Behind every Nobel Prize there is not merely a lab book, but a saga. Of personal sacrifice, of pain, of disappointment, and rarely—very rarely—of unadulterated joy.
Isabel da Costa defied all the odds, growing more human as she became a legend.
It could be argued that, considering the nature of her discovery—and the early recognition by the Italian Academy—there was really no doubt that the Nobel would be hers. And there was no reason why the Swedish Academy should defer it.
Her achievement completed the final dimension of Einstein’s theory of the universe, and there was no hesitation among the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences about giving her the prize. The vote was almost unanimous, with only a single dissenter raising the issue of her tender age. He was immediately overruled.
As one elder statesman put it, “We shouldn’t argue by actuarial tables. For once let’s honor Alfred Nobel’s words and give it to the achievement without worrying about the nature of the achiever.”
The meeting lasted less than forty minutes. Isabel’s victory was secure.
Everyone in the Stockholm establishment knew that the big battles to be fought that year would be for the award in Physiology or Medicine. In this category, the procedure differed radically from all the others.
Despite the initial canvassing of names, the soliciting of further information from knowledgeable individuals—and yes, the discreet inquiry into private lives—the names on the Nobel Committee’s list are treated as suggestions and are far from final. For its job is merely to propose five candidates as guidelines to the Nobel Assembly, which would do the actual voting.
The assembly consisted of fifty Swedish doctors of all specialties, who had the right to reject all the nominees of the Nobel Committee and pick a candidate purely of their own choosing.
Of course, some aspirants to the award saw this as an advantage.
Naturally, those working for Prescott Mason on Adam’s behalf also exploited this idiosyncrasy. A number of medical practitioners totally unknown on the international scene found themselves wined and dined to an unprecedented degree.
The lobbyists for Clarke-Albertson concentrated on lighting the fires of doctors with known rhetorical gifts, for after the nominating committee went through the motions of presenting its short list, the floor would be open and the battle would commence.
As one jovial Swede put it, “If the meeting ran long enough into the night, you probably could wear them down into giving the prize to Dr. Dolittle.” But in any case, the results would very much be in the hands of the local physicians.
Dmitri Avilov had laid the groundwork with foresight and patience. As early as the days when he had been a Soviet academician, he had paved the way to personal honor by visiting Sweden every year and giving generously of his time, both socially and scientifically.
He had also continued a long and steamy relationship with Dr. Helga Jansen, a microbiologist at Uppsala University, which so simmered in her memory that she would have gone to the barricades for him even had he not already been one of the leading nominees.
Not only did Avilov have grass roots support, but the timing of his paper’s appearance could not have been better.
Adam Coopersmith was not personally known to any of the electors, but the drug company had succeeded in disseminating the “secret” of his grave illness.
Moreover, beyond the obvious sympathy for the brilliant scientist dying young, there was another important consideration that could not be ignored. By giving the award to Adam, they would also be honoring the work of Max Rudolph, who had been cruelly denied the kudos he deserved.
There were, of course, three other names on the nominating committee’s list, and the meeting traditionally took on an air of a Gilbert and Sullivan operetta when a local boy named Gunnar Hilbert would annually nominate himself.
By any standards, there was an extraordinary amount of lobbying. In the early stages Sandy Raven’s name was mentioned in fleeting conversation. Yet it was the unspoken consensus that he had already enjoyed his fair share of recognition and reward.
Then suddenly Lars Fredricksen, a respected senior member of the panel, demanded the floor and turned what seemed to have been an inevitability into bedlam.
“Honored colleagues, with all the sympathy in the world, I think we should not allow the Nobel Prize to become like another Oscar—which has been known to have been awarded to actors simply because they were suffering from grave diseases,” he said. “I don’t believe that scientists should be swayed by either pity—or, for that matter, jealousy.”
He looked at his audience. His presence and his argument had checked them.
“If Coopersmith’s illness qualifies him, why should Raven’s good fortune disqualify him? After all, on the scale of absolute scientific achievements, his—”
Suddenly his assistant was at his side, signaling for his attention. He eyed the young man, who handed him a slip of paper which he quickly examined. “Mr. Chairman, I have more to say on this matter but—for good and proper reasons—I request a fifteen-minute recess.”
“As a gesture of respect to the distinguished character of the speaker, the request is granted. We will reconvene in a quarter of an hour.”
The physician rushed to a telephone.
“This is Fredricksen—” he began.
“Yes, Lars, good to hear your voice. I hope I’m not too late?”
“Actually, if you had called in an hour or so, I would have been able to give you good news.”
“And what might that have been?”
“That your candidate had won the prize. I was making headway. I think I am very close.”
“Thank God—I mean, thank God you haven’t succeeded yet.”
“What do you mean, sir?”
“It’s a long and complicated story, Lars. But briefly, I’ve changed horses. What would you say about Adam Coopersmith’s chances if you were to back down?”
The Swedish scientist was confused. “But if I understood my instructions, Coopersmith is precisely the candidate you wanted me to block. Believe me, it was not easy, there was enormous compassion for the man.”
“Good, good—that means you can go back in there and harness that sympathy.”
Fredricksen sighed wearily. “I know I’m in your employ—”
“Don’t make it sound so crass, Lars. Let’s just say I like to give tangible demonstrations of gratitude.”
“However you wish to phrase it, the end result is that I’ve done your bidding. If this is what you now wish, then I’ll do the best I can to urge the selection of Coopersmith.”
Though he sensed the conversation was about to conclude, the doctor felt impelled to make a statement of principles.
“Would you allow me to speak my heart, sir?”
“Why, of course. I would expect no less.”
“To be perfectly honest, if I had all the time been free to express my own sentiments, I would have voted for Coopersmith from the beginning.”
“I’m very glad, Fredricksen. So long.”
Tom Hartnell hung up and sat for a moment, staring pensively out at the pond on his Virginia estate.
That phone call had been one of the hardest he had ever made in his life. For he had abandoned a quest that had driven him intensively for years—revenge against Adam Coopersmith.
He turned to his daughter and said with a sigh, “And that’s really what you wanted, honey?”
Toni lowered her head and answered softly, “Yes, Dad.”
“After everything he did to you?”
“There are limits,” Antonia Nielson answered. “Adam’s suffered enough. Let him die with something. Besides, he deserves it.”
At this, her father would not suppress a grin. “Skipper, if people always got what they deserved, I’d have been out of business long ago.”
A moment later she rose, father and daughter embraced affectionately, and she left to catch her plane.
Seated once again at his desk, the Boss realized that he still had to dispose of the other thoroughbred in this horse race. He pressed a button on his automatic phone and a raspy voice answered, “Hi, Boss.”
“Good evening, Fitz. Sorry to disturb whomever you’re doing.”
“That’s okay, my captain. What can I do you for?”
“Sell my calls.”
“You mean Corvax? All of them?”
“You read me well, Fitz.”
“Damn,” the stockbroker muttered half under his breath.
“Listen, if you put your other clients on to my little speculation in longevity, that’s your tough luck. Oh, and use the proceeds to buy Clarke-Albertson at the market price. Good night, Fitz.”
The scope of Adam’s life had been reduced to the one room on the ground floor that contained his bed. The two upper stories stood empty of furniture, as if emphasizing the hollowness of his earthly triumph.
It was a little after four A.M. in the Coopersmith house on Brattle Street. Anya sat talking quietly to Charlie Rosenthal. She had long since given up hope of getting a night’s sleep, refusing medication because she worried that Adam might regain consciousness while she was in a drugged slumber.
“He seemed pretty stable to me,” Charlie remarked with more hope than conviction. “I mean, I’m almost positive he knew me just then.”
“He did, he did,” Anya insisted, anxious to assuage Charlie’s fears that he was no longer able to convey his compassion to his best friend.
To buttress her reassurance, she took him into her confidence and confessed, “Do you know the most amazing thing? Up until a week ago we still had the remnants of a … sexual relationship.”
“Yeah. That’s one of the paradoxical aspects of the disease. While it’s insidiously closing down all the systems, it keeps the sex drive intact for a long time.”
“You know,” Anya said hoarsely, “it doesn’t matter if he recognizes me or not. The important thing is, I know him. If we never have another conversation, as long as I can watch him sleep or look in his eyes—even when they’re looking past me—that’s enough. Can you understand that?”
Charlie nodded. “Absolutely. It’s like so many of the mothers with sick newborns I’ve treated through the years. It doesn’t matter if their baby’s not aware …”
His voice trailed off, for he had suddenly remembered he was talking to a woman who had been afflicted not only with a terminally ill husband, but with the tragedy of childlessness.
Anya understood. But she now had an outlet for her maternal instincts.
“No,” she said kindly. “You’re right. In a way, Adam has become my child. And as long as I can give him my love, nothing else matters.”
The phone rang. “My God, who could it be at this hour?” Anya wondered aloud.
“It might be my service,” Charlie explained apologetically. “I’m sorry. I’ll take it.”
He walked over to the phone, answered, and then said immediately, “I was wrong. At crazy four in the morning somebody wants you, Anya.”
She moved slowly. After all, there was nothing that important in the outside world. And she did not care who wished to communicate with her from that alien territory.
“Mrs. Coopersmith—I should say Dr. Coopersmith—this is Professor Nils Bergstrom of the Karolinska Medical Institute in Sweden. Forgive me if I’ve awakened you.”
“That’s all right,” Anya mumbled absently. “I wasn’t sleeping.”
“I assume you have some idea of why I’m calling,” he said gently.
“I can guess,” Anya whispered, wondering if she would have the emotional strength even to thank this man for what was clearly intended as a gesture of kindness.
“It gives me deep satisfaction to inform you—in strictest confidence—that at noon today in Stockholm, two hours from now, we will announce this year’s Nobel Prize in Medicine. And the academy will honor the invention of MR-Alpha as first put forth in the New England Journal by you and your husband and his team.”
Professor Bergstrom continued to speak, but his words were merely a meaningless flow of syllables pouring over Anya’s consciousness.
She once again thanked him and hung up.
Now, with tears streaming down her face, she stared at her husband’s friend. “He’s won—Adam’s won the Nobel Prize.”
The impulse to rejoice was so strong in Charlie that he succeeded momentarily in forgetting his friend’s terrible affliction. He bounded from the chair. “Fan-tas-tic! Have you got any champagne?”
“Yes,” she replied diffidently. “But I don’t feel it’s proper before—you know—Adam is told. I mean, made aware.”
Immediately chastened, he agreed. “You’re right. So what I’ll do is stay with you till he has a clear moment. If you don’t mind, Anya, I’d really like to share his happiness. It would mean a great deal to me.”
“Of course.” She nodded. A moment later they were in Adam’s bedroom looking down at him. His face—still unlined and still handsome—wore an expression of tranquility.
“Should we try to wake him?” Charlie asked.
“We both want to, so let’s take a chance,” she replied.
Anya touched him and said softly, “Adam.”
Her husband’s eyes slowly opened. He gazed at her and for a moment said nothing. His glance then fell on Charlie. Then back to his wife.
“An-Anya,” he murmured. “How are you, darling?”
She exchanged glances with Charlie. “He’s lucid. We can tell him. He may forget it in half an hour, but at least he’ll understand now.” She took his hand.
“Adam, we’ve got something wonderful to tell you,” she began. “You’ve won the Nobel Prize. It won’t be officially announced for another two hours, but you’ve won.”
He looked at her incredulously and shook his head. “No, no, you’re wrong,” he objected. “But Adam—”
“No, we won,” he corrected her. “Without you …”
And then, abruptly, there seemed to be a short-circuit in his brain. His eyes glazed and he became silent as a stone, no longer present.
“He knew,” Charlie insisted. “He was all there when you told him. Don’t you agree?”
She nodded. Then the two of them helped settle the disoriented patient back in bed.
Later, Anya was scrambling some eggs for Charlie before he left for the hospital, when the phone rang again. It was Prescott Mason.
“Have you heard?” Triumph colored his voice.
“Yes,” she responded quietly.
“Splendid news, isn’t it?” Mason shouted like a cheerleader, clearly angling for a pat on the head.
“Yes, yes,” she agreed. “You did a good job.”
“Listen, Anya,” Mason said emotionally, “I don’t deny that we lobbied. But they don’t give out Nobel Prizes without merit.” He hesitated, and then added softly, “Now comes the hard part. At least for you.”
“I don’t understand,” she protested.
“There’s no way Adam can face the press. We’ll have to convince them that he’s temporarily sidelined. I mean, you’ll have no problem fielding any questions, will you?”
Her heart sank. “Must I?”
“Listen, dear,” Mason urged, “this is for him. If you can keep saying that to yourself, it’ll help you get through it.”
She shrugged. “But what about the ceremony? I hate to think how he’ll be by December.”
“Be brave, Anya,” Prescott responded affectionately. “Let’s take this one day at a time.”
She hung up and looked at Charlie.
“I heard,” he said softly. “That guy’s voice is like a megaphone. Listen, Anya, I don’t know how the hell I can help, but I’ll get back here as soon as I make my rounds. You shouldn’t be alone at a time like this.”
“Thanks, Charlie,” she murmured sadly.
“Yeah,” he answered. He then turned on his heels and left.
Once outside, Charlie breathed a sigh of relief and thought, Where the hell does she find the strength?
And felt glad that he was able to get away from all that ceaseless suffering.
The moment she was alone, Anya immediately called Lisl Rudolph, for in a real sense, this was her prize too. The older woman cried.
For Adam.
For herself.
“Lisl, I want you here with me when the reporters come. And I don’t mean to help me out. I want you to be a living reminder of how much this prize belongs to Max.”
A few minutes later, Terry Walters arrived to begin his day of nursing. Anya had been so preoccupied that she hadn’t checked on Adam for nearly an hour.
Moments later she was startled to hear Terry roar, “Holy shit!” This was followed by the heavy tread of his footsteps as he raced into the kitchen. “He’s gone—your husband’s gone!”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean, he’s not in his bed. He’s not in the john. He’s not anywhere. What the hell could have happened?”
Anya was frozen with fear. Earlier in his illness there had been occasions when Adam had left his bed like a sleepwalker and wandered around the backyard. Lately he had not seemed well enough to go AWOL. And she could see through the kitchen window that he was not in the garden.
She and Terry thought as one. They opened the door to the garage and had their worst fears confirmed.
One of the cars was missing.
Alzheimer’s had slowly but relentlessly deprived Adam Coopersmith of all his faculties. Now and then he had revisited his old life with enough awareness to make him despondent. The only thing he had not dared tell Anya was that he had resolved not to surrender to the disease its ultimate prey—his dignity.
There was no doubt a neurological explanation for the sudden—and inevitably transitory—return of his rational faculties. And yet, though no scientist has discovered the location of the human will, they all recognize its existence and respect its inscrutable power.
Adam’s whole life had been one of increasing mastery of his environment. As a youngster this was epitomized in his skills as a diver. He had trained his body to obey his thoughts and perform actions of extreme beauty.
His enormous inner strength prefigured the character of his scientific career, in which he strove to correct nature’s mistakes. The prize he had just received was ample testimony to his success.
Moreover, the news from Stockholm had provided a neural stimulus, giving him a physical renewal he was unlikely to experience again.
He knew this was the moment to act. He sat up in bed and, like an automaton, dressed himself and put on track shoes—an act he had not performed without assistance for several months. Car keys were strewn carelessly on the hall table. He picked up a set.
The garage door had been left open, so the only sound he created was the soft purr of Anya’s Ford Tempo as he backed out into the street.
As he drove toward the lab, Adam meticulously observed the rules of the road. He carefully stopped at red lights. He did not exceed the speed limit.
He even parked in the correct space in the garage.
He took the elevator to the eighth floor in hopes of making a final visit to his lab. But the moment he spied several night owls still at their benches, he turned and walked to the fire door.
Then, with dignity and grace, he mounted the steps and walked out onto the roof.
Adam knew where he was and why he had gone there.
He was not frightened.
He walked slowly to the edge and stood erect and proud as he surveyed the city bathed in the glow of the morning’s early light.
Then, calling upon distant but distinct memories of his body’s flights through space, he sprang forward.
And dove into the void.