The Prize (118 page)

Craig was ready, and he met her between the benches, and they went into the corridor. Briefly, they were alone. She halted to put on her sweater. She poked one arm into the sweater, and tossed her golden ponytail, as he assisted her with the other arm. Coming around her, face to face once more, he could see that the upper button of her blouse was open, and he could see the cleavage between the breasts.

He tried to picture the breasts and nipples now pressed behind the blouse, and he tried to picture the thighs beneath the skirt, and at once, all at once, in that instant, he was moved by a consuming passion for what could not be seen, and by a hungry desire to see it and possess it. For the first time since entering the gymnasium, he was physically aroused.

It amused him, and he smiled.

She saw his face, and took his hand. ‘What is it, Mr. Craig?’

‘Just a private thought,’ he said. ‘I was thinking of the most incredible thing on earth.’

‘What?’

‘Man,’ he said.

And then he squeezed her hand, and started with her down the corridor, wondering how long it would take her to undress.

8

WHATawakened Andrew Craig was the sound of voices from another room.

When he opened his eyes, he instantly realized that he was lying on the folding bed of Lilly Hedqvist’s living-room. Hazily, the events of the night before were recalled—Gottling, in the W
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rdshus, drunkenly revealing how the Nobel Prize in literature had been inspired by politics, not art; the nudists in the gymnasium, unclad and bizarre, listening to a speech by their director; Lilly and himself, on this bed, performing their protracted lovemaking.

Only the last memory made sense, and Craig tried to revive the details of it, but at last he gave up. He had been more inebriated than he believed. A few fuzzy amatory pictures remained. The rest was a void. The surviving evidence of pleasure, aside from the rumpled bed, was his languid body frame. His mind contained neither hangover nor remorse; his limbs were loose.

He would have chosen to remain in bed all morning, but then he remembered the voices that had roused him. Undoubtedly, one voice was Lilly’s. He glanced at the clock. It was already after nine o’clock. Why was Lilly here? Why wasn’t she at work? And the other voice. Who had come into the apartment—friend? enemy?—and seen him this way, and was now in the kitchenette?

The voices, indistinct, resumed their give-and-take, and Craig realized that one of the voices was male. Alarmed, Craig immediately sat up, and then lifted himself off the bed, gathered up his clothes and shoes, and hurried into the bathroom.

The shower and drying, the dressing and grooming, took him twenty minutes. When he emerged, somewhat combative over the compromising position Lilly had put him in (alleviated quickly by the realization of the compromising position he had put her in, and by the further realization that she had no idea at all, or at least had not expressed an idea, of his importance and news value), he noted that the pull-down bed had apparently been made and raised back into the wall, and that the living-room was all neatness and chastity again.

He went into the kitchenette, prepared for anything.

At first he thought that Lilly, at the stove in the foreground, was now alone. The morning was dark, and there was but a single window and a weak lone electric bulb overhead. She was a delight to the eye, as usual, golden hair combed free and long, throat exposed and young, wearing a crisp cocoa dacron blouse and dark tan swing skirt. She had just finished pouring coffee, as he entered, and her spontaneous friendly smile showed him even white teeth and no regrets.

‘Good morning, Mr. Craig. Did you rest?’

‘I’m wonderful, Lilly. I thought I heard—’

He stopped short, in mid-sentence. His gaze had gone past Lilly, to the shadowed end of the kitchenette, where, leaning casually against the service porch door, holding a saucer in one pudgy hand and a steaming cup in the other, stood a man.

‘I want you to meet my best and oldest friend in Stockholm, Mr. Craig,’ said Lilly. ‘This is Nicholas Daranyi. He does not like to be reminded of the Nicholas. Everyone must call him Daranyi.’

‘Like Garbo or Duse,’ said Daranyi. ‘Or, for that matter, Kitchener. It would be less to call him Horatio Kitchener. Immodest of me, perhaps. But we all have our little vanities.’ He had set down the cup and saucer, and now he came forward to accept Craig’s hand. ‘I am pleased to know you, Mr. Craig.’

Under the electric bulb, Craig was able to appraise the intruder. Daranyi was in his fifties and below middle height. His head was large and fleshy, and was sparsely covered with hair that had been oiled, then parted well to one side and combed to cover a balding spot. His face was sleek, too closely shaved, and the jovial cheek fat made the eyes into slits. But the eyes were merry, and the long nose and mouth amused, and you thought of yuletide and were sure he wore a costume to surprise all children at Christmas. Preceding him was a considerable potbelly, and you wondered how the legs, so thin, held him upright. His grey suit, faintly checkered, was short at the sleeves and short at the trouser cuffs, but pressed and clean and fastidious, with signs of rubbed usage. His total appearance was unmistakably Middle European, and even in this foreign place, he looked foreign. He smelled of exotic soap and strong cologne.

‘I confess a certain embarrassment,’ said Craig frankly.

‘But why?’ asked Daranyi ingenuously. ‘Because you overslept?’

Lilly turned from the tray she was preparing and clapped her hands with delight. ‘Oh, Daranyi, do you not understand? Mr. Craig is a nice American with Pilgrim morals. He is ashamed to be found in the bed of an unmarried woman.’

‘Yes, I see,’ said Daranyi gravely. ‘But, Mr. Craig, you are in Sweden, not in your native Minnesota—’

‘Wisconsin,’ interjected Lilly.

‘—native Wisconsin. Moreover, I am like a father to Lilly.’ Then, he added quickly, slit eyes bright, ‘A tolerant and sophisticated father, that is.’

‘I don’t know how I would have lived without Daranyi,’ said Lilly, finishing the tray. ‘When I left Lund four years ago, I knew no one here except for three letters of introduction. One was from an aunt to Daranyi. He found me the job with Nordiska Kompaniet. He helped find me this apartment. He bought me my television. And on my two mornings off, and on Sundays, he drives me wherever I must go. Without him, I would be lost.’

‘Pay no attention to Lilly, Mr. Craig,’ said Daranyi. ‘She over-values me constantly, to my secret delight.’

‘And Daranyi knows,’ Lilly went on gaily to Craig, ‘that the Swedish girl has a trial, with more women than men in Sweden—’

‘Six women to every five men in Stockholm,’ said Daranyi precisely.

‘—and a girl so old as twenty-three, like myself, will be an old maid, and mean and nervous, if she does not have a man she admires in her bed at least every fortnight. So do not be embarrassed, Mr. Craig. I am sure Daranyi will tell you that when he came this morning, he was pleased to find you in my bed.’

‘It is true,’ said Daranyi with equanimity.

‘Now, into the living-room, gentlemen,’ said Lilly. ‘We will have breakfast.’

Somewhat bewildered, but enjoying himself, Craig followed Daranyi into the living-room. Daranyi cleared the glass coffee table and drew up the two wicker chairs, and Lilly served fruit juice, ladled out the scrambled eggs from an earthenware dish, and put cups of coffee before them. Then they all sat and ate.

‘Lilly tells me you are a writer,’ said Daranyi to Craig.

Craig, his mouth full, nodded.

‘Fiction or non-fiction?’ inquired Daranyi.

‘Fiction,’ said Craig.

‘Then it is unlikely I have read you. In my work, one has little time for novels. I must spend my book time with politics and biography, current and past, and most of my time for reading I give to newspapers and periodicals.’

‘What is your work, Mr. Daranyi?’ asked Craig.

Daranyi had brought the fruit juice to his lips, but now he held it poised. ‘I am a spy, Mr. Craig,’ he said, and then, he slowly drank down the juice.

Craig knew that his face was foolish with astonishment. He had made his inquiry casually in passing, not expecting anything of interest, expecting perhaps that Daranyi might be an insurance salesman or shoe clerk or civil servant. Instead, he had named the most improbable profession on earth. Craig decided that his ears had deceived him. ‘Did you say—spy?’

‘That is correct,’ said Daranyi, wolfing down his eggs. As he chewed them, he went on. ‘It is not the happiest profession any longer. Once, it was. But no more. If I had a son, I would not let him follow in my footsteps. I would rather let him be a dentist.’

Craig remained nonplussed. Was the potbellied man having sport with him? He appeared serious enough, and Lilly, committed to her breakfast, was hardly listening and certainly no part of a joke. ‘But if you’re a spy,’ said Craig, ‘whom do you work for? And how can you even mention it?’

‘Among friends I can mention it,’ said Daranyi. ‘If I do not mention it, how will I find clients? Besides, most people do not take me seriously. It is an unlikely profession, is it not? Most people think I am having fun with them. There is no need for secrecy, except when I am actually at work. When I am at work, I am undercover and discreet. As to whom I will work for, the answer is—anyone who will pay well. I am the last of a breed almost extinct—the free-lance spy.’

‘Exactly what does that mean?’

‘It means, Mr. Craig, that ideological amateurs have almost put the professional spy out of business. The operation of the Soviet Union is typical. Their intelligence need not shop for expensive agents abroad. They know there are enough idealistic Communist fanatics or fellow travellers who will do the job with dedication at cut-rate fees. The Dr. Allan Nunn Mays, and Dr. Fuchses, and Rosenbergs have made my lot a hard one. There were always national agents, of course, but there were free-lance spies, also. For example, Gertrud Zelle—you know her as Mata Hari or H. 21. Hundreds of men and women like her, who had no allegiance but to themselves and the nobility of their profession, worked for any nation, at any task, on a flat-fee basis. As a young man, in Budapest, I aspired to this profession, as one does to law or medicine. From my reading, it appeared that while there were risks, the inducements were worth while—constant travel, interesting people, excellent food, considerable income, and possible immortality in histories. In the Second World War, I worked for the Germans in Istanbul. I had cultivated some peculiar talents—one of them lip reading—and I would sit in the cafés and restaurants and read the moving lips, across the room, of American and French and English diplomats and pass on their conversations. After the war, I did some valuable work for the English in Jordan and Palestine. You see, I play no favourites. Emotionalism is synonymous with starvation for one like me. The German mark and the English pound buy the same food and clothing.’

‘How did you come to Sweden?’ Craig wanted to know.

‘I could not go back to Budapest, nor did I wish to,’ said Daranyi. ‘I was stateless. I had no genuine passport, although I had several faked ones that I had used. I cold-bloodedly selected Sweden as a perfect base of operations. It is near Moscow, near the two worlds of Berlin, and yet with powerful American and English influences. And Sweden itself, in its anxiety to remain neutral is an excellent espionage customer. It was not difficult to obtain an assignment here as a minor foreign correspondent. Once here, I made myself useful to several persons in high places, and they have seen that I am permitted to remain. Stockholm has its faults. It goes to sleep too early. It is not Paris or Rome or Vienna or Istanbul. But there are worse places. My income is limited, but my needs are modest. I have a pleasant routine. I have good friends like Lilly.’

‘Tell Mr. Craig about Enbom,’ said Lilly from her coffee.

‘Enbom, yes,’ said Daranyi. ‘Lilly is proud of my part. So am I. You see, Mr. Craig, I make no pretences with you. I am no great one like Alfred Redl or Jules Silber or Fr
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ulein Doktor Elsbeth Schragmüller. First, I came too late to my profession. My kind of espionage is now outmoded, as I have said. Second, I am a coward. I am not ashamed to confess it. I am a spy who is scared. With such limitations, I do not receive many important assignments. In some ways, I have been reduced to a researcher. My last assignment, a month ago, was for a Danish industrialist, who desired certain private knowledge of a new Swedish competitor. Before that, I made an investigation for a member of the Royal Swedish Academy of Science—’

Craig was surprised. ‘A Nobel judge?’

‘As a matter of fact, yes,’ said Daranyi. ‘Dr. Carl Adolf Krantz, an old client of mine. You have probably never heard of him. At any rate, I had better not speak of that.’

Craig said nothing, although he was curious. He found his pipe and filled it, and remained attentive.