The Heat of the Sun (15 page)

‘Pinkerton! What is the meaning of this?’ Yamadori said.

The senator made no answer. He strode towards his son. ‘Bastard. Ungrateful bastard. What do you think you’re going to do, swan around the world with this filthy Jap?’

Trouble’s words were icy. ‘Why not? It’ll get me away from you.’

‘Ben, no.’ The senator reached for him. Trouble flinched. Loathing flashed in his face, but fear too, as if his father, at a drunken touch, could drag him back to his old life.
‘You’re my son.’

‘Then why do you hate me?’

‘I love you. Don’t you know that? From the moment I first held you in my arms, I loved you.’

‘Enough.’ Yamadori’s great sleeve rose, glittering, as if to sweep the senator from the room.

‘Filthy Jap!’ Reeling, the senator pushed him in the chest. They grappled; Yamadori called for his servants, but his opponent’s attention was distracted: Trouble had rushed for
the great doors.

‘Ben, wait!’ The senator lumbered after him.

It was time for the fireworks. A fanfare surged from below; lights plunged to blackness, and, through the great windows of the high palazzo, explosions in every shade of red flared around the
building. The phosphorescence, flowering and fading, plunged the scene into visionary strangeness, as the senator and Trouble faced each other at the top of the imperial stairs.

Crowds held me back and I could not reach them; nor, over the explosions, could I hear their words. I could only watch the anguished tableau – flung arms, flung-back heads – that
seemed to be enacted not just in the silence but with the deliberation of mime, and all its inevitability: inevitable, that clutching hand, slapped away, then returning; inevitable, those words
from bared teeth, from corded neck, that denunciation that might sever everything, or, instead, in the fury that it raised, tighten every bond it sought to break; inevitable, that hand that struck
out, sending the smaller figure tumbling down the stairs.

And there at the bottom of the stairs, crashing through the crowd, was Aunt Toolie. Her words were lost to me also, but I knew them: ‘Darling!’ – yes, first
‘Darling!’, as she fought her way towards the sprawled, inert form; then, as her gaze travelled upwards to the caped figure at the top of the stairs: ‘You’ve killed him
– you’ve killed him!’

Sparks, the colour of blood, cascaded across the sky.

Stories are strange. Nothing is stranger than stories.

Years passed before this one was clear to me – I pieced it together from fragments, like a shattered ancient relic, and not until after Senator Pinkerton’s death did I believe I had
it complete – but in memory it seems that everything was revealed to me on that night of the Blood Red Ball. Later I saw the story as a succession of scenes unfolding, vivid with the
passions, but not quite real, like Japanese woodblocks come weirdly to life.

The place is Nagasaki: a house on Higashi Hill, overlooking the harbour. White screens slide back and a dark polished terrace juts into lush gardens. Goro, the nakodo – the marriage broker
– shows his latest client the house. Exotic, is it not? So very Japanese! The perfect love nest for Pinkerton-san!

Lieutenant Pinkerton is a dashing fellow, big and handsome, filled with bonhomie and bent on pleasure. A local geisha girl has bewitched him with her charms. The
Abraham Lincoln
is
becalmed in port. Why should he not contract a marriage with the girl? Sailors in these waters know all about such marriages. What Goro offers is prostitution, though the word, or any word like it,
does not pass his lips. Unctuously, he offers a contract for the bridal bower: a lease of nine hundred and ninety-nine years, no less, with the option to cancel at the end of every month.

Wedding festivities begin. The first guest is Sharpless, the American consul. But does he display a wedding day demeanour? No: Pinkerton is his friend; he admires his friend, but cannot approve
this marriage. The girl, says Sharpless, is young, too young; loving her American with a credulous passion, she cannot see how lightly he will treat her devotion. Must Pinkerton, to gratify a
passing fancy, bruise the wings of this little Butterfly? But Pinkerton has no time for his grave friend. Guests are milling in earnest, and here, radiant among them, comes the Butterfly herself!
Has there ever been so charming a girl? No photograph does her justice. This is no waxwork fixed in sepia but a fluttering gay creature, at once child and woman.

She tells the Americans her story.
I fifteen years old. Noble family fall in world. Father, dishonoured, commit ritual suicide. Mother, left in poverty, not provide for me. Had no choice but
to become geisha. But now, what change of fortune! How happy am I to enter upon honourable marriage!

Watching her, Goro the nakodo smacks his lips. He thinks her the most accomplished of all his charges: a harlot of genius! But Goro’s heart is too corrupted to know the truth. For
everything the girl has said is sincere, and, as if to show this, she reveals that she has renounced her religion. At the Christian mission house in Nagasaki, the girl has been received into her
husband’s faith. If her family knew, they would disown her. But she cares only for the new life that awaits her.

The commissioner reads out the marriage contract. Bride and bridegroom sign their names. The joy is general. Wily Goro has been nothing but thorough. Food and drink flow. The house spills over
with guests. Look at the girl’s relatives, feasting with abandon! Look at that old rogue Uncle Yakuside, carousing drunkenly at the American’s expense!

The girl’s face is filled with joy. Does Pinkerton not believe he really loves her? What thought has he for the attritions of time? There is only this moment, with its promise of bliss.
And Sharpless, what feelings stir in Sharpless? Envy, undoubtedly – for must he not love the girl himself? But sorrow too, a soul-harrowing sorrow, for the destiny that awaits her.

An intruder bursts upon the scene. Look at his rage! Look at his fury! Is it a madman? It is the Bonze, Butterfly’s most eminent uncle, a holy man of high degree. Word of his niece’s
apostasy has reached him. Wicked girl, to betray the faith of her ancestors! He curses her. Pinkerton laughs at the madman. But Pinkerton does not understand. The girl’s other relatives join
the denunciation. Even the drunkard Yakuside is filled with righteous indignation.

Wicked girl! Cursed be the girl! To betray her ancestors!

Pinkerton, growing angry, clears the house. Butterfly sobs. What has she done, to marry an American? What has she done, to forget her race and kindred? But she loves Pinkerton too well to be
downcast for long. His caresses restore her. All will be well, won’t it? Weep no more.

Three years pass.

How rapidly Butterfly’s happiness has flown! For, of course, a few months after the marriage, the
Abraham Lincoln
sailed away. Pinkerton said he would return when the robins nested
in spring. Lightly enough he flung out the words, and Butterfly believed him; though robins, she fears, may nest less often in America than in Japan.

Seasons come and go. The funds left by Pinkerton dwindle. Penury awaits. Butterfly tells her maid, Suzuki, that Pinkerton will come back. One fine day, she declares, we’ll see a thread of
smoke above the sea, coiling up from the far horizon; closer and closer the ship will come, until cannon thunders in the harbour, signalling its arrival; one fine day I’ll wait for the man
who climbs Higashi Hill from the crowded city below; at first a speck, he will grow and grow in my sight, and at the summit of the hill he’ll call my name. One fine day.

Suzuki does not believe a word of it.

Enter Sharpless, the consul. He has received a letter from Pinkerton, who is returning after all. Still, Sharpless is grave: Pinkerton has married an American lady and has asked his old friend
to break the news (gently, of course) to Butterfly. Sharpless, for now, has no chance to proceed. Goro the nakodo is here again; Butterfly, the marriage broker insists, must take another husband.
Look at the fine suitor he offers her this time! It is Prince Yamadori, a Japanese nobleman who has lived much abroad. Yamadori is a posturing fool. Absurdly, he pleads his cause. Yes, he has made
other marriages, it is true, but all his other wives he will cast aside for the love of Madame Butterfly.

Outraged, she refuses to listen. She has a husband! And her husband will return! Sharpless despairs. What, he asks Butterfly, if Pinkerton is not to be trusted? Perhaps, he ventures, she should
accept Yamadori. She turns from him, affronted. She will never give up Pinkerton. And, as if to prove that Pinkerton must be hers again, she runs to fetch the little boy of whose existence neither
Pinkerton nor Sharpless has been apprised before.

The boy’s name, declares his mother, is Trouble. But on the day of his father’s return, his name shall change to Joy.

Now comes the sound of cannon from the harbour. A ship! A ship! Butterfly rushes to the terrace. The vessel flies an American flag, and, looking through the telescope she keeps for this purpose,
she sees that its name is the
Abraham Lincoln
.

Pinkerton has returned! Deliriously, Butterfly calls to Suzuki. They must celebrate his homecoming! They must strew flowers throughout the house! For hours they work in the garden, cutting every
flower; soon, flowers fill every space; petals carpet the floor; the fragrance is overwhelming as Butterfly arrays herself in her wedding garments and decks out Trouble in his finest clothes.

Night falls. Oh, when will Pinkerton come? In the shoji screen that is drawn against the darkness, Butterfly, Suzuki, and Trouble make three holes, and through the holes they watch expectantly.
Hours go by. Trouble sleeps. Suzuki sleeps. Butterfly thinks none should sleep. Her vigil can end only when Pinkerton returns. Slowly, a new dawn bleeds into the darkness.

Waking, Suzuki persuades her mistress to rest at last: is she not to look her best when her husband comes? (Poor Suzuki! She has had the measure of Pinkerton from the first.) Suzuki sends
Trouble out to play in the garden. But look, here comes Sharpless – and Pinkerton is with him! Suzuki is startled: were Pinkerton’s promises true after all? Receiving him warmly, she
tells him how her mistress has prepared for this homecoming: the costumes, the flowers, the vigil. What joy will fill her now!

Every word is a dagger in Pinkerton’s heart. He had only wanted Suzuki’s advice on how to break the news to Butterfly of his marriage. Suzuki sees that something is wrong and,
turning towards the garden, she becomes aware of a lady standing there: a foreign lady, in a sweeping gown. It is Kate Pinkerton – and perhaps, even now, her gaze lights upon the boy called
Trouble; and Trouble, leaving off his play, looks up at her wonderingly.

Kate Pinkerton sails into the house as Butterfly, alerted by voices, emerges from her chamber, filled with excitement to greet her husband again. Instead, she stops and stares.

She sees Kate Pinkerton. And, in a trice, Butterfly knows.

Despair fills Sharpless. The tragedy, he thinks, is upon them now, but he is precipitate. Butterfly is calm, surprisingly so; it is Pinkerton, bidding farewell to the life he knew in this house
on Higashi Hill, who is overcome with emotion. What a carefree fellow he has been! All that has gone now. Never, he realizes, shall he be free from remorse. Never, he realizes, shall he forget
Butterfly’s eyes, gazing at him in sorrowful reproach. He is ready to curse himself. He is ready to break down. But the women display exemplary calm. Is Kate Pinkerton shocked by her
husband’s past? Not a bit of it! The little Japanese girl is a charming plaything, delightful; as for the child, they must take him back to America and bring him up as their own.

Butterfly takes this in. Of course: Pinkerton shall have the child, if he only comes back in... oh, half an hour. The Americans go. The calm, they know, is only on the surface: Butterfly’s
heart is broken. Pinkerton knows it, and knows he will always feel shame for what he has done. Kate Pinkerton knows it, but steels herself. Sharpless knows it, and for the rest of his life will
feel a sense of failure, exile, and loss. Perhaps he guesses what will happen next.

Butterfly is alone. What has she done that she must pay this price? The Bonze has cursed her, and his curse has come to pass. She has abandoned her religion. She has betrayed her country. She
has trusted in love, and love has let her down. She takes up the dagger that her father used to commit ritual suicide. She unsheathes the blade and kisses it. She recites the words engraved on it:
Die with honour when you can no longer live with honour
.

The time has come. But now Suzuki pushes back a screen to admit the boy called Trouble. He rushes to his mother. She sweeps him into a last embrace. She loves him: loves him. Oh, let him look
into her face – deeply, searchingly, never to forget her! It is for you, she tells him, that I do what I do. It is for you, little boy, that you may go across the sea. She breaks from him,
ties a blindfold around his eyes, then, with her gaze still fixed upon him, retreats behind a screen, where again she takes up the dagger. She plunges it into her bosom and emerges, tottering; she
falls, but just has strength enough to drag herself across to the boy and embrace him again, before she sinks down.

Returning, Pinkerton and Sharpless find her lying dead.

ACT THREE

The world is webbed by imaginary lines: latitude, longitude, the lines are not there, but seem as real to us as mountains, rivers, coasts. Spin a globe
to the Pacific, and all the way down the watery hemisphere runs the International Date Line. As a boy I thought of it as a seam, as if planet earth had two halves, tacked jaggedly together. Travel
westwards, and at one moment it is the date in America, at the next (jump!), the date in Japan, a day later. We have passed through a barrier. We have entered another world.

‘Tell me again – temples and pagodas?’ I said, as our ship drew into a long, thin harbour.