one shot would get her drunk. The pop-pop-pop of rifle fire came from somewhere in the distance: Turkana and Tuposa cattle raiders, shooting it up again. Quinette reminisced about the trek with Michael, the gunship attack, the ostrich charge. It was a pleasure to converse without strain. There were so few people she could speak to in the Nuba, her efforts to learn the local language—it was called Moro—having barely proceeded past the hello and good-bye stage, and even then she couldn’t say hello or good-bye to the other tribespeople who’d sought refuge in New Tourom because they spoke Otorro, Heiban, or Krongo.
The dining room had filled up: Quinette’s wish for an audience had been granted, and among the diners were Ken Eismont and his whole crew—Jim Prewitt, Santino, Jean, and Mike. She had never received a reply to her resignation and wasn’t sure how Ken would react to her presence. Her impulse was to return to the bar and hide out until he left; but that would be cowardly. Besides, what did she have to feel guilty about? Perhaps she could have handled her departure from the WorldWide Christian Union more gracefully, but her conscience was clear; and it armored her against the icy look that pierced Ken’s rimless glasses when she approached his table.
“Thought I would say hello,” she said.
He gave her a limp handshake.
“Did you find a replacement?” she asked.
“No, but thanks for leaving the office in good shape,” he said indifferently.
She decided to disarm him. “I gave you an apology in writing, I’ll give it face to face. I should have given you more notice.”
“You think that’s it? Not giving enough notice?”
She did not say anything.
“You used me and the organization as a pretext to see your lover. And then you quit. How do you justify treating us like that? I expected more of you.” He was speaking quietly but injecting venom into every word. “You left us with a pile of work you never finished, but that isn’t all. Did you ever for one second think of what the consequences would be to us? Are you aware that Khartoum knows about your marriage and that they’ve used it against us?”
“This is the first I’ve heard about it,” she said, perversely exhilarated that she had drawn the attention of the Sudanese government.
“Khartoum has been trying to discredit us and our program for years, and you handed them red meat for their propaganda sausage factory. They’ve made statements that we’re an ally of the SPLA because one of our employees is the wife of an SPLA officer.”
“Why do you I think I resigned first? To spare you that.”
“It didn’t work. They’re saying that our teams are now fair game for their militias. We’ve put out press releases that you are no longer our employee. Not that the denials have had any effect. You’ve put all of us”—he swung an arm at the table—“in danger. As if we needed more of that.”
“Isn’t this a little too public? Whatever you’ve got to say, you can say it in private.”
“I’ve said all I have to say, except this. We would have had to fire you if you hadn’t quit. Marrying a guerrilla officer, for Christ’s sake! I’d think you were nuts, but what you are is a selfish woman, Quinette. Selfish and careless.”
“Right,” she said angrily. “By the way, how did you make out, looking into that hanky-panky I dug up? Did you sort through that? Figure out how to cover it up? Where do you get off, judging me?”
“I don’t know you,” he said, turning from her. “You don’t exist.”
She got a plate, stepped up to the serving table, and looked at the dinner choices, written on little white cards placed in front of the chafing dishes. It was hard to read them, but she was damned if she was going to wipe her eyes and give Ken the satisfaction of seeing how deeply he’d wounded her. He didn’t even give her a chance to defend or explain herself.
She pointed randomly, the server in his starched white smock heaped chicken on her plate, and composing herself, she rejoined Fitz and Mary.
“That didn’t look like a pleasant encounter,” Mary said.
“Nothing important.”
The three of them had the table, which could seat twenty people, all to themselves. The empty chairs reinforced Quinette’s feeling that she was under a kind of quarantine. Her distress, however, hadn’t affected her appetite. She finished eating before her companions and vacuumed the scraps with her fingers until