The Prize (93 page)

Across the salon, the King had finished his social duty, and now, at the entry to the Charles XI’s Gallery, he waited for his royal entourage. Followed by the royal princesses and princes, he went into the dining-room. At once, the semi-circle of guests broke forward, unevenly, falling into a column at the entry, and marching into the Royal Banquet.

Presently, Craig found himself seated, by place card, between Leah and Ingrid P
ه
hl, and perhaps thirty feet from the King, who was at the head table, quite isolated except for two princesses to one side of him, a prince and another princess at his other side, and a private uniformed waiter hovering nearby.

Befuddled by drink, Craig squeezed his eyes to make out his surroundings. He owed this careful inspection not to his writer’s memory file, but to Lucius Mack, his favourite pallbearer, as a conversation piece. Craig’s eyes studied the Gallery hall, and sorted out busts of a King and Queen of long ago on a shelf-like cornice, and several cabinets containing silverwork and amber and porcelain. The painted ceiling above—as he would later learn—recorded events in the reign of Charles XI and Ulrika Eleonora. From the ceiling hung a glittering chandelier, and immediately beneath it, on the table, a magnificent elevated vase, and before him, lustrous silver service.

He peered to see if the King had the same silver service, but something else beside the King’s plate caught his eye. It was a proletarian egg, curiously majestic, in a brilliant golden egg cup.

He shook Ingrid P
ه
hl’s flabby arm, and pointed. ‘What’s that?’

‘Where?’

‘Next to the King’s plate. Looks like a plain ol’ egg.’

‘But it is, Mr. Craig,’ said Ingrid P
ه
hl gaily. ‘It is a tradition. A long time ago one of the earliest Swedish Christian rulers—possibly Olof Skِtkonung or Erik Jedvardsson—sat down to dinner with a bellyache, and rejected his rich meal, and demanded one ordinary boiled egg. This was unheard of—the egg was fare of the peasantry—and for one hour, the kitchens of the palace were ransacked for the simple egg, while the King sat fuming with impatience. At last the egg was found and served, but by then the King was beside himself. He made a royal proclamation. From that day forward, there must always be one plain boiled egg beside the King’s plate, ready and waiting, should he ever desire it. For ten centuries the tradition has persisted. So now you see the royal egg.’

‘Charming,’ said Craig. ‘And over there, on the table behind him—?’

‘Yes, yes, his jewelled crown, his sceptre, his sphere and cross—power and justice—his horn holding the anointing oil. All symbols of his authority and prerogative. Again tradition, Mr. Craig. He does not wear the crown, and he does not brandish the sceptre. But they are there, you see, and he knows it, and the democratic government knows it, and the Swedish people know it—and for all, it is something to trust and hold onto in perilous times. I think, Mr. Craig, there can be worse virtues than secure knowledge of continuity existing from the distant past and offering reassurance for the future. It is something that atheists and republicans miss, I imagine.’

‘It is a knowledge many Americans miss,’ said Craig sadly. ‘I envy you what you have—something to believe in.’

By then the caviar had been served, and Craig picked at it without appetite. Glancing across the table, to see who was opposite, he recognized Stratman adjusting his bifocals, and next to Stratman, there was Emily, also picking at her caviar, eyes downcast.

Craig had no interest in the splendid dinner. All of his effort was concentrated on catching Emily’s eye, and somehow letting her know that he had been foolish and must have her pardon. From time to time, steadily, in the next hour and a half, he stared at her. Ingrid P
ه
hl spoke to him, and Leah spoke to him, but he did not hear them. The hot dishes came and went—the consommé, the
marinerad sill
(which tasted like sweet smelts), the large cut of venison with currant jelly, the tender reindeer steak, the concoction of lettuce, fruit, peas, shrimps and sliced mushrooms identified as
v
ن
stkrustsallad
, the traditional
bombe
with its regal crown of sugar—but Craig left most untouched, and when he ate, he ate sparingly. He had requested more champagne, and this he drank through the entire feast. In all this time, as he stared at Emily, she refused to lift her head and acknowledge his existence. Since the table was wide, and the vase was a barrier, and Leah another, he could not address her.

Morosely, he drank, once responding to a formal toast to His Royal Highness, and another time toasting the memory of Alfred Nobel. His inner emotional barometer rose to self-righteousness and dropped to self-pity. For a short period, he resented the injustice of Emily. After all, he asked himself, what had he done that was so sinful and wrong? He had lured a pretty girl into a private room and had told her that she was beautiful and that he wanted to kiss her. Was that a crime? Hell, no, it was a compliment, and any other girl would have been proud of it—from a Nobel laureate, at that. The failure was her own, not his. Chrissakes, he hadn’t violated or hurt her, had he?

Then, for another period, he decided that he had, indeed, violated and hurt her. Every woman, he told himself, is vulnerable in different ways, and hurt has its many varieties. One woman you would injure and spoil by physical defilement—by forcible entry into her body. Another woman you would wound by mental defilement—by insult and disrespect through words or actions. Obviously, Emily Stratman was the second woman. Undoubtedly, she was shy of men, probably a virgin, who regarded even the small acts of coercion—words of seduction, a kiss, an embrace, a stray hand—as an attack on her private and individual womanhood and an act of ravishment. When he came to this understanding of her, Craig was once more depressed and mortified.

But then again, after yet another goblet of champagne, the barometer rose in his favour. What did he give a damn about her for anyway? There had been no real women since Harriet, and he had been spared emotional turmoil about other women because he had been so devoted to his personal turmoil and guilt. Under these conditions, this Emily person was an intruder. For a moment, finding her, he had been bold enough to cross the forbidden frontier back into reality, and it had been as unpleasant as he had always feared it might be, and now he was glad to go back to where he had come from. Women died with Harriet. To hell with them all. Good-bye, Emily.

He was surprised to see that everyone at the table was rising. With a start, he realized that the Royal Banquet was ended and that the King had departed. With difficulty, he pushed himself to his feet.

‘There’ll be coffee in the salon,’ Ingrid P
ه
hl was saying.

‘Good,’ he said.

He noticed that Leah was engaged in conversation with a diplomat, and had preceded him. He fell in beside Ingrid P
ه
hl and returned to the salon, where a long buffet held the coffee.

His meditations at the table had disturbed him, and now he wanted to avoid formal company and idle talk and to think himself straight in privacy. He was in no mood for Emily now and less in a mood for Leah. He wanted to flee from the rejecters, the embodiments of disapproval.

Nearby, Count Bertil Jacobsson stood momentarily alone, fixing one of his decorations. Craig went to him.

‘Count,’ he said, ‘when you see my sister-in-law, Miss Decker, tell her I left early, I wanted to walk back to the hotel, get some air.’

‘Certainly, Mr. Craig.’ Jacobsson did not hide his concern. ‘Are you all right?’

‘Never better. Memorable evening. Excellent dinner.’

‘You’ll be pleased to know His Majesty was positively delighted with you.’

‘Tell that to my sister-in-law, will you?’ He wanted to add: and tell it to Emily Stratman, too. But he refrained. He said, instead, ‘And by the way, thanks, Count.’

With that, Craig went for his hat and overcoat, and then left the Royal Palace.

He waited on the windswept kerb, in front of the lonely small hotel, for the taxi that he had summoned from the cheap bar inside. A waiter had directed him to dial 22.00.00, and he had, and then given the girl his address and name, and she had said, ‘
Bil kommer
’, which the waiter had told him was good, and now in the cold, he waited for the taxi.

The last time that he had looked, it had been near midnight, and now it must be much later. After leaving the palace, he had walked and walked, not covering much ground in his old man’s walk, staggering sometimes, and leaning against frozen walls of darkened buildings. In the late winter hour, the city had been desolate of life, and without sound except for the heavy clop of his shoes on the pavement and stones and the occasional whirring passage of a motor vehicle. When his nose, mouth, and chin felt numb, almost frostbitten, he had found the gloomily lit hotel in the side street and the empty bar, and for half an hour had defrosted himself with whisky.

For the most part, his brain had been too soggy to entertain logical thought. But an immediate matter had frequently drifted in and out of his head, until, in the bar, he had captured it and made a decision. This night, it seemed, he had reached the nadir of his existence. A glamorous occasion, of which he had been a part as a highly honoured guest, had proved one more of life’s Waterloos. For a moment, in that occasion, he had come alive, felt old stirrings, and because he was no longer armed to be alive, he had failed and sunk back into easier demise. Yet strangely, in all his walking, some persistent fragment of an emotion—infinitesimal but pulsating—survived. The emotion, long dormant, was identifiable: the desire to be loved, not pity-loved, not respect-loved, but simply loved.

When the emotion came clear, he knew what must be done. In sobriety, it would have been madness. Insobriety had a logic all its own. Craig had made his telephone call for the taxi, and now on the kerb, worn and quivering, he waited.

At last, the black sedan with the meter arrived. Craig ducked into its rear seat. For seconds, he searched for his wallet, then located it, and removed the slip of paper that he had found attached to his bottle on the train from Malmِ.

‘Drive me to Polhemsgatan 172C,’ he said.

The ride was fast and skidding and of brief duration. He gave the driver a large note, so that he would not have to figure out the kronor, accepted the change, handed over a three-kronor tip, and found himself before a seven-storey apartment building. On the glass door hung a wreath of Christmas lights, disconnected. Craig punched the buzzer, and the door sprang open. He entered.

Above each letterbox, in the hallway wall, was a name, an apartment letter, and a floor number. The fifth from the right read ‘Frِken Lilly Hedqvist, Apt. C., Fl. 6.’

Dizzily groping his way in the faint light, Craig reached the elevator. It was an unusual triangular cage, meant to accommodate two thin Lilliputians, and Craig stuffed himself into its confines as into a foxhole. He squinted at the buttons, hit No. 6, and ground upward to the topmost floor.

When the elevator shuddered to a halt, Craig squirmed out of it. The short, dim corridor swam before his eyes. He wondered if he would make it, or should—the search for love seemed less reasonable now—but suddenly, he knew, this was a better folly than returning to the Grand Hotel and Leah.

With one hand on the wall to support himself, he traversed the corridor. The last apartment door, near the window and fire escape, bore the letter ‘C’. He rapped gently, and when there was no immediate response, he rapped harder.

Her voice came from behind the partition. ‘
Ja?
’

‘It’s I,’ he said.

He heard the lock turn, the door opened partially, and then, at once, it opened fully.

He recognized only the cascade of golden hair. ‘Mr. Craig,’ she whispered with concern, drawing her lavender robe about her.