Dear Marge, he would say. I’m writing this because I don’t think Dickie ever will, though I’ve asked him to many times. You’re much too fine a person to be strung along like this for so long . . .
He giggled again, then sobered himself by deliberately concentrating on the little problem that he hadn’t solved yet: Marge had also probably told the Italian police that she had talked to Tom Ripley at the Inghilterra. The police were going to wonder where the hell he went to. The police might be looking for him in Rome now. The police would certainly look for Tom Ripley around Dickie Greenleaf. It was an added danger—if they were, for instance, to think that he was Tom Ripley now, just from Marge’s description of him, and strip him and search him and find both his and Dickie’s passports. But what had he said about risks? Risks were what made the whole thing fun. He burst out singing:
Papa non vuole, Mama ne meno,
Come faremo far’ l’amor’?
He boomed it out in the bathroom as he dried himself. He sang in Dickie’s loud baritone that he had never heard, but he felt sure Dickie would have been pleased with his ringing tone.
He dressed, put on one of his new nonwrinkling traveling suits, and strolled out into the Palermo dusk. There across the plaza was the great Norman-influenced cathedral he had read about, built by the English archbishop Walter-of-the-Mill, he remembered from a guidebook. Then there was Siracusa to the south, scene of a mighty naval battle between the Latins and the Greeks. And Dionysius’ Ear. And Taormina. And Etna! It was a big island and brand-new to him. Sicilia! Stronghold of Giuliano! Colonized by the ancient Greeks, invaded by Norman and Saracen! Tomorrow he would commence his tourism properly, but this moment was glorious, he thought as he stopped to stare at the tall, towered cathedral in front of him. Wonderful to look at the dusty arches of its façade and to think of going inside tomorrow, to imagine its musty, sweetish smell, composed of the uncounted candles and incense-burnings of hundreds and hundreds of years. Anticipation! It occurred to him that his anticipation was more pleasant to him than his experiencing. Was it always going to be like that? When he spent evenings alone, handling Dickie’s possessions, simply looking at his rings on his own fingers, or his woolen ties, or his black alligator wallet, was that experiencing or anticipation?
Beyond Sicily came Greece. He definitely wanted to see Greece. He wanted to see Greece as Dickie Greenleaf with Dickie’s money, Dickie’s clothes, Dickie’s way of behaving with strangers. But would it happen that he couldn’t see Greece as Dickie Greenleaf? Would one thing after another come up to thwart him—murder, suspicion, people? He hadn’t wanted to murder, it had been a necessity. The idea of going to Greece, trudging over the Acropolis as Tom Ripley, American tourist, held no charm for him at all. He would as soon not go. Tears came in his eyes as he stared up at the campanile of the cathedral, and then he turned away and began to walk down a new street.
There was a letter for him the next morning, a fat letter from Marge. Tom squeezed it between his fingers and smiled. It was what he had expected, he felt sure, otherwise it wouldn’t have been so fat. He read it at breakfast. He savored every line of it along with his fresh warm rolls and his cinnamon-flavored coffee. It was all he could have expected, and more.
. . . If you really didn’t know that I had been by your hotel, that only means that Tom didn’t tell you, which leaves the same conclusion to be drawn. It’s pretty obvious now that you’re running out and can’t face me. Why don’t you admit that you can’t live without your little chum? I’m only sorry, old boy, that you didn’t have the courage to tell me this before and outright. What do you think I am, a small-town hick who doesn’t know about such things? You’re the only one who’s acting small-town! At any rate, I hope my telling you what you hadn’t the courage to tell me relieves your conscience a little bit and lets you hold your head up. There’s nothing like being proud of the person you love, is there! Didn’t we once talk about this?
Accomplishment Number Two of my Roman holiday is informing the police that Tom Ripley is with you. They seemed in a perfect tizzy to find him. (I wonder why? What’s he done now?) I also informed the police in my best Italian that you and Tom are inseparable and how they could have found you and still missed Tom, I could not imagine.
Changed my boat and I’ll be leaving for the States around the end of March, after a short visit to Kate in Munich, after which I presume our paths will never cross again. No hard feelings, Dickie boy. I’d just given you credit for a lot more guts.
Thanks for all the wonderful memories. They’re like something in a museum already or something preserved in amber, a little unreal, as you must have felt yourself always to me. Best wishes for the future,
Marge
Ugh! That corn at the end! Ah, Clabber Girl! Tom folded the letter and stuck it into his jacket pocket. He glanced at the two doors of the hotel restaurant, automatically looking for police. If the police thought that Dickie Greenleaf and Tom Ripley were traveling together, they must have checked the Palermo hotels already for Tom Ripley, he thought. But he hadn’t noticed any police watching him, or following him. Or maybe they’d given the whole boat scare up, since they were sure Tom Ripley was alive. Why on earth should they go on with it? Maybe the suspicion against Dickie in San Remo and in the Miles murder, too, had already blown over. Maybe.
He went up to his room and began a letter to Mr. Greenleaf on Dickie’s portable Hermes. He began by explaining the Miles affair very soberly and logically, because Mr. Greenleaf would probably be pretty alarmed by now. He said that the police had finished their questioning and that all they conceivably might want now was for him to try to identify any suspects they might find, because the suspect might be a mutual acquaintance of his and Freddie’s.
The telephone rang while he was typing. A man’s voice said that he was a Tenente Somebody of the Palermo police force.
“We are looking for Thomas Phelps Ripley. Is he with you in your hotel?” he asked courteously.
“No, he is not,” Tom replied.
“Do you know where he is?”
“I think he is in Rome. I saw him just three or four days ago in Rome.”
“He has not been found in Rome. You do not know where he might have been going from Rome?”
“I’m sorry, I haven’t the slightest idea,” Tom said.
“Peccato,” sighed the voice, with disappointment. “Grazie tante, signor.”
“Di niente.” Tom hung up and went back to his letter.
The dull yards of Dickie’s prose came out more fluently now than Tom’s own letters ever had. He addressed most of the letter to Dickie’s mother, told her the state of his wardrobe, which was good, and his health, which was also good, and asked if she had received the enamel triptych he had sent her from an antique store in Rome a couple of weeks ago. While he wrote, he was thinking of what he had to do about Thomas Ripley. The quest was apparently very courteous and lukewarm, but it wouldn’t do to take wild chances. He shouldn’t have Tom’s passport lying right in a pocket of his suitcase, even if it was wrapped up in a lot of old income tax papers of Dickie’s so that it wasn’t visible to a custom inspector’s eyes. He should hide it in the lining of the new antelope suitcase, for instance, where it couldn’t be seen even if the suitcase were emptied, yet where he could get at it on a few minutes’ notice if he had to. Because some day he might have to. There might come a time when it would be more dangerous to be Dickie Greenleaf than to be Tom Ripley.
Tom spent half the morning on the letter to the Greenleafs. He had a feeling that Mr. Greenleaf was getting restless and impatient with Dickie, not in the same way that he had been impatient when Tom had seen him in New York, but in a much more serious way. Mr. Greenleaf thought his removal from Mongibello to Rome had been merely an erratic whim, Tom knew. Tom’s attempt to make his painting and studying in Rome sound constructive had really been a failure. Mr. Greenleaf had dismissed it with a withering remark: something about his being sorry that he was still torturing h
imself with painting at all, because he should have learned by now that it took more than beautiful scenery or a change of scene to make a painter. Mr. Greenleaf had also not been much impressed by the interest Tom had shown in the Burke-Greenleaf folders that Mr. Greenleaf had sent him. It was a far cry from what Tom had expected by this time: that he would have Mr. Greenleaf eating out of his hand, that he would have made up for all Dickie’s negligence and unconcern for his parents in the past, and that he could ask Mr. Greenleaf for some extra money and get it. He couldn’t possibly ask Mr. Greenleaf for money now.
Take care of yourself, Moms [he wrote]. Watch out for those colds. [She had said she’d had four colds this winter, and had spent Christmas propped up in bed, wearing the pink woolen shawl he had sent her as one of his Christmas presents.] If you’d been wearing a pair of those wonderful woolen socks you sent me, you never would have caught the colds. I haven’t had a cold this winter, which is something to boast about in a European winter. . . . Moms, can I send you anything from here? I enjoy buying things for you . . .
20
Five days passed, calm, solitary but very agreeable days in which he rambled about Palermo, stopping here and there to sit for an hour or so in a café or a restaurant and read his guidebooks and the newspapers. He took a carrozza one gloomy day and rode all the way to Monte Pelligrino to visit the fantastic tomb of Santa Rosalia, the patron saint of Palermo, depicted in a famous statue, which Tom had seen pictures of in Rome, in one of those states of frozen ecstasy that are given other names by psychiatrists. Tom found the tomb vastly amusing. He could hardly keep from giggling when he saw the statue: the lush, reclining female body, the groping hands, the dazed eyes, the parted lips. It was all there but the actual sound of the panting. He thought of Marge. He visited a Byzantine palace, the Palermo library with its paintings and old cracked manuscripts in glass cases, and studied the formation of the harbor, which was carefully diagrammed in his guidebook. He made a sketch of a painting by Guido Reni, for no particular purpose, and memorized a long inscription by Tasso on one of the public buildings. He wrote letters to Bob Delancey and to Cleo in New York, a long letter to Cleo describing his travels, his pleasures, and his multifarious acquaintances with the convincing ardor of Marco Polo describing China.
But he was lonely. It was not like the sensation in Paris of being alone yet not alone. He had imagined himself acquiring a bright new circle of friends with whom he would start a new life with new attitudes, standards, and habits that would be far better and clearer than those he had had all his life. Now he realized that it couldn’t be. He would have to keep a distance from people, always. He might acquire the different standards and habits, but he could never acquire the circle of friends—not unless he went to Istanbul or Ceylon, and what was the use of acquiring the kind of people he would meet in those places? He was alone, and it was a lonely game he was playing. The friends he might make were most of the danger, of course. If he had to drift about the world entirely alone, so much the better: there was that much less chance that he would be found out. That was one cheerful aspect of it, anyway, and he felt better having thought of it.
He altered his behavior slightly, to accord with the role of a more detached observer of life. He was still courteous and smiling to everyone, to people who wanted to borrow his newspaper in restaurants and to clerks he spoke to in the hotel, but he carried his head even higher and he spoke a little less when he spoke. There was a faint air of sadness about him now. He enjoyed the change. He imagined that he looked like a young man who had had an unhappy love affair or some kind of emotional disaster, and was trying to recuperate in a civilized way, by visiting some of the more beautiful places on the earth.
That reminded him of Capri. The weather was still bad, but Capri was Italy. That glimpse he had had of Capri with Dickie had only whetted his appetite. Christ, had Dickie been a bore that day! Maybe he should hold out until summer, he thought, hold the police off until then. But even more than Greece and the Acropolis, he wanted one happy holiday in Capri, and to hell with culture for a while. He had read about Capri in winter—wind, rain, and solitude. But still Capri! There was Tiberius’s Leap and the Blue Grotto, the plaza without people but still the plaza, and not a cobblestone changed. He might even go today. He quickened his steps toward his hotel. The lack of tourists hadn’t detracted from the Côte d’ Azur. Maybe he could fly to Capri. He had heard of a seaplane service from Naples to Capri. If the seaplane wasn’t running in February, he could charter it. What was money for?
“Buon giorno! Come sta?” He greeted the clerk behind the desk with a smile.
“A letter for you, signore. Urgentissimo,” the clerk said, smiling, too.
It was from Dickie’s bank in Naples. Inside the envelope was another envelope from Dickie’s trust company in New York. Tom read the letter from the Naples bank first.
10 Feb., 19——
Most esteemed signor:
It has been called to our attention by the Wendell Trust Company of New York, that there exists a doubt whether your signature of receipt of your remittance of five hundred dollars of January last is actually your own. We hasten to inform you so that we may take the necessary action.
We have already deemed it proper to inform the police, but we await your confirmation of the opinion of our Inspector of Signatures and of the Inspector of Signatures of the Wendell Trust Company of New York. Any information you may be able to give will be most appreciated, and we urge you to communicate with us at your earliest possible convenience.
Most respectfully and obediently yours,
Emilio di Braganzi
Segretario Generale della Banca di Napoli
P.S. In the case that your signature is in fact valid, we urge you despite this to visit our offices in Naples as soon as possible in order to sign your name again for our permanent records. We enclose a letter to you sent in our care from the Wendell Trust Company.
Tom ripped open the trust company’s letter.
5 Feb., 19——
Dear Mr. Greenleaf:
Our Department of Signatures has reported to us that in its opinion your signature of January on your regular monthly remittance, No. 8747, is invalid. Believing this may for some reason have escaped your notice, we are hastening to inform you, so that you may confirm the signing of the said check or confirm our opinion that the said check has been forged. We have called this to the attention of the Bank of Naples also.
Enclosed is a card for our permanent signature file which we request you to sign and return to us.
Please let us hear from you as soon as possible.
Sincerely,
Edward T. Cavanach
Secretary
Tom wet his lips. He’d write to both banks that he was not missing any money at all. But would that hold them off for long? He had signed three remittances, beginning in December. Were they going to go back and check on all his signatures now? Would an expert be able to tell that all three signatures were forged?
Tom went upstairs and immediately sat down at the typewriter. He put a sheet of hotel stationery into the roller and sat there for a moment, staring at it. They wouldn’t rest with this, he thought. If they had a board of experts looking at the signatures with magnifying glasses and all that, they probably would be able to tell that the three signatures were forgeries. But they were such damned good forgeries, Tom knew. He’d signed the January remittance a little fast, he remembered, but it wasn’t a bad job or he never would have sent it off. He would have told the bank he lost the remittance and would have had them send him another. Most forgeries took months to be discovered, he thought. Why had they spotted this one in four weeks? Wasn’t it because they were checking on him in every department of his life, since the Freddie Miles murder and the San Remo boat story? They wanted to see him personally in the Naples bank. Maybe some of the men there knew Dickie by sight. A terrible, tingling panic went over his shoulders and down his legs. For a moment he felt weak and helpless, t
oo weak to move. He saw himself confronted by a dozen policemen, Italian and American, asking him where Dickie Greenleaf was, and being unable to produce Dickie Greenleaf or tell them where he was
or prove that he existed. He imagined himself trying to sign
H. Richard Greenleaf under the eyes of a dozen handwriting experts, and going to pieces suddenly and not being able to write at all. He brought his hands up to the typewriter keys and forced himself to begin. He addressed the letter to the Wendell Trust Company of New York.
12 Feb., 19——
Dear Sirs:
In regard to your letter concerning my January remittance:
I signed the check in question myself and received the money in full. If I had missed the check, I should of course have informed you at once.
I am enclosing the card with my signature for your permanent record as you requested.
Sincerely,
H. Richard Greenleaf
He signed Dickie’s signature several times on the back of the trust company’s envelope before he signed his letter and then the card. Then he wrote a similar letter to the Naples bank, and promised to call at the bank within the next few days and sign his name again for their permanent record. He marked both envelopes “Urgentissimo,” went downstairs and bought stamps from the porter and posted them.
Then he went out for a walk. His desire to go to Capri had vanished. It was four-fifteen in the afternoon. He kept walking, aimlessly. Finally, he stopped in front of an antique shop window and stared for several minutes at a gloomy oil painting of two bearded saints descending a dark hill in moonlight. He went into the shop and bought it for the first price the man quoted to him. It was not even framed, and he carried it rolled up under his arm back to his hotel.
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The Talented Mr. Ripley Page 18