‘There is no present,’ said Stratman. ‘One minute ago is the past.’ His eyes twinkled behind the thick lenses. ‘You are armed.’ He settled lower in the seat, and crossed his chunky legs. ‘I will have my beauty nap.’
Craig pushed himself off the front seat, stood up, and stretched. ‘And I’ll take a walk.’
Stratman’s eyelids had already drooped, but now they winked open. ‘Mr. Craig-’
Craig moved to the open rear door and leaned in. ‘Yes, Professor?’
‘I think you will try to win her good opinion.’
Craig said nothing.
Stratman sighed tiredly. ‘Should you succeed where others have failed, and make her lower her guard once more, do not disappoint her-or me.’
He yawned and closed his eyes, and Craig remained standing, moved but unmoving, reflecting on how Victorian the scene had been and how Herr Professor Stratman, guardian of the sun, and of his brother’s daughter, had momentarily sounded like Edward Barrett, of 50 Wimpole Street, London, guardian of the invalided Elizabeth against the young Browning. Yet the comparison was odious and unfair. Stratman was no jealous tyrant of Wimpole Street, suppressing latent feelings of incest. Stratman was a rutted bachelor, who had come into unexpected fatherhood late, and who was burdened with a responsibility that exceeded normal parental obligation. His first thought was for Emily, and not for himself. All things considered, Craig knew, Stratman had been kind.
Craig ambled off, without destination, without curiosity, about the perimeter of Skansen, sometimes halting to watch children play, once stopping for a lemonade. He meandered on and on, letting fantasies slip in and out of mind, occasionally letting himself become absorbed in the new characters who peopled his life, and then Miller’s Dam and the house on Wheaton Road and Lucius Mack, and even Harriet-yes, Harriet in the ground-seemed far away and of another time.
Half an hour had elapsed before Craig returned to the limousine. He saw that the others were already in the car, and Mr. Manker was wandering nearby searching for him, and he quickened his step. Once inside, squeezed into the jump seat, he apologized, and could not, for the life of him, explain, in retort to Leah’s question, where he had been and what he had done.
Mr. Manker was behind the wheel, and they were on the road again.
Craig listened, as Emily behind him reported to her uncle, briefly but brightly, on some of the highlights of the Skansen visit. When she had concluded, she asked her uncle how he had occupied himself.
‘Mr. Craig and I had a long, long talk,’ said Stratman.
‘About what?’ Emily wanted to know.
‘Shop talk,
‘How do you feel now?’
‘Refreshed and a tourist again… Count Jacobsson, what is your next propaganda to convert us all?’
‘The best we have to offer,’ said Jacobsson. ‘Mr. Manker is driving us to the Old Town-specifically, Stortorget- the Great Square-the original site of Stockholm seven centuries ago.’
Presently, going the long way around, they crossed the Norrbro bridge, swung past the Royal Palace, slowed before the Storkyrkan Cathedral, which had been built in 1260, proceeded up a narrow, ancient street that opened into the spacious square, and parked before the Borssalen, which Mr. Manker identified as the Bourse or Stock Exchange Building.
After they had left the car, Mr. Manker guided them around the Stortorget. The square, paved with aged, uneven bricks, was dominated in its centre by a huge round ancient well. Surrounding the landmark, there were public benches, and because the day was mild, the benches were filled with old men reading newspapers and middle-aged lady shoppers resting and gossiping.
They strolled along the sides of the square, which were lined with severe stone buildings, four to five stories high, housing commercial shops on the ground floor level and apartments in the floors above. Following Mr. Manker, they visited the hoary alleys and side streets leading into Stortorget. These shadowed streets were twisting and dark, as in medieval times, walled in by antiquated gabled houses that seemed to have been designed by the brothers Grimm.
‘Today, almost everyone wishes to live here in the Old Town,’ Mr. Manker was saying. ‘To live here is what you call in America a status symbol-is that right? The exteriors of the apartments are the originals. They cannot be renovated. They are left as they were in the beginning, and are now beaten by weather and chipped and peeling, and that is their charm. However, inside the apartments, I assure you, most of the quarters are spotlessly modern, with all the latest appliances, including oil burners for these winter months.’
Slowly, Mr. Manker led them back to the ancient well in Stortorget’s centre. ‘This is a hallowed place,’ he announced, as the party gathered more closely about him, and several Swedes on the benches looked up curiously. ‘This is the very spot of the infamous Stockholm Massacre or Blood Bath. In 1520, a Danish king, who controlled all of Scandinavia, offered amnesty to eighty rebellious Swedish aristocrats, invited them to this square for a celebration, then betrayed them by beheading all eighty.’ Mr. Manker pointed off. ‘Now, there is a more pleasant object for sightseeing.’
The members of the party turned to examine, once more, the rococo Stock Exchange Building before which the limousine was parked. ‘That palace was built in 1773,’ said Mr. Manker. ‘On the ground floor is the Exchange, but upstairs are the offices and library of the Swedish Academy, where Andre Gide and T. S. Eliot and Andrew Craig were voted the Nobel Prize in literature.’
Leah took Craig’s arm. ‘Isn’t it exciting, Andrew?’ Craig grimaced at his sister-in-law’s display, and then, worried that his hosts would be offended, he summoned forth a slight smile of pleasure.
‘Alfred Nobel is not your only benefactor,’ Mr. Manker told Craig. ‘There is another, and he is King Gustavus III, who came to our throne in 1771 and fifteen years later founded the Swedish Academy. For all of his faults, and they were many, ranging from a disinterest in the poor to a lavish spending on himself, Gustavus III has our high regard because he gave us much of our culture before he was assassinated at a masquerade ball in 1792. He gave us our opera. He gave us works of art from every corner of the world. And finally, to promote literature, he imitated the French by establishing the Swedish Academy. Because he superstitiously favoured the number eighteen, he founded the Academy with eighteen members, taken from Sweden’s most respected authors and scholars. Gustavus III’s number has survived to this day. Eighteen members, Mr. Craig, voted you the Nobel Prize.’
Jacobsson came forward and touched Craig’s shoulder. ‘Perhaps it would interest you to see the place where you were elected?’
‘I’d enjoy it,’ said Craig sincerely, ‘but I’m afraid the others might be bored. Maybe one day I can come alone-’
‘Nonsense,’ interrupted Stratman. ‘All of us would like to see the inside of the Academy.’
The members of the party fell in behind Count Jacobsson, and with him crossed the square, and turned the corner into the side street. They followed Jacobsson up the street, until he came to a halt before two giant, timeworn doors at Kallargrand 2. To the of the entrance, fastened to a granite block, was a plate bearing the legend: SVENSKA AKADEMIENS NOBEL-BIBLIOTEK.
They all went inside. Mr. Manker and Jacobsson led them through a gloomy hall, up wide stone steps to the first floor above the one at ground level, and then through a beige door into a long corridor, which was cheerfully lighted and awesomely scholastic. To their immediate right was a librarian’s desk, now unattended, and next to it the portal to the Nobel Library, whose stacks bulged with the literary produce, in almost every language, of the Nobel winners, contenders, as well as associated material.
With a possessiveness that came from familiarity, Jacobsson took them along the corridor, lined with shelves of books on either side, to another door that opened into a colossal auditorium. As they passed through the auditorium, Jacobsson said, ‘We are approaching our Kaaba, the holy place where the Academy members convene annually to elect a Nobel winner. The secret chamber is called the sessions room. And here we are.’
They entered one more door and found themselves in a bright, broad room, high-ceilinged, with tall windows looking down on the historic square below. Beneath a sparkling crystal chandelier rested a rectangular table, which seemed to fill the room, and drawn up neatly around the table were twelve ornate chairs, their seats, backs, and armrests covered with blue plush. The glossy table was bare, except for a wooden tray holding a pen set that had belonged to King Gustavus III almost two centuries before, and a pewter pitcher and a glass vase. Against the
