The Heat of the Sun

I’ve done, is motivated by love.”
    ‘Only now did some glimmering come to me. “You’re talking about Trouble, aren’t you? This Sharpless thing, it’s something to do with Trouble.”
    ‘“They say, my enemy’s enemy is my friend. Who, then, is my friend’s friend? There’s such a thing as loyalty, Mr Le Vol. There’s such a thing as
karma.”
    ‘“I thought you were loyal only to the emperor – and your codes.”
    ‘“Don’t give me codes! I am a prince of my country. But I am not my country.”
    ‘“You’re talking in riddles again,” I said.
    ‘“And you’re failing to solve them. I’m tired of you, Mr Le Vol. I’ve done all I can for you. Just remember, when you’re living high on my generosity in
Japan, that we all betray our countries. But sometimes, if we’re lucky, we don’t betray our friends.”
    ‘Then he was gone, and, as if to signal that the scene was over, a cloud moved over the moon and I stood in darkness again.
    ‘Next day, everything happened as Isamu had promised. The guards cut me down; I was permitted to wash, given a change of clothes, fed the heartiest breakfast I’d had in years, and
put on a transport to Bangkok, where I stayed in a fine hotel on the river. I won’t pretend I didn’t feel compromised, cheapened, but I was alive – and for now that was all that
mattered.
    ‘The sea voyage that followed wasn’t quite so pleasant. Allied planes cut relentlessly through the skies over the South China Sea. The war was going our way and sometimes I feared
I’d be a casualty of our victory, as once I’d been a victim of our defeat. Several times I thought we’d be sunk. We ended up running aground on Okinawa, just as our side invaded
the Jap homeland at last. I was there through the worst of the fighting, but to me it was glorious. I was back in American hands. The rest you know.’
    We were silent for some moments after Le Vol finished. Gulls rode above the high, pale cliffs; the sea, blue and impassive, rolled against rocks and sand. The Pacific: turn
the globe and it is half the world. I thought of explorers – Magellan, Drake, Cook – setting out intrepidly across the unknown. I thought of Perry and his black ships sliding into Edo
Bay, cannon at the ready for some gunboat diplomacy. I looked at Le Vol with his downcast tousled head. His shirt flapped about his bony chest; Aunt Toolie, sad-eyed, held his hand in hers.
    Something welled in my diaphragm and I said, ‘Isamu was always such a strange boy. I thought I detested him. But I can’t.’
    Uncle Grover asked, ‘What did he mean about betraying our countries? We all do? But how?’
    Le Vol stood, stretched: how tall he was! ‘There’s Wainwright, for a start. Turned his back on country, class, and Cousin Essie to slum it in the Far East. Never happier than in a
Shanghai brothel. Never met another Englishman and didn’t want to fleece him. Does that count?’
    Aunt Toolie said, ‘He was shell-shocked, wasn’t he – from the Somme?’
    ‘Isamu was talking about himself,’ I said. ‘Giving aid and succour to the enemy!’
    ‘And I accepted it.’ Le Vol paced down to the sea. Kicking up mounds of powdery sand, he called back, ‘What about other traitors? I only impersonated a soldier. Isn’t
there a real one here who’s gone AWOL? If anyone’s in trouble, Sharpless, it’s you. And who’s been harbouring you?’
    He picked up a stone and pitched it into the waves.
    Good old Le Vol! Let the past go, I told myself. The future, let it take care of itself. There was only this moment on the beach. Aunt Toolie helped me to my feet. With Uncle Grover, we joined
Le Vol at the ocean’s edge. Solemnly, we faced the wide Pacific.
    We did not hear Aunt Toolie’s cleaner until she was almost upon us. Red-faced, breathless from the stone steps, she staggered towards us, turning a heel in the sand, and tremblingly
pointed to me.
    ‘Mr Woodley,’ she said, ‘I think you’d better come.’
    Kate Pinkerton waited for me in the drawing room. To see her here – in this Californian castle with its blond wood, tubular steel furniture, paintings by Klee and
Kandinsky – seemed a violation of the natural order. Many times during the war I had watched her on newsreels, earnestly addressing gatherings of charitable ladies or comporting herself
dutifully at her husband’s side. Here, standing by the unlit fireplace, she appeared no different from that image on the screen. Her bearing