1. Beside the Point
In Stockholm that summer a man in a gray wool suit felt the sweat on his face as he walked into a herring shop in Stallgatan to buy some pickles. He liked pickles. The family physician said pickles were not that healthy. Was it the vinegar? Inside the herring shop, the man in the wool suit pushed the family physician out of his mind and walked to one of the large barrels to have a look. Yes, he liked pickles. And these were healthy pickles, greenish-yellow, tart looking, a barrel full to the brim. I'm thirty-four years old and if I want pickles, I'll eat pickles. This was August in 1867 and pickles had become available again. Last summer hardly a pickle could be found in Stockholm, something bad in the harvest, and he'd missed them. He had no taste for the pickles in Hamburg, and the pickles in St. Petersburg had always been awful. A desire for the pickles here was harmless. Anyway, he had something to celebrate, a sheet of paper now existed in a Kungsgatan patent office and soon he would be effectively reborn, a new man, a new life. Every man had to be reborn to move beyond his youth.
The shop was nearly empty, only an old woman at the counter listening as the man in the white apron told a story about a lost herring boat near Oxelosund,
that of
a cousin of the wife of the man in the white apron, the old woman clucking as she listened to the story. The shopkeeper, the herring-man, turned his head to look at the man in the wool suit. Was it a new customer, someone new in the district? The man in the wool suit looked ordinary; an ordinary face, a short brown beard; he seemed to be dancing with quick steps around the pickle barrels, almost hopping, maybe still young, with bushy eyebrows and deep-set eyes.
The man in the wool suit thought about herring, and he wondered if he ought to buy some herring to accompany the pickles. But, of course, he hadn't chosen the pickles yet, so why not wait? Then he noticed the tongs hanging on the edge of another barrel, a barrel of darker pickles. No, he liked the lighter pickles. But the tongs would do. He took some of the cut newspaper off the hook on the post. He held the newspaper in his left hand and he carefully picked four yellow-green pickles out of the barrel. The water slopped out of the barrel anyway and he had to jerk back a bit to avoid wetting his wool suit. It was really too warm for wool, but he hadn't expected the afternoon heat after the cool morning rain. When he grasped a fifth pickle with the tongs, the water in the barrel slopped again, and this time some of it did wet his trousers. Well, it couldn't be helped. The barrel was filled to the brim with pickles, all the barrels nearly full, and that's why they had the sawdust on the floor. He liked the smell of it: a good carpet of sawdust surrounding barrels of pickles in a herring shop, the sawdust still dry, not yet saturated, although maybe soon there would be too much water and vinegar down there and they'd need to put another carpet of sawdust on the floor.
He wanted a sixth pickle, a full half dozen, but instead he remained with the five pickles in one hand, the tongs in the other hand, his eyes on the floor, on the carpet of sawdust.
The old woman said something to the man in the white apron, paid for the herring she wanted and left the shop. The man in the white apron looked at the man in the wool suit standing at the pickle barrels, the suit much too warm for the afternoon heat. The herring-man tried to hide his impatience. "Yes, good day, can I help you?"
The man in the wool suit turned to the counter, pickles and newspaper in one hand, the tongs in the other hand. "Where do you get the sawdust? Do you have it delivered here?"
The man in the white apron put his hands on his chest over his apron, his thick fingers splayed out on his white apron. "Sawdust? You want sawdust, mister? What about those pickles?"
"Yes, I'll take these pickles, thank you." He handed the five pickles in the newspaper to the man behind the counter. Never mind the sixth pickle now. He would talk to Ludvig. His brother knew more about such things than he did. He'd planned to go to the barge, but now he'd go to Heleneborg instead. Ludvig would know all about sawdust.
2. Down in the Mouth
"Sawdust?" Ludvig said. He was the older one, but only two years older. Still, he looked more solid. Everyone always said Ludvig looked the most solid, even more solid than
their other brother,
Robert, who was the oldest.
"I need a few barrels to start with. Can you get them for me? I need them on the barge as soon as possible."
Through the large window, the ground outside the house looked fine, a wide expanse of green and then the forest in the distance. The old shed they had used as a laboratory had been blown to pieces three years before and nothing of it was visible.
Ludvig shrugged. "Listen, I'm leaving in a few days, back to St. Petersburg. What do you want with sawdust, anyway?"
"An experiment, what else? I think it might improve things if it's mixed with the clay."
"Does the clay really work?"
"Yes, it works. Guhr clay, anyway. And today the patent has been approved and I'm celebrating."
Ludvig laughed. "You're celebrating? How are you celebrating?"
"I bought some pickles."
"Pickles? Are you blowing up pickles now? You don't need pickles, Alfred. What you need is a woman. Why don't you find a woman and get married?"
"You're teasing me. I'll wrap a pickle in kieselguhr and have it served to you at dinner."
"Damn the kieselguhr. Emil is dead."
"Yes, Emil is dead. Don't you think I know that?"
He was sweating again. He did not like to be reminded of Emil. No one likes to be reminded of a younger brother blown to bits like that. Now it was he who was the youngest. Alfred the youngest. But thirty-four wasn't so young anymore.
"Your damned barge," Ludvig said.
"Yes, my damned barge. Can you get the sawdust for me? Just a few barrels for now."
"Are you living on the barge yet?"
"It's an idea, but not yet. I'm returning to Hamburg next week. The sawdust?"
"They say you're crazy, you know. If you want to know the truth, I'm happy I'm in St. Petersburg."
"Get me the sawdust, Ludvig."
"You'll blow the barge to the sky, won't you?"
"No, we keep the nitro dry now, more stable. It's much better now."
"Better, is it? It wasn't better for Emil, I think. What are you calling it again? Fancy name, wasn't it?"
"Dynamite, Ludvig. I'm calling it dynamite."
"Anything left of the factory in Hamburg?"
"It's being rebuilt."
"Explosions everywhere. In America last year, wasn't it? Big explosion in San Francisco. My brother's famous blasting oil."
"That was a liquid shipment. They're not careful enough."
"Your blasting oil, Alfred."
"Yes, my blasting oil. I'll have the American patent next year."
"You're doing fine, aren't you?"
"Not yet, not yet. How are things in St. Petersburg?"
"Slow. A few contracts for steam engines."
"I miss St. Petersburg, I really do."
"Ludvig shook his head. "The old man isn't good, you know."
"I know he's not good. That's why I'm here."
"Not since he buried Emil."
"I know that."
He turned away to hide his irritation. He knew all about the explosion in America, the blasting oil leaking in a depot, a huge blast, fifteen dead, a whole brain blown into another building. How does that happen, a whole brain? You'd think the damn thing would fall apart. But, of course, the steamship explosions were even worse. Forty-seven killed on the ocean near Panama. Eighty-four killed at the dock in Bremerhaven. The new method with kieselguhr would put an end to the instability. And now he had the patent and there would be more patents and maybe mixing sawdust with the guhr clay would be an important advance. Yes, it would. He knew it. He knew it in his bones. Fine sawdust in the guhr would be an important advance. Keep the nitro a paste, even a dry paste like putty. What he needed was a good detonator, and he had ideas for that. He wanted to be reborn as a man. His father was almost gone and he wanted to be reborn at last. My name is Alfred Bernhard Nobel and I want to be reborn.