My studies force the pace here, which is good for me and enjoyable. I’ve made some friends. I survey the post-war USA and wonder if I need new eyeglasses. I peer, also, at Japan from this side of the Pacific, no longer Tad Pinkerton who set sail one year ago. New powers are seeking new worlds to clobber: I might just opt out of that.
You won’t, I think, expect any great news about Ben. I soft-pedal a bit to Helen, but to you I can say that the end may come at any moment. Everything is giving in, respiration included. His heart is laboring. He knows me when he is awake. Between weakness and sedation, that is not much of the time. Thorwaldsen does pay attention, but is full of jargon and furthermore lacking in some critical element of self-doubt. Or maybe all that’s needed is a course in basic English. I’ll cable you if there is drastic change, Helen also. The Parents will hear from Thorwaldsen, in such case. The time for reserving a phone call to New Zealand is, as you no doubt know, twenty hours in advance, with some abbreviation for emergencies. Long distance indeed.
I read Helen’s letters to Ben. Even when he can’t take it in, he gets the message: I know that it’s so. You’ll understand me when I say that I enjoy my times with him. I’ve been glad to be on hand. I love the little guy, and won’t forget him.
Same goes for Helen, and—again, you’ll believe me—for yourself.
Dear Aldred,
As you see, I write this from Hong Kong, where I’m back at the Gloucester. My brother is with me and a great help, although he must return to Yokohama in a week or so. News is not good, but could—as you’ll see—be worse. Ten days ago, Peter tried to take his own life—a very ingenious attempt, involving pills, which was aborted by the Portuguese lady who visits him at Queen Mary Hospital and who alerted the staff in time. Morale not good, as one might imagine, and I thought it better to come here and lend a hand. Peter’s parents have arrived from Sydney—perfectly nice people, who are naturally beside themselves and with whom my brother has been nothing less than angelic. The doctor, a trump, has also pitched in a bit with the parents, as have my cousins the Gladwyns—whom you may recall from that day when we all shared hard tack at the Governor’s table.
The flurry of attention—the narrow squeak, even the materialising of parents—have possibly been good for him, if it doesn’t all go on too long. I regard Peter as a casualty of war. Persons of sensibility have enough trouble finding their bearings without being plunged into fires not of their making. These observations are, in your case, les véritables charbons à Newcastle. He worries about his obligations towards the helpful Miss Xavier from his office, who has now heroically compounded things by saving his life. It seems that you had let slip to Peter some Chinese maxim whereby one becomes permanently responsible for the life one saves. When you’re next in touch (and you’ll doubtless want to send him word), you might let him know that you got that all wrong.
He’s pleased, I feel, to have me here. This is a long haul. I’ll stay around for a while to see how he goes on. Meantime, I should tell you that foundations have been laid for my putative house at Big Wave Bay. It won’t be ready for a year, which will be late for your wedding journey with Helen, but in time for the first anniversary.
I’d say—
Attend to your own life at this decisive and exciting stage of it. When I next report, we will all, here, have passed into some other phase—Peter, parents, and Miss Xavier included.
Do let me hear from you. I value our connection. With love, if I may send it—
Audrey
He wrote out two telegrams for Hong Kong. The text to Peter was longer than that to Audrey. Neither was extensive, both were plain and heartfelt. As was his own sense of emancipation.
He might have suspended his life and flown out to see about Peter, who had tried to die. That was the pattern of their long solidarity, their male comradeship in shared enormities of war. But Peter had been confided, for a time, to the care of women. Peter’s emergency heightened the sense of Helen’s. Leith felt, as if it were his own, her precarious hold, now, on the rim of the world.
Everything, other than his imagination, trailed in slow motion around the globe. It had been that way throughout their separation, the shared consciousness converging at some scarcely geographical midpoint of the known world. Leith was in London, and left a message for his mother in Norfolk. He reserved the call to New Zealand, which would be hours coming through; and made enquiries about the sequence of flights that would take him to Auckland. Having made these preparations, he slept.
The call woke him: “You have precisely five minutes.” There came a woman’s voice, neither Melba’s nor Helen’s. It was the housekeeper at Wellington, who said they’d had a number of calls but this was the first from Britain. Not understanding, he asked for Helen, who wasn’t there.
“You heard what’s happened?”
In great dread: “No.”
“Their little lad in America. He died.”
“I’m terribly sorry. When was this?”
“They had the news last night.”
It was tomorrow, in New Zealand. “Is no one there?”
“They went to Auckland. They’re going to America to bury him.”
“Has Helen gone with them?”
“They went to Auckland, the lass along with them, to take the Mariposa.”
“Mariposa.”
“The ship.” Surprised at ignorance. “The boat that goes to America. There’s a sailing. The other daughter joins the ship at Hawaii.”
Leith telephoned Bertie, who said, “I don’t say, Poor Ben. It’s dear Ben, extraordinary Ben.”
Bertie knew of the Mariposa. His shipping friends might get him news of sailings.
Leith requested a call to Elinor Florence Fry, as she was listed. He explained that there had been a death, and received a priority of some hours. The operator, in her humanity, did not ask for proof. He thought of Ben’s tender ironies at such affairs. He thought that Thaddeus Hill would meet the Mariposa at San Francisco.
Before Miss Fry could come through, there was a telegram from Helen:
Ben died this morning. Please ring me. My love.
And from Tad:
Will call you. Benedict has died. Love.
Miss Fry came on the line, composure itself: “How do you do, we only have five minutes. How did you find our number? I did not know there was such a service. Yes, in Auckland for the sailing of the Mariposa. But Helen will not sail, by her wish. Did you hear me? Helen does not go with them. Helen returns to Wellington on Thursday.”
“I will have left by then, for New Zealand. It takes some days.”
“Do bear in mind the Date Line. You will be very welcome here, Mr. Leith. We had asked her to stay with us, since she shouldn’t be alone. But as you are coming we will not press her … We will tell her. You will be very tired after such a journey. If I may say so, very glad also. And she—” There was an interruption, then her voice returned, languishing. “Happy … if I may say so.”
People unknown to him were favouring his cause, and hers; as if he had tapped into some undepleted vein of the world’s goodwill.
IT WAS NOT YET QUITE LIGHT, as on the morning of their parting: the earth as yet uncoloured. There was no bus, no taxi, and he begged a lift from the one motorist at large in the city. He had never seen a serious town so still. Learning of the long journey, the driver said that he would take him to the door: “Nothing’s all that far, in Wellington.” Yet all was far. What she had told him: a hemisphere of skies and seas, a world of that, with the land a mere crumpled interruption. At the close, the clustered fragile wooden city, just as she described it, clinging to its improvised moorings.
An orange sun was rising in fresh and blue Pacific air, on the mountains and gorsy hills. He thanked the motorist, who said, “Any time.” There would never be any other such time.
Leith unlatched the scraping gate and walked the mossy path. In this oblivion, the sounds rang out, clanging and scrunching; and subsided in eternity. But the
place itself, the enclosure, was poised, attentive; and the man, trembling with such a delight in living as he had never known.
She was not—as his mother had been—standing on the steps; but asleep, awaiting him, in a swing-seat on the verandah. Dressed, with a rug about her. And he remembered how he had once seen her in her bed, and had imagined the putative lover who was now himself.
He said, “Helen,” and bent over her and wept.
The moment came naturally to her. She had often lived it, after all, and sat up into his arms. They were nearly speechless, nearly asexual, not to disturb their great good fortune, while the rusted swing-seat gave out a series of iron-clad screeches and drooped beneath them.
She said, “Such happiness.”
“You didn’t sail.”
“I felt that you might come.” And if not, then never. “All this long way,” she said, and cried for the risk they had run.
“I was preparing it, before I knew of Ben. Let me look at you. You didn’t leave.”
She said, “The Mariposa.”
“Ben would say, Another Marseilles. You rescued us, Helen.” There is no arguing with exultation. “We can go together, now, to Aix-en-Provence. Ben should have come with us.” He stroked her hair. “You spent the night out here.”
“I was afraid I’d sleep, and not hear the bell.”
“And that I’d turn round and go back without finding you.” He said, “Miss Fry was lovely.”
“We can telephone her.”
Leith said, “Later.”
“Yes. She’s so glad for us.”
“We’ll telegraph your parents.” The Mariposa would not turn round and come back.
“You arrived in the dark. How did you come up here? The town must have been deserted.”
“The capital was silent and submissive. One celestial chap with a car brought me all the way.”
She said, “Oh, it’s thrilling,” and held him as she had once clasped her brother, to verify life. “That morning at Kure, you said, ‘Are these your tears or mine?’” The sun was up, and she said, “Let’s go in. You’ll be exhausted. Do you want to eat something?”
“No.”
She got up, trailing her blanket and setting up an exhausted croaking in the swing. There was a screen-door, creaking, and a wooden one, warped. They stood in the musty hallway, and she put her hands to his face, saying, “We are older.”
“We began to age, that morning in Japan. The worst day.” And you’ve grown up, Helen, in all the hours between. He laughed. “Yet we would know each other anywhere.” He said, “Helen, how we need each other.”
She said his name. “Now it will be complete. It will come true.” She asked, “Do you want to sleep?”
“No. I want to live these hours to the full. Will you lie down with me?”
“Yes. That day, you said that we should be alone and safe and beautiful, and with time.”
“And how I’ve regretted them since, my lofty words. Regretted them in that hour. Are you afraid?”
“No.” She said, “My bed would be best, where I’ve so much imagined you.”
Tracing his face with eyes and fingers. “We will know each other differently now.” So this itself is a farewell. “What are you thinking?”
“Of how easily I might have died, while this was forming, waiting, all unknown.”
Even to her, he would not say outright that he was thinking of death: of the many who had died in their youth, under his eyes; of those he had killed, of whom he’d known nothing. On the red battlefield, where I’ll never go again; in the inextinguishable conflagration.
These hours would be lived to the full. Years of hours would follow, but not this. He had felt their chance passing; she too, in fear. For this he had travelled to the airy, empty harbour where, like a legend, she lay in a mildewed swing-seat, waiting. As surely as if she had leapt from a planked deck into the ocean and swum ashore, she had jumped ship for him. Ten thousand miles had been retraced, down to the final fleshly inch where he could wake and touch her, and say her name.
Many had died. But not she, not he; not yet.
The author wishes particularly to thank—in long affection, and for patient encouragement with this work—the following friends:
Christopher Cooper, colleague of Chinese days
Morton N. Cohen
Jonathan Galassi
Donald Keene
S.H.
Also by Shinley Hazzard
FICTION
The Transit of Venus
The Bay of Noon
People in Glass Houses
The Evening of the Holiday
Cliffs of Fall
NONFICTION
Greene on Capri
Countenance of Truth
Defeat of an Ideal
Praise for The Great Fire by Shirley Hazzard
Winner of the National Book Award 2003
Recipient of the National Arts Club Medal of Honor 2004
New York Times Notable Book of 2003
Selection of the Today Show Book Club
A Washington Post Book World Best Book of 2003
A Los Angeles Times Best Book of 2003
A Chicago Tribune Best Book of 2003
A Library Journal Best Book of 2003
A San Jose Mercury-News Best Book of 2003
A News and Record Best Book of 2003
A People magazine Top 10 Pick
“Stunning … Shirley Hazzard has gifted us, in The Great Fire, a novel of indispensable happiness and sorrow. I loved this novel beyond dreams.”
—Howard Norman, The Washington Post Book World
“A classic romance … the greatest pleasure is [Hazzard’s] subtle and unexpected prose.”
—Regina Marler, Los Angeles Times Book Review
“What better gift … than a novel that confirms the value of the individual—the individual heart, mind, spirit—even amidst the obfuscating demands of history and politics and culture … . [The Great Fire] is a novel of incredible emotional wisdom, full of authentic characters, vivid places, and language that is both precise and beautiful.”
—Alice McDermott, Commonweal magazine
“[Hazzard’s] prose remains one of the glories of English literature.”
—Charles Taylor, Newsday, “Our Favorite Books of 2003”
“The Great Fire is a perfect book, without a superfluous word … radiant.”
—Eve Claxton, Time Out (New York)
“The most interesting novel published this year … Exquisitely crafted … Every sentence hits its mark.”
—The Economist
“A strikingly timeless novel with an aura of aged profundity … extraordinary [and arresting] … Flashes of violence cut through the contemplative narrative, but in her exquisitely cut sentences, Hazzard concentrates on the subtler movements of these hearts cauterized by violence. Her story is eerily quiet, filled with despair but also traces of hope, caught indirectly, as astronomers locate dark matter by the way it bends light.”
—Ron Charles, The Christian Science Monitor.
“The Great Fire … streaks through a reader’s ken in the manner of a comet.”
—Thomas Mallon, The Atlantic Monthly
“Shirley Hazzard has written a hypnotic novel that unfolds like a dream: Japan, Southeast Asia, the end of one war and the beginning of another, the colonial order gone, and at the center of it all, a love story.”
—Joan Didion
Shirley Hazzard’s other works include Greene on Capri, a memoir of Graham Greene, and several works of fiction, including The Transit of Venus, winner of the 1981 National Book Critics Circle Award. In addition to the National Book Award, The Great Fire has received numerous honors including the Mary McCarthy Award and in Australia, the Miles Franklin Award. She lives in New York City and maintains her long ties with Italy. (Author photograph © by Nancy Crampton)
The characters in this novel bear no reference to any living person.
THE GREAT FIRE.
Copyright © 2003 by Shirley Hazzard. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews. For information, address Picador, 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, N.Y. 10010.
Some portions of this book originally appeared, in slightly different form, in The New Yorker and Antaeus
“Your Feet’s Too Big.” From Ain’t Misbehavin’. Words and music by Fred Fisher and Ada Benson. Copyright © 1935, 1936 Sony/ATV Tunes LLC and Morley Music Co. Copyright renewed. All rights on behalf of Sony/ATV Tunes LLC administered by Sony/ATV Music Publishing, 8 Music Square West, Nashville, TN 37203. International copyright secured. All rights reserved.
“I’ll Always Be in Love with You.” Words and music by Bud Green, Herman Ruby, and Sam H. Stept. Copyright © 1929 Shapiro, Bernstein & Co. Inc., New York. Copyright renewed. International copyright secured. All rights reserved. Used by permission.
“For Sentimental Reasons (I Love You)” by Deek Watson and William Best. Copyright © 1945 Universal—Duchess Music Corporation (BMI). All rights reserved. Used by permission.
“Hubba, Hubba, Hubba (Dig You Later)” by Harold Adamson and Jimmy McHugh. © 1945 (Renewed) EMI Robbins Catalog Inc. All rights reserved. Used by permission. Warner Bros. Publications Inc., Miami, FL 33014.
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