All through the afternoon Charlie built up a magnificent spread in his kitchen of Peking duck, chow fun, asparagus spears, dim sum, and many other things. A little after 4:00 he called us all into the kitchen to photograph us eating the beluga caviar sent from the Soviet Union. It was delicious, like no other caviar I’ve ever had, tasted like the first scent of the ocean you get when you are driving to the coast. We all held up champagne glasses and crackers loaded with beluga for the photo.

When Ballard arrived Charlie took him into the living room for the interview and the rest of us sat in the kitchen talking in low tones and occasionally glancing out the window at the drizzle outside, one of those rains so light you have to look carefully to see it. We stared at the food and talked about how well champagne went with strawberries. At one point, the woman managing Ballard’s visit came in to ask us to pipe down.

After awhile Charlie called us all in to ask our own questions. Ballard is gray-haired, very English-looking, with a bay window and an open, unlined face. He kept glancing at Shelly and me in a friendly, questioning way, as though he wasn’t sure how we fit in. Mainly he talked about Empire of the Sun and the extent to which it was or wasn’t autobiographical. All I could think to ask was whether or not the character Basie (played by John Malkovich) was based on a real person. (No, he was based on a number of American merchant seamen he encountered in the camps.) Ballard commented on how unpopular Speilberg is in Los Angeles and the mechanics of making a movie. Dan Chow came in with a shopping bag full of books for Ballard to sign. Charlie and Dan took a lot of pictures.

Here is how the event appeared in LOCUS.