The Heat of the Sun

and I shivered. In front of the bench was a pond. Ice crusted half its surface; the exposed
water looked black and viscous as oil. The cigarette, unlit, still drooped between my fingers.
    Something splashed me. I swivelled around. The branches, I thought, were trembling. Was there fruit on that tree? Or was this garden enchanted?
    A second splash: a stone. And this time, laughter.
    ‘Who’s there?’ I demanded.
    The laughter came again, a branch creaked above, and a young man slipped down beside me.
    He bowed, bending from the waist.
    ‘My greetings.’ The accent was foreign, precise, and the figure boyishly slight, dressed in the dark uniform and mask of Yamadori’s servants. The fellow’s impudence
startled me. He sat beside me, lit my cigarette, then produced one of his own and lit that too.
    His lighter was a rich man’s, golden and weighty.
    ‘Given up on the ball, then?’ I said.
    ‘Is dull now. I come here. I like come here.’
    ‘And sit in your tree? And splash the prince’s guests?’
    ‘You funny, sir. You look and look, wondering who there. You a clown, clown in circus?’
    ‘Almost. Harlequin.’ I held out my hand.
    A smile appeared beneath the mask: generous, brilliantly white. We sat in silence, smoking. Cold as I was, I had no wish to return inside yet. Something sickened me, even horrified me, in the
Blood Red Ball, as if Yamadori’s guests were victims of a plague, carousing and cavorting in a vain attempt to escape the fate that would destroy them.
    I asked the boy, ‘So what’s he like, this prince of yours?’
    ‘But don’t you know – you, the American?’
    ‘I’m an American. The place is crawling with us.’
    ‘I watch you come with lady – great American lady.’
    ‘You’ve heard of Mrs Pinkerton?’
    ‘In Japan long ago. Only young lady then. She take what she want.’
    I had eaten nothing all day, and the cigarette – strong, Turkish – made me feel dizzy. Behind the boy’s mask, his eyes were deep and dark. ‘You seem to know something
about Mrs Pinkerton.’
    ‘Lady, I think, no friend of Uncle.’
    I had guessed, of course, the identity of the boy. With a plunge half of envy, half of fear, I thought of Trouble bearing him back across the ice. ‘You’re Prince Yamadori’s
nephew.’
    ‘Funny, hah?’ He flicked away his cigarette. It fell into the pool, sizzling into lifelessness. ‘I, Isamu, never meet American lady, but I, Isamu, know things about her you
not.’
    ‘What do you know? Tell me.’
    I expected him to draw back, as if I had gone too far, but he said, matter-of-factly: ‘Uncle sad man. Long ago in Nagasaki, he in love – ah, so in love. But his love, she die. Poor
Uncle! He travel far, far across seas. There he find crowds, music, laughter, but none of it make up for lady he lost.’
    ‘What’s this to do with Mrs Pinkerton?’ I said.
    ‘Hah! Is everything!’ Isamu leaped up on the edge of the pool. Pacing, he slipped a little, almost fell, then steadied himself with airplane arms. ‘Lady, Japanese lady, love
man from America. American go away. Lady have baby, baby with hair yellow as sun. American say he come back to Nagasaki. For him, she drive dagger into belly and die.’
    ‘Because this man left her – this American?’
    ‘Uncle, he angry, so angry! Never forgive American who sail away.’
    These were my first inklings of a story I felt, paradoxically, I had always known: Nagasaki, the American lover, the promise that he would come back one day. Something stirred in me, something
great and terrible. I rubbed my hands against my icy upper arms.
    Isamu said, ‘American and new wife take boy away.’
    ‘To America? This can’t be true. It can’t.’
    Laughingly, he swept towards me. ‘But is, is! And Uncle is sad man.’
    I gripped Isamu’s arm. ‘You’re saying Mrs Pinkerton took this boy? Her husband’s bastard son?’
    ‘Uncle would have raise boy as own. Love him.’
    ‘Because he loved the lady?’
    ‘Come, I show you.’
    ‘Show me?’ I was confused, but Isamu tugged me to my feet.
    Across the garden wall, the lights of New York were a sinister bright sea, a violation of nature like an enchanter’s spell. Snow shuddered from the air, and I felt as if the world would
never be warm again, as if day would never come.
    The boy led me below. I could barely keep up with him, dragging myself down a different staircase from the one I had ascended. We passed along a corridor. The party noises were