(1961) The Prize

by Irving Wallace

  All of this took place the day and the evening of November eighth. One week later, almost exactly to the hour, on November fifteenth, M. Sarraut telephoned. He said, in his neutral bass, that he possessed the goods she had ordered and wondered if she was free to accept delivery within the next thirty minutes. With thumping heart, she said that she was quite alone this evening and would eagerly await the delivery.

  In twenty minutes, the thin manila envelope, securely gummed and sealed, was delivered by a sallow-faced young man, whom Denise tipped 200 old francs. The moment that he was gone, she shut and latched the front door, made her way unsteadily to the coffee-table where her half-finished whisky waited, sat down on the edge of the sofa and ripped open the detective’s envelope. There were three pages of type, neatly single-spaced, terse and ineloquent, yet the raw material of ten thousand novels.

  She read, and reread, and reread once more, the pitiless report, rocking silently on the sofa like an old lady suddenly widowed and bereft, until only phrases came up at her like daggers. ‘Shadowed by four operatives in relays . . . on two occasions in six days met and dined with the same young lady at the restaurant, Le Petit Navire, in the rue des Fossés-St.-Bernard, and on both occasions retired later to the young lady’s apartment on the third floor at 53 rue du Bac. . . . The first occasion was November 10. They met inside the restaurant at 7.22 P.M. They emerged at 8.47. They walked on the Boulevard St.-Germain for 17 minutes, holding hands. The man in question summoned a public vehicle. They arrived at the rue du Bac at 9.21. They proceeded inside together. The man in question emerged at 11.43 in the evening. He walked to a kiosk, found it closed, and returned to his dwelling by public vehicle. . . .

  ‘The second occasion was November 12. The man in question arrived at Le Petit Navire at 7.50 P.M. The lady arrived eight minutes later. They emerged together at 8.59. They talked in the street. He kissed her. They walked, his arm about her waist, to the corner of the Quai de la Tournelle, where they waited four minutes until they found a public vehicle. They arrived at 53 rue du Bac at 9.16. The door was locked. She rang for the concierge. They waited and embraced. They entered the building at 9.19. The man in question emerged alone at 12.04 A.M. Apparently a public vehicle had been summoned by telephone. He waited, and when the vehicle arrived he proceeded directly home. . . .

  ‘For future reference, our operatives have superficially investigated the young lady in question. . . . Name: Mlle Gisèle Jordan. Birthplace: Rouen. Age: 27. Occupation: Mannequin. Place of Employment: Balenciaga, Avenue George-V near the Alma. Hair colour: Blonde. Height: 5 feet, 7 inches. Weight: 112 pounds. Other dimensions, bust—32 inches; waist—23 inches; hips—34 inches. Marital status. Never married. Miscellaneous: Leaves work daily 5.05, takes bus No. 63 from the Pont de l’Alma, departs bus corner of Boulevard St.-Germain and rue du Bac, arrives home generally 5.25. Has long-term lease on flat subdivided from landlady’s quarters. Rental 580 new francs per month. Apartment consists of living-room, bedroom, one bath, no kitchen. Hot-plate on premises. Décor Louis XV. . . . If client wishes more information on lady in question, it can readily be obtained.’

  The threat of these cold facts froze Denise into a state of stupor. It was as if she had suffered concussion of the brain. Until now, she had gone ahead protected by a safe sense of unreality, somehow certain that it was all a low Gallic comedy of errors, and that in the end all would be well in this best of all possible worlds. But here before her, as vitrified as the sperms that she and Claude had worked upon so long, were the facts. The other person was real, young, glamorous, with dimension. The assignations were real, time, place, with sensual intervals implied. A superior enemy named Gisèle. Her own Claude!

  Denise’s emotions ran the usual cycle of this unique grief: she was in turn revolted, appalled, horrified, agitated, intimidated. As Denise sat shivering, the cycle had run its course from amazement to mourning to fear. There was not yet self-pity, and so she did not drink. She merely sat in a comatose state, unmoving, unthinking, as stone.

  How long she sat, she did not know. Much later, when she realized that the buzzer was sounding, she tried to rally, expecting Claude and preparing defences. Beyond the door, when she opened it, stood an elderly, well-dressed gentleman—she thought he had worn a pince-nez—carrying a bouquet of red roses and a telegram. He was, he said, the Swedish Ambassador to France. He had come, he said, as the bearer of good tidings.

  She found sufficient social instinct to allow him into her living-room. She took the telegram and read it, and half heard his profuse congratulations. She remembered little else. The rest would remain a blank to history. Had she replied? Had she offered him a liqueur? Had she shown happiness? All was amnesia. Perhaps he had stayed five minutes. Surely he had mistaken her speechless state for one of ecstasy usually seen in the stigmatic. A proud, kind man, he had disappeared with understanding.

  No sooner had he retired than the telephone had begun. Figaro. France-Soir. Match. New York Herald Tribune. They were telephoning not for information but to learn if she and her husband were home. They were on their way, a half-dozen or more, reporters and photographers. And she was alone.

  The self-possessed Dr. Denise Marceau of the laboratory would never have made the next decision. But she was disoriented, in a home not fortified. She found the telephone book, and in it the hated name. When she heard the other’s voice, and identified herself, her sensitivity travelled with the sound waves. She knew that he was there. And then his own voice, that of the trapped schoolboy, confirmed his infidelity. . . .

  It was half an hour before he appeared. When he arrived, she was in the centre of the sofa, sufficiently drunk to make her regal and assured, surrounded by a semicircle of reporters and photographers. She had been mouthing the litany of the laboratory, which required no concentration, but the questions were now getting more personal, more alarming, and her poise teetered. Claude came in time, like the uniformed cavalry in those dreadful American western films, and she was rescued from indiscretion.

  She refused to meet her husband’s eyes, knowing that he was watching her, anxious to gauge her mood, her probable reactions. She stood still for the nauseating instant his lips brushed her cheek, a salute to their victory for the photographers. Magnetically, he drew all attention to himself, replying to a new outburst of questions with vigour and colour. During this exchange, she touched her forehead, murmuring headache, over-excitement, and slipped off to the bedroom. She secured the door from the inside, and an hour later, when he tried it, he found that he was locked out.

  She slept not well but soundly, and in the early morning, when she emerged fully clothed in sweater and skirt, she saw that he had spent his night on the sofa. She came upon him in the dining-room having brioches and coffee, and prepared with his rehearsed speech. While dressing, she had thought that she could maintain complete control when she saw him, but throughout the short, sharp scene which began immediately on her entrance, she clung desperately to the civilized line to keep above hysteria. Her accusations reflected her hurt, all infinite shame, and loss of pride. He reduced what had happened to a lapse of good sense, pressed and squashed it down to a minor masculine flaw, an accidental fall. There was little that he could say under the circumstances, yet he said a good deal, self-probing, self-analyzing, his failure, his weakness, and what he said was what she had hoped to hear. But hurt had damaged her deeply. He understood this, and aching at her distress, he blurted the promise that the outer involvement was ended, that it was through this day, that if she believed him, she would not regret it. She had gone to the bedroom red-eyed, and he had gone out, and the scene was done.

  In the following few weeks, it was their Nobel award that made life possible. During the afternoon hours, it seemed, they were never left alone together. Their living-room teemed with welcomed guests. One day, their colleagues. The next, government officials. Another, faculty. Another, press. The nights were saved by their deliberate timing. Every night when he returned, she was asleep, dr
ugged with pills. Every morning, when he awakened, she was already out in the city, devoting these early hours to preparations for Stockholm.

  For Denise, the report delivered every third day from M. Sarraut was the focal point of existence. There were four such reports in all, before the departure for Stockholm. The first and second showed that Claude had kept to his promise. He had not seen Gisèle. With the third, Denise’s hopes swelled. He had still not seen Gisèle. Obviously, it had been a foolish masculine aberration to use Cecilia’s description. And it was over. The fourth and final report was delivered to Denise two evenings before she was to leave for Sweden. This report exploded in her face.

  As ever, M. Sarraut’s log of infidelity was terse. It left so much between the lines, so much to the imagination, Denise wanted to scream. In the three days past, Claude had broken with asceticism not once, but twice. No longer Le Petit Navire, but two different obscure bistros in Montmartre. No longer 53 rue du Bac, but an apartment borrowed from a friend of the lady in question. In each instance, the man in question had been with the lady in question, in the apartment, over three hours.

  If Denise’s wound had been healing, it was now ripped savagely open again and lay raw and throbbing with pain. Denise could see clearly through her tears this time: the alcoholic was unable to keep his hand from the bottle, no matter what the consequences. Familiar grief made her reasonable, questioning. Was it sex alone, or sex and love? In either case, the answer provided no consolation. If it was Gisèle’s sex alone that drew him—and the vivid pictures this conjured up made her almost ill—then her own inadequacy was heightened, and her failure impossible to surmount. She shuddered at this animal defeat. Yet, it was always said, this was the lesser defeat. Eventually, a male might tire of the act, as it lost its variety, and tire of the actress, and return home chastened.

  But the defeat was primitive and deep, nevertheless. If it was love as well as sex that drew him to Gisèle, then Denise knew that she had no armour of resistance at all. If his affair was emotional, encompassing sex as only one part, and including all other affections, she was lost. Did she know which it was? Perhaps not, not yet. She feared his learning. Here she was, and here they were, and what should she do? Challenge him with the threat of immediate divorce? What if he took up the challenge, scandal or no scandal? What if she lost? To abandon so quickly the field of combat, to give him up after all these years, to that young, tall bitch, reinforced her anger. To be left alone, alone, sterile in the damn laboratory, an appendage severed, was impossible to contemplate. Yet to remain like this, wife in name only pitied by that bitch and by him and by herself, was equally unthinkable. What to do? For the moment, sheer hatred of the two of them sufficed. That, and then added to that, a word that carried limited pleasures of its own—retribution.

  Later, sluggishly disrobing for bed, the pills taking their effect, she knew that she was too ineffectual to exact immediate retribution. Somehow, somewhere, something would occur to her. How could this nightmare have come about? They had been so close, worked so well together, day and night, so many years, enjoyed so much, laughed in secret, accomplished such wonders. Imagine, Nobel Prize winners. It had gone wrong because they had run out of work, finished with their thing in common. Where do you climb after Everest’s summit? The hidden pitfall had been victory, itself a Pyrrhic victory that meant the end of goal, a sink of inactivity.

  Once in bed, drowsy, welcoming the approaching false death of night, she tried to envision the enemy. What had trusty M. Sarraut’s first report said? Balenciaga model. Five feet seven. A thirty-two-inch bust. A rail, a board, a thin plank of wood. How could Claude abandon her for that? And it was then, before sleep, that she determined to find out for herself.

  Claude was still asleep the next morning when she made the arrangement with a friend—not Cecilia, whom she could never bear to face again, but a friend who was extravagant and knew about clothes—to get an invitation to Balenciaga. The friend agreed to assist her in choosing a formal gown there for the Stockholm ceremony. Denise knew that she did not require a gown, since she had recently bought one, but she desperately needed to scrutinize and disparage the enemy.

  In her anxiety, Denise arrived ten minutes early for the afternoon appointment. Restlessly, she considered the Indo-Chinese figures, studded with semiprecious stones, in the windows of Balenciaga. To her dismay, they gave what lay ahead an aura of being the mysterious unknown. At last, Denise went inside, wandering among the Empire tables, with their scarves, gloves, hose, explaining to a black-garmented salesgirl that she required nothing from the boutique, that she was waiting for a friend.

  The moment that her friend arrived, Denise entered the elegant rose-leather padded elevator. On the third floor, an elderly, respectful vendeuse, the saleslady assigned to Denise by the house of Balenciaga and evidently aware of her customer’s prominence, eagerly greeted the pair, and led them into the showroom, inquiring after Madame’s exact wishes. Madame’s wishes were for a formal evening gown.

  Seated on a gold chair before the large mirror, exactly where she had sat last summer when she had been here with the English visitors, Denise awaited the appearance of the mannequins. The suspense was unbearable. She had lost eleven pounds since her troubles began, and felt more presentable because of it, but still she felt awkward and uncomfortable and increasingly nervous.

  She tried to instil within herself the confidence of the mistress of the mansion, who has summoned before her the wretched and erring upstairs maid whom the master had been discovered pinching. But now, as the distant curtains parted, and the exquisite mannequins paraded across the salon towards here—with each one’s approach she inquired of the vendeuse, in a whisper, the name and price of the modelled garment and, ever so casually, the name of the celebrated mannequin wearing it—her confidence ebbed.

  It was the fourth girl who made a stylish entrance now, and the saleslady’s whisper told her that this was Mademoiselle Gisèle Jordan, so popular in the fashion periodicals. Denise stiffened and waited as the tall figure, tiara, skin-tight white satin décolleté, pastel gloves drawn above the elbows, strode nearer and nearer. By some curious trick of vision, Denise saw only the girl’s breasts, unbound by any brassière beneath the gown. Perhaps she had unconsciously focused upon this first, because here she felt definite superiority.

  From the first day of their marriage, Claude had made much of her breasts—measuring a formidable 38—and she felt that he could not appreciate a flat-chested 32 half so well, not honestly. It surprised her that the nearing, gently shimmying breasts were as large as they seemed. They were extremely large around, and the dimension reported by M. Sarraut had deceived, for it had only reported fullness. The breasts were flat, yes, small in lack of depth, but round and young.

  Disconcerted by her loss of this one imagined superiority, ashamed of her focus, Denise concentrated on the entire form of the young creature who gyrated before her. At once, her heart sank. The animal was beautiful. The ash-blonde hair, pale blue eyes, high cheekbones, the damn moon breasts, the long thighs and legs, were breathtaking perfection. Before the creature could leave, Denise advised the vendeuse of an interest in the satin gown. Gisèle was ordered to circle the showroom again, and stand before Madame.

  Gisèle, too remote for contact, stared coolly above her customer into the mirror, her mind far away. Denise, feeling the blood in her own face, examined her adversary. She tried to be laboratory objective. She had a microscope and before her the living cells. What did Claude see in this microscope? Youth, for one thing. The flesh was taut and young and little used by time. But, Denise told herself, she, too, was young. On several occasions young research assistants had propositioned her. And then, with a twinge, she remembered that those occasions had been fifteen years ago, and that she had not been young for more than a decade. She applied her eye to the microscope once more. The cells swam off. The flesh remained. The specimen was magnificent in every way, and she was not. The specimen was exotic, and sh
e was not. Still, what did the specimen have that she herself lacked? She stared: two arms, two breasts, two legs, one vagina, and as scientist and student of sperms, she knew that the last did not vary much from female to female, differences were technical, minute, infinitesimal. Scientifically speaking, what could this specimen do in bed for Claude that had not already been done? There were only so many words to utter, so many gasps of pleasure, so many movements, so many positions, and finally, it came to the sperm, and she had seen thousands and all different but all the same in the feelings their giving evoked.

  Her eyes left the microscope and fastened wholly on what M. Sarraut discreetly termed the lady in question. The mystery of sex, the eternal enigma. Why, Denise asked herself, is her offering better than mine? Because it is younger? Newer? Different in feeling? Or is the seat of captivity her total entity and not localized in her organ? Is she more interesting, more amusing, more vivid, more energetic, more flattering, more passionate?

  She stared at the outlines of the lengthy, lovely limbs pressed against the satin sheath of gown, and the hateful image superimposed itself—Claude luxuriating in that superior female body, Claude lost, lost forever. Denise was crushed, routed, and another second of this would be unendurable.

  She signalled that she had seen enough of the gown, and she did not bother to watch her conqueror leave.

  She heard a voice. It was the vendeuse addressing her. ‘What does Madame think? Is it not enchanting?’

  ‘Oui,’ she was saying, ‘but it is not for me. Merci.’ She felt thick and graceless and old. She felt the unwanted orphan in the rear. She turned to her friend. ‘Je ne veux rien acheter maintenant. Let us go.’