‘We cannot marry together, because the fun is all right for a while-but a marriage is more practical and formal, and we do not have common things. You are too intelligent for my mind. You would tire of me. I am like a young girl who is always a young girl, who likes only the outdoors and to be frivolous, and you are not so, and I would tire of you.’
A moment before he had ceased listening to her, because something else had entered his head. ‘Lilly, I know what is wrong. You know nothing about me, except I am a writer. You think I’m just another American tourist-a bad prospect-but that is not so. I could give you a fabulous life. Do you know who I am?’
It was like handing her an expensive birthday present, and he could not wait to open it for her.
But she was speaking. ‘You are Andrew Craig, the winner of this year’s Nobel Prize in literature.’
His mouth fell open. ‘You knew?’
‘Not at first, but I have known. Daranyi told me.’
‘And you can still say no?’
‘I respect you, Mr. Craig, and am proud to have been loved by someone so famous. But what has that to do with marriage? I cannot be happy because I have married a prize.’
He felt maudlin and also depressed, at last. ‘Then it’s no?’
‘There is one more reason,’ she said at last, ‘and it is one more reason why you would not be happy with me forever.’
He waited.
‘You are in love with another girl, and you really want to marry her.’
Lilly’s knowledge was startling and eerie, and he kept staring at her. ‘What makes you think that?’
‘Daranyi. He told me.’
‘How in the devil would he know?’
‘He knows everything, Mr. Craig. It is his business. He is making an investigation now for somebody connected with the Nobel Prize-Dr. Krantz-a bad man, Daranyi says, because he is always liking the Germans-and now he wants to know all about you and the other winners, and Daranyi helps and finds out everything-’
‘I don’t give a damn about Krantz,’ said Craig. ‘I want to know about this thing you heard about me.’
‘It is because Daranyi is like my father-always protecting me-and that is why he told me about you and about Emily Stratman.’
‘You even know her name.’
‘Emily Stratman. Her uncle is Professor Stratman. She is born in Germany. She is now American. She is beautiful and strange and not married. You met her at the Royal Palace. You took her on a tour of the city. You were with her at Mr. Hammarlund’s dinner. And Daranyi says maybe you love her like you did your wife.’
‘And that’s why you won’t marry me?’
‘No, Mr. Craig, I assure you. It is for all the reasons I give. You do love her, do you not?’
He hesitated. Her face was so open, her honesty and strength so plain, that he could not lie to her. ‘Yes, I do, Lilly. And do you hate me?’
‘Hate you? How foolish you are, Mr. Craig. Of course not. It is as always with us.’
‘Well, she hates me-because of you.’
‘I cannot believe it.’
‘All women are not like you, Lilly, and all are not Swedish.’
And then he recited to her, as briefly as possible, sobering all the while, some of what had transpired with Emily several hours ago in her bedroom. Lilly listened enrapt, sometimes clucking with incredulity. When he had finished, he awaited her comment.
‘She is most strange indeed,’ said Lilly.
‘All women are different, different problems and neuroses, different heredity and upbringing, and many women are like Emily.’
‘No, I do not like it. I think she loves you and commits suicide. It is terrible wrong.’
Craig shrugged. ‘There’s nothing to be done.’
‘I am sad for her,’ said Lilly. ‘But you are the main one I worry about. It is no good for you alone. You can be so much and enjoy so much, but you cannot because you are alone. Emily Stratman pushes you away. Now, Lilly Hedqvist will not marry you. I am worried about you, Mr. Craig. Maybe I must marry you.’
‘Will you?’
‘No. Still, I worry in my heart. What will happen to you when you leave us?’
‘What will happen?’ Craig snorted. ‘I think we both know. It was fated. I’ll go back to Miller’s Dam and answer fan mail when I’m not drunk-that’ll be the writing I’ll do-and I’ll wind up with the inevitable-marrying my warden, Lee-the omnipresent Lee.’
‘Lee?’
‘Leah Decker, my sister-in-law.’
‘The awful one we hid from on the ferry to Malmö? Oh, no, Mr. Craig, you must not-’
‘There are worse things. At least, all my debts will be paid.’
Lilly stood up. ‘Do not make deep decisions on an empty stomach. I will cook your eggs and heat coffee. After that, we will see how you feel.’
‘How do you feel?’
She wrinkled her nose. ‘Like my bed is too big for one person alone. And I want to remember the fun-because I do not think you will be here again, Mr. Craig, and I want to remember.’
11
FOR important business occasions, Nicholas Daranyi always wore the single-breasted, metallic-grey suit, of best English fabric, made for him via mail order by a Chinese tailor in Hong Kong. It was a suit which, had it been fashioned in London for one like the Duke of Windsor, might have cost between seventy and eighty pounds. By sending halfway around the world, and trusting the post, Daranyi had obtained the suit for twelve pounds, plus duty, plus the expense of a minor alteration across the shoulders.
Tonight, standing outside Carl Adolf Krantz’s apartment door on the fourth floor of the fashionable orange building with white balconies and white flower boxes, located on the Norr Mälarstrand, Daranyi wore his Hong Kong suit. He had groomed himself carefully for the occasion, applying his favourite imported oil to his sparse, flat hair, and talcum and cologne to his smooth jowls. The suit draped beautifully, except for the right jacket pocket which held his folded sheaf of memoranda. He had taken care to look prosperous because, after tonight, he intended to be prosperous. Tonight, he reassured himself, would be his night of liberation from want.
Krantz had required the information by the evening of December the ninth, and now it was seven o’clock of the evening of December the ninth, and Daranyi had kept his pledge and met his deadline.
The door opened, and Krantz’s maid, Ilsa, a broad peasant woman from Westphalia, a woman of indeterminate years but many, whose face had the appearance of a dried prune and whose upper lip bore down, bowed respectfully from the waist and admitted Daranyi to the vestibule. Daranyi gave her his hat, and the overcoat that he had been carrying on his arm since leaving the elevator, and then followed her through the parlour, with its embroidered lace doilies on every dark heavy mahogany piece, to the door of Krantz’s study.
Ilsa pushed in this door, and stood back until Daranyi had entered, and then she closed it, and Daranyi was alone in the study. Only once before, during his long but erratic relationship with Krantz, had Daranyi ever been inside this study. He recalled that against one wall there had been a sixteenth-century German oak cupboard with ornate locks and hinges of iron that had once belonged to Krantz’s father, and that over the oak cupboard had been a perfect square of framed photographs of Pope Pius XI, Fritz Thyssen, Franz von Papen, Paul von Hindenburg, Dr. Max Planck, and Hermann Göring, all autographed to Krantz. As if to prove his memory, Daranyi glanced at the right wall and was pleased to see the oak cupboard and the square of photographs above it.
He heard a rustling movement to his left, and realized that he was not alone, after all. Carl Adolf Krantz, more dwarfed than ever by his furniture, had turned from the lace curtains and potted palms before the glass doors of the balcony, and, hands clasped behind him, had spoken.