(1961) The Prize

by Irving Wallace

  When the psychiatrist drew abreast of him, Garrett observed that Dr. Keller’s face was as excited as an exclamation mark. ‘Your wife’s on the phone upstairs,’ he said, panting. ‘She has marvellous news for you—you’ve just been awarded the Nobel Prize in medicine!’

  Garrett allowed the words to sink in, and he accepted their impact naturally, with hardly any surprise, for he had secretly fantasied this moment for so long. But suddenly the shock of thrill reached his innards, and he felt the goose pimples on his arms and the flush on his cheeks.

  ‘You’re sure?’ he asked, incredulously.

  ‘Absolutely. Mrs. Garrett has the telegram from the Swedish Embassy.’ He offered his meaty hand. ‘May I be the first to congratulate you?’

  Garrett took the psychiatrist’s hand dumbly, and then released it. ‘I don’t know what to think,’ he said helplessly. ‘What does it mean?’

  ‘Your discovery is officially honoured. Your fame is now secure.’

  ‘The Nobel Prize,’ he said, half to himself, savouring the words.

  ‘Your wife’s on the phone—she’s waiting to speak to you.’

  They started back, making their way swiftly through the women shoppers. Inside the building, ascending the stairs once more, Garrett’s methodical mind began to translate the award. There was always money in it, and a trip, and above all—above all else—the international recognition of his work. For the first time, Farelli had been shunted aside. At last, he himself had received the full and exclusive honour that he deserved. His love for those anonymous Swedes, who had been wise enough to see the truth and present it to the world, was boundless.

  Upstairs, Dr. Keller pushed Garrett into his office, while he considerately stayed behind in the reception alcove to smoke.

  Garrett rushed to the psychiatrist’s desk, and brought the free receiver to his face. ‘Saralee?’

  ‘Darling! Isn’t it wonderful?’ Her usually mild, modulated voice was pitched out of control.

  ‘There can’t be any mistake?’

  ‘No, it’s here! The telegraph office called, and I thought it was a joke and demanded they send the wire over. They did right away, and I have it. I tried to get you—but Dr. Keller’s service wouldn’t put me through until now. It’s all true! Two newspapers called from Los Angeles—’

  ‘Read me the telegram.’

  Apparently she had it in her hand, for she read it immediately. Garrett listened, numbed, and then requested that she read it again, more slowly.

  When she had finished, he said, ‘We’ll be going to Stockholm. I’m just wondering about the children—’

  ‘We can leave them with Aunt Mae. John, this is so marvellous! I’ve dreamt about it so much. I never dared tell you. But you deserve it, and now you have it—forever—a Nobel Prize winner—’

  Yes—’

  ‘Dean Filbrick called. All the faculty at the college and everyone at the hospital knows. They want to have a celebration tonight—impromptu—after your speech—’

  Garrett had forgotten the speech. He tried to fasten his mind on it.

  He heard Saralee again. ‘One second, there’s someone at the door.’

  ‘Skip it—’

  But she had gone. He held the receiver and enjoyed the glow of success within him. There would never be another day in his life like this, so entirely his own, so fulfilled.

  Saralee had returned. ‘It’s another telegram.’ He heard the crackle of paper, as she opened it, and then a dead pause, and then her curious voice again. ‘It’s—it’s a cable from Rome—Italy—’ Her voice faded.

  ‘Who from?’ he inquired loudly, to bring her back.

  ‘I’ll read it. “I have just been informed by the Swedish Embassy that we are sharing this year’s Nobel Prize in medicine jointly. I am honoured our work has been so recognized and doubly honoured to receive the award with an American colleague I respect. Please accept my sincerest congratulations. I look forward to seeing my other half in Stockholm. Best wishes.” It is signed, “Carlo Farelli.” ’

  Garrett remained very still. There was no anger in him now, no fury, only an overwhelming defeat in this moment of victory. His frustration could not be articulated in language. He knew, finally, that he was being tied to this despicable Italian for life and the hereafter. His mind went back into the baseball lore of his youth—the immortal double-play combination of Tinker to Evers to Chance—how Tinker and Evers hated each other, and would not speak to one another, but were forced to continue their public co-operation and harmony before the world for their entire professional lives.

  Saralee’s voice came tinnily through the receiver. ‘John, this shouldn’t spoil anything—’

  No, he told himself, he would not let this spoil anything. He would go to Stockholm, for his half moment, and have his confrontation with Farelli, and make the moment whole and his own. Somehow, the Nobel committee and the world would yet know the truth about which was the genius and which the usurper. But not tonight, he realized at last, not on the night of a day like this.

  He sighed. The new speech was out. Tonight, again, it would be ‘Hippocrates and the Human Heart’. But there would be a different night, next month, in Sweden, he was sure. . . .

  It was exactly 4.30 of a chilly afternoon when the telegram from the Swedish Embassy in Washington, D.C., had arrived in the reconverted drapers store, next door to the Weekly Independent, that now served as the telegraph office in the rural hamlet of Miller’s Dam, Wisconsin.

  But that was forty-five minutes ago, and the message, with several others, still lay in the electric receiving machine, unseen by human eyes, untouched by human hands, uncommunicative.

  The lone keeper of the office, during the eight day hours, was Eldora Fleischer, eighteen-year-old daughter of a local dairy farmer, who usually divided these hours between original paperback novels and motion picture magazines, or daydreamed of making a sensation in Milwaukee or Chicago, where a wealthy and princely suitor would find her and persuade her to elope. Sometimes, in her more practical moods, the dream took another form. She would be working in the office, when he would enter, distraught. Because his Continental had developed engine trouble, he was delayed in this one horse town and had to send a wire—probably to the Governor or someone important. He was wealthy and princely, as well as young and handsome, and when he saw Eldora, he no longer wanted to send the wire. Smitten, love at first sight, he begged for her hand. At first haughty and remote, Eldora finally allowed herself to be persuaded. And off they went in the Continental—happily repaired—on their elopement, which would astonish the royalty of the Old World. Prepared, always, for this dream to become reality, Eldora adorned herself for her role. Her long hair was freshly bleached, her mascara artfully applied, her make-up ready for the cameras. She wore her best and tightest and thinnest dresses to work, even on cold days, and the necklines were always plunging. Eldora was short, milky, buxom, definitely aphrodisiac, and patiently she worked and waited.

  But at 4.15 this afternoon, she had tired of waiting. The week before, she had made the acquaintance of a new boy who had moved to town. His hair was wavy, and his face not unattractive despite the pimples, and he was impressively tall. He had moved to Miller’s Dam from Beloit—a metropolis, after all—and he was twenty-two—along in years and mature—and he was a grocer’s assistant and would be more. His first name was Roger. His last name was unpronounceable. His importance was this: when Eldora saw him, she tingled, and liked the feeling.

  At 4.15, he had sauntered into the telegraph office. It was his day off. He had made some amusing jokes, really clever, and had invited Eldora to join him in a smoke. Since Eldora did not dare to smoke publicly—one of her father’s Baptist friends might see her—she suggested to Roger that they retire to the tiny store-room in the rear. The telegraph office was rarely visited at this hour, and if it was, the bell over the door would ring and warn Eldora.

  Now it was 5.15, and Eldora was still in the store-room with Roger. She ha
d smoked two cigarettes, and he had smoked three. Not once had the front doorbell disturbed them. They had talked, and finally he had pulled her down on his lap, rocking precariously on the old swivel chair. He had kissed her neck, and the cleft between her breasts, until she thought that she would die of ecstasy, and now he had slid his hand under her dress.

  ‘Wait,’ she said, ‘wait, Roger—’

  She jumped off his lap, and ran to the store-room door, closed it, and bolted it from the inside. She would not be able to hear the bell, but there could be excuses if she was reported, and she did not care, anyway, At once, she returned, and settled in Roger’s lap, and closed her eyes. More boldly, his hand rubbed under her dress again, over her plump thigh, until his fingers touched the fringe of her pants.

  Her eyes were still shut. ‘Roger,’ she whispered, ‘you can do that—but nothing else.’

  ‘Aw honey—’

  She opened her eyes. ‘I mean it, Roger. I’m a lady.’

  ‘Okay, sweetie—’

  He kissed the hollow of her neck, and she closed her eyes once more and hugged him tightly, and his hands moved slowly beneath her pants.

  Neither one of them heard the front doorbell.

  The front door had been opened, and the bell sounded, by Jake Binninger, the stubby, myopic, eager reporter, rewrite man, clipper of exchange newspapers, and advertising salesman of the Weekly Independent, next door.

  He always appeared frenetic, but now a new dimension of enthusiastic agitation seemed to have been added. In his hand he carried a slip from the teletype machine, which was fed by a national news wire. He searched the room for Eldora, and could see her nowhere.

  ‘Eldora?’

  There was no response. He quickly reasoned that she had run out for a cup of coffee. Nevertheless, he was determined not to leave without confirmation of the incredible dispatch in his hand. According to the dispatch, the notification had been sent to Miller’s Dam by telegram. There must be a carbon of the telegram. Jake Binninger wanted the confirmation—the story was the biggest thing that had happened to anyone in Miller’s Dam since the Pike’s Creek murder, a decade ago—and, if true, he wanted the exact contents of that wire.

  He circled the desk, found Eldora’s list of deliveries—there had been only six this day, and not one the one he sought—and then, almost as an afterthought, he began to read the messages in the machine.

  He found it at once, gave an exclamation of pleasure, and speedily brought out his pencil and copied the wording of the wire on the bottom of his teletype sheet.

  IN RECOGNITION OF YOUR POWERFUL AND SIGNIFICANT WRITINGS IN SUPPORT OF HUMANITARIAN IDEALS AND IN ESPECIAL APPRECIATION OF YOUR EPICAL NOVELS THE PERFECT STATE AND ARMAGEDDON THE NOBEL FOUNDATION OF STOCKHOLM ON BEHALF OF THE SWEDISH ACADEMY IS PLEASED TO INFORM YOU THAT YOU HAVE TODAY BEEN VOTED THIS YEARS NOBEL PRIZE IN LITERATURE STOP THE PRIZE WILL BE A GOLD MEDALLION AND A CHEQUE FOR FIFTY THOUSAND THREE HUNDRED DOLLARS STOP THE AWARD CEREMONY WILL TAKE PLACE IN STOCKHOLM ON DECEMBER TENTH STOP DETAILS FOLLOW STOP HEARTIEST CONGRATULATIONS STOP

  The message was addressed to MISTER ANDREW CRAIG SEVENTY SEVEN WHEATON ROAD MILLERS DAM WISCONSIN. . . .

  It was 5.20, and they had been conversing and playing gin rummy for two hours, when Lucius Mack realized that his companion was about to pass out.

  Andrew Craig’s long fingers woodenly clamped onto the cards, fanned out erratically, in his hand. Carefully, too carefully, he laid the cards face down, fumbled for the fifth of Scotch, and emptied the last drops in his glass, hitting the rim slightly so that some of the liquor dribbled onto the table. He put the bottle down, then lifted the glass with its inch of liquor, and considered it blankly.

  Lucius Mack saw that Craig was too intoxicated to bring the glass to his lips.

  ‘I think I’ve had about enough, Andrew,’ said Mack tactfully. ‘Let’s pick up this game tomorrow. I’ve got to get back to the shop.’

  Craig lifted his head with effort and tried to focus his glazed eyes on his friend. ‘Somebody’s got to keep—to keep—wheels of industry turning,’ he said thickly. He managed to swallow the last dregs of his bottle.

  Mack pushed back his chair, and rose. ‘Like to lie down a bit?’

  ‘Like nothing better, Florence Nightingale,’ said Craig. ‘No games. I’m stoned, and we both know it, an’—and I like it.’

  Mack came around the table to Craig, prepared to assist him out of the chair, but in a gesture of self-respect, Craig set his hands on the table and heaved himself upright. Standing, he swayed precariously, and flattened his hand against the wall to stop himself from falling.

  He narrowed his eyes, to find Mack, and then smiled. ‘You’re good, Lucius—good guy.’ He remembered his duties as a host. ‘Sure you had enough to drink?’

  ‘Too much, with a night’s work ahead.’

  ‘Someday I’d like to say jus’—just that—“Too much, with a night’s work ahead.” ’

  ‘You will, Andrew, believe me.’

  Craig removed his steadying hand from the wall, and tried to take a step toward the bed, but he staggered. Mack caught his arm firmly, supporting him. Craig conceded defeat. ‘Got the dizzies. All the juice gone down to my pins.’

  Mack slowly led the author to the bed, then helped lower him to a sitting position. The instant that he made contact with the mattress, Craig fell back on a portion of the pillow. Easily, efficiently, as he had done so many times in the past, Mack lifted his friend’s long legs from the floor and settled them on the bed. Then he removed Craig’s leather moccasins and placed them neatly under the night table.

  Briefly, he stood over Craig and examined him. The prostrated figure, rangy and surprisingly muscular for one so committed to self-destruction, was clothed in an old, grey T-shirt and soft corduroy slacks. Mack decided that his friend would be more comfortable this way than in pyjamas. Despite the heat blowing in from the floor furnace vent, the autumn chill crept through the window cracks, and Craig would require warmth.

  Lucius Mack returned to the table, and set about cleaning it up—Leah, Craig’s sister-in-law, downstairs, could not tolerate a mess. Mack gathered the playing cards into a deck and stuffed them into the box. He dropped the empty Scotch bottle beside the other one in the waste-paper basket. He took the two glasses into the bathroom, rinsed and dried them, and then placed them on top of Craig’s green file cabinet.

  This done, Lucius Mack stood in the centre of the room and surveyed it. He liked the narrow, brown, cosy room, beneath the house’s gable, and it was as much his own as the rooms he kept in the Perkins boarding-house. His eyes took in the rolltop desk, and covered typewriter, so long unused, and the five shelves of books, mostly reference and history, with the uppermost shelf reserved for Craig’s own four novels, in the American, English, and odd foreign editions.

  Lucius Mack had known the Craigs, or Craig, more than five years, and for more than two of them he had known Craig intimately. It hardly seemed eight years ago when Andrew and Harriet Craig—he so boyish, with only two novels published and a third one planned—had arrived to make their residence in Miller’s Dam. They had bought the Hartog place, this place, on ‘Wheaton Road, and renovated it, and in the beginning had kept to themselves, rather like honeymooners. Lucius Mack had met Harriet Craig one morning in the first month of their residence, when she had visited the newspaper to place a classified advertisement for a daily help. Memory usually dimmed with the years, but Mack still retained what had impressed him then: a dark blonde, quiet and self-possessed, with a pleasing, almost gay Slavic face, all features broad but regular—he had guessed that her antecedents were Lithuanian. She had been of medium height, perhaps more, and only seemed smaller side by side with Craig, whose lanky body went up six feet. She had been generously endowed, the full figure of a woman in every way, with a certain solidity that seemed to settle well against the Wisconsin landscape.

  A week later, Mack had written to Craig requesting an interview, and almost immedia
tely Craig had called in person. At the time, Mack had been the fledgling owner of the Weekly Independent. He followed the hard-set rule of all small-town newspapers—mention everyone’s name in print at least once during the year and more if possible. This was difficult, since so many members of the community were so dull. The arrival of newcomers from the East, especially a published author of growing reputation, provided an opportunity for Mack to enliven his pages.

  What the editor-publisher remembered most about Craig’s first visit were his tousled black hair and quick eyes, amused, encompassing, the implied cynicism of his half-smile, and the general impression of elongated, sunken, brooding features. Craig had proved a fine subject, and an easy, disarming talker. He and Harriet had been married five years, and enjoyed a honeymoon trip abroad, from Scandinavia to Italy, and she had suffered a miscarriage in the East, and they had lived on Long Island for five years, where Craig had written the first two novels. Once, on a trip to Madison, where his wife’s younger sister, Leah, had been attending the university, they had passed through Miller’s Dam. Later both had spoken, in accord, of buying a house in such a small, peaceful town and settling down there, someday, someday when there was an advance large enough. Both had continued living in New York, chafing at the compressed, tumultuous existence—‘millions of people being lonesome together’, Craig had said, quoting Thoreau—for the Craigs had both been Midwest-born—and then Craig’s second book had won sufficient approval from his publisher to guarantee a sizeable advance on his third idea. Without a moment’s hesitation, Andrew and Harriet Craig had moved to Miller’s Dam.

  Remembering now that first interview, Lucius Mack recalled that Craig had been a fascinating conversationalist. Most men have one or two specialties, at most a handful of interests, and display vast ignorance of and disinterest in everything else. Not Andrew Craig. He had shown himself to be interested in literally everything, and the custodian of the most bizarre bits of knowledge. In that first interview, in his lively manner, he had discussed the French Jesuits who had sponsored Father Marquette, the trajectory of Three-fingered Brown’s curve ball, the sexuality of Alexander Hamilton’s mistress, Mrs. Maria Reynolds, the peculiar genius of Charles Fort, the joys of pyramidology, and the reasonableness of Kazentsev’s speculations that the meteoric explosion on the Tunguskaia River of Siberia in 1908 had actually been a nuclear explosion from outer space.