The Black House

by Patricia Highsmith

  “Well—funeral service tomorrow in a Long Island—um—funeral home, it says.”

  Peter and Lucienne agreed they should go.

  The group of friends, Lucienne Gauss, Peter Tomlin, the Markuses, the Forbeses, Tom Strathmore, Anita Ketchum, were all there and formed at least a half of the small gathering. Maybe a few of Edmund’s relatives had come, but the group wasn’t sure: Edmund’s family lived in the Chicago area, and no one had ever met any of them. Magda was there, dressed in gray with a thin black veil. She stood apart, and barely nodded to Lucienne and the others. It was a nondenominational service to which Lucienne paid no attention, and she doubted if her friends did—except to recognize the words as empty rote and close their ears to it. Afterwards, Lucienne and Charles said they didn’t wish to follow the casket to the grave, and neither did the others.

  Anita’s mouth looked stony, though it was fixed in a pensive, very faint smile. Taxis waited, and they straggled towards them. Tom Strathmore walked with his head down. Charles Forbes looked up at the late summer sky. Charles walked between his wife, Ellen, and Lucienne, and suddenly he said to Lucienne:

  “You know, I rang Edmund up a couple of times in the night—just to annoy him. I have to confess that. Ellen knows.”

  “Did you,” said Lucienne calmly.

  Tom, just behind them, had heard this. “I did worse,” he said with a twitch of a smile. “I told Edmund he might lose his job if he started taking Magda out with him on his business lunches.”

  Ellen laughed. “Oh, that’s not serious, Tom. That’s—” But she didn’t finish.

  We killed him, Lucienne thought. Everybody was thinking that, and no one had the guts to say it. Anyone of them might have said, “We killed him, you know?” but no one did. “We’ll miss him,” Lucienne said finally, as if she meant it.

  “Ye-es,” someone replied with equal gravity.

  They climbed into three taxis, promising to see each other soon.

  The Terrors of

  Basket-Weaving

  Diane’s terror began in an innocent and fortuitous way. She and her husband, Reg, lived in Manhattan, but had a cottage on the Massachusetts coast near Truro where they spent most weekends. Diane was a press relations officer in an agency called Retting. Reg was a lawyer. They were both thirty-eight, childless by choice, and both earned good salaries.

  They enjoyed walks along the beach, and usually they took walks alone, not with each other. Diane liked to look for pretty stones, interesting shells, bottles of various sizes and colors, bits of wood rubbed smooth by sand and wind. These items she took back to the unpainted gray cottage they called “the shack,” lived with them for a few weeks or months, then Diane threw nearly all of them out, because she didn’t want the shack to become a magpie’s nest. One Sunday morning she found a wicker basket bleached nearly white and with its bottom stoved in, but its frame and sides quite sturdy. This looked like an old-fashioned crib basket for a baby, because one end of it rose higher than the other, the foot part tapered, and it was just the size for a newborn or for a baby up to a few months. It was the kind called a Moses basket, Diane thought.

  Was the basket even American? It was amusing to think that it might have fallen overboard or been thrown away, old and broken, from a passing Italian tanker, or some foreign boat that might have had a woman and child on board. Anyway, Diane decided to take it home, and she put it for the nonce on a bench on the side porch of the shack, where colored stones and pebbles and sea glass already lay. She might try to repair it, for fun, because in its present condition it was useless. Reg was then shifting sand with a snow shovel from one side of the wooden front steps, and was going to plant more beach grass from the dunes, like a second line of troops, between them and the sea to keep the sand in place. His industry, which Diane knew would go on another hour or so until lunchtime—and cold lobster and potato salad was already in the fridge—inspired her to try her hand at the basket now.

  She had realized a few minutes before that the kind of slender twigs she needed stood already in a brass cylinder beside their small fireplace. Withes or withies—the words sounded nice in her head—might be more appropriate, but on the other hand the twigs would give more strength to the bottom of a basket which she might use to hold small potted plants, for instance. One would be able to move several pots into the sun all at once in a basket—if she could mend the basket.

  Diane took the pruning shears, and cut five lengths of reddish-brown twigs—results of a neighbor’s apple-tree pruning, she recalled—and then snipped nine shorter lengths for the crosspieces. She estimated she would need nine. A ball of twine sat handy on a shelf, and Diane at once got to work. She plucked out what was left of the broken pieces in the basket, and picked up one of her long twigs. The slightly pointed ends, an angle made by the shears, slipped easily between the sturdy withes that formed the bottom rim. She took up a second and a third. Diane then, before she attempted to tie the long pieces, wove the shorter lengths under and over the longer, at right angles. The twigs were just flexible enough to be manageable, and stiff enough to be strong. No piece projected too far. She had cut them just the right length, measuring only with her eye or thumb before snipping. Then the twine.

  Over and under, around the twig ends at the rim and through the withes already decoratively twisted there, then a good solid knot. She was able to continue with the cord to the next twig in a couple of places, so she did not have to tie a knot at each crosspiece. Suddenly to her amazement the basket was repaired, and it looked splendid.

  In her first glow of pride, Diane looked at her watch. Hardly fifteen minutes had passed since she had come into the house! How had she done it? She held the top end of the basket up, and pressed the palm of her right hand against the floor of the basket. It gave out firm-sounding squeaks. It had spring in it. And strength. She stared at the neatly twisted cord, at the correct over-and-under lengths, all about the diameter of pencils, and she wondered again how she had done it.

  That was when the terror began to creep up on her, at first like a faint suspicion or surmise or question. Had she some relative or ancestor not so far in the past, who had been an excellent basket-weaver? Not that she knew of, and the idea made her smile with amusement. Grandmothers and great-grandmothers who could quilt and crochet didn’t count. This was more primitive.

  Yes, people had been weaving baskets thousands of years before Christ, and maybe even a million years ago, hadn’t they? Baskets might have come before clay pots.

  The answer to her question, how had she done it, might be that the ancient craft of basket-weaving had been carried on for so long by the human race that it had surfaced in her this Sunday morning in the late twentieth century. Diane found this thought rather frightening.

  As she set the table for lunch, she upset a wine glass, but the glass was empty and it didn’t break. Reg was still shoveling, but slowing up, nearly finished. It was still early for lunch, but Diane had wanted the table set, the salad dressing made in the wooden bowl, before she took a swat at the work she had brought with her. Finally she sat with a yellow pad and pencil, and opened the plastic-covered folder marked RETTING, plus her own name, DIANE CLARKE, in smaller letters at the bottom. She had to write three hundred words about a kitchen gadget that extracted air from plastic bags of apples, oranges, potatoes or whatever. After the air was extracted, the bags could be stored in the bottom of the fridge as usual, but the product kept much longer and took up less space because of the absence of air in the bag. She had seen the gadget work in the office, and she had a photograph of it now. It was a sixteen-inch-long tube which one fastened to the cold water tap in the kitchen. The water from the tap drained away, but its force moved a turbine in the tube, which created a vacuum after a hollow needle was stuck into the sealed bag. Diane understood the principle quite well, but she began to feel odd and disoriented.

  It was odd to be sittin
g in a cottage built in a simple style more than a hundred years ago, to have just repaired a basket in the manner that people would have made or repaired a basket thousands of years ago, and to be trying to compose a sentence about a gadget whose existence depended upon modern plumbing, sealed packaging, transport by machinery of fruit and vegetables grown hundreds of miles (possibly thousands) from the places where they would be consumed. If this weren’t so, people could simply carry fruit and vegetables home in a sack from the fields, or in baskets such as the one she had just mended.

  Diane put down the pencil, picked up a ballpoint pen, lit a cigarette, and wrote the first words. “Need more space in your fridge? Tired of having to buy more lemons at the supermarket than you can use in the next month? Here is an inexpensive gadget that might interest you.” It wasn’t particularly inexpensive, but no matter. Lots of people were going to pay thousands of dollars for this gadget. She would be paid a sizable amount also, meaning a certain fraction of her salary for writing about it. As she worked on, she kept seeing a vision of her crib-shaped basket and thinking that the basket—per se, as a thing to be used—was far more important than the kitchen gadget. However, it was perfectly normal to consider a basket more important or useful, she supposed, for the simple reason that a basket was.

  “Nice walk this morning?” Reg asked, relaxing with a pre-lunch glass of cold white wine. He was standing in the low-ceilinged living room, in shorts, an unbuttoned shirt, sandals. His face had browned further, and the skin was pinkish over his cheekbones.

  “Yes. Found a basket. Rather nice. Want to see it?”

  “Sure.”

  She led the way to the side porch, and indicated the basket on the wooden table. “The bottom was all broken—so I fixed it.”

  “You fixed it?” Reg was leaning over it with admiration. “Yeah, I can see. Nice job, Di.”

  She felt a tremor, a little like shame. Or was it fear? She felt uncomfortable as Reg picked up the basket and looked at its underside. “Might be nice to hold kindling—or magazines, maybe,” she said. “We can always throw it away when we get bored with it.”

  “Throw it away, no! It’s sort of amusing—shaped like a baby’s cradle or something.”

  “That’s what I thought—that it must have been made for a baby.” She drifted back into the living room, wishing now that Reg would stop examining the basket.

  “Didn’t know you had such talents, Di. Girl Scout lore?”

  Diane gave a laugh. Reg knew she’d never joined the Girl Scouts. “Don’t forget the Gartners are coming at seven-thirty.”

  “Um-m. Yes, thanks. I didn’t forget.—What’s for dinner? We’ve got everything we need?”

  Diane said they had. The Gartners were bringing raspberries from their garden plus cream. Reg had meant he was willing to drive to town in case they had to buy anything else.

  The Gartners arrived just before eight, and Reg made dacquiris. There was scotch for any who preferred it, and Olivia Gartner did. She was a serious drinker and held it well. An investment counselor, she was, and her husband Pete was a professor in the math department at Columbia.

  Diane, after a swim around four o’clock, had collected some dry reeds from the dunes and among these had put a few long-stemmed blossoming weeds and wild flowers, blue and pink and orangy-yellow. She had laid all these in the crib-shaped basket which she had set on the floor near the fireplace.

  “Isn’t this pretty!” said Olivia during her second scotch, as if the drink had opened her eyes. She meant the floral arrangement, but Reg at once said:

  “And look at the basket, Olivia! Diane found it on the beach today and repaired it.” Reg lifted the basket as high as his head, so Olivia and Pete could admire its underside.

  Olivia chuckled. “That’s fantastic, Diane! Beautiful! How long did it take you?—It’s a sweet basket.”

  “That’s the funny thing,” Diane began, eager to express herself. “It took me about twelve minutes!”

  “Look how proud she is of it!” said Reg, smiling.

  Pete was running his thumb over the apple twigs at the bottom, nodding his approval.

  “Yes, it was almost terrifying,” Diane went on.

  “Terrifying?” Pete lifted his eyebrows.

  “I’m not explaining myself very well.” Diane had a polite smile on her face, though she was serious. “I felt as if I’d struck some hidden talent or knowledge—just suddenly. Everything I did, I felt sure of. I was amazed.”

  “Looks strong too,” Pete said, and set the basket back where it had been.

  Then they talked about something else. The cost of heating, if they used their cottages at all in the coming winter. Diane had hoped the basket conversation would continue a little longer. Another round of drinks, while Diane put their cold supper on the table. Bowls of jellied consommé with a slice of lemon to start with. They sat down. Diane felt unsatisfied. Or was it a sense of disturbance? Disturbance because of what? Just because they hadn’t pursued the subject of the basket? Why should they have? It was merely a basket to them, mended the way anyone could have mended it. Or could just anyone have mended it that well? Diane happened to be sitting at the end of the table, so the basket was hardly four feet from her, behind her and to her right. She felt bothered somehow even by the basket’s nearness. That was very odd. She must get to the bottom of it—that was funny, in view of the basket repair—but now wasn’t the time, with three other people talking, and half her mind on seeing that her guests had a good meal.

  While they were drinking coffee, Diane lit three candles and the oil lamp, and they listened to a record of Mozart divertimenti. They didn’t listen, but it served as background music for their conversation. Diane listened to the music. It sounded skillful, even modern, and extremely civilized. Diane enjoyed her brandy. The brandy too seemed the epitome of human skill, care, knowledge. Not like a basket any child could put together. Perhaps a child in years couldn’t, but a child as to progress in the evolution of the human race could weave a basket.

  Was she possibly feeling her drinks? Diane pulled her long cotton skirt farther down over her knees. The subject was lobbies now, the impotence of any president, even Congress against them.

  Monday morning early Diane and Reg flew back to New York by helicopter. Neither had to be at work before eleven. Diane had supposed that New York and work would put the disquieting thoughts re the basket out of her head, but that was not so. New York seemed to emphasize what she had felt up at the shack, even though the origin of her feelings had stayed at the shack. What were her feelings, anyway? Diane disliked vagueness, and was used to labeling her emotions jealousy, resentment, suspicion or whatever, even if the emotion was not always to her credit. But this?

  What she felt was most certainly not guilt, though it was similarly troubling and unpleasant. Not envy either, not in the sense of desiring to master basketry so she could make a truly great basket, whatever that was. She’d always thought basket-weaving an occupation for the simpleminded, and it had become in fact a symbol of what psychiatrists advised disturbed people to take up. That was not it at all.

  Diane felt that she had lost herself. Since repairing that basket, she wasn’t any longer Diane Clarke, not completely, anyway. Neither was she anybody else, of course. It wasn’t that she felt she had assumed the identity, even partially, of some remote ancestor. How remote, anyway? No. She felt rather that she was living with a great many people from the past, that they were in her brain or mind (Diane did not believe in a soul, and found the idea of a collective unconscious too vague to be of importance), and that people from human antecedents were bound up with her, influencing her, controlling her every bit as much as, up to now, she had been controlling herself. This thought was by no means comforting, but it was at least a partial explanation, maybe, for the disquietude that she was experiencing. It was not even an explanation, she rea
lized, but rather a description of her feelings.

  She wanted to say something to Reg about it and didn’t, thinking that anything she tried to say along these lines would sound either silly or fuzzy. By now five days had passed since she had repaired the basket up at Truro, and they were going up to the shack again this weekend. The five working days at the office had passed as had a lot of other weeks for Diane. She had had a set-to with Jan Heyningen, the art director, on Wednesday, and had come near telling him what she thought of his stubbornness and bad taste, but she hadn’t. She had merely smoldered. It had happened before. She and Reg had gone out to dinner at the apartment of some friends on Thursday. All as usual, outwardly.

  The unusual was the schizoid atmosphere in her head. Was that it? Two personalities? Diane toyed with this possibility all Friday afternoon at the office while she read through new promotion-ready material. Was she simply imagining that several hundred prehistoric ancestors were somehow dwelling within her? No, frankly, she wasn’t. That idea was even less credible than Jung’s collective unconscious. And suddenly she rejected the simple schizo idea or explanation also. Schizophrenia was a catch-all, she had heard, for a lot of derangements that couldn’t otherwise be diagnosed. She didn’t feel schizoid, anyway, didn’t feel like two people, or three, or more. She felt simply scared, mysteriously terrified. But only one thing in the least awkward happened that week: she had let one side of the lettuce-swinger slip out of her hand on the terrace, and lettuce flew everywhere, hung from the potted bamboo trees, was caught on rose thorns, lay fresh and clean on the red tile paving, and on the seat of the glider. Diane had laughed, even though there was no more lettuce in the house. She was tense, perhaps, therefore clumsy. A little accident like that could happen any time.

  During the flight to the Cape, Diane had a happy thought: she’d use the basket not just for floral arrangements but for collecting more objets trouvés from the beach, or better yet for potatoes and onions in the kitchen. She’d treat it like any old basket. That would take the mystique out of it, the terror. To have felt terror was absurd.