The Heat of the Sun

Pacific, as if
there were nothing wrong in the world and never could be.
    That night Le Vol ate with us in the dining room. Uncle Grover, in his excitement, had prepared too much; Le Vol took only a little; but within days, as my uncle had predicted, we had him on
roast beef and mashed potatoes, apple pie and ice cream. The hollows left Le Vol’s face: the ghost was alive again. We began to take walks on the cliff paths. At first Le Vol used a stick,
like me, but soon discarded it. He would stride ahead of us as if he were our leader.
    Our days fell into a dreamy rhythm. News barked from the radio, but I paid it little heed. The war dragged on in the Pacific. There was something called the Potsdam Declaration: some ultimatum
to Japan. It meant nothing to me. My world was Wobblewood West.
    I must have been home for ten days before Le Vol told his story. We were all on the beach with a bottle of Scotch and a pack of Pall Malls. Le Vol, as I recall, wore a pair of ragged shorts and
a Hawaiian shirt – forced on him by Uncle Grover – that hung open over his bony chest. He had drawn up his knees and leaned forward, hugging them; he pulled back, hard, on his Pall Mall
and, all at once, as if the time had come, began.
    Much that he said was shocking; often, it was all the rest of us could do not to exclaim, but we did not exclaim.
    All that mattered was the story he was telling.
    Le Vol’s Story
    ‘I guess I owe you an apology, Sharpless,’ he began. ‘You must have wondered what happened to me after they threw me out of Nagasaki. I meant to write to you
but never did. The tramp steamer that took me away could have been bound for Cloud Cuckoo Land or Timbuktu, I didn’t care; those days in a cell at Yamadori’s pleasure had left me shaken
and ashamed. The place was a dungeon, a medieval dungeon. Christ knows what they would have done if I’d been there for keeps; as it was, I’d been stripped and beaten and doused in cold
water so many times I thought my teeth would never stop chattering.
    ‘So there I was on the tramp steamer, looking out morosely on the East China Sea, when a shabby fellow with a red nose offered me a cigarette.
    ‘“Wainwright,” he said, and held out his hand.
    ‘I was hardly in the mood to talk, but didn’t need to; Wainwright could talk enough for both of us. Quite a voice he had too: that dreadful, snide bray of the upper-class Englishman,
except there was nothing snide about Wainwright. He was an “old China hand”, or that’s what he called himself. Been in the war, the first one, when he wasn’t much more than
a boy. Came back from the Somme an invalid. Lucky to be in one piece, but did he appreciate his luck? Don’t bet on it. Fell apart. Couldn’t settle to anything. There was a girl he was
going to marry – Cousin Essie, he called her. If the Garden of Eden were in Aldershot, Essie would be Eve, or so Wainwright said. But, before he married her, he wanted to be worthy. And there
lay the rub.
    ‘His next years were a nightmare. Sent down from Oxford. Drinking, gambling. Job in finance, arranged by Essie’s father. The firm was a family one, which was just as well, because
when Wainwright was caught embezzling the father said, “Did you know we’ve got a branch in Hong Kong? I think you’re going to get itchy feet, my boy, because that’s where
you’re headed. Last chance. Make good and we’ll take you back; you can even marry my daughter. Disgrace yourself and we never want to see you in England again.”
    ‘Of course, he never went back. Wainwright lasted three months in that Hong Kong office before the demons claimed him. Don’t think he hadn’t gone with good intentions.
There’d been solemn, tearful promises to Cousin Essie; to himself too. He said he’d end it all if Hong Kong didn’t work out.
    ‘But Hong Kong didn’t work out and Wainwright didn’t end it. He picked up work as a stringer for Reuters, enough to keep body and soul together. Over the years that followed he
rattled around China and Japan and Indochina. Sometimes he told himself he’d go back to England, but another year slipped by, then another, until he realized that something had happened
he’d never expected: he’d fallen in love with the Far East. This filthy hole he’d been sent to in shame had gotten under his skin. Oh, his dreams wouldn’t let up; sometimes
in his cups, or in the arms of some almond-eyed whore, he’d sob for Cousin Essie, but for all