The Prize

gesture, like whistling in the dark, just like yours is a scared book.’

‘To quote Gunnar Gottling-you’re full of crap.’

‘Am I? The hell I am. Listen, if I wasn’t loaded to the gills, I wouldn’t be telling you this. But I got two good friends in the Swedish Academy. They’re the ones who nominate me every year. And after every voting, I get a play-by-play. When your name came up, there were only three of the twelve, the Pahl witch and two other innocents, who thought you had more on the ball than A. A. Milne or Edgar Guest. You were dead, until somebody brought up Russia and those two Baltic islands. Then there was heated talk about Russia, and then someone said the only good thing about your book was that it showed the Russians up-that is, if you read between the lines-and in about an hour, the majority agreed that if you got the award, it would show those Russians, it would really show them. And so you got it. And we’ve shown them. Sorry, kid. You’ll write some real books one day, but that wasn’t the one, and we all know it-so go home with your money and your title and don’t knock luck.’

Craig sat very still. The film of alcohol that covered him, like a placenta in the prenatal chamber, was not enough to protect his frail rebirth as a man. Until now, he had only listened to Gottling, only taken him half seriously. The ravaged Swede was a carper and a dissenter, who made himself larger by making other men smaller, and once you understood that, you understood him, and relaxed and enjoyed it. But this last had the sound of truth, and if it was truth, it was devastating. Craig wanted his rebirth here in Stockholm, one last rebirth of his ego and soul, whole and healthy. If this one miscarried, if this one was still born, only the death of sterility as an author lay ahead. He would not accept Gottling’s rotten expose.

‘You’re trying to get me sore, Gottling. You can’t. I’ve got your number, you see. You’re a defeated, bitter wreck. You can’t get up with the rest of us, so you do the next best thing. You try to drag us down into your gutter. You get away with each ambush by flying the flags of candour and honesty, but your real banner is a deep sickness of the soul. If you weren’t paying for these drinks, I’d bash your nose in.’

Gottling grunted, and he twisted to face Craig fully, his eyes twinkling. ‘Don’t try it. I eat laureates. I break them in small pieces and eat them.’

‘Not this one. I doubt if you could take this one. You are paying for the drinks?’

Gottling was silent a moment. ‘Yeah, I’m paying.’

‘Okay, then.’

‘Craig, you can’t get me to fight you. Because I like you, I like you too much.’

Craig’s eyes mirrored his surprise.

‘Sure,’ said Gottling. ‘I know you’re a zero, and I know you know it. Maybe someday, you won’t be. Someday, you’ll be a figure-if you live that long-but now you’re a zero. Still, I like you-you know why? I’m not ashamed. I’ll tell you why. Because you put it in the papers that I’m talented and should’ve won the prize. You put it in the papers that I’m talented. Nobody’s said that in a long, long time, and nobody with a title ever said it at all. I can live off that until I die.’

‘But if I’m a zero, and say you’re talented, what does that make you?’

‘Maybe you’re not a zero, and maybe even I’m not. I never was good at figures. Have another drink, Craig. It’s on me. I’m paying all the way.’

How Craig had arrived outside this large gymnasium, on Valhallavagen near the old Olympic Stadium, some time before 10.30 at night, was not clear to him.

He did not remember Gunnar Gottling dropping him off at the Grand Hotel, and driving away. Craig had stood swaying for some time before the entrance, wondering what he should do. The weather was freezing, and the area before the entrance was deserted-even the saluting doorman had taken cover inside-and the only signs of life were the two taxi drivers locked snugly in their vehicles and asleep.

At first, Craig had not minded the cold. Alcohol seemed to preserve him against it. He had stood there, rocking from leg to leg, and weighed his one problem and his three possible solutions.

His problem had been-emptiness. The brainchild, the child of hope, attended and nursed to life by Jacobsson at the Swedish Academy, by Emily, by the students in the morning and afternoon, had been delivered stillborn, after all. Gottling’s self-serving attack had shattered him. He was no more alive than he had been that late afternoon, in Miller’s Dam, that hour before the telegram, when Lucius Mack had put him to bed, and he had passed out. Yes-emptiness.

As he had stood there in the biting wind, the solutions were three. If the opera were over, there would be Emily, restorer of life, life giver. But to come to her this way, shorn of strength, weak of will, muddled and sottish, might repel her forever. And another thing, another thing, and this you felt at once in your head and your heart and between your thighs. You wanted the reviving clamp of woman love.

Craig desired this desperately, the potion of anti-emptiness, to prove his worth to himself and the earth’s worth to him. He wanted to put a needle in a doll, deeply, and incant the magic that would dissolve the big, bad Gottling. He wanted Emily, but she would be unprepared, unbriefed, without the knowledge necessary for understanding, and the force of his passion would start her running, and after that, he would never find her. No, it could not be Emily.

He had considered the second solution, which had a sanity and logic of its own this wintry night. Leah, the rigid Leah. His loss and drunken need would be familiar, understood, readily accepted. He thought of Leah, hair loosened to her shoulders, known Slavic features, sagging teats, and muscular thighs. There he would find easy admittance and comfort, and later he would sleep well, released of ambition and guilt, and the battle would be over, at last. For long moments, in the cold, the temptation of it, the simplicity of it, had almost drawn him inside. But then, in the clarity of the icy wind, the hotel became the house at Appomattox, and if he entered now, he would be Lee, when he really wanted to be Grant. No, this was not surrender day.

For, by then, he had pictured the third solution. Freya, Swedish goddess of carnal love. The solution was a night’s miracle, inviting no danger, demanding no surrender.

Immediately, Craig had gone to the nearest taxi, awakened the startled driver by rapping on the window, and asked to be taken to Polhemsgatan 172C.

When they had arrived at the apartment, the elderly portvakt had been in the entry hall, performing some repair. He had come to the door out of curiosity, and then recognized Craig from the other time. At once, he had hobbled outside, waving his hands, and making a long and negative speech to the taxi driver.

‘He is saying,’ the driver had told Craig, ‘your lady friend is not home tonight. Once a month, she goes to her club, and that is tonight.’ Craig had wanted to know when Lilly would be back. The portvakt could not say, although he thought it might be late, it was usually late. ‘Find out where she is,’ Craig had ordered the driver, ‘and then take me there.’ He had not thought it out. He had only considered his need, and her unselfish readiness to serve him. He had only known that he must rescue her from the banality of clubhood so that, in turn, she might save him.

And that was how, at this late hour, on this freezing night, he came to be standing unsteadily before the entrance of the square gymnasium on Valhallavagen.

He made his way, stumbling, across the walk to the green door, pulled it open with effort, and staggered inside. Despite the cement floor of the entry hall, the room was well heated by a pounding radiator. The room was barren of all furnishings, except for a table and a chair behind it, now filled by a masculine, middle-aged woman in a brown suit. She had a metal card file open before her, and was sorting cards and stacking them, and she looked up with a puzzled smile when Craig approached her.

‘I’m looking for Miss Lilly Hedqvist,’ said Craig, enunciating each word clearly. ‘I’m told she is a member here. I’m an American friend. I wonder if I could see her?’

‘Well-’ said the receptionist.

‘It’s very important that I see her.’

The woman rose. ‘If you will excuse me.’ She strode off vigorously, quickly opening and closing an inner door.

For Craig, the delay was tedious. There was no place to sit, so he tried to pace, but his gait was unsteady, and at last he resigned himself to immobility by leaning against the wall.

Suddenly, the inner door swung open, and the receptionist held it, while two people passed into the entry hall. One was a tall though stooped elderly gentleman with the face of a fox, wearing incongruous attire. He was clothed in a polka-dotted blue bathrobe and beach sandals. The other was Lilly Hedqvist, and she wore a white