(1961) The Prize

by Irving Wallace

  ‘Have you come to see Dr. Lindblom on a matter of professional interest?’ inquired Hammarlund, finding a place at the far end of the sofa.

  Claude wished that the hideous man would remove himself from the premises, but then good reason reminded him these were, indeed, the hideous man’s own premises, and that he would have to be answered. For a moment, Claude considered revealing to Hammarlund the real motive for his visit. But he wanted no forewarning, no bickering, no alarm. He wanted only one swift punch at Lindblom’s leering superior blond face—one would do it—put him down whimpering, and salvage all pride and honour. Underlings simply did not cuckold Nobel laureates, he told himself, and the rebellious ones must be put in their places, even if by violence.

  He tried to recall Hammarlund’s question, and then he did. ‘Yes, you might say I have a professional interest in seeing your Lindblom.’

  ‘Stimulated by your wife’s visit here, I hope?’

  ‘You might put it that way,’ answered Claude wryly.

  ‘Then she informed you of Dr. Lindblom’s remarkable talent?’

  ‘Only too well.’

  This was deteriorating, Claude saw, into one of those sex skits at the Concert Mayol all full of innocent questions and answers that had double meanings, and elicited from French audiences rollicking merriment. Although the immediacy of his anger had abated for lack of outlet, Claude was in no humour for this nonsense. He wanted to change the tenor of conversation. Now Hammarlund gave him the cue.

  ‘Well, before Dr. Lindblom returns to speak of his work in person,’ Hammarlund was saying, ‘perhaps I could brief you on some aspects of it that might be of interest.’

  ‘By all means—do,’ said Claude, trying to display interest, but only eager to pass the time as quickly as possible.

  At once, with the enthusiasm of a monomaniac, Ragnar Hammarlund began to expound on the necessity and value of discovering basic food synthetics. Edibles produced by chemical means would be healthier, would be cheaper, would bring an end to undernourishment, even to starvation, throughout the world. Once chemists could discover the synthesis for fats, proteins, carbohydrates, utopia would be on the earth.

  ‘I am not alone in believing this,’ said Hammarlund. He jumped to his feet, went to the desk, ran a finger across a row of books and found what he was looking for. ‘Here is an American chemist, Jacob Rosin, who wrote a fine book on the subject, The Road to Abundance.’ Hammarlund was turning the pages, until he had what he sought. ‘Listen to him. “Once the industrial synthesis of the carbohydrates, proteins, and fats is achieved, the bondage that chained mankind to the plant will be broken. The result will be the greatest revolution in history since man learned how to make fire. Hundreds of millions of hard-working farmers and farm workers will be replaced by chemical machinery. The surface of our earth will be freed from its dedication to food production. A new way of life will emerge.” ’ Hammarlund cast the book aside. ‘You see what is possible?’

  At first, Claude had not listened carefully, but now Hammarlund’s condescension as he assumed a pedagogue’s lecture stance irritated him into a certain attentiveness. He was not, he reminded himself, a callow student. He was the winner of the Nobel Prize in chemistry. ‘I know the goal well enough, Mr. Hammarlund. There are always these dreamers’ goals. The problem comes down to the obstacles—the hard obstacles we find in the laboratory—that usually make the end of the road unreachable.’

  Now that he had the laureate engaged, Hammarlund became more forceful. It was almost as if his invisible face had taken on human colorations of emotion. ‘Of course, Dr. Marceau, I am not so impractical as to ignore the obstacles. But what are these in the field of synthetic foods? First, we must overcome the belief of the public—coveted also by too many scientists—that the only healthy foods are nature’s foods. You know that is rot, and so do I. Cauliflower, beans, peas, raw eggs, whole wheat, coffee are all hoaxes, filled with countless poisons that we have survived only because of restraint in our eating habits. Synthetic foods could be manufactured without these poisons. Second, we must sell the world the belief that chemical substitute nutriments can be as pleasurable as doctored meats and vegetables and bakery products, can look as attractive, smell as good, and taste as wonderful as the so-called natural foods. Third, we must prove to mankind that synthetic foods can be made to contain all the necessary values of known foods—carbohydrates, proteins, fats, water, vitamins, minerals.’

  What was annoying to Claude Marceau was that Hammarlund was making it all child’s play. He was an industrialist and a superficial dabbler in the sciences. What did he know of the real problems of synthesis? For the first time in years, Claude began to recollect his early trials in the laboratory with Denise by his side, the days of toil, the weary nights of monotonous persistence, the tumbling into bed fatigued to the marrow, eyes bleary and neck constricted and bones almost arthritic, and in the brain, a chaotic spinning.

  He was sorely tempted to expose Hammarlund to himself. He began to bait the millionaire, and to his surprise, Hammarlund delighted in the challenge and fought back with an amazing fund of case histories, facts, figures. It became evident, as the time passed, that while Hammarlund had no creative scientific imagination, he had sound knowledge of what had been done and what, indeed, might be done.

  Gradually, without being fully aware of what was happening to him, Claude found himself locked in a rigorous debate with Hammarlund on the limitations of algae as a natural food substitute, on the degree to which synthetic edibles could be produced wholesomely and free of dangerous poisons, on the value of the findings in the synthesis of vitamins as they might be applied to foods as yet undiscovered, on the probability of breaking down the chemical structure of various proteins and inventing cheap man-made substitutes, on the usefulness of Chlorella and soyabeans as springboards to other nutrients.

  The minutes sped by, but so engaged and absorbed was Claude Marceau that he had no realization of the passage of time. It had been months since he had truly discussed a new field in biochemistry. After the discovery that he and Denise had made in the sperm field, their interest in that subject, already worn thin, had flagged. Lectures in France, and speeches and panels here in Sweden, had been undertaken as duties. The old subject had been discussed publicly as if by rote. For so many months now, it was as if Claude Marceau’s scientific mind had been an arid desert, where nothing living could be seen, where nothing living stirred. And now, suddenly, so unpredictably, the desert was being populated by a clamouring mob, materialized divinely from nowhere, begging for the sustenance of life, dinning their desperation and their problem, an unknown civilization on the desert to be organized and led and saved.

  And then, out of the anarchy of this new population, there appeared, lo, a leader with an Idea, and the leader was plainly Claude himself—he saw that it was he, himself, and no other—and the Idea was a way, an inspiration, a way to feed them and help them survive in a place so unnatural and antagonistic to life.

  Hammarlund had gone on talking, but Claude no longer heard him, for he was thinking hard.

  ‘Hammarlund,’ he said suddenly, ‘be quiet a moment.’

  The industrialist immediately fell silent, unoffended, for he observed the strange distant look on the laureate’s face and acknowledged subservience to the mystique of the Idea.

  ‘Hammarlund,’ Claude said slowly, almost to himself, ‘you and this fellow of yours, and all the people you have labouring for you in this synthetic field, are off on the wrong foot. Something so obvious occurs to me—I will tell you. Allow me to speak my mind aloud—feel my way. Do not interrupt. The mistake, I think, I am almost positive, is that you are attempting to imitate nature, all the processes of nature, in the invention of your substitute foods. It would seem to me you must make a clean break from enslavement to nature. If you do not, you will always run a poor second and get nowhere. Why try to improve on God? No. I should think it would be wiser to let God be and to go off on your own. I repea
t, a clean break. Start from scratch. Do not make food in imitation of nature but as totally new and daring creations of your own, a chemical larder.’

  He lapsed into thought.

  Awed, Hammarlund took the risk of intrusion. ‘I am not sure what you mean, Dr. Marceau. Do you mean—?’

  ‘This,’ said Claude, not to Hammarlund but to himself. ‘Take the problem of creating a synthesis of carbohydrates. Why do indoors what nature has already accomplished out of doors? Why bother to create artificial photosynthesis? Why try to create artificial atmosphere that plants require? Why not go directly to the source—glucose molecules—and from there build an entirely new chemical process that would lead to the discovery of manmade starches?’ He paused. ‘And as to inventing the proteins we find in meat by imitating meat—why meat at all? Why not a new and improved type of product with the same protein values and unencumbered by wasteful sinews and bone?’

  Through the haze of concentration, he became aware of Hammarlund, staring down at him, jaw slack. How he wished that Denise stood in Hammarlund’s place, so that he could go on—on and on—throwing the Idea to her and catching it from her until they had their hypothesis. If Denise—Denise!

  At once, he returned to his time and place, and remembered where he was and his mission.

  ‘What is the time, Mr. Hammarlund?’

  ‘The time? Why’—Hammarlund peered down at his wafer-thin gold wristwatch—‘it is ten minutes to three.’

  ‘Mon Dieu!’ Claude leaped to his feet. He had been here almost one hour and a half. He had completely forgotten his date with Gisèle. She had flown in from Copenhagen hours ago, and was awaiting his call and his person at the Hotel Malmen in South Stockholm. ‘I have a date—I must rush—I am late.’

  Hammarlund was beside him, apologetic. ‘What a pity. Your approach to the problem—the brilliance—’

  ‘Never mind, I will know more when I discuss it with Denise. Call me a taxi.’

  ‘I can send you with my chauffeur—’

  ‘No, a taxi. I will be out in front.’

  Hammarlund had gone to the telephone on the desk. ‘I do not know what has kept Dr. Lindblom—’

  Claude stopped at the doorway. Lindblom. He had forgotten Lindblom, too. Of all things. He tried to summon forth the rancour that he had felt more than an hour ago. But it was no longer there. Lindblom was merely a bothersome beetle, one more minor disturbance with which the true scientist had always to cope. Still, as a matter of intellectual pride, Lindblom must not believe that he had not been found out.

  ‘Yes, your Lindblom,’ Claude said to Hammarlund. ‘You can give him a message for me. You tell him that I came here to punch him in the nose, and that if I ever find him making advances to my wife again, I shall break his neck. Good day, Mr. Hammarlund!’

  Denise Marceau, still in her pink négligé, examined her nicotine-stained fingers, and realized that she had smoked an entire packet of cigarettes since Claude had stormed out of the suite in a frenzy of injured manhood.

  The suspense, since, had been unbearable. She had paced, she had smoked, and she had wondered how her plot had unfolded at Åskslottet. She had made progress, of that she was certain. Claude’s reaction to her affair had exceeded her fondest hopes, and for a while, she had believed that Craig’s prognosis had been incorrect, and her own infallible. But now, with all this time gone, and no word of what had happened, she had begun to entertain serious doubts.

  If her plot had worked, she would have known already. Claude would have salvaged his pride by knocking down Lindblom. After that, in a rage of righteous possession, he would have returned here, to the suite, and maybe knocked her down, too, and then would have regretted his fury and would have taken her to bed, and there would have been tender sweetness with all wounds repaired.

  But he had not returned, and now she could only guess that he had behaved otherwise, after knocking down Lindblom. Duty performed, manhood restored, he had probably then regained his equilibrium, and determined that now it would be easier, more guiltless, to divorce her, and had gone on to enjoy his assignation with Gisèle Jordan, wherever that was taking place.

  Grieved that Craig had likely been right, that her adultery had finally filled her husband with disgust rather than jealousy, Denise walked restlessly to the closet, located a fresh packet of cigarettes in her coat pocket, tore it open, and with pained sadness at the infinity of loneliness that confronted her, she lit a cigarette.

  It was then that the telephone rang.

  Her heart prayed: Claude.

  She ran to the telephone, catching it before the third ring, and spoke into the mouthpiece with wariness.

  ‘Allô?’

  ‘Denise?’ The high-strung voice was male, but it was not Claude’s voice. ‘Are you alone?’

  ‘Qui est là—who is there?’

  ‘Oscar—Oscar Lindblom.’

  She sighed. Then he was alive. He would know her fate. ‘How are you, my dear? Of course, I am alone.’

  ‘Your husband—your husband has found out about us!’

  ‘I know—I know. He found out by accident. Through the waiter who served us last night.’

  ‘He came to the laboratory to kill me.’

  ‘Apparently he did not succeed,’ said Denise dryly. ‘Well—what did he do to you?’

  ‘Nothing. I was not there.’

  Denise’s heart sank. He was not there. The third act had been a dud. ‘How do you know he went after you?’

  ‘He found Hammarlund in the laboratory. He waited for me for about an hour and a half, and then he had to leave. He had a date.’ Denise’s heart sank further. A date? Gisèle. And for herself? Alimony.

  Lindblom’s voice continued tinnily through the receiver. ‘I missed your husband by ten minutes. Hammarlund was pleased as punch. He said that he and Dr. Marceau had the longest talk—’

  ‘About us?’

  ‘No—no—about synthetic food.’

  ‘Synthetic food?’ Denise exploded. ‘That—that—that worm!’

  ‘What—what did you say?’

  ‘Nothing. Oscar, listen.’ She had lost, she knew, but she would not retreat without inflicting the greatest casualties possible upon the foe. The old plot had failed, but a fresh one had formed. ‘Tell me, where are you now?’

  ‘About a mile from you. I had to return to—’

  ‘Can you come right over?’

  ‘But your husband—’

  ‘He’ll be out all afternoon—he will not be back until after dinner.’

  ‘Denise, please, it is dangerous. He might—’

  ‘Oscar, I know where he is, and he will not be back. I am quite alone.’

  ‘But, Denise—as much as I want to see you—in fact, I was up all last night thinking about us—’

  ‘I was too, darling.’

  ‘—it could be terrible, if he came on us. Hammarlund warned me.’

  ‘Warned you? Of what?’

  ‘About seeing you again. Just as your husband was leaving, he told Hammarlund to tell me that he would break my neck if he ever found me with you again.’

  Denise’s sunken heart lifted and soared. ‘He said that?’

  ‘Exactly.’

  ‘Bravado, Oscar, mere bravado. He would not touch a flea. He knows that he is impotent, and that I cannot bear it—and he knows that I love you. I told him so.’

  ‘You told him?’

  ‘Why not? It is true.’

  ‘Oh, Denise—’

  ‘Darling, I am desolate without you. If I cannot have you here now—’

  ‘Denise—Denise—’ His voice broke off, and then was heard again. ‘Are you absolutely positive that he will not be back?’

  ‘I swear to it on the Bible. You are safe, and so am I. Come at once. I must know everything that transpired at the laboratory. And I want you—do you hear? I want you.’

  She could hear the choking emotion of Lindblom’s voice. ‘I—I—I will be right there.’

  The moment t
hat she returned the receiver to the cradle, she regretted the invitation. She had thought that last night would be the last of Lindblom’s pitiful acrobatics. But on instinct, when she understood that all was lost, she had wanted to leave Claude with a picture that would haunt him the rest of his days. She had invited Lindblom with the intention of keeping him in the room, delaying him, and then going to bed with him at the time Claude would be returning. She did not consider what might happen after that. She considered only the humiliation to which he would be subjected. But now, that necessity seemed foolish, and worse, dangerous, especially if she still had the chance to save their marriage. For now, there was one ray of hope. Claude had, after all, displayed a flare-up of husbandly possessiveness in his last words to Hammarlund. This parting threat might have meant one of two things—a defence of pride or honest jealousy.

  Why had she so blindly insisted on that child’s coming to her room again, enticed him with the lure of one more fornication? It was some inexplicable intuition and nothing else, a yearning to know, firsthand, at length, what had taken place between Claude and Hammarlund. She could not believe that Claude, in such a wrath, could have coolly sat for an hour and a half and discussed synthetic food. There must have been more, and she would find out. She must trust her feelings and not her sensibility. She would learn if Claude had given any indication of a future for them. If he had not—well, the rest was clear—Gisèle the victor.

  She trudged slowly to the bathroom, her slippers plopping against her heels. As to her promise to perform sexual intercourse with Lindblom, she would find a way out of that. She would be attractive, she would permit him to kiss her, even pet her, but beyond such innocence, she would have to say no. She would extract the information that she suspected he possessed, and bid him good-bye. With this last visit, his usefulness would come to an end.