(1961) The Prize

by Irving Wallace

  Garrett had been relating, in some detail, his adventures in California after having been notified of the Nobel award. Now, encouraged by Öhman, he reminisced about the years during his transplantation research, and, rather effectively, he thought, he recreated the dramatic case history of Henry M. He was pleased to note that Ingrid Påhl was enthralled by the last, and Öhman as intrigued by this as he had been by all that had gone before.

  At this point, Garrett had the feeling that he had monopolized the meeting long enough. Three-quarters of an hour of autobiography was more than sufficient. The time had arrived for self-effacement. If his battle plan was to work, it was necessary that Öhman be encouraged to reveal more of himself and his career.

  ‘At any rate, to sum it up, here I am, an actual laureate,’ he said. ‘It’s hard to believe.’ During his monologue, he had taken notice of Öhman’s office, which, except for the padded chairs, seemed furnished entirely in efficient grey metal. But now he realized that two walls of the room were entirely covered by framed photographs and snapshots, some autographed, and Garrett recognized several as former Nobel laureates.

  ‘You’ve never told me, in your letters, Dr. Öhman, if you have any connection with the Nobel medical awards. Have you?’

  ‘In a way,’ said Öhman.

  Before he could continue, there was a knocking at the door. A trim girl, wearing tortoise-shell-rimmed spectacles on a scrubbed face, backed in pulling a trolley, carrying hot coffee and sweet rolls, after her. Öhman introduced her as his secretary, and she apologized for being late.

  After she had poured coffee and gone, and they were all sipping, and nibbling rolls, Öhman cleared his throat. ‘Uhhh—Dr. Garrett—you had inquired about my position in the Nobel picture. Uhhh—a minor one, minor, I assure you, at the same time—uhhh—interesting. Do you know anything of the medical awards?’

  ‘Miss Påhl was kind enough to give me some background on the drive here.’

  ‘Very little, Dr. Öhman,’ said Ingrid Påhl. ‘For all I know, Dr. Arrowsmith got the prize.’

  Öhman laughed. ‘Well, as a matter of fact he did, did he not? Martin Arrowsmith, Gottlieb, Sondelius—how alive they were to me. What was it Arrowsmith fought? Uhhh—yes—the bubonic plague in the West Indies, yes. Our committee has great respect for plague fighters, but it has always distressed me that some of the best have not been honoured.’

  ‘Are you referring to anyone in particular?’ asked Garrett.

  ‘I am,’ said Öhman. ‘Uhhh—it has always been my belief that Walter Reed and General Gorgas, as well as Noguchi, should have shared an award for their work against yellow fever. Gorgas was nominated many times, I am told, but since he had made no new discovery, he could not be elected. Reed died too early, I think. At any rate, that is neither here nor there—more coffee, Miss Påhl?’

  He filled Ingrid Påhl’s cup again, and then Garrett’s and his own, and settled back in the chair.

  ‘Did Miss Påhl tell you of our nominating procedure?’ Öhman inquired of Garrett.

  ‘Yes,’ said Garrett.

  ‘Then you know of our special investigators?’

  ‘No, not that.’

  ‘I must tell you, then. For it is in that capacity that I have several times served the Nobel Committee. In fact, because of my knowledge of your discovery, I was one of the two so-called experts assigned to investigate your candidacy, Dr. Garrett.’

  ‘I didn’t know that,’ said Garrett. ‘I really owe you a debt of thanks.’

  ‘Not a bit,’ replied Öhman. ‘Any fool would have understood the—uhhh—magnitude of your discovery and verified its worth. The Caroline Nobel Committee uses its investigators—detectives, you might call them in America—more than the other prize-giving committees, because of the intricate nature of medical research. There are so many varied specialties. There is so much complexity. Consequently, when the candidates are narrowed down by the committee, one last step is necessary. Each candidate is turned over to a member of our faculty, who is an expert in the candidate’s field. The expert or investigator makes a thorough study of the candidate’s discovery. Is it complete? Is it proved? Is it new? Is it worth while? The investigator will read everything on the discovery, and seek opinions, and sometimes even travel to the homeland of the—of the—uhhh—candidate, to see for himself without giving away the—uhhh—reasons for his visit.

  ‘When Ivan Pavlov was nominated for the first award in 1901, for his experiments in the physiology of digestion, two of our investigators, the great Professor Johansson and Professor Tigerstedt, travelled to St. Petersburg, in Russia, to meet Pavlov and his dogs and verify, firsthand, his accomplishments. Pavlov was given special attention, too, because it was known that—uhhh—Alfred Nobel himself had been interested in the Russian’s work and had once contributed a large donation to Pavlov. So our investigators went to Pavlov’s laboratory and observed the results of his experiments in conditioned reflexes. Apparently the final report of the investigators was not fully satisfactory, for, as you know, Parlor did not win the first Nobel Prize that year. He had to wait three more years to win it.’

  ‘Who did win the first medical prize?’ asked Ingrid Påhl. ‘It is shameful of me, and do not repeat it to Dr. Krantz, but I simply cannot remember.’

  ‘It was a close contest that first year,’ said Öhman. ‘A small number of judges supported Pavlov. The committee’s recommendation was that the award be divided between Niels Finsen of Denmark and Ronald Ross of Great Britain. But there was also substantial backing for—uhhh—Emil von Behring of Germany. Eventually, the debate raged around von Behring. Some considered his discovery of the serum against diphtheria an old discovery and therefore disqualified. Others felt that it should be honoured, because it was long accepted by the public, and would be familiar and noncontroversial. Uhhh—well, von Behring won, he won because his serum was popular—serums always are with our medical judges—and the three losers, Ross, Finsen, Pavlov, won their prizes later, in the next three years.’

  Garrett’s attention had strayed, again, to the framed photographs on the walls. ‘Those pictures, Dr. Öhman, are they all medical winners?’

  Öhman surveyed the photographs with pride. ‘My little hobby,’ he said. ‘I was a mere lad—long ago—in the thirties—when my father invited me to attend with him a Nobel ceremony. My father was a journalist and had a press invitation, and then a colleague became ill and there was an extra invitation at the last moment and my father took me. It was a memorable occasion for a young boy. I watched Sir Charles Scott Sherrington receive the diploma for medicine, and my father told me all about Sherrington—how he had been nominated regularly for thirty years, and, for one reason or another, the investigators always recommended against him—and now, in his old age, they had relented. I was moved. That night, my destiny was set. I, too, would become a physician. Sherrington’s was the first photograph I hung on this wall, so long after. It’s there, behind my desk.’

  Öhman leaped to his feet, and went around his desk, squinting at his photographs. ‘Eventually, I acquired photographs of all the winners, and the autographs of at least half of them. An inspiring hobby.’ He pointed to a fuzzy photograph. ‘Uhhh—the celebrated Dr. Paul Ehrlich, In the first eight years, he was nominated seventy times by professors in thirteen different nations. His work in immunology was recognized, at last, in 1908. There is a story—the Kaiser of Germany was like a peacock over Ehrlich’s conquest of the spirochete causing syphilis, and at a public banquet told him—ordered him—as if it were the easiest thing, “Now Ehrlich, get on with it, get rid of cancer”.’

  Rapidly, Öhman bounced from picture to picture, tapping some and adding vocal captions. ‘Here—uhhh—Sir Alexander Fleming. University of London. He was looking into influenza when a blue-green mould spoiled on one of his culture plates. It was the shape of a pencil. He named it penicillin. That was 1928, yet he received no Nobel Prize for it until 1945, seventeen years later, because initially, he had no pr
actical use for the discovery. Then, Sir Howard Florey and Dr. Ernst Boris Chain, of Oxford, began to wonder if it had a use. They injected mice with fatal doses of streptococci, and half of the mice with this penicillin, and the half with penicillin lived and the others died, and they had found a use, at last, for Dr. Fleming’s accidental find. They all got the prize.’

  He had reached a larger frame bearing two portraits. ‘Uhhh, the first joint prize—this will interest you especially, Dr. Garrett. For five years the Swedish Academy resisted splitting a single prize. Finally, in 1906, they broke down and divided an award between Camillo Golgi, of Italy, and Ramón y Cajal, of Spain. Since then, the prize has been divided many times, as witness—Dr. Farelli and you.’

  The blood seethed to Garrett’s cheeks, and he wanted to speak against the outrage of Farelli, but some restraint kept him from bringing up the matter before Ingrid Påhl. Instead, he said, ‘Do you think those joint prizes are fair?’

  ‘So many candidates are often in the same field, it is impossible to credit only one.’ Öhman had arrived at an elderly face on the wall. ‘My favourite since 1949. Dr. Antonio Egas Moniz, of Lisbon, Portugal.’

  ‘Who is he?’ asked Ingrid Påhl.

  ‘In 1936, he introduced the prefrontal lobotomy,’ said Öhman. ‘There was no cure for certain cases of severe mental distress, apprehension, depression. Drugs would not help. Psychiatric treatment would not help. Dr. Moniz found that these acute fears, verging on insanity, came from the frontal lobes of the brain, certain grey matter in the skull above the eyebrows. By incisions in the side of the head, the size of a shilling, and severing the nerve fibres of the front lobes with a long thin knife, Dr. Moniz learned that a patient’s anxiety could be dramatically reduced.’

  ‘It sounds horrible,’ said Ingrid Påhl.

  ‘It is to be preferred to suicide or insanity,’ said Öhman flatly. ‘It cuts away all apprehension and worry. It makes these patients happier. The only unfortunate aspect is that it frequently makes them into irresponsible dullards.’

  ‘But that’s like cutting away a man’s conscience, the soul that God gave him,’ said Ingrid Påhl.

  ‘In medicine, we are less concerned with a man’s soul than with his life,’ said Öhman objectively. ‘Uhhh—I am sure that Dr. Garrett will not disagree with me. The brain is the unexplored Mato Grosso of the human body. For that reason, I have always respected Dr. Moniz’s find above all others—until lately. Now, I have a new favourite.’

  Öhman hurried back to his desk, opened, a drawer, and took out a photograph. He offered it to Garrett with a pen.

  ‘Will you sign your photograph, Dr. Garrett? It shall henceforth have the main place—above Dr. Moniz.’

  Garrett accepted the picture and pen. ‘I hardly know what to say.’

  ‘You need say nothing. Your accomplishment speaks for you.’

  Garrett signed the photograph: ‘To my favourite co-worker and friend. Dr. Erik Öhman, with best wishes, John Garrett.’ He returned the photograph and pen, and Öhman fondled the photograph with the reverence often given an early church relic.

  ‘Now,’ said Garrett, pointedly, ‘I’d like to talk a little shop.’

  Ingrid Påhl could not miss the meaning of Garrett’s remark, and she did not. She pushed herself from her chair. ‘If it is going to be shop talk, this is no place for me. I have some friends here I want to see. When do you want me to pick you up, Dr. Garrett?’

  ‘Well—’

  ‘Not for an hour anyway,’ said Öhman. ‘Uhhh—there is much I want to show Dr. Garrett. I want to take him through my ward and discuss various problems.’

  ‘An hour, then,’ said Ingrid Påhl, and she waddled out of the room.

  The moment that they were alone, Garrett began to adhere to his battle plan. ‘When do you perform your next transplantation?’ he asked Öhman.

  ‘We go into surgery at seven in the morning of the tenth. I am still making tests on the patient, and still trying to find the correct-sized young bovines or sheep, in order to acquire the best fresh hearts available. The case is an interesting one. Uhhh—I should say, in some respects, the most challenging and important one I have yet undertaken. The patient is a Count in his early seventies, a distant relative of His Royal Highness. Much public attention will be given to the result.’

  Garrett’s heart leaped. This was what he had hoped for, this was the main chance.

  ‘Will there be any difficulties?’ Garrett inquired.

  ‘Uhhh—frankly, some aspects of the case worried me, but now, I am confident again—since yesterday, when Dr. Farelli was in to examine the patient.’

  Garrett felt the blood siphon from his face, and he thought that he would faint. ‘Farelli?’ he gasped.

  Öhman’s brow wrinkled with surprise at his guest’s emotional reaction. ‘Why, yes—Dr. Carlo Farelli. He appeared yesterday with a newspaperwoman who had been interviewing him—a Miss Wiley from America—and without protocol, he introduced himself and said that he wanted to see my ward, my patients—all most flattering—’

  ‘And you—you took them through—both of them?’

  ‘Why, certainly. And he was kind enough to study the patient’s history and charts and offer some advice. As I said, it was flattering and generous of him—’

  ‘You fool!’ shouted Garrett.

  Öhman stood stunned. ‘I beg your pardon?’

  ‘You heard me. Generous of him? What a laugh. He’s an arrogant, vain publicity monger and a thief.’

  Öhman looked as if he had been slapped. He swayed, speechless, the pupils of his eyes dilating. ‘Dr. Garrett, I—uhhh—uhhh—uhhh—are you referring to Dr. Farelli—?’

  ‘None other,’ said Garrett, rising, all restraint cast aside. ‘I suppose the reporter, Miss Wiley, I suppose she took notes? She did, didn’t she?’

  ‘Why, of course.’ He lifted the newspaper from his desk. ‘She filed the story last night. The Swedish papers picked it up today.’

  ‘And it’s all about that bastard Farelli?’

  ‘I—I—uhhh—yes, I mean—naturally, the new Nobel laureate comes to our hospital to pay his respects—offers to advise us on an important patient, a royal patient in critical condition—it is a story, naturally—uhhh, Dr. Garrett, I cannot understand—you are so upset—what is it? Is there something I should know?’

  ‘You’re damn right there’s something you should know.’ Garrett’s lips worked, and steadily he pounded a fist of one hand into the palm of the other. ‘You sit down,’ he commanded. ‘I’m going to give you an earful about that charlatan Farelli—trying to use you—making fools of both of us—and the Nobel Committee besides—now, sit down.’

  Dazed, Dr. Öhman sat down, staring up at his deity, who had so suddenly been transformed into a vengeful Mars, and slowly, with relentless hatred, Mars began the case for the prosecution.

  Carl Adolf Krantz, who, among other human frailties, was a hypochondriac, had fortified himself against the freezing weather with earmuffs beneath his hat, a swath of knitted muffler, a bearish overcoat, and it was with difficulty that he was able to manœuvre the Mercedes-Benz sedan into the parking area outside the vast glass-and-metal Bromma Air Terminal.

  He knew that he was late, and the moment that he left the car, this disgraceful fact was confirmed by the Arrival and Departure Board. The Czechoslovakian Airlines four-engine plane—an early morning telegram had informed him that it was leaving two hours earlier than scheduled, and so would arrive two hours earlier—had taken off from the Schönfeld Airport in East Berlin at 9.55 in the morning and was expected in Stockholm, en route to Helsinki, at 12.55. It was now 1.06. An immediate inquiry calmed Krantz’s nerves. The passengers from East Berlin were still going through customs.

  Outside, near the rows of windowpanes and the Royal Waiting Hall, Krantz removed his earmuffs, fearing their absurdity, and tucked them inside his coat pocket. He wondered if Dr. Hans Eckart had looked for him, before going into customs. Had Krantz been able
to hire a chauffeur for the morning, as he had wished, there would have been no tardiness. But he knew, understanding his visitor, that Eckart would have severely disapproved. He and Eckart had private matters to discuss, and Eckart was, above all things, cautious, and a third party in the car would have been inhibiting. It was too bad, because a chauffeur would have readily fixed the flat tyre of the Mercedes that Krantz had so lavishly hired on Klarabergsgatan at twenty kronor for the day (minus ten per cent discount for the winter season) plus twenty-five öre for every kilometre to be driven. Without the chauffeur, Krantz had wasted precious time hunting for a garage and, beyond that, he had probably driven the rim through the deflated tyre, which would force a costly penalty upon him. Still, these expenses were minor, and the irritations minor too, when he considered the importance of his meeting with Eckart.

  As he thought of their reunion, Krantz’s spirits lifted. The assignment that Eckart had so mildly suggested in East Berlin, more than a year ago, one that had seemed so impossible at the time, had now culminated in complete success. Krantz had done his job magnificently, and Eckart must deliver what he had promised. In that sense, the German physicist’s arrival in Stockholm was today not only a congratulation but a guarantee of payment. Severe as the day was, Krantz shivered with warm anticipation at the guttural assurances that would soon give him the prestige and security that had become his full-time obsession, ever since the vacant chair of physics at the University of Uppsala, rightfully his by accomplishment and seniority, had gone to another.