Irving Wallace - The Prize

Once in the carriage, Craig found their luggage divided between two adjoining rooms, compartments 16 and 17, and saw that the beds were made up, and that there was no place to sit.

Going into the aisle again, he pulled down a window for Leah and one for himself. Gates was below them, on the platform, a Foreign Service smile, like an Embassy pennant, flying from his face. Leah thanked him for lunch and dinner, and Elsinore, and Gates insisted that the pleasure was all his.

He seemed more eager to speak to Craig. ‘We’re all mighty proud of you, Mr. Craig. We’ll be looking for every word about the Nobel ceremonies.’

‘We appreciate all you’ve done,’ said Craig. ‘When I have time, I’ll write to the Ambassador and recommend a promotion.’

Gates depreciated his services with a modest shake of his head. ‘Don’t even think of it,’ he said. ‘One thing that would mean a lot, though-my wife, Esther, she’s a fan of yours like I am. We’d certainly treasure an autographed copy of your next novel.’

Brother, it’ll be done in time for your grandchildren, Craig wanted to tell him. But he was almost sober, and fixed on being gracious. ‘I’ll remember that,’ he said.

‘I’ll make a note of it, Mr. Gates,’ added Leah firmly.

Craig had already tired of leaning on the half-open window. ‘Is there a lounge or diner on this train?’ he inquired.

‘I’m sorry,’ Gates called up, ‘but European trains don’t have lounges. One of their major barbarisms. If your room is made up, you can pull down the little folding seat in the aisle and read-’

Craig had almost forgotten. The folding seat was at his knees.

‘-and as for a diner,’ Gates continued, ‘this train doesn’t carry one. They figure everyone has eaten, and you’ll be in Stockholm at a quarter to nine in the morning, in time for breakfast. But I’ll tell you what, Mr. Craig-if you’re hungry-in fifteen minutes, fifteen minutes after you leave here, they’ll be loading these cars on the Malmö ferry. It’s a seventeen-mile water crossing to Sweden and usually takes about two hours. You can get off this wagon-lit while you’re on the ferry, and if you poke around, you’ll find two or three places to eat. That should do it.’

‘Imagine,’ said Leah, ‘a train on a ferry. I can hardly wait.’

‘It’s an experience,’ said Gates. He looked off. ‘They’re buttonning up. I think you’re about to go.’

‘Thanks for everything,’ said Craig. He closed his window and went into his compartment, leaving Leah to conduct the last farewell. He sat on his bed, taking in the rich, worn brown wooden walls of the small room. He filled and lit his pipe, and a moment later, the Nord Express was moving.

Leah came to his open door. ‘We’re on our way,’ she said.

‘Thank God.’

‘Aren’t you the least bit excited?’

‘Only about getting that fifty grand.’

‘How can you be so-so commercial about it?’

‘What do you want me to say, Leah? I’m no schoolboy.’

‘It’s the greatest honour in the world.’

‘So I’m honoured. I also know I haven’t written a book in some years. I feel I’m taking the prize under false pretences.’

‘Don’t say that. I’ve been reading a biography of Alfred Nobel. It says he thought of the prize in literature to help young or middle-aged writers continue doing idealistic work-’

‘Well, I’m afraid your Alfred Nobel made a poor investment this time.’

Leah reacted with exasperation. ‘Why do you always run yourself down, Andrew?’

He looked up sharply. He remembered that the Swedish girl with the golden hair had used almost the same words to him earlier in the day.

‘I’m not running myself down,’ he said defensively. ‘I simply have a realistic evaluation of my worth-and my future.’

‘I hope you won’t carry on like this in Stockholm. They think a lot of you, and they’ll be expecting more than this.’

He felt fretful, in no mood for advice from his sister-in-law. ‘I promise you, Leah dear, I’ll be the model of a literary giant in Stockholm.’

‘Don’t joke.’

‘I’m not. Watch and see.’

She was about to leave him. ‘We should be on the ferry-boat soon. Are you going to eat?’

‘I don’t know.’

‘If you do, take me along. I’d like to be with you.’

Sure, nurse, you’ll be with me, in a pig’s eye you will, he told himself. ‘Okay, Leah,’ he told her, ‘I’ll knock if I go out.’

After she had left, and he heard her door and the rattle of clothes hangers in the next compartment, he went into the aisle. He stared out the window at the strings of light in the distance, and his throat and belly twitched in their need for drink. At last, he shoved down the folding seat, and sat on it sideways, stretching his legs and smoking. He wondered why, in the first place, he had not told Leah to go to hell, and packed a suitcase filled with whisky so that there would not be this problem. Perhaps it was the fear of losing her-although this seemed unlikely-and loneliness appeared more terrifying than sobriety. Perhaps it was something altogether different. People lived by miniature milestones: on this holiday you would begin a diet, on this birthday you would begin economy, on this New Year’s Day you would begin a programme of work. These were the little rejuvenations, game symbols, artificial hopes, with which people deluded themselves. In an effort to break free of his bondage to the bottle, to leave behind inertia and defeat, he had seized upon the Nobel award as such a turning-point. One half-drunk night, after the telegram, he had made himself believe that he would travel to Stockholm sober, accept the award sober, and after, undertake his responsibility as a recently absentee member of the human community sober.

But now he saw, lucidly, the fallacy of the dream. There was no reason on earth not to drink. What mattered it a damn if he went to Stockholm sober and received the award sober? What mattered it if he renewed his subscription to the human race, worked, voted, gave parties, attended them, read, fished, loved? For what, for whom? The argument for permanent euphoria, alcohol-induced, made better sense. It was the medicine man’s good medicine for driving away the spirits of Harriet missing and Harriet guilt, of books unwritten, of life promise unused.

The train was no longer moving. Outside the window, there stood a small-town depot, a rail siding, yellow lights, and bundled Danes. The train jolted forward, and then again, and once more. Craig rose, allowing his folding seat to jump against the wall with a bang, and he opened the window. The blast of cold air made him shiver, but he held his place. Not until he saw the railing, and gleam of water behind it, did he realize that they were boarding the Malmö ferry-boat.

Again a metallic shudder, and the train was stationary. Quietly, Craig passed Leah’s compartment, walked down the aisle to the end of the wagon-lit. The conductor helped him to the tight boat deck. Pressed between the train, suddenly large above him, and wooden cabins to his right, he felt claustrophobic and oppressed. He had forgotten his trench coat, and the night air coming through his suit was like a sheet of ice.

‘Where can I get a drink to warm up?’ he asked the conductor.

‘Stairs to the upper deck,’ said the conductor. ‘Restaurant and drinks in the first-class dining-room. At the prow.’

‘Do we have two hours?’

‘One hour and fifty minutes. You must return in one hour and fifty minutes.’

With the conductor, he backed against the train as a stream of people, all in heavy coats and sweaters, pushed through to the boat stairs. There was a tall woman with a long cigar in her mouth. There were raucous adolescents, most of them smoking cigarettes. There were well-dressed men.