I woke in the grip of a death sweat. Defenseless against my own racking fears. A pause at the center of my being. Ilacked the will and physical strength to get out of bed and move through the dark house, clutching walls and stairrails. To feel my way, reinhabit my body, re-enter the world. Sweat trickled down my ribs. The digital reading on theclock-radio was 3:51. Always odd numbers at times like this. What does it mean? Is death odd-numbered? Are therelife-enhancing numbers, other numbers charged with menace? Babette murmured in her sleep and I moved close,breathing her heat.

　　Finally I slept, to be awakened by the smell of burning toast. That would be Steffie. She burns toast often, at any hour,intentionally. She loves the smell, she is addicted; it's her treasured scent. It satisfies her in ways wood smoke cannot,or snuffed candles, or the odor of explosive powder drifting down the street from firecrackers set off on the Fourth.

　　She has evolved orders of preference. Burnt rye, burnt white, so on.

　　I put on my robe and went downstairs. I was always putting on a bathrobe and going somewhere to talk seriously toa child. Babette was with her in the kitchen. It startled me. I thought she was still in bed.

　　"Want some toast?" Steffie said.

　　"I'll be fifty-one next week.""That's not old, is it?""I've felt the same for twenty-five years.""Bad. How old is my mother?""She's still young. She was only twenty when we were married the first time.""Is she younger than Baba?""About the same. Just so you don't think I'm one of those men who keeps finding younger women."I wasn't sure whether my replies were meant for Steffie or Babette. This happens in the kitchen, where the levels ofdata are numerous and deep, as Murray might say.

　　"Is she still in the CIA?" Steffie said.

　　"We're not supposed to talk about that. She's just a contract agent anyway.""What's that?""That's what people do today for a second income.""What exactly does she do?" Babette said.

　　"She gets a phone call from Brazil. That activates her.""Then what?""She carries money in a suitcase the length and breadth of Latin America.""That's all? I could do that.""Sometimes they send her books to review.""Have I met her?" Babette said.

　　"No.""Do I know her name?""Dana Breedlove."Steffie's lips formed the words as I spoke them.

　　"You're not planning to eat that, are you?" I said to her.

　　"I always eat my toast."The phone rang and I picked it up. A woman's voice delivered a high-performance hello. It said it wascomputer-generated, part of a marketing survey aimed at determining current levels of consumer desire. It said itwould ask a series of questions, pausing after each to give me a chance to reply.

　　I gave the phone to Steffie. When it became clear that she was occupied with the synthesized voice, I spoke toBabette in low tones.

　　"She liked to plot.""Who?""Dana. She liked to get me involved in things.""What kind of things?""Factions. Playing certain friends against other friends. Household plots, faculty plots.""Sounds like ordinary stuff.""She spoke English to me, Spanish or Portuguese to the telephone."Steffie twisted around, used her free hand to pull her sweater away from her body, enabling her to read the label.

　　"Virgin acrylic," she said into the phone.

　　Babette checked the label on her sweater. A soft rain began to fall.

　　"How does it feel being nearly fifty-one?" she said.

　　"No different from fifty.""Except one is even, one is odd," she pointed out.

　　That night, in Murray's off-white room, after a spectacular meal of Cornish hen in the shape of a frog, prepared on atwo-burner hot plate, we moved from our metal folding chairs to the bunk bed for coffee.

　　"When I was a sportswriter," Murray said, "I traveled constantly, lived in planes and hotels and stadium smoke,never got to feel at home in my own apartment. Now I have a place.""You've done wonders," Babette said, her gaze sweeping desperately across the room.

　　"It's small, it's dark, it's plain," he said in a self-satisfied way. "A container for thought."I gestured toward the old four-story building on several acres across the street. "Do you get any noise from the insaneasylum?""You mean beatings and shrieks? It's interesting that people still call it the insane asylum. It must be the strikingarchitecture, the high steep roof, the tall chimneys, the columns, the little flourishes here and there that are eitherquaint or sinister—I can't make up my mind. It doesn't look like a rest home or psychiatric facility. It looks like aninsane asylum."His trousers were going shiny at the knees.

　　"I'm sorry you didn't bring the kids. I want to get to know small kids. This is the society of kids. I tell my studentsthey're already too old to Figure importantly in the making of society. Minute by minute they're beginning to divergefrom each other. 'Even as we sit here,' I tell them, 'you are spinning out from the core, becoming less recognizable asa group, less targetable by advertisers and mass-producers of culture. Kids are a true universal. But you're wellbeyond that, already beginning to drift, to feel estranged from the products you consume. Who are they designed for?

　　What is your place in the marketing scheme? Once you're out of school, it is only a matter of time before youexperience the vast loneliness and dissatisfaction of consumers who have lost their group identity.' Then I tap mypencil on the table to indicate time passing ominously."Because we were seated on the bed, Murray had to lean well forward, looking past the coffee cup poised in my hand,in order to address Babette.

　　"How many children do you have, all told?"She appeared to pause.

　　"There's Wilder, of course. There's Denise."Murray sipped his coffee, trying to look at her, sideways, with the cup at his lower lip.

　　'There's Eugene, who's living with his dadd............