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the rush of air from my own passage, and we were slowing, slowing… I put my foot down, halted, and stared. I had never seen so many candles before in my life.
    “Thanks, Dorel,” I whispered.
    I set the kickstand and walked about. There were tunnels leading in all directions from the grotto, all of them blazing for as far as I could see with multitudes of candles. Every now and then a burnt-down candle stub would glitter and go out. Shadows darted about these like black butterflies as they died.
    Wandering, I was suddenly concerned about finding my way back out. I halted and looked about for Dorel. Once I was back upon my bike, I was sute I could retrace my route.
    A shadow glided around boulder, plinth, stalactite. It was my bike, with my godfather seated upon it and pedaling slowly, grinning. He wore what appeared to be a dark cloak. He waved and made his way in my direction.
    “How good of you to come and visit,” he called out.
    “Wanted to say thanks for the present,” I told him. “Dorel’s really neat.”
    “Glad you like him.” He drew up before me, braked, and dismounted, setting the stand.
    “I never knew a bike to have a name before.”
    He ran a bony finger along the handlebars.
    “He is something that owes me a great debt. He is paying it off in this fashion,” he said. “Would you care for a cup of tea or hot chocolate?”
    “I’d like a hot chocolate,” I said.
    He led me around a corner and into a niche where a slab of stone bore a red-and-white calico tablecloth. Two cups and saucers were laid upon it, along with napkins and spoons. Sounds of classical music were in the air, and I could not determine their source. We seated ourselves and he reached for a carafe which stood within a wire frame above one of the ubiquitous candles. Raising it, he filled our cups.
    “What is that music?” I asked.
    “Schubert’s Quartet in D Minor, a favorite piece of mine,” he said. “Marshmallow?”
    “Yes, please.”
    He added marshmallows. It was hard to see his face, the way the shadows danced about him.
    “Is this where you work, Morrie, or where you live?”
    He handed me my cup, leaned back, and commenced cracking his knuckles, one by one, a talent I mightily envied him.
    “I do a lot of my work in the field,” he said. “But you might consider this my office, and I do keep an apartment here. Yes, it is both.”
    “I see,” I said. “It’s certainly well lit.”
    He chuckled. He gestured broadly, and the nearby flames flickered wildly.
    “She’ll thinkit a fainting spell,” he remarked.
    “Who?” I asked.
    “The lady who belongs to that candle. Name’s Luisa Trujillo. She’s forty-eight years old and lives in New York City. She’s got another twenty-eight years to go. Bueno .”
    I lowered my cup, turned slowly, and regarded the immense cavern and all of the side chambers and tunnels.
    “Yes,” he said after a time. ”All there, all of them. There’s one for each of them.”
    “I read that there are several billion people in the world.”
    He nodded.
    “Lot of wax,” he observed.
    “Good chocolate,” I said.
    “Thanks. The Big Ten’s really come upon bad days.”
    “Huh?”
    “Everything interesting’s happening in the West,” he said.
    “Oh,” I said. “Football. You’re talking college football, aren’t you?”
    “Yes, but I like pro football, too. What about you?”
    “I don’t know enough about it,” I said, “but I’d like to,” and he commenced telling me.
    Much later, we simply sat, watching the candles flicker. At length, he refilled our cups.
    “You given any thought to what you want to be when you grow up?” he asked.
    “Not really,” I said.
    “Consider being a physician. You’d have a knack for it. I’d see to that,” he said. “Do you play chess?”
    “No.”
    “Good game, too. You ought to learn. I’ve a mind to teach you.”
    “All right.”
    I don’t know how long we sat there, using the squares on the tablecloth for our