The Prize

pedagogue’s lecture stance irritated him into a certain attentiveness. He was not, he reminded himself, a callow student. He was the winner of the Nobel Prize in chemistry. ‘I know the goal well enough, Mr. Hammarlund. There are always these dreamers’ goals. The problem comes down to the obstacles-the hard obstacles we find in the laboratory-that usually make the end of the road unreachable.’

Now that he had the laureate engaged, Hammarlund became more forceful. It was almost as if his invisible face had taken on human colorations of emotion. ‘Of course, Dr. Marceau, I am not so impractical as to ignore the obstacles. But what are these in the field of synthetic foods? First, we must overcome the belief of the public- coveted also by too many scientists-that the only healthy foods are nature’s foods. You know that is rot, and so do I. Cauliflower, beans, peas, raw eggs, whole wheat, coffee are all hoaxes, filled with countless poisons that we have survived only because of restraint in our eating habits. Synthetic foods could be manufactured without these poisons. Second, we must sell the world the belief that chemical substitute nutriments can be as pleasurable as doctored meats and vegetables and bakery products, can look as attractive, smell as good, and taste as wonderful as the so-called natural foods. Third, we must prove to mankind that synthetic foods can be made to contain all the necessary values of known foods-carbohydrates, proteins, fats, water, vitamins, minerals.’

What was annoying to Claude Marceau was that Hammarlund was making it all child’s play. He was an industrialist and a superficial dabbler in the sciences. What did he know of the real problems of synthesis? For the first time in years, Claude began to recollect his early trials in the laboratory with Denise by his side, the days of toil, the weary nights of monotonous persistence, the tumbling into bed fatigued to the marrow, eyes bleary and neck constricted and bones almost arthritic, and in the brain, a chaotic spinning.

He was sorely tempted to expose Hammarlund to himself. He began to bait the millionaire, and to his surprise, Hammarlund delighted in the challenge and fought back with an amazing fund of case histories, facts, figures. It became evident, as the time passed, that while Hammarlund had no creative scientific imagination, he had sound knowledge of what had been done and what, indeed, might be done.

Gradually, without being fully aware of what was happening to him, Claude found himself locked in a rigorous debate with Hammarlund on the limitations of algae as a natural food substitute, on the degree to which synthetic edibles could be produced wholesomely and free of dangerous poisons, on the value of the findings in the synthesis of vitamins as they might be applied to foods as yet undiscovered, on the probability of breaking down the chemical structure of various proteins and inventing cheap man-made substitutes, on the usefulness of Chlorella and soyabeans as springboards to other nutrients.

The minutes sped by, but so engaged and absorbed was Claude Marceau that he had no realization of the passage of time. It had been months since he had truly discussed a new field in biochemistry. After the discovery that he and Denise had made in the sperm field, their interest in that subject, already worn thin, had flagged. Lectures in France, and speeches and panels here in Sweden, had been undertaken as duties. The old subject had been discussed publicly as if by rote. For so many months now, it was as if Claude Marceau’s scientific mind had been an arid desert, where nothing living could be seen, where nothing living stirred. And now, suddenly, so unpredictably, the desert was being populated by a clamouring mob, materialized divinely from nowhere, begging for the sustenance of life, dinning their desperation and their problem, an unknown civilization on the desert to be organized and led and saved.

And then, out of the anarchy of this new population, there appeared, lo, a leader with an Idea, and the leader was plainly Claude himself-he saw that it was he, himself, and no other-and the Idea was a way, an inspiration, a way to feed them and help them survive in a place so unnatural and antagonistic to life.

Hammarlund had gone on talking, but Claude no longer heard him, for he was thinking hard.

‘Hammarlund,’ he said suddenly, ‘be quiet a moment.’

The industrialist immediately fell silent, unoffended, for he observed the strange distant look on the laureate’s face and acknowledged subservience to the mystique of the Idea.

‘Hammarlund,’ Claude said slowly, almost to himself, ‘you and this fellow of yours, and all the people you have labouring for you in this synthetic field, are off on the wrong foot. Something so obvious occurs to me-I will tell you. Allow me to speak my mind aloud-feel my way. Do not interrupt. The mistake, I think, I am almost positive, is that you are attempting to imitate nature, all the processes of nature, in the invention of your substitute foods. It would seem to me you must make a clean break from enslavement to nature. If you do not, you will always run a poor second and get nowhere. Why try to improve on God? No. I should think it would be wiser to let God be and to go off on your own. I repeat, a clean break. Start from scratch. Do not make food in imitation of nature but as totally new and daring creations of your own, a chemical larder.’

He lapsed into thought.

Awed, Hammarlund took the risk of intrusion. ‘I am not sure what you mean, Dr. Marceau. Do you mean-?’

‘This,’ said Claude, not to Hammarlund but to himself. ‘Take the problem of creating a synthesis of carbohydrates. Why do indoors what nature has already accomplished out of doors? Why bother to create artificial photosynthesis? Why try to create artificial atmosphere that plants require? Why not go directly to the source- glucose molecules-and from there build an entirely new chemical process that would lead to the discovery of manmade starches?’ He paused. ‘And as to inventing the proteins we find in meat by imitating meat-why meat at all? Why not a new and improved type of product with the same protein values and unencumbered by wasteful sinews and bone?’

Through the haze of concentration, he became aware of Hammarlund, staring down at him, jaw slack. How he wished that Denise stood in Hammarlund’s place, so that he could go on-on and on-throwing the Idea to her and catching it from her until they had their hypothesis. If Denise-Denise!

At once, he returned to his time and place, and remembered where he was and his mission.

‘What is the time, Mr. Hammarlund?’

‘The time? Why’-Hammarlund peered down at his wafer-thin gold wristwatch-‘it is ten minutes to three.’

‘Mon Dieu!’ Claude leaped to his feet. He had been here almost one hour and a half. He had completely forgotten his date with Gisele. She had flown in from Copenhagen hours ago, and was awaiting his call and his person at the Hotel Malmen in South Stockholm. ‘I have a date-I must rush-I am late.’

Hammarlund was beside him, apologetic. ‘What a pity. Your approach to the problem-the brilliance-’

‘Never mind, I will know more when I discuss it with Denise. Call me a taxi.’

‘I can send you with my chauffeur-’

‘No, a taxi. I will be out in front.’

Hammarlund had gone to the telephone on the desk. ‘I do not know what has kept Dr. Lindblom-’

Claude stopped at the doorway. Lindblom. He had forgotten Lindblom, too. Of all things. He tried to summon forth the rancour that he had felt more than an hour ago. But it was no longer there. Lindblom was merely a bothersome beetle, one more minor disturbance with which the true scientist had always to cope. Still, as a matter of intellectual pride, Lindblom must not believe that he had not been found out.

‘Yes, your Lindblom,’ Claude said to Hammarlund. ‘You can give him a message for me. You tell him that I came here to punch him in the nose, and that if I ever find him making advances to my wife again, I shall break his neck. Good day, Mr. Hammarlund!’

Denise Marceau, still in her pink neglige, examined her nicotine-stained fingers, and realized that she had smoked an entire packet of cigarettes since Claude had stormed out of the suite in a frenzy of injured manhood.

The suspense, since, had been unbearable. She had paced, she had smoked, and she had wondered how her plot had unfolded at Askslottet. She had made progress, of that she was certain. Claude’s reaction to her affair had exceeded her fondest hopes, and for a while, she had believed that Craig’s prognosis had been incorrect, and her own infallible. But now, with all this time gone, and no word of what had happened, she had begun to entertain serious doubts.

If her plot had worked, she would have known already. Claude would have salvaged his pride by knocking down Lindblom. After that, in a rage of righteous possession, he would have returned here, to the suite, and maybe knocked her down, too, and then would have regretted his fury and would have taken her to bed, and there would have been tender sweetness with all wounds repaired.

But he had not returned, and now she could only guess that he had behaved otherwise, after knocking down Lindblom. Duty performed, manhood restored, he had probably then regained his equilibrium, and determined that