Patricia Highsmith - The Tremor of Forgery (4 page)

The flautist was gaining strength. An Arab song began shakily, reinforced by a wailing male voice.

‘
How old is she?
’

‘
Twenty-eight.
’

‘
Old enough to know her own mind.
’

‘
Um-m. She had a marriage that went wrong
—
when she was twenty-one or
—
two. So Fm sure she
’
s in no hurry to make a mistake again. Neither am I.
’

‘
But you expect to marry?
’

The music grew ever louder.

‘
Vaguely.
—
I can
’
t see that it matters very much, unless people want children.
’

‘
Is she going to join you here in Tunisia?
’

‘
No. I wish she were. She knows John Castlewood very well. In fact she introduced us. But she has her job in New York.
’

‘
And she hasn
’
t written you either? About John?
’

‘
No.
’
Ingham warmed a
little
to Adams.
‘
It
’
s funny, isn
’
t it? How slow can mail
get
here?
’

Their dessert of yoghurt had arrived. There was also a platter of fruit.

‘
Tell me more about your girl. What
’
s her name?
’

Ina Pallant.
—
She lives with her family in a big house in Brooklyn Heights. She has a crippled brother she
’
s very fond of
—
Joey. He has multiple sclerosis, practically confined to his wheelchair, but Ina
’
s a great help to him. He paints
—
rather surrealistically. Ina arranged a show for him last year. But of course he couldn
’
t have got the show unless he was good. He sold
—
oh, seven or eight out of thirty canvases.
’
Ingham disliked saying it, but he thought Adams would be interested in figures.
‘
One picture, for instance, was of a man sitting casually on a rock in a forest, smoking a cigarette. In the foreground, a little girl is running forward, terrified, and a tree is growing out of the top of her head.
’

Adams leaned forward with interest.
‘
What
’
s that supposed to mean?
’

‘
The terror of growing up. The man represents life and evil. He
’
s entirely green. He just sits watching
—
or not even watching
—
with an air of having the whole situation in his power.
’

Melik
’
s plump son, aged about thirteen, came and leaned
on chubby hands on the table, exchanging something in Arabic with Adams. Adams was grinning. Then the boy totted up their bill. Ingham insisted on paying, because it was part of his bungalow-warming.

Downstairs, on the dusty street, Ingham noticed an old Arab whom he had seen a few times before, loitering around his car. The Arab had a short grey beard and wore a turban and classic baggy red pants held up somehow under the knees. He walked with a stick. Ingham knew he must try the car doors when he
—
Ingham
—
wasn
’
t in sight, hoping with indefatigable patience for the day or the hour when Ingham would forget to lock a door. Now as the Arab drifted away from the big Peugeot station wagon, Ingham barely glanced at him. The Arab was becoming a fixture, like the tan fortress or the
C
afé
de la Plage near Melik
’
s. Ingham and Adams walked a little way up the main street, but since this became dark, they turned back. The interesting corner, the only alive part of the town at this time of night, was the broad sandy area in front of the Plage, where a few men sat at tables with their coffees or glasses of wine. The yellow light from the Plage
’
s big front windows flowed out on to the first table-legs and a few sandalled feet under them.

As Ingham looked at the front door, a man was rudely pushed out and nearly fell. Ingham and Adams stopped to watch. The man seemed a little drunk. He went direc
tl
y back into the Plage, and was again shoved out. Another man came out and put an arm around him, talking to him. The drunk had a stubborn air, but let himself be sent off in the direction of the white houses behind the fortress. Ingham continued to watch the unsteady man, fascinated by whatever passion filled him. Just beyond the glow of the
café
’s
lights, the man stopped and half turned, staring defian
tly at the café
door. In the doorway of the Plage now, a tall man and the man who had put his arm around the drunken man were talking together and keeping an eye on the motionless, determined figure two hundred yards away.

Ingham was rapt. He wondered if they were carrying knives. Perhaps, if it was a long-standing grudge.

‘
Probably a quarrel about a woman,
’
Adams said.

‘
Yes
.’

‘
Very jealous when it comes to women, you know
.’

‘
Yes, Fm sure
.’
Ingham said.

They walked a
little
on the beach, though Ingham did not like the fine sand getting into his shoes By the light of the moon, small children were gathering bits off the beach
—
the second or third wave of scavengers after their parents and elder siblings
—
and putting their findings away in bags that hung from their necks Ingham had never seen such a clean beach as this one. Nothing was ever left by all the picker-uppers, not even a four-inch-long splinter of wood, because they used the wood for fires, and not even a shell, because they sold all the shells they could to tourists.

Ingham and Adams had a final coffee at the Plage. A smelly, arched doorway to their right revealed a huge
‘
W.C
.’
and an arrow, in black paint, on a blue wall three feet beyond. The ceiling was groined, if such a word could be used, by projecting supports ornamented with big yellow knobs that suggested stage footlights. Ingham realized that he had nothing to talk to Adams about. Adams, silent himself, must have realized the same thing in regard to Ingham. Ingham smiled a little as he drank the last of his sweet black coffee. Funny to think of someone like himself and Adams, hanging around together just because they were Americans. But their goodnight twenty minutes later, on the hotel grounds, was warm. Adams wished him a happy stay, as if he had moved in permanently, or as if, Ingham thought, he were a newcomer to an expedition, doomed to a different and rather lonely life for months to come. But Ingham had no duties at all except those he assigned himself, and he was free to go hundreds of miles anywhere in his car.

Before he went to bed that night, Ingham looked through his personal and his business address books, and found two
people to whom he might write in regard to John. (He hadn
’
t Miles Gallust
’
s address, or he had left it in New York, and reproached himself for this oversight.) The two people were William McHhenny, an editor in
the
New York office of Paramount, and Peter Langland, a free-lance photographer whom John knew pretty well, Ingham remembered. Ingham thought of cabling, but decided a cable would look too dramatic, so he wrote Peter Langland a short, friendly note (they had met at a party with John, and Ingham remembered him more clearly now, a chunky blond fellow with glasses), asking him to prod John and ask John to cable, in case he had not yet written. The probably four or five days
until
the letter reached New York seemed an aeon to wait, but Ingham tried to make himself be patient. This was Africa, not Paris or London. The letter had to get to Tunis before it could be put on a plane.

Ingham posted the letter the next mor
ni
ng.

Two or three days went by. Ingham worked.

In the mornings, Mokta brought his continental breakfast around nine-fifteen or nine-thirty. Mokta always had a question:

‘
The refrigerator works well?
’
Or
‘
Hassim has brought you enough towels?
’
Always Mokta asked these things with a disarming smile. He was more blond than brunette, and he had grey-blue eyes with long lashes.

Ingham supposed Mokta was popular with both women and men, and though he was only seventeen or so, he had probably had experience with both. At any rate, with his good looks and his manner, he was not going to spend the rest of his life carrying breakfast-trays and stacks of towels across the sand.
‘
Only one thing I
’
d like, my friend
.’
Ingham said.
‘
If you see a letter for me in that madhouse, would you bring it immediately?
’

Mokta laughed.
‘
Bien s
û
r, m
’
sieur! Je regarde tout le temps
—
tout le temps pour vous
!
’

Ingham waved a casual good-bye and poured himself some coffee, which was strong enough but not hot. Sometimes it was the other way around. He pulled on his pyjama top. He slept only in the pants. The nights were warm, too. He thought of the desk in the bungalow manager
’
s office. Dare he hope for a letter today by ten-thirty
—
eleven? Ingham had been told by the hotel
’
s main office that mail came twice a day to the bungalow headquarters and was delivered as soon as it arrived, but this was patently not so, because Ingham had seen people going to the office in the bungalow headquarters and looking through the post there, post that sometimes sorted and sometimes not. How could he expect Arab boys, or even the harassed, ill-tempered German
directrice
to care very much about people
’
s mail? There was never anyone at the desk. Stacks of towels filled one comer of the office
—
although when Ingham had asked for a clean towel, having used his for more than a week, the boy had told him he hadn
’
t changed it because it didn
’
t look dirty
.
Mysterious grey metal files stood against the walls. The absurdity of the contents of this office had given it a Kafka-like futility to Ingham. He felt that he never would, never could receive any letter of significance there. And it was maddening to Ingham to find the door sometimes locked for no apparent reason, no one around to open it, or no one with the key. This would send him forging across the sand to the main building on the off-chance that post had arrived and not yet been brought to
the
bungalows.

Ingham was working when Mokta came in just before eleven o
’
clock with a letter. Ingham seized it, automatically fishing in his pocket for some coins for Mokta.

‘
Hallelujah!
’
Ingham said. The envelope was a long business airmail, and it was postmarked New York.

‘
Succ
ès
!’
said Mokta.
‘
Merci, m
’
sieur!
’
He bowed and left.

The letter was from Peter Langland, strangely enough. Their letters had crossed.

June 19,
19—

Dear Mr Ingham
—
or Howar
d

By now you no doubt know of the sad events of over last weekend, as Ina said she would write you. John spoke to me just two days before. He was in a crise, as you probably know, or maybe you didn
’
t know. But none of us expected anything like this. He was afraid he couldn
’
t go through with
‘
Trio
’
under the circumstances, which made him feel doubly guilty, I think, because you were already in Tunisia. Then he had his personal problems, as you probably know from Ina. But I know he would want me to
write
a
line to
you and say he is sorry, so herewith I do it. He simply couldn
’
t stand up to everything that was on his shoulders. I liked John very much and thought very highly of him, as I think everyone did who knew him. We all believed he had a great career coming. It is a shock to all of us, but especially to those who knew him well. I suppose you
’
ll be coming home now, and maybe you
’
ve already left, but I trust this can be forwarded to you.