Patricia Highsmith - The Tremor of Forgery

by Patricia Highsmith

  ‘No.’

  Their conversation was dull, but friendly.

  Adams asked for how long Ingham had rented the rooms, and what they cost. There was no ice for their second drink. Jensen finished his second rather quickly, and excused himself, saying he was still at work upstairs.

  ‘Any news from your girl?’ Adams asked.

  ‘No. She’s just had time to get a letter of mine. Today probably.’

  Adams looked at his watch, and Ingham suddenly remembered that today was Wednesday, that Adams had to be home this evening for his broadcast. Ingham was a little relieved, as he did not want to go out to dinner with Adams.

  ‘I was in Tunis yesterday,’ Adams said. ‘Saw a nasty word written in Arabic onatailor’s shop-probably a Jewish shop.’

  ‘Oh?’

  Adams chuckled. ‘I didn’t know what the word meant, but I asked an Arab. The Arab laughed. It’s a word that doesn’t bear repeating!’

  ‘I’m sure the Jews have a hard time just now,’ Ingham said, feebly. The picture of ‘Arabia Aroused’ in the Observer one Sunday had been enough to scare the hell out of anyone: a sea of open, yelling mouths, of raised fists, ready to smash anything.

  Adams got up. ‘I should be getting back. It’s Wednesday, you know.’ He drifted towards the door. ‘Howard, my boy. I don’t know how long you’re going to stick this out.’

  He was near enough to the open door to have seen the toilet, Ingham realized. Jensen had just used the toilet, and he never shut the door when he came out. ‘I don’t find it bad at all—in this weather.’

  ‘But you can’t be very comfortable. Wait till you want an ice-cold lemonade—or just a good night’s sleep! You seem to be punishing yourself with this—“going native”. You’re living like a man who’s broke, and you’re not.’

  So that was it. ‘I like a change now and then.’

  ‘There’s something on your mind—something bothering you.’

  Ingham said nothing. Ina was maybe bothering him, vaguely. But not Abdullah, in case Adams was thinking of that.

  ‘It’s no way for a civilized man, a civilized writer to do penance,’ Adams said.

  ‘Penance?’ Ingham laughed. ‘Penance for what?’

  ‘That’s within yourself to know,’ Adams said more briskly, though he smiled. 1 think you’ll find all this primitiveness just a waste of time.’

  And who was he to talk about wasting time, Ingham thought, with his hours offish-spearing, never catching anything? ‘I can’t say it’s that if I’m working, which I am.’ Ingham immediately hated that he’d begun to justify himself with Adams. Why should he?

  ‘It’s not your cup of tea. You’re going against the grain.’

  Ingham shrugged. Wasn’t the whole country against his grain, wasn’t it a foreign country? And why should everything he did be with his grain? Ingham said pleasantly, ‘I’ll walk down with you. It’s easy to lose the way.’

  16

  IN the next week, Ingham’s thoughts took a new and better turn in regard to his novel. He was sure his change of scene, uncomfortable as his two rooms actually were—the worst was the lack of a place to hang clothes—was responsible for the jogging of his thoughts. Dcnnison, being mentally odd, was not to experience a collapse when his embezzlement was discovered. And the people whom he had befriended, nearly all of whom were responsible and successful men themselves now, came to his assistance and repaid whatever money Dennison had given them. Since Dennison had himself been investing embezzled money for twenty years, his appropriations had trebled. His infuriated employers at the bank, therefore, might have lost the earnings of three-quarters of a million dollars over twenty years, but they could get the $750,000 back. What would justice do then? Therefore, the title The Tremor of Forgery wasn’t fitting. It might almost do, but since Dennison never trembled to any extent worth mentioning, Ingham felt it wasn’t right. It was Ingham’s idea to leave the reader morally doubtful as to Dennison’s culpability. In view of the enormous good Dennison had done in the way of holding families together, starting or helping businesses, sending young people through college, not to mention contributions to charities—who could label Dennison a crook?

  Ingham was only sorry to part with the tide.

  Between paragraphs, Ingham often walked up and down his room in his blue terry-cloth robe, which he soaked in cold water and wrung out, over a pair of underpants. It was cooler than anything else. It also seemed less silly, in this neighbourhood, than shorts and a short-sleeved shirt. None of the Arab men wore shorts, and they must know the coollest garb, Ingham thought. Jensen had kidded him: ‘Are you going to buy yourself a jubbah next?’

  Usually Jensen had dinner with him, or he with Jensen upstairs. It didn’t much matter, as they shared dishes and food, and the table situation was the same for both of them. One or the other had to clear away his work. Ingham liked eating with someone every night, it was a little thing to look forward to while he worked, and with Jensen he did not have to make an effort, either in cooking or conversation. There were evenings when Jensen chose to say hardly a word.

  Ingham had some odd moments when he would be deep in his book and get up to walk about the room in his detestable but cool heel-less slippers. A transistor would be wailing somewhere, an Arab woman shouting at a child, a pedlar hawking something, and now and again Ingham caught a glimpse of his own stern face in the mirror he had hung on the wall by the kitchen door. His face was darker and thinner, different. He was at these moments conscious (as he had been when suffering the gripes at the bungalow) of being alone, without friends, or a job, or any connection with anybody, unable to understand or to speak the main language of the country. Then, being more than half Dennison at these moments, he experienced something like the unconscious flash of a question: ‘Who am I, anyway? Does one exist, or to what extent does one exist as an individual without friends, family, anybody to whom one can relate, to whom one’s existence is of the least importance?’ It was strangely like a religious experience. It was like becoming nothing and realizing that one was nothing anyway, ever. It was a basic truth. Ingham remembered reading somewhere about a man from the Eastern Mediterranean who had been taken away from his village. The man had been nothing but what his family, his friends, and his neighbours had thought he was, a reflection of their opinion of him, and without them he had collapsed and had a breakdown. And whatever was right and wrong, Ingham supposed, was what people around you said it was. That was truer than all OWL’s blabble about the American Heritage.

  It seemed to be OWI.’s point that one carried around a set of morals one had been brought up to believe in. But was it true? To what extent did they remain, to what extent could one act on them, if they were not the morals of the people by whom one was surrounded? And since this was not entirely off the subject of Dennison, Ingham would drift back to his typewriter and begin writing again almost at once. He had a bit more than two hundred pages. In his second week in his rooms, he enjoyed a good streak of work.

  Then on a Friday, an express letter came from Ina. Ingham had not thought of her, in regard to getting a letter from her, for several days, but now he realized (rather automatically, out of habit) that she might have written him at least five days ago, if she had immediately answered his letter telling her his new address. He read:

  Aug. 8, 19—

  Dearest Howard,

  Your change of address was a surprise. You sound as if you’ll be there for some time and I suppose that is what is surprising. Anyway you mentioned a month. I’m glad, by the way, the book is going well.

  I am mopey and restless and it can’t be helped, or I can’t help it. Anyway, I thought I would fly over to see you. I have two weeks and I’m pretty sure I can wangle three. I want very much to see you—and if we both fight like cats and dogs, or if we both say it’s all off, then I can go on to Paris. But you don’t seem inclined to move from that place and I do want badly to see you. I have a reservation for Pan-Am flight 807, arriving Tunis Su
n. Aug. 13 at 10130 A.M., your time. A night flight. If you want me to bring you anything, wire me, I hope this isn’t too much of a surprise. I just couldn’t go off to Maine or Mexico and convince myself I’d be enjoying it. I wish I could say something amusing. But here’s one New York remark in case you haven’t heard it: ‘Some of my best friends are Arabs.’

  I hope to see you at the airport in Tunis. If you can’t make it for some reason, I’ll find my way to Hammamet.

  My love, darling,

  Ina

  Ingham was bowled over. He couldn’t believe it for a minute. Ina here? In these rooms? Well, for Christ’s sake, no, she’d flip. He would find her a hotel room, of course.

  Sunday. Day after tomorrow. Ingham wanted to run up and tell Jensen. But Jensen had never heard of Ina.

  ‘Damn it,’ Ingham said softly, and walked around the table with the letter in his hand. He thought he should go at once to see about a room. August was a rather crowded month.

  Ingham locked the street door lest the fatma—their vague cleaning girl who turned up more or less twice a week at any time that suited her—should come in now. He took a bucket shower in the vicinity of the toilet. The bucket was always under the tap, catching a drip. Ingham had tried to turn the tap on once, and found it so impossibly difficult, or perhaps it was already turned on full, that he had given it up.

  ‘What’s the hurry?’ Jensen called from his upstairs window.

  ‘Oh, was I hurrying?’ Ingham slowed up, replaced the bucket under the tap, and walked casually into his room, drying himself.

  Ingham got a room with a bath at the Reine de Hammamet for Sunday afternoon. Their last one, said the clerk, but Ingham doubted that. It was a double room, two dinars eight hundred with taxes and breakfast, for one. Ingham felt slightly better with that accomplished. He walked out to his car, not even bothering to ask for any post that they might not have forwarded.

  That day he worked, but not with such concentration as usual.

  It was Melik’s that night, Ingham invited Jensen.

  ‘Another contract?’ asked Jensen.

  ‘No. But I think I’ve got only two more weeks’ work till I finish my first draft.’

  It was not difficult, after all, to say that he had a friend named Ina Pallant, aged about twenty-eight, coming on Sunday. Jensen was not the kind to ask questions like, Is she a girl friend?’

  Jensen said simply, ‘Oh? What’s she like?’

  ‘She works for the Columbia Broadcasting System. Television. She’s a script editor, also a writer herself. Very talented. Quite nice looking, blondish.’

  ‘Has she been here before?’

  ‘I don’t think so.’

  Then they talked of other things. But Ingham knew it was all going to come out when Ina was here. He was too close—also physically where they lived—for Ingham to hope to keep the essentials from him.

  Ingham said, ‘I think I told you that the man I was supposed to work with here—an American—committed suicide in New York.’

  ‘Yes. You did tell me that.’

  ‘Ina knew him, too. He was in love with her. She broke it off. So he killed himself. But they — From what Ina told me, John had been in love with her just for a couple of weeks. At least, Ina knew about it only a couple of weeks before he killed himself.

  ‘How strange!’ Jensen said. Is she in love with you?’

  ‘I don’t know. I honestly don’t.’

  ‘Are you in love with her?’

  ‘I thought I was when I left New York. When she wrote me about John, she told me she’d been very fond of him – for a time. I don’t know.’ It sounded like a mess, Ingham supposed. 1 don’t want to bore you. That’s the end of it. I thought I’d tell you.’

  Jensen bared his front teeth and slowly extricated a fishbone. It doesn’t bore me. She must be coming here because she loves you.’

  Ingham smiled. ‘Yes, maybe. Who knows? I booked a room for her at the Reine.’

  ‘Oh. She wouldn’t stay with you?’

  He laughed suddenly. ‘I doubt it!’

  17

  THE Tunis air terminal presented a confused picture. Vital direction signs vied with aspirin advertisements, the ‘Information’ desk had no one at it, and several transistors carried by people walking about, warred with louder music from the restaurant’s radio on the balcony, absolutely defeating the occasional voice of a female announcer, presumably giving planes’ arrival and departure times. Ingham could not even tell if the announcer was speaking in French, Arabic or English, The first three uniformed (more or less) people he asked about flight 807 from New York referred him to the bulletin board where flights were announced in lights, but ten minutes after Ina’s plane was due, nothing had been said about it. It wasn’t like Ina to have made a mistake, Ingham thought as he lit his third cigarette, and just then 807 flashed on: from New York, arriving at eleven-ten. A bit late.

  Ingham had a café—cognac standing up at the bar counter of the balcony restaurant. There were some thirty white-clothed tables and a buffet-table of cold cuts near the big windows which gave on the airfield. Ingham was amused to see two clusters of waiters, four in each group, chatting in corners of the room, while irate people half rose from their untended tables, clamouring for service. Ina was going to be entertained, no doubt of that I

  He saw her through a half-glass fence or wall which he was not allowed to pass. Ingham raised an arm quickly. She saw him. She was in a loose white coat, white shoes, carrying a big colourful pocket-book and a sack which looked like two bottles of something. There was a passport check at booths on the left. She was only ten feet from him.

  Then she rushed into his arms, he kissed her on both cheeks, then lightly on her lips. He recognized the perfume that he had forgotten.

  ‘Did you have a good trip?’

  ‘Yes. All right. It’s funny to see the sun so high.’

  ‘You haven’t seen any sun till you see this one.’

  ‘You look so brown! And thinner.’

  ‘Where’s your luggage? Let’s get that settled.’

  In less than ten minutes, they were in Ingham’s car, the two suitcases stowed in the back

  ‘Since we’re in Tunis—practically,’ Ingham said, ‘I thought we’d have lunch there.’

  ‘Isn’t it early? They fed us —

  ‘Then we’ll go and have a drink somewhere. Some air-conditioned place. Do you think it’s awfully hot?’

  They went to the air-conditioned Hotel Tunisia Palace and had a drink in the plushy red bar-room.

  Ina looked well, but Ingham thought there were some new lines under her eyes. She had probably lost sleep in the last days. Ingham knew what it would be like, winding up her office work, plus her tasks in the Brooklyn Heights household, which were formidable. He watched her small, strong hands opening the pack of Pall Malls, lighting one with the strange-looking matchbook from New York, dark red with an Italian restaurant’s name printed on it in black.

  ‘So you like it here?’ she asked.

  1 dunno. It’s interesting. I’ve never seen a country like it.—Don’t judge by this bar. It might as well be Madison Avenue.’

  I’m eager to see it.’

  But her eyes looked eager only for him, only curious about him, and Ingham looked down at the matchbook in his fingers. Then he faced her eyes again. She had blue eyes with flecks of grey in them. Her cheekbones were a trifle broad, her jaw small, her lips well-shaped, determined, humorous, intelligent, all at once. 1 took a hotel room for you in Hammamet,’ he said. ‘On the beach. Where I was first, the Reine de Hammamet. It’s very pretty.’

  ‘Oh.’ She smiled. ‘Your place isn’t big enough? Or are you living alone, by the way?’ she added through a laugh that sounded more like her.

  ‘Hal Am I alone? What else? My place is small and definitely on the primitive side, as I told you. Well, you’ll see.’

  They spoke of Joey. Joey was about the same. There was a girl called Louise, whom Ingham had nev
er met, who came to see Joey a couple of times a week. Louise and Joey were in love, in a crazy, frightened way, Ingham gathered. It was very sad. Joey would never marry the girl, though Ina said Louise would be willing. Ina had told Ingham about Louise before. She was twenty-four, and this had been going on for two years. Now Ina only touched lightly on it, to Ingham’s relief. He could not have embarked now on sympathetic remarks about Joey and Louise.

  He took her to the restaurant on the other side of the Avenue Bourguiba, where the ceiling fans, and the patio beyond gave a certain sense of coolness.

  ‘This is one of two restaurants that John recommended,’ Ingham said. ‘His recommendations were very good, all of them.’

  ‘You must have been flabbergasted at the news,’ Ina said.

  ‘Yes, I was.’ Ingham looked at her across the table. She had combed her hair in the hotel, and the marks of the comb showed in the dark-blonde, dampened hair at her temples. ‘Not so flabbergasted as you, I suppose—finding him. Good God!’

  She said it slowly, like a confession, ‘The most awful moment of my life. I thought he was asleep. Not that I expected to see him there at all. Then —’ She was suddenly unable to speak, but not from tears. Her throat had tightened. She looked into space somewhere beyond Ingham’s shoulder.

  He had never seen her like this. Surely part of it was the strain of the trip, he thought. ‘Don’t try to talk about it. I can imagine—Try this Tunisian starter. Turns up on every menu.’

  He meant the antipasto of tuna, olives, and tomatoes. Ingham had persuaded her to have scallopine, on the grounds that corneous was all too prevalent in Hammamet.

  They took long over lunch, and had two coffees and many cigarettes. Ingham told her about Jensen and a little about Adams.