i went to german lessons twice a week, in the late afternoon, darkness crowding in earlier with each succeeding visit.

it was howard dunlop's working rule that we sit facing each other during the full length of the lesson. he wanted meto study his tongue positions as he demonstrated the pronunciation of consonants, diphthongs, long and short vowels.

he in turn would look closely into my mouth as i attempted to reproduce the unhappy sounds.

his was a mild and quiet face, an oval surface with no hint of distinctiveness until he started his vocal routines. thenthe warping began. it was an eerie thing to see, shamefully fascinating, as a seizure might be if witnessed in acontrolled environment. he tucked his head into his trunk, narrowed his eyes, made grimacing humanoid faces.

when it was time for me to repeat the noises i did likewise, if only to please the teacher, twisting my mouth, shuttingmy eyes completely, conscious of an overarticulation so tortured it must have sounded like a sudden bending of thenatural law, a stone or tree struggling to speak. when i opened my eyes he was only inches from my mouth, leaningin to peer. i used to wonder what he saw in there.

there were strained silences before and after each lesson. i tried to make small talk, get him to discuss his years as achiropractor, his life before german. he would look off into the middle distance, not angry or bored or evasive—justdetached, free of the connectedness of events, it seemed. when he did speak, about the other boarders or the landlord,there was something querulous in his voice, a drawn-out note of complaint. it was important for him to believe thathe'd spent his life among people who kept missing the point.

"how many students do you have?""for german?""yes.""you're the only one i have for german. i used to have others. german has fallen off. these things go in cycles, likeeverything else.""what else do you teach?""greek, latin, ocean sailing.""people come here to learn ocean sailing?""not so much anymore.""it's amazing how many people teach these days," i said. "there is a teacher for every person. everyone i know iseither a teacher or a student. what do you think it means?"he looked off toward a closet door.

"do you teach anything else?" i said.

"meteorology.""meteorology. how did that come about?""my mother's death had a terrible impact on me. i collapsed totally, lost my faith in god. i was inconsolable,withdrew completely into myself. then one day by chance i saw a weather report on tv. a dynamic young man witha glowing pointer stood before a multicolored satellite photo, predicting the weather for the next five days. i sat theremesmerized by his self-assurance and skill. it was as though a message was being transmitted from the weathersatellite through that young man and then to me in my canvas chair. i turned to meteorology for comfort. i readweather maps, collected books on weather, attended launchings of weather balloons. i realized weather wassomething i'd been looking for all my life. it brought me a sense of peace and security i'd never experienced. dew,frost and fog. snow flurries. the jet stream. i believe there is a grandeur in the jet stream. i began to come out of myshell, talk to people in the street. 'nice day.' 'looks like rain.' 'hot enough for you?' everyone notices the weather.

first thing on rising, you go to the window, look at the weather. you do it, i do it. i made a list of goals i hoped toachieve in meteorology. i took a correspondence course, got a degree to teach the subject in buildings with a legaloccupancy of less than one hundred.

i've taught meteorology in church basements, in trailer parks, in people's dens and living rooms. they came to hearme in millers creek, lumberville, watertown. factory workers, housewives, merchants, members of the police andthe fire. i saw something in their eyes. a hunger, a compelling need."there were little holes in the cuffs of his thermal undershirt. we were standing in the middle of the room. i waited forhim to go on. it was the time of year, the time of day, for a small insistent sadness to pass into the texture of things.

dusk, silence, iron chill. something lonely in the bone.

when i got home, bob pardee was in the kitchen practicing his golf swing. bob is denise's father. he said he wasdriving through town on his way to glassboro to make a presentation and thought he'd take us all to dinner.

he swung his locked hands in slow motion over his left shoulder, following through smoothly. denise eyed himfrom a stool by the window. he wore a half shaggy cardigan with sleeves that draped over the cuffs.

"what kind of presentation?" she said.

"oh, you know. charts, arrows. slap some colors on a wall. it's a basic outreach tool, sweetheart.""did you change jobs again?""i'm raising funds. busy as hell, too, better believe.""what kind of funds?""just whatever's out there, you know? people want to give me food stamps, etchings. hey, great, i don't mind."he was bent over a putt. babette leaned on the refrigerator door with her arms folded, watching him. upstairs abritish voice said: "there are forms of vertigo that do not include spinning.""funds for what?" denise said.

"there's a little thing you might have had occasion to hear of, called the nuclear accident readiness foundation.

basically a legal defense fund for the industry. just in case kind of thing.""just in case what?""just in case i faint from hunger. let's sneak up on some ribs, why don't we? you got your leg men, you got yourbreast men.

babette, what do you say? i'm about semiprepared to slaughter my own animal.""how many jobs is this anyway?""don't pester me, denise.""never mind, i don't care, do what you want."bob took the three older kids to the wagon wheel. i drove babette to the river-edge house where she would read tomr. treadwell, the blind old man who lived there with his sister. wilder sat between us, playing with thesupermarket tabloids that treadwell favored as reading matter. as a volunteer reader to the blind, babette had somereservations about the old gent's appetite for the unspeakable and seamy, believing that the handicapped weremorally bound to higher types of entertainment. if we couldn't look to them for victories of the human .spirit, whocould we look to? they had an example to set just as she did as a reader and morale-booster. but she wasprofessional in her duty, reading to him with high earnestness, as to a child, about dead men who leave messages onanswering machines.

wilder and i waited in the car. the plan was that after the reading the three of us would meet the wagon wheel groupat the dinky donut, where they would have dessert and we would have dinner. i'd brought along a copy of meinkampf for that segment of the evening.

the treadwell house was an old frame structure with rotting trellises along the porch. less than five minutes aftershe'd entered, babette came out, walked uncertainly to the far end of the porch and peered across the dim yard. thenshe walked slowly toward the car.

"door was open. i went in, nobody. i looked around, nothing, nobody. i went upstairs, no sign of life. there doesn'tseem to be anything missing.""what do you know about his sister?""she's older than he is and probably in worse shape if you disregard the fact that he's blind and she isn't."the two nearest houses were dark, both up for sale, and no one at four other houses in the area knew anything aboutthe treadwells'

movements over the past few days. we drove to the state trooper barracks and talked to a female clerk who satbehind a computer console. she told us there was a disappearance every eleven seconds and taped everything wesaid.

at the dinky donut, outside town, bob pardee sat quietly as the family ate and talked. the soft pink golfer's face hadbegun to droop from his skull. his flesh seemed generally to sag, giving him the hangdog look of someone understrict orders to lose weight. his hair was expensively cut and layered, a certain amount of color combed in, a certainamount of technology brought to bear, but it seemed to need a more dynamic head. i realized babette was looking athim carefully, trying to grasp the meaning of the four careening years they'd spent as man and wife. the panoramiccarnage. he drank, gambled, drove his car down embankments, got fired, quit, retired, traveled in disguise tocoaltown where he paid a woman to speak swedish to him as they screwed. it was the swedish that enraged babette,either that or his need to confess it, and she hit out at him—hit out with the backs of her hands, with her elbows andwrists. old loves, old fears. now she watched him with a tender sympathy, a reflectiveness that seemed deep andfond and generous enough to contain all the magical coun-terspells to his current run of woe, although i knew, ofcourse, as i went back to my book, that it was only a passing affection, one of those kindnesses no one understands.

by noon the next day they were dragging the river.