(1961) The Prize

by Irving Wallace

  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 recal
l 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?’