Patricia Highsmith - The Tremor of Forgery (13 page)

‘
HASSO,’
JENSEN SAID,
‘
is probably four feet under the sand somewhere. Maybe two feet will do
.’
Jensen
looked whipped, broken, slouched over the bar of
the
Caf
é
de la Plage. He was drinking
boukhah
,
and looked as if he had had several.

It was noon. Ingham had driven into Hammamet to buy a typewriter ribbon, and, having tried at three likely looking stores
that
seemed to sell everything, had failed.

1 don
’
t suppose,
’
Ingham said,
‘
you could spread
the
word around that you
’
d give a reward if somebody found him?
’

‘
I did that the first thing. I told a couple of the kids. They
’
ll spread it. The point is, the dog
’
s
dead.
Or he
’
d come back
.’
Jensen
’
s voice cracked. He hunched lower over his bare forearms, and Ingham realized to his embarrassment that Jensen was on the brink of tears.

A pain of sympathy went through Ingham, and his own eyes stung.
‘I’m
sorry. Really I am.
—
Bastards
!’

Jensen gave a snort of a laugh and finished his
little
drink.
‘
What they usually do is toss
the
head into one of your windows. At least they
’
ve spared me that so far.
’

‘
There isn
’
t something, maybe, that they
’
re holding against you? Your neighbours, I mean?
’

Jensen shrugged.
‘
I don
’
t
know
of anything. I never had any quarrels with them. I don
’
t make any noise. I pay my landlord
—
in advance, too.
’

Ingham hesitated, then asked,
‘
Are you thinking of leaving Hammamet?
’

‘I’ll
wait a few more days. Then
—
sure, for Christ
’
s sake, I
’
ll leave. But I
’
ll tell you one thing, I hate
the
thought of
Hasso
’
s
bones
being in this goddam sand! Am I glad the Jews beat the shit out of theml
’

Ingham glanced around uneasily, but as usual there was a din in the place, and probably no one near them understood any English. A couple of men, including the barman, glanced at Jensen because he was upset, but there was no hostility in their faces.
‘I’m
with you there
.’

It isn
’
t good to hate as I do
.’
Jensen went on, one fist clenched, the other hand clutching the tiny, empty glass, and Ingham was afraid he was going to throw it
‘
It isn
’
t good
.’

‘
You
’
d better eat something. I
’
d suggest we have dinner tonight, but I
’
ve got a date. How about tomorrow night?
’

Jensen agreed. They would meet at the Caf
é
de la Plage.

Ingham drove back to his bungalow, feeling wretched, as if he hadn
’
t done enough to help Jensen. He realized he did not want to see Kathryn Darby tonight, and that he would have been less bored, even happier, with Jensen.

That afternoon, along with a letter from Ingham
’
s mother in Florida (his parents had retired and gone there to live), came an express letter from Ina. Ina
’
s letter said:

July 10,
19—

Dear Howard,

It
’
s true I owe you some explanations, so I will try. First of all, why I was upset. I thought for a while that I loved John
—
and to continue further with the truth, I went to bed with him, twice. You may well ask
‘
Why?
’
For one thing, I never thought you were madly in love with me
—
that is, deeply and completely. It
’
s possible to be slightly in love, you know. Not every love is the grande passion and not every love is the kind on which to found a marriage. I was attracted to John. He was absolutely gone on me
—
strange as it may seem, developing suddenly, after we
’
d known each other for a year or so. I made
him
no promises. He knew about you, as you well know, and I told him you had asked me to marry you and that I had
more or less agreed
—
in our casual way, it was on, I know. I thought John and I
—
if I tried to play it a bit cool with him (he was fantastically emotional) might find out if we really did or could care for each other. He was a different world to me, full of pictures in his head, which he could visualize so clearly and put into words.

Ingham thought, couldn
’
t
be
do that, too? Or did Ina think him a lousier writer than John had been a cameraman?

Then I began to sense a certain weakness, a shakiness in John. Nothing to do with his feeling for me. That didn
’
t seem shaky at all. It was something in his character which I did not care for, which actually frightened me. It was a weakness he should not have been
blamed
for, and I never thought of blaming him, but having seen or sensed this weakness, I knew it was no go with John and me. I tried to break it off as gen
tl
y as possible
—
but things can never be done that way. There is always the moment when the Awful Speech must be made, because the other person won
’
t accept the truth without it. And when I say break it off- this whole
‘
affair
’
went on just about ten days. My pulling out, unfortunately, was fatal for poor John. He had five days of decline, during which I tried to help him as much as I could. The last two days, he said he didn
’
t want to see me. I assumed he was in his own apartment. He was dead when I found him. I won
’
t try to describe the horror of seeing him there. I don
’
t know the right words. They don
’
t exist.

So, dear Howard, what do you think of all this ? I suspect you want to drop me. I would not blame you
—
and even if I did? I could have withheld this. No one knows about it but me, unless John told Peter, I mean told him everything. I still like you, even love you. I don
’
t know how you feel now. When you come back, and I assume that will be very soon, we can see each other again, if you like. It is up to you.

I carry on with work, but am dead-tired. (If your employer ask for your lifeblood, give him your corpse also.) The usual amount of take-home work still. It looks like a lull in August and that
’
s when
‘I’ll
take my two weeks
’
vacation.

Would you write me soon, even if it
’
s a rather grim letter?

With love,

Ina

Ingham
’
s first reaction was one of slight contempt. What a mistake for Ina to have made I He had thought Ina was so bright. And in the letter, she was more or less begging his forgiveness, in fact pleading, or hoping, that he would take her back. It was all so goddamned silly.

It wasn
’
t even as important as Jensen
’
s dog, Ingham thought.

Ina was right. He wasn
’
t
‘
madly in love
’
with her, but he counted on her, he depended on her in a very important and profound way. He knew that, now that he had learned she had betrayed him. The word
‘
betrayed
’
came to his mind, and he hated it. It wasn
’
t, he thought, that he was stuffy enough to object to any affair that Ina might have had while he was gone, but the fact that she apparen
tl
y had sunk so much emotion into this one. She was looking for something
‘
real and lasting
’
, as practically every woman in the world was, and she
’
d looked for it in that weak fish John
Castlewood
. How he wished that Ina had written that she
’
d had a silly roll in the hay with
Castlewood
, which hadn
’
t meant anything, and that
Castlewood
had taken it seriously! But Ina
’
s letter made her sound like every feather-brained run-of-the-mill-He wanted a drink, a drink of Scotch on this. The
bottle
was down to the last inch. He drank this with a splash of water, not bothering with ice, then shoved his billfold in the pocket of his shorts and walked to the bungalows
’
grocery
store. It was a quarter to six. He
’
d have a couple of drinks before picking Kathryn up. Was Kathryn Darby a bore or not?

As he walked towards the store, Ingham watched a couple of camels on the edge of the main road. One of the camels was ridden by a sun-blackened wraithe in a burnouse. The camels were tied together. A donkey-drawn cart, piled high with kindling and topped by a barefoot Arab, paused at the edge of the road, and someone got down. To Ingham
’
s surprise, it was old Abdullah of the red pants. What was he doing here ? Ingham watched him look in both directions, then hump across the road to the hotel side and turn in the direction of Hammamet. The cart had come from the Hammamet direction, and it went on. The Arab was lost to view by the hotel
’
s bushes and trees. Ingham went into the grocery shop and bought eggs, Scotch, and beer. The old Arab, Ingham thought, might be going to see the man who ran the curio shop a few yards down the road. And there were fruit and vegetable shops between here and Hammamet, too, run by Arabs. But his presence so near the hotel irked Ingham. Ingham real
iz
ed he was living through one of the worst, therefore one of the crabbiest, days of his life.

Ingham took Kathryn straight to the
Café
de la Plage de Hammamet for a pre-dinner drink. She had been in the Plage a couple of times with her English friends.
‘
We adored it, but it was a little noisy. At least they said so.
’
Kathryn was a better sport, it seemed, and obviously enjoyed the noise and the sloppiness.

Ingham looked for Jensen, hoping to see him, but Jensen was not there.

From the Plage, they went across the street to Melik
’
s. The bakers were at work next door. One young Arab baker, lounging in shorts and a paper hat in the doorway, looked Kathryn over with interest. There was again the delicious, reassuring smell of baking bread. Melik
’
s was loud. There were two if not three tables with flutes and stringed instruments. The canary, in a cage that hung from a horizontal ceiling pole, was accompanying the music merrily. Ingham remembered one evening when Adams had been droning away, and the canary had been asleep with its head under its wing, and Ingham had wished he might do the same. There was only one other woman besides Kathryn on the terrace. As Ingham had foreseen, the evening was a trifle boring, and yet they were not at a loss for conversation. Kathryn talked to him about Pennsylvania, which she loved, especially in autumn when the pumpkin season was on and the leaves came down. Surely, Ingham thought, she would marry a nice solid Pennsylvanian, maybe a lawyer, and set
tl
e down in a town house with a garden. But Kathryn didn
’
t mention a man, gave no hint of one. There was something attractively independent about her. And there was no doubt at all she was very pretty. But the last thing he could have done that night was go to bed with her, the last thing in the world he wished. A nightcap at the Fourati, and the evening was over.