The Nobel Laureate
It wasn't even three 'o clock in the afternoon, still it was dark as midnight. That was something Esaiah Skanze found delightful. A Stockholm decorated for Christmas in millions of leds and powdered with a pristine white coating of snow, there was hardly anything as beautiful in the eyes of Professor Skanze.
The Professor was standing by the window, hands folded on his back, gazing out over the narrow and tranquil side street, where nothing moved save for a pair of crows looking for something edible outside of the kebab joint, and a few strollers heading for destinations he couldn't care less about. The piano sonata from the stereo system was filling his head with its mellow minor tunes, calming his nerves and smoothing his stage feverish discomfort, while he was waiting for Jelena to finish getting ready upstairs, so they could leave. He had donned his frock ages ago, it felt, but Jelena was always taking her time with her looks. It was a woman thing, he knew, and he should have learned by now, after so many years of marriage, still it made him somewhat vexed every time they were going somewhere, and Jelena was lingering too long for his comfort in the dressing room.
Especially today! Today was the day when they just couldn't be late. Not for the ceremony, not for his ceremony. After all, it wasn't every day you got a Nobel Price. For the vast majority it never happened. Therefore, being late for the ceremony, that was just something that simply shouldn't happen.
But just as Esaiah Skanze was thinking about calling for her, did he hear the soft footfalls in the stairs. The silent sound of clicking heals against the oak wood steps. Next second he saw her, striding down the stairs like a queen in her dark red ball gown, a small mink fur over her shoulders and a tiny purse carried in her right hand, while her left one was sliding elegantly down the railing, crimson nails gleaning in the crisp light from the ceiling spots. Around her neck, Jelena carried a dual collar of genuine pearls mixed with diamonds, and she wore matching ear boobs. Her dark-brown hair was perfectly donned, and glistened slightly of glittering spray.
"You look beautiful, beloved," Esaiah breathed out and Jelena met his gaze, emerald eyes glittering as the corners of her red-painted lips twitching slightly. Jelena never smiled with her lips parted.
"Thank you, my genius," Jelena nodded her head gracefully as she strode up to him and laid her hands upon his torso, then brushing off an invisible flake of dust from the black collar of his frock. "Have you called a taxi?"
"No," he responded, "I think we should walk. It's after all less than 100 metres to the Concert Hall where the ceremony takes part. And I'd like to tell the world that I'm probably the only laureate ever to walk to the hall, probably the record holder when it comes to living closest by."
Jelena tilted her head.
"Oh, Esaiah, you're such a geek! But how do you think I'm going to manage with these heels?"
"You'll do just fine, sweetheart," the professor answered and held out his arm. "I'll steady you if you should just feel the slightest insecure. Which I doubt that a graceful woman like you would ever do."
Without anything more than a huffing response, Jelena took his offered arm and let him guide her to the entrance hall, where he donned his coat before calling up the private elevator. They rode down to street level, crossed the empty lobby and faced the biting chill of the December afternoon. But just as Esaiah had said, the walk over to the concert hall was short, and quickly over with, just down the shallow slope and across the broad avenue. Then they were by the large, light-blue building, floodlighted in colours which were enhancing the stately architecture, reminding spectators both of the upcoming holiday and the tradition of the dynamite-maker's world-renowned foundation.
The vast antechamber was buzzing with people; however Esaiah and Jelena hadn't missed a single dress rehearsal for the ceremony, so they knew just where to go, to find that private side door where a beautiful blonde was waiting with a guest list. The petite girl looked elfin and almost fragile, however Esaiah could tell by the small bulge of her jacket that she carried a gun and therefore must be a part of the multi-headed security detail at the event. After having checked their names against the guest list, she looked up to meet their eyes, hers were gray-blue and vigilant, the kind of eyes that never missed a detail.
"Congratulation and welcome, professor," she beamed. "And to you as well Mrs. Skanze. Have a nice evening!"
"Thank you," Jelena's voice was soft and rich as always, like cream it poured from her lips. "We sure will."
Then the blonde stepped to the side and they were admitted to the secluded chamber by the side door, where they could leave their outdoor clothes and then ascend a short flight of stairs to a landing where Champagne and small food were awaiting them, and where soft light bounced off the green marble and gilded details, creating an almost under water effect. Here all the other laureates and their nearest guests were stiffly trying to mingle and chat, while awaiting the moment when they were going to be admitted out on the podium.
Esaiah regarded the others thoughtfully. More than half the elderly men (and the single woman) were American, no wonder, most people believed the Nobel Price to be an American institution, and conjecturing about the reason for the ceremony taking place in the Kingdom of Sweden, the price handed out by a royalty. There were the two gentlemen, a German and an American who had received the price for physics, because of their work with the composition of distant stars, the trio who were sharing the chemistry price, among them that old Chinese, who looked like he was going to fall apart if you just breathed at him, and his grandmother-like American colleague.
Then there was the Irish professor who Esaiah was splitting the medicine price with. The man looked like Santa Claus with a cane, where he came up to his colleague, so that they might politely praise each other's work, not admitting to the other that they really couldn't care less what the other one did. Santa then took the chance to complain about his back and the cold and Esaiah was nodding courteously but noncommittally.
Then there was the jovial man who was holding court from his wheelchair. The man who won the literature price, and who had caused such a controversy with his atheism and his harsh criticism against organized religion and the burden of mankind he claimed that it represented. Even more so than the price for peace, which was handed out in Oslo, Norway, and which generally was the most controversial one. However this year that price had been awarded an organization working to stop schoolyard bullying, and who in its right mind could have anything against that? There was so much more fun fuzzing about a poet, who called God 'mankind's biggest deception'.
Well, Esaiah couldn't even begin to tell how much he agreed with the poet, however he had said nothing about it, he had always kept his private life and his private opinion to himself, and he was perfectly fine with the outmoded mystery it added to his persona. So obsolete in this era, where everyone was supposed to flaunt everything about themselves, on their Facebook pages, on their linked-in, on Instagram and on YouTube.
Just like the final laureate in the room, the Harvard professor who had got the special price for economics. That man was the youngest in the group and he had taken the social medias to his heart, so now all who held an interest would know what the man had had for dinner last night, breakfast this morning and his not so flattering opinion about the Stockholm weather. Not that Esaiah really cared, and he doubted anyone else really did.
Jelena and Esaiah accepted a flute of Champagne each from a tray, however they declined the finger food, and then they spent the last few moments sipping on the sparkling beverage before it was time to enter the podium.
The concert hall was warm and muggy with the exhalations of hundreds of people, the smell of too many flowers and the reek of dusty old furnishing and textiles, the latter being ever present odors in old buildings like this. Odors allegedly unfeasible to evict and too familiar to Professor Skanze. He separated from Jelena with a quick and chaste kiss on her cheek, then he found his chair among the other laureates. The stage fever was easier to banish now, when they all were sitting down, and he became one in a small group of men in frock, together with a single woman in a peacock blue gown.
In the corner of his eye, he spotted the conductor signaling with glowed hands before the most wonderful music filled the hall. Enjoying every tune of it, Esaiah felt it soften his soul, and he almost chuckled, when he noted that the Chinese next to him had obviously fallen asleep in his chair. He gave the old man a gentle nudge with his arm and the professor flinched and blinked a few times before coming around again.
After the music speeches followed, one more ostentatious than the other, and Esaiah spent a couple of minutes admiring the queen and the princesses and their magnificent dresses and tiaras. Then he spent some more time thinking about his research.
Synthetic blood. The husky middle-aged lady who began talking about his research had done her homework and done it good, because she was right on spot with Esaiah's research. With the struggle of producing the crimson liquid in a laboratory environment, and to get every single enzyme right. So right that you were able to use the blood for transfusions, instead of donor blood. After Esaiah Skanze's work had been perfected, the donors had more or less been superseded, at least in the parts of the world where the expensive process was possible to be accomplished.
The plump doctor by the rostrum was elaborated in her description of Skanze's more than three decades long research, praising its implications and hoping that the manufacturing process would soon be inexpensive enough to reach every corner of the world, and not only the first world countries which were now using it. She told about details of Esaiah's work, papers he had written, financers who had pulled out and about the professor's relentless labour to push his research forward. And most of all she praised the implications of his revelation, all the lives it had saved and was going to save in the future. But she was still missing one little important detail. However Esaiah was fine with that. Really fine.
The king was old these days. Old and ailing, and therefore it was the doe-eyed crown princess who handed out the prices. She saved her special smile for Esaiah, one Swede to another. Three small words were exchanged, a 'good luck' and a 'thanks'.
As the professor returned to his place his gaze fell upon a familiar face. A woman he had known for so many years. Countess Alexandra. His heart skipped a beat as their eyes met, her blue ones were so tired, so forlorn these days, and they were ringed with dark shadows, which not even her meticulous make-up could hide. And her bare arms were even thinner than he remembered them. He had to confess that he had listened to the gossip too, the gossip about cancer and anorexia. But Esaiah knew what was failing the Countess was of a complete different matter. And he felt a shiver travelling down his spine when considering it.
*o*o*
The Nobel festivities followed a well-known process, a process almost as old as the foundation itself, a process you didn't alter, other than very carefully and prudently. Therefore nothing happening later in the evening presented much of a surprise to Esaiah. There was the limousine ride to the City Hall, with the route lined by spectators, including its fair share of protesters waving boards and banners, there were photo sessions with the media and the five course dinner in the Blue Hall (which was really red), there were music and performances and all kinds of dignitaries.
During the dinner Esaiah was seated next to an older princess of the court, a less remarkable woman who had probably done more than a dozen face lifts and who got absolutely nothing interesting to say. She asked if he was playing golf. Gimme a break, the Professor had almost blurted out. Even if he had thought the game being even the slightest of interest, he would never had the time to indulge in that kind of pastime. Therefore the fake blond failed to raise his interest when harping on about her handicap and her club and courses and the people she had met and played with. (The man's name is Tiger? You're kidding me?) And she in turn was not the slightest interested in his research, she knew very little about medical research after all. She asked him what he knew about psoriasis, and when he admitted that it was not his subject, they let the conversation die.
The woman on the Professor's other side though, she was a member emerita of the parliament, and she wanted to know everything about synthetic blood. First she failed to see the usefulness with it, but when he told that using his process would mean that they would never run out of transfusion blood, her interest peaked up. Not even for people with strange blood groups would surgery present a problem anymore, since the synthetic blood was neutral. One compound for all.
"So what's the catch, professor?" she asked, while savouring of her glass of wine.
"The process is still expensive, milady," Esaiah answered. "Expensive and can only be performed in selective places so far. But I hope that with time we'll be able to refine the production and that the instruments needed will be able to line manufacture and thus go down in price. My hope is that every major city should have its own blood factory. That the blood banks should always be full."
"That sounds great," the elderly woman smiled. "I remember when my son in law, a policeman, was shot, he was actually near death, because there weren't blood enough for him. They had to fly it in from Finland."
"With my process, that would be unnecessary," the professor was gently telling her.
"Impressive."
"And another point," he commenced. "Today human blood is perishable. You cannot keep it for a long time, so you always need to refill, even if you're not using it. Platelets for transfusion for instance are typically pooled before transfusion and have a shelf life of 5 to 7 days, or 3 days once the facility that collected them. Frozen blood can be kept a little longer and certain frozen blood product for quite some time. But neither they last forever. Therefore you have to keep attracting donors. In a world, where people unfortunately are getting more selfish and disinterested in helping. However the synthetic blood carries a special enzyme which makes it last much longer, even if it's not eternal."
The dinner had been followed by dancing up in the Golden Hall, and was there one thing Esaiah loved, so was it to swing around on a ball floor. To feel like a part in a Cinderella story, blinded by the allure of all the magnificence around him. And since he was one of the celebrated ones here tonight, he sure got to dance. Even the Crown Princess and the comely Major of Stockholm were delighted when he asked them for a dance. So it became later than he expected before he and Jelena slipped into that taxi which was going to take them home.
"You had fun my dear?" he asked as he kissed her cheek, blushed from the excitement and the warmth inside of the city hall.
"You bet," she grinned. "Can't you make sure to get another price next year?" Laughing at her joke he gripped her hand gently while the car began to move through the traffic.
"I will do my best," his promise was light-hearted, all knew how few those were who had received more than one price.
"Perhaps the peace one, for stopping..."
"I know," he exhaled. "However, that is one story which will never see daylight."
*o*o*
It was way past midnight, before they were finally at home. Not that it mattered that much. While Jelena went upstairs to slip into something more comfortable, Esaiah wormed out of the frock and turned on some soft music, let it fill the apartment through the surround system. Then he crossed the almost unused kitchen, and went over to the faux panel, where he pressed a concealed button, watching the panel slid to the side and disclosing a small fridge in brushed steel. Producing the key hanging around his neck, he unlocked the fridge, feeling how his normally so calm self turned excited as he pressed the handler and opened the fridge door.
There they were, the cans with synthetic blood. His invention. He slipped his hand into the cold storage and lifted one liter can out of its shelf before closing the fridge door again. Then he walked over to the stove and switched on the gas.
Jelena entered the kitchen just as he was pouring the now heated liquid into two high glasses.
"I like the smell of that," Jelena nodded her head. "Not like the real thing, of course, then again, you're almost close these days, my love."
"Sweetheart," the professor handed one of the glasses to his wife. "I believe trading taste for conscience will benefit us all in the long term. In a few years' time no vampire will have to kill for their sustenance anymore. You and I, my dear as well as poor Countess Alexandra and all other members of our misunderstood ilk will soon face a better life. A life where we can look ourselves in the mirror without feeling as much contempt anymore. Even if we still cannot walk in the sunlight because of our lack of skin pigmentation. But that I leave to some other scientist. Cheers my dear!"
"Cheers," the more than 300 old Romanian vampire rose her glass and touched it gently with her husband, the twice as old Swedish scientist. Then they drank to each other, feeling for the first time in hours and hours, the sweet comfort of nourishment.