The Prize (131 page)

She was gratified. She had performed well.

‘I was thinking how lucky I am,’ he said, ‘to have found—something besides algae—’

She went jauntily to him, and gave him a hasty off-to-work, married kiss. ‘It is not you who are lucky, but I. To think that I believed only France was the land of love. How provincial and insular we French become. But I am learning, and you are teaching me.
Au revoir
, dear Oscar, and thank you. Do not be late tomorrow night. Every moment with you is important to my life.’

Although it was already two o’clock in the afternoon of December seventh, the double bed in the Nobel suite on the fourth floor of the Grand Hotel was still occupied by a laureate.

Except for several visits to the bathroom, John Garrett had not left his bed of pain all morning, or since. The major injury he had sustained in the Hammarlund garden was not corporeal but spiritual. His gut still ached from Farelli’s fist, and his right eye had swollen slightly, although he had not been hit in the eye but on the jaw. But these were minor hurts, and would pass away. What would not leave him was the laceration of his self-respect.

The memory of what had happened to him was an affliction which no salve or pill could remedy. From the moment of wakefulness, early this morning, he had been reminded, by throbbing belly and jaw of his humiliation, and morbidly he had relived the scene many times in the hours that were behind him.

Sometimes he thought that he had demeaned himself by his unusual behaviour. He had not struck, or been struck by, a fellow human being since he had come of age. He was an intellectual, a man of medicine, not an outdoor brawler. Fists settled nothing, except whose biceps were larger and who took more exercise. He had not meant to fight. It was just that the sight of Farelli, so self-assured at the party, had incited Garrett beyond control. And the drinks had been his final downfall. He was not a drinking man, and so that was wrong. If he had not had the drinks, he might not have swung at his rival. On the other hand, if he had not had the drinks and had swung at Farelli, he would have been sober enough to have won the fight. The righteous always won the fight, didn’t they? At any rate, he kept reminding himself, he had not meant to stoop so low, had only meant to put Farelli in his place with words, let him know that Garrett was no fool and had his number. He was sorry, too, that he had used the language he had used, and then, again, he was not sorry, for the charlatan deserved no better. But to have been knocked down, made to grovel at the criminal’s feet, that was what really rankled. And, almost as bad, to have had an outsider, Craig, witness this miserable subjugation.

What had followed, he kept remembering, had not been too bad. His eye had not yet begun to puff, and, reinforced by more drink, he had survived the formal dinner. When Saralee had put him to bed, he had told her everything—his version, of course—and she had sympathized, wifely moved and upset, and had spoken darkly of putting the police after that unruly Italian hooligan.

Now it was morning—no, afternoon—and he was still in his bed, too distressed and heartsick to leave it and commune with the hostile world outside.

The door buzzer sounded, and he heard Saralee call from the sitting-room, ‘That must be Dr.
ض
hman. I’ll get it.’

Garrett propped himself higher on the pillow, wondering why
ض
hman had come. Then, through the parted drapes, he saw that the visitor was not
ض
hman at all, but the white-coated room-service waiter who had called for the lunch tray.

When the waiter had gone, Saralee came to the foot of the bed.

‘Are you feeling any better, John?’

‘I’ll live.’

‘Dr.
ض
hman should be here soon. Do you want to get out of your pyjamas and dress?’

‘No, I’ll see him here.’

After Saralee had returned to addressing her postcards, Garrett left his obsessive reliving of last night’s horror, and tried to put his mind on
ض
hman. At eleven o’clock in the morning,
ض
hman had telephoned, and Saralee had taken the call.
ض
hman had sounded, she said afterwards, excited, bursting with some kind of news. He had inquired if Garrett would be free in the afternoon, because if he were free, there was something extremely important
ض
hman must tell him. Saralee had covered the mouthpiece and repeated this to her husband, and Garrett had waved his hand negatively, muttering that he wanted to see no one. But then he had said, ‘Ask him what it’s about.’ Saralee had asked what it was about, listened, and said to her husband, ‘It’s about Farelli.’ At once, Garrett had been curious, and eager to see an ally. ‘Tell him to come over at two.’ Now it was just past two, and Garrett was waiting and wondering. What he wondered the most about was whether
ض
hman had learned of the fight, and was coming to warn him of trouble. And again, obsessively, his mind relived the fight.

It was 2.10 when Dr. Erik
ض
hman, a thin leather briefcase under his arm, arrived. His pugilistic face was alive with good cheer, but at once sobered when he found his friend in bed, marked by recent combat.

The moment that Saralee had departed with
ض
hman’s overcoat, the Swede pulled a chair up to the bed, studied Garrett’s bruised profile, and clucked with concern. He scratched his short cropped reddish hair with stubby fingers.

‘Uhhh—Dr. Garrett, my good friend, what has happened to you? Did you fall down some stairs—or bump into a door?’

‘I was slugged by that drunken bastard Farelli,’ said Garrett with vehemence.

ض
hman seemed confused. ‘He actually hit you?’

‘Not once, but several times. And he kicked me when I was down.’

‘But Dr. Garrett, this is—uhhh—shocking, shocking!’

‘Absolutely the truth. Last night, Saralee and I had dinner at Ragnar Hammarlund’s—all the winners were there—and Farelli, of course. He was drinking, and so was I, and I’ll admit I was sore as hell at him. I just couldn’t get it out of my mind how he, knowing you were a friend of mine, put one over on me by using you and your good work for a publicity stunt. So, at one point, I decided to tell him that you and I knew what he was up to, and we didn’t think he was being ethical. Well, we went outside, to talk privately in the garden, and one thing led to another, and he blurted out something insulting—I forget what—and I made some kind of innocent movement to warn him—maybe I waggled my finger under his nose—something like that—and without any chance for preparation on my part, he became violent—’

‘He gave you that black eye?’

‘Yes. Just out of nowhere—socked me in the stomach and then a couple of times in the face. I was off balance, not ready, and I tripped and went down. And then he kicked me. I would have killed him, I swear, only someone overheard us, saw us, and intervened.’

‘Anyone who can do you harm?’ asked
ض
hman, worried.

‘No, not at all. It was one of the other winners—Craig, the writer. He stopped Farelli from kicking me, and he kept me from fighting back.’

‘Just as well. It might have become uglier.’ He shook his head. ‘This—uhhh—this Farelli, I knew he was a bad one, after you told me the truth, but I could not have imagined he would resort to such a performance.’

Garrett touched his discoloured eye. ‘He is a man without morals, capable of anything.’

‘I see that,’ agreed
ض
hman. It grieved him to find his generous American mentor prone on his bed, so brutally victimized, and he became pensive. ‘Dr. Garrett, what will you do about this Farelli?’

Garrett shrugged helplessly. ‘I no longer know how to cope with him. I suppose you can say I am the martyr to my civilized Christian training. Men like you and me are taught to behave ourselves with dignity and forbearance—and, suddenly, when we are confronted with a barbarian who behaves like a pit viper, we are lost. I confess my failure—I do not know how to contend with this beast—this dangerous—’

‘Dr. Garrett—’

There was something about Erik
ض
hman’s expression, so set and avenging, that made Garrett halt his tirade in mid-sentence.

‘—I have a way for you to contend with Carlo Farelli,’ said
ض
hman.

ض
hman’s statement, uttered like a sentence of doom from a bewigged justice on the bench, alerted Garrett’s senses. He waited. Was there hope?

‘Uhhh—at first—I was not sure if I should come to you with this.’ He had brought his thin leather briefcase to his lap. ‘It seemed to me too inconclusive. Yet, if it could be proved, your case would be won in a single stroke. You would not only silence Farelli, you would destroy him. He would vanish from the earth.’

Garrett sat up straight eyes burning fanatically. ‘What is it?’

‘I will explain. Uhhh—after our meeting at the Caroline Institute—after you had convinced me that Farelli was taking credit for sharing a discovery that was not his but yours—and now even attempting to steal your credit too—I decided too—uhhh—casually—uhhh—look into Farelli. If nothing more, at least to try to understand such a man being in medicine. As you know, as I explained at our meeting, the Royal Swedish Academy of Science appoints expert investigators to look into the cause of each candidate—I and another investigated you—and two of my colleagues at the Caroline—they had investigated Farelli. These studies are thorough. I had told you how, back as far as the turn of the century, our committee sent two men to St. Petersburg to—uhhh—see what they could see about Pavlov. To be confidential with you, our medical investigators—they not only verify a discovery and determine its importance, but—and this must remain in this room—they report on the—uhhh—character, responsible character, of the discoverer. Well, Dr. Garrett, such an investigation was made of Carlo Farelli.’

All through this recital, excitement had mounted within Garrett. He could not be mistaken. Something of vital importance was coming. ‘You—you said on the phone you had something important. Is it about Farelli? Did you find out something about that dirty—?’

‘Yes.’

Garrett could not modulate his voice. ‘What did you find? Tell me—I’ve got to know!’

ض
hman had slowly drawn the zipper back and opened his briefcase. He fingered through it, and removed two thin sheets of typescript.

‘As you no doubt know,’ said
ض
hman, ‘Farelli’s background is—uhhh—colourful.’

‘I don’t know, except what’s been in the papers.’ And then, he asked urgently, ‘What do you mean—colourful?’

ض
hman tapped the typescript. ‘It is here. This is not the original investigation report. But one of the men who took part—an old friend and former schoolmate—a cardiac specialist like us—he told me from memory what he had found, and I took notes, and then I typed it myself. Of course, it might be possible to see the original report—through my friend—or someone. It is filed away, but I am sure it would be no different from what I have in hand. My friend has the memory of a bull elephant.’
ض
hman examined the top sheet in his lap, and then looked up. ‘You know, of course, that in the last days of 1941, when Mussolini had already declared war on Russia and the United States, Dr. Farelli was placed under arrest by OVRA, the Fascist Secret Police?’

‘I don’t know the details,’ said Garrett. ‘He bragged to me once that he was in prison during the war.’