made. Because here was Sydney Smith’s ‘healthy grave’, the elephant’s burial ground, where the beast could die alone, out of sight and far from pity…
What aroused him, transported him in a flash from Miller’s Dam to the Malmo train bound for Stockholm, was the series of sharp rappings on his door.
Lilly.
He leapt from the berth, and shook himself alive. She had come in time, and he blessed her. There had been too much memory, too much introspection, and there would be more in the night, unless he was diverted. Lilly and the bottle were the saving
He stepped to the door and pulled it open. There was no one in sight. He looked up the train corridor. It was empty. He turned his head, and saw only the conductor at the far end, capless now, dozing over his folding table. Then, at his feet, he saw the bottle.
He took it up and retired, shutting the door, and lifting the bottle, saw that a piece of paper was fastened to it by a rubber band. He removed the paper and opened it. It read: ‘Welcome to Sweden. Lilly Hedqvist. Polhemsgatan 172C, Stockholm.’
He had looked forward to seeing her, but it did not matter, because he was tired, and the bottle was enough. It was still half filled. He propped it on the berth, stuffed her note in his pocket, and then changed into his pyjamas and brushed his teeth.
The drinking-cups were paper, and when he poured his whisky, he watched with fascination as the cup blotted up the liquid. Discarding the foolish cup, he sat down on the middle of the berth, legs crossed, and swallowed straight from the bottle. The fluid was welcomed by every taut nerve in his system, and he continued to gratify his body by drinking steadily.
In an hour the bottle was empty, and he was satisfied. Thank you for me, he told the bottle without speaking, and thank you for my body. He pushed the bottle under the berth, turned down the lights, and crawled under the cover.
Stretched flat and inert, he was momentarily nauseated. Behind his eyelids the scene loomed. Their speed was moderate, because the highway was wet. The curve, which was sharp, he had met and traversed hundreds of times. Unthinking, he had flicked the wheel, and the station-wagon had left him, gone out from beneath him, as a child’s legs the first day on roller skates. Harriet, head thrown back on the seat, had been saying lazily, ‘I had a lovely day, didn’t you?’ But he could not reply, because there was this unruly, shocking thing happening to him. They had skidded completely around, smashed into the fence along the embankment, rolled over once into the ravine, and pancaked in a geyser of metal and wood and glass against an oak tree. That was it, and that was all, and later he remembered that he had taken four drinks and that he had meant to reply to Harriet, ‘Yes, yes, my darling, the loveliest day of my life with you.’
The nausea passed, and the scene, and he curled on his side to sleep. It did not come immediately. Instead, a memory he had missed floated to the surface. The last time he had slept with Harriet had been three days before his birthday, in the morning, when he had kissed her awake, and she had pulled him down.
His mind weakly groped to recall the details of their last loving. He threw aside the blanket, and she lifted her nightgown above her breasts. The room was night-chilled, and he hurried for their flesh to warm them, and poised above her he saw that the nipples had hardened to points in the cold, and the cold had come across the prow of the ferry and into the car. He searched the face and was not surprised it was Lilly’s.
He pressed his head into the golden-haired pillow and remembered no more, except-
Welcome to Sweden.
4
THE seven-storey Grand Hotel of Stockholm, located on the quay at S. Blasieholmsh 8, faced the majestic Royal Palace, directly across the Strommen canal, as an equal.
Few hotels in Europe, and none in Scandinavia, surpassed the Grand Hotel of Stockholm. It had been erected in 1874, when Ulysses S. Grant was President of the United States and Benjamin Disraeli the Prime Minister of England, and except for certain renovations of the rooms and suites in a recent decade, it remained unchanged, proud of its years and high esteem.
Unlike most hotels, in dark December the Grand was more crowded and more festive than in the summer months. While the two veranda grills were closed, because of their exposure to the cold weather, the ornate inner Breakfast Room, off the lobby, and the enormous three-storey Winter Garden, with its dome of glass, and balconies, and pillared arches, abounded with visitors and their hosts.
There were precisely 297 rooms in the Grand Hotel, smartly serviced by a trained staff of 550 men and women, and on this early morning of the third of December, every room was accounted for if not occupied. There were six choice suites, each with its pair of entry halls, sitting-room, one bedroom with twin beds or two bedrooms with single beds, and large bathroom furnished with two wash-basins, toilet, and bidet, and annually, at this time of the year, these suites were held in reserve for the Nobel Prize winners summoned to Stockholm. The use of these rooms for seven days, and the Continental breakfasts, were entirely paid for by the Nobel Foundation.
This year, five of the six choice suites had been reserved, and this early morning of the third of December, four of the five were already filled by Nobel guests from Paris, Rome, Georgia, California, and the fifth was being held in immaculate readiness for the delayed arrival of the literature laureate from Wisconsin…
The sleek Foreign Office limousine made a graceful U turn, bending around the row of taxis parked on the quay, and drew up before the impressive, gaping entrance to the Grand Hotel.
Andrew Craig, crowded into a corner of the rear seat by Ingrid Pahl’s ample person, puffed his pipe, perhaps faster than he knew, and waited. During the entire drive from the station, he had been relatively uncommunicative. He had replied to the questions directed at him briefly, and in as friendly a manner as possible, then lapsed into silence, while Leah nervously carried on, making fanciful excuses for their change of plans in Copenhagen and bubbling over the sights outside the car window. Craig hardly glanced outside the window at all. His disinterest and silence came, not from the Scotch-nearly a fifth-that he had consumed in the night or any resultant hangover, but from a growing apprehension, a reluctance to revisit the hotel where Harriet and he had spent their first honeymoon night abroad a decade ago.
Now they had arrived, and the emotionally charged meeting was at hand. The doorman, wearing a long military coat that made him resemble a refugee White Russian officer, had opened the car, and stood rigidly at attention, fingers to the brim of his cap. Krantz scrambled out first, and then Count Bertil Jacobsson closed Krantz’s jump seat, and his own, and worked his way out of the car. Leah followed him, and Ingrid Pahl followed her, and then it was Craig’s turn.
While porters struggled with the cases, Craig stood on the wooden board walk and surveyed the magnificent vista that he had remembered so well. The Strommen canal was placid and unfrozen beneath the pale sun. Off to one side, two white excursion boats lay at anchor before the National Gallery. Across the way, like an ancient lion at rest with paws extended, sat the familiar eighteenth-century Royal Palace, and behind it was the spire of the hallowed Riddarholm Church. Over the canal, linking the new city with the Old Town, stretched the bridge known as Strombron, dotted with pedestrians and pygmy automobiles and a bright blue tram. At a distance rose the massive Royal Opera House, and hidden behind it, he recalled, was the busy square called Gustav Adolfs Torg.
Jacobsson was beside him, blowing condensed air into the palms of his reindeer leather gloves. ‘I am truly regretful we could not order warmer weather for you, Mr. Craig. The sun is deceptive. Actually, it is below fifty degrees Fahrenheit. But at least, it has not snowed. I am told it will not for another month.’
‘I’m used to this weather, to worse weather, where I come from,’ said Craig.
‘You mentioned that you were here before?’
‘Yes. Some years after the war.’ He turned and recognized the huge revolving doors. ‘Nothing has changed.’
‘Well, we might as well go inside, get the chill out of our bones.’
