of the rods to get something on its line. Helene’s Passion VI was trolling for whatever might be down there—Geoff suggested they might get lucky and run into Spanish, and maybe even king mackerel—with four lines, one port, one starboard, and two centerboard.
Jeanine didn’t care what kind of fish took the bait, just as long as she could jump to the bent rod, take it from the holder, and wrestle the fish into the boat.
She was one of three females aboard. The other two, Marjorie Bellmon and Ursula Craig, were sunning themselves on the forward deck. Barbara Bellmon, Hanni Portet, and Helene Craig “thought they’d pass,” and Porter Craig excused himself without giving any reason.
“He wants to play with the kid,” Geoff said. “He’s nuts about the kid, but playing Grandpa is beneath his dignity.”
Geoff was running the boat. Her full-time captain, a deeply tanned, muscular man in his forties, found himself reduced to being more or less the steward. He didn’t seem to mind either being the steward or having Geoff at the controls. He told them he had joined the Craigs with Helene’s Passion III, and had absolute faith in Geoff’s ability to handle the boat, because he had taught him, starting at age nine, the fine points of small-boat handling.
Jack was half dozing, thinking of, for perhaps the tenth time, what Marjorie had told him in the very early hours of the morning. It was astonishing, in this day and age, but he believed it.
“You may not believe this, or even want to hear it, but I will only be a partial hypocrite when I march down the aisle in bridal—virginal—white.”
“What the hell are you talking about?”
"Our first time, on the beach at Panama City, was my first time, period.”
“Really?”
“Yes, really, and I thought you should know.”
“Well, you may not believe this, or even want to hear it, but you certainly show a natural talent for the sport.”
“You bastard!” she had said, and straddled him, and started to pound his chest with her fists. He had caught her hands and they’d looked at each other, and she had changed her mind about what she wanted to do to him.
“I’ve decided it’s time to get out of the Congo,” his father said suddenly, breaking Jack’s reverie. “Out of Africa, period.”
“Really?” Jack asked, surprised. “Why, all of a sudden?”
His father raised his hand and pointed to Jeanine.
“That’s reason one,” he said. “When I was sitting in Léopoldville, wondering what that lunatic Olenga might do to her—might already have done to her and Hanni—I was sick with shame that I hadn’t gotten them out when I first began to think about it.”
“Dad—”
“Let me finish,” his father said.
Jack made a “have at it” gesture with his hand, and took a pull at his Heineken.
“The first time I thought about it was when Kasavubu made Mobutu chief of staff of the Army. That was more than four years ago.”
Joseph Kasavubu became the first president of the Republic of the Congo when it became independent in 1960.
“Why?” Jack asked. “I thought you liked Mobutu. I do.”
“I do,” Jean-Phillipe Portet said. “I liked him when he was a corporal in the Force Publique and I liked him when he was working for L’Avenir. And I still like him—a little less, frankly— now. But he was—is—no more qualified to be a lieutenant general and chief of staff of the Army than I am. I knew that, but I didn’t want to face facts.”
Captain Portet took a pull at his beer, then went on:
“Our friend Joseph Désiré Mobutu is now calling himself Mobutu Sese Seko. And did you see the leopard-skin overseas hat?”
Jack chuckled.
"Yeah, I saw the hat. What the hell, he’s an African. Why not?”
“I had dinner with him the night before the Belgians jumped on Stanleyville,” Jack’s father said.
“ ‘The Belgians’?” Jack quoted. “Not, with chauvinist pride, ‘We Belgians’?”
His father chuckled, but not, Jack sensed, really happily.
“Let me put it this way,” his father said. “I had dinner with Mobutu Sese Seko the night before my American son, making his American father’s heart beat with pride, jumped on Stanleyville with some other parachutists, who I understand were Belgians.”
“I’m missing something here, Dad.”
“When we got off the airplane from Frankfurt,” his father said, “The immigration guy looked at my passport, did a double take, and then said, ‘Well, you’ve really been away a long time, haven’t you? Welcome home, Mr. Portet.’ ”
“I forgot you had an American passport,” Jack said. “You used that to get