The Prize (63 page)

Presently, because his mind was on Emily, he returned to her cabin. She was still on the bed, as he had left her, eyes closed, dozing. He sat in the chair beside her, extracted a pocket-sized German edition of a biography of Immanuel Kant from his coat, and resumed reading. When he reached Heine’s description of Kant, he reread it: ‘The life of Immanual Kant is hard to describe; he has indeed neither life nor history in the proper sense of the words. He lived an abstract, mechanical, old-bachelor existence, in a quiet remote street in Kِnigsberg . . . .’

Stratman considered this. There, he thought, but for the grace of Emily, go I. By her sharing of his life, she had infused her guardian’s ‘old-bachelor existence’ with an element of normality, yet, ironically, had been unable to retain an element of normality for herself. The terrible incident of the evening underlined for him, in a way he had found impossible to explain to Dr. Ilman, Emily’s dependence on him. Without his support, after he was gone, she would have been forced into the turmoil of the working world. Any notion that this necessity would have given her strength had been dissipated by the night’s events. As he had long ago guessed, she would not have survived. One cannot expect a person without arms to feed himself. How fortuitous had been the Nobel award. Once he had the cheque in hand, Emily would have her buffer against the future.

He read more about his beloved Kant, drifted off into numerous speculations, even nodded off several times, hardly aware of the passage of time or of the fact that the ship had ceased pitching and was now rolling less.

The rapping on the door brought him up sharply, and awakened Emily, too.

The steward put his head in. ‘I’ll need the rest of the luggage, sir. We’re just outside Gِteborg. It’ll be less than an hour now.’

No sooner had the steward gone with the suitcases, than a young boy in white uniform, wearing the telegraph-office arm band, appeared. There were four long-distance calls from Stockholm. Stratman asked if he might take them here in Emily’s room. The boy went to the telephone and contacted the officer’s room. In a few moments, he handed the receiver to Stratman, gratefully accepted his tip, and rushed off.

The first call, and the two after that, were from Swedish newspapers. There was static on the wire, and Stratman had difficulty in hearing. He answered the questions that he understood, briefly, precisely, and promised each correspondent that he would give lengthier interviews in Stockholm.

The fourth call was from Dr. Carl Adolf Krantz. Stratman recognized the name and was friendly. He thanked Krantz for his effusive congratulations and welcome. Yes, the voyage had been pleasant and restful. Yes, he and his niece would arrive at eight in the morning. Yes, they looked forward to meeting the reception committee and to participating in the programmes and ceremonies.

During all these calls, Emily, having washed and applied light make-up, stood at the porthole, half listening, staring out into the rain-crossed night. Spotlights on the water had picked out the pilot boat, and the launch that followed shortly after. The ship was progressing slowly, among what seemed to be dozens of islands, and growing larger in sight was the framework of lights that must be the wharves and the city of Gِteborg.

At 10.20, Emily was brought away from the porthole, to join her uncle, by the noise at the door. At once, it seemed, they were surrounded by visitors. The purser was on hand to introduce a First Secretary of the Swedish Foreign Office, who had driven down from Stockholm and would ease their way through customs to the train. Four or five city officials, representing Gِteborg, were introduced, and after mumbling their formal greetings, gazed upon Stratman with the awe they had once accorded Wilhelm Roentgen.

For Emily, never leaving her uncle’s side, what followed was a continuous flow of movement. Led to the music-room, where two Swedish men and two women were stamping passports and checking money declarations, Emily and her uncle were met with silent respect and quickly passed through. From the rail of the open top deck—the downpour had slowed to a drizzle—she watched the ship ease alongside the huge wharf, seeing clusters of Swedes waiting with flowers and from somewhere hearing the strains of ‘The Star-Spangled Banner’.

Following the First Secretary and her uncle downstairs, trailed by the Gِteborg officials, she wondered if she would see Mark Claborn again. She hoped not, and she was relieved when they arrived at the head of the gangway, and he was nowhere in sight. With the others, she descended the gangway, pushing through the customs shed jammed with visitors, porters, officials, and arrived at the counter under a huge ‘S’ that held their five suitcases. The customs examiner was smiling. He had already sealed the cases without opening them. A Nobel winner, his smile seemed to say, could not be suspected of smuggling.

‘We had better hurry now,’ the First Secretary was insisting to Stratman. Two porters carried their cases, and followed them down the stairs to the street. It was raining harder again. The First Secretary’s Mercedes, guarded by two policemen, was a few yards away. Emily and Stratman gave their thanks to the city officials, hurried through the increasing rain, and fell into the back seat of the vehicle.

The First Secretary took the wheel, and they were moving. In the rain, Emily could form no impression of Gِteborg. The port at the mouth of the Gِta River had a population of 400,000. This seemed incredible. The wet, cold streets were deserted. This was the street known as Sِdra Hamngatan, and that was Milles’s Poseidon Fountain in the Gِtaplatsen, and over there the Rِhsska Museum of Applied Arts. While her uncle voiced his appreciation, Emily could make out nothing except two parks that seemed attractive but abandoned in the rain, and the rows of lights about the business district.

They reached the first of the two Stockholm boat trains seven minutes before its departure.

The First Secretary was all efficiency. He guided them to their adjoining compartments. He counted their luggage. He spoke in an undertone—obviously of Max Stratman’s importance—to the conductor who wore a black-and-yellow arm band reading ‘
Sovvagn
’. He shook their hands, first Stratman’s, then Emily’s, and said that he would see them late tomorrow at the Grand Hotel. Then he charged off, and almost instantly the train shook and began to move.

Before Emily and Stratman could leave the aisle, the black-uniformed conductor reappeared.

‘Your berths are made,’ he told them in careful English. ‘There is no private toilet as in America, I am sorry. The one toilet is at the end of the carriage. We do not have a porter in each carriage, but if you ring, I will come swiftly. There is a pull-down basin to wash your hands. I hope you are comfortable.’

By the time Emily had entered her compartment, the noisy train was catapulting along at breakneck speed. The compartment was tiny but, she was sure, luxurious by Swedish standards. Everything seemed wooden, except the gleaming steel lever that secured the door.

She was more tired than she had realized. She snapped open the overnight case on her berth, removed her toilet articles, then opened the washbasin. The hot and cold water taps were both cold. She did not mind. With a tissue, she shed her makeup. Then she brushed her teeth, washed and found a towel on the berth to dry. Lifting the basin back into the wall, she searched for a comb, and pulled it through her short bobbed hair twenty times.

She undressed with haste, slipped into her white pleated nightgown, placed the overnight case on the floor, and slid between the tight covers of the sleeping berth. When she laid her head on the pillow, she found no comfort. It was both hard and too high. Poking behind the mattress, she found a second pillow, a hardpacked maroon roll, underneath. The Swedes are Spartans, she thought. She decided against removing the red roll. She would be a Spartan, too.

About to dim the lights, she heard her uncle through the compartment door. ‘Emily—
wie geht es dir?
’

‘Yes? Come in.’

He entered, tentatively, glanced about. ‘Are you comfortable, Emily?’

‘Perfectly,’ she lied.

He balanced himself against the wall. ‘It is going very fast.’ He squinted at her. ‘You are not sorry you came?’

‘Of course not, Uncle Max. Whatever gave you that idea? I can’t wait to get to Stockholm. Can you?’

He tried to reinforce her enthusiasm. ‘I think it will be an unforgettable week. Not so much this Nobel Ceremony, but the excitement, the new faces. My main wish is that you have a good time.’

‘I will. Don’t you worry. Get some rest.’

‘Yes.’ But he was reluctant to leave. He looked down at his niece, so small, so childish, on the large berth. ‘Emily, I am sorry about what happened tonight.’ He shrugged. ‘It happens. It is life. Only it should not happen to you.’ He hesitated. ‘I was wondering. Is there—is there anything more you want to tell me?’

‘It’s out of my mind, Uncle Max.’

‘Good,
Liebchen
, very good. You think you will sleep?’

‘I took a tablet.’

‘Good night. The conductor will wake us in time.’ At the door, he halted again. ‘Fix the latch when I go.’

‘Yes, Uncle Max. Good night.’

After he was gone, she did not bother with the latch. She dimmed the lights, and rested on her back, one arm behind her head. The train bounced beneath her, but that was not what made sleep difficult. For the first time in years, she thought of her past, the time before America, her girlhood. Then she thought of the curiously arid, placid period of growing up in the new country. Her mind touched on her resolution, made when she had gone aboard the ship, the determination to become a complete woman, and her consequent failure. The resolution illuminated the events of this night.

That poor young man on the boat, she thought. He was only my guinea pig, and he did not know it. She could hardly remember his name now. But anyway, he deserved more. He would never know how he had been used, and to what extent her experiment had been unsuccessful. She had known psychiatrists, and she had read Freud and Adler, and sometimes she had the objectivity to point their perceptions inward on herself. It was crystal-clear to her now that, unconsciously, she had fully provoked the incident. The drinking had been deliberate. The invitation for six o’clock. The being stark-naked in the shower at six with both doors open. She had invited the ultimate act, not knowing that she had, and expected that he would come as he had, not knowing that she had done so. At the same time—how confusing—her saner conscious ego had not wanted it at all, had feared and despised it. The result had been inevitable. It would forever be inevitable, she knew.

The body, the lie of a body that provoked, the figure stretched below her, detached from her meditations, was her body and she could not disown it, she knew. She did not like it this night, nor any other night in memory. It was crippled inside and soiled outside, and she wished it was not her body, as she had often guessed in Atlanta that some blacks had wished to be white and could not understand a God that had so shown his displeasure. Like them, she resented the curse of Ham, and wanted normality—whatever that was—well, normality, that meant belonging, acceptance, no fears.

It had been 6.18 when the young man had gone from her stateroom. No one would understand, but that had been the exact time that the last of Emily Stratman had died. Did the Nobel people know that their laureate in physics was arriving with a corpse? The celebrated Professor Max Stratman and corpse. Stockholm. She played the word-association game. What does the word Stockholm mean to you, Miss Stratman? Quickly, now, what? And she replied, quickly, trepidation, dread, anxiety, fear, men. All one and the same, all finally—men.

My crazy mind, she thought, wandering. Wonderful, drugful tablet, work, go on, work. When will I sleep? . . .

On the sunny, late morning of December 2, Carl Adolf Krantz, Count Bertil Jacobsson, and Ingrid P
ه
hl were once more, the second time this morning, the fourth time in two days, seated in the rear of a Foreign Office limousine, en route to the Arlanda Airport. Because two winners and their relatives—Dr. John Garrett and his wife Saralee Garrett, and Mr. Andrew Craig and his sister-in-law Leah Decker—were arriving at 12.35, on the same flight of the Scandinavian Airlines System from Copenhagen, another Foreign Office limousine had been dispatched half an hour earlier to the air terminus.