The Heat of the Sun (11 page)

‘A Jap?’ said a hulking fellow. ‘Not sure I’d like a Jap.’ ‘You will! Parties every week, and every season a masked ball – the Blood Red Ball,
that’s the next one. Yamadori’s winter bash. We’ll all dress in red. We’ll drink red sparkling wine. We’ll smoke red cocktail cigarettes. There’ll be red
fireworks at midnight. Even the invitations will be written in red. They say the ink will be his own blood.’

‘Goodness!’ said an old woman. ‘So what’s he like, this fellow?’

‘Yamadori? Let’s see. Some say he’s a prince among men, and among princes too.
They’re the ones they scoop off the floor at six in the morning, with many an empty Vecchia Romagna bottle rolling beside them. Some say he’s the vilest of snobs. They’re the ones
who never get invited. To some, he’s worse still: curse of whatever town he lands in, foreign interloper, villain of the blackest dye. Who’s to say? Is he even here tonight? Maybe
he’s watching us, concealed behind the walls. See that painting? Maybe he’s cut out holes in the eyes.’

‘The guy sounds like a nut.’

‘A
nut
who could eat John D. Rockefeller for breakfast.’

Applause rippled across the dance floor; at the podium, Paul Whiteman whisked his baton like a magic wand, grinned
plumply, and propelled his famous orchestra into a jazzy cacophony.

‘The chugalug! The chugalug!’ came excited cries. It was the dance craze of the moment. A trombonist flared out his slide; cymbals simmered, a snare drum snapped; as if by magic,
fashionable persons in dishevelled evening dress turned themselves into a twisting train, doubling over, one hand hooked to the hand in front, one to the hand behind. I expected only to watch, but
no one was exempt; with a laugh, a girl darted towards me, wrenched me up from my chair, and I found myself enfolded in the heaving dance. A chugalug choo-choo running around the track, we curled
our way about the mighty palazzo, in and out of the Renaissance rooms, watched by holy men, nymphs, cherubs – and, perhaps, Prince Yamadori.

Heels in the hundreds stamped on parquet. Voices whooped
woo-woo!
and everyone bobbed up, miming the vigorous tugging of a cord. I became one with the rhythm. On and on went the sinuous
dance; whose hands I held, I had no idea, only that one was the girl’s, one a boy’s; together they pulled and pushed me along.

The line broke up, giving way to wild, free dancing.

Where was my ashplant? Trouble, far from me, pirouetted from one lovely girl to another; at last, solitary, he flung out his arms and whirled in a circle like a spinning top. Onlookers
cheered.

Beyond the bandstand, a half-open doorway beckoned to me. Groping, almost slithering to my knees, I found my way to a bathroom, where I pissed, swaying dangerously, half into a urinal, half on
the floor. The bathroom, startling in its modernity, dazzled with whiteness.

I leaned against a sink, feeling sick.

A voice came: ‘I brought you this.’

Le Vol stood behind me. He held my ashplant.

‘Didn’t you leave? You left hours ago,’ I said.

‘What, and miss the free champagne?’

‘Why did you come tonight?’ My voice was bitter. ‘You didn’t have to come.’

‘Shouldn’t I see how the other half lives? Well, now I’ve seen it.’

‘What are you talking about?’

‘I wanted to see what you preferred. Or whom.’ Le Vol stepped towards me. Smiling, almost fatherly, he pressed my ashplant into my hand. ‘I meant it about Wyoming,’ he
said. ‘Come with me.’

‘Me, out west? I’d better find Aunt Toolie.’

‘Or Trouble?’ said Le Vol. Then he was gone.

‘Mr Sharpless! Good of you to come.’

The senator struggled up from a capacious armchair. In one hand he held a burning cigar; the other he stretched towards me, and my own hand, as it sank into his, felt like a sculpture made of
chicken bones and wire. His eyes, huge behind his pince-nez, fixed mine intently.

‘Drink!’ he boomed (a command, not a question), winked at a waiter, and indicated to me the chair beside his own.

Carefully, I descended into slithery ancient leather. Light, weak with winter, fell through mullioned windows, glinting on the axes, maces, and shields that lined the walls. Flames roared in an
immense stony fireplace. I might have been on the stage set of a play, a murder mystery set in a Scottish castle. Faintly, sounds of traffic drifted up from West 44th Street. The doorman, I had
feared, would never let me in. That I, Woodley Sharpless, should be lunching with the man almost certain to be our next president seemed scarcely credible.

The waiter supplied me with a Scotch and soda, and I noted without surprise that alcohol, Prohibition or no Prohibition, should be served freely in this bastion of the American elite.

‘Your health, my boy,’ said the senator, and told me, as his wife had done, how much he liked to meet his son’s friends. ‘You’ve become important to him, Mr
Sharpless. That means you’re important to me.’

From the first, he assumed a conspiratorial air, determined, no doubt, to get me on his side. He was likely to succeed. Had I considered refusing this invitation? Never. Not for a moment.

‘Quite a place, eh?’ He gestured around the lounge. ‘You realize, of course, that I’ve no right to be here?’

‘I was thinking that.’ I flushed. ‘About myself, I mean.’

‘No, no! You’re a college man! I’m no alumnus. From the age of fourteen I sailed the seven seas. My father-in-law got me my membership. Pulled strings. He was good at
that.’ Luxuriantly, the senator drew back on his cigar – unconcerned, it seemed, by the ash that fell on his paunch.

‘Oh, some might object,’ he mused. ‘They objected to a lot about Senator Manville. Pork-barrelling. Logrolling. One rule for the rich. You scratch my back, I’ll scratch
yours. Mud was flung, but none of it stuck. Or not for long. He was a pragmatist, my wife’s father. Everything I know about the art of politics, that man taught me. He hated my guts, of
course.’

‘Oh?’ I had read many a Pinkerton profile. His father-in-law, it was said, treated the young B. F. Pinkerton as a son.

Nervously, I sipped my Scotch. I had come to talk about Trouble and wondered when we would start. Weeks had passed since the party in the penthouse, weeks in which Trouble had holed up at
Wobblewood, never going home to Gramercy Park. He said he never would.

‘Hated me, yes,’ the senator continued. ‘Who was I to pay court to a Manville girl? Don’t get me wrong, I wasn’t as lowly as they say. Perhaps you’ve heard of
my father’s little empire: the Excelsior, finest hotel in Atlantic City. But I was hardly cut out for the family firm. Restless boy, I was. That’s why I went to sea. But I was looking
for my true calling. Isn’t that the problem a lot of young fellows have? Thrashing about. Trying to find your way. Before you do, it’s hard. I know: it was hard for me.’

I braced myself. Trouble, I assumed, was just around the corner.

But not yet. The senator sighed. His eyes grew fond. ‘Good place for a convention, Atlantic City. My favourite. One summer when I was on leave from the Navy, they had every Democrat in the
country there. Quarter century back, I suppose. The Excelsior was full to the rafters. Bunting, rosettes, Old Glory: you couldn’t move for the red, white and blue! I met my wife at that
convention. A brilliant afternoon. There I was in my lieutenant’s uniform. She wore a white dress. Trailed after her down the boardwalk. Carried a parasol, she did. White parasol. Turned to
me and said nothing. Just looked. Smiled. So I smiled back and said to myself, “That girl will do. Yes, decidedly, that girl will
do
.”

‘After that, we used to go for long walks together, all the way down the beach, until the town was far behind us. I’d tell her about places I’d been – Lisbon, Tripoli,
Montevideo... She loved to hear about my journeys. Only later did I find out that her father was Senator Manville. The old bastard offered me money to take myself off, but I told him I wasn’t
to be bought. Told him I loved his daughter. Old Cassius respected that. Eventually.’

‘So he didn’t hate you, really? Not once he knew you.’

‘He made the best of things. A pragmatist, as I said! Whatever I am today, I owe to that man. I said so at his funeral and I meant it. He was a great man. One of the great American
statesmen.’

I wondered what Le Vol would say to that.

Trouble seemed no closer as the senator urged on me another Scotch and began a disquisition on Calvin Coolidge. To my surprise, his speech was temperate. The senator might almost have been sorry
for that fatuous Republican; but never mind, he seemed to say – soon, under President Pinkerton, all America’s wrongs would be put triumphantly right.

By the time we moved into the dining room, I was drunk, and glad that I seemed called upon to say so little. The senator ordered a bottle of burgundy to accompany our ox-tail soup (he said he
always had the ox-tail soup) and saddle of lamb. When a group of men in expensive suits stopped briefly at our table, he engaged them in lively banter. One was a celebrated industrialist: I had
seen his picture in the
New York Times
.

‘You won’t know Mr Sharpless,’ said the senator. ‘But you will. One of the coming men.’ And he winked at me.

The meal had progressed to brandy and cigars when he remarked casually, ‘Your father, he was in the consular service.’

I nodded, as if to confirm this, but could tell he already knew.

‘That walking stick of yours, it belonged to him. He was a fine man, Mr Sharpless.’

‘You knew him.’ It seemed inevitable.

‘In Nagasaki. Good old Addison Sharpless – there was a man a fellow could rely on. And you, my boy, were just an infant in your cradle.’ An edge came into the senator’s
voice: a curiosity that seemed more than idle. ‘You remember nothing, I suppose? About Nagasaki.’

I shook my head.

‘Me, I was a young lieutenant in those days, on the USS
Abraham Lincoln
. I remember the boats in that long harbour. I remember the hills that rose behind it. I remember the houses
with paper walls.’ Big eyes fixed me squarely. ‘I dare say he talked about that time. Your father.’

‘I asked him about it – Japan, I mean. But he said nothing. I don’t think he was interested in the past.’

‘No? Hmm. Maybe he was
too
interested in it.’

A dulled oil painting of George Washington loomed behind the senator’s head. He gestured to it. ‘You know I’m seeking nomination again,’ he said, and I felt bereft: I
wanted to go on talking about my father. ‘What’s your view, Mr Sharpless? Do I stand a chance this time?’

Naturally, I said he did. President Pinkerton!

‘Soon I’ll be assembling my team around me. The faces won’t be the same. Young men, that’s what I want. Young men with a future. Fund-raisers. Campaign organizers.
Writers. Press officers.’

Yes, I nodded. Yes, yes.

Then came the part I had not expected: ‘You’ve a growing reputation, Mr Sharpless.’

‘Me?’ I had no reputation at all.

‘Don’t think I haven’t had my eye on you, my boy! I can spot talent from a mile off. I can see what it is. And what it could become. You’re too good for those rags you
write for, and you can tell them Senator B. F. Pinkerton said so! Tell them when you quit, and come to work for me.’

I looked down, confused. Were we going to talk about Trouble? Blunderingly, I said I planned to go to Paris.

The senator smiled. ‘No hurry. Think about it, my boy.’

‘Trouble.’ I lowered my book.

Snow flurried at the window. The afternoon was dark and I had switched on the lamp beside my bed. Often that winter I spent whole days in bed, huddled thickly like a caterpillar in its cocoon.
Trouble, smiling faintly, leaned against the doorjamb. He had crossed his arms over his chest.

‘Shall I join you?’ He flung out splayed hands, Nijinsky-like, or that was the intention, and leaped, and landed on my covers. I cried out. ‘Aunt Toolie’s had the most
marvellous idea,’ he said, rolling over and crushing me. ‘The ponds in the park are frozen. A skating party – what do you think?’

‘I think you’re heavier than you look, little boy.’ I struggled out from under him. If his intimacy with Aunt Toolie filled me with envy, I did not want him to know it. Hour
after hour she hooted at his jokes, urged him to sing, told him he should go on the stage, and shimmied with him to ‘Tiger Rag’ on the phonograph. That morning I had come across her
sobbing in his arms; quickly I withdrew, but found later, crumpled on the bumpy living-room floor, the letter that had caused her distress: a love letter from her girlhood in which a fellow called
Colby Something, Jr declared he adored her passionately. Would she be his bride? The date was twenty years ago. She had never shown the letter to me.

Trouble plucked the book from my hands. ‘What’s this rubbish?’

‘Tolstoy.’ I plucked it back. It was one of the Graustark books by George Barr McCutcheon. I had loved them as a boy. ‘Trouble, we’ve got to talk. What are you going to
do
?’

‘Do? What do you mean?’

‘You came here just after the holidays. It’s February now.’

‘So you’ve got a calendar.’ He bounded up and ranged my room, inspecting books, pictures, knickknacks. The room, mean as it was, was my haven, my retreat. I wanted to tell him
to get out.

Instead, I said, ‘You’re not going back to Gramercy Park, are you?’

‘Aunt Toolie says I can stay here while I work things out.’

‘She’s my aunt, not yours.’ My words sounded harsher than I had intended.

‘You want to come skating, don’t you?’

‘Yes, and cross-country running. Who’s got skates anyway?’

‘You rent them, idiot. But Aunt Toolie remembered there are some old ones in the annexe. I said I’d look. Help me.’

I pushed back the covers. How I longed for warm days! Even in my cocoon I had been wearing my overcoat. With ill grace, I followed Trouble to the back of the apartment. His only concession to
the cold was a scarf, shoplifted (I had seen him do it) from Wedger’s department store. That day he wore a Fair Isle pullover, Oxford bags, and two-tone shoes.

‘You look like the Prince of Wales,’ I said.