The Heat of the Sun by Rain David

Author:Rain, David [Rain, David]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
ISBN: 9780857898005
Publisher: Atlantic Books
Published: 2012-06-30T22:00:00+00:00

‘Where did you go?’

I had woken more than once in the night, startled each time to find myself beneath gauzy netting. Restless dreams disturbed me. Again I was in the bar with Goro; again his toothy face thrust into mine, but he spoke Japanese or just nonsense-words, gobbling away like a turkey cock. I sank under the tide of talk; I saw his face twist; then he drew away and there behind him, fixing a liquid gaze on me, was the young Japanese officer.

‘I said, “Where did you go?”’

Sunlight, for some time, had pressed behind the blinds; now it filled the room, and Le Vol turned back from the window.

‘Please.’ I pressed my face into the pillow.

‘Goro brought you home. You were stumbling and swearing. And in the consul’s house! What are you playing at?’ He pulled back my mosquito netting. ‘Come on. Koshi-byo awaits.’

‘The temple? Baedeker’s by my bed.’

‘Baedeker? I want Sharpless.’

‘You go.’ I pulled my face from the pillow – temporarily, I hoped.

Le Vol had shaved, dressed, slicked his hair.

‘What’s with the grooming?’ I said. ‘This isn’t like you.’

‘And this isn’t like you. You’re still drunk, aren’t you?’

‘I’m sick!’

‘Well, you can’t be. Do you want the Pulitzer or not? This story’s going to be big.’

‘Great Temples of Kyushu!’ Le Vol could not be serious. ‘Calvin Coolidge said the man who builds a factory builds a temple. Do you think it works the other way around? Does the man who builds a temple build a factory?’

‘Up! Mr Arnhem is at our disposal – and Goro and his automobile.’

I told Le Vol to go ahead. ‘I’ll catch up with you.’

‘I’ll bet!’ He flung up his hands. ‘Damn you, Sharpless.’

‘Close the blinds, will you?’ I called, but he had gone.

I rolled on to my back. I flung a forearm over my eyes. From outside came the chugging of the Lincoln sedan, then tyres crunched over the drive.

When I rose at last it was afternoon. The house was quiet; even the bent-backed maidservant did not come when I called. I searched the kitchen for coffee, but found none. I glugged down several glasses of water.

My plan was no plan at all: I would walk into town and wander without direction. If my odyssey brought me to Koshi-byo, well and good; but as I reached the end of the consulate’s drive, I found, when I rounded a vine-covered wall, a rickshaw-puller standing idle. The fellow, after the manner of his tribe, was wiry, naked to the waist, and strangely ageless, a wizened boy, his teeth brown with chewing-tobacco as he grinned and said, ‘Koshi-byo?’

‘Higashi Hill.’ I settled into the rickshaw like an invalid, drawing a rug across my knees. The sun struck brightly at my eyes. We rattled into streets thick with people and stalls and cluttered storefronts. We crossed a canal; automobiles honked like geese and streetcars trundled by, tugging at overhead wires. I glimpsed a temple, scaly with ornament like a dragon’s back. Might this be where Le Vol had gone?

The

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