Chapter 14 Section 12

I go to two German lessons every week, both in the late afternoon, and the dark twilight falls earlier each time.According to Howard Dunlop's protocol, we sat facing each other throughout the class.He asked me to carefully observe his tongue position when he demonstrated the pronunciation of consonants, diphthongs, and long and short vowels.And he looked carefully into my mouth as I tried to imitate the unpleasant sounds. His face looked gentle and peaceful.Normally, there was nothing special about this oval face, but as soon as he made the usual vocal movements, his face began to twist and bend.It was a seemingly bewildering event, like an episode in a specially controlled environment, that drew attention indecently.He retracted his head into his body, squinted his eyes, and put on an alien grimace.When it was my turn to imitate these noises, I did as long as it pleased the teacher: I twisted my mouth, closed my eyes—and I realized that the shouts produced by such a toss must sound like sudden changes in the laws of nature, such as A stubborn stone or an old tree struggles to speak.When I opened my eyes, I saw him just inches from my mouth, bending over to look in.I always wonder what he sees in there.

There are always tense silences before and after each class.I tried to start off with a casual chat, asking him to talk about his years and life as a masseur before teaching German.Then he would stare forward into the middle of the room, not looking angry or bored or ducking, but detached, detached from any event.When he spoke, about other tenants or landlords, there was something complaining in his voice, a drawn-out grievance.Crucially for him, he believed that he had been wasting his time before among those who were always unlucky. "How many students did you accept?" "A student of German?"

"yes." "You're the only German student I have at the moment. I had other students before. German isn't popular these days. These things, like everything else, come and go." "What else do you teach?" "Greek, Latin, navigation." "People come here to learn to sail?" "It's not as hot as it used to be." "It's amazing how many people are teaching these days," I said. "Everyone has a teacher. Everyone I know is either a teacher or a student. What do you think that means?" He looked away and looked towards the door of the small suite.

"Do you teach anything else?" I said. "Meteorology." "Meteorology! How did you get into it?" "My mother's death had a terrible effect on me. I was devastated and lost faith in God. There was no one to comfort me, and I shut myself up completely. Then one day, I happened to see a weather report on TV. Forecast, an energetic young man, holding a red light stick, standing in front of the colorful satellite photos, forecasting the weather for the next five days. I admire his confidence and superb skills, sitting there and entering It was as if a message had been beamed from the weather satellite by the young man to me in the canvas chair. I turned to meteorology for comfort. I consulted weather maps, collected books on the weather, attended The launch of the weather balloon. Meteorology, I realized, was exactly what I had been looking for all my life. It brought me a sense of peace and security that I had never experienced before. Dew, frost and fog, light rain and snow , the rapid air. I am sure there is something majestic in the rapid air. I stepped out of my shell and started talking to the people in the street. 'Good day!' 'Looks like it's going to rain.' 'Are you feeling hot?' Everyone pays attention to the weather. First thing in the morning, you go to the window and check the weather. You do it, so do I. I make a list and write myself Desired final achievement in Meteorology. I took a correspondence course and got a degree that was authorized to teach the course in a building with less than a hundred quorum occupants. I taught Meteorology in a church basement , mobile home parking place, family's private room and living room. They came to Zhongxi Town, Timber Town, Water Town to listen to my lectures. There were factory workers, housewives, businessmen, policemen and firefighters. I was in their eyes I see something in it: hunger—an involuntary need."

There are many small holes in the cuffs of his thermal underwear.We were standing in the middle of the room, and I waited for him to continue.This is the best time of the year, of the day, to wait for the petty but constant annoyances to get inside of things.Darkness, silence, and heart-wrenching cold.A certain inherent loneliness. When I got home, Bob Pardy was in the kitchen practicing his golf swing.Bob is Denise's father.He said he was going to Glasstown to give a demo and was driving through town thinking maybe he could take us all to a meal. He clasped his hands together, swung slowly over his left shoulder, and then made a smooth arc of hitting the ball.Denise watched him from a stool by the window.He wore a rough wool sweater with the sleeves hanging loosely over the cuffs of his shirt.

"What kind of demo?" she said. "Ah, you know, showing diagrams, marking arrows, putting some color on the walls. It's a basic means of making a big impact, sweetheart." "Have you changed jobs again?" "I'm raising a fund and have my hands full, trust me." "What kind of fund?" "Anything that can be raised, you know? People are giving me food stamps, those etchings. Hey, great, I don't care." He leaned over to put the ball into the hole.Babette crossed her arms and leaned against the refrigerator door, watching him.Upstairs, a voice with a British accent said: "Besides the spinning sensation, there are other forms of vertigo."

"What's the fund for?" Denise said. "There's a little thing you've probably heard of called the 'Nuclear Accident Preparedness Fund.' It's basically an industrial statutory defense fund in case something happens." "In case something happens?" "Just in case I faint from hunger. Let's get some ribs quietly, why don't we? There are leg-loving ones among you, and breast-loving ones. Babette, what do you say?" ? I'm almost ready to slaughter my own animal." "How many jobs did you change this time anyway?"

"Leave me alone, Denise." "It's okay, I don't care, just do what you want." Bob took the three older children to the caravan playground.I drove Babette to read to Treadwell, a blind old man who lived with his sister in a house by the river.Wilder sat between us, flipping through the supermarket tabloids that Treadwell treasured.As a volunteer reading to the blind, Babette has reservations about the old man's taste for unspeakable vulgar readings.She believes that people with disabilities must be morally regulated by higher forms of entertainment.If we don't look to the human spirit to triumph over them, who do we look to?They should set an example, as she did by example as a newspaper reader and moral advocate.But she was competent in her duties, and she read to him with as much earnestness as if she were repeating to a child the message the deceased had left on an answering machine.

Wilder and I waited in the car.After the reading, the three of us planned to meet up with the caravan fair party at the Bakery.They're there for dessert and we'll have dinner.I have a copy with me to pass the time tonight. Treadwell's home was an old timber frame house with corroded lattice trellises along the verandah.Babette came out within five minutes of going in, walking suspiciously to the end of the veranda and looking out into the dimly lit courtyard.Then, she walked slowly towards the car. "The door was open and I went in and there was no one. I looked around and there was nothing, no one. I went upstairs and I couldn't see any signs of life. Nothing seemed to be missing. "

"What do you know about his sister?" "She's older than he is, and she's probably worse off if it's not for the fact that he's blind and she's not." The two nearby houses were dark and marked for sale.No one in the other houses in the area had any knowledge of the whereabouts of the Treadwires in recent days.We drove to the police barracks and questioned a female officer sitting behind a computer console.She told us that one person goes missing every eleven seconds, and then taped us. In the "Fancy Bakery" just outside the city, Bob Pardy sat quietly.Already the golfer's soft pink face drooped over his head as our family ate and talked.His flesh seemed to be drooping all over, and he had the pathetic appearance of someone on a strict diet.His hair was expensively trimmed and layered, brushed and dyed just the right amount of color.Doing your hair like this is quite technical, but it seems like it needs to be used on a livelier head.I realized that Babette was studying him carefully, trying to make sense of the turbulent years they had spent together as husband and wife.It was devastated.He drank, gambled, drove his car into a river, got fired, quit his job, retired, changed his name to Coal City, hired a woman to talk Swedish to him while having sex with him.Babette was so pissed off about the Swedish woman—and not just about it, he had to confess—that she hit him, on the back of the hand, on the wrist, and on the elbow.Old loves, old fears.She looked at him now with a tender sympathy, and a thought that seemed deep, loving, and rich enough to have subduing power over his present train of suffering.But of course, when I returned my thoughts to the book I was reading, I realized that this was just a fleeting feeling, a kindness that no one can understand.

At noon the next day, they trawled the river.

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