Patricia Highsmith - The Tremor of Forgery by Patricia Highsmith Page B

to the Fourati. Jensen was in levis, but his clothes were always clean, and he looked rather handsome in them. The Fourati had bright lights in its bar. Beyond the bar, people danced on a terrace to a strenuous three-piece band which was augmented unmercifully by amplifiers. Ingham and Jensen stood at the bar, looking over the dozen or so tables. Ingham felt empty, purposeless, yet not lonely. He was staring, looking at faces, simply because he had not seen them before, because they were not Arab, and because he could tell a little bit about the faces, since they were French, American, or English, and some of them German. Ingham ’ s eyes met the eyes of a dark-haired girl in a white, sleeveless dress. After a second or two, Ingham looked down at his drink — a rum on the rocks .
    ‘ A little stuffy .’ Ingham said, raising his voice over the music. ‘ The people, I mean .’
    ‘ Lots of Germans, usually .’ Jensen said, and sipped his beer. ‘ I saw the most beautiful boy here once. In March. He must have been having a birthday party. He looked sixteen. French. He looked at me. I never spoke to him, never saw him again .’
    Ingham nodded. His eyes moved again to the woman in the white dress. She had smooth brown arms. Now she smiled at him. She was with a blond, greying man in a white jacket, who might have been English, a plumpish woman in her forties, and a younger man with dark hair. Her husband? Ingham resolved not to look again at the table. He felt very attracted to the woman in the white dress. How silly could you get in a hot climate?
    ‘ Another drink ?’ Ingham asked.
    ‘ Coffee .’
    The one boy behind the counter was having a hard time keeping up with orders, so it was a while before their coffee arrived.
    Beyond the bar, through the open window on their left, clashing music came now from an Arabic band that was entertaining the people in the dimly lighted hotel gardens. Christ, what a hell of a noise, Ingham thought. He only hoped that the few minutes had cheered Jensen a little, and taken Mm away f r om thoughts of his dog. Ingham felt sure he would not see Hasso again. He imagined Jensen going back to Copenhagen alone, a little bitter. How could Jensen help it?
    Ingham invited Jensen to the bungalow. Of course, Jensen accepted. But tonight it was out of loneliness, Ingham realized, nothing to do with sex.
    ‘ Have you a big family in Denmark? ’ Ingham asked They were walking along the sandy road towards the bungalow with the aid of Jensen ’ s flashlight, which he always carried in his back pocket.
    ‘ Just a mother and father and a sister. My older brother committed suicide when I was fifteen. You know, the gloomy Danes. No, you say melancholy Danes .’
    ‘ Do you write them often? ’ Ingham opened his door. He went tense in the darkness, before he put on a light and saw that there was no one in the room.
    ‘ Oh, often enough. ’
    Ingham saw that his question about Jensen ’ s family hadn ’ t lifted Jensen ’ s spirits in the least.
    ‘ A very nice room, ’ Jensen said. ‘ Simple. I like that. ’
    Ingham brought out his Scotch and glasses and ice. They both sat on Ingham ’ s bed, beside which was a table they could use. Ingham was conscious of their respective gloominess, a gloominess for different reasons. He wasn ’ t going to mention Ina to Jensen, and he wasn ’ t going to mention the robbery he had had, as it seemed trivial. And perhaps Jensen ’ s gloom was not entirely due to his dog, but to things he had no intention of telling to Ingham. What did one do in such circumstances to make life a little more bearable, Ingham wondered? Just sit, a yard or more apart, in the same room, silent? Able to speak each other ’ s language, but still silent?
    Within fifteen minutes, Ingham was uneasy and bored, though Jensen had begun to talk about a trip he had made to an inland desert town with an American friend a few months ago. They had run into sandstorms that had almost