The Prize

whole, all faultlessly circular, like her rounding belly, the navel almost hidden, and the hips and thighs.

She came off her knees and stretched out full length, pulling his head down between her breasts. ‘You are tired, I can see, but now you will not rest alone.’

For a long time, he lay against her bosom, luxuriating in the pervading heat and knowing peace within himself, until slowly, slowly, tranquillity was kindled into desire. He began to kiss her, and could hear her heart as he heard his own. And now she had his head in her hands, and kissed his forehead and eyes, and at last, his lips.

‘Lie back,’ she whispered. ‘Yes-’

He felt his shoulder blades on the bed, but still held her waist, as she came over above him, encompassing him, burning her flesh into his until her flesh was fused to his trunk, and their corporeality was consummated.

All reason left him, and as he gave himself to sensation, he gasped, ‘Thank you, Lilly-’

Her voice was far away, and reached him from a distance, riding the surge and swell of a breaker. ‘Never- thank me-never,’ she whispered. ‘Lovers do not thank-’

And the rest was her sigh lost and suffocated by the onrushing whitecap of passion.

‘Lilly-Lilly-’

Her breath was on his cheeks and her oscillating murmurs were in Swedish, and he opened his heavy eyes and saw her, almost unreal with her tumbling flaxen hair and swaying breasts and creased belly, like some transported Norse goddess.

He wanted to tell her that she had come from heaven, but then she curled forward, closer and closer, her presence flowing over him, so that it was not a breaker that engulfed him but lava, and he could not speak. Her open mouth touched his, and he thought she whispered, ‘Freya.’

And he remembered Freya, Swedish goddess of carnal love, and he was shorn of control, and all gentleness was out of reach. He took her arms, and pulled her down, rolling her over to her side, so that they were side by side. The waves again buffeted him, and consciousness flickered low, but she managed to hold him to her. And suddenly he was released from the eddy, freed of the vortex, and lay spent in her arms.

‘Do not move,’ she said, and seconds later, she gave a convulsive shudder, and fell back, hands covering her eyes.

After a while, she removed her hands, and opened her eyes.

‘Du ar inte ensam,’ she said. ‘You are not alone.’

But he had not heard her. He slept.

6

IT was early afternoon when Andrew Craig returned to the Grand Hotel.

His mood had improved over the previous day. Physically, he felt cleansed of old poisons, and consequently rested and at ease. For the first time in several years, he had slept without drink or drug, and the sleep had been dreamless and relaxed.

When he had awakened, in a natural way, he had found the place beside him in bed empty. Of Lilly there had been left only a note pinned to the pillow:

DEAR MR. CRAIG, the coffee is on the stove, and you can heat it. I am off to work. I hope we will meet again. LILLY HEDQVIST.

After dressing and coffee, he had added a line in reply to her note. ‘I’ll see you soon’, he had written-and then he had gone down into the street. Outside the entrance, the elderly portvakt, the Swedish doorkeeper of the apartment, had been kneeling, adjusting the Christmas lights. Craig had almost bowled him over. But the old man had not been annoyed, had even been friendly, as if Craig were one of his tenants, and Craig guessed that Lilly had spoken to the portvakt of him.

Daylight had come to the city, and the air was windless and surprisingly mild, almost balmy. The sun hung high and bright in the cobalt sky, and Swedish pedestrians appeared gay and appreciative of the spring interlude.

Carrying his overcoat on his arm, Craig had made his way leisurely to the nearest square, noticing that the colours everywhere, and of everything-the women’s clothes, the pottery on a sill, the yellow furniture in a store window, the red-ribboned holiday packaging in a Tobak shop-were more vivid than before, either because of the sun or because of his own sobriety.

At the square, he had hailed a taxi and been driven back to the hotel that he had not seen in seventeen hours. Only when he was in the elevator, ascending, did he suddenly remember Leah and the new day’s official programme. He could not recall what the Nobel people had scheduled for this day, but he hoped, for their sake, it was not important, yet, for his sake, sufficiently interesting to have removed Leah from the premises. If Leah was in, he would have to have an excuse, and a plausible one-the more difficult to conceive, he told himself wryly, because he had not written fiction for so long-or suffer her chastisement. What he needed was a respite, time to think of a likely story, and he prayed fervently that Leah was out.

When he entered the suite, his agnosticism was confirmed. His prayer had not been answered. Leah’s handbag stood unyielding and stern, like a motorist’s warning sign, on the hall table.

Leah sat stiffly on the maroon chair in the living-room, holding the telephone in her lap, her bunched features as reproachful as those of a young widow.

‘Well,’ she snapped, ‘I see that you’re alive anyway. I’ve called everywhere but the morgue.’

Craig had crossed the room and dropped his coat on the sofa. ‘I’m sorry, Lee. I suppose I should have phoned.’

‘Should have phoned?’ she echoed shrilly. ‘How inconsiderate can any human being be of another? Here I am, a foreigner, an absolute stranger a million miles from nowhere, without a friend, with no one except you-what am I to think? It was bad enough leaving me flat at the palace last night-absolutely humiliating-but knowing you had gone out drunk as a lord, I stayed up half the night, until I fell asleep right in this chair, and since then, worrying- Did a car run you over? Did you fall in a canal?-God knows what I imagined.’

‘I couldn’t find you after the dinner,’ he said lamely. ‘I needed some air. Didn’t the Count give you my message?’

‘He didn’t say you’d disappear until the next afternoon.’

‘I didn’t mean to-’

‘You’re impossible,’ she scolded. ‘It’ll be so embarrassing now. What will they think? I called Count Jacobsson at the Foundation-Mr. Manker at the Foreign Office-I even talked to Professor Stratman.’

Craig flushed. ‘Stratman? What’s he got to do with me?’

Leah was less certain now, and immediately less aggressive. ‘I don’t know. I was frantic. I-after all-you had been with his niece last night. And then after I got the message that you’d gone, I saw Professor Stratman leave early with the girl, and I thought-well, maybe that you were meeting them-’

‘Or meeting her? Isn’t that what you mean?’ Craig was suddenly infuriated. ‘What if I had met them or her? Wouldn’t it be my business? Don’t I have any private life?’

‘Andrew, it’s not right to talk like that. I was worried about you, in your condition. Besides-besides, you’d brought me and-I don’t want to be a wet blanket, but-it’s etiquette, decent, to at least escort me back first.’

‘I just don’t like your notifying the whole place of every movement I make. You were worried about how I’d behave-a scandal. Well, if there is one, you’ll be the one who’s inviting it, with your hysterical calls.’

He was headed for the bedroom, when the telephone in Leah’s lap emitted a muffled ring. Leah started, almost dropping it, and Craig halted.

She was on the phone. ‘Oh, you’re very kind, Count Jacobsson. He walked in this minute… He’s fine, yes. He’d gone to visit some old friends, people he’d known when he was here before… What? Oh yes, yes, certainly, we’ll be ready. We’ll be in the lobby.’

She hung up, and looked at Craig unhappily. He wanted no victory such as this, and his anger evaporated. This was Sweden. When in Sweden, do as the Swedes do, invoke the Middle Way. Pacifism at any price.

‘Look, Lee, let’s not fight-’