(1961) The Prize

by Irving Wallace

  Märta Norberg, with a toss of her unruly hair and a disconcerting smile, was before him.

  ‘Have you been trying to avoid me?’ she said teasingly.

  ‘Whatever gave you that idea?’

  ‘I don’t know. You’ve been monumentally disinterested in your hostess.’

  ‘Quite the contrary. My hostess seemed well occupied.’

  The superior feline smile came and went. ‘Occupied, yes. Well occupied, no. However, your sister-in-law was quite interesting.’

  ‘Was she?’

  ‘Her delivery may leave much to be desired, but her material is interesting,’ said Märta Norberg. ‘She talked a good deal about you.’

  ‘I see.’

  ‘At any rate, when I observed this paragon of hers all alone in the armchair, so forlorn, reduced to reading the seating-plan, I thought I might provide more amusing company.’

  He wondered if she had seen him change the seating-plan. He decided that she had not. ‘To confess the truth, Miss Norberg, I am an avid and indiscriminate reader—anything I can find—railroad timetables, old telephone books, seed catalogues—dinner seating arrangements—and when there is nothing else available, I even read palms.’

  She held out her slender hand, slowly revolving it until the palm was upward. ‘Read mine.’

  He shaded his brow, set his face in a feigned trance, and touched Norberg’s palm with his forefinger. ‘I see one woman, majestically alone, and thousands at her feet.’

  ‘I hate crowds, Mr. Craig,’ she said quietly. ‘If you look closer, you might see more. Not the career line, the personal life line. You mean you don’t see a man coming into my life?’

  Craig knew that she was frankly staring at him, but he did not lift his eyes. Was an invitation couched in the child’s play? It was possible, anything was possible, and the likelihood of it amused him. He remembered, at once, Gottling’s little speech: democracy had virtually swept away titled royalty, and then, to fill the gap, created a royalty of its own—the élite aristocracy of celebrity, wealth, and prize-winners. In this rare circle, background did not matter. A boy might come from New York’s lower East Side or Coney Island, be born of semi-literate parents with unfashionable ghetto accents, uneducated beyond grammar school or high school, or he might emerge from a farm in Iowa or a ranch in Idaho, be born of narrow peasant stock, unread and unlearned and unsophisticated, but if he could floor any man on earth with a punch, or crudely and savagely outwit all competition and amass vast wealth, or, yes, write a book that moved millions—if he could have his image before the world on magazine covers, or his name in print, if he could become a Success—he was of the élite. A single unique talent or sometimes luck alone, either one was enough. He was of the earth’s anointed. Overnight, he was in that higher place. Overnight, the ones who would previously not have deigned to look at him or speak to him, the ones who considered him of the herd, would now recognize his aristocracy and accept him as their equal. Overnight, what had so recently been impossible was all-possible. Overnight, he could banter with a King, share food with a millionaire, and know flirtation from an unapproachable sex symbol. So incredible. For he was no different than before the ascension. He had not changed in his eyes. He had changed in their eyes.

  And tonight, Märta Norberg could say to him, ‘You mean you don’t see a man coming into my life?’

  A month ago, he would have been timorous of asking for her autograph. Now she was asking for his.

  He bent over her hand. ‘I see many men,’ he said.

  ‘Unlikely,’ she said, and instantly withdrew her hand. ‘You are a faker, Mr. Craig. Confine your reading to timetables and telephone books.’ Then her mouth smiled, as if to remove any hint of annoyance. ‘I read in the newspaper the other day that the things you like most about Sweden include Carl Milles, Ivar Kreuger, and Märta Norberg.’

  ‘And Orrefors glass,’ said Craig mildly.

  ‘Yes, of course.’ She considered him. ‘Am I to feel complimented in that company?’

  ‘You all have this in common—divine artistry. Except that you and Orrefors have also beauty.’

  ‘Orrefors is transparent and hard. Whatever you think, I am neither.’ She ran her fingers through her hair. ‘But I have artistry and beauty, yes. I can see it is a compliment.’

  ‘I always looked forward to your plays and pictures,’ said Craig honestly. ‘Going to either, when you starred, was forever an event. I’ve missed you, and I know I’m not alone. Why did you quit?’

  ‘I didn’t quit,’ said Märta Norberg testily. ‘It is the creative writer who has quit. I have waited for one to invent a role worthy of my time. In the last four years, I have read nothing but trash. Why don’t men write about women any more—women as large as life, as tragic, as important? Why are men afraid? Where is Anna Karenina? Where is Emma Bovary? Where is Marguerite Gautier? Why have women diminished in size?’

  ‘Women are not smaller today,’ said Craig. ‘The problem is that men have shrunk—withered by complexity—and men are so busy growing up to women, they no longer have time to sing of them.’

  ‘You may be right,’ said Märta Norberg thoughtfully. ‘Perhaps it is up to us. . . . At any rate, I’ve been made so desperate that I am involving myself in rehashing Rachel’s old repertory. I’m considering Eugène Scribe’s Adrienne Lecouvreur. Do you know the play?’

  ‘Not the play but the subject. Lecouvreur was the eighteenth-century actress Voltaire loved, wasn’t she?’

  ‘Yes. And Marshal de Saxe. It’s an old play, perhaps dated. But it has a woman. It has grand passion. At least the heroine is worthy of Märta Norberg.’ She measured Craig briefly. ‘Would you like to see me rehearse the role?’

  ‘I would like nothing better.’

  ‘Very well. I’m at the Royal Dramatic Theatre every afternoon. Cronsten is directing me. Why don’t you drop in tomorrow? As a matter of fact, there is a business matter I’d like to discuss with you. This is no place for it. But if you came by late afternoon tomorrow—five or six—when rehearsal is almost over, we can have a cocktail and talk in peace. May I expect you?’

  ‘I’ll be there, Miss Norberg.’

  She glanced off. ‘Ragnar has his handkerchief out. That is his distress flag. It means he wants to be rescued. Very well. Tomorrow afternoon, Mr. Craig.’

  ‘Thank you, Miss Norberg.’

  His eyes followed her to Hammarlund’s group. Her stride was a man’s stride, and her carriage slouched and poor, and yet there was utter femininity and provocation in her lanky figure. Around her, like the circles around Saturn, there was an atmospheric film of inscrutability. Or had that been manufactured in a hundred press agents’ typewriters? No, he told himself, you did not create such things. It was there. You wanted to know what she was really like, deep inside, and if she possessed, to a degree more than mortal, the mystic power to make a man feel he was superman. Thus spake Zarathustra. Thus spake Märta Norberg.

  As he watched Norberg link her arm in Hammarlund’s arm, and join Hammarlund’s company, Craig saw Emily Stratman detach herself from that group. He fancied that she had tried to catch his eye, but he was not certain. She had placed her empty glass on a table, and was moving towards the French doors. Craig’s gaze followed her passage, and Norberg was forgotten. If femininity was desired, femininity and provocation and mystery, Emily carried all these more naturally. The silk jersey gown clung to the contours of her body as she walked, to the wavelike vacillation of her breasts, to the sinuous, rippling thighs. She had lifted the latch on the French door, and then she was gone.

  Craig looked over his shoulder. Leah was elsewhere absorbed. Immediately, he started for the terrace.

  Outside, the air was colder now, and the English lamps seemed shrouded. At first, he could not find her, and then he made her out at last, her back to him, arms folded against the weather, in a shadowed corner of the veranda.

  He went to her. ‘Emily—’

  She revolved towards him, slow
ly, without surprise, her green eyes and innocent face serious and trusting.

  ‘—it’s too cold out here, but’—he faltered, because her eyes were intent on his mouth, and she was not listening—‘I had to see you alone.’

  She said nothing, but her bare arms crossed, she seemed to lean towards him, and he placed one arm around her shoulders, spontaneously, unthinking, to draw her close and give her garment warmth and body warmth.

  In his half embrace, she lifted her face, eyes closed, soft lips parted, and momentarily he was mindless of discretion and consequences. He brought her up to him, her back arched against his hand, until his mouth met her moist lips. The kiss held for a small infinity, until both his arms had gone around her, and the kiss deepened, and rising passion gripped them both.

  Suddenly, with a gasp, she withdrew her lips from his mouth, eyes still tight, but averting her face, yet remaining in his hold.

  ‘Emily,’ he whispered, ‘my darling—’

  She buried her face low in his chest, saying not a word, and as he stroked her shining hair, the sounds of a brass gong from within, once, twice, three times, brought them back to themselves, their separateness, and the stone terrace, and the night’s chill.

  The butler’s voice in the living-room followed the echoes of the gong. ‘Dinner is served . . . dinner is served.’

  Emily pushed free of Craig. ‘They’ll be looking for us,’ she said.

  He caught her arm. ‘No, Emily, wait—’

  ‘We must,’ she said, and she went inside.

  For a few seconds, Craig remained stationary, unconscious of the weather, still savouring her lips and the compliance of her body and their intimacy. At last, eager to lead her in to dinner beside him, he went through the French door.

  He saw at once that most of the guests had disappeared. Four couples were still in line, in the regulation Swedish manner, ladies to the right and their gentlemen partners to the left.

  He was surprised that Emily had not waited for him. Perhaps, he told himself, she had not seen the revised seating-plan.

  Since he was tardy, he decided to take a short Scotch in to dinner. Ordering it, his gaze fell on the placard marked Placering, and then what held him—unless it was a trick of vision—were two blotches. Perhaps his erasures were clumsy, he thought.

  He made his way to the chart to enjoy again his arrangement: Emily Stratman, Andrew Craig, Margherita Farelli.

  The blotches he had observed were real, but they were not from his erasures. Firm new erasures were on either side of his name.

  Emily Stratman was no more. In her place was written the name of Leah Decker. The return of Leah Decker, neatly written in a hand he recognized as the familiar hand of Leah Decker. Craig’s own name remained untouched, unchanged. But like Emily, his other partner had disappeared also. Margherita Farelli was gone, and in her place, in an unfamiliar hand, but in a hand distinctively feminine, was pencilled the name of Märta Norberg.

  ‘Here you are, Mr. Craig.’

  He turned to find Märta Norberg smiling at him. ‘You see what we think of you? You are the partner of the hostess. You are to be at my left. Ragnar is about to make his speech of welcome. Will you take me in?’

  9

  * * *

  IN the centre of the Old Town of Stockholm there exists one of the architectural curiosities of the city and among the foremost of its tourist attractions. This is Mårten Trotzig’s Lane, an official street no more than three feet wide. The lane is not level, but consists of worn stone stairs that descend steeply, between the caked walls of old buildings, beneath two wrought-iron public lamps, into Västerlånggatan.

  Mårten Trotzig’s Lane was both Nicholas Daranyi’s cross and vanity. His ground-floor, three-room apartment was located flush with the thoroughfare of Våsterlånggatan, and only a few buildings down from the lane. The disadvantage of this was that being on the street, so close to traffic, so near a guide-book site, made quiet and peace almost impossible for Daranyi to achieve. In summer and winter alike, the bands of tourists were chattering magpies beneath his window, running to and from the lane, constantly vocal—in English, in German, in Danish—in praise of its oddity. Daranyi liked to read and contemplate what he read, and meditate on things he had seen and things he had done in his wandering life, but the location of his apartment made such monastic retreat impossible.

  Yet, for almost no money on earth would Daranyi have surrendered his apartment and lived in a more modern and tranquil one in the new city. Even though his apartment’s situation had its shortcomings, and even though the rent was slightly beyond his means (which meant skimping on other necessities, here and there), Daranyi treasured it for its address. This was snobbery, and he knew it, and did not mind, for such superficialities were of importance to him. His apartment was in one of the most respected and desirable sections of the city, and one of the most ancient, and for a stateless man who had lived from hand to mouth so long, it was worth anything to have the dignity and rooted tradition of such an address.

  The best times in all the year were the dark early mornings of winter and the dark long nights of winter. Then the tourists did not come, and few trod the steps of Mårten Trotzig’s Lane, and Daranyi had his address and peace as well.

  Now it was Daranyi’s favourite time, the dark early morning of December seventh—8.15 in the morning—with the air in the streets like the wall of an iceberg. Occasionally, snowflakes flurried and swirled and briefly hung suspended in the frozen air, before slowly parachuting to the pavement. It was a morning to be off the streets, to be snug and comfortable in a heated apartment, and Daranyi was, indeed, snug and comfortable in his heated apartment, and convinced that he was one of God’s favoured souls. However, what made his bliss complete was not warmth and roof alone, but an added security that was man-made the immediate prospect of considerable income.

  Daranyi was proud to have so distinguished a figure as Dr. Carl Adolf Krantz call upon him at this address, seek him out with restrained urgency, partake of his hospitality—the brown leather chair, antique table from Bukowski, steaming coffee, buttered rolls—as Krantz was now doing, and offer, by his very presence, the promise of money in a period of financial drought. Krantz’s visits to this address were infrequent, but always welcome, for they were never merely social or frivolous. When Krantz appeared, cash was not far behind. True, during his cryptic call to Daranyi shortly after his return home late last night, and during the first ten minutes since his arriving this morning, Krantz had not spoken one word of an assignment, but Daranyi knew, felt it beneath the layers of flesh, perceived it in his bones.

  Determined to show his occasional employer that he had no anxiety, anticipated nothing but a friendly call, Daranyi squatted on his chair across from Krantz, and blew on his coffee, and listened to banal comments on world events, and waited. Presently, Krantz ceased the irrelevant conversation, and devoted himself to the rolls and coffee, and they both had their breakfasts in silence. With this, from previous observation of Krantz’s behaviour pattern, Daranyi understood that the waiting game would soon be over. Shortly, there would be a few indirect questions, the tentative posing of an idea that wanted looking into, direct questions, then orders.

  Krantz’s empty cup clattered to his saucer, and Daranyi started to rise to bring the bamboo-handled pot, but Krantz’s lifted hand stayed him in his place.

  ‘Never mind, I have had enough,’ said Krantz. Genteelly he patted his moustache and goatee with his napkin, then took a metal puzzle out of his pocket, swinging it, and finally letting his short fingers twist and untwist it. ‘Tell me, Daranyi, what have you been up to these days? Have you been behaving yourself?’

  ‘At my age, Dr. Krantz? I practise celibacy, and good eating three times a day. Food and first editions, those are my excesses.’

  ‘Are you busy?’

  Daranyi swiftly weighed his answer: very-busy implied unavailability and might scare the customer off; not-at-all-busy implied undesirability and mi
ght make the customer a stiff bargainer. ‘Moderately, moderately busy,’ said Daranyi. ‘There is always something going on, you know.’

  Daranyi weighed elaboration: if he was not specific, the customer would think he was lying; if he was too specific, the customer would know he could not be trusted. ‘I am concluding two industrial accounts—of course, Dr. Krantz, I am not at liberty to divulge—’

  ‘Yes, yes,’ said Krantz impatiently. ‘I will tell you why I am here—I have an idea. A minor matter has come up—something of concern to me—and I would need some—some intelligent, discriminating research. I could think of only you, Daranyi. The question is—your immediate availability. Would you be able to put your other work aside, at once, to undertake a short, intensive investigation? Be truthful, Daranyi. We know each other. We are old friends. I would have to have your complete dedication, your full co-operation. I could not have you being diverted by any other project. You know my requirements—thoroughness, promptness, prudence. What do you say to that, Daranyi?’

  ‘As I have told you, my other assignments are about done. Fortunately, the deadlines are still a while off. But even if they were not, I would put them aside for you.’ Fleetingly, to Daranyi’s mind came The Faerie Queene: this the temple of Venus, and here inseparable friends, here Damon and Pythias, Jonathan and David, Hercules and Hylas. Daranyi’s smooth, plump countenance assumed the hood of Damon, earnest, sincere, faithful to whatever end. ‘You have always been generous with me, Dr. Krantz,’ continued Daranyi, ‘and I cannot help but stand ready to serve you, with all devotion, at any time. Your word is my command.’

  Krantz’s uneasiness gave way to comfort. ‘Good, good.’

  ‘You need only speak of the problem, and I will address myself to it immediately.’

  Krantz, who had been deep in the leather chair so that his stumpy legs dangled and his shoes barely touched the carpet, pushed himself forward in what was to be a gesture of confidence. Now he perched on the front of the chair, his shoes solidly planted before him. He stuffed the puzzle in his pocket—it was as if Eckart was over his shoulder, judging him—and proceeded to the business of the morning.