Patricia Highsmith - The Tremor of Forgery Read Online Free PDF Page B

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.