‘Nonsense,’ said Krantz.
Again, Jacobsson sought to prevent conflict. ‘No matter what the reasons, the sciences have seemed to produce some remarkable married teams.’ His mind went back to the Notes. ‘I think immediately of Madame Marie Curie and Pierre Curie. They shared the physics award in-when was it?-yes, 1903, with Professor Henri Becquerel. That was for their joint researches on radiation phenomena. As I recall, the Curies each got one-quarter of the prize, and Becquerel got one-half. I remember my disappointment when we learned that the Curies were too exhausted from overwork to attend our Ceremony. The French Minister to Sweden picked up their award.’
‘Is that not against the Code of Statutes?’ asked Ingrid Påhl. ‘I thought you had to attend in person or forfeit-’
‘Yes, within ten months-“should the prize winner fail, before the first of October in the calendar year immediately following, to encash the prize awarders’ cheque for the amount of the prize in the manner laid down by the Board, then the amount of the prize shall revert to the main fund”-that is the regulation,’ said Jacobsson. ‘However, the Curies did appear, the following summer for their money, in time to remain eligible. Eight years later, as you know, when Marie Curie was a widow, we gave her a second award, this time in chemistry-I believe she was the only person ever to win two Nobel Prizes.’
‘Her second winning,’ said Krantz, ‘was for the greatest discovery in chemistry since oxygen. It could be said that she gave us the atom, as we know it.’
‘In any event, this second time, ill as she was, Marie Curie did attend the Ceremony,’ said Jacobsson. ‘Do you remember her visit, Carl? No, that was before your time. She was in her forties, a lonely woman, but lovely and devoted to her career. She arrived here with her sister and daughter, and told me that she was most impressed with the Ceremony.’
‘We gave that daughter a prize, too, did we not?’ asked Ingrid Påhl.
‘Yes. Actually the daughter and her husband. Irène Curie had married one of her mother’s junior assistants at the Institute of Radium, an impoverished young man named Frédéric Joliot, who had graduated from L’École de Paris. There is one more married couple for you. Irène and Frédéric Joliot-Curie. They won the chemistry award in 1935.’ He paused. ‘I am trying to recollect if there were any other married couples-’
‘The Coris in 1947,’ said Krantz promptly.
‘Ah, yes,’ Jacobsson agreed. ‘Gerty and Carl Cori. Medicine. They came from St. Louis in Missouri, and received half the award, and we gave the other half to the Argentinian, Houssay. Something to do with hormones-’
‘They discovered how glycogen is catalytically converted,’ said Krantz with precision.
‘At any rate, we do occasionally bless the fruits of marriage,’ said Jacobsson. ‘I look forward to meeting the Marceaus.’
‘I think it is odd,’ said Ingrid Påhl.
Jacobsson seemed startled. ‘Odd? What is odd?’
‘To be a married couple winning the Nobel Prize,’ explained Ingrid Påhl. ‘In fact, to be a married couple winning anything that has to do with work. It gives marriage only one dimension. The laboratory is the home, and the home is the laboratory. No variety, no change of pace. And too much harmony. Besides, what does this do the male’s rôle? He has gone out, club in hand, to kill a bear for supper, and bring it to his admiring mate, but instead his mate has been out with him, and deserves as much credit for killing the bear as he. Where does that put him? And her?’
‘I am sure the Marceaus never think of such things for a moment,’ said Jacobsson primly. He considered his watch and then looked out the car window. ‘We’ll be just in time for them. Twenty more minutes.’
The three sat in silence now-Krantz who had been wedded and divorced long ago, and Påhl and Jacobsson who had never been wedded at all-thinking their own thoughts about marriage and the prize…
They had hardly exchanged a full sentence or a civil word since they had left Paris for Stockholm.
Reclining in her leather seat beside the blank window, uncomfortable in a black-and-white wool tweed suit, tailored at the last moment to fit her newly trim figure, and unrelaxed because of her enforced proximity to her husband, Denise Marceau let her gaze rove disinterestedly over the aeroplane’s elegant interior. For a while she watched the two young French hostesses, blonde hair swept daringly high, confident in their white blouses and tight blue skirts, treading up and down the aisle among the passengers, followed sometimes by the uniformed steward. Then she was conscious of Claude, slumped low in the seat beside her, legs crossed, smoking a cigarette as he turned the pages of an Émile Gaboriau novel. She did not look at him fully. She could not trust herself to do so. She had not bothered to bring along any reading of her own, because she was too occupied with her seething mind. It was enough.
She extracted an American filtered cigarette from her bag as unobtrusively as possible, for she did not want Claude to light it or want any of his attentions. Hastily, she snapped her lighter and applied it to the cigarette, so maintaining another small victory in her remote independence.
Not many hours ago-three, four, five at most-they had been brought across the smooth highway from Paris to Orly Field by a convoy of Institut colleagues and pompous government officials. They had boarded the Air France jet, Flight 794, at 10.40 in the morning, amid a noisy fanfare and demonstration from their friends and the circle of newspapermen. As they climbed into the plane, there had been shouts below for one last photograph. She had permitted Claude to hold her arm-the possessive façade of marriage-as they posed. The second that they were inside the jet, she had shaken her arm free.
In the noiseless, capsuled period since they were airborne, there had been only monosyllabic exchanges between them. Are you comfortable, Denise? Oui. Champagne? Non. Like one of my books? Non. Beautiful plane? Oui. The translucent barrier between them, like the one separating two male Siamese fighting fish, was made more bearable by the fact that they were, indeed, in an aquarium, watched, peered at, attended, thankfully not alone. Other passengers, informed of their fame and destination, drifted by to make conversation with Claude. Either a hostess or the steward seemed to hover constantly, awaiting command. Several times, one of the pilots came back to inquire if they were comfortable.
Now, Denise Marceau was aware that the taller hostess was addressing them on the intercom. She spoke first in French, then in English. ‘It is exactly two o’clock,’ she announced. ‘We will put down in Stockholm on schedule, in twenty-five minutes. Thank you.’
Watching this hostess, whose small brassière cups were outlined behind her white blouse, Denise was unaccountably enraged. Or accountably, for she associated this anonymous girl with Gisèle Jordan, and hatred of her husband filled her throat. She had almost spoken up in Copenhagen during the brief stopover when they had not left the plane, but had finally sat without progress or purpose. Now her resentment and wrath were even greater. Blindly, she twisted towards Claude.
‘Why in the devil do you not put down that goddam book and say something for yourself?’ she demanded, fighting to keep her voice low.
Claude recoiled instinctively from the harshness of her sudden outburst, then slowly, controlled, he placed the bookmark between the pages, shut the book, and sat up. ‘What do you want me to say?’ he asked. ‘I have tried to make conversation a dozen times. But you insist on punishing me with silence.’