Patricia Highsmith - The Tremor of Forgery (2 page)

After a whole day of walking and driving about Tunis, enduring also the long closure of everything except restaurants from noon or twelve-thirty
until
four, Ingham was ready to go to Hammamet tomorrow. But he thought as soon as he got to Hammamet, he would reproach himself for not having seen enough of Tunis, so he decided to stay on two more days. On one of those days, he drove to Sidi Bou Said, sixteen kilometres away, had a swim and took lunch at a rather chic hotel, as there were no independent restaurants. It was a very clean town of chalk-white houses and bright-blue shutters and doors.

There had been no room free at the Golfe when Ingham had telephoned the day before, but the manager had suggested another hotel in Hammamet. Ingham went to the other hotel, which he found too Hollywood in atmosphere, and at last put himself up at a hotel called La Reine de Hammamet. All the hotels had beaches on the Gulf of Hammamet, but were set back fifty yards or more from the water. The Reine had a large main building, gardens of lime and lemon
and bougainvillaea, and also fifteen or twenty bungalows of varying sizes, each given privacy by the leaves of citrus trees. The bungalows had kitchens, but Ingham was not in the mood to start housekeeping, so he took a room in the
ma
in
building with a view on the sea. He immediately went down for a swim.

There were not many people on the beach at this hour, though the sun was still above the horizon. Ingham saw a couple of empty beach chairs. He didn
’
t know if one had to rent them or not, but he assumed they belonged to the hotel, so he took one. He put on his sunglasses
—
another thought of John Castlewood, who had made him a present of these
—
and pulled a paperback out of his robe pocket. After fifteen minutes, he was asleep, or at least in a doze.
My God,
he thought,
my God, it
’
s quiet and beautiful and warm
’
…

‘
Hello 1 Good evening!
—
You an American?
’

The loud voice startled Ingham like a gunshot, and he sat up in his chair.
‘
Yes.
’

‘
Excuse me interrupting your reading. I
’
m an American, too. From Connecticut.
’
He was a man of fifty or so, greyish-haired, balding, with a slight bulge at his waistline, and with an enviable tan. He was not very tall.

‘
New York here,
’
Ingham said.
‘
I hope I haven
’
t taken your chair.
’

‘
Ha-ha! No I But the boys
’
ll
be collecting them in another half-hour or so. Have to put
‘
em away, or they wouldn
’
t be here tomorrow morning!
’

Lonely, Ingham thought. Or had he a wife just as chummy? But one could be lonely with that, too. The man was looking out at the sea, standing only two yards from Ingham.

‘
My name
’
s Adams. Francis J. Adams.
’
He said it as if he were proud of it.

‘
Mine
’
s Howard Ingham.
’

‘
What do you think of Tunisia?
’
Adams asked with his friendly smile that bulged his brown cheeks.

‘
Very attractive. Hammamet, anyway.
’

‘I
think so. Best to have a car to get around in. Sousse and Djerba, places like that. Got a car?
’

‘
Yes, I have.
’

‘
Good. Well —
’
He was backing, taking his leave.
‘
Drop in and see me some time. My bungalow
’
s just up the slope there. Number ten. Any of the boys can tell you which is mine. Just ask for Adams. Come in and have a drink some evening. Bring your wife, if you have one.
’

‘
Thanks very much,
’
Ingham said.
‘
No, I
’
m alone.
’

Adams nodded, and waved.
‘
See you again.
’

Ingham sat on another five minutes, then got up. He took a shower in his room, then went downstairs to the bar. It was a large bar with red Persian carpeting that covered the floor. A middle-aged couple were speaking French. Another table of three was British. There were only seven or eight people in the room, a few of them watching television in the corner.

A man came from the television set to the British table and said in a voice without excitement,
‘
The Israelis have blasted a dozen airports.
’

‘
Where?
’

‘
Egypt. Or maybe Jordan. The Arabs are going to be a pushover.
’

‘
That news came through in French?
’
asked another of the Englishmen.

Ingham stood at the bar. The war was on apparently. Tunisia was quite a distance from the fighting. Ingham hoped it wouldn
’
t interfere with work plans. But the Tunisians were Arabs, and there was going to be some anti-Western emotion, he knew, if the Arabs lost, and of course they would lose. He must get a Paris paper tomorrow.

Ingham avoided the beach for
the
next couple of days, and took some drives into the country. The Israelis were mopping up the Arabs, and twenty-five airbases had been destroyed on Monday, the day the war broke out. A Paris paper reported a few cars with Western licence plates overturned in
a street in Tunis, and also the windows of the U.S.I.S. library broken on the Boulevard Bourguiba. Ingham did not go to Tunis. He went to the town of Naboul, north-east of Hammamet, and to Bit Bou Rekba inland, and to a few other tiny towns, dusty and poor, whose names he could not remember easily. He ran into a market morning at one, and walked about among camels, pottery, baubles and pins, cotton clothing and straw mats, all spread out on coarse sheets on the ground. People jostled him, which Ingham did not like. The Arabs didn
’
t mind human contact, and on the contrary needed it, Ingham had read. That was everywhere apparent in the souk. The jewellery in the market was shoddy, but inspired Ingham to go to a good shop and buy a silver pin for Ina, a flat triangle which fastened with a circle. They came in all sizes. Since the box was so small for posting, Ingham bought also an embroidered red vest for her
—
a man
’
s garment, but so fancy, it would look very feminine in America. He posted them the afternoon of the same day, after much time-killing, waiting for the post
office
in Hammamet to open at 4 p.m. The post office was open only one hour in the afternoon, according
to a sign outside.

On the fourth day at the Reine, he wrote to John Castle-wood. John lived on West Fifty-third Street in Manhattan.

June 8, 19—

Dear John,

Hammamet is as pretty as you said. A magnificent beach. Are you still arriving the 13th? I am ready to get to work here, chatting with strangers at every opportunity, but the kind of people you want don
’
t always know much French. I visited Les Arcades last night. [This was a coffee-house a mile or so from the Reine.]

Please tell Ina to write me a line. I
’
ve written to her. Sort of lonely here with no word from home. Or maybe as you said the mail is fantastically slow….
’

And so he trailed off, and felt a
little
more lonely after he
had written it than before. He was checking with the Golfe every day, sometimes twice a day. No letter or cable had come. Ingham drove to the post office to mail his letter, because he wasn
’
t sure it would get off today, if he left it to the hotel. Various clerks had given him three different times for mail arrival, and he assumed they would be equally vague as to collection.

Ingham went down to the beach around six o
’
clock. The beach was approached via a patch of jungle-like palm trees which grew, however, out of the inevitable sand. There was a footworn path which he followed. A few metal poles, perhaps from an abandoned children
’
s playground, stuck up out of the sand and were encrusted near the top with small white snails fastened tightly like barnacles. The metal was so hot, he could barely touch it. He walked on, daydreaming about his novel, and he had brought his notebook and pen. There was really nothing more he could do on
Trio
until
John got here.

He went into the water, swam out
until
he felt slightly tired, then turned back. The water was shallow quite far out. There was smooth sand underfoot, which farther inshore became rocky, then sand again,
until
he stood upon the beach. He wiped his face on his terry-cloth robe, as he had forgotten to bring a towel. Then he sat down with his notebook. His book was about a man with a double life, a man unaware of the amorality of the way he lived, and therefore he was mentally deranged, or unbalanced, to say the least. Ingham did not like to admit this, but he had to. In his book, he had no intention of justifying his hero Dennison. He was simply a young man (twenty when the book began) who married and led a happy family life, and became a director in a bank at thirty. He expropriated funds from the bank when he could, by forgery mainly, and he was as free with giving and lending as he was in stealing. He invested some of the money with a view to his family
’
s future, but he gave away two-thirds of it (also usually under false names) to people
who needed it and to men who were trying to start their own businesses.

As often happened, Ingham
’
s ruminations made him doze within twenty minutes, and after writing only twelve lines of notes, he was half asleep when the voice of the American woke him like a repeated dream:

‘
Hello, there! Haven
’
t seen you for a couple of days
.’

Ingham sat up.
‘
Good afternoon
.’
He knew what was coming, and he knew he would go, this evening, to have a drink at Adams
’
s bungalow.

‘
How long
’
re you here for?
’
Adams asked.

‘
I don
’
t quite know
.’
Ingham had stood up and was putting on his robe.
‘
Maybe another three weeks. I have a friend coming
.’

‘
Oh. Another American?
’

‘
Yes
.’
Ingham looked at the spear Adams was carrying, a sort of dart five feet long without apparent means of projection.

‘
I
’
m on my way back to my bungalow. Want to come along and have a cooling drink?
’

Ingham at once thought of Coca-Cola.
‘
All right. Thank you. What do you do with that spear?
’

‘
Oh, I aim at fish and never catch them
.’
A chuckle.
‘
Actually sometimes I snare up shells I couldn
’
t reach if I were just swimming. You know, in water six or eight feet deep
.’

The sand became hot inland, but still bearable. Ingham was carrying his beach shoes. Adams had none.

‘
Here we are,
’
said Adams suddenly, and turned on to a paved but gritty walk which led to his blue-and-white bungalow. The bungalow
’
s roof was domed for coolness, in Arabian style.

Ingham glanced over his shoulder at a building he had not noticed before, a service building of some sort where several adolescent boys, waiters and clean-up boys of the hotel, he supposed, leaned against the wall chatting.

‘
Not much, but it
’
s home just now
.’
said Adams, opening his door with a key he had fished from somewhere in the top of his swimming trunks.

The inside of the bungalow was cool, the shutters dosed, and it seemed dark after the sunlight. Adams evidently had an air-conditioner. He turned on a light.

‘
Sit ye down. What can I get you? A Scotch? Beer? Coke?
’

‘
A Coke, thanks
.’

They had stomped their feet carefully on the bare tiles outside the door. Adams walked briskly and squeakily across the tile floor into a short hall that led to a kitchen.

Ingham looked around. It looked like home, indeed. There were seashells, books, stacks of papers, a writing-table that was obviously much used, with ink
bottles
, pens, a stamp box, a pencil sharpener, an open dictionary. A
Reader
’
s Digest.
Also a Bible. Was Adams a writer? The dictionary was English-Russian,
neatly
covered in brown paper. Was Adams a spy? Ingham smiled at the thought. Above the desk hung a framed photograph of an American country house that looked like New England, a white farmhouse surrounded at a generous distance by a three-railed white fence. There were elm trees, a collie, but no person in the picture.

Ingham turned as Adams entered with a small tray.

Adams had a Scotch and soda.
‘
You a teetotaller?
’
he asked, smiling his paunchy
little
smile.

‘
No, I just felt like a Coke. How long
’
ve you been here?
’

‘
A year
.’
Adams said, beaming, bouncing on his toes.

Adams had high arches, high insteps and rather small feet. There was something disgusting about Adams
’
s feet
,
and having looked at them once, Ingham did not look again.

‘
Your wife isn
’
t here?
’
Ingham asked. He had seen a woman
’
s photograph on the chest of drawers behind Adams, a woman in her forties, sedately smiling, sedately dressed.

‘
My wife died five years ago. Cancer.
’

‘
Oh.
—
What do you do to pass the time here?
’

‘
I don
’
t feel too lonely. I keep busy.
’
Again the squirrel
-
like smile.
‘
Once in a while someone interesting turns up at the hotel, we make acquaintances, they go on somewhere else. I consider myself an unofficial ambassador
for America. I spread goodwill—I
hope
—
and the American way of life. Our way of life.
’

What the hell did that mean, Ingham wondered, the Vietnam War springing at once to his mind.
‘
How do you mean?
’

‘
I have my ways.
—
But tell me about yourself, Mr Ingham. Sit down somewhere. You
’
re here on vacation?
’

Ingham sat down in a large scooped leather chair that creaked. Adams sat on the sofa.
‘I’m
a writer,
’
Ingham said.
‘I’m
waiting for an American friend who wants to do a film here. He
’
s going to be cameraman and director. The producer is in New York. It
’
s all rather informal.
’

‘
Interesting! A film on what subject?
’

CA story about young people in Tunisia. John Castlewood
—
the cameraman
—
knows Tunisia quite well. He lived a few months here with a family in Tunis.
’

‘
So you
’
re a film writer.
’
Adams was putting on a colourful short-sleeved shirt.

‘
No, just a writer. Fiction. But my friend John wanted me to do his film with him.
’
Ingham detested the conversation.

‘
What books have you written?
’

Ingham stood up. He knew more questions were coming, so he said,
‘
Four. One of them was
The Game of
“
If
”
.
You probably haven
’
t heard of it.
’
Adams hadn
’
t, so Ingham said,
‘
Another book was called
The Gathering Swine.
Not so suc
cesful.
’

‘
The Gadarene Swine?
Adams asked, as Ingham had thought he would.

‘
Gathering,
’
Ingham said.
‘
I meant it to sound like Gadarene, you see.
’
His face felt warm with a kind of shame, or boredom.

‘
You make enough to live on?
’

‘
Yes, with television work now and then in New York
.’
He thought suddenly of Ina, and the thought caused a throb in his body, making Ina strangely more real than she had been since he got to Europe, or Africa. He could see Ina in her office in New York now. It would be noonish. She would be reaching for a pencil, or a sheet of typewriter paper. If she had a lunch date, she would be a little late for it.

‘
You
’
re probably famous and I don
’
t realize it,
’
Adams said, smiling.
‘
I don
’
t read much fiction. Now and then, something that
’
s condensed. Like in the
Reader
’
s Digest,
you know. If you
’
ve got one of your books here, I
’
d like to read it
.’

Ingham smiled.
‘
Sorry. I don
’
t travel with them.
’

‘
When
’
s your friend due?
’
Adams stood up.
‘
Can
’
t I freshen that? How about a Scotch now?
’

Ingham agreed to the Scotch.
‘
He
’
s due Tuesday.
’
Ingham caught a glimpse of his own face in a mirror on the wall. His face was pink from the sun and starting to tan. His mouth looked severe and a
little
grumpy. A sudden loud voice, shouting in Arabic just outside the shuttered windows, made him flinch, but he continued staring at himself. This is what Adams saw, he thought, what the Arabs saw, an ordinary American face with blue eyes that looked too sharply at everything, above a mouth not exactly friendly. Three creases undulated across his forehead, and the beginnings of wrinkles showed under his eyes. Maybe not a very friendly face, but it was impossible to change one
’
s expression without being phoney. Lotte had done a little damage. The best he could do, Ingham thought out of nowhere, the proper thing was to be neutral, neither chummy nor standoffish. Play it cool.

He turned as Adams came in with his drink.

‘
What do you think about the war?
’
Adams asked, smiling as usual.
‘
The Israelis have got it won.
’

‘
Can you get the news? By radio?
’
Ingham was interested. He must buy a transistor, he thought.

‘
I can get Paris, London, Marseilles, Voice of America, practically anything
.’
Adams said, gesturing towards a door, which presumably led to a bedroom.
‘
Just
scattered reports now, but the Arabs are finished
.’

‘
Since America is pro-Israel, I suppose there
’
ll be some anti-American demonstrations ?
’

‘
A few, no doubt
.’
said Adams, as cheerfully as if he were talking about flowers pushing up in a garden.
‘
A pity
the
Arabs can
’
t see a yard in front of their noses
.’

Ingham smiled.
‘
I thought you might well be pro-Arab
.’

‘
Why?
’

‘
Living here. Liking them, I thought
.’
On the other hand, he read the
Reader
’
s Digest,
which was always anti-Communist On the other hand, what was the other hand?

‘
I like the Arabs. I like all peoples. I think the Arabs ought to do more with their own land. What
’
s done is done, the creation of Israel, right or wrong. The Arabs ought to do more with their own desert and stop complaining. Too many Arabs sit around doing nothing.
’

That was true, Ingham thought, but since Adams read the
Reader
’
s Digest,
he suspected anything he said, and thought about it twice.
‘
Have you a car? Do you
think
the Arabs will turn it over?
’

Adams chuckled comfortably.
‘
Not here. My car
’
s the black Cadillac convertible under the trees. Tunisia is pro-Arab, of course, but Bourguiba isn
’
t going to allow much trouble. He can
’
t afford it.
’