The Heat of the Sun (16 page)

‘Great Temples of Kyushu, that’s what the
Geographic
’s paying for.’ There was an edge in Le Vol’s voice. This was the first of our commercial projects that
he, not I, had arranged. I had thought it odd when he suggested it, and wondered why it appealed to him. ‘Mysteries of the Orient. Buddhist chanting. Incense. Gongs. Think you can work up
something on that?’

Gentle hills, blue in spring, rose over a clutter of port and town. As we lugged our suitcases down to the quay, I wondered if anything in Nagasaki would stir my memory. I supposed not: I had
been an infant, barely more than a baby, when my father was the consul.

Le Vol had changed his shirt and shaved for our arrival. This surprised me, but I was not surprised at all when he discoursed knowingly about the Mitsubishi shipyards, which loomed, grey and
forbidding, on the other side of the harbour. Did I know, he demanded of me, how much Japan spent on ships, tanks, and airplanes? Without them, the war in China could barely have begun.

I sighed; I was tired of the war in China. It had become Le Vol’s subject, his
idée fixe
. For six years, Japan had fought a war of conquest on the mainland; by now, much of
China lay under Japanese occupation. Western powers, imperial to the core, were outraged at Japan’s imperial expansion. But Japan would not listen, withdrawing indignantly from the League of
Nations.

‘Shouldn’t you be researching temples and pagodas?’ I said.

‘That’s your job. I just take the snaps.’

‘I suppose so.’ In my suitcase was a Baedeker and an illustrated book called
Mysterious Japan
.

Evening gathered pinkly in the sky. Our ship, a merchant steamer, had deposited us at an inauspicious dock, all slithery timbers, tangled hawsers, and brown wiry wharfmen hurrying in every
direction. High above, cranes held crates suspended by spidery threads; shadows, black and boxy, slithered over pungent clutter, and I wondered if I should have entrusted the arrangements to Le
Vol. He was not the most reliable of business partners.

We had just completed customs formalities in a shabby timber office when a fellow in a chauffeur’s uniform slipped towards us, grinned and bowed, took our luggage, and ushered us in the
direction of a stately Lincoln sedan. Deep wrinkles seamed his face and his teeth were yellow, waggling pegs.

I said to Le Vol, ‘A step up from our usual welcome. Good hotel?’

‘Let’s just say I’ve exceeded myself.’

The Lincoln – brown and gleaming like shoe leather, inside and out – swept up hilly, winding roads above the harbour. Cherry blossoms burgeoned in a fleshy, pink riot as we turned
smoothly this way and that.

It had been some years after the Blood Red Ball when I ran into Le Vol again at a diner in New York. Then, as now, he was the shabby fellow he had always been, red-haired and gangly, only a
little more weather-beaten and wrinkled about the eyes, as if he spent too much time squinting into the sun.

‘Still taking snaps?’ I had asked him, and he had looked at me almost pityingly and informed me that he was in town for the opening of his new exhibition. He was ebullient. The Crash
(to most, a calamitous end) seemed to him an exciting beginning, the final crisis of capitalism that preceded a new order. Bemused, I listened to his analysis for a good half-hour before he
realized he had asked me nothing about myself and demanded to know what I had been doing.

I hesitated to tell my story. What had I become but an ageing journalist, hustling for freelance work, living in a single shabby room in Greenwich Village? Wobblewood was no more. The Queen of
Bohemia, surprising all her circle, had found her ideal friend at last in the form of Grover Grayson III, the radio millionaire. Following a lavish wedding at the Plaza, the couple decamped to
California, where Mr Grayson was building up his interests in the movies. I could have gone with them; Aunt Toolie insisted, but I demurred. It was time I made my own life. Yet what was my life to
be? I had left Paris too late. The Crash seemed only to confirm that an era had ended. Boatloads of Bohemians made reverse Atlantic crossings. The Lost Generation was finding itself again. I knew I
would never write
Telemachus, Stay
.

Le Vol, a little hesitantly, asked me what had become of Trouble. I tried to explain what had happened at the Blood Red Ball.

‘How his father must hate him!’ Le Vol drew on his pipe.

‘He said he loves him.’

‘But the cat landed on his feet. He’s all right?’

‘Depends what you mean by
all right
.’

Trouble’s fall had left him with a concussion, fractures of his right hip and thigh, and extensive bruising. For six weeks he lay in a hospital bed; Kate Pinkerton visited him every day,
and so did I. The senator’s contrition was piteous, but his son refused to see him: not clamorously, but coolly, calmly.

One day I came upon Kate Pinkerton sobbing. Trouble’s bed was empty. Seeing me, she sprang up and left, not speaking, and I burned with shame, as if I had assisted his escape.

Le Vol said, ‘So he walked out into the night?’

‘And hasn’t been seen since. Do you ever imagine just walking out on everything and starting a new life?’

‘I’ve got one, in case you haven’t noticed.’

‘Maybe I need one too.’

‘Oh? I’m heading west again,’ Le Vol began, and, lighting his pipe, he informed me that a writer he had worked with for the last three years had just defected to Hollywood.
‘The fool! He’ll be sorry. It’s a new world. There’ll be no burying our heads in the sand any more.’

‘I suppose you think I’ve been doing that,’ I ventured.

‘We’re heading into a key period of history. Someone needs to document it. We’d make a good team: Le Vol, the man who does the pictures; Sharpless, the man who does the
words.’

Destiny, it seemed, was calling me again, and this time I answered. In those years of Depression and New Deal, Le Vol and I crisscrossed America. We sought out breadlines and soup kitchens. We
stood in fields where the soil had blown away. We travelled with hoboes in boxcars. For the Public Works Administration, the Works Progress Administration, the American Federation of Labor and the
Tennessee Valley Authority, we chronicled the construction of dams, roads, and railroads. Several of Le Vol’s pictures became iconic images: young men in the Civilian Conservation Corps
digging mud in a field in North Dakota, like Russian peasants, anonymous and enduring; oil raining from a gusher in Texas, drenching jubilant workers black; a dust storm approaching an Oklahoma
farmhouse, while a Model T in the foreground struggles to escape along an arrow-straight highway.

We staged exhibitions, published books, and contributed copiously to federal archives; critics – and more than a few political activists – valued our work highly, but neither of us
earned much money. Inevitably, we were forced to supplement our income with commercial work. Le Vol was dubious, even disgusted, when I urged these projects upon him. Often, I knew, he was tempted
towards sabotage, and I did my best to make sure he did not turn the tourist guides, industry promotions, and magazine features that paid for more than gasoline and steaks in cheap diners into
parodies of what they were meant to be. Resignedly, he followed me to Alabama for a piece on beauty pageants (‘Miss Southern States’), to California for a guidebook to Beverly Hills
(
Mansions of the Stars
), to Lake Superior for a brochure on a shipping line. For
Life
we went to London; for
National Geographic
to Anchorage, Havana, and Guatemala City.

Then came Nagasaki. It was April 1937.

‘What is this place?’

The Lincoln had come to rest on a gravelled drive. The chauffeur held open a door for us. With an air of triumph, he gestured towards a veranda wreathed in vines. The house was modest but
prosperous.

‘Didn’t I tell you?’ said Le Vol. ‘I wrote to the American consul. He insisted we stay.’

The chauffeur, waddling ahead with our luggage, led us into the long, low bungalow. On the threshold of the hall, following his lead, we removed our shoes. Lining the walls were framed
photographs of past consuls, stiff-collared gentlemen with moustaches. My father’s eyes watched us, and I wondered that Le Vol should not exclaim, startled by a picture that looked so much
like me; but then, I had no moustache and wore no stiff collar.

My room was comfortable, if furnished sparsely: whitewashed walls, white-quilted bed with mosquito netting, cherrywood dresser with spindly legs. Beside the bed was a bookcase. Briefly, I
inspected sun-faded spines: Alain-Fournier,
Le Grand Meaulnes
; E. M. Forster,
The Longest Journey
; Henry James,
The Ambassadors
; Pierre Loti,
Madame
Chrysanthème
.

The blinds were drawn and I raised them, revealing a broad lawn that stretched to a line of conifers: my father’s lawn. Breathing deeply, I imagined rain that had slithered down the glass
in the days when Teddy Roosevelt and Emperor Meiji were alive, and so was my father.

Far out on the lawn, a lean gentleman stood against the sunset. He had set up an easel and stood painting; what he painted I was too far away to see, but I imagined the subject as suitably
Oriental: sprays of pink blossom surrounded him on the trees. Dressed in a cream suit with a panama hat, he had about him the air of an imperial official, retired to indifferent leisure. He stepped
back, surveying his handiwork, before, as if he sensed me watching, he turned towards the house.

That night we dined on mats at a low table, where a bent-backed old woman supplied us abundantly with noodles, rice, seaweed, and fish in delicate strips. The consul, whose
name was Clifford T. Arnhem, had assumed a silken robe and sat comfortably in a half-lotus; beside him, with downcast eyes, a Japanese girl of the geisha type knelt, unmoving. Scented breezes blew
in from the gardens; lights flickered in paper lanterns.

‘Your health, good sirs, and welcome.’ Mr Arnhem raised a tumbler of sake. A twinkly-eyed old roué who had, I gathered, taken this posting a decade earlier after long years in
the State Department, he sported a curling white moustache and a red cravat, arranged, I suspected, with meticulous care. Dark spots stood out on the backs of his hands.

‘Kiku and I,’ he added – the girl would not eat with us – ‘have few guests in these troubled times. But Mr Sharpless, you look uncomfortable – and you an old
hand in the Orient, I hear.’

‘Hardly.’ I feared Mr Arnhem was mocking me. My legs, unsuited for crossing, jutted out at an awkward angle, and I displayed no talent for chopsticks. Eyeing the steaming bowls, I
wondered if many consuls had adopted so thoroughly the customs of the natives. I had been right about his painting: pictures signed
C. T. A.
hung all over the consulate; most were
watercolours and all were executed, with little finesse, in the style known as
Japonisme
– cherry blossoms, lotus leaves, girls in kimonos wielding fans.

Mr Arnhem expatiated upon the delights of Nagasaki-ken (‘Great Temples of Kyushu? The greatest are close by’) and assured us that his driver, whose name was Goro, would be at our
disposal throughout the length of our stay. Every so often I glanced at Kiku. Twin dabs of scarlet shone from her lips. The girl might have been a china doll, and every bit as brittle.

I did my best to make conversation. ‘Tell me, Mr Arnhem, do you fear there will be a war?’

‘There is one,’ Le Vol interposed, ‘in China.’

‘I meant with us,’ I said. ‘Senator Pinkerton seems most concerned.’

The senator had become a key figure in the Roosevelt Administration. That he should ever be president seemed unlikely now, but some said he was vice president in all but name.

Mr Arnhem stroked his moustache. ‘Look at it this way. Japan has shown herself to be the imperial power of the East. The world is a pie. For years, Europeans have carved out their slices:
Spanish, British, French, Dutch, all have had their share. Lately, Americans have tucked in too. And now Japan comes to the table. She has proven her power. On what grounds is she to be turned
away?’

‘That seems a little cold-blooded, sir – if I may.’ Le Vol’s face had flushed. ‘Empires are brutal. And empires clash. We’ll be dragged into an Asian
bloodbath that will last for years.’

He might have said more, but Kiku, at this, leaped up with a cry. As she hurried from the room, the patter of her little stockinged feet resounded down the corridor like a bird’s rapid
heartbeat.

‘Poor child!’ Mr Arnhem laughed. ‘I’ve been teaching her English. Not a good idea, perhaps.’

‘She’s frightened of war?’ Le Vol said.

‘Frightened – so I flatter myself – that I shall leave her.’ Mr Arnhem laughed again, leaned across the table, and slapped Le Vol on the back. ‘Women, eh?
I’ve had them white, black, brown, red, and yellow, and haven’t they always been flighty, emotional things?’

After dinner he suggested we take a turn in the garden. When he offered us cigars, I shook my head. The garden had grown chilly, but scents of blossom hovered on the air. From an open window I
heard sounds of sobbing. Disturbed, I imagined I would go to Kiku, comfort her. But what could I say?

Le Vol, striding ahead with Mr Arnhem, praised our host’s generosity before returning to the Chinese war.

‘Perhaps we pushed them into it. Japan had shut out the world for hundreds of years. Would she ever have opened up without Commodore Perry? No Perry, no black ships in Edo Bay, no army
raging across China now. Funny, isn’t it? We thought modern war was something just for us. But all they had to do was watch and learn. And don’t they learn quickly?’

Cigar smoke, like echoes lingering, traced the gestures of Le Vol’s hands. I hung back, studying the gardens. Insects flickered by, ghostly in moonlight. The consulate was built on an
angle on the hill. Through a gap in the trees, I saw a low wooden gate and a path, descending steeply, leading to a clutter of tiled roofs, telegraph poles, and overhead wires like a web. Music,
some martial air, drifted up faintly. I looked back at Le Vol and Mr Arnhem. They were far away. They had forgotten me. I sidled to the gate.