The Black House

by Patricia Highsmith

  Where were they? Isabella had thought they were heading for Rome, but wasn’t sure. Yes. She saw some high-rise apartment buildings. A truck went by, close, as she got out with Ugo, half pulled by him.

  “Shoes, signora! Ha, ha!” He pushed her against the car and bent to take off her pumps. She kicked him, but he only laughed. She swung her handbag, catching him on the head with it, and nearly fell herself as he snatched off her second shoe. Ugo jumped, with the shoes in his hand, back into the car which roared off.

  To be shoeless in silk stockings was a nasty shock. Isabella began walking—toward Rome. She could see lights coming on here and there in the twilight dimness. She’d hitch a ride to the next roadside bar and telephone for a taxi, she thought, pay the taxi when she got home. A large truck passed her by as if blind to her frantic waving. So did a car with a single man in it. Isabella was ready to hitch a lift with anyone!

  She walked on, realizing that her stockings were now torn and open at the bottom, and when she stopped to pick something out of one foot, she saw blood. It was more than fifteen minutes later when Isabella made her painful way to a restaurant on the opposite side of the road, where she begged the use of the telephone.

  Isabella did not at all like the smile of the young waiter who looked her up and down and was plainly surmising what must have happened to her: a boy friend had chucked her out of his car. Isabella telephoned a taxi company’s number which the waiter provided. There would be at least ten minutes to wait, she was told, so she stood by the coat rack at the front of the place, feeling miserable and ashamed with her dirty feet and torn stockings. Passing waiters glanced at her. She had to explain to the proprietor—a stuffy type—that she was waiting for a taxi.

  The taxi arrived, Isabella gave her address, and the driver looked dubious, so Isabella had to explain that her husband would pay the fare at the other end. She was almost in tears.

  Isabella fell against the porter’s bell, as if it were home, itself. Giorgio opened the doors. Filippo came across the court, scowling.

  “The taxi—” Isabella said.

  Filippo was reaching into a pocket. “As if I had anything left!”

  Isabella took the last excruciating steps across the courtyard to the door out of which Elisabetta was now running to help her.

  Elisabetta made tea for her. Isabella sat in the tub, soaking her feet, washing off the filth of Ugo and his ugly chum. She applied surgical spirits to the soles of her feet, then put on clean white woolen booties and a dressing gown. She cast one furious glance at the bathroom window, sure Ugo would never come back.

  As soon as she came out of her bathroom, Filippo said, “I suppose you remember—tonight we have the Greek consul coming to dinner with his wife. And two other men. Six in all. I was going to receive them alone—make some excuse.” His tone was icy.

  Isabella did remember, but had somehow thought all that would be canceled. Nothing was canceled. She could see it now: life would go on as usual, not a single date would be canceled. They were poorer. That was all. Isabella rested in her bed, with some newspapers and magazines, then got up and began to dress. Filippo came in, not even knocking first.

  “Wear the peach-colored dress tonight—not that one,” he said. “The Greeks need cheering up.”

  Isabella began removing the dark blue dress she had put on.

  “I know you arranged all this,” Filippo continued. “They were ready to kill me, those hoodlums—or at least they acted like it. My father is furious! What stupid arrangements!—I can also make some arrangements. Wait and see!”

  Isabella said nothing. And her future arrangements? Well, she might make some too. She gave Filippo a look. Then she gritted her teeth as she squeezed her swollen feet into “the right shoes” for the evening. When she got up, she had to walk with a limp.

  Blow It

  The two other young and unmarried men in the office considered Harry Rowe lucky, very. Harry had two pretty girls in love with him. Sometimes one girl or the other picked him up at his midtown Manhattan office, because Harry often had to stay a half hour or more after the usual quitting time at five or five-thirty, and one girl, Connie, could leave her office rather easily at five. The other girl, Lesley, was a fashion model with irregular hours, but she had been to his office a few times. That was how the firm of five men knew about Harry’s girls. Otherwise Harry would have kept his mouth shut, not introduced them to—well, everybody, because someone would have been bound to blabble to one girl about the other girl. Harry did not mind, however, that Dick Hanson knew the situation. Dick was a thirty-five-year-old married man who could be trusted to be discreet, because he must have had experiences along the same lines, and even now had a girlfriend, Harry knew. Dick was a senior partner in the accounting firm of Raymond and Hanson.

  Harry really didn’t know which girl he preferred, and wanted to give himself time to consider, to choose. These days, Harry thought, lots of girls didn’t care about marriage, didn’t believe in it, especially at the age of twenty-three, as these girls were. But both Lesley and Connie were quite interested in marriage. They had not proposed to him, but he could tell. This further boosted Harry’s ego, because he saw himself as a good catch. What man wouldn’t, under such circumstances? That meant, he was earning well (true), and would go on to bigger and better, and also he wasn’t bad looking, if he did say so himself (and he did), and he took the trouble to dress in a way that girls liked, always a clean shirt, not always a tie if the occasion didn’t demand it, good shoes informal or not, far-out shirts sometimes, safari trousers or shorts maybe on the weekends when he loafed around with Lesley on Saturday and Connie on Sunday, for instance. Harry was a lawyer as well as a Certified Public Accountant.

  Lesley Marker, a photographers’ model, made even better money than Harry. She had dark brown, straight hair, shining brown eyes, and the loveliest complexion Harry had ever seen, not to mention a divine body, not even too thin, as a lot of models were, or so Harry had always heard. Lesley had a standing date with her parents and grandmother for Sunday lunch, so this ruled out Lesley for Sundays, but there was Friday night and Saturdays. There were of course seven nights in the week, and Lesley could spend the night at his apartment, or he at hers, if she did not have to get up very early. Lesley was always cheerful, it wasn’t even an act with her. It was marvelous and refreshing to Harry. She had a sense of humor in bed. She was a delight.

  Connie Jaeger was different, more mysterious, less open, and certainly she had more moods than Lesley. Harry had to be careful with Connie, subtle, understanding of her moods, which she did not always explain in words. She was an editor in a publishing house. Sometimes she wrote short stories, and showed them to Harry. Two or three she had sold to little magazines. Connie often gave Harry the impression that she was brooding, thinking of things she would not disclose to him. Yet she loved him or was in love with him, of that Harry was sure. Connie was more interesting than Lesley, Harry would have had to admit, if anyone asked him.

  Harry had a walk-up apartment on Jane Street, on the fourth floor. It was an old house, but the plumbing worked, the kitchen and bath were nicely painted, and he had a terrace with a roof garden of sorts: the garden was some three yards square, its earth contained within a wooden frame, and the watering drained into a corner hole on the terrace. Harry had acquired deck chairs, metal chairs and a round table. He and Lesley or Connie could lunch or dine out here, and the girls could take naked sunbaths, if they wished, as in a certain corner no one could see them. Lesley did that more often than Connie, who had done it only once, and then not naked entirely. He had met both girls around the same time, about four months ago. Which did he like better? Or love more? Harry could not tell as yet, but he had realized weeks ago that his other girlfriends, two or three, had simply faded away. Harry hadn’t rung them up for dates, didn’t care to see them. He was in love with two girls at the same time, he suppos
ed. He had heard of it before, and somehow never believed it was possible. He supposed also that Lesley and Connie might think he had other girlfriends, and for all Harry knew, both the girls might be going to bed with other men now and then too. But considering the time they both gave Harry, they hadn’t a lot of time, or many nights, for other fellows.

  Meanwhile Harry was careful to keep the girls apart, very good about changing his bedsheets, which were drip-dry and which he could hang on a line on his terrace. He was also careful to keep out of sight Lesley’s shampoo and Connie’s cologne. Twice he had found one of Connie’s little crescent-shaped yellow combs in the bed when he changed it, had stuck them in a pocket of one of his raincoats and returned them the next time he saw Connie. He was not going to be tripped up by the usual, the cliché of a hairpin or something like that on the night table.

  “I’d love to live in the country,” Connie said one night around eleven, lying in his bed naked and smoking a cigarette, with the sheet pulled up to her waist. “Not too far from New York, of course.”

  “I too,” said Harry. He meant it. He was in pajama pants, barefoot, slumped in an armchair with his hands behind his head. A vision of a country house, maybe in Connecticut, maybe Westchester if he could afford it, came into his eyes: white maybe, a bit of lawn, old trees. And with Connie. Yes, Connie. She wanted it. Lesley would always have to spend her nights in New York, Harry thought, because of having to get up so often at six and seven in the morning for the photographers. On the other hand, how long did a model’s career last? Harry was ashamed of his thoughts. He and Connie had just spent a wonderful hour in bed. How dare he think of Lesley now! But he did think of Lesley, and he was thinking of her. Would he have to give up those enchanting brown eyes, that smile, that straight brown hair (always with an excellent cut, of course) that looked freshly washed every time he saw it? Yes, he would have to give it up, if he married Connie and slept in Connecticut every night.

  “What’re you thinking about?” Connie smiled, sleepy looking. Her full lips were lovely without rouge, as they were now.

  “Us,” said Harry. It was a Sunday night. He had been in the same bed with Lesley last night, and she had left this morning for her Sunday parental lunch.

  “Let’s do something about it,” Connie said in her soft but very definite voice, and put out her cigarette. She held the sheet against her breasts, but one breast was exposed.

  Harry stared at the one breast, stupidly. What was he going to do? Stall both girls indefinitely? Enjoy them both and not get married? How long could that go on until one or the other got fed up? Two more months? One month? Some girls moved fast, others hung on. Connie was the patient type, but too intelligent to waste a lot of time. Lesley would fly even sooner, Harry believed, if she thought he was being evasive on the subject of marriage. Lesley would leave him with a smile and without a scene. In that way, the two girls were the same: neither was going to wait forever. Why couldn’t a man have two wives?

  Lesley, on the following Tuesday evening, brought him flowers, in a pot. “A Japanese something or other. Geranium, I think they said. Anyway the studio would just’ve thrown it away.”

  They both went out on the terrace and chose a spot for the new orange-colored plant. Harry had a climbing rose, a large pot of parsley from which he took sprigs when he needed them. He pinched off some now. Harry had bought halibut steaks for their dinner. Lesley was fond of fish. After dinner they watched a television program as they lay on Harry’s bed, holding hands. The program became boring, lovemaking more interesting. Lesley. Lesley was the girl he wanted, Harry thought. Why should he doubt it? Why debate? She was every bit as pretty as Connie. And Lesley was more cheerful, better balanced. Wouldn’t Connie’s moods get in the way sometimes, make things difficult—because Harry didn’t know how to pull Connie out of them, her silences sometimes, as if she were brooding on something far away, or maybe deep inside her, but she would never enlighten him, therefore he never knew what to say or do.

  Around midnight Harry and Lesley went out to a disco three streets away, a modest place as discos went, where the music didn’t break your eardrums. Harry had a beer, Lesley a tonic without the gin.

  “It’s almost as if we’re married,” Lesley said in a moment when the music was not so loud. She smiled her fresh smile, the corners of her lips went up like a child’s. “You’re the kind of man I could live with. There are very few.”

  “Easygoing, eh? No demands,” Harry replied in a mocking tone, but his heart was thumping with pride. A couple of fellows at the table on their right were looking at Lesley with envy, even though they had their girls with them.

  Harry put Lesley into a taxi a few minutes later. She had to be up by 7:30, and her make-up kit was at her apartment. As he walked back to Jane Street, Harry found himself thinking of Connie. Connie was as beautiful as Lesley, if one wanted to think about beauty. Connie didn’t earn her living by it, as it happened, as Lesley did. Connie had admirers too, whom she brushed off like gnats, because she preferred him. Harry had seen this. Could he really abandon Connie? It was unthinkable! Was he drunk? On two gin-and-tonics before dinner and one beer? Two beers counting the one with dinner? Of course he wasn’t drunk. He just couldn’t come to a decision. Twenty past midnight now. He was tired. That was logical. People couldn’t think after a sixteen-hour day. Could they? Think tomorrow, Harry told himself.

  When he got home, the telephone was ringing. Harry ran for it. “Hello?”

  “Hello, darling. I just wanted to say good night,” Connie said in a quiet, sleepy voice. She always sounded young on the telephone, like a child of twelve sometimes.

  “Thanks, my love. You all right?”

  “Sure. Reading a manuscript—which is putting me to sleep.” Here she sounded as if she were stretching in bed. “Where were you?”

  “Out buying cigarettes and milk.”

  “When do we see each other? Friday? I forgot.”

  “Friday. Sure.” Was she deliberately avoiding Saturday, Lesley’s night? Had Connie done this before? Harry couldn’t remember. “Come to my place Friday? I’ll be home by six-thirty anyway.”

  The next day, Wednesday, Dick Hanson buzzed Harry’s office around ten and said, “Got a little news that might interest you, Harry. Can I come in for a minute?”

  “I would be honored,” said Harry.

  Dick came in smiling, with a couple of photographs in his hand, a manila envelope, a couple of typewritten pages. “House for sale in my neck of the woods,” said Dick, after closing Harry’s door. “We know the owners, their name is Buck. Anyway, look. See if it interests you.”

  Harry looked at the two photographs of a Westchester house—white, with a lawn, with grown-up trees, and it looked to him like his dream house, the one that came into his head when he was with Connie or Lesley. Dick explained that the Bucks didn’t want to put it with an agent if they could avoid it, that they wanted to sell it quickly at a fair price, because Nelson Buck’s company was transferring him to California on short notice, and they had to buy a house in California.

  “Ninety thousand dollars,” Dick said, “and I can tell you it’d go for a hundred and fifty thousand via an agent. It’s five miles from where we live. Think about it, Harry, before it’s too late—meaning in the next two or three days. I could see that you get good mortgage terms, because I know the town bank people . . . What do you think?”

  Harry had been speechless for several seconds. Could he? Dare he?

  Dick Hanson’s reddish brown eyes looked down affectionately at Harry, eagerly. Harry had the feeling he stood on the edge of a swimming pool or a diving board, hesitating.

  “Handsome, isn’t it? Helen and I know the house well, because we’re good friends with the Bucks. This is on the up and up. And . . . well, the general impression is that you’re going to get married soon. I hope I’m not jumping the gun by saying
that.” Dick looked as if he were doing anything but talking out of turn, as if Harry were already due for congratulations. “Which girl is it going to be—you lucky swine,” Dick drawled with good humor. “You look like the cat—who just swallowed the bird.”

  Harry was thinking, I dunno which girl. But he kept a smug silence, as if he did know.

  “You’re interested?” Dick asked.

  “Sure I’m interested,” Harry replied. He held a photograph in each hand.

  “Think it over for a couple of days. Take the photos. I brought the envelope. Show them—you know.” Dick meant to one of the girls, Harry knew. “It’d be great to be neighbors, Harry. I mean that. We could have fun up there—besides a little useful business on weekends, maybe.”

  Around three, Dick sent a memo in a sealed envelope to Harry with more information on mortgage terms, and Dick added that Harry couldn’t go wrong on this house purchase, even if he didn’t intend to get married in the immediate future. An 1850s house in superb condition, three bedrooms, two baths, and the value could only go up.

  That afternoon Harry seized ten or fifteen minutes, did some figuring on his computer, and also in his own head with pencil and paper. He could swing the Westchester house, all right. But he wouldn’t want to move there alone. Could Lesley live there with him and still commute? At very early hours sometimes? She might not consider a country house worth it. Could Connie? Yes, more easily. She didn’t have to get to work till nine-thirty or even ten. But a man didn’t choose a wife for her ease of commuting. That was absurd.

  Harry’s thoughts drifted back to a perfect weekend (Sunday noon till Monday morning), when he and Connie had painted his kitchen bright orange. Wonderful! Connie in already paint-spattered jeans, on the ladder, alternating with him on the ladder—drinking beer, laughing, making love. God! He could see Connie more easily in the Westchester house than Lesley.