The Prize (52 page)

‘And so you played along for them, never intending to participate honourably even in blackmail? The bosses said go to Stockholm, suck in Max, get him back to East Berlin for us—so we can use him for evil—and then you come back to us, too. That was the game, wasn’t it?’

Walther’s mouth was strange, twisting, twisting, saliva-brimmed, with no word being uttered, until at last the hoarse words broke through. ‘Do you think I would come to you in a hundred years? I wanted to help them get Max on the right side, yes. And the girl—Emily—yes, if she would come. I owed it to her—after what I know of Ravensbruck, after what I guess of her life in America—to raise her under my roof, in a decent house, with my family. But to leave my family for the likes of Max or the lot of you? To leave a good Russian wife—my two young children? They are my life, they and my work and our cause.’

He caught his breath, panting out of fever and fury.

‘Dr. Krantz!’ The voice, clear and assured, came from the rear of the stateroom, and it was Emily’s voice.

All of them turned as one, startled, having forgotten her. She stood before the open door of the bedroom cabin, had apparently been standing there for some minutes. Now, shifting her coat from one arm to the other, head high, lips compressed, only her step uneven, she crossed to the group.

‘Dr. Krantz,’ she repeated, ‘should you speak to Dr. Eckart once more, tell him this. Tell him there can be no trade—because there is no one for whom Uncle Max can be traded.’

She considered Craig gravely, her countenance dry-eyed and composed. ‘Thank you, Andrew,’ she said.

Kranz was waiting at the stateroom door. He went first. Emily was the next to go. Then it was Craig who left.

Not one of them looked back at Professor Walther Stratman. . . .

When they had arrived at his single room on the fifth floor of the Grand Hotel, Craig helped Emily inside, switching on the lights as they entered. Emily was heavy against his supporting arm, and twice she stumbled. ‘I’m all right,’ she muttered, ‘I’ll be all right.’

They had emerged from the cabin cruiser at P
ه
lsundet only fifteen minutes before, and the memory of it still hung over them. No sooner had Krantz led them up to the white pine deck than the athletic young Swedish guard had appeared, suspicious and edgy. Krantz had sternly rattled forth his explanation in Swedish, mentioning Walther once, invoking Eckart twice, and then the guard had conceded their passage.

Swiftly, they had made their way along the canal, waiting once when Emily had protested that she was weak. During that interlude, Craig had felt the cool white flakes of snow on his cheeks, as satisfying as Emily’s warm presence leaning against him. Lingering thus, Craig had studied the dark waters of the canal and L
ه
ngholmen island directly across, almost hidden behind the haze of the low mist, and then the snow came thicker. Where earlier it had seemed menacing, it now seemed a suspension in time, both cheerful and welcome.

After that, they had departed from the desolate embankment, and gone up through the hard, slippery park area, Krantz wheezing, and Craig concerned only for the one on his arm.

When they had come into the lights of Sِder M
ن
larstrand, the traffic was still heavy in the packed snow, and the bright municipal decorations a proper jubilee. At the limousine, speckled with dry snow, Craig had asked Krantz to drive them to the hotel, and he had eagerly assented.

Inside the cosy automobile, as it slid into the traffic, Emily had sat straight and rigid a moment, staring ahead, then suddenly she had closed her eyes and choked forth a sob.

Craig had watched her with deep concern, aware of how depleted were her emotional resources. ‘I’m sorry, Emily. It must be shattering.’

‘No,’ she had said, shaking her head vigorously. ‘I—I almost cried because—only because I’m so relieved, at last. All afternoon, I did not know where I was, how to think, what should be done. Now it’s solved. He—he’s not my father at all—at least—not the father I knew. And the thought of having to give up Uncle Max for him or anyone—’ She paused. ‘But thank God for you, Andrew, thank God for you.’

She fumbled for his hand, and he met her hand with his own, and brought her close against him. She dropped her head on his shoulder, eyes wearily closing, and sighed like a little girl who had been lost and was now safely in her sheltering bed again.

‘Andrew—’ she had murmured, and the receding voice was shaded and troubled.

He waited, and he said, ‘Don’t bother to talk. I’m here. I’ll always be here.’

‘No,’ she had said, ‘no, Andrew—’

He had tried to understand this refusal to accept him, and had been about to contend with it, when he saw that she slept. He had sat all through the ride, arm about her rocking with the motion of the limousine, wondering and wondering, until the time when they had drawn up before the canopy of the Grand Hotel.

‘Here we are,’ he had whispered, disengaging himself, and rousing her. The doorman had opened the rear door, but it had been Krantz, skittering around from the driver’s seat, who had shoved the doorman aside to assist Emily and Craig out of the car.

Going past the worried Krantz, Craig had remembered that he represented unfinished business. A decision must be made. Requesting Emily to wait, and the doorman to look after her, Craig had returned to Krantz. Wordlessly, they had walked several yards from the car.

Krantz, distractedly brushing the snowflakes from his face, had gazed up at Craig. ‘What are you going to do?’

Studying the servile physicist, Craig had known that there was only one thing he could do. From the beginning, when Daranyi had indicted the physicist, Craig had looked upon Krantz as Rumpelstilzchen, the evil dwarf, but now, hunched and drooping, he was only the pathetic dwarf. Craig could see how one so small had, in some way, to become big, and any witchery was worth it if the goal was reached. Craig could see that Nature had punished him from birth, punished him with lack of stature and discontent, and that more than this need not be done.

Craig had studied the pale little Swede. ‘I keep thinking of Jacobsson—Ingrid P
ه
hl—the hundreds of others—decent people—who work hard to make the Nobel awards mean something—in a world where so little means anything—and I tell myself all that would be lost with one rotten scandal. Because you fear the scandal as much as I hate it, you’ve tried to make up for it. You took me to the boat. You took us off the boat. So—as long as I can know you’ll never get caught up in anything like this again—’

‘Never—never. My pledge—’

‘—and as long as I know you’ll square things with Daranyi—’

‘At once—tomorrow.’

‘—I’m not going to say a thing, Krantz, only make a record of it, in case you should ever get out of line.’

Krantz had been almost tearful. ‘Thank you—thank you.’

‘You don’t have to thank me. You can be grateful to your colleagues. . . . Now beat it.’

Briefly, he had watched Krantz hurry back to the limousine. Then, when the car was gone, he had returned to the canopy, where Emily rested against an upright. He could see that she was but half awake. He had grasped her firmly under the arch of the back, and led her up the stairs, and through the lobby to the elevator.

Now they were in his room. He removed her coat, and settled her on the double bed, and bent to pull off her shoes. As he did so, she forced her eyes open. ‘The sedation is wearing off, Andrew. But I’m still sort of—slowed down.’ She took in the room, disoriented. ‘This room. Is this your room?’

‘Yes. . . . Now, stretch out. You’ll be yourself in a little while.’

She nodded, pushed herself to the centre of the bed, falling backwards to the pillow. She lifted her slim legs, making one gesture towards her skirt, trying, and failing, to cover her knees, then letting her arm drop limply to the quilt.

Craig turned down two of the three lamps, poked at his valise, removed his jacket and tie, tried to busy himself in every way, hoping that she would sleep. At the telephone, he considered calling the Concert Hall and leaving a message for Jacobsson, explaining that he would be late. But then, as he weighed the necessity of the call, he realized that Emily was still awake, her eyes following his every movement.

‘Can’t you sleep?’ he asked.

‘No.’ Feebly, she touched the bed beside her. ‘Come, sit close to me.’

‘Yes.’ He stood over her. Her silken black hair, and green eyes and serious crimson lips, had never been more beautiful to his sight. He bent over her face, and she closed her eyes, and he kissed her.

At last, with one weak hand against his shoulder, she asked for release, and he granted it.

‘Andrew—’

‘Yes, darling.’

‘What are we going to do?’

‘Very simple. We’ll wait for the drug to wear off, and then we’ll change and go.’

‘That’s not what I meant,’ she said. ‘I meant—’ But then it was difficult to know what she meant under the sedation, and her brain was slow. ‘How did you find me?’

He told her how hopeful he had been after receiving her message, and how he had waited for the telephone call and for her understanding. Then he related how he had gone to her suite, and received the tape recorder, and made up his mind not to burden her uncle with the terrible dilemma, but to see what he could do by himself. He told her about Gottling, and how they had gone to Daranyi, and what had happened there, and then he told her, in lesser detail, of his showdown with Krantz that had led him to the meeting with Walther in the stateroom.

She had listened without comment, but now she said, ‘You are good.’

‘I’m in love,’ he said simply.

She avoided the declaration. Instead, she said, ‘I keep thinking—what if it had been Uncle Max they had reached before you? He would have gone over to their side without hesitation—remembering my father only as he had last seen him in another age—forgetting, as we all do, people are different people at different times.’

‘That is true.’

‘Uncle Max would have been lost to me—and I’d be alone. How did you ever think you could—?’

‘I didn’t think, Emily,’ he said. ‘I felt. I felt, and I acted on feeling—something I have not done in years. That’s all I did. I felt Max must not be given away. I felt your father must be reasoned with. Most of all, I felt alive—but for a while, as dead as before I met you—and I knew I could be alive again, and stay alive, only by being with you. . . . Emily, stop ignoring it, denying it. I love you, and accept this from me.’

‘I can’t. Won’t you understand? I’m unable to—I can’t.’

‘But why not?’ His mind went to a word, and he wondered if it might hold her secret. ‘Emily, I don’t know what is wrong—I can only guess it must be something in your past. I’ve heard one word over and over again. From you. From your Uncle Max. From Daranyi. Even from your—from Walther.’ She was watching him with frightened eyes, but he went on. ‘The word is Ravensbruck,’ he said. ‘It’s the only other thing I don’t understand, besides your rejection of me. I know—you told me once—Ravensbruck was a women’s concentration camp in Germany during the war. But I still don’t understand its—’

‘Andrew,’ she said, ‘I was going to tell you about that at noon—it was the important thing I had to tell you.’