Patricia Highsmith - The Tremor of Forgery (18 page)

They went into a bar and stood.
Boukhab
again. Then Ingham had a Scotch. The transistor, though tiny on the bar shelf, was blaring, and made talking difficult. The song whined on with no end in sight, and there was off and on singing, by a male or female voice, it was impossible to tell. When the voice stopped for a bit, the twanging, insinuating stringed instruments whammed in, as if to back up the griping vocalist with a
‘
Yeah
!
That
’
s what
I’
ve been saying all along!
’
And what were they complaining
about
?
Ingham wanted to laugh.

‘
Good God
.’
he said to Jensen, shaking his head.

Jensen smiled sligh
tl
y, apparently able to shut out the noise.

At their feet was a swill of cigarette butts, sawdust, and spit.
‘
Let
’
s go somewhere else
.’
Ingham said.

Jensen was willing.

Eventually they found a restaurant for dinner. Ingham could not eat his squid, or whatever it was, which he had ordered through a mistake of his own in the language, but at least he had the satisfaction of giving it to a grateful cat.

The next morning they paid their bill, and asked the hotel manager about camels.

‘
Ah, bien s
û
r, messieurs !
’
He quoted prices. He knew a camel-driver and where to find him.

They went off with their luggage to find the camel-drivers. The business took some time, because Jensen decided to wait for a driver due at ten or ten-thirty, according to the other camel-drivers. The drivers leaned casually, their pointed sandals crossed, against the round bodies of their camels, which were all lying around on the sand with their feet tucked in like cats. The camels looked more intelligent than
their drivers, Ingham thought. It was a disturbing intelligence in their faces, a look of knowledge that could not be acquired by going to any school. All the camels regarded him and Jensen with an amused curiosity, as if to say,
‘
Well, well, two
more
suckers!
’
Ingham was vaguely ashamed of his unromantic thoughts.

The awaited driver arrived on one camel, leading three others. Jensen struck the bargain. Six dinars each for overnight.

‘
They always make a big thing about having to feed the camels,
’
Jensen explained to Ingham,
‘
but the price isn
’
t bad.
’

Ingham hadn
’
t been on a camel since a certain trip to the 200 when he was a boy. He rather dreaded the lurching ride, and tried to anticipate falling off- nine feet down to the sand
—
so that it wouldn
’
t hurt so much if he did. The camel jolted him up, and they were off. After a few hundred yards, it was not as bad as Ingham had feared, but the undulant movement imposed by the camel
’
s gait made him feel silly. He would have preferred to gallop, leaning forward, in the manner of Lawrence of Arabia.

‘
Hey, Anders!
’
Ingham yelled.
‘
What
’
s our destination?
’

‘
We
’
re going towards Chenini. That little town we looked up last night.
’
Jensen was on the camel ahead.

‘
Wasn
’
t it ten kilometres away?
’

‘
I think so.
’
Jensen spoke to the driver, who was on the lead camel, then turned back to Ingham.
‘
We can
’
t walk in the desert all day, you know. We
’
ll have to have shelter from eleven to four somewhere.
’

The desert was widening about them.
‘
Where?
’
Ingham asked, unalarmed.

‘
Oh, trust him. He
’
s no doubt making a bee-line for a shelter.
’

This was true, but it was eleven-forty before they reached a tiny town, or cluster of houses, and Ingham was glad to stop. He had covered his head with a handkerchief. Jensen had an old canvas cap. The place had a name, but it slipped
from Ingham
’
s mind as soon as he heard it. There was a grocery store-restaurant which sold
bottle
d drinks from a Pepsi-Cola dispenser tank, but there was no ice in the tank, only tepid water. A lunch was produced by the proprietor of the place, chick peas with lumps of inedible sausage, Jensen and Ingham ate at a tiny round table, their metal chairs slanting crazily in the sand. Ingham could not imagine why, or how, people lived here, though there was a road of sorts leading to and from the place, a ghostly trail in the sand which a jeep or a Land-Rover could use, he supposed. They drank some
boukhab
after their lunch. Jensen had picked up a bottle somewhere. Jensen said the only thing to do was sleep for an hour or so.

‘
Unless you want to read. I might make a sketch
.’
Jensen got a drawing pad from his suitcase.

There were two more stops in the course of the day. Jensen had quite a conversation with the driver, which he said was on the subject of where they would spend the night. The driver knew of a grove of palms, though it was not an oasis. They arrived there just before seven o
’
clock. The sun had just set. The horizon was orange, the landscape empty, but there was a cardboard carton, some old tins under the trees, which suggested that this spot might be a favourite for camel-drivers to bring their customers to. Ingham was not fussy. He thought it all quite wonderful. Venus was shining.

Jensen had bought tins of beans and sardines
en route
from the hotel to the camels this morning. Ingham did not care if the food was hot or cold, but Jensen set up his cooking-stove. He invited the driver to partake, but he declined politely, and produced his own food from somewhere. He also declined Jensen
’
s offer of a
boukhab.

Before he ate, the driver read in the failing light from a little book.

Jensen glanced at the driver and said to Ingham,
‘
It takes imagination to enjoy a drink. There he is with the Koran, no
doubt. You know, they either drink like maniacs or they
’
re stubborn
—
dries. What do you call them?
’

‘
Teetotallers
.
’
Ingham said.
‘
He
’
s not very friendly, is he?
’

‘
Maybe he thinks he can
’
t do me, because I know some Arabic. But I have the feeling he has just had a sadness of some kind.
’

‘
Really?
’
Ingham imagined that Arabs were more or less always the same from one day to the next, that no external event could much affect them.

After their dinner out of a mutual pot, eaten with spoons, Jensen and Ingham lay on their blankets and smoked, facing the direction in which the sun had gone down. A palm tree half sheltered them. The
boukhah
bottle
was between them, pushed into the sand so it would stand upright. Ingham drank mos
tl
y from Jensen
’
s canteen of water. The stars came out more and more, and became powdery with profusion. There was no sound except an occasional swish of breeze in the palm leaves.

Just as he was about to speak, Ingham saw a shooting star. It went on a long way downward in the sky
—
seven inches, he thought, if the sky had been a canvas and had been of a certain nearness.
‘
Remember the night,
’
Ingham said,
‘
about three weeks ago, when I went to your house the first time? As I was leaving, walking towards the road, I came across a dead man. In that second stretch, after the turn. Lying in the alley.
’

‘
Really?
’
asked Jensen without too much surprise.

Ingham was speaking softly.
‘
I stumbled over him. Then I lit a match. The fellow
’
d had his throat cut. The body was even cold. You didn
’
t hear anything about it?
’

‘
No, I didn
’
t.
’

‘
What do you think happens to the body? Somebody has to remove it.
’

Jensen paused for a swig from the
bottle
.
‘
Oh, first somebody would cover it up to hide it. Then a couple of Arabs would haul it away on a donkey, bury it in the sand
somewhere. That is, if there
’
s some reason to hide it and there usually is if a man
’
s murdered. Excuse me a minute
.’
Jensen got up and disappeared somewhere in the palm grove.

Ingham put his head down on his forearms. The camel-driver had set
tl
ed himself under robes next to one of his camels, and might be asleep by now. He was out of hearing, and probably could not understand English, but Ingham disliked his closeness. Ingham stood up as Jensen came back.
‘
Let
’
s walk a little bit away
.’
Ingham said.

Jensen took his flashlight. It was very dark when they left the cooking-stove. The flashlight
’
s beam bobbed on the irregular ripples of sand before them. Ingham imagined the ripples mountains, hundreds of feet high, imagined that he and Jensen were giants walking on the moon; or perhaps their actual size, walking on a new planet populated by tiny people to whom these ripples were mountains. They walked slowly, and both glanced behind to see how far they had gone from the palm trees. The trees were not visible, but the stove glowed like a spark.

Ingham plunged in.
‘
I had an attempted robbery at my bungalow a few nights ago.
’

‘
Oh?
’
said Jensen, sounding English as he did sometimes, weaving a little in the soft sand.
‘
What happened?
’

‘
I was asleep and I woke up when the door was being opened. I
’
d forgotten to lock my door. Someone started to come in. I picked up my typewriter and threw it as hard as I could. I hit the man right in the forehead.
’
Ingham came to a stop, and so did Jensen. They faced each other without seeing each other. Jensen
’
s torch pointed at their feet.
‘
The thing is
—I
think I might
’
ve killed the man. I think he was the one they call Abdullah. You know, the old fellow with the turban and the red pants? The one who stole something out of my car?
’

‘
Yes, sure,
’
Jensen said attentively, as if waiting for the rest.
‘
Well
—
I
’
d got behind my table, you see, as soon as I heard
someone coming in. Then I grabbed the first thing to hand, my typewriter. He gave a howl and fell, and I shut the door. After a minute or so, I heard some of the hotel boys come and drag the fellow away
.’
A longer pause. Jensen wasn
’
t saying anything.
“
The next morning I asked one of the boys, Mokta. He said he didn
’
t know anything about it, which I know isn
’
t true. The point is, I think the Arab was dead and they took him somewhere and buried him. I certainly haven
’
t seen Abdullah since.
’

Jensen shrugged.

Ingham sensed the shrug without actually seeing it.

‘
He could be recovering somewhere.
’
Jensen laughed a little.
‘
When was this?
’

The night of July fourteenth-fifteenth. A Friday night. That
’
s eleven days ago.
—
I
’
d like to know for sure, you see. It was a hell of a blow right in the forehead. It bent my typewriter frame. That
’
s why my typewriter
’
s being repaired.
’

‘
Oh, I see.
’
Jensen laughed.

‘
Have you seen Abdullah lately?
’

‘
I hadn
’
t thought about it.
—
You know, he doesn
’
t dare to walk in my
little
street, they hate him so there.
’

‘
Really?
’
Ingham said weakly. He realized he did not appreciate the information. He felt a little faint.
‘
Let
’
s walk back. Another thing makes me think it was Abdullah. I saw him that evening around six near the hotel. And Adams also said he saw him by the gift shop on the road there. The same night.
’
Ingham knew these details bored Jensen, but he could not stop himself from saying them.

‘
Did you tell this story to Adams?
’
Jensen asked, and Ingham could tell Jensen was smiling.

‘
No, I lied.
’

‘
Lied?
’