The Prize

Contents

THE PRIZE

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

1

THE northern night had come early to
Stockholm this day, and that meant that autumn was almost gone and the dark winter was near at hand.

For Count Bertil Jacobsson, as he walked slowly through the lamplit Humleg
ه
rden park, his lion-headed brown cane barely brushing the hardened turf, it was a happy time, his favourite time of the year. He knew the promise of this cold premature night: the winds would come, and the mists sweep in from
Lake
M
ن
laren
, and eventually, the snow and ice; and there would be no guilts about locking himself in his crowded, comfortable apartment, hibernating among his beloved mementoes of half a century, and working on his encyclopaedic Notes.

Emerging from the park, Count Bertil Jacobsson arrived at last on the pavement of Sturegatan. The evening’s constitutional was over, and the final exciting business of the night—the culmination of ten months of intensive and abrasive activity—would soon take place. For a moment, almost wistfully, he turned to look back at the park. To any other man, what had recently been so lush and green might now seem stark and denuded, the trees stripped of foliage and outlined grotesquely in the artificial light like gnarled symbols of life’s end in a surrealistic oil. But Jacobsson’s peculiar vision transformed the scene by some special alchemy to a kind of initiation of life, a nativity when nature was reborn, and the old year at last delivered of first life. Again, he told himself, his favourite season had arrived, and tonight, this night, would be a memorable one.

Turning back to the street, automatically glancing to the right and then to the left, and reassured that the thoroughfare was empty of traffic, Count Bertil Jacobsson began to cross it almost briskly, swinging his cane in a wide arc. When he reached the opposite pavement, he stood directly before the narrow six-storey building that was Sturegatan 14.

Tugging open one of the two towering metal doors—it had become more and more a feat of strength in recent years—he entered the Foundation building, and, as ever, felt warm and safe inside the dim hall that led to his office, his home, his museum, his life. Moving forward, he heard his leather footsteps on the marble floor, then paused briefly, as was his habit, before the giant sculptured bust of Alfred Nobel. Studying the sensitive, craggy, bearded face, Jacobsson was again unsure. Was this the way the old man had really looked, the way he remembered his looking, when Nobel was very old and he was very young? At last, with a sigh, he turned left, moved past the sign on the wall reading NOBELSTIFTELSEN, and with effort climbed the marble staircase to what American visitors persistently misnamed the second floor.

Opening and closing one of the glass-paned doors, Jacobsson again found himself in the reception corridor, with its familiar green carpet and rows of tables and chairs. Proceeding along the corridor, he noticed the bookcases on either side, those on the one side packed with investment journals (to which he constantly objected, no matter how often he was told that the Board’s primary job was one of finance), and those on the other side with expensively bound sets of Spanish, French, German and English works of the winners of decades past.

He could see Astrid Steen, his plump secretary, standing at an open file behind the counter of the reception office, her back to him.

‘Mrs. Steen—’

She turned quickly, dutifully, and he saw on her face the same sense of excitement that was mounting within him.

‘Are the telegrams ready?’ he inquired.

‘Oh, yes, sir—on your desk.’

‘Where is everyone?’

‘Up in the apartment. They are drinking your whisky, I’m afraid.’

He chuckled. Every year, the same.

‘For them, the job is over,’ Mrs. Steen added.

‘Not yet—not yet—’

‘The Foreign Office called. An attaché is on his way.’

‘Good. I shall be in my office.’

Count Bertil Jacobsson went into the Executive Director’s room, regretting his superior’s recent illness, but secretly pleased that as Assistant Director the task was wholly in his hands. He hastened through the small office, and entered his own even smaller office, in the adjacent room.

Removing his felt hat and wool overcoat, and carefully placing his cane in a corner, Jacobsson winked gaily at the portrait of his friend, old King Gustaf V, that hung on the facing wall. He saw the large manila folder on his desk, quickly took it, and then sat down heavily on the soft blue sofa.

With rising anticipation, he opened the manila folder. He was pleased that this year, at his suggestion—he could not remember that it had ever happened before—the Royal Academy of Science, the Caroline Institute, the
Swedish
Academy
, and the Nobel Committee of the Norwegian Storting had all agreed to make their choices known to the world simultaneously. It would provide for greater drama, Jacobsson had argued, and he knew that he would be proved right.

Studying the contents of the open folder in his hand, he suddenly frowned. Quickly, he shuffled the typewritten telegram sheets for the one that was missing, and, then, he remembered. The Norwegian Storting had, just as it had sixteen times in the past, informed the Nobel Foundation that it would not give a peace prize this year. Recollecting the decision that had been transmitted yesterday, again he silently nodded his approval. This time for many things, but not for public accolades to peacemakers.

Gingerly, lovingly, he held up the first drafted telegram, and moved his lips as he read it to himself.

IN RECOGNITION OF . . . IN SUPPORT OF HUMANITARIAN IDEALS . . . THE NOBEL FOUNDATION OF STOCKHOLM ON BEHALF OF THE SWEDISH ACADEMY IS PLEASED TO INFORM YOU THAT YOU HAVE TODAY BEEN VOTED THIS YEARS NOBEL PRIZE . . . DETAILS FOLLOW STOP HEARTIEST CONGRATULATIONS STOP . . .

There was a rap on the door. Jacobsson looked up, as Mrs. Steen put her head in.

‘The attaché is here, sir. He is ready for the telegrams.’

‘Yes—yes—one moment—’

Hastily, Count Bertil Jacobsson counted the telegrams, read and reread them to see that all were in proper order, and at last he rose, and almost reluctantly handed them to Mrs. Steen.

‘All right, they can go out now.’

After the door had closed, Jacobsson, his fragility accentuated by the removal of his burden, walked slowly past his desk to the window. He stared down into Sturegatan, saw the chauffeured limousine waiting, and then lifted his gaze to the vacant park again.

November fifteenth, he thought. Indeed, a memorable day. His watch told him that it was 9.10 in the evening. So late for a memorable day to begin, but then, he knew that while it was late in Stockholm, it was earlier, much earlier, in Paris and Rome and Atlanta and Pasadena and that place called Miller’s Dam in the state of Wisconsin.

Down below, he saw the chauffeur jump out of the limousine, circle it, and open a rear door. By craning his neck, Jacobsson could see the tall figure of the attaché, carrying a briefcase, approach, bend into the car, and disappear from sight.

In a moment, the limousine engine roared, and the telegrams were on their way to the Swedish Foreign Office on Gustaf Adolfs Torg. Within the hour, they would be delivered to Swedish Embassies in three nations, and then be relayed to the winners themselves.

The winners themselves, Jacobsson thought. He knew their names well now, because he had heard them repeated regularly in the long months after their nominations, through the investigations, debates, haggling, and voting. But who were they really, these men and women he would be meeting in less than four weeks? How would they feel and be affected? What were they doing now, these pregnant hours before the telegrams arrived and before their greatness became public glory and riches?

His mind went back to his Notes, to what others in past years had been doing at the moment of notification: Eugene O’Neill had been sleeping, and been pulled out of bed to hear the news; Jane Addams had been preparing to go under ether for major surgery; Dr. Harold Urey had been lunching with university professors at his faculty club; Albert Einstein had got the word on board a ship from Japan. And the new ones? Where and how would the prize find them? Jacobsson wished that he could go with the telegrams, with each and every one, and see what happened when they reached their destinations.

Ah, the fancies of an old man, he thought at last.
Nog med detta.
Enough of this. He must join his colleagues in the upstairs apartment for a drink to a good job done. Still, it would be something, something indeed, to go along with those telegrams . . .

It was 8.22 in the evening when the telegram from
Stockholm reached the Swedish Embassy in
Paris. The Ambassador’s pink and concave male secretary, still busy typing the notes on the African mediation question, opened the wire routinely. But as he scanned the contents, his eyes widened with awe.

The first portion of the telegram was addressed to the Ambassador: PLEASE DELIVER THE FOLLOWING BY HAND TO THE PARTIES ADDRESSED STOP OFFER PERSONAL CONGRATULATIONS ON THE BEHALF GOVERNMENT STOP

The message trembled in the secretary’s grasp as he continued to read. Desperately, he tried to remember where the Ambassador had said that he was going. Not home. Not the Opéra. Not the Palais de Justice. Cocktails—that was it, yes, at the residence of some diplomat, but he had not said which one. And then later he was to be at Lapérouse in the Quai des Grands-Augustins to dine. The secretary recalled making the reservation himself for ten o’clock.

His eyes sought the wall clock. Still an hour and a half before he could inform the Ambassador of the momentous news. For that period, the news, the secret, so important, so desired, was his alone. There was pleasure in this.

He settled back in his chair, like a little boy who had seen St. Nicholas, and began to reread the message that the Ambassador had been charged to convey:

FOR YOUR RESEARCHES IN SPERM STRUCTURE AND YOUR DISCOVERY OF VITRIFICATION OF THE SPERMATOZOON FOR SELECTIVE BREEDING THE NOBEL FOUNDATION OF STOCKHOLM ON BEHALF OF THE ROYAL SWEDISH ACADEMY OF SCIENCE IS PLEASED TO INFORM YOU THAT YOU HAVE TODAY BEEN VOTED THIS YEARS NOBEL PRIZE IN CHEMISTRY STOP THE PRIZE WILL BE A GOLD MEDALLION AND A CHEQUE FOR TWO HUNDRED AND FIFTY ONE THOUSAND FIVE HUNDRED NEW FRANCS STOP THE AWARD CEREMONY WILL TAKE PLACE IN STOCKHOLM ON DECEMBER TENTH STOP DETAILS FOLLOW STOP HEARTIEST CONGRATULATIONS STOP

The message was addressed to DOCTOR CLAUDE MARCEAU AND DOCTOR DENISE MARCEAU SIXTY TWO QUAI DORSAY PARIS FRANCE. . . .

It was only 8.30, and, except for the proprietors and the waiters, they had the restaurant to themselves.

In fact, Dr. Claude Marceau and Gisèle Jordan had already finished their dessert,
gâteau de riz
, or rather Claude had finished, and now watched Gisèle daintily spoon the last of her rice caramel with vanilla sauce. It had been a delicious meal:
soupe de poissons
, followed by the
spécialité
of the evening,
Le Jésu de la Marquise
, which consisted of
saucisson chaud
,
pistaché
,
truffé
,
salade de pommes à l’huile d’olive et romarin
, but the
pommes
sparingly for both.