and nine thousand volunteers to Finland to fight Russia in 1939. When we found a Nazi V-1 rocket, we rushed the parts to England. We had a centre for Jewish refugees in Malmö, and we refused to give asylum to Nazi or Fascist war criminals. We saved almost twenty thousand Danes and Norwegians from concentration camps.’

‘Sweden was pro-German, and you know it,’ Krantz, bristling, shot at Jacobsson. ‘King Gustaf V was married to a German. All our scientists, like myself, went to German universities. German was our second language in Stockholm. As for the war, we had refused to let England send troops across our country to Finland, but in 1940 we allowed Hitler-and rightly so, at the time-to send troops on our railroads, armament, too, to Narvik and Trondheim. In 1941 we let an entire German division march across our land to Finland for the attack on Russia. We delivered ball bearings to Germany, and a hundred other necessities. I regret Nazi excesses, of which even the Führer was unaware, but one cannot blot out all of the good that was in Germany, just because of popular prejudice. Germany was and remains the land that nurtured Beethoven, Goethe, Kepler, Hertz, Hegel-’

‘Also, Joseph Goebbels, Heinrich Himmler, Julius Streicher, Reinhard Heydrich, Ilse Koch,’ said Stratman mildly.

Disconcerted, Krantz stared at Stratman. ‘Yes, of course, I agree with you, Herr Professor-but surely-wherever there is good, there is also evil. When the evil passes, the good remains. All Swedes understand this. As perpetual onlookers, we retain our objectivity. I am proud I was active for Germany during the war. Why not? In peace, it has offered us more than England or America.’

When Krantz finished, a heavy silence hung in the air surrounding members of the group. There was embarrassment, and it was shared by all. For a moment, Stratman considered disputing Krantz further, but the awareness of Emily at his elbow restrained him from speaking.

It was the young Prince who broke the stillness. ‘I believe it is understood that Sweden was not pro-German or pro-Allied. Sweden was pro-Sweden and pro-humanity, as witness our beloved Dag Hammarskjöld’s martyrdom in the cause of peace. Our instinct, like Switzerland’s, is for survival, our own and everyone else’s. Is that wrong? On the contrary, I think it is civilized and godly not to want to kill and to want to live. Perhaps if we were big and strong, we would have been forced to take sides. As it was, we remained history’s bystander. It is not a happy role, but there is much right in it.’

‘I was in the medical corps, attached to the Marines, in World War II,’ said Garrett. It was a complete non sequitur, at least to those who heard it, and several of the others appeared confused. But Garrett was, for himself, purposeful. ‘I saw combat at Iwo Jima,’ he went on. He was staring at Farelli. ‘Where were you in World War II, Dr. Farelli?’

There was a hush.

Farelli remained unperturbed. He regarded Garrett coolly. ‘I was not at Iwo Jima, but I was at Regina Coeli in Rome,’ he said. ‘I was an inmate of the prison. Not all Italians were Mussolini’s blackshirts, you see.’

Garrett felt the slap, and stood defeated, his mouth slack.

Farelli turned to Stratman. ‘However, I am sure Professor Stratman knows more of such misery than do I. As a Jew, he must have suffered more.’

Stratman felt Emily shiver beside him, and he replied in a low, serious tone. ‘I did not suffer, at least not physically. I spent the entire war in a laboratory, as a hostage. It was my sister-in-law who was in Ravensbruck and then Auschwitz.’

In his personal shame, Garrett wanted to say something, anything, to regain respect. He would show compassion. Without further thought, he blurted to Stratman, ‘Was she put to death in the crematorium?’

Stratman winced, and looked quickly at Emily. Her eyes had filled with tears, and she was frantic at her own emotional display. ‘I-I want a drink,’ she gasped, and then pivoted and hastened away.

Stratman watched her briefly, as she headed for the waiter, and then he faced the others and Garrett. ‘Yes, she was put to death in the gas plant. She was Emily’s mother. Emily spent the war in Ravensbruck. She is now my charge.’

The conversation had reached its dead end. Saralee pulled John Garrett out of the group, and they drifted off, and then the group disintegrated, and individuals of it attached themselves to other guests throughout the salon.

With a fixed fascination, made more intense by his inebriety, Andrew Craig had been staring for several minutes at the slender brunette with the provocative features, in the nearest gathering. Of all the young women in the large salon, she was the only one who captured his interest. While pretending to attend to the conversation of Ingrid Påhl, and a scholarly member of the Swedish Academy, and the Italian Minister, he was heedful only of the girl who stood so close beside Professor Stratman. He had known her before, he was positive, but where or when he could not remember. Yet, he told himself, had he known her before, he would not have forgotten. Suddenly, he was less positive that they had met.

Now he was startled to see her face writhe in agitation, and he watched her wheel away from the group, and remove herself from it. His eyes followed her as she went aimlessly about the room, and then he realized that she was heading for the liveried servant at a point midway between the girl and himself.

Acting on an impulse of the instant, moved by an unconscious necessity that he had no time to fathom, Craig unceremoniously excused himself from his gathering. Although his legs were not entirely obedient to his desire, and he weaved a little as he walked, he tried to reach the liveried servant at the same time that the girl reached him.

Emily Stratman had already confronted the tray, and taken the last champagne goblet from it, when Craig arrived.

‘Oh,’ he said, ‘well-I guess you beat me to it.’

‘I’m sorry,’ she said, hardly noticing him. ‘I’m sure there is more where this came from.’

Craig looked at the servant inquiringly. The man held up a finger, to tell him to wait a moment, and then hurried off.

Craig considered the girl, whose head was bent over her drink. ‘I’m sure I’ve met you somewhere,’ he said.

For the first time, she lifted her head to scrutinize him. ‘No, you haven’t,’ she said. Suddenly she wrinkled her nose, as if it bothered her. ‘It tickles,’ she said, and indicated her champagne. ‘Bubbles.’

‘You have to be French-or a skin diver-to avoid that.’

‘Mmm.’ She sipped the drink, avoiding his eyes.

‘Well, if we haven’t met-we might as well. I’m Andrew Craig. I’m-’

‘I know,’ she said. ‘You were pointed out to me when you came in. Congratulations.’

‘Thank you. Are you Professor Stratman’s daughter?’

‘I’m his niece.’

‘I see. He’s a bachelor, isn’t he?’

‘Very.’

‘And you take care of him?’

‘Probably the other way around.’ She hesitated, and then added, ‘My uncle is self-sufficient. ‘I’m not.’

He regarded her closely. She was taller than he had expected. The short black hair shone as it caught the lights. The curls along her cheeks enclosed her maiden’s face and gave it piquancy. The words ‘vestal virgin’ crossed his mind, yet the slanting eyes, Oriental emerald in colour, made ‘vestal virgin’ impossible. Her serenity enchanted him. Here was the picture of self-possession, yet she had just remarked that she was not self-sufficient.

‘I was watching you, a few minutes ago, in that group with your uncle,’ he said. ‘I was impressed by your poise-the gift of sangfroid, which the French so admire-until you suddenly seemed upset and broke away. Are you still upset?’

She considered him, for the first time, with wonder. ‘Yes, quite upset. Don’t let the façade deceive you. It took years to build, to have a place to hide.’ She paused, as if astonished with herself. ‘I don’t know why I’m telling you this. I must be drunk. This is my fourth champagne.’

‘I’m the one who must be drunk, to have even brought it up.’ He was compelled to go further. ‘I only asked about your being upset because I didn’t want to say the wrong thing to you. I can’t explain. It suddenly seemed important, that’s all.’

‘I don’t mind. It’s all right.’

‘You know my name. I don’t know yours.’

‘Emily Stratman. Birthplace Germany. Naturalized American citizen. Raised in New York City since fifteen-or was it sixteen? Now resident of Atlanta, Georgia. Have I left anything out?’

‘Yes. Marital status.’

‘Aggressively single.’

‘The result of a broken marriage?’

‘Is this how writers get their material? No marriage. Not past, present, or future.’

‘How can you know about the future?’

‘Because I know about the present. What did you do before you won the Nobel Prize-write advice to the lovelorn?’ Quickly, she repaired this. ‘I was just joking. I didn’t mean to be fresh.’

‘Please don’t apologize for being “fresh” to me. That word freezes me. One is fresh to elders. I’m not an elder. I remember the first time a pretty girl, introduced to me at the country club, said “sir” to me. That was the day I realized I was middle-aged.’

‘I don’t mind middle-aged men,’ she said. ‘In fact, I prefer them. They’re more comfortable to be with.’

‘Another barb. Are “non-romantic” and “non-threatening” synonyms for comfortable?’

‘I hadn’t thought, and I won’t try. No deep thinking for me tonight. No self-analysis. Only champagne and the King.’

‘In other words, you’re still upset?’

‘And you’re too damn perceptive. Don’t undress my poor psyche here.’ She spoke without anger or objection, in a flat, low, matter-of-fact voice. She held herself in reserve a few seconds, peering at her drink but not drinking, and then she met his eyes. ‘Yes, I’m still a little unstrung. I suppose you want to know why?’

He nodded. ‘I want to know.’

‘Here’s material for your next book, Mr. Craig. We were talking back there, and Dr. Garrett was baiting Dr. Farelli-with little success, I might add-and Dr. Garrett told what he did in the war, and then Dr. Farelli mentioned that he had been interned in an Italian jail, and he questioned my uncle, and my uncle spoke of being held as a hostage for my mother and me. We were in Ravensbruck through the entire war. Then my mother was separated from me and shipped, in a cattle train, to Poland, to Auschwitz. Anyway-anyway-Dr. Garrett asked if she had been-what was the fashionable word?-liquidated in a crematorium? And I don’t know-that just made me ache-as if it had just happened-as if I was just looking into a-someone’s coffin, someone close-and I guess I-lost my poise. It’s silly, because I hadn’t thought of my mother, in that way, for years. And then out of the blue, among strangers, in this formal place, it all welled up. Now, there you have your material, Mr. Craig.’

He was deeply moved. ‘I don’t want material from you, Miss Stratman.’

‘What is it you want?’

‘Someone to talk to like this.’

The liveried servant had returned with his plentiful tray, and Craig took a glass of champagne, and waited for the man to go. When he was gone, Craig at once resumed with Emily, as if fearing that he might lose her.

‘I’ll revise what I just said. What I want is not someone to talk to-but specifically you to talk to. No explanation. You see a girl, a young lady, and because her eyes are green, or her smile crooked, or she brushes her hair back from her eyes-’

‘Or she’s upset.’

‘-yes, most anything like that, you want to know her. Sometimes you know her, and it’s a mistake, and you know once again you were duped by an illusion, and sometimes-’ His voice drifted off, and he shrugged and drank.

‘Is the woman you came in with a member of your family?’ she asked.

‘My sister-in-law, yes. How did you know she wasn’t my wife?’

‘I read the newspapers, Mr. Craig. I read books, by the bushel, and I read about their authors. I knew you were a widower.’

‘Yes, I am. My sister-in-law has been wet-nursing me for three years, ever since.’ He considered evoking Harriet, but felt that he owed her nothing tonight, not in this reality, and so he did not speak of her.

‘Your sister-in-law is handsome.’

‘I guess so. I really don’t know.’

‘Did your wife look like that?’

‘My wife was more feminine, in a way.’ He was not exactly sure, right now, how feminine Harriet had been. It was a relative matter, anyway. In relation to Leah, Harriet had been more feminine. In relation to the girl before him, Emily Stratman, Harriet-the vagueness of her Slavic features and brisk efficiency-seemed less feminine. ‘Leah, my sister-in-law, planted a proprietary flag on me early, and that’s the way it’s been.’

‘How do you live?’ asked Emily. ‘I know you live somewhere in Wisconsin-but how?’

The unlovely film of the last years unreeled in memory, and he weighed the masochistic and repulsive truth, and then instinctively vetoed this truth. Like an adolescent, he wanted to impress a beautiful girl. ‘I own a sprawling farmhouse in southern Wisconsin, at the outskirts of a charming small town,’ he heard himself saying. ‘I walk or garden in the mornings, ride sometimes, see friends. After lunch, I lock myself in my study upstairs and write until evening. My nights are quiet, a few companions, or cards, or reading. Sometimes I take a few weeks in Chicago or New York, to get the hay out of my hair. I’m afraid it sounds a little dull.’

‘It sounds divine.’

Craig smiled wryly. If only Lucius Mack could have heard him. He would have said: well, old man, glad you’re turning out fiction again, and about time.

‘What do you do with yourself?’ he inquired.

‘I-I tend my uncle’s house, and work in a veterans’ hospital outside Atlanta, and, as I told you, I read a good deal.’ The statement was so devoid of life that she was ashamed, and made up her mind to embellish it. ‘And then, of course, all sorts of famous people are always down to see Uncle Max, and I’m his hostess. We have too many dinners, too many late nights. I-I go out the usual amount, like all unattached women-I don’t care for nightclubs, but you know, the theatre, drives, private homes. It’s enough to keep one busy.’ She was more ashamed than ever, and wanted desperately to change the subject. ‘I’m reading one of your books now. I bought it for the boat.’

He was pleased, and showed it. ‘Which one?’

‘I’d read them all, I thought, and then I found I’d missed The Perfect State. I’m almost through. I believe it’s my favourite. I liked The Savage the least, because it’s brutal-’

‘Like our time.’

‘-yes, like our time, and that frightens me. Armageddon was exciting and moving, but it scared me, too. The Black Hole was almost a classic, I think, though I assure you it didn’t sell well in Georgia. I remember the bookdealer trying to talk me out of it. “That’s a No’thern book, ma’m,” he kept mumbling. But this one on Plato peddling his Utopia-I think it’ll live. Uncle Max was saying it came out not long ago in Scandinavia, and that’s what got you the prize. You deserve it.’

His instinctive affection for her had become adoration. ‘I’d like to bring you to my publisher’s next sales meeting.’

‘It’s not necessary. You don’t need puffs any longer.’ She stared at him. ‘It’s odd, meeting the author,’ she said, finally. ‘I couldn’t imagine what to expect. Two of the books, three actually, were so violent-no, I mean indignant-furious. You’re not like that at all.’

‘My gift for outrage is well hidden, and only brought out for special occasions, like when I write a book.’

‘Why? It’s a virtue, not a fault.’

‘Outrage is a red flag-it invites conflict-it invites grappling with life-and the obvious part of me is withdrawn and scared and wants no trouble. Do you understand?’

‘Completely.’

‘Maybe that’s why I retreat into history, where my real self won’t be spotted and forced to fight. It’s cosier. It’s a weakness, a kind of flight, but there you are.’

‘I understand that, too. I’d wondered.’

He looked about the salon, and realized that either he was myopic or a haze had fallen over the occupants. Too much to drink, he thought, far too much, and now he regretted the escape. He wanted to belong here, faculties intact, but it was too late. ‘Enough of this talk,’ he said to her, ‘the wrong note for the eve of the Royal Banquet.’ He drained his glass of champagne in a final flagellation. ‘Now,’ he said, setting the goblet on a marble-topped commode, ‘I want to show you something.’

He took her arm, but she held back. ‘Show me what?’

He pointed off. ‘See that chamber door down there? Count Jacobsson was telling me it leads to one of the historic state apartments-Sofia Magdalena’s state bedchamber-he said it’s worth seeing if I have a chance. Let’s look.’

She hesitated. ‘I don’t know-’

‘Be adventuresome.’ He divested her of her drink, and placed it on the commode, and then swiftly led her across the French rugs to the chamber entrance.

‘Follow me,’ he said, and she went after him through a dim passage into a tiny, bright drawing-room. He opened a door, peered inside, and announced, ‘Sofia Magdalena awaits within.’ She crossed into the state bedchamber, and then he stepped inside, shutting the door behind him.

The majestic bedchamber, dimly lit by a single lamp, was white and gold with a baroque ceiling. The pilasters bore the feminine touch of rose laurels. The ceiling represented an overwhelming allegory of the four continents. The rest was lost in the shadows.

Craig remained weak-kneed inside the door, his reddened eyes following Emily as she went directly to an alcove to examine two Gérard portraits of Eugène Beauharnais, Napoleon’s stepson, and Eugène’s wife, Princess Amalia Augusta of Bavaria. In the salon, Craig had been aware only of Emily’s face, but in these private quarters, he saw, as if for the first time, her slim body, accentuated by the black evening sheath slit up to the knee. Then, when she turned in profile, and next, three-quarters, he realized that she was not slim at all. The flesh of her shoulders, above the protruding breasts, appeared warm and soft, and the hips and thighs spread generously out from the tiny waist.

Rocking uncertainly, he realized with a pang that he had not been absorbed by a female body, as he was now, since the time of Harriet. Discounting, that is, his dream of Lilly last night, But that was different, fleeting. Now it was as if he had been revived from a long sleep of death. He wanted a claim on Emily’s physical comeliness, and the need, which was desire, and so long foreign to him, now was the strongest unreasoning part of him.

Drunkenly, he traversed the bedchamber, and planted himself in front of her. She looked up, with surprise, at his face. His head was a turmoil, and his heart pounded, and he felt wild and extravagant.

‘I wanted to be alone with you,’ he said.

Her eyes showed alarm, but she did not move. ‘We are alone.’

‘You’re so beautiful-it makes me shake inside-you’re beautiful-I have to say it-’

‘Thank you,’ she said, stiffening. ‘Now, I think we’d better-’

‘Emily, I want to kiss you. I haven’t touched a woman I cared for-someone beautiful-since-’

He placed his hands on her arms, felt their softness beneath his palms. He tried to draw her into him, but she was suddenly all resisting sinew and bone.

She tore free, and backed away. ‘Don’t you touch me!’

‘Emily, listen, I’m trying to tell you-’

‘Get away! Go away!’ She started past him, almost running, but he caught her shoulder and spun her to a halt.

He saw her then, as he had not seen her before, breathless, quivering, cornered and at bay, and then he perceived a secret damage in her that he had only known in himself. The enormity of the new hurt that he had inflicted overwhelmed him, and his shame was suicidal.

He released her. ‘I’m sorry, Emily. I apologize, believe me. I’m-I’m not like this at all-not at all-I had too much to drink. I lost my head. Can you forgive me-forget it? Please forget it. It was all the drinking-all day long-and now-and more than just that-’

A sudden, loud creak broke his plea, and a shaft of brighter light from the drawing-room laid them bare. As one, they whirled towards the doorway. It had been flung wide open, and in its frame stood Leah Decker, stern as conscience.

She advanced slowly, mouth compressed, looking from one to the other, until she was a few feet from them.

It was Craig whom she addressed coldly. ‘I saw you go in here. I thought I should tell you-you’ll be missed. The King is making his appearance.’

Craig inhaled, straining for composure. ‘This is Miss Emily Stratman-Professor Stratman’s niece-my sister-in-law, Miss Leah Decker.’

‘How do you do,’ said Emily, in a voice flat and dulled. She took several steps away. ‘If you’ll both excuse me-my uncle-’

She exited quickly, head high, not looking back.

Leah watched her speculatively, and then turned to Craig. ‘Well,’ she said.

‘Well what?’

‘Never mind… Good Lord, you’re a mess. Your eyes all bloodshot. Your tie. And you need a comb. Here’s mine.’

‘Don’t waste your time.’ He felt funereal, and wanted to chant a dirge. ‘ “All the King’s horses and all the King’s men-couldn’t put Humpty Dumpty together again.” Remember? Come on, let’s curtsy.’

As Count Bertil Jacobsson’s cane rapped three times on the floor, the occupants of the salon fell back against its walls, forming a long, irregular semi-circle, waiting. No sooner had the echo of Jacobsson’s cane ceased than the King of Sweden entered through the arch. Behind him came the elegant royal princesses and princes. While the retinue remained stationary, the King, in severe evening dress without ornament, moved ahead and surveyed the room with the briefest smile.

Jacobsson jumped forward, crossing the carpet towards his ruler. When he reached the King, he stamped to a halt, stood rigidly at attention. The King proffered his hand, and Jacobsson, inclining his head, took it-touched it, really, and no more.

Now the King moved towards the semi-circle of guests, with Jacobsson half a step behind, whispering introductions as His Royal Highness welcomed each guest, male and female, with a handshake, a nod, a muted word.

Andrew Craig, situated beside Leah in the first third of the semi-circle, had observed all of this through bleary eyes, steadying himself by leaning against the commode behind him. Just as the King had done, moments before, now Craig too surveyed the guests. The majority were counting the progress of His Royal Highness. The rest, mostly Scandinavians, stared straight ahead, as if soldiers at an inspection. Craig explored the visible faces of the women rising and falling from focus, seeking the one from which he wanted understanding and forgiveness. But Emily was nowhere in the range of his vision.

He was conscious of an extraordinary movement beside him. He investigated, and was amused to see his sister-in-law dipping and lowering herself, in what seemed jerky and convulsive motions made more awkward by the straight lines of her gown, and then he realized that this was her interpretation, recently acquired, of the curtsy. He saw her rise again, slowly, laboriously, like something reaching upward from a launching pad, and then she was once more perpendicular.

That moment, he heard his name distinctly spoken, and the words ‘literature’ and ‘laureate’, and like a Pavlov dog, without thought and by reflex, he pushed himself from the commode and straightened and faced the King of Sweden.

The King extended his hand. ‘Welcome to our country, Mr. Craig.’

Woodenly, Craig took the King’s hand and released it. ‘Thank you’-he was about to add the word ‘King’, banished it, sought frantically for the lesson of protocol, and found it-‘Your Majesty.’

The monarch lingered. ‘I enjoyed your novel, The Perfect State. Its sentiments coincide with my own.’

‘I appreciate that, Your Majesty.’

‘I look forward to the completion of your next work.’

Supported by the battalion of bottles consumed, Craig felt as reckless as a young Socialist. ‘Is that a command, Your Majesty?’

The King was amused. ‘If you wish so to regard it, Mr. Craig.’

‘I am sincerely flattered and inspired. You shall have the first copy, Your Majesty.’

The monarch moved on, to the continuous hand shaking and curtsying, and Craig realized that he had, indeed, been flattered by the ruler’s interest, but not inspired, not inspired at all, for the King’s sovereignty was temporal and earth-bound to this land, and Craig paid obesiance only to the Muse-once Clio, now Calliope. With regret, he resigned from his promise to the King of Sweden.

He heard Leah’s troubled whisper. ‘How could you joke with His Royal Highness like that?’

‘He didn’t seem to mind.’

‘How do you know? Oh, Andrew, I’m so mortified-’

‘He enjoyed it,’ said Craig between his teeth.

‘Even if he did, you’re so irresponsible when you drink-what’ll you do next?’

‘For Chrissakes, Lee, we’re the hit of the evening. I won’t criticize your curtsy, and don’t you knock my dialogue. Now, please behave.’

‘Everyone saw you go in that corridor to the bedroom-’

‘What of it? It’s not a whorehouse.’

Leah gasped, blushing and pulling back. Her eyes darted around the room, seeking to learn if Craig had been overheard. She saw that he had not been, and she started to speak again, and then held her tongue, and settled into sullen taciturnity.

Across the salon, the King had finished his social duty, and now, at the entry to the Charles XI’s Gallery, he waited for his royal entourage. Followed by the royal princesses and princes, he went into the dining-room. At once, the semi-circle of guests broke forward, unevenly, falling into a column at the entry, and marching into the Royal Banquet.

Presently, Craig found himself seated, by place card, between Leah and Ingrid Påhl, and perhaps thirty feet from the King, who was at the head table, quite isolated except for two princesses to one side of him, a prince and another princess at his other side, and a private uniformed waiter hovering nearby.

Befuddled by drink, Craig squeezed his eyes to make out his surroundings. He owed this careful inspection not to his writer’s memory file, but to Lucius Mack, his favourite pallbearer, as a conversation piece. Craig’s eyes studied the Gallery hall, and sorted out busts of a King and Queen of long ago on a shelf-like cornice, and several cabinets containing silverwork and amber and porcelain. The painted ceiling above-as he would later learn-recorded events in the reign of Charles XI and Ulrika Eleonora. From the ceiling hung a glittering chandelier, and immediately beneath it, on the table, a magnificent elevated vase, and before him, lustrous silver service.

He peered to see if the King had the same silver service, but something else beside the King’s plate caught his eye. It was a proletarian egg, curiously majestic, in a brilliant golden egg cup.

He shook Ingrid Påhl’s flabby arm, and pointed. ‘What’s that?’

‘Where?’

‘Next to the King’s plate. Looks like a plain ol’ egg.’

‘But it is, Mr. Craig,’ said Ingrid Påhl gaily. ‘It is a tradition. A long time ago one of the earliest Swedish Christian rulers-possibly Olof Skötkonung or Erik Jedvardsson-sat down to dinner with a bellyache, and rejected his rich meal, and demanded one ordinary boiled egg. This was unheard of-the egg was fare of the peasantry-and for one hour, the kitchens of the palace were ransacked for the simple egg, while the King sat fuming with impatience. At last the egg was found and served, but by then the King was beside himself. He made a royal proclamation. From that day forward, there must always be one plain boiled egg beside the King’s plate, ready and waiting, should he ever desire it. For ten centuries the tradition has persisted. So now you see the royal egg.’

‘Charming,’ said Craig. ‘And over there, on the table behind him-?’

‘Yes, yes, his jewelled crown, his sceptre, his sphere and cross-power and justice-his horn holding the anointing oil. All symbols of his authority and prerogative. Again tradition, Mr. Craig. He does not wear the crown, and he does not brandish the sceptre. But they are there, you see, and he knows it, and the democratic government knows it, and the Swedish people know it-and for all, it is something to trust and hold onto in perilous times. I think, Mr. Craig, there can be worse virtues than secure knowledge of continuity existing from the distant past and offering reassurance for the future. It is something that atheists and republicans miss, I imagine.’

‘It is a knowledge many Americans miss,’ said Craig sadly. ‘I envy you what you have-something to believe in.’

By then the caviar had been served, and Craig picked at it without appetite. Glancing across the table, to see who was opposite, he recognized Stratman adjusting his bifocals, and next to Stratman, there was Emily, also picking at her caviar, eyes downcast.

Craig had no interest in the splendid dinner. All of his effort was concentrated on catching Emily’s eye, and somehow letting her know that he had been foolish and must have her pardon. From time to time, steadily, in the next hour and a half, he stared at her. Ingrid Påhl spoke to him, and Leah spoke to him, but he did not hear them. The hot dishes came and went-the consommé, the marinerad sill (which tasted like sweet smelts), the large cut of venison with currant jelly, the tender reindeer steak, the concoction of lettuce, fruit, peas, shrimps and sliced mushrooms identified as västkrustsallad, the traditional bombe with its regal crown of sugar-but Craig left most untouched, and when he ate, he ate sparingly. He had requested more champagne, and this he drank through the entire feast. In all this time, as he stared at Emily, she refused to lift her head and acknowledge his existence. Since the table was wide, and the vase was a barrier, and Leah another, he could not address her.

Morosely, he drank, once responding to a formal toast to His Royal Highness, and another time toasting the memory of Alfred Nobel. His inner emotional barometer rose to self-righteousness and dropped to self-pity. For a short period, he resented the injustice of Emily. After all, he asked himself, what had he done that was so sinful and wrong? He had lured a pretty girl into a private room and had told her that she was beautiful and that he wanted to kiss her. Was that a crime? Hell, no, it was a compliment, and any other girl would have been proud of it-from a Nobel laureate, at that. The failure was her own, not his. Chrissakes, he hadn’t violated or hurt her, had he?

Then, for another period, he decided that he had, indeed, violated and hurt her. Every woman, he told himself, is vulnerable in different ways, and hurt has its many varieties. One woman you would injure and spoil by physical defilement-by forcible entry into her body. Another woman you would wound by mental defilement-by insult and disrespect through words or actions. Obviously, Emily Stratman was the second woman. Undoubtedly, she was shy of men, probably a virgin, who regarded even the small acts of coercion-words of seduction, a kiss, an embrace, a stray hand-as an attack on her private and individual womanhood and an act of ravishment. When he came to this understanding of her, Craig was once more depressed and mortified.

But then again, after yet another goblet of champagne, the barometer rose in his favour. What did he give a damn about her for anyway? There had been no real women since Harriet, and he had been spared emotional turmoil about other women because he had been so devoted to his personal turmoil and guilt. Under these conditions, this Emily person was an intruder. For a moment, finding her, he had been bold enough to cross the forbidden frontier back into reality, and it had been as unpleasant as he had always feared it might be, and now he was glad to go back to where he had come from. Women died with Harriet. To hell with them all. Good-bye, Emily.

He was surprised to see that everyone at the table was rising. With a start, he realized that the Royal Banquet was ended and that the King had departed. With difficulty, he pushed himself to his feet.

‘There’ll be coffee in the salon,’ Ingrid Påhl was saying.

‘Good,’ he said.

He noticed that Leah was engaged in conversation with a diplomat, and had preceded him. He fell in beside Ingrid Påhl and returned to the salon, where a long buffet held the coffee.

His meditations at the table had disturbed him, and now he wanted to avoid formal company and idle talk and to think himself straight in privacy. He was in no mood for Emily now and less in a mood for Leah. He wanted to flee from the rejecters, the embodiments of disapproval.

Nearby, Count Bertil Jacobsson stood momentarily alone, fixing one of his decorations. Craig went to him.

‘Count,’ he said, ‘when you see my sister-in-law, Miss Decker, tell her I left early, I wanted to walk back to the hotel, get some air.’

‘Certainly, Mr. Craig.’ Jacobsson did not hide his concern. ‘Are you all right?’

‘Never better. Memorable evening. Excellent dinner.’

‘You’ll be pleased to know His Majesty was positively delighted with you.’

‘Tell that to my sister-in-law, will you?’ He wanted to add: and tell it to Emily Stratman, too. But he refrained. He said, instead, ‘And by the way, thanks, Count.’

With that, Craig went for his hat and overcoat, and then left the Royal Palace.

He waited on the windswept kerb, in front of the lonely small hotel, for the taxi that he had summoned from the cheap bar inside. A waiter had directed him to dial 22.00.00, and he had, and then given the girl his address and name, and she had said, ‘Bil kommer’, which the waiter had told him was good, and now in the cold, he waited for the taxi.

The last time that he had looked, it had been near midnight, and now it must be much later. After leaving the palace, he had walked and walked, not covering much ground in his old man’s walk, staggering sometimes, and leaning against frozen walls of darkened buildings. In the late winter hour, the city had been desolate of life, and without sound except for the heavy clop of his shoes on the pavement and stones and the occasional whirring passage of a motor vehicle. When his nose, mouth, and chin felt numb, almost frostbitten, he had found the gloomily lit hotel in the side street and the empty bar, and for half an hour had defrosted himself with whisky.

For the most part, his brain had been too soggy to entertain logical thought. But an immediate matter had frequently drifted in and out of his head, until, in the bar, he had captured it and made a decision. This night, it seemed, he had reached the nadir of his existence. A glamorous occasion, of which he had been a part as a highly honoured guest, had proved one more of life’s Waterloos. For a moment, in that occasion, he had come alive, felt old stirrings, and because he was no longer armed to be alive, he had failed and sunk back into easier demise. Yet strangely, in all his walking, some persistent fragment of an emotion-infinitesimal but pulsating-survived. The emotion, long dormant, was identifiable: the desire to be loved, not pity-loved, not respect-loved, but simply loved.

When the emotion came clear, he knew what must be done. In sobriety, it would have been madness. Insobriety had a logic all its own. Craig had made his telephone call for the taxi, and now on the kerb, worn and quivering, he waited.

At last, the black sedan with the meter arrived. Craig ducked into its rear seat. For seconds, he searched for his wallet, then located it, and removed the slip of paper that he had found attached to his bottle on the train from Malmö.

‘Drive me to Polhemsgatan 172C,’ he said.

The ride was fast and skidding and of brief duration. He gave the driver a large note, so that he would not have to figure out the kronor, accepted the change, handed over a three-kronor tip, and found himself before a seven-storey apartment building. On the glass door hung a wreath of Christmas lights, disconnected. Craig punched the buzzer, and the door sprang open. He entered.

Above each letterbox, in the hallway wall, was a name, an apartment letter, and a floor number. The fifth from the right read ‘Fröken Lilly Hedqvist, Apt. C., Fl. 6.’

Dizzily groping his way in the faint light, Craig reached the elevator. It was an unusual triangular cage, meant to accommodate two thin Lilliputians, and Craig stuffed himself into its confines as into a foxhole. He squinted at the buttons, hit No. 6, and ground upward to the topmost floor.

When the elevator shuddered to a halt, Craig squirmed out of it. The short, dim corridor swam before his eyes. He wondered if he would make it, or should-the search for love seemed less reasonable now-but suddenly, he knew, this was a better folly than returning to the Grand Hotel and Leah.

With one hand on the wall to support himself, he traversed the corridor. The last apartment door, near the window and fire escape, bore the letter ‘C’. He rapped gently, and when there was no immediate response, he rapped harder.

Her voice came from behind the partition. ‘Ja?’

‘It’s I,’ he said.

He heard the lock turn, the door opened partially, and then, at once, it opened fully.

He recognized only the cascade of golden hair. ‘Mr. Craig,’ she whispered with concern, drawing her lavender robe about her.

She swung back and forth before his eyes, like a metronome, and he made one desperate effort at courtliness. He removed his hat, he thought, and said, ‘Miss Lilly-’ and could not remember her last name.

‘Come in, please.’

Her tone was so beseeching that he obeyed at once. His impaired vision could only furnish part of the single room: a mosaic on the wall over a pinewood divan with striped cushions; a glass coffee table on a black tubular frame; two wicker chairs; a small television set; a double bed pulled down from a recess in the wall. Somehow, he reached the bed, and came down on the fat eiderdown.

She was before him, he knew.

He tried to explain. ‘Lilly, I-I’m very drunk-and very old-and don’t care-except-tonight-I wanted to be with someone who would know and not mind-and I thought of you, Lilly. Do you mind?’

She knelt before him. ‘Oh, Mr. Craig. I am happy for me that you came.’

‘I’ll just rest a little and go back to the hotel.’

She took his chilled hands and rubbed them, transmitting her warmth into him. ‘You will stay. I will take care of you. Lie down, lie down and sleep.’

He felt satisfied and welcomed, and then realized that she had taken off his overcoat and jacket and that his head was deep in the feather pillow and that his legs had been lifted on the bed. She was undoing his collar and shirt, he thought, and she was above him, tending him, and perhaps what had brushed his cheek was her breast. It was wonderful to imagine this before sleep, and then, at once, he slept.

He became conscious behind his eyelids, and he waited, motionless, while gradual awakening crept downward through his outstretched body.

When he opened his eyes, he saw the thin drapes, and he saw that the city was still dark behind them. The room in which he lay was partially illuminated by some night lamp out of sight, and from a far corner came the hushed purr of radiator heat. He had expected to find himself in his upstairs bedroom at Miller’s Dam, and then remembered that he was in the Grand Hotel in Stockholm, and then, with increasing bewilderment, he understood that he was in a room unknown to him.

Against the gravity of sleep weight, he sat up with effort, pushing off the blanket. Except for his shorts, he was naked. He had no memory of undressing for bed, when suddenly the last memories of the night flooded into his brain. The image came clear-the cascade of golden hair, the lavender robe-and he swivelled from his sitting position to fill in the rest.

Lilly Hedqvist, curled beneath the blanket, slept a few feet from him on the double bed. She slept with the easy innocence of a child girl, strands of her tangled hair across her cheeks, hiding all but the beauty mark above her mouth. The blanket was drawn to her shoulders, so that only the flimsy white straps of her nightgown were visible.

Studying her in this unguarded moment of inanimateness, Craig was touched. He had invaded her privacy, a stranger, a foreigner, a drunk, and she had taken him in with unreserved kindness and open trust, and offered him her care and her bed. Craig owed her much, he knew, and what he owed her first was to leave her undisturbed and to remove himself from her presence.

Reluctantly, he eased himself off the bed, wishing he had been given this meeting before the time of his disintegration. But then, he told himself, this meeting would not have occurred, for it had been born of pity-hers for him, and his for himself.

He padded after the bathroom, opening a cupboard by mistake, and then finding the bathroom. With the fluorescent light on, and the inevitable mirror before him, he tried to see in the reflection what Emily Stratman had seen before midnight and Lilly Hedqvist had seen since midnight. He saw a gaunt and angular face ravaged by weakness, and it sickened him. Turning on the tap, he doused his face in cold water and then washed. He rinsed his mouth. Briefly, he felt revived. He was sober and, incredibly, without a hangover. He took a silent vow: a new leaf, no more drink, no more self-destruction, no more anti-life.

Tiptoeing into the living-room, he picked his shirt and trousers off the chair beside the bed, and then, suddenly, as he stood there, he was too fatigued to dress. He wanted only the bed again, that and an infinity of warmth and peace, and a later awakening to a world where something mattered. Weary and dispirited, he lowered himself to the edge of the bed. He sat hunched, inert, knowing it was almost nine of a dark winter’s morning, knowing Leah waited and the Nobel committees waited and the programme waited, and he was not ready for celebrations.

‘Where are you going, Mr. Craig?’

Lilly’s voice startled him, and he spun around. She was on her back, beneath the cover, head turned towards him, one hand brushing the hair from her eyes and the other holding the blanket to her throat.

‘To the hotel,’ he said. ‘I wanted to get away without awakening you.’

‘Why?’

‘I didn’t want to compromise you.’ He considered this. ‘No, that’s not it at all. I was ashamed to face you.’

‘There is no reason for shame.’

‘The way you saw me-’

‘I saw a man who drank too much and was tired. I did not care. I had thought of you-the funny time we had on the Malmö ferry-and I was glad you thought of me and came to me.’

‘Yes, I did think of you.’

She pushed herself upright, against the pillow, still holding the blanket before her. With her free hand, she patted the bed. ‘Come here, Mr. Craig.’

He dropped his clothes, and went around the bed, and sat beside her.

‘Why did you think of me last night?’ she asked.

‘I don’t know exactly, Lilly.’

‘You do know.’

‘I wanted to be alone at first, and I was beaten, and then I didn’t want to be alone-I wanted companionship-and you came to mind-I had enjoyed you-and somehow I came here.’

‘But you have not had companionship, as you say. You have slept, and now you go, but you are still alone.’

‘Yes.’

‘Is this the way you want it-to still be alone?’

‘Lilly, for God’s sakes-’

‘No, you must be truthful with me and yourself. You must learn that. Why did you really come to me?’

‘All right, you asked-because I wanted you, dammit-’

‘You wanted me,’ she repeated, flatly, levelly, without the inflection of a question. ‘Yes, that is true. Then why are you afraid of it? Why do you make such complexity of loving and being loved? Why do you come alone and go alone?’

‘It takes two-’

‘We are two.’ She threw the blanket off her body and held out her arms. Immediately, he was beside her, in her arms, embracing her, kissing the hollow of her throat and neck and cheek.

‘Wait,’ she said softly, ‘we are still apart.’ She settled his head on the pillow, and bent and disrobed him completely. Then she took the hem of her white nightgown, and, gathering the nylon folds, she lifted it and pulled it over her head and dropped it to the floor. ‘There, now we are the same, both nudists.’

She was on her knees, posing for him, smiling. He studied her sensuous young body with pleasure. From the pink expanse of her chest her bust developed gradually, in a classical protruding curve, to the great circles of red nipples with their hardening points, and then the breasts rounded back into the full flesh of the body. The breasts were young and bursting, suspended straight outward, yet were not appendages but part of a symmetry of the whole, all faultlessly circular, like her rounding belly, the navel almost hidden, and the hips and thighs.

She came off her knees and stretched out full length, pulling his head down between her breasts. ‘You are tired, I can see, but now you will not rest alone.’

For a long time, he lay against her bosom, luxuriating in the pervading heat and knowing peace within himself, until slowly, slowly, tranquillity was kindled into desire. He began to kiss her, and could hear her heart as he heard his own. And now she had his head in her hands, and kissed his forehead and eyes, and at last, his lips.

‘Lie back,’ she whispered. ‘Yes-’

He felt his shoulder blades on the bed, but still held her waist, as she came over above him, encompassing him, burning her flesh into his until her flesh was fused to his trunk, and their corporeality was consummated.

All reason left him, and as he gave himself to sensation, he gasped, ‘Thank you, Lilly-’

Her voice was far away, and reached him from a distance, riding the surge and swell of a breaker. ‘Never-thank me-never,’ she whispered. ‘Lovers do not thank-’

And the rest was her sigh lost and suffocated by the onrushing whitecap of passion.

‘Lilly-Lilly-’

Her breath was on his cheeks and her oscillating murmurs were in Swedish, and he opened his heavy eyes and saw her, almost unreal with her tumbling flaxen hair and swaying breasts and creased belly, like some transported Norse goddess.

He wanted to tell her that she had come from heaven, but then she curled forward, closer and closer, her presence flowing over him, so that it was not a breaker that engulfed him but lava, and he could not speak. Her open mouth touched his, and he thought she whispered, ‘Freya.’

And he remembered Freya, Swedish goddess of carnal love, and he was shorn of control, and all gentleness was out of reach. He took her arms, and pulled her down, rolling her over to her side, so that they were side by side. The waves again buffeted him, and consciousness flickered low, but she managed to hold him to her. And suddenly he was released from the eddy, freed of the vortex, and lay spent in her arms.

‘Do not move,’ she said, and seconds later, she gave a convulsive shudder, and fell back, hands covering her eyes.

After a while, she removed her hands, and opened her eyes.

‘Du är inte ensam,’ she said. ‘You are not alone.’

But he had not heard her. He slept.