by Rain, David
‘The urge to gulp came upon me and I struggled to hold it back, picturing my Adam’s apple sliced open by the blade. My new companion edged around to face me. The moon was behind him; his features were in shadow, but I knew him now. Eight years had passed since the first time I saw him; he had lost a certain boyishness, but still I should have recognized him at once. How many times had he stood over me in that dungeon in Nagasaki? He had ordered my tortures. He wasn’t Hirohito. His name was Isamu, Prince Yamadori’s nephew.
‘I said, “The funny thing is, I’m not even a soldier. I’m a civilian.”
‘“You’re a propagandist for the enemy’s cause. Do you think I care how you got here? You’re where you deserve to be.”
‘“And you? I’ve heard things, you know. In this camp, we’re not so cut off as in Burma. There are fellows here from all over; some of them got here recently. The tide’s turned against you Japs, hasn’t it? You thought you’d conquer the world. Now you’re fighting to hang on to your own paltry islands. Your cities are ruined. Your pilots smash themselves into American warships. You’re desperate. It’s over. Just a matter of time, and not much now.”
‘I thought I had said too much, but Isamu made no move to drive the blade into my neck. To my surprise, he sheathed it. He smiled at me. “Over, you say? Americans like everything to be so decisive. This war is just one turning of a wheel, Mr Le Vol, and the wheel shall turn again. Nothing begins; nothing ends; your victories of today shall be paid for in the defeats of the morrow.”
‘“Why didn’t you have me killed?” I said. “Like Wainwright?”
‘He looked down, then up, and I saw his face more clearly, smooth and radiant as a mask in the moonlight. “Permit me, your barbarian enemy, to display a little sentiment. There is no love lost between us, Mr Le Vol. Part of me should like to see you dead. But think how grievously I should upset Mr Sharpless. And I shouldn’t like him to live without a friend.”
‘I could barely credit what I was hearing. “I don’t understand. What do you care about Sharpless?”
‘“It’s complicated. And not your business.”
‘“So what do you propose to do with me?” I said.
‘He stepped close. “I have informed my staff,” he whispered, “that you are a valuable prisoner, a man it behooves us to keep alive. While I am not obliged to offer explanations, I have intimated that my uncle has been attempting for some time to track you down. Tomorrow, after I am gone, you shall be taken to Bangkok and thence to Nagasaki, where you shall be kept in whatever safety we can provide until the end of the war. Don’t look alarmed, Mr Le Vol. Behave yourself and you shall be treated with the utmost respect.”
‘I could have laughed at him. “What makes you think I want this? Do you have any idea what I’ve been through, while you’ve been swanning about East Asia on royal tours?”
‘“I too have been through things, Mr Le Vol. We’ve all been through things. I don’t pretend to know you, but I suspect you won’t hold out for some absurd martyrdom. Shall you throw back my offer in my face – say you’d rather die? I don’t think so.”
‘“Why are you doing this? You mentioned Sharpless, but—”
‘“Do you know what love is, Mr Le Vol?”
‘Now I really didn’t know what he was talking about. He stepped forward; then, to my astonishment, he kissed me on the lips.
‘“Perhaps one day you’ll understand,” he said. “All that I do, all that 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 had always been regal. Queen of England? No: Queen of America. On a low glass table she had laid her hat: charcoal grey, almost military, suggesting wartime austerities, yet elegantly sculptural like her grey jacket, grey pleated skirt, bl
ack low-heeled shoes. My steep climb from the beach had left me breathless. Flustered, I asked her if the senator was with her.
Her voice was toneless. ‘Don’t speak to me of my husband.’
Many times since that morning in Alamogordo I had pictured his hands slipping from his eyes and the moment when I knew that, like Oedipus, he had blinded himself. I said, too quickly, ‘If only I could have saved him! Please believe me – if I could have saved him, I would.’
She looked at the painting above the fireplace, pondering, perhaps, its black curving lines and bright splotches, and what meaning they might hold. At the neck of her blouse she had fixed the reddish brooch I had seen before; it glowed a little as she faced me again. ‘Don’t,’ she said. ‘It’s over.’
A fear jumped in my chest. ‘He can’t be dead.’
‘No, he’s very much alive. And has orders for you. You’ll receive them soon.’ She touched the brooch, as if to press it in place, though it was perfectly in place. ‘I suppose you’re wondering why I’m here in California. Do you think I’ve come for you? My old friend, Mr Sharpless! You’ve aged,’ she added, as if saying that the weather that day was warm.
She had barely aged at all. She was sixty-four. I gestured to a sofa, but she made no move to sit. She reached into a pocket of her jacket and drew forth a cigarette case. I was surprised: I had never seen her smoke. Flame flicked up from her lighter. She had not offered the case to me.
‘You always seemed such a boy,’ she said, and I felt I should protest, but knew I never could. ‘Still, all men are boys. I suppose I told you about my brother. President Manville! That was his destiny, laid before him like a railroad track. And what did the boy do? He went and died in Cuba.’ Smoke wreathed her face like a veil. ‘You’ll tell me he was a solider. It was war.’ She snorted. She shook her head. ‘Boys like to play at war.’
Her manner alarmed me. I summoned the courage to ask her why she had come. I sounded harsher than I had intended.
‘We are old friends, aren’t we? Allies?’ She smiled at me. ‘Well, we were. That’s why I wanted to see you.’ Her voice remained level though it hardened a little. ‘I wanted you to look me in the eyes while you told me what you’d done to my son.’
‘I couldn’t...’ I began. What would come next, I didn’t know.
‘You were always so sensible.’ She paced in a wide arc. Was she describing a circle around me, like a magic spell? ‘Solid. Stolid. Poor Mr Sharpless and his walking cane! I’m not naive, like some women. How could I be? There’s nothing about men I don’t know. There’s nothing about my son I don’t know. I only wanted to protect him. I was pleased when he brought you home. How fast a life could he be leading if his friend was that bookish cripple? We made a pact, didn’t we? You’d look after my son for me. But you never did.’
Was all this true? Something in her certainty made it true. I whispered that I was sorry. I stepped closer to her, even moved to take her hand, but she shifted towards the wide glass doors that stood open to the terrace. Bleakly, she looked at the bright sea. The sun, sinking in the late afternoon, fell across her like a spotlight. Her eyes were not squinting.
‘He wouldn’t see me,’ she said at last.
I took this in. ‘They’ve found Trouble?’
A column of ash fell from her cigarette. ‘What did I have to do, get down on my knees and beg? You’ll tell me he was never mine. But he was. My son. And I let him go. I don’t know how. It was as if I turned, just for a moment, and he was gone.’
Again I went to her. Delicately I touched her grey sleeve, and asked her – for there was nothing more I could say – whether she would stay for tea. She seemed not to hear.
‘Tell me, Mr Sharpless, do you think me a cruel woman? Some say I am. Calculating, they call me – ambitious, as if that were a fault! Perhaps you share those views. But all I ever wanted was a husband I could love – a husband and a child. I believed you were my ally.’
‘I am,’ I said. ‘I’ve always been.’
I could have told her that I loved her: I had always loved her. Instead I said, though I wasn’t sure I meant it, that none of us could have saved Trouble. Shikata ga nai. It can’t be helped. Too bad.
‘You must want to know about your orders,’ she said.
I had forgotten about the senator’s orders.
‘Our agents arrested my son in Mexico,’ she said simply. ‘He’s in a cell in San Diego. He’ll always be in a cell now, of course. Always, until he dies. You know what that means, I suppose?’
I felt cold, as if the sun had dimmed suddenly, sinking the room into shadow. I had wanted to see Kate Pinkerton as a statue, adamantine, unyielding. Was she now crumbling before me? Counterclockwise this time, she retraced the steps she had made in the wide arc around me.
‘I’ll wear him down,’ she said. ‘One day, he’ll see me.’
On the day the atomic bomb fell on Hiroshima (though I didn’t know that yet), I stood in a cool corridor in San Diego, waiting for a young captain to unlock a door. The door was heavy and the lock was stiff. He was having difficulties and cursed beneath his breath. I had flustered him, no doubt. ‘You’re sure, sir?’ and ‘From Senator Pinkerton?’ he had said as I showed him my papers. Yes, I agreed, it was most irregular. Yes, it was authorized in the highest places. No, I would not wait while he made a call. I thought I put on a good show: sighing, rolling my eyes, rapping my ashplant on the edge of his desk.
Uncertainly, he had looked through the venetian blind. My vehicle stood waiting, gleaming on the tarmac; my two guards leaned against the hood, smoking cigarettes. Those fellows! Before today I had never met them, but they treated me with a familiarity bordering on insolence. It was not my place to complain. They had arrived along with the senator’s orders.
The captain opened the dungeon at last. But dungeon, of course, was not the word: the place was an airfield lock-up, the cinder-block walls neither dank nor dripping, the concrete floor free of straw and rats, the barred window surprisingly large. There were even touches of luxury: a bookcase piled with copies of Photoplay, a table on which lay the remains of breakfast, a silvery steel toilet bowl and sink, and two bunks made up with grey blankets.
Trouble sat hunched on the lower bunk, not looking up, leafing through a Photoplay.
I asked the captain to leave us.
‘You’re sure, sir?’
‘Don’t worry. I’ll call if I need you.’
The door clanged shut and the key turned again, this time with a smooth, authoritative thud. Trouble did not look up. I stepped towards him. I had expected him to be changed, dishevelled at the least, cowed, chastened, but he seemed the same as he had always been. What about the hands, any nervous twitch? No. What about the eyes, were they circled darkly? No.
He licked a finger, turned a page.
‘Did you know, Sharpless, that Howard Hughes designed a special brassiere for Jane Russell in The Outlaw? Remarkable. All his skills in aerodynamics, all that engineering genius that designed revolutionary aircraft, bent now to this task: lift up, push out.’ He held up her picture in the magazine. ‘Talented girl.’
Wearily, I sat on the cell’s only chair.
‘I’ve been AWOL,’ I said.
‘Back now, by the looks. And nobody cared?’
‘You and me, we’re not real soldiers, are we? We answer to the senator. Quite a privilege, all told. I never thanked you for getting me my job in Los Alamos. Smoke?’ I held out my pack.
‘Time can hang heavy on a fellow’s hands, can’t it? And sometimes a tattered Photoplay can’t quite do the trick. I suppose you know Mama tried to visit me. I refused to see her. Made quite a scene, she did.’ He sounded unconcerned, as if he were talking about a bit of bad weather, since passed. I lit his cigarette and he said, exhaling smoke, ‘I already knew that about Jane’s brassiere, didn’t you? Christ, everyone knew that. That news is years old.’
I could abide his flippancy for only so long. ‘What do you think’s going to happ
en?’ I said.
He stood and stretched, reaching towards the ceiling. His shirt pulled free from his trousers and I glimpsed his bare torso, still boyishly taut. ‘Well, I’d guess the senator and Truman are clustered around the conference table right about now, debating what to do with the ultimate weapon. Kyoto? Yokohama? Or straight to Moscow and cut out the middleman?’
‘Truman’s in Potsdam. Or on his way home.’
‘Oh? I’m so out of touch. On the run, you know.’
‘Damn you, Trouble! What have you done?’
He had gone to the window and stood there, looking out, smoke curling above his head in an airy blue river. ‘I never meant what happened to happen,’ he said, his voice thick. ‘You can’t believe I meant it, can you?’
I perched uncomfortably on the grey metal chair.
‘I suppose Yamadori put you up to it,’ I said. ‘Or Isamu. Everything was all a front. Senator Pinkerton’s right-hand man! All just a distraction from what Trouble was really doing. But why run now?’
‘Remember the sniper? Things were getting tough in Los Alamos.’ He stood against the sunlight from the window. Darkness gathered in his eyes, and it came to me that he was a ghost already: flickering, vanishing.
‘Kate said I’d let you down. She was right. I could have saved you.’
‘You, save me? You can’t even save yourself.’
I pushed back the chair. ‘All I’ve ever wanted is to bring you back from the brink.’
He laughed. ‘Is that what you honestly believe?’
‘You’re American, whether you like it or not: your father’s son. And for the sake of some fantasy you abandon everything that matters and everyone who loves you. How can you betray your country, your father, your friends? This is wartime – life and death! Did you succeed? Come on, tell me all about it. Did you sell our secrets to the enemy?’
‘Sell?’ He shrugged. ‘I gave them for free.’
‘Traitor!’ What happened next happened so fast I barely believed it was real. How, when, had I raised my arm? How, when, had my ashplant battered down? One moment I stood close to Trouble, close enough to have kissed him; another, and my ashplant cracked against his head.