The Prize (56 page)

With an inaudible sigh, he straightened and saw his own countenance reflected in the glass partition. Examining his shimmering, ghostlike image, he was suddenly aware that he was probably no more qualified than either Krantz or P
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hl to represent the will of Alfred Nobel, or, at least, that they were no less qualified than he. Hypnotically, his eyes held on his image, trying to see what the approaching new laureates would see of him. What? A very old man. An outdated aristocratic head. Sensitive scholar features. Face like wrinkled parchment, whitish-bluish, almost transparent. The body’s frame less tall now, limbs brittle, swathed in heavy garments to appear fuller, stronger, formidable. ‘I am a misanthrope, but exceedingly benevolent’, Nobel had written of himself. Perhaps, thought Jacobsson, a description of his own self, as well.

Jacobsson closed his eyes, and the image was gone. He had not been young since the previous century, he remembered with surprise. The world of this afternoon was the world of tomorrow’s people. Did he belong here now? Yet, truly, who belonged here more? He told himself that he represented continuity. After all, how many alive could bridge the long years, from those first winners in 1901, Roentgen, van’t Hoff, Behring, Prudhomme, Dunant, Passy, to this year’s winners, Stratman, the Marceaus, Garrett, Farelli, Craig? And who else could quote the spoken words, heard in person, engraved on memory, of Alfred Bernhard Nobel?

As an impressionable adolescent accompanying his father on a royal liaison mission, he had been privileged to be in Alfred Nobel’s presence at least a dozen times, first in Paris, and then in the lonely villa at San Remo during 1896, the last year of Nobel’s life. In view of the fact that Jacobsson had been blessed with an inherited competence, he had been able to make the Nobel Foundation his vocation since 1900, the year preceding the first awards.

In recent years, because he had begun to place a value on his unique position and because he felt that he owed something to posterity, Jacobsson had begun his Notes. These were his memories of the past, jottings of the present, relating his knowledge of the secret voting sessions of the Nobel academies, impressions and anecdotes and activities of the various laureates, descriptions of the events and ceremonies, in all a priceless rag bag of history. Jacobsson had begun the Notes—there were now seventeen green ledgers filled in his crabbed hand—not many years past. The first entry had been made late the night following that November day when the Swedish Academy, in closed session in the Old Town, had voted the literary prize to an obscure Sardinian authoress, Grazia Deledda, instead of to Gabriele D’Annunzio, because the majority of members had privately objected to D’Annunzio’s amorous exploits and to his swindling a Danish widow of her home, Villa Carnacco, in Italy. That had been 1927. Since then, except when he was ill, Jacobsson had entered something, some fact, some gossip, each day. He had always supposed that it would be a book, a large, handsome published book, to justify his life somehow. But in recent years, he had realized that he would never write the book. For him, the contribution of the raw Notes would be enough. Someday, someday, some other would write the book.

Abruptly, Jacobsson shook himself free of self-absorption and re-entered the present moment, again a part of Ingrid P
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hl and Carl Adolf Krantz and the limousine. The authoress was dozing lightly beside him. Krantz concentrated on the task of undoing a metal puzzle; he always carried several new ones in his pocket.

Idly, Jacobsson looked out of the car window at the Stockholm suburbs unreeling before his vision. Beyond the highway, the soft sloping hills were defiantly bronze-green despite the cold. Here and there, in sight and then gone, the rural barnlike wooden houses, most of them beige-coloured but cheerfully red-roofed. How he enjoyed this land, with its shiny lakes and birch trees and clusters of primeval forest and gaping open spaces filled only by Scandinavia’s cerulean sky endlessly welded to the verdant earth. Actually, he thought, this was Ingrid P
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hl’s dominion. In her slender volumes, she had staked out her possession by adoption and love. Essentially, Jacobsson knew, he was a city being. He left the cocoon of the city only in December, on these occasions, and was forever surprised at the visual wonders of the surrounding countryside and his pleasure in them. Annually, each December, he vowed to return, for an outing, a vacation, but by January all resolve had evaporated and he was part of and one with his metropolis again.

‘Bertil.’ It was Ingrid P
ه
hl’s voice that brought him out of his trance.

He swung around, attentive. She was fully awake now, inserting a fresh cigarette in her holder, and then lighting it. He waited.

‘Bertil,’ she repeated, coughing smoke, ‘here we are, and I do not even know our schedule. Is it strenuous?’

‘You mean our receptions? Not at all.’ He dug inside his overcoat, and then inside his suit jacket and removed a folded sheet of onionskin paper. As he opened it, he saw that Krantz was also interested. ‘Here it is,’ said Jacobsson. ‘Shall I read it aloud?’

‘Please,’ said Ingrid P
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hl. ‘I cannot read in a moving vehicle.’

Jacobsson brought the open sheet closer to his face. ‘December one. That’s today. Two twenty-five, afternoon. Dr. Denise Marceau. Dr. Claude Marceau. By Air France at Arlanda Airport. This evening. Seven o’clock. Dr. Carlo Farelli and Mrs. Farelli. By Scandinavian Airlines. Also Arlanda. December two. That’s tomorrow. Eight in the morning. Professor Max Stratman and—’

‘Eight in the morning,’ groaned Ingrid P
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hl.

‘He is worth welcoming at any hour,’ Krantz snapped at her.

‘—and his niece,’ Jacobsson read, hurrying on. ‘By train from Gِteborg. Central Station. Twelve thirty-five tomorrow afternoon. Dr. John Garrett and Mrs. Garrett. By Scandinavian Airlines. Arlanda Airport. On the same flight from Copenhagen, Mr. Andrew Craig and his sister-in-law.’

Krantz snorted. ‘Sister-in-law. Now, we pay for them, too?’

‘He is a widower,’ Ingrid P
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hl answered angrily. ‘Do you want him to come alone?’

‘Please,’ interjected Jacobsson. He studied his sheet, then lowered and folded it. ‘As I said, Mr. Craig will be on the same flight with the Garretts. That will make all of them. So you see, Ingrid, the reception part of our duties will be done with and over by early afternoon tomorrow.’ He returned the paper to his inner pocket. ‘Of course, after that, there will be our other little duties. But I am certain they will be stimulating. And, as usual, the Foreign Office is loaning us several energetic attachés to help out when you and Carl wish to nap.’

‘The French couple we are going to meet right now, I do not know a thing about them,’ said Ingrid P
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hl. ‘What should we know, Bertil?’

Jacobsson shrugged. ‘What is there to know? They are renowned and dedicated chemists. Despite Carl’s dissent, their discovery has met with universal acclaim. Except for the cuttings from the Paris newspapers—mostly features and interviews about their work—I know nothing of them personally.’ He nodded across the seat. ‘I think that is more Carl’s department.’

Momentarily, Krantz’s stubby fingers ceased working the metal puzzle. ‘They were proposed last year and this year, among five hundred others. There was the general weeding out, and then our committee of five recommended the Marceaus along with half a dozen others. I heard the lengthy investigation reports of our chemistry experts, and they were highly favourable, as you know. But there was little in these reports about the personalities of the winners. As far as I have been able to learn, they are both in their forties. He is older by several years. They have been married a dozen years or more. They have been dedicated to the idiot sperm project six or seven years, I think. They work in the Institut Pasteur, although not officially connected with it. They do not seem to have any interests, outside their work—like most of us in science. I would suppose, being married to each other, and their work, they will be inseparable and of the same mind. Somewhat dull, I predict.’

‘Oh, I wonder about that,’ said Ingrid P
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hl. ‘I am perfectly fascinated by married couples performing outside their marriage as collaborators. It happens so often in the sciences. I wonder why it does not happen in the arts. Can you imagine a play by Anne and William Shakespeare? Or a novel by Catherine and Charles Dickens? Or a painting by Mette Sophie and Paul Gauguin? I suppose this does not happen because creativity in the arts is more individual.’

‘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 P
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hl. ‘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 P
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hl.

‘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’
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cole 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 P
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hl.

Jacobsson seemed startled. ‘Odd? What is odd?’

‘To be a married couple winning the Nobel Prize,’ explained Ingrid P
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hl. ‘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?’