Patricia Highsmith - The Tremor of Forgery

by Patricia Highsmith

  ‘Yes. Oh, that was out of my car, a different matter.’ Ingham thought of the old Arab in red pants, and shifted in his chair.

  ‘That was Abdullah.’ Jensen put in.

  ‘You even know them by name?’ Ina laughed. ‘What a place! You must point out Abdullah to me sometime. He sounds like something out of the Arabian Nights’

  ‘We hope Abdullah is no more.’ Jensen said.

  ‘Oh, he got his come-uppance?’ Ina asked.

  ‘We hope so and we think so.’ Jensen said.

  Did somebody knife him?’

  Jensen was silent for a moment, and Ingham felt relieved, because it meant Jensen at least knew he should not blurt out the bungalow story. Then he said, It seems somebody defended their property for once, and knocked the bastard over the head.’

  ‘How fascinating I’ Ina said, as if she were listening to a synopsis for a television play. ‘How did you hear?’

  ‘Oh—via the grapevine.’ Now Jensen laughed.

  ‘You mean he was killed?’

  ‘He simply isn’t around any more.’

  Ingham could feel Ina’s lively interest in the story. She was about to say something else, when Adams appeared at the end of the terrace and stood looking around for a table. Ingham at once got up. ‘Excuse me a minute.’

  Ingham asked Adams to join them, and as they walked towards the table Ingham saw that Ina and Jensen were talking again.

  ‘Ina,’ Ingham said, ‘I’d like you to meet my friend Francis Adams. Ina Pallant.’

  ‘How do you do, Mr Adams.’ Ina looked very pretty smiling up at Adams, shaking his hand.

  ‘How do you do, Miss Pallant! How long are you going to be here?’ Adams asked.

  ‘I’m not sure. A week, perhaps,’ she replied.

  That was cautious, Ingham thought. He signalled to one of Melik’s sons to come and take Adams’s order.

  Adams ordered in Arabic.

  ‘You’ve been here quite a while, Howard told me,’ Ina said.

  ‘Yes, more than a year now. I like the climate—as long as one has air-conditioning. Ha-ha!’ OWL smiled happily. ‘But you’ve got to tell me all about the States. I haven’t been home for a year and a half. All I read is Time magazine and the Reader’s Digest and a paper from Paris or London now and then.’

  ‘What would you like to know? I’m usually holed up in my office, then underground to Brooklyn. I’m not sure I know what’s going on any more.’

  ‘Oh—the racial thing. And the Vietnam War. And—well—the spirit, the atmosphere. You can’t get that out of a newspapers.’

  ‘Um.’ Ina smiled a little at Ingham, then looked back at Adams. ‘We’re having another hot summer, as far as racial riots go. And the Vietnam War—well! I think the opponents are getting better and better organized. But I’m sure you read that, too.’

  ‘And how do you feel, just as an ordinary citizen?’

  ‘As an ordinary citizen, I think it’s a waste of time, money and people’s lives,’ Ina said. ‘Not a waste of money to everybody, of course, because war always lines a few pockets.’

  Adams was silent for a second or two. His lamb dish was served. Ingham filled his wine glass.

  ‘Are you in favour of the war?’ Ina asked Adams.

  ‘Oh, yes.’ Adams said with assurance. ‘I’m anti-Communist, you see.’

  Ingham was pleased that Ina did not bother saying, ‘So am 1.’ She simply looked at Adams with mild curiosity, as if he had said he was a member of the American Legion—which he might well be, Ingham supposed.

  Jensen yawned widely, covering it with a large thin hand, and stared off into the blackness beyond the terrace.

  ‘Well, we’ll win, of course—even if only technically. How can we lose? But to talk of something more pleasant, what are your travel plans while you’re here?’

  ‘I haven’t made any yet,’ Ina replied. ‘What do you suggest?’

  OWL was full of ideas. Sousse, Djerba, a camel-ride on the beach, a visit to the ruins of Carthage, a lunch at Sidi Bou Said, a visit to a certain souk, in a town Ingham did not even know of, on its market day.

  ‘I hope I can get around to some of these places by myself.’ Ina said. ‘I think Howard wants to work. He doesn’t have to entertain me.’

  ‘Oh?’ Adams smiled his pouchy squirrel smile at Ingham. ‘After all your weeks of solitude, you haven’t time to show a pretty girl around the country?’

  ‘I haven’t said a thing about wanting to work,’ Ingham said.

  ‘I’ll be happy to drive you about a bit, if Howard’s busy.’ Adams told her.

  ‘And I can show you the Spanish fort.’ Jensen said. ‘My trouble is, I have no car.’

  Ingham was pleased that everybody was getting on well. ‘But tomorrow is mine.’ Ingham said. ‘Maybe we’ll go down to Sousse or something like that.’

  They went to take coffee at the Café de la Plage. Ina loved the Plage. It looked ‘real’, she said.

  When it was time to say good night, Adams insisted that Ingham bring Ina back to his bungalow for a nightcap. Jensen went home. OWL left in his Cadillac.

  ‘Anders is a little sad these days because of his dog.’ Ingham said. He told her what had happened.

  ‘Goodness, that’s too bad.—I didn’t know they were mean like that.’

  c Just some of them.’ Ingham said.

  Ina was enchanted with OWL’s bungalow, as Ingham had thought she would be. Adams even showed her his bedroom. The closet was of course, closed, and Ingham knew locked, though the key was not in the door.

  ‘A little home away from home.’ Adams said. ‘Well, I have no home any more in the States. I still own the Connecticut house.’ He pointed to the photograph in the living-room. ‘But practically everything’s in storage now, so the place is empty. I suppose I’ll retire there one day.’

  After one drink, Ina said she was exhausted and had to turn in. Adams was instantly sympathetic, and had to figure out exactly what time it would be for her—7.15 ‘yesterday’, He almost kissed her hand as they said good night.

  ‘Howard works too hard. Make him get out a little more. Good night, both of you!’

  When they were in the car, Ingham asked, ‘What do you think of him?’

  ‘Oh, a classic!’ She laughed. ‘But he looks happy. I suppose they always are. It’s the best of all possible worlds and all that.’

  ‘Yes, exactly. But I think he’s a little lonely. His wife died five years ago.—I know he’d get a bang out of it if you’d spend a day with him—or part of a day, let him take you out to lunch somewhere.’ Ingham meant it completely, but at once he thought of OWL telling her the Abdullah incident, the events of that night and he felt uneasy. He did not want Ina to hear the details, even the few details Adams thought he knew. What purpose would it serve? It was only depressing and ugly. Ingham drove the car on to the gravelled area before the front doors.

  ‘What’s the matter, darling?’

  ·Nothing. Why?’ Could she read his thoughts that well, Ingham wondered, in the dark?

  ‘Maybe you’re as tired as I am.’

  ‘Not quite.’ He kissed her in the car, then he walked with her into the lobby where she got her key. He promised to call for her tomorrow, but not before ten o’clock.

  Jensen was still up when Ingham got home. ‘She looks like a good sport,’ was Jensen’s comment on Ina.

  That was probably high praise, from Jensen, Ingham thought, and as such he appreciated it.

  19

  INGHAM and Ina went to Sousse the next day, looked at the American battleship at the dock, and drank cold beer (it was frightfully hot) at the caft where Ingham had once sat alone. Ina was fascinated by the souk. She wanted to buy some straw mats, but said she couldn’t take them on the plane. Ingham said he would post them, so they bought four of varying sizes and design.

  ‘Meanwhile.’ Ina said, ‘you can use them on your floors. Hang one on a wall. It’ll improve the place!’ She bought a big glazed earthen
ware vase for him and a couple of ashtrays, and for herself a white fez.

  The fez was extremely becoming.

  ‘I won’t wear it here. I’ll wait till New York. Imagine! A good-looking hat for a dollar and ten cents I’

  Ina’s enthusiasm changed the country for Ingham. Now he enjoyed the toothy grins of the Arab shopkeepers, and the bright eyes of the kids who begged millimes from them. Ingham suddenly wished he were married to Ina. It could be, he realized. It was only for him to ask, he thought. Ina hadn’t changed. John Castlewood might as well not have been.

  ‘We could go to Djerba tomorrow,’ Ingham said during their lunch. He had taken her to the best restaurant he could find, as she had said she didn’t want to eat at a hotel, no matter how good the food might be.

  ‘Your friend Adams is taking me somewhere tomorrow. Tomorrow morning.’

  ‘Oh? He made a date last night?’

  ‘He rang me up this morning just before ten.’

  ‘Oh.’ Ingham smiled. ‘Okay, I’ll work tomorrow then.’

  ‘I wish you had a telephone.’

  ‘Ican always ring you. From Melik’s or the Plage.’

  ‘Yes—but I like to talk with you at night.’

  Ina had rung him a few times late at night from her house in Brooklyn. It had not always been easy, because the telephone was in the living-room in Brooklyn. ‘I could be there in person.—Can I, tonight?’

  ‘All night? You don’t want to be there for breakfast, do you?’

  Ingham said no more. He knew he would go back to her room with her tonight. And not stay for breakfast.

  The day went on like a pleasant dream. There was no hurry about anything. They did not have to meet anyone. They went to the Fourati for dinner, and danced a little afterward Ina was a good dancer, but not very fond of dancing. Two Arab men, in neat Western clothes, asked Ina to dance, but she declined them both.

  It was quite dark at their table on the open terrace. The only light came from the half-moon. Ingham felt happy and secure. He could sense Ina’s question, ‘Is it really the same as before? Have you really got no resentments?’ and yet Ingham thought it wasn’t the right thing for him to make a speech about it.

  ‘What are you thinking?’ she asked. ‘About your book?’

  ‘I was thinking I love you as much out of bed as in.’

  She laughed softly, only a nearly silent breath, or a gasp. ‘Let’s go home. Well—to the hotel.’

  While Ingham was trying to catch the waiter’s eyes, she said:

  ‘I must get you some more cuff-links. Do you think they have any good ones here? I’d like to buy Joey some, too.’

  When he left Ina that night at a little after one o’clock, Ingham wished that he was sharing her room with her. He wished there might be a second room where he could work in the daytime, of course. Then he thought of his primitive two rooms awaiting him in the Rue El Hout tonight and tomorrow, and he was glad he had those. There was time, he thought He realized he was a little giddy with fatigue and happiness.

  He worked fairly well the next day and produced eight pages. But in his short breaks from the typewriter, he did not go on thinking about his book, but about things like, ‘Would Ina stay on the two or three weeks she had, or would she take off for Paris after a week?’ and ‘Ought he to pack up and go back to the States when she did? If not, why not?’ Or If he brought up the subject of marriage, just when should he do it?’ and ‘Shouldn’t they have a more serious conversation (matter of fact, they’d had none) about John Castlewood, or was it wiser never to mention Castlewood?’ He came to a conclusion only about the last question: he thought it wasn’t for him to bring up, but for Ina, and if she didn’t he shouldn’t.

  He rang her hotel from the post office at four-thirty, and she was not in. Ingham left a message that he would call for her at seven-thirty. She should be back by then, he thought.

  ‘You’re going out tonight?’ Jensen asked when Ingham got back. Jensen was washing in the court.

  ‘Yes. Unless OWL keeps her all evening. Want to join us, Anders? I thought we might go to Tunis for a change.’

  Jensen hesitated as usual. ‘No, thanks, I —’

  ‘Come on, what’s stopping you? Let’s find a crazy place in Tunis.’

  Jensen was persuaded.

  Ingham went off at seven-fifteen to find Ina, He had a funny fen letter to show her which had come that day. A man in Washington State had written him about The Game of ‘If’, which he said he had borrowed from his local lending library, and he praised the book highly, but offered suggestions as to how the ending could have been improved, and his ideas utterly demolished the theme of the book.

  Ina was in. She asked him to come up.

  She was dressed, putting on make-up in front of the mirror. He kissed her on the cheek.

  1 asked Jensen tonight. I hope you don’t mind.’

  ‘No.—He’s awfully quiet.’ She said it like a criticism.

  ‘Not always. I’ll try to make him talk tonight. He’s very funny sometimes.—There was a royal wedding somewhere, I think in his own country, and he got fed up with the papers being full of it and said, “Other people’s sexual intercourse is always interesting to the public, but it’s absolutely fascinating if the sheets have royal monograms.”‘ Ingham laughed.

  Ina laughed slightly, still leaning towards the mirror.

  ‘It’s the dry way he says it I can’t do it.’

  ‘He’s queer, isn’t he?’

  ‘Yes. I told you.—Is it so obvious? I didn’t think so.’

  ‘Oh, women can always tell.’

  Because homosexuals showed no interest in them, Ingham supposed. ‘What’d you do with OWL today?’

  ‘Who?’

  ‘OWL. Our Way of Life Adams.’

  ‘Oh. We went to Carthage. Took a look at Sidi — What is it?’

  ‘Sidi Bou Said.’

  ‘Yes.’ She turned from the mirror, smiling. ‘He certainly knows a lot. About history and things. And the coffee-house in Sidi is fascinating! The one up the steps.’

  ‘Yes. Where they’re all lounging on mats like Greeks. I hope OWL doesn’t scoop me on everything there is to show you.’

  ‘Don’t be silly. I didn’t come here for tourism. I came to see you.’ She looked at him, not rushing into his arms, but it was more important to Ingham than if she had kissed him.

  She was the woman he was going to marry, Ingham thought, and live with for the rest of his life. Ingham was about to break the spell—which he felt intolerably full of ‘destiny’—by whipping out the fan letter, when she said:

  ‘By the way, is that story about Abdullah true? That he got killed in the hotel grounds here?’

  ‘I don’t know. Nobody’s got the facts, as far as I know.’

  ‘But you heard him scream, Francis said. He said it was on your terrace.’

  Had OWL mentioned the slamming door? Probably. Adams had perhaps told her about the French hearing something fall, too, the clatter. ‘Yes, I heard it. But it was two in the morning. Dark.’

  ‘You didn’t look out?’

  ‘No.’

  She was looking at him questioningly. It’s interesting, because it seems the Arab disappeared since that night.—Do you think another Arab killed him?’

  ‘Who knows ?—Abdullah wasn’t liked by the other Arabs. I’m sure they’re great at grudge fights.’ He thought of telling her about the Arab with the cut throat, but decided against it, because it was a sensational story and nothing more. ‘I saw something odd one night by the CafS de la Plage. One Arab was a bit drunk. They pushed him out of the door. He stood on the sand a long while, just staring back at the door, with such a look of determination—as if he’d get the guy sometime, whoever it was. I’ll never forget the way he looked.’

  Ina’s silence after a few seconds bothered him. He thought, suppose she finds out the truth, from Jensen, for instance? Then he would be a liar, and a coward also, in her eyes. Ingham had an impulse to tell
her the truth before another half-minute went by. Was it so bad?

  ‘You look worried.’

  ‘No,’ he said.

  ‘How’d your work go today?’

  ‘All right, thanks. I love the new mats.’

  ‘No use living like an ascetic.—You know, darling, if that Arab was hacked to pieces or something, don’t be afraid I’ll faint. I’ve heard of atrocities before, mutilations and all that. Was that what happened to him?’

  ‘I never saw the guy that night, Ina. And the hotel boys won’t say what they did with him.—Maybe Adams knows something that I don’t.’ A vague idea that he was sparing her a nasty story sustained him a little. ‘Let’s go. I said I’d pick Anders up.’

  At his and Jensen’s street, Ingham jumped out of the car and ran towards the house. He was some ten minutes late, though he knew Jensen wouldn’t mind, and probably hadn’t noticed. Ingham shouted from the court, and Jensen came down at once.

  ‘Ina thinks you don’t talk enough, so try to talk a little more tonight,’ Ingham said.

  They went to the Plage, where Scotch was available, too. Jensen had his boukhah. Ina had tried it and did not like it. Ingham thought he was stared at more than usual that evening. Or was it because he was with a pretty woman? Jensen did not seem to notice the staring. Only the plump young barman was smiling. By now he knew Ingham.

  ‘You enjoy your visit, madame?… Are you here for a long time?’ the barman asked Ina in French. ‘Not too hot?’

  They were standing at the bar.

  Ina seemed to appreciate his friendliness.

  During dinner at Melik’s, Jensen made an effort and asked Ina about her life in New York, and this got Ina on to the subject of her family. She mentioned her two cosy aunts, one widowed, one who had never married, who lived together and came to dinner on Sundays. She told him about her brother Joey, didn’t dwell on his illness, but talked mainly about his painting.