(1961) The Prize

by Irving Wallace

  ‘I said—what did you think caused the accident?’

  ‘This,’ said Craig weakly. ‘I guess I never thought about it, but I guess later I was told it was this. It—it was just—I don’t know—strange the way you brought it all back to me today.’

  ‘I’m sorry if I threw you off.’

  ‘It’s all right,’ he said, hardly aware of her. His mind was on Leah, and almost to himself, more to himself than to her, he said, ‘Yes, Leah, Leah took care of—of everything.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘I said—’ The shock was receding, and his surroundings were taking on their perspective, the walnut desk, and shelf of green ledgers, and the wall of books, and the glass cases, and Sue Wiley so confused with her eyes eternally blinking. ‘I forget what I said. I’d better be moving along. Thanks for everything. I hope you write as fairly as you research.’

  ‘I only wanted to show you how we work, so you’d understand—’

  ‘I understand a lot now, Miss Wiley. Good-day.’

  In the study of Carl Adolf Krantz’s apartment on Norr Mälarstrand, Daranyi observed that the time was 7.41 and that he had only two more dossiers to report, and after that, one more odious task, and after that he would be free, free of the oppressive room with its crowded furniture and lukewarm tea and suddenly grubby fern, and its disgusting owner.

  ‘So,’ said Daranyi, lowering his trouser belt to make his stomach more comfortable, and picking up his sheaf of memoranda once more. ‘If you are ready, we will proceed with the last of the two names on my list.’

  ‘I am ready,’ said Krantz. ‘Proceed.’

  ‘We come now to the redoubtable Professor Max Stratman, formerly of Berlin, now resident of Atlanta, Georgia. By the biography you left with me, I see that you have already acquired most of the pertinent data on this great man.’

  ‘Yes. Our Nobel committee has researched the obvious facts, which are public, on his past. However, as to personal insights—’

  Daranyi nodded. ‘I understand. I have done my best, but there was nothing I could find that bore the slightest hint of impending scandal. However, I will pass on to you the few items I have acquired. Only one of these, as I see it, might be of even passing interest. I refer to Professor Stratman’s heart condition.’

  He waited, and was pleased with the instant heed that Krantz had given to this information.

  ‘Heart condition? Do you mean he is ill? Are you certain?’

  ‘I am certain,’ said Daranyi complacently. ‘I have my connections at our Southern Hospital, and that is where Professor Stratman has been to visit for examinations and shots. I do not know the particulars of his condition. I am informed there is an irregularity, but no immediate danger. I am told that if he takes care, he will have some useful years ahead.’

  Krantz was writing furiously. ‘Anything else on that?’

  ‘I am sorry, but no more. Except this afternoon—this afternoon, Professor Stratman visited the Southern Hospital a third time. I can only presume this was for further treatment, necessitated by the excessive excitement of the week and tomorrow’s Ceremony.’

  ‘What else?’ demanded Krantz.

  ‘Little else, I am afraid. His activities in this city have not been unusual. He is rarely without his niece beside him. I believe his affection for her is genuine, but there seems some indication that he feels a moral obligation to care for her, some debt he owes her father, his brother—’

  ‘We know about that,’ said Krantz impatiently.

  ‘With one exception,’ said Daranyi, ‘the people here whom Professor Stratman has seen are people well known to Scandinavian science or officials of the Academy. The exception is this. In the early afternoon of December fifth, Professor Stratman lunched at Riche with a Dr. Hans Eckart. I made an effort, in my limited time, to learn something of this Eckart, but current biographical dictionaries have nothing on him. A prewar dictionary listed him as a German physicist. I then checked the Bromma Airport and learned that he had disembarked from a Czech aeroplane that had taken off from East Berlin. I do not know if this has any value—’

  ‘None,’ said Krantz sharply, massaging the back of his neck.

  ‘I only mentioned it because this was the one person with whom Professor Stratman had met who was not known to me.’

  ‘Unimportant,’ said Krantz. ‘What else?’

  ‘That is all I have on Professor Stratman.’

  Daranyi could see the flashing dip of disappointment on Krantz’s features, through the leaves of the plant, and instinctively, he comprehended that the object of his entire assignment had been to research this one man. All the rest had been camouflage. One man: Stratman.

  Daranyi revelled in his secret knowledge, and tried to retain his professional, non-committal demeanour. ‘This brings us to the last name,’ he said. ‘Professor Stratman’s niece, who is Miss Emily Stratman.’

  ‘Go on.’

  ‘The contact you suggested to me, Miss Sue Wiley, the American journalist, proved helpful in gathering this brief dossier. There is not much, of course.’ Daranyi had made the decision to withhold his most dramatic find for the very end. It would make his bargaining position the stronger.

  He ran a finger down his jottings. ‘Miss Stratman resides with the Professor in a bungalow in the city of Atlanta. Several days a week, she works, as a nurse’s aide, without salary, in the Lawson General Hospital, a government establishment where American war veterans are kept. This appears to be her principal outside interest, except an occasional film and the social affairs she sometimes attends with her uncle. You have seen her, so you know that she is beautiful. Yet, she has never been married. And she has not been engaged. She has not been seen alone in the company of men. It is Miss Wiley’s opinion that she is a virgin.’

  ‘It takes one to know one,’ said Krantz grumpily. ‘How has this niece behaved in Stockholm?’

  ‘Exactly as I told you when I discussed Mr. Craig. She has been seen in his company. Apparently, they do have interest in one another. She has seen no one else alone, to the best of my knowledge. I do not think Professor Stratman would permit it. As I have indicated, he is over protective. In the case of Mr. Craig, I should imagine that Professor Stratman would trust a fellow laureate. This is her record here. I have been thorough, Dr. Krantz. I know of her movements up until a quarter to five this very afternoon. That was when she left the hotel on foot, by herself, and walked across Kungsträdgården, and crossed Hamngatan, and went into Nordiska Kompaniet, along with all the other late shoppers. . . .’

  Emily Stratman had been sitting at the table beside the window, in the fourth-floor grill-room of the Nordiska Kompaniet department store, for five minutes, waiting.

  Suddenly, now, she had an impulse to run.

  She could not go through with the embarrassment of this meeting, she told herself. She should not have agreed to it. Her mind was a turmoil. She had cried herself to sleep last night, and her eyes were a fright. And worst of all, she felt inadequate for the encounter.

  Why had she consented?

  Nervously, her hand kneaded the handbag on the table, almost knocking off the menu, as she recalled the telephone call.

  Only a few hours ago, she had lain listlessly on the sofa of the hotel sitting-room, trying to read, when the telephone behind her rang. She had taken up the receiver, still reclining and still morose.

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘Miss Emily Stratman, please.’ The voice on the other end was young, female, possibly Swedish, and unfamiliar to Emily.

  ‘This is she.’

  ‘I am Lilly Hedqvist,’ said the voice.

  The name had already been branded distinctly in Emily’s mind since Andrew Craig’s confession, but the reality of hearing the name spoken aloud by its possessor was paralysing.

  So disconcerted that she was at a loss for words, Emily could not reply. Her knuckles whitened on the receiver, but her vocal chords were mute.

  Apparently, her silence had disconcerted Lilly
Hedqvist, too. ‘You know of me, I believe?’ asked Lilly.

  Emily’s response was automatic, unsteered by thought. ‘Yes, I know about you.’

  ‘Mr. Craig came to me last night to speak of you, and to tell me what happened between you. You may believe it is none of my business, but it has been on my mind today, and I believe it is some of my business. This call is not easy for me to make, Miss Stratman, but my conscience tells me I must make it. I do not know you, but I do know Mr. Craig, and if he thinks highly of someone, then I tell myself that someone must be a good person. I would like to meet you for a few minutes today, Miss Stratman.’

  Emily did not know what to say. The voice sounded younger and cleaner and more simple than she had imagined it in her fantasies. After Craig’s revelation, the name Lilly Hedqvist had become the name of all on earth who were abandoned and wanton and experienced. But this was not Lili Marlene or Cora Pearl or Märta Norberg. This was a girl.

  ‘I—I don’t know—I don’t know if it’s possible,’ said Emily. ‘I wouldn’t know what to say to you.’

  ‘You do not have to say a thing,’ said Lilly. ‘I want you to see me. I want you to hear me. For a few minutes. And that is all.’

  At once, Emily was recklessly tempted. She did wish to set eyes on a girl who could give Andrew Craig kindness and love with nothing in return. She did want to see this girl and to hear her. But it was less these desires than another that was now influencing Emily. Above all, she wanted to find out about herself, why she still was as she was, and why yesterday had happened, and Lilly might be her fluoroscope. And then one more faint thought. If she said no to Lilly, that was the end of it forever. On the other hand, the Swedish girl was a part of Craig now, and to see her would be to see Craig one bitter time more.

  ‘All right,’ she said suddenly, and it was as if another person had uttered the sentence on herself. ‘All right, I’ll see you. Where and when?’

  ‘I work in the Nordiska Kompaniet, the biggest department store, only a few blocks from your hotel. You turn to your right when you leave the hotel, and follow the pavement, and go across the park diagonally, and it is the seven-storey store on the other side of the street. It is only a few blocks. If you are lost, ask someone for En Ko—that’s how Swedes pronounce NK—and they will direct you. Inside, there is an escalator in the centre. It will take you to the eating grill—lunchrummet. You pick a table if you are there first, and I will come. Can you be there at ten minutes to five?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘I will sneak off from my work at ten minutes to five, and we will have coffee and talk a little.’

  Emily began to panic. ‘I still don’t know what we can possibly say—’

  ‘Then we will say nothing,’ said Lilly. ‘But the meeting will be good. Good-bye, Miss—oh, wait—one thing I almost forgot. How do you look?’

  ‘How do I look?’

  ‘So I can find you.’

  ‘I—I’m a brunette—bobbed hair—and—I don’t know—I’ll be wearing a jacket, a suede jacket.’

  ‘If I am first, you will see me with blonde hair, also a white sweater and blue skirt. We will find each other.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Good-bye then, until ten minutes to five.’

  All the interminable time after that, Emily had meant to call the store pronounced En Ko and ask for Miss Hedqvist and cancel the meeting, but in the end, she had not. And now here she was in the half-filled grill-room, at the table beside the window, with her red eyes and suede jacket, and her desire to run from here, quickly and far away.

  It was four minutes to five, and she told herself: I will give her one more minute and that is all.

  ‘You are Miss Stratman?’

  Emily’s head tilted upward with genuine alarm, and there was a child of a girl, with golden hair, long and caught by a blue ribbon, and alive blue eyes, and a young mouth and attractive beauty mark above it. She wore a thin white sweater that hung straight down from her breast tips, and a pleated dark blue skirt, and low-heeled shoes, and she extended her hand and said, ‘I am Lilly Hedqvist.’

  Emily accepted the firm grip, but briefly, for this was the hand that had caressed Craig, and then watched with wonder as the Swedish girl, so fresh and flaxen and blue like the Swedish flag, matter-of-factly took the place opposite her.

  ‘You have ordered?’ inquired Lilly.

  ‘No—’

  ‘I will order. Is there anything with the coffee?’

  ‘No.’

  Lilly waved to a passing waitress, who appeared to know her, and called ‘Kaffe,’ holding up two fingers.

  Now she returned her attention to Emily, leaning elbows on the table, cupping her chin with her hands. She considered Emily frankly. ‘You are very beautiful,’ she said.

  ‘Well, I—well, thank you.’

  ‘It does not surprise me. I knew you would be beautiful, but I did not think in this way.’

  ‘In what way?’

  ‘Like the lovely fawns I have seen in Värmland. They are delicate and withdrawn. And besides, you look like you are nice. I thought you would be more bold and sure.’

  Had she not been so tense, Emily might have been amused, remembering as she did, after the phone call, her first imagined image of Lilly as the one who might be bold and sure.

  ‘Now it is easier to understand,’ Lilly went on, ‘because you are beautiful.’

  The irony of it came to Emily’s mind—we are always, she thought, not what we are through our eyes, but only as we are to other eyes—for she felt anything but beautiful. In fact, she felt more inhibited than ever by Lilly’s peach-coloured natural freshness, and it seemed incredible that Craig could have been so attentive to her after spending time with this bursting, outdoor child, and suddenly she was glad that Craig could not see them together like this.

  ‘Mr. Craig is beautiful, too,’ Lilly was saying, ‘in the same way. He is secretly shy. It is appealing. I do not know how you could send him away yesterday, when he loves you from the heart so much.’

  ‘What makes you think he loves me?’

  ‘My eyes and ears and woman’s sense.’

  The waitress had arrived with coffee, silver, and napkins, which she dispensed from a tray. Neither paid attention to her, and when she left, Lilly resumed.

  ‘When Mr. Craig went away from you last night, he became very drunk, which is natural. Then he visited me and offered to marry me because that was like committing suicide.’ She had said the last with a twinkle, and then with tiny laughter. ‘He was not serious, and I knew he was not serious. I made him confess the truth, and he admitted how much he loved you, and he told me everything about that.’

  ‘I—I cannot believe he means it.’

  ‘Why, Miss Stratman? You cannot believe a man loves one woman from the heart, when he is also in another woman’s bed?’

  The naked question seemed to carry with it some implication of a personal failure in Emily, and she was less appalled by its asking than by this implication. ‘I wish I knew the right answer. I only know my answer. I was—yes, it upset me.’

  ‘You are now an American woman,’ said Lilly, ‘and I am a Swedish woman, and we are different. I must explain to you how I behave as I behave. On the outside, the Swedish girl is like the Swedish man—she is stiff, formal, with traditional manners. But with sex, she is open and free, because she is raised up with no prudishness. Education is honest about sex. In the country, we swim naked in summer. In the magazines, there is no censorship. And because there are so many women for so few men, it is a necessity not to make sex so difficult and rare—if you hold back the sex love, the man will find it easy in the next woman he meets. But that is not the main thing.’

  She paused and sipped her hot coffee, and Emily waited.

  ‘In America, the heart love comes first, and if that is good, then you go until you have the sex love, which is last and made most important, and which the American woman saves for the final precious gift. In Sweden, it is the opp
osite way around. In Sweden, the sex love comes first, and if that is good, you wait to see if it grows to heart love, which is forever and to us the most important. Do I explain myself, Miss Stratman?’

  ‘Yes, you explain yourself well,’ said Emily, envying her.

  ‘I could so easy give Mr. Craig my sex love,’ said Lilly earnestly, ‘because it is not the important thing, and I think less of it, like kissing. The important thing, for me, was to see if our sleeping in bed would become more to us, would become heart love, so it would be a part of a greater love that would last always. But it did not grow and become more for Mr. Craig or for me, because he did not love me. He loved you.’

  For the first time, fully, Emily had grave doubts about her standards in relation to Craig.

  ‘I tell you the truth, Miss Stratman,’ said Lilly. ‘If I had known that Mr. Craig loved me above the sleeping together, and if I had known my own love for him was more than that, we would not be here having coffee together, because he would be my husband forever. But I have told you, it did not happen and could not happen, because his real love was for you. I am telling you of myself, and I am telling you of Mr. Craig and myself, and now I will tell you of Mr. Craig and yourself.’

  Emily waited outside Lilly, as if waiting outside the Oracle of Venus at ancient Paphos.

  ‘Mr. Craig showed his heart love for you immediately, Miss Stratman. If you had welcomed this, and loved him back from the beginning, he would never have come to my bed to be warm with someone, because he would not have needed another woman. He would have had, for his heart and his manhood, all he wanted in the world. It is you who sent him to me. It is you who have had the power to send him or keep him.’

  ‘But I couldn’t,’ said Emily wretchedly.

  ‘You could not—what? Keep him with love?’

  Emily was helpless. ‘That’s right, Lilly.’

  ‘Why not? Is it because you are a virgin, or afraid to give your heart and life to someone’s hands?’

  ‘Neither and both. It is something more.’