The Heat of the Sun

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