The Heat of the Sun

Toolie said they’d be in a chest.’ Trouble, moving a rack of gowns, exposed a cabin trunk in a corner. Across the lid were stickers, plastered askew: SHANGHAI , HONOLULU , NAGASAKI . A name was visible on the side, the letters flaking: B . A . SHARPLESS . Beasley Addison. The trunk had been my father’s. It must have been shipped back from France, along with me.
    Perturbed, I told Trouble that this was not the place. He paid me no heed. Perhaps I should have asked him to leave the trunk alone, but I saw his fascination with it and could not intervene. He
broke the rusted locks. He lifted the lid. Rushing up at us came the scent of incense. Marvelling, Trouble reeled out a length of fabric, embroidered brightly: flowers, peacocks, dragons. A kimono.
He slipped his arms through the sleeves and tied the sash. In the grey light, the silk glowed with inner fire. Excitedly, he plunged into the trunk again. He drew out a fan and flicked it open,
revealing a painted butterfly.
    ‘Mirror, mirror!’ He swivelled towards the cheval glass and posed, head back, fluttering his eyelashes, half-concealing his face with the fan. I should have laughed, but in this
strange garb Trouble might have been alien, a creature of a reality quite different from my own.
    ‘Did I ever tell you,’ he said, as if it followed, ‘about the face I imagine? It’s a woman’s face, and she’s looking at me with eyes as black as night –
Oriental eyes. She stares and stares and I think she’s going to cry. But there’s something too brave in her, something too strong. Sometimes I see her face before I sleep, hanging like
a mask before my eyes.’
    ‘I’m sorry, Trouble – I’m sorry.’ I was barely aware that I spoke, or why. I moved towards him. I touched him. He moaned and stumbled against me. I cradled his head
against my heart. I told myself this could not happen: this could never happen. Time distended, stopped, and I thought of other lives I had not known, other people I might have been. If, in the
universe, there were infinite worlds, why should I live in this world? Boundaries rose high around all my desires. I wanted to pass through them easily, freely. I ran my hand through
Trouble’s hair. I touched his bent neck: just touched it, held fingertips to the delicate, pale skin.
    We might have remained like this for hours, days, but now the voice came: ‘Benjy, where are you?’
    We sprang apart. Rounding a corner of the clutter, Aunt Toolie laughed. Smoke curled from her cigarette holder and she huddled in a much-burned dressing gown. ‘Oh, it’s vile in here.
Let’s just rent skates.’
    Trouble removed the kimono and flung it back in to the trunk.
    I have always hated the New York subway. I hate the concrete, the metal, the glaring electric light, the tracks beneath their treacherous drop. I hate it when it is crowded
and I fear I shall be crushed in the press of bodies; I hate it when it is quiet and every echoing footstep makes my heart jump. I hate it when it is hot. I hate it when it is cold. I hate the
shriek of the incoming trains.
    Trouble loved the subway. On our way uptown I watched him, as if he were a stranger, shuddering in the streaky black mirrors of the windows. Often his smile flashed. His hands gestured
expansively. Wearing a red deerstalker that Aunt Toolie had presented to him, he chattered too loudly about Louise Brooks, King Oliver, cocktail cigarettes, and how much he wanted to go back to
France. Several times he ridiculed the senator, agreeing with a recent Republican smear, even adding an anecdote of his own. Aunt Toolie, in moth-eaten mink, watched me with an expression I could
not make out.
    By the time we reached Central Park, the light was failing already. Only the hardiest skaters remained on the ice; I, of course, could never have joined them, but my companions were determined.
Like a fool I kept up a commentary of sorts – ‘Brrr! Isn’t it cold?’ and ‘I don’t know how you can do it,’ and ‘To think, I could be in bed
now’ – as they donned their skates.
    Trouble took charge of Aunt Toolie, hustling her out on the ice before she was ready. Their voices drifted back to me. Aunt Toolie fell several times, squealing in delight; Trouble, who skated
with superior grace, laughed at her immoderately, but kept close watch on her. When, far out on the ice, she was about to fall and teetered, flinging out her arms, he swooped towards her, grabbed
her hand, and swept