The Heat of the Sun

do we?’
    Why I obeyed him, I could not be sure. For too long the Pinkertons had held me in their power. But their power was fading, almost gone. The lock shut with a satisfying thud, and I recalled the
prison cells of these last days: Trouble’s, then mine. Then this, the greatest cell of all.
    ‘That dagger,’ I said, ‘how did you get it?’
    ‘My wife brought it back from California. They confiscated it from my son when he was arrested. Did you know there are words on the blade in Japanese? Something about dying with
honour.’
    ‘Yes, when you can no longer live with honour,’ I said.
    The senator withdrew the blade, held it up before his face as if he could see it, then sheathed it again.
    ‘Did I ever tell you I was happiest in Japan?’ he said. ‘Not the sort of thing I say to the voters, of course. I suppose you think I didn’t love that girl. No: I treated
love lightly, but when I was with her in that house on Higashi Hill, I knew a contentment I’d never know again. She didn’t understand I was just a naval lieutenant. She thought
I’d bring her back to America with me, to live in my castle... strange, to think I spent the rest of my life becoming the great man she thought I already was! And she wasn’t here to see
it. The man who could have been president. Can’t you see us in the White House? President Pinkerton and his Jap First Lady! Would there have been a war if that had happened?’ His words
rose, absurdly now, to their old oratorical pitch. In every great statesman there is something of the preacher. But this was a sermon no one wanted to hear.
    He went on: ‘What’s the good of thinking of worlds that never were? Down the river of life we toss and tumble, and if we lodge for just a short time – a year, a month, a minute
– on an island called Contentment, we should count ourselves lucky. Do you think I’m a lucky man, Sharpless? Oh, the luckiest! Because once, between sailings of the Abraham
Lincoln , I lived in Nagasaki in a house on Higashi Hill.’
    He faltered, slumping forward over his desk. I went to him; I embraced him, and his shoulders shook. I smoothed his head. Over the years the sleek grooves of his hair had grown sparser; he was
almost entirely bald. Fat, in a thick roll like meat loaf, bulged from the back of his neck.
    ‘It’s over for us,’ I said. ‘For you and me, there’s nothing left. But are we to say the world is ruined, because our lives are ruined? You’ll never go back
to Nagasaki. But your son’s there, and has a chance of something neither of us will have again. Call Truman. Which one of these telephones is the hotline? Tell me: I’ll get him for you.
Talk like a great man one more time. Say there’ll be no more bombings. The telephone, Senator – the telephone.’
    Then came another voice: ‘You’re wasting your time.’
    Deep in shadow, far from the desk, a black high-backed swivel chair had been turned away from the room. Slowly it swung around and the voice went on, bleakly wry: ‘You’ve been
entertaining me, Mr Sharpless. A little diversion to ease a lonely vigil! But I fear you’re becoming boring.’
    Kate Pinkerton stood. Long strands of hair hung dishevelled over her cheeks, and the jewel had vanished from the open neck of her blouse. She wore no jacket. She wore no shoes. The sky had grown
red, and her face as she moved towards us was illumined weirdly in spectral light. Something cracked in my heart. The world had been ruined after all.
    I stepped away from her husband. ‘Is it so bad, what I’ve said?’
    ‘Oh, Mr Sharpless! You destroy my life, then say to me, Is it so bad? Those Orientals you’re fond of have the right idea, haven’t they? Face ruin, die, but never mind,
it’s only one life and you’ll have another. The wheel turns and one day, if your number comes up, you reach Nirvana. I dare say being suddenly obliterated is of little moment to the
Oriental. I’d guess we’ve done the good burghers of Hiroshima a favour – wouldn’t you suppose, my dear? After all, we’ve sped them on their way.’
    She stood close to me, too close. I smelled her sweat. Appalled, I looked into her sagging face.
    ‘It was your idea,’ I said to her. ‘The bombing.’
    My words, I thought at once, were as mad as her own, but terrible certainty shook me as if the ground had rocked. Lightly, she touched my cheek. She might have been placating a child. I almost
sobbed. ‘Really, Mr Sharpless!’ she said.