Patricia Highsmith - The Tremor of Forgery
Page 6
‘You can see it in their faces, the men who have turned their back on God,’ Adams droned on.
Where was God, that one could turn one’s back on him?
Adams’s pouches became pouchier. He was smiling and chewing contentedly at once.
‘Drug addicts, alcoholics, homosexuals, criminals—and even the ordinary man in the street, if he’s forgotten the Right Way—they’re all wretched. But they can be shown the Right Way…’
My God, Ingram thought, was Adams cracked? And why throw in the homosexuals?
‘Oh, I come to the garden alone,
When the dew is still on the roses.
And the voice I hear,
Falling on my ear,
Is my Saviour’s, my Saviour’s alone.’
Falling on your ear? Can’t you come to the garden sober? The remembered schoolboy joke brought irrepressible laughter, which Ingham gulped down, though tears stood in his eyes. Fortunately, Adams didn’t take his smile amiss, because Ingham could not possibly have explained it. Adams was still smiling complaisantly himself.
‘I’m sure you’re right,’ Ingham said forcefully, hoping to wind it up. One might be friendly, but one did not make friends with people like Adams, Ingham was thinking. They were dangerous.
A few minutes later, as Adams was tapering off, though still on the subject of Our Way of life, Ingham asked, ‘What about some of the things normal people do in bed? Heterosexuals. Do you disapprove of those things?’
‘What things do you mean?’ Adams asked attentively, and Ingham thought very likely Adams really didn’t know about them.
“Well—various things. Matter of fact, the same things homosexuals do. The very same things.’
‘Oh. Well, they’re still male and female. Man and wife,’ Adams said cheerfully, tolerantly.
Yes, if they happened to be married, Ingham thought. “That’s true,’ Ingham said. If OWL preached tolerance, Ingham would not be outdone. But Ingham sensed his mind beginning to boggle, as it so often did with Adams, his own unassailable arguments seeming to turn to sand. That was what happened in brainwashing, Ingham thought. It was odd.
‘Have you ever written anything,’ Ingham asked, ‘on these subjects ?’
Adams’s smile became a little sly.
Ingham could see that he had, or wanted to, or was writing something now.
‘You’re a man of letters who I think I can trust.’ Adams said. ‘I do write, in a way, yes. Come to my bungalow when we get home and I’ll show you.’
Ingham paid for their inexpensive dinner, because he felt he had been a little rude to Adams, and because Adams had driven him here in his Cadillac. Ingham was glad Adams had driven, because half an hour after his dinner, he began to have waves of gripes in his lower abdomen, in fact all over his abdomen, up to the ribs. In Hammamet, back at the bungalows, Ingham excused himself under pretext of getting another pack of cigarettes, and went to the toilet. Diarrhea, and pretty bad. He swallowed a couple of Entero-Vioform tablets, then went over to Adams’s.
Adams showed Ingham into his bedroom. Ingham had never been in the room before. It had a double bed with a very pretty red, white and blue counterpane, which Adams must have bought. There were a few shelves of books, more pictures—all photographs—a cosy, lighted nook within reach of the head of the bed, which contained a few books, a notebook, pen, ashtray, matches.
Adams opened a tall closet with a key, and pulled out a handsome black leather suitcase, which he unlocked with a small key on his key ring. Adams opened the suitcase on the bed. There was a radio of some sort, a tape machine, and two thick stacks of manuscript, all neatly arranged in the suitcase.
‘This is what I write,’ Adams said, gesturing towards the typewritten stacks of papers at one side of the suitcase. ‘In fact, I broadcast it, as you see. Every Wednesday night’ Adams chuckled.
‘Really?’ So that was what Adams did on Wednesdays. ‘That’s very interesting,’ Ingham said. ‘You broadcast in English?’
‘In American. It goes behind the Iron Curtain. In fact, exclusively behind the Iron Curtain.’
‘You’re employed then. By the Government. The Voice of America?’
Adams shook his head quickly. ‘If you’ll swear not to tell anyone —’
‘I swear,’ Ingham said.
Adams relaxed slightly and spoke more softly. ‘I’m employed by a small group of anti-Communists behind the Iron Curtain. Matter of fact, they’re not a small group by any means. They don’t pay me much, because they haven’t got it. The money comes via Switzerland, and that’s complicated enough, I understand. I know only one man in the group. I broadcast pro-American, pro-Western—what shall I call it? Philosophy. Pep talks.’ Adams chuckled.
‘Very interesting,’ Ingham said. ‘How long’ve you been doing this?’
‘Almost a year now.’
‘How did they contact you?’
1 met a man on a ship. About a year ago. We were on the same ship going from Venice to Yugoslavia. He was a great card-player on the ship.’ Adams smiled reminiscently. ‘Not dishonest, just a brilliant bridge-player. Poker, too. He’s a journalist, lives in Moscow. But of course he’s not allowed to write what he thinks. He sticks strictly to the party line when he writes for the Moscow papers. But he’s an important man in the underground organization. He got this equipment for me in Dubrovnik and gave it to me.’ Adams gestured with a proud flourish at his tape recorder and sender.
Ingham looked down with, he felt, a dazed respect at the suitcase. He wondered just how much they paid Adams. And why, when Radio Free Europe and the Voice of America were booming the same kind of thing into Russia free? ‘Have you a special wavelength or something that the Russians can’t jam?’
‘Yes, so I was told. I can shift the wavelength, depending on the orders I have. The orders come in code to me here from Switzerland—Italy sometimes. Would you like to hear a tape?’
‘I would indeed.’ Ingham said.
Adams lifted the tape recorder from the suitcase. From a metal box in the suitcase he took a roll of tape. ‘March-April inclusive. We’ll try this.’ He fixed it in the machine and pushed a button. ‘I won’t play it loud.’
Ingham sat down on the other side of the bed.
The machine hissed, then Adams’s voice came on.
‘Good evening, ladies and gentlemen, Russians and non-Russians, brothers everywhere, friends of democracy and of America. This is Robin Goodfellow, an ordinary American citizen, just as many of you, listening, are ordinary citizens of your own…’
Adams had winked at Ingham at the name ‘Robin Good-fellow’. He advanced the tape a bit.
‘… what many of you thought of the news that came from Vietnam today. Five American planes shot down by the Viet-cong, say the Americans. Seventeen American planes shot down, say the Vietcong. The Vietcong say they lost one plane. The Americans say the Vietcong lost nine. Someone is lying. Who? Who do you think? What country discloses her failures as well as her successes when it comes to rocket take-offs? When it comes even to the poverty in its land—which the Americans are fighting just as hard to erase as they are fighting lies, tyranny, poverty, illiteracy and Communism in Vietnam? The answer is America. All of you…’
Adams pushed a button which advanced the tape in jerks. ‘Sort of a dull section.’ The muted tape screamed, hiccuped, and Adams spoke again. Ingham was aware of Adams’s tense, self-satisfied smile as he sat perched on the other side of the bed, though Ingham could not look at him, but kept his eyes on the tape machine. His abdomen was contracting, getting ready for another wave of pain.
‘… comfort to us all. The new American soldier is a crusader, bringing not only peace- eventually-but a happier, healthier, more profitable way of life to whatever country he sets foot in. And unfortunately, so often that setting foot’ (Adams’s voice had dropped dramatically to a hushed tone and stopped)—‘that setting foot means the death of that soldier, the telegram of bad news to his family back home, tragedy
to his young wife or sweetheart, bereavement to his children...’
‘Again not too exciting.’ Adams said, though he looked very excited himself. More squeaks and gulps from the tape machine, a couple of samples which did not please Adams, then:
‘… the voice of God will prevail at last. The men who put people before all else will triumph. The men who put ‘the State’ first, in defiance of human values, will perish. America fights to preserve human values. America fights not only to preserve herself but all others who would follow in her path—in our blessed way of life. Good night, my friends.’
Click. Adams turned the machine off.
Our Blessed Way of Life. OBWL. Not pronounceable. Ingham hesitated, then said, ‘That’s very impressive.’
‘You like it. Good.’ Adams began briskly putting his equipment away, back into the closet which he again locked.
If it was all true, Ingham was thinking, .’.’”Adams was paid by the Russians, he was paid because it was so absurd, it was really rather good anti-American propaganda. ‘I wonder how many people it reaches? How many listen?’
‘Upwards of six million.’ Adams replied. ‘So my friends say. I call them my friends, although I don’t even know their names, except the one man I told you about. A price is on their heads, if they’re found out. And they’re gaining recruits all the time, of course.’
Ingham nodded. ‘What’s their final plan? I mean about—changing their government’s policy and all that?’
“It’s not so much a final plan as a war of attrition.’ Adams said with his confident, pouchy smile, and from the happy sparkle in his eyes, Ingham knew that this was where his heart lay, his raison d’être, in these weekly broadcasts that carried the American Way of Life behind the Iron Curtain. “The results may not even be seen in my lifetime. But if people listen, and they do, I make my effect.’
Ingham felt blank for a moment. ‘How long are your talks?’
‘Fifteen minutes.—You mustn’t tell anyone here. Not even another American. Matter of fact, you’re the first American I’ve told about it. I don’t even tell my daughter, just in case it might leak out. You understand?’
‘Of course,’ Ingham said. It was late, after midnight. He wanted to leave. It was an uncomfortable feeling, like claustrophobia.
‘I’m not paid much, but to tell you the truth, I’d do it for nothing,’ Adams said. ‘Let’s go in the other room.’
Ingham declined Adams’s offer of a coffee or a nightcap, and managed to leave in five minutes, and gracefully. But as he walked in the dark back towards his own bungalow, he felt somehow shaky. Ingham went to bed, but after a moment, his insides began churning, and he was up and in the bathroom. This time he vomited, as well. That was good, Ingham thought, in case the trouble had been the poisson-complet—the fried fish with fried egg—at the restaurant in La Goulette. He took more Entero-Vioform.
It became 3 a.m. Ingham tried to rest between seizures. He sweated. A cold towel on his forehead made him too cold, a sensation he had not had in a long time. He vomited again. He wondered if he should try to get a doctor—it didn’t seem reasonable to endure this much discomfort for another six hours—but there was no telephone in the bungalow, and Ingham could not face, even though he had a flashlight now, trudging across the sand to the main building, where in fact he might find no one to open the door at this hour. Call Mokta? Wake him at the bungalow headquarters? Ingham could not bring himself to do that. He sweated it out until daylight. He had thrown up and brushed his teeth three or four times.
At six-thirty or seven o’clock, people were up at the bungalow headquarters. Ingham thought vaguely of trying for a doctor, of asking for some kind of medicine more effective than Entero-Vioform. Ingham put on his robe over bis pyjamas, and walked in sandals to the bungalow headquarters. He was chilly and exhausted. Before he quite reached the building, he saw Adams prancing on his little arched feet out of his bungalow, briskly locking his door, briskly turning.
Adams hailed him. ‘Hello! What’s up?’
Somewhat feebly, Ingham explained the situation.
‘Oh, my goodness! You should have knocked me up—as the English say, ha-ha! Throwing up, eh? First of all, take some Pepto-Bismol. Come in, Howard!’
Ingham went into Adams’s bungalow. He wanted to sit down, or collapse, but made himself keep standing. He took the Pepto-Bismol at the bathroom basin. ‘Ridiculous to feel so demolished.’ He managed a laugh.
‘You think it was the fish last night? I don’t know how clean that place is, after all.’
Adams’s words recalled the plate offish soup with which they had begun their dinner, and Ingham tried to forget he had ever seen the soup.
‘Some tea, maybe?’ Adams asked.
‘Nothing, thanks.’ Another trip to the toilet was imminent, but there was some consolation in the thought there could not be much of anything left in him. Ingham’s head began to ring. ‘Look, Francis, I’m sorry to be a nuisance. I—I don’t know if I should have a doctor or not. But I think I’d better get back to my house.’
Adams walked over with him, not quite holding his arm, but hovering just by his side. Ingham had not locked his door. Ingham excused himself and went at once to the toilet. When he came out, Adams was gone. Ingham sat down gently on the bed, still in his bathrobe. The gripes had now become a steady ache, just severe enough to preclude sleep, Ingham knew.
Adams came in again, barefoot, light and quick as a girl. ‘Brought some tea. Just one hot cup with some sugar in, it’ll do you good. Tea balls! He went to Ingham’s kitchen, and Ingham heard water running, a pan clatter, a match being struck. 1 spoke to Mokta and told him not to bring breakfast,’ Adams said. ‘Coffee’s bad.’
‘Thank you.’
The tea did help. Ingham could not drink the whole cup.
Adams gave him a cheery good-bye and said he would look in again after his swim, and if Ingham was asleep, he would not wake him. ‘Don’t lose heart! You’re among friends,’ Adams said.
Ingham did lose heart. He had to bring a cooking pot from the kitchen to keep by his bed, because every ten minutes or so, he threw up a little liquid, and it was not worth going to the bathroom to do. As for pride, if Adams came in and saw the pot, Ingham had no pride left.
When Adams came back, Ingham was barely aware of it. It was nearly 10 a.m. Adams said something about not coming in earlier, because he thought Ingham might have dropped off to sleep.
Mokta knocked and came in, too, but there was nothing Ingham had in mind to ask him to do.
It was between ten and twelve o’clock, when he was alone, that Ingham experienced a sort of crisis. His abdominal pain continued. In New York, he would certainly have sent for a doctor and asked for morphine, or had a friend go to a pharmacist’s to get something to relieve him. Here, Ingham was holding to Adams’s advice (but did Adams know how awful he felt?) not to bother about a doctor, that he’d soon feel better. But he didn’t know Adams very well, and didn’t even trust him. Ingham realized during those two hours that he was very much alone, without his friends, without Ina (and he meant emotionally, too, because if she were really with him, she would have written several times by now, would have assured him of her love), realized that he had no real purpose in being in Tunisia—he could be writing his book anywhere—and that the country wasn’t to his taste at all, that he simply didn’t belong here. All these thoughts came rushing in when Ingham was at his lowest physically, emptied of strength, emptied of everything. He had been attacked, ludicrous as it might be, in the vitals, where it hurt and where it counted, and where it could kill. Now he was exhausted and unable to sleep. The tea had not stayed down. Adams was not back at twelve o’clock, as he had said he would be. Adams might have forgotten. And an hour one way or the other, what would it matter to Adams ? And what could Adams do, anyway?
Somehow Ingham fell asleep.
He awoke at the sound of his slightly squeaky doorknob being turned, and raised himself feebly, alert.
Ingham realized he was covered in sweat. His ribs were slippery with sweat under his pyjama top, and his sheet was damp. He fell back on his pillow and shivered.
In a very short time, Adams came forth from the kitchen with a bowl of something steaming. ‘Try this! Just a few spoonfuls. Very plain, won’t hurt you.’
It was hot beef consommé. Ingham tried it. It tasted wonderful. It was like life, like meat without the fat. It was as if he sipped back his own life and strength that had for so many hours been mysteriously separated from him.
‘Good?’ Adams asked, pleased.
It is very good.’ Ingham drank almost all of it, and sank back again on his bed. Ingham felt grateful to Adams, Adams whom he had so despised in his thoughts. Who else had bothered about him? He cautioned himself that his abject gratitude might not last, once he was on his feet again. And yet, Ingham knew, he would never forget this particular kindness of Adams, never forget his words of cheer.