(1961) The Prize

by Irving Wallace

  Märta Norberg had replied, ‘Yes, I know the story forwards and backwards,’ and then had remained silent, allowing him his introspection.

  Now a curious dark doubt crossed his brain and bothered him. ‘If you know the story,’ he said slowly, ‘then you must know there is no real part in it for you. The whole book is the hero, a man, one man. All the women have nothing more than episodes. There are six women in the book. They come and go. They have little bits and pieces. What would you do?’

  ‘I would be Desmona, the bohemian girl he marries.’

  ‘But she’s only in three chapters, and then she’s killed. That’s all there is of her, except what she is in his mind. You see, after she’s killed—’

  ‘I wouldn’t let her be killed,’ said Märta Norberg simply. ‘I’d throw out the other five women—well, four anyway—and keep Desmona alive.’

  Craig frowned. ‘Miss Norberg, I respect your genius as an actress—indeed, I worship it. But you are not an author. I am an author. This is my book, and in it Desmona dies early. Without that, there’s no point to the story line.’

  ‘Don’t be so ridiculously inflexible. You can change it around. There are a hundred possibilities, based on the little I have heard. Why, you haven’t even written her death scene yet. So all you have to do is not write it at all. You can make it an accident or something—she’s injured—in fact, I think that improves your story a great deal. And then, you can reshape the rest.’

  Craig was appalled. He measured his words. ‘Let me get this straight. I want no semantic misunderstanding. Are you suggesting—actually suggesting—that you will buy my next novel if—only if—I change it to conform to your idea of what the heroine should be?’

  Märta Norberg laughed, and lowered herself deeper in the water. ‘You make it sound like I’m threatening you. Don’t be an arty boy, Craig—one of those too young, ever young, foolish New England boys, forever out of the Ivy—making believe they are tender Prousts, untouched by human hands or other minds, putting down their precious, puny, gilded words as if the heavens had rent asunder to inspire them. What nonsense, and you know it, and I know it. Dickens, Balzac, Dumas, the whole lot of them, wrote by the page, manufactured to please their printers or their public, and nothing was spoiled, because they were good. Well, you’re good—and keeping one character alive to suit a customer and to keep your bank account in balance won’t make you a hack or sell you out. It’ll only teach you that you’ve grown up.’

  ‘What if I answer no, flatly no? Will you make the deal anyway?’

  ‘Of course not. As you say, there would be nothing in it for me.’

  He hated to say the next, but he wanted the deal.

  ‘You could change it around in Hollywood. I wouldn’t give a damn about that.’

  ‘Impossible. The book itself will be widely read and known—serial, book clubs, trade edition, paper edition—and I want that heroine built up—talked about—loved—long before I give her life on the screen. Now, will you do it?’ She smiled at him sweetly. He was about to speak, evidently in anger, for she quickly put her wet forefinger to his lips, sealing them. ‘Wait, Craig. Before you speak, there’s another aspect of my offer that I’ve deliberately withheld from you. I was going to tell you about it later—under—under more favourable circumstances.’ She paused. ‘I see you’re so male upset, I had better tell you now.’

  ‘All right—what?’

  ‘The two hundred thousand was only a part of my offer. There is a richer part, and it’s worth infinitely more. Do you know what that part is?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Me.’ She smiled at his bewildered reaction. ‘Me, Märta Norberg,’ she said simply. ‘I go with the deal.’

  At first he was puzzled, because what this innuendo suggested was possible between them had been so remote in his head, and then he pretended to be more puzzled than he really was, because if he had misunderstood her, he would be made to look a dunce. He studied her wet, celebrated, and mocking countenance beneath the rubber bathing-cap, and held his silence.

  ‘Did I shock you?’ she asked.

  ‘Are you saying what I think you’re saying?’

  ‘Bingo,’ she said cheerfully. ‘As the little girls with curls used to say, in silent pictures, I’m prepared for a fate worse than death. I don’t have the cutes, Craig, and I don’t have coyness. When I collaborate, it’s all the way.’

  He was so dumbfounded, he wondered how he could offer any negative reaction without sounding less than adult, less than masculine. He decided to handle the offer as lightly as she had originally made it, and see what would come of their talk. ‘My dear, no man has ever been more flattered.’

  ‘Balls,’ she said.

  The expletive was not coarse but business like, and he grimaced. ‘You mean it, then? How can you—?’

  ‘It’s easy,’ she said curtly. ‘I want what you have, and you want what I have. That’s all that matters. I will add this. What makes the trade more agreeable is that I find you attractive, and I’m sure you find me so. Even if you weren’t attractive, my offer would still stand.’ She read the lingering disbelief on his features, and solemnly took one hand from the ladder and patted his cheek. ‘Don’t make a federal case of a simple proposition. You creative people are all the same. You think too much. You introspect every pleasure to death. Obey your real impulse, Craig, and you will look back on this night as the beginning of the most memorable deal—relationship—in your life.’

  With that, she turned back to the ladder and gracefully, sideways, in the way actresses are taught, climbed out of the pool. For a moment, she stood long and lean, high above him, water sliding down her concave breastbone and slight bosom and sleek flanks and dripping to the poolside. As she unclasped her bathing-cap, and then shook her hair free, she was transformed into femininity once more, and he became aware of her, almost for the first time this evening, as a love object. The wetness of her, the brevity of her attire, the posture of her, the knowledge of her legend, gripped him. She wore two strips of peppermint bikini, one strip of material unfilled and pasted by water to her button breasts, and the other strip, stopping several inches below her navel, water-sogged and caught up and drawn up tightly between her legs to two bows on her naked hips.

  Craig did not deceive himself. He felt desire for this person, but the desire he felt was not unadulterated lust for an inciting female but passion for Märta Norberg, a love object the whole world of men coveted and were denied.

  If you thought about it—and now he did—the invitation was unbelievable, and because it was unbelievable, it was irresistible. Here now, looking down at him as she dried herself, was the most popularly desired woman on the surface of the earth, kept in the public eye by continuous reruns of her classic films. This moment, in darkened community houses girdling the earth, men in endless number, of every size, shape, complexion, morality—men who were Roumanians, Bulgarians, Kurds, Afghans, Armenians, Siamese, Sudanese, Nigerians, Ecuadorians, Andorrans, and fellow Protestant Americans—sat glued to their theatre seats and benches, staring up at the elongated, enlarged, flat and bright image of this enigmatic Swede projected on white sheets and screens before them. This night, they were united in a common admiration and indulgence. One and all were vicariously subjecting Märta Norberg to physical ravishment, and enjoying the bliss of their cinematic rape. Only when the lights went on, and the screen went blank, and they knew the image was all illusion, did they feel briefly cheated—but the fantasy of Norberg remained in their minds, and the elusive legend continued immortal.

  And now, incredibly, the flesh and not the image of all this vicarious seduction was before him. She was his for a single word. Yet he could not utter it.

  Having dried, she sat down at the edge of the pool, dangling her legs so that her toes touched the water. ‘Well, Craig, what were you thinking?’

  ‘I was watching you.’

  ‘Yes, I know. Does it simplify your decision?’

  ‘It ma
kes it more complicated.’ He moved to the ladder. ‘I want you, you know.’

  ‘Of course you do. I want you, too. So what stands between us?’

  ‘The deal. Do you really mean it?’

  ‘Certainly, I mean it. Do you doubt me for one second? Say yes, and you shall have the preliminary letter to sign, and the down payment in the morning, with the rest of the money when you have finished the novel.’

  ‘No, I mean the other part.’

  ‘Me? That, too, of course, with pleasure.’

  ‘I’m dumb. Spell it out.’

  Her lips curled slightly in what he interpreted to mean a triumphant contempt for the inevitable weakness and surrender of all men. ‘What do you wish me to tell you, Craig?’

  He grabbed the rails of the ladder, and pulled himself out of the water, and climbed the rungs to the poolside. He retrieved her towel and began to rub his skin under her gaze.

  ‘I’m an amateur at these matters, and I admit it,’ said Craig, working the towel. ‘How do I get the bonus payment? And how do I deliver my work to your satisfaction?’

  ‘It will all be quite natural.’

  ‘Natural?’

  ‘You will see. You will remain in Sweden longer—you will move in here—we will work together on your outline until we are both satisfied.’ She saw his frown, and then amended her wish. ‘If you prefer, I will take you to my place on the Riviera, or even accompany you to New York, where I keep an apartment ready. In the day, we will work—and at night, we will love.’

  He threw the towel aside. ‘And that’s all there is to it?’

  ‘I will not intrude upon your work. I am an artist. Our minds are alike. When you are ready to be alone, resume creation, I will let you go your way. If you still prefer my presence, you may have it.’

  He squatted beside her, and then sat, wondering how he could reach a mind so foreign to his own. ‘Märta—I will call you that now—’

  She smiled. ‘We’re making progress.’

  ‘No, listen to me. I think—l really think—you believe this is possible. I want the money you offer. You know the facts. I can use it. And I think you believe that this novel I am writing, intend to write, my first since the Nobel Prize—a book that is a naked representation of me, of all I hold holy—can be falsely twisted and wrenched to satisfy your needs. Don’t you see how wrong that is, how corrupting? You say we are both artists, our minds alike. If you were right, you would understand how I feel. What you mean is that you are the artist, and nothing else matters, and I am less an artist and should sublimate my individuality and craft in yours. When you made the offer to buy me, the cash offer, my answer was an automatic no. What made me hesitate—and you knew it would make me hesitate—was your added offer of an affair, of possessing someone every man on earth would give his soul to the devil to possess. So, indeed, I hesitated, because I was astonished, I was unnerved, and—I confess—I was curious and excited. But let us say this—let us pretend that this cold offer so dazzled me that I reversed myself and made the deal. What would happen? I would have my fun in bed, and you would have your book, your comeback property tailored by a name currently exploitable. But what would either of us have really? You would have a lousy book, it would have to be lousy. And I would have—what? Memory of a virile conquest? How could I tell myself it was a conquest, when it was only a cold-blooded legal clause? Memory of an unforgettable love? Helen and Paris? Dante and Beatrice? Nelson and Emma? Or the memory of a mechanical, loveless union, dearly paid for, purchased, and in the end distasteful, because it was an extravagance I could not afford after all?’

  She had listened, never removing her eyes from him, not attempting to interrupt, her features emotionless, her figure immobile. When he had talked himself out, she rippled the water with her toes.

  ‘Make me a vodka, Craig,’ she said.

  He lifted himself to his feet, grateful that she had not contended with him, and went to the table to pour the drink for her, and the whisky he now needed more than ever for himself. When he turned around with the filled glasses, she was standing, waiting. He avoided looking at her bikini, her limbs, and handed her the drink.

  ‘You can look at me,’ she said. ‘Why do you avoid it?’

  ‘Why torture myself with something I can’t have?’ He tried to keep bitterness out of his tone, and made a lame attempt to be amusing. ‘I don’t like to press my nose against shop windows.’

  ‘Craig, I want you to look at me, right now. How do I strike you?’

  ‘Female. Quite the opposite of male.’

  ‘I’m more, don’t you think?’

  ‘Granted.’

  ‘Much more,’ she said definitely, ‘and the much more of me is the propaganda of me and the legend of me, and that is attractive. But don’t be deceived. Even without all that, there is much more to me. Not merely my beauty, either. If I were to undo my bra right now and remove this strip of cloth down here—what would you see of me? First, two breasts. I’m realistic. There are better breasts to be seen in every half-dollar art magazine. Second, my nakedness below. No rare or exotic contour, no different down there from what you can see on any chippy you pick up for five dollars or fifty dollars. That’s not the much more of me I speak of, Craig. What I speak of cannot be seen, must be intimately known. When you buy me, you are, it is true, paying a bigger price than ever before for lesser physical endowments than can be had at a fairer market price, but you are buying two marvellous things. One is, as you’ve guessed, the fame of me, the right to remember, when you are old and old memories are important, or when you are merely older and ribald with others, that once you possessed the flesh of Märta Norberg, yes, the Märta Norberg. That is important to men, of course. Imagine to be a man and to know that once you had enjoyed the favours of Ninon de Lenclos or Madame Du Barry or Eleanora Duse. That is the obvious pleasure you buy. But there is another that is better, far superior. Do I titillate you?’

  ‘Go on,’ said Craig, drinking his whisky, and keeping his gaze shoulder high, and wishing that they were dressed and elsewhere.

  ‘Do I titillate you?’ she repeated.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Of course, I do. I have told you I am a good buy for two reasons. One is my desirability as a conversation piece, The other is this, Craig—my desirability as an experience. Do you know what that means?’

  ‘I’m not sure.’

  ‘Do not regard what I am going to tell you as extraordinary vanity. I’ve simply equated myself against all others, I know my worth, and I am practical. When you come to bed with Märta Norberg, you eliminate the remembrance of every other woman you have known since adolescence. I will explain, Craig. Only a handful of others, in the world, know what I am to tell you. The act of love is my other gift—the one I have brought along with my acting. Those are my two perfect skills. You have known experienced women, no doubt, active, intelligent amateurs, and prostitutes and call girls. Often such women have considerable knowledge of love, and are infinitely superior in their pleasure-giving to any housewife drab or dull-assed starlet. But the gifts of prostitutes are tarnished by their ready availability and the unspoken feeling of degradation. Nowhere can similar gifts be found untarnished, except in my bed. You will take my word when I say that I know more of love than any prostitute or courtesan or backstreet Bovary. Your face tells me nothing now, but you may be secretly doubting me. I am sure you are. I pride myself on being a psychologist of men and their minds. You may be saying to yourself—what more can this boastful woman know of love than any other? How many ways can a woman lie with a man—on her back, on her side, on her stomach, sitting, standing, upside down, whatever you guess or know. You may be saying to yourself—how many erotic movements are there, and words, and pressures, and erogenous zones? All is limited and repetitious, and nothing can be new. You may even assure yourself that the ways of love, beyond intercourse, are restricted to six or sixteen. And so you will doubt me. And to that I can only say, Craig, say this—try me—find out.
’

  She sipped her vodka.

  Except for her profound, humourless sincerity, Craig would have been embarrassed. He did not know quite how to respond. ‘That’s quite a sales talk,’ he said at last.

  She smiled. ‘I’m rarely called upon to make it.’

  ‘But you have made it. And now I’ll tell you something—I still don’t believe it.’

  ‘Are you daring me? Is that what?’

  ‘Nothing so childish. I simply will not accept your statement that you can please, entirely through physical skill, without one iota of emotion, passion, love given from the heart—’

  ‘Save that fairy tale for your damn books,’ she interrupted, ‘and for all the empty women who read them and want to be deluded. Craig, I know men. Once you have a man between your thighs, you have his unconditional surrender on your terms, in exchange for whatever pleasures you wish to serve him. In intercourse, of whatever duration, a man is senseless, an absolute lower animal. His enjoyment derives not from the knowledge that his mate adores him—that may pertain before and after the act—but during the act he wants the primitive gluttony, and the better that is, the more voluptuous, sensuous, maddening, the more ecstatic he becomes.’ She paused and seemed to draw herself up, and the bikini bra filled. ‘I am honest, Craig. I don’t barter my heart—only what is beneath it—and I have never had a complaint. On the contrary, my lovers have become beggars, debasing themselves with their pleas for more of me. Now, what do you think of that?’

  ‘I think you have accomplished exactly what you set out to do—make me helplessly curious.’

  She tossed her hair. ‘Then we have a deal?’

  ‘No—not on your terms.’

  ‘I see you still don’t believe me.’ Her face had strangely darkened. ‘What will convince you? Do you want a preview tonight?’

  ‘Not if you would consider it an option on my services.’

  ‘Don’t be rude.’