When it was his turn, Blaine embraced Walter and at once recalled the joy he felt forty-seven years and some before, when he first held this stranger, the adopted little boy.

The Blaine line would end with Walter and Freddy. Zona was sterile, like Joanna. Unless by some remote stretch Freddy got married, it was over, and Blaine was sure now that Freddy was gay and suffering from the first symptoms of AIDS. Blaine took in all these thoughts in a rush, and through eyes slightly blurring with tears, he glanced outside and saw how the shadow of the withering fig tree had disappeared at noon, leaving his Volvo a victim of the blistering sun. Heat waves shimmered off the faded paint job. Most people at least had the satisfaction of knowing that they would live on in their grandchildren. Even atheists took consolation in that.

Blaine gave Walter a tight hug. His son was soaking wet. “You had me worried there, kiddo. It’s good to have you back.”

“Thanks, Dad,” Walter said. “I’m okay now. It’s all right.”

Blaine broke loose from Walter and with a croaking voice called to Zona, “Just a minute, beautiful. Let me give you a hand out there.” As he stepped away from the living room, Blaine dabbed the tears from his eyes, quickly blew his nose, and fought to regain his composure before he “exploded” around the corner singing, “Bé-sa-me, Bé-same mucho, como si fuera esta noche la última vez.…”

Way Down Deep in the Jungle

DR. KOESTLER’S BABOON​, George Babbitt, liked to sit near the foot of the table when the physician took his evening meal and eat a paste the doctor had made consisting of ripe bananas and Canadian Mist whiskey. Koestler was careful to give him only a little, but one scorching afternoon when the generators were down and the air conditioners out, Koestler and Babbitt sat under the gazebo out near the baobab tree that was the ersatz town square of the Global Aid mission and got blasted. It was the coolest spot you could find, short of going into the bush. The baboon and the man were waiting for a late supper, since the ovens were out, too. Cornelius Johnson, the mission cook, was barbecuing chickens out in the side yard—not the typical, scrawny African chickens, but plump, succulent ones that Johnson made fat with sacks of maize that the generous donors to Global Aid had intended for the undernourished peoples of the region.