‘Won’t be any Nobel money by the time it’s January,’ said Craig, who had squeezed his eyes to bring Inglis into better focus. ‘That’s a good offer.’
‘I’m delighted you think so. The Board of Regents is highly favourable to your appointment. They are most impressed with the Nobel matter. Of course-’ He hesitated, and Craig, sobering for an instant, eyed his visitor keenly.
‘Of course-what?’
‘The Board is willing to make the appointment formally after the Nobel Ceremony-I mean, after you’ve received the honour and made your address.’
‘Why not now, Inglis? Are they afraid I might disgrace them-have another fiasco-like the time I was supposed to lecture up at the college? I bet those greybeards don’t think I’ll make the Nobel Ceremony or get on the Stockholm stage sober. They’re afraid of a scandal, aren’t they?’
Inglis seemed to retreat into his great overcoat, suffused with embarrassment. ‘It’s not that, Mr. Craig-’
‘What else can it be, dammit? I’m on probation. Go to Stockholm, Craig, stand up before the world, display academic dignity, show that you are purged, cleansed, reformed-and come back to us, not only with your laurels, but a new man. I’m on probation. That’s it, isn’t it, Inglis?’
‘Stop badgering him, Andrew,’ said Leah. ‘He’s doing his best. He’s on your side, like everyone else. They just expect more of you now, that’s all.’
‘Well, I’m me,’ he said belligerently. His eyes found Inglis again, and his mood mercurially changed. ‘It’s a good offer, and thank you, and thank them. Maybe I’ll earn it-but don’t put money on me, don’t do that.’
‘Mr. Craig, I know it will work out. You’re a great man. I read The Perfect State eight times. I know you won’t disappoint anyone in Stockholm.’
Craig had closed his eyes, and was rubbing his forehead. He was not listening.
Leah signalled Inglis, and he quietly rose and tiptoed out of the kitchen after her. Mack followed them.
Andrew Craig was alone.
He felt a thousand years tired, and his head felt stuffed and heavy, and his deadened, sodden nerves begged for unconsciousness. He circled his arms on the table, and laid his head in his arms, and tried not to think of the turn of events. But his fatigued brain did not sleep. He thought: I was only trying to die slowly, peacefully, unobtrusively, like a forgotten old plant in the shade. He thought: Why did those Swedes expose and humiliate me by forcing me to die in public? He thought: I’m an immortal now, in the record books, but I’m as sickeningly mortal as I was when I awakened this morning. He remembered George Bernard Shaw’s sardonic remark, when he received the Nobel Prize at sixty-nine: ‘The money is a life belt thrown to a swimmer who has already reached the shore.’ He thought: Only in my case I’d rewrite it… a life belt thrown to a man after he’s drowned. He thought: Nothing.
Andrew Craig had passed out.
2
IT was a crisp, sunless, silvery early afternoon in Stockholm, the temperature 15° C., this first day in December, when Count Bertil Jacobsson, formal in his silk hat and overcoat, brown cane tucked under his arm, pearl-grey spats on his shoes, emerged from the Nobel Foundation at Sturegatan 14 and walked to the Cadillac limousine awaiting him at the kerb.
The Swedish Foreign Office had furnished the limousine for the occasion. Now it stood in splendour, its rear door held open by a blond, liveried chauffeur. As Jacobsson approached, the driver inclined his head respectfully, and saluted. Jacobsson answered with a nod, and entered the car. He settled into the nearest corner of the cushioned rear seat, already amply filled by Ingrid Påhl and Carl Adolf Krantz. On the return trip, he and Krantz would sit on the jump seats and allow their guests to join Ingrid Påhl on the softer rear seat.
‘Good afternoon, good afternoon,’ said Count Bertil Jacobsson. ‘A lovely day for our beginning.’
‘Hello. Yes, lovely,’ said Ingrid Påhl nervously.
Krantz, who always appeared preoccupied, muttered, ‘Count,’ in greeting, and no more.
The chauffeur had slammed the front door and was behind the wheel. Jacobsson leaned forward, slid the glass partition open, and said, ‘ Arlanda Airport, please.’ He consulted his watch. ‘We are early. You may make this a leisurely drive.’
He closed the glass partition, as the car started and moved away from the kerb, eased himself back into his corner, and turned his head to his companions.
‘Why so solemn, my friends?’ he asked. ‘I always find these first meetings refreshing.’
‘I never know what to say,’ said Ingrid Påhl.
‘We are privileged,’ Jacobsson went on. ‘We have the opportunity to receive, and intimately acquaint ourselves with, the geniuses of the world-’
‘Whom we have made famous,’ Krantz interrupted acidly.
‘Not so, Carl, not at all. They have their fame, all of them, before we recognize and crown it.’ He considered this a moment, objectively, and then revised his judgment. ‘Well, not always, but usually, often enough.’ He regarded his companions for a moment. ‘I hope neither of you regrets participating with me on the reception committee? It was not only my judgment, but the various academies-’
‘We are honoured,’ said Krantz curtly. He stared out the window a moment, and then he added, ‘Perhaps I’m still smarting at the vote. Except for Professor Stratman-’
‘You’re surely not objecting to Dr. Garrett and Dr. Farelli? Their findings electrified the entire world.’
‘The press, the press,’ said Krantz. ‘We were swept away. I think we should be more judicious. Perhaps their heart transplant, limited as it is may be the great medical discovery of our time. On the other hand, it may be a circus stunt. I think the Caroline committee should have waited another year or two, for more experiments, more results. As to the Marceau team, I am still not impressed. Sperms in cold storage. Who cares? There were half a dozen more worthy findings to be honoured. The literary award to the American, I won’t even speak of-’
Ingrid Påhl’s chins quivered with indignation. ‘Var snäll och-please, Carl, do not mix in again. You are a physicist, not a literary critic. I am sure you have not even read Mr. Craig’s books-’
‘I read one. It was enough.’
‘Well, you simply have no judgment in such matters. I do not meddle when you make your decisions in chemistry and physics, and I do not think you should interfere with those of us in the Swedish Academy. Every year, the same. You made the same comments when we selected Sinclair Lewis, Pearl Buck, Ernest Hemingway. Why is it always the Americans you object to? Why is it that you were only happy when Eucken and Heyse and Hauptmann, your darling Germans, won?’
Krantz’s lips were tight. ‘On this level, I will not discuss the matter further with you.’
Krantz turned back to the window. Ingrid Påhl opened her beaded handbag with irritation and sought cigarette and holder for solace. Jacobsson, who had been listening with concern, determined to remain detached.
By the time they had reached the suburbs of northern Stockholm, the first portion of their twenty-two-mile drive to Arlanda behind them, Jacobsson realized that he could not remain detached, at least not within himself. It was his task, as senior head of the Nobel reception committee, to see that they presented a united and gracious front. For ten days, from this afternoon until the Ceremony on the afternoon of December tenth, the three of them would be living together, and living with their distinguished guests who had won the prizes and come long distances to receive them. Any note of discord or dissension among the three of them, before their guests, the press, the public, would be disgraceful. Jacobsson decided that should another such argument occur, he could not remain above it, outside it, but must act to put a stop to it at once.