The Tremor of Forgery

  He simply couldn’t jump that night.

  But he did go back to Ina’s room with her. Ina asked him, and he accepted.

  It was 3 a.m. when he got home. He had wanted to do some thinking, but he fell fast asleep almost at once. They had had, as usual, quite a nice and exhausting time in bed.

  Ingham awoke in the dark, a little suddenly. He thought he had heard something at the street door, but when he listened, he heard nothing. He struck a match and looked at the time—four-seventeen. He lay back on his bed, tense, alert. How much did Ina love him? And wouldn’t he be guilty of rather bad behaviour if he pulled out now? And yet there had been John Castlewood, who’d entered the picture after Ingham, and presumably Ina had taken it for granted they’d be married. Ingham had asked Ina about John tonight, in her room. He had asked her how much she had loved him. But the only thing he had got out of her was that she had felt, or she had believed, they might make a go of it. John Castlewood had loved her very much, and so forth, and maybe that was true. But Ina’s answer seemed a little vague to Ingham now, or there was no definite phrase that stood out in it, anyway. His mind shied away from the problem, and he thought of the crazy situation he was in, here, and wondered how it had all come about. Castlewood’s assignment, of course. Then OWL with his unbelievably corny broadcasts, and being paid for them! Ingham had, on one occasion in OWL’s bungalow, seen an envelope with a Swiss stamp on it in the wastebasket. OWL had said he was paid via Switzerland. The return address of a bank had given no clue as to the payer, of course. Could it be possible, Ingham wondered, that OWL was having a fantasy about all of this, about having met the Russian who would pay him for such broadcasts? Was he pretending to himself that some of his own dividends, which might be coming from Switzerland, were payments for his talks? What was possible and what wasn’t? Ingham’s months in Tunisia had made this borderline fuzzy. The fuzziness, or inversion of things, now involved Ina. He felt it was not quite right they should marry, which was the same as saying that he didn’t love her enough, and maybe she did not love him enough either, and that she was not ‘quite right’, whatever that was, and maybe something quite right did not exist for him. But was this feeling due to some strange power of Tunisia to distort everything, like a wavy mirror or a lens that inverted the image, or was the feeling valid?

  Ingham lit a cigarette.

  And Jensen. Jensen had a character, a background, a history, which Ingham did not know, which he could never know any more than partially. He knew Jensen only enough to like him quite a bit. (And Ingham recalled one night when he’d gone along to the coffee-house called Les Arcades, and had come near to taking home a young Arab. The Arab had sat at the table with him, and Ingham had stood him a couple of beers. Ingham had been both sexually excited and lonely that evening, and the only thing that had deterred him, he thought, was that he hadn’t been sure what to do in bed with a boy, and he hadn’t wanted to feel silly. Hardly a moral reason for chastity.) He was surrounded by a sea of Arabs who were still mysteries to him, with the possible exceptions of Mokta, and the cheerful Melik, a kindly fellow who certainly wasn’t a cheat, either.

  Ingham realized he must come to a decision about Ina and tell her, preferably before she left for Paris, which she wanted to do in about five days or less. If he turned loose of Ina, would it be stupid? He could see her marrying someone else very quickly, if he did. Then he might be sorry. Or was this a bastardly way to be thinking? He had the awful feeling that in the months he had been here, his own character or principles had collapsed, or disappeared. What was he? Presumably someone with a set of attitudes on which his conduct was based. They formed a character. But Ingham now felt he couldn’t think, if his life depended on it, of one principle by which he lived. Wasn’t sleeping with Ina a form of deception now? And he didn’t even feel uncomfortable about it. Was his whole past life then a history of phoneyness? Or was all this now the falseness? He was suddenly sweating, and lacked the initiative to get up and pour a bucket of water over himself on the terrace.

  He heard a scratching noise, a whimper, down at the door on the street. Jensen must have put out his garbage. Usually it attracted cats. The scratching kept on. Anger got Ingham out of bed now. He turned on his light and took his flashlight. He went down the four steps, tense, prepared to yell at the cat who was probably trying to dislodge a sardine can from under the door.

  The dog looked at him and growled low.

  ‘Hasso?—Hasso, it isn’t!’

  It was. The dog looked awful, but it was Hasso, and Hasso remembered him—just enough not to attack him, Ingham could see.

  ‘Anders!9 Ingham yelled, his voice cracking wildly. ‘Anders, Hasso’s here!’

  The dog crawled up the steps towards Jensen’s rooms, its legs limp.

  ‘What?’ Jensen leaned out his window.

  Hysterical laughter started in Ingham’s throat. Jensen knelt on his top step and embraced the dog. Ingham, for no reason, turned on all the lights he had, and also the terrace lights. He poured a bowl of tinned milk and added a dash of water lest the milk be too rich. He took it upstairs to Jensen.

  Jensen was kneeling on his floor, looking the dog over. ‘Vand!’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Water!’

  Ingham went to Jensen’s tap to get it. ‘I’ve got sardines. Also some frankfurters.’

  ‘Look at him! But he’ll live. No bones broken!’ That was the last thing Jensen said for several minutes that Ingham could understand. The rest was in Danish.

  The dog drank water, ate ravenously of a few sardines, then abruptly abandoned the dish. He was too starving to take on much at once. An old brown collar was around his neck, trailing a length of metal chain. Ingham wondered how he had broken or chewed the chain, but the last links were worn so thin and flat, they gave no due. The dog must have walked miles.

  ‘He really has no wounds.’ Ingham said. Isn’t that a miracle?’ ‘Yes. Except this scar.’ There was a tiny bald patch in front of one of Hasso’s ears. Jensen thought they had had to knock the dog out to catch him or to put the collar on him. Jensen was looking at Hasso’s teeth, at his feet which were scabby and bloody. Some bad-looking patches in his hair were only mud or grease. Ingham went down to get his Scotch. He brought the rest of the tinned milk. Jensen had heated some water and was washing the dog’s feet. They sat up talking a long while. The dawn came. The dog lay down on a blanket Jensen had put down for him, and fell asleep. ‘He was even too tired to smile, did you notice?’ Ingham said.

  And so the time passed with remarks like that, remarks of no consequence, but both Ingham and Jensen were very happy. Jensen speculated as to what had happened. Someone must have taken him miles away and attempted to keep him tied up. They must have had to toss food at him, because he wouldn’t have allowed anyone to come near. But how had they captured the dog in the first place? Clubbed him? Used chloroform? Not likely. And Ingham was thinking that it was all cock-eyed, except this, except Hasso’s return, which was the most unlikely thing he could have imagined would ever happen. And he knew he would speak to Ina tomorrow, rather today, and tell her that he could not marry her. That was correct, the correct thing to do. And in three more, days, he would finish his book, he was positive. He made this announcement to Jensen, about his book, but he doubted if Jensen took it in.

  The whisky put them both, towards 7 a.m., in a relaxed, happy mood. Jensen was positively drunk. They both went to sleep in their respective beds.

  25

  AT eleven-twenty that morning, Ingham was walking along the beach, carrying his sneakers, towards the Reine de Hammamet. The sun poured down, turning the sand white. The sand, if he walked quickly, was bearable between his toes. The sky was a cloudless deep bright blue, like the shutters and doors of Tunisia. He had bought a chicken and a form of leg of beef for Hasso this morning. Jensen’s hangover, if any, was totally lost in his concern for Hasso’s welfare. The dog, this morning, had been well enough to smile, and he had smiled at Ingham, too
.

  Now Ingham was thinking, with as usual no success in preparation, of what he was going to say to Ina. The hour to him did not matter. It might as well have been 4 a.m. Ah, destiny! He was convinced that his decision to sever himself from Ina was of a little more importance to hirn than to her. He imagined her meeting another John Castlewood, or some substitute for himself, in a matter of weeks. He was sure she could more easily find a man she liked than he could find a woman. For this reason, he felt that he was not going to hurt her very much.

  He also might not find her in. Ingham was prepared to be told that Miss Pallant had taken an all-day bus-ride somewhere.

  Miss Pallant was not in but she was on the beach.

  Ingham went back to the beach, and walked on in the direction from Hammamet, because he was sure he had not passed her.

  He recognized her chair by her beach robe and a script bound in a blue cover. With his eyes nearly shut against the glare, he faced the sea and examined the surface of the water. It couldn’t be, but it was true: OWL’s spear broke the surface with its black arrow, just a hundred yards out and a bit to the left. Ina’s white-capped head emerged beside it, her face gasping and laughing, and finally OWL’s ruddy visage came up behind the spear. Naturally, the spear was empty. Had OWL ever caught anything?

  They saw him, and waved. Ingham stood waiting, dry and hot, the skin on his face and forearms gently toasting, while they came out of the sea.

  A burst of greetings from OWL. Why hadn’t he brought his swimming trunks?

  ·Why aren’t you working?’ Ina wiped her face with a towel. ‘Hasso came home last night. Anders’s dog,’ Ingham said. ‘My goodness! The one who was lost?’ OWL was a-goggle with surprise. ‘Yes, Ina! Did I tell you? Anders’s dog disappeared—How long ago was it?’ ‘Six weeks, anyway,’ Ingham said. Ina was also incredulous and glad about the good news. Adams asked them to his bungalow for a beer, to cool off, but Ingham said: ‘Thanks, Francis, can I take a raincheck?’ Adams understood. He understood, anyway, that Ingham wanted to talk to Ina.

  Ingham and Ina walked towards the hotel. Ina paused to shower under the bare, outdoor tap where Ingham had seen the Americans who he had thought were Germans. In silence, they went directly to her room. Ina again removed her bathing suit in the bathroom, and came out in a terry-cloth robe like his own, but white.

  ‘I know what you’re going to say, so you don’t have to say it.’ Ina said.

  Ingham had sat down in the one big chair. Ina leaned across him, one hand braced on the arm of the chair, and she kissed his cheek, then briefly his lips.

  I can’t get married, Ingham thought. What should he say? Thank you?

  ‘Would you like a Scotch, darling?’

  ‘No, thanks.—It was a strange night last night.’ he said, stuttering slightly. 1 was awake, and I heard Anders’s dog scratching at the door. Only I didn’t know it was the dog. So I went down—and it was unbelievable, to see this dog after so many weeks. Skinny, of course. He looks awful, but he’ll live. It’s a miracle, isn’t it?’

  ‘Yes. Six weeks, did you say?’ She was sitting on her bed, facing him, with a deadly air of politeness.

  ‘Six weeks maybe, I haven’t counted them.’

  Their eyes met briefly.

  Ingham had a mad impulse to push her back on the bed and make love to her. Or if he did, would he find himself incapable? ‘I’m sorry I dragged you here.’

  ‘You didn’t!’

  He could predict the next exchanges. It was awful. They came, and at last he was saying, as he had hoped not to, ‘Why should I put you in a trap? I suppose I don’t love anyone. I suppose I can’t.’

  And she obliged with, ‘Oh, you have your work. Writers think about so many sides of things, they never choose any one thing. I’m not blaming you. I understand.’

  How many times had Ingham heard that in the years before Lotte? Little did the girls know. But one thing was true, they were jealous of his work. It isn’t that,’ Ingham said, feeling stupid.

  ‘What do you mean, it isn’t that?’

  She was supposed to cut through all this underbrush with a clear rapier brain, Ingham thought. He didn’t know what to say. She did blame him, and it might have been a lot better if she were angry. It isn’t enough to get married on,’ he said.

  ‘Oh, that’s obvious.’ Her hand moved in a limp, hopeless gesture.

  Ingham looked away from her hand. ‘You’ll meet someone else easily enough, I think. Maybe even before you leave Tunisia.’

  She laughed. ‘OWL?’ Then she got up and made Scotches. ‘How’re you going to finish that book if you don’t get any sleep?’

  ‘I’ll finish.’

  She was leaving for Paris in two days, or possibly tomorrow, and Ingham thought it would be tomorrow. She had had a cable from her office saying she could have another week. And of course the heat here was a bit much. The Scotch nearly knocked Ingham out, but he didn’t mind, in fact was grateful.

  ‘Shall we all have dinner tonight? You and I and Anders? Maybe OWL?’

  ‘I simply can’t. If you don’t mind.’ There were tears in her eyes.

  Ingham knew he had said the wrong thing, that he couldn’t improve things by proposing that they have dinner together alone. He stood up. The only thing he could do to please her was to leave. ‘Darling, I’ll ring you tomorrow to find out when you’re leaving.’

  T didn’t say I was leaving tomorrow.’

  She was standing barefoot in the white robe. He wanted to embrace her, but was afraid she would reject him. ‘I’ll call you anyway.’ He went to the door. ‘Bye-bye, darling.’

  He pulled the door to, and thought of nothing until he was down on the beach again, where he removed his sneakers. Now the hotter sand made him run fast to the water. He splashed in, wetting his dungaree cuffs, rolled them up, and plunged on towards Hammamet, ankle-deep, splashing. He had no doubt that Ina would see OWL tonight. OWL would express regret and disapproval.

  In his room, Ingham felt calmer. He made coffee, and drank it in sips as he tidied up. Jensen was quiet upstairs. Maybe both he and the dog were sleeping. With a second cup of coffee, he sat down to work. But before he could collect his thoughts about his chapter in progress, he thought of Lotte. The throb of loss, or maybe of lust or maybe love, went deeper this time. He had an impulse to write to her now (the only address he knew was their old one, but the letter might be forwarded), and to ask her how she was, ask her if she might like to see him sometime in New York, for a drink or for dinner, if she ever came to New York. Was she happy or unhappy? Might she possibly like to see him? They’d had very few mutual friends. There was no one Ingham could ask in New York about her. She’d been in California for over a year. He realized he wanted her back, just as she was. She had that incredible quality—not a virtue, not an achievement—which let her do no wrong. That was to say, no wrong in his eyes. She had made mistakes, she had behaved selfishly sometimes, but Ingham had some how never blamed her, never resented, never found fault. Was that love, he wondered, or simply madness? He decided that he must not write to her, though it was a brinkish decision.

  Another five minutes walking around his room, another cigarette, then he sat down and worked. Dennison was out of prison. The period had been seven years, which Ingham had compressed into five pages of intense prose of which he was rather proud. His wife, faithful always, had remained faithful. Dennison was forty-five now. Prison had not changed him. His head was unbowed, not at all bloodied, just a trifle dazed by the ways of the world that was not his world. Dennison was going to find a job in another company, an insurance company, and start the same financial manoeuvrings all over again. Other people’s hardships were intolerable to Dennison, if merely a little money could abolish them. Ingham, sweating, shirtless, in sticky white dungarees, produced five pages by four-thirty, got up from his chair and dropped on his bed. The air in the room, though everything was open, was motionless and saturated with heat. He was asleep within seconds.

>   He awakened with the now familiar logginess of brain that always took fifteen seconds to clear. Where was he? What was up or down? What time of day was it? What day of the week? Was there anything he had to do? Hasso was back. He had talked with Ina. He had got through the awful speech to her, or she had made it for him. One more day’s work, maybe a day and a half’s work, would finish Dennison’s Lights.

  Ingham took off his clothes and poured a bucket of water over himself on the terrace. He put on shorts, and soaked his sweaty dungarees in the bucket which he filled at the sink. Then he went up to see Jensen.

  He found Jensen painting, his blond hair dark with sweat. Jensen wore nothing but cotton underpants. The dog slept on the floor. ‘Can I invite you for dinner chez moi?’ Ingham asked.

  ‘Avec plaisir, m’sieur! J’accepte!’ Jensen looked bleary with fatigue, but happy. He was working on his picture of the Arab with the two huge sandals in the foreground. A jar of Vaseline was on the floor near Hasso.

  ‘Did you write your family about — Ingham pointed to Hasso.

  ‘I cabled them. I said I’d be home in a week.’

  ‘Really?—Well, that’s news.’ As the dog breathed, Ingham could see his ribs rise and fall under the black and buff hair.

  ‘I don’t want anything else to happen to him. The Choudis were very nice this morning. I think they were as glad as I was!’

  The Choudis were the Arab family next door.