The Heat of the Sun

realized, with a plunge of sadness, that he would never come again: never again
through this wide lobby; never again up these broad stairs; never again to this set of double doors with this serviceman on guard and this brass plate, polished brightly, bearing the legend: SEN . B . F . PINKERTON ( D – NY ).
    Before I entered, Voice of America shook my hand. I wanted to protest: Have you come so far with me, only to abandon me? I’m sick, Voice of America: stay with me, guide my steps. But all I
could do was smile and watch as he retreated. Ten paces away, he raised a hand, not turning, waggled the backs of his fingers in the air, and whistled ‘Avalon’ by Al Jolson.
    I looked at the guard by the door. A child: just a child.
    Carefully, he opened the doors for me.
    ‘Sharpless, is that you?’
    The office was vast. Through tall windows, open in the heat, thick golden light disclosed acres of Turkey carpet; high walls, lined with stately volumes, supported a ceiling with elaborate
carved cornices and a wide, mandalic rose, from which impended an immense unlit chandelier. A flagpole, with a draping Stars and Stripes, jutted up next to a kingly desk – and behind the
desk, propped there like an enormous, bulky mannequin, sat Senator Pinkerton in a quilted smoking jacket, bandages covering his eyes.
    ‘How long has it been?’ he said. ‘You’ve grown lax in your duties, I fear.’ His hands toyed with an object that flashed, catching the setting sun; approaching, I
saw it was a dagger in a jewelled scabbard. I had seen that dagger before.
    ‘Senator, how did all this happen?’ Sadly, I looked at the clutter before him: the legislative papers, the letters from constituents, the dossiers marked top secret that he could no
longer read. Perhaps, in my next words, there was something mad, but no madness of mine could matter when all the world was mad. ‘I’ve wandered in a mist,’ I said, ‘and so,
I’m certain, have you. But everything’s come clear. Don’t you see better, now that you’re blind?’
    Three telephones squatted on his desk: one red, one white, one blue. The red one shrilled, a light flashing under its dial, and he reached for it unerringly. What was that? The mission on its
way? They must keep him informed. No, no change of plan: the authorization remained. He spoke as if he were a machine, a mechanical man emitting lines someone else had written.
    Gently, he replaced the receiver. ‘Turn on the radio, Sharpless.’
    Darkness gathered in the corners of the room, but I made out a large hunched curve of burnished cedar. I switched it on. It hummed and whirred, faceplate glowing like a tiny sun.
    News, perhaps?
    The senator shook his head.
    A soap opera?
    ‘Music,’ he said, and I sought it out.
    Tommy Dorsey was not to his taste. Nor was Benny Goodman. Only when opera swelled around us did he seem content. I knew the work: Tartarin , that curious mock epic, at once hilarious and
sad, which Puccini had composed between Tosca and The Girl of the Golden West . Curling around us came the great leave-taking duet, ‘ Il mio amore puro, sarò sempre
costante ’ – my pure love, I shall be constant always. What gorgeous swirls of emotion Puccini conjured from the air, at once noble and decadent, elevating and absurd! ‘They
say that emotionalism is a sign of weakness,’ the composer said once. ‘But I like to be weak.’
    I turned the sound low and asked the senator why he had sent for me.
    His voice was hoarse. ‘You loved him, didn’t you? A fine irony. To think, that you – you! – should be the one who understands me! Woodley Sharpless. You were a baby in
Japan when I first saw you. We all said, Such a pretty baby! What will become of him? The possibilities seemed wide open, though funnily enough no one thought to say, The boy will grow up
to be a cripple, a degenerate, and a traitor to his country. Call us unimaginative! Back then, so much had yet to happen. We hadn’t even had the Great War.’
    ‘Then you understand,’ I said, ‘that we’ve come too far? This bomb, how could you let it happen? What was the argument – that we’ve spent two billion in Los
Alamos, so we can’t waste taxpayers’ money? Let’s just drop the damned thing and see what happens? Frighten the Russians? Because you sure as hell know we’ve beaten the Japs
already.’
    ‘Will you lock the door for me, Sharpless?’ He touched his bandaged temples. ‘Don’t want anyone bursting in,