With wavering aim, he poured whisky into the glass until it came to the top.
Unexpectedly, his almost perfect day floated before him. Lilly. The Swedish Academy. Emily.
Suddenly, he thought, to hell with conscience, and the consequences of a woman scorned. He could always cross the sitting-room to that other bed. He would have another day, another day or two, without commitment. He would take his chances. He would see what the second instalment brought.
He was drunk, and the room was a ferris wheel. He lowered the glass to the floor, and slumped back into the chair.
Jesus, what confusion.
He let his drowning brain have a life of its own. Go ahead, brain. His brain offered him an Irish gravestone epitaph, somewhere read, somewhere seen. He accepted it with cynical joy. It would be Andrew Craig’s epitaph this night of reburial:
Here lies the body of John Mound
Lost at sea and never found.
7
‘YOU say you are in trouble, Mr. Craig?’ repeated Count Bertil Jacobsson into the telephone. ‘I do not understand. What kind of trouble?’
From behind his desk, beside the second-storey window of the Nobel Foundation at Sturegatan 14, Jacobsson’s expression of regret reached out to his two early morning guests, Dr. Denise Marceau and Dr. Claude Marceau, and begged for their indulgence over the interruption.
Claude’s understanding shrug told Jacobsson that they did not mind, and, to reassure the old aristocrat, Claude opened his silver cigarette case and offered it to his wife. The Marceaus settled back on the blue sofa, smoking. Absently, Claude gazed at the portrait of King Gustaf on the wall, while Denise half listened to the Assistant Director’s pacifying of the unseen Nobel literary laureate.
‘Now, let me see if I understand you,’ Jacobsson was saying into the mouthpiece. ‘You tell me you were awakened ten minutes ago by a group of college students, out in the corridor, serenading you? Is that correct?… Yes, I see. And this young man, their spokesman, Mr. Wibeck, says they are the delegates from Uppsala University who have been assigned to escort you to a lecture?… Umm, true, true, it could be a mistake, Mr. Craig, but the printed programme of your appointments, the one I gave you on your arrival, that will tell you if it is actually on your schedule or not. What is that?… Oh, well, if Miss Decker has your copy, and she is out for the morning, then I will be glad to assist you. I believe I have a copy readily at hand. If you will-what was that? You cannot hear me because… I see, yes. Well, please, Mr. Craig, simply request Mr. Wibeck to have the Uppsala students halt their serenading until you are off the phone. He will not be offended. I am sure he is in perfect awe of you. While you speak to him, I will search for the programme.’
Count Jacobsson placed the receiver on the desk blotter, next to the telephone, cast one more apologetic glance at the Marceaus, and searched the middle drawer of his desk. At last, he had what he wanted, the duplicated programme, and picked up the receiver again.
‘Mr. Craig?… Good, good, I understand. I have no ear for music in the morning either. Now I have the programme before me. Today is December fifth. Ah, here it is. Are you listening?… Very well, I will read it to you. “Mr. Craig’s schedule for December fifth. Nine-thirty, morning. Address the creative writing class of Uppsala University on the subject, ‘Hemingway and the Style of the Icelandic Sagas.’ Three-thirty, afternoon. Address the literature and poetics classes of Stockholm University and Lund University combined on the subject ‘Literary Criticism in the America of the Fifties and Sixties.’ Eight o’clock, evening. Optional. Free time, or attend performance of
As she listened to the predicament of a fellow laureate, and to the Count’s soothing but firm replies, Denise once more examined the latest development in her own predicament. Without hesitation, she would have traded predicaments with Craig. His were minor, and of easy solution. He need only fortify himself with aspirins, or something stronger, and mumble a few words before two meetings of students, throw the lecture open to questions, answer them briefly, and he was done with it. Her own dilemma was far more pressing, and there was no easy solution.
Before yesterday’s sightseeing tour, and after, in the fleeting moments that they had alone, Denise had finally made it clear to Claude that if he dared to see Gisele Jordan for so much as an hour, tomorrow, or the day after, or the day after that, in Copenhagen, it would mean an immediate separation and divorce. And more than that, Denise had warned her husband, knowing his main vulnerability, his bourgeois fear of disgrace, she would make the separation a public matter through the press before the final Nobel Award Ceremony.
Her threat had been delivered so passionately that Claude did not doubt her or attempt to conciliate her, as he had been doing, with vague promises of working out their problem in the future. He had vowed, invoked the name of the Lord, that there would be no assignation with his mannequin in Copenhagen.
Yet, sitting here now-they had not had time on yesterday’s tour to visit the place where they had been voted their chemistry prize, and Jacobsson had informally invited them over for this morning-Denise felt no relief from or security in her husband’s fervent promise. She wanted a guarantee. She could conceive of none. He had proved before she had discovered the affair, and again following it, that the flesh was weak. The arrival of his young mistress tomorrow, in a location only an hour or two away, would be a temptation.
Denise remembered the visit to Balenciaga, remembered the lithe ash-blonde with the high cheekbones and pouting lips and sensuous walk, and remembering this, she knew that Copenhagen might just as well be a room adjacent to their suite in the Grand Hotel of Stockholm. What bothered her was a hypothesis, with no scientific evidence to support it, that if her husband copulated with his mistress on this trip, in glamorous surroundings, their relationship would become permanent and unbreakable, and all Denise’s hopes would be in vain. Claude had given his word that this would not occur. Denise wanted not his word but a bond.
She became aware that Jacobsson’s conversation with Craig was almost at an end. Apparently, Craig had come around and was ready to conform to his schedule. Jacobsson was reminding him of the place of his lectures.
‘Do you recall the situation of the Swedish Academy, Mr. Craig?’ Jacobsson was asking. ‘There was a large auditorium-the Stock Exchange Hall-right before we went into the voting-room. Well, that is where you will be taken for both addresses. I am positive you will not regret it. Many of those students are promising writers, and all are tremendously appreciative of advice from a great author. As to your remaining schedule, I shall send you another copy of the programme for yourself. There are other events you will have to remember to attend. We do not wish to overwhelm our honoured guests, but you can understand the demand for their presence… Yes, any time, Mr. Craig. I am here to serve you. And thank you very much.’
For want of anything better to do, Denise Marceau had listened attentively to the last of Count Jacobsson’s telephone conversation. During the last of it, something creative had begun to arouse itself inside her head, something useful, something hopeful. The exact moment that Jacobsson’s receiver had clicked into place, Denise had been struck by an idea. Quite by accident, Craig’s call to Jacobsson had given Denise Marceau what she had sought since yesterday-the guarantee that would keep her husband apart from Gisele Jordan, at least for the critical present.
Jacobsson had set the telephone to one side of his desk, and now he swivelled his chair towards the
