Patricia Highsmith - The Tremor of Forgery (3 page)

Adams talked about his farm in Connecticut, and about his business in Hartford. He had had a soft drinks bottling plant. Adams obviously enjoyed reminiscing. His had been a happy marriage. He had a daughter who lived in Tulsa. Her husband was a brilliant engineer, Adams said. Ingham thought,
‘I’m
afraid to fall in love with Ina.
‘I’m
afraid to fall in love with anyone since Lotte.
It was so obvious, he wondered why he hadn
’
t realized it before, months ago. Why should it come to him now, while talking with this ordinary little
man from Connecticut? Or had he said he originally came from Indiana?

Ingham said good-bye, with a vague promise to meet Adams in the bar next day around eight o
’
clock, just before dinner. Adams said he sometimes took dinner at the hotel, rather than cook. As he walked back to the main building of the hotel, Ingham thought about Ina. It wasn
’
t bad, maybe even wise, he thought, the way he felt about her. He was not out of his mind about her. He cared for her and she was important to him. He had taken his film contract for
The Game of
‘
If9
to show her before he signed it, her approval being just as important to him as his agent
’
s. (In fact, Ina knew all about film contracts, but emotionally as well he had wanted her approval.) She was intelligent, pretty, and physically attractive to him. She was dependable and un-neurotic. She had her own work, and she wasn
’
t a bore or a drag
—
as Lotte had been, out of bed, he had to admit. Ina had some talent for playwriting. She
’
d have been better than him for this job, in fact, and Ingham wondered why John hadn
’
t suggested her doing the script instead of him? Or maybe he had, and Ina hadn
’
t been able to get away from New York. John and Ina had known each other a
little
longer than Ingham had known either of them. Ina might not mention it to him, if John had asked her to write Trio
’
, Ingham thought.

Suddenly, Ingham felt happier. If there wasn
’
t a letter from John when he got to the hotel, if there was none tomorrow, and if John didn
’
t come on the 13th, Ingham felt he could take it in his stride. Maybe he was acquiring the African tempo.
Don’t
be anxious. Let the days pass.
He realized that Francis J. Adams had been curiously stimulating. The
Reader
’
s Digest
condensations! The American way of life! Adams was so plainly content with himself, with everything. It was fabulous, in these times. An Arab boy had brought fresh bath
-
towels while Ingham had been there, and Adams had talked with him in Arabic. The boy seemed to like Adams.

Ingham tried to imagine having lived in the hotel for a year. Was Adams some kind of American agent? No, he was much too naive. Or could that be part of his cover? One never knew these days, did one? Ingham didn
’
t know what to make of Adams.

June
13th came and went. There was no word from John and, what was even stranger, no word from Ina. On the 14th, inspired by a good lunch at the hotel, Ingham cabled Ina:

what
’
s up?
write me hotel reine hammamet. i love you, howard.

He sent it to CBS. At least it would be there the first thing tomorrow morning, Thursday. Ingham had been in Tunisia two weeks now without a word from John or Ina. Even Jimmy Goetz, not one for writing letters, had sent him a postcard of good luck wishes. Jimmy was off to Hollywood to write a film script of someone
’
s novel. His postcard had come to the Hotel du Golfe.

The days began to drag. They dragged for two days, then Ingham picked up mentally, or perhaps slowed down, so that he didn
’
t mind the dragging. He was making some progress in planning his novel, and had the first three chapters clearly in mind.

Ingham was now on demi-pension, so he took lunch or dinner away from the hotel, usually at the restaurant Chez Melik in the town of Hammamet, a kilometre away. He could walk to Hammamet along the beach
—
more pleasant if it were evening and not so warm
—
or take his car. Melik
’
s was a terrace restaurant, very cheap and informal, up some steps from the street. The terrace was shaded with grapevines, and one corner of it looked down on a strawy cattle pen, where sheep and goats sometimes stood, waiting to be slaughtered. Sometimes instead of living animals, there was a heap of bleeding sheepskins at which cats pulled, over
which flies buzzed. Ingham did not always enjoy looking down there. The good thing about Melik
’
s was the mixed clientele. There were turbaned camel-drivers, Tunisian or French students with flutey instruments or guitars, French tourists, occasionally some British, and ordinary men from the village who lingered over their vin rose
,
picking their teeth and nibbling from plates of fruit
until
midnight. Once Adams came with him to Melik
’
s. Adams had been there before, of course, and was not so fond of the place as Ingham. Adams thought it could be cleaner.

Ingham had met four or five people in his hotel, but he did not care very much for any of them. An American couple had asked him to play bridge, but Ingham had told them he didn
’
t know how to play, which was nearly true. Another was an American named Richard Messerman, a bachelor on the prowl, but having luck, he said, only at the Hotel Fourati, a mile away, where he often spent the night. Ingham did not accept Messerman
’
s invitations to cruise the Fourati. Another was a German homosexual from Hamburg, who had luck only in Hammamet with Arab boys, but plenty of luck, he told Ingham. His name was Heinz something-or-other, and he spoke good English and French, and was usually wearing white tight trousers with colourful belts.

Oddly enough, Ingham found Adams the best company, perhaps because Adams asked nothing of him. Adams had the same af
f
able manner with everyone
—
with Melik, the pharmacist, the man in the post office, the Arab boys at the hotel Adams looked happy. Ingham feared that one day he would spring something on him like Christian Science or Rosicrucianism, but after nearly two weeks, Adams hadn
’
t.

It was growing hotter. Ingham found himself eating less and losing a little weight.

He had sent a second cable to Ina, this one to her home in Brooklyn Heights, but still no reply had come. Three days after the second cable, Ingham tried to ring her one afternoon, when it would be morning in New York and she
would be at her office. This attempt kept him waiting in the air-conditioned lobby of the hotel for more than two hours, but the hotel could not get through even to Tunis. The lines to Tunis were too crowded. Ingham had the distinct feeling that a telephone call was hopeless, unless he went to Tunis, which of course he could do; it was only sixty-one kilometres away. But he did not go, and he did not try again to telephone Ina. Instead he wrote a long letter in which he said:

Africa is strangely good for thinking. It
’
s like standing naked in glaring sunlight against a white wall. Somehow nothing is hidden in this bright light….
’

But his important thought, about being afraid to fall in love, and his consequently even more substantial feeling about Ina, he preferred not to write her. Maybe at some time he would mention it, or maybe it was best left unsaid, because she might misunderstand and think he was not enthusiastic enough about her.

Tell John if he doesn
’
t hurry up and get here, I
’
m going to start my novel. What
’
s holding him up? It
’
s true it
’
s pleasant here, and it
’
s free (if we sell this thing) but it
’
s turning into a vacation and I don
’
t like vacations…. The Arabs are very friendly and informal. They loaf a lot, sitting at tables under trees, drinking coffee and wine. There is a section like the Casbah next to an old fortress which juts out to sea. There the houses are all white, full of plump jolly moms, most of them pregnant again. Never a closed door, so you can see into rooms with mats on the floor, babies crawling, brazier fires with grandma fanning them
with the end of her shawl Car is a Peugeot station
wagon, behaving well so far 1 wish like mad you were
here. Why couldn
’
t John have put us both on this job?… Gould you send me a snapshot? You know I haven
’
t a single picture of you?

She would probably send him an awful snapshot for a laugh, Ingham thought. He faced the fact that he was terribly lonely. He supposed it would take four or five days for his letter to reach Ina. That meant the 20th or 21st of June.

The Israelis had won the war, all right, a blitzkrieg, the papers called it. And as Adams had predicted, there were no serious reverberations in Hammamet, but in Tunis just enough broken glass and street fighting to make Ingham prefer to keep away. If the Arabs in Hammamet
cafés
were talking about the war, Ingham couldn
’
t tell it, as he could not understand a word. Their conversations had a certain level of intensity and loudness which did not seem to vary.

Ingham had put in a request for a bungalow, and on the 19th of June, one was available. The refrigerator and stove were very new, because the bungalows in his section had been built only in the spring, Adams had said. There was a small but excellently stocked grocery store just inside one driveway of the hotel about a hundred yards from his bungalow, which sold spirits and cold beer, all kinds of canned goods, even kitchen gadgets and toothpaste. If he and John holed up here, Ingham thought, they
’
d hardly need to leave the bungalow except to take a swim and visit the store for provisions. His bungalow, number three, had only one big room plus kitchen and bath, but it had two single beds. John probably wouldn
’
t want to share it for sleeping, and Ingham didn
’
t much like the idea either, but John could sleep in the main building. The table in the bungalow was a big wooden one, splendid for working. Ingham bought salami, cheese, butter, eggs, fruit, Ritz crackers and Scotch the afternoon he moved in, then he went over about five o
’
clock to invite Adams for a house-warming
drink
.

Adams wasn
’
t in, and Ingham supposed he was on the beach. He found Adams lying on a straw mat on his stomach, writing something. Adams, oblivious of Ingham
’
s approach
until
he was quite close, finished off his sentence or whatever with a satisfied flourish, lifting his pen in the air.

‘
Hello-o, Howard!
’
Adams said.
‘
Got your bungalow?
’
‘
Yes, just now.
’

Adams was pleased to be invited, as Ingham had known he would be. He agreed to come to number three at six
o
’
clock.

Ingham went back and did some more unpacking. It was good to have a sort of
‘
house
’
instead of a hotel room. He thought of his desk in his apartment on West Fourth Street, near Washington Square. He
’
d had the apartment only three months. It was air-conditioned and more expensive than any place he
’
d ever had, and he had taken it only after the film sale of
The Game of
‘If’
had become definite. Ina had a set of keys. He hoped she was looking in now and then, but she had taken his few plants to her Brooklyn house, and there weren
’
t any chores for her to do except forward letters that looked important Ina was brilliant at telling what was important and what wasn
’
t. Ingham had of course told his agent and his publishers that he would be in Tunisia, and by now they knew he was at the Reine.

‘
Well
’
Adams stood at the door with a
bottle
of wine.
‘
Looks
very
nice
!
—
Here, I brought you this. For the house-warming. Or for your first meal, you know.
’

‘
Oh, thanks, Francis
!
That
’
s very nice of you. Wha
t’ll
you
have?
’

They had their usual Scotch, Adams
’
s with soda.

‘
Any news from your friend?
’
Adams asked.

‘
No, I
’
m sorry to say.
’

‘
Can
’
t you send a telegram to someone who knows him?
’

‘I’
ve done that.
’
Ingham meant Ina.

The boy called Mokta, a waiter at the bungalows
’
bar-
café
, knocked on the open door, smiling his wide, friendly smile.
‘
Good evening, messieurs,
’
he said in French. Is there anything you have need of?
’

‘
I think nothing, thanks,
’
Ingham said.

‘
You would like breakfast at what time, sir?
’

‘
Oh, you serve breakfast?
’

It is not
necessary
to take it
.’
Mokta said with a quick gesture,
‘
but many of the people in the bungalows take it.
’
‘
All right, at nine o
’
clock, then,
’
Ingham said.
‘
No, eight-thirty.
’
The breakfast would probably be late.

‘
Nice boy, Mokta,
’
Adams said when Mokta had left.
‘
And they really work them here. Have you seen the kitchen in that place?
’
He gestured towards the low, square building that was the bungalows
’
café
—
with-terrace.
‘
And the room where they sleep there?
’

Ingham smiled.
‘
Yes.
’
He had had a glimpse today. The boys slept in a room that was a field often or twelve jammed-together beds. The sink in the kitchen had been full of dirty water and dishes.

‘
The drains are always stopped up, you know. I make my own breakfast I imagine it
’
s a
little
more sanitary. Mokta
’
s nice. But that sour-puss
directrice
works him to death. She
’
s a German, probably only hired because she can speak Arabic and French. If they
’
re out of towels, it
’
s Mokta who has to go to the main building and get them.
—
How
’
re you doing on your book?
’

‘
I
’
ve done twenty pages. Not as fast as my usual rate, but I can
’
t complain.
’
Ingham was grateful for Adams
’
s interest He had found out that Adams wasn
’
t a writer or a journalist, but he still didn
’
t know what Adams did, except study Russian in a casual way. Maybe Adams didn
’
t do anything. That was possible, of course.

‘
It must be hard, writing when you think each day you
’
ll have to drop it,
’
Adams said.

‘
That doesn
’
t bother me too much.
’
Ingham replenished Adams
’
s drink. He served Adams crackers and cheese. The bungalow began to seem more attractive. The waning sunlight shone through half-open, pale-blue shutters on to the white walls. Ingham thought that he and John might spend no more than ten days on the script John knew someone in Tunis who could help him in finding the small cast John wanted amateurs.

He and Adams were in good spirits when they went off in Ingham
’
s car to have dinner at Melik
’
s. The terrace was half full, not noisy as yet. Someone was strumming a guitar, someone else tootling a flute hesitan
tl
y at a back table-Adams talked about his daughter Caroline in Tulsa, Her husband, the engineer, was about to be sent off to Vietnam, as he was in some kind of civilian army reserve. Caroline was due to have a baby within five months, and Adams was pleased and hopeful, because her first child had miscarried. Adams was pro-Vietnam War, Ingham had discovered early on. Ingham was sick of it, sick of discussing it with people like Adams, and he was glad Adams did not say anything else about the war that evening. Democracy and God, those were the things Adams believed in. It wasn
’
t Christian Science or Rosicrucianism with Adams
—
at least not so far
—
but a sort of Billy Graham, all-round God with an old-fashioned moral code thrown in. What the Vietnamese needed, Adams said in appallingly plain words, was the American kind of democracy. Besides
the
American kind of democracy, Ingham thought, the Americans were introducing the Vietnamese to the capitalist system in the form of a brothel industry, and to the American class system by making the Negroes pay higher for their lays. Ingham listened, nodding, bored, mildly irritated.

‘
You
’
ve never been married?
’
Adams asked.

‘
Yes. Once. Divorced.
—
No children.
’

They were having a smoke after the
couscous.
Not much edible meat tonight, but the
couscous
and the spicy sauce had been delicious.
Couscous
was the name of the African millet flour, Adams had explained, granulated flour that was cooked by steaming it over a broth. It could be made also from wheat. It was tan in colour, bland in flavour, and over it was spooned hot or medium hot red sauce, turnips, and pieces of stewed lamb. It was a speciality at Melik
’
s.

‘
Was your wife a writer, too?
’
Adams asked.

‘
No, she didn
’
t do anything,
’
Ingham said, smiling a
little
.

‘
A woman of leisure. Well, it
’
s past, and it was a long time ago.
’
He was ready to tell Adams it was longer than a year and a half ago, in case Adams asked.
‘
Do you think you
’
ll marry again?
’
‘
I don
’
t know.
—
Why? Do you think it
’
s the ideal life?
’
‘
Oh, I think that depends. It
’
s not the same for every man.
’
Adams was smoking a small cigar. When his cheeks flattened out, his face looked longer, more like an ordinary face, and when he removed the cigar, the
little
pouches came back, like a cartoon of himself. Between the cheeks, the thin, pink mouth smiled good-naturedly.
‘
I was certainly happy. My wife was the kind who really knew how to run a home. Put up preserves, took care of the garden, a good hostess, remembered people
’
s birthdays, all that. Never annoyed when I got delayed at the plant.
—
I thought of marrying again. There was even one woman
—
a lot like my wife
—I
might
’
ve married. But it
’
s not the same when you
’
re not young any more.
’

Ingham had nothing to say. He thought of Ina and wished she were here, sitting with them now, wished he could take a walk with her on the beach tonight, after they had said good night to Adams, wished they could go back to his bungalow and go to bed together.

‘
Any girl in your life now?
’
Adams asked.

Ingham woke up.
‘
In a way, yes.
’

Adams smiled.
‘
So you
’
re in love?
’

Ingham didn
’
t like to talk to anyone about Ina, but did it matter if he talked to someone like Adams?
‘
Yes, I suppose so. I
’
ve known her about a year. She works for CBS-TV in New York. She
’
s written some television plays and also some short stories. Several published,
’
he added.