The Heat of the Sun

then, I knew I would never go.
    From close by came a flurry of voices. Behind a potted palm a young man-about-town with copious coppery hair thrust aloft a glass and clashed it against those of his companions. Their
conversation, or rather his, was all gossip, and gossip about only the best people. Had they heard, cried the young man, that a certain heiress had whitewashed the wainscoting in her Connecticut
country house and replaced the priceless colonial furniture with pieces très moderne , made from glass and steel? And what of a certain young gentleman? Oh, it was too much! A subway
bathroom! His disgrace was complete. But Miss Something-or-Other! Could she really be holed up at the Waldorf-Astoria, after that dreadful business with...? They must investigate! They must stake
out the place!
    The coppery hair, curled tortuously, shimmered and flashed.
    ‘And then,’ he declared, ‘there’s Yamadori.’
    ‘Yama-what?’ said a girl, and giggled.
    ‘My dear, I’m speaking of our host. What, you didn’t know we had one? Surely you didn’t assume this prestigious event, this lavish offering of hospitality of which we are
all partaking so fulsomely, simply sprang into being by magic? Did you suspect that no presiding intelligence had conjured it into life? Why, Yamadori’s a legend, a mystery – an enigma , that’s the word! A prince of Japan. See his servants with their yellow, blank faces, gliding here and there! Decorative, aren’t they? But where’s their master? They
say he hasn’t lived in Japan for years. Tangier, Cairo, Monte Carlo... he’s an international playboy. Everywhere he plants himself, his soirées are endless. Now this palazzo!
Shipped from Venice, every brick and tile, and rebuilt in the sky! How long he’ll be in New York nobody knows, but one thing’s for certain: he’ll have this town at his
feet.’
    ‘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