A prayer for Owen Meany (78 page)

Even this August, the memory of those days made Dan Needham and
me laugh. It was late at night, and we'd been drinking-as usual.

"Do you know what?" Dan said. "There are still
all those damn jams and jellies and some simply awful things that she had
preserved-they're still on those shelves, in the secret passageway!"

"Not really!" I said.

"Yes, really! See for yourself," he said. Dan tried to
get out of his chair-to investigate the mysteries of the secret passageway with
me-but he lost his balance in the great effort he made to rise to his feet, and
he settled back into his chair apologetically. "See for yourself!" he
repeated, burping. I had some difficulty opening the concealed door; I don't
think that door had been opened for years. I knocked a few books off the
shelves on the door while I was fumbling with the lock and key. I was reminded
that Germaine had once been no less clumsy-when Lydia had died, and Germaine
had chosen the secret passageway as the place to hide from Death itself. Then
the door swung open. The secret passageway was dark; yet I could discern the
scurrying of spiders. The cobwebs were dense. I remembered when I'd trapped
Owen in the secret passageway and he'd cried out that something wet was licking
him-he didn't think it was a cobweb, he thought it was SOMETHING WITH A TONGUE.
I also remembered the time we'd shut him in there during his going-away party,
when Mr. Fish had recited those lines from Julius Caesar-just outside the
closed door. "Cowards die many times before their deaths; the valiant
never taste of death but once"-and so forth. And I remembered how Owen and
I had scared Ger-maine in there-and poor Lydia, before Germaine. There were a
lot of old memories lurking in the cobwebs in the secret passageway; I groped
for the light switch, and couldn't find it. I didn't want to touch those dark
objects on the shelves without seeing what they were. Then Dan Needham shut the
door on me.

"Cut it out, Dan!" I cried. I could hear him laughing.
I reached out into the blackness. My hand found one of the shelves; I felt
along the shelf, passing through cobwebs, in the direction of the door. I thought
the light switch was near the door. That was when I put my hand on something
awful. It felt springy, alive-I imagined a nest of newly born rats!-and I
stepped backward and screamed. What my hand had found was one of Grandmother's
hidden wigs; but I didn't know that. I stepped too far back, to the edge of the
top step of the long stairs; I felt myself losing my balance and starting to
fall. In less than a second, I imagined how Dan would discover my body on the
dirt floor at the foot of the stairs-when a small, strong hand (or something
like a small, strong hand) guided my own hand to the light switch; a small,
strong hand, or something like it, pulled me forward from where I teetered on
the top step of the stairs. And his voice- it was unmistakably Owen's
voice-said: "DON'T BE AFRAID. NOTHING BAD IS GOING TO HAPPEN TO YOU."

I screamed again. When Dan Needham opened the door, it was his
turn to scream. "Your hairl" he cried. When I looked in a mirror, I
thought it was the cobwebs-my scalp appeared to have been dusted with flour.
But when I brushed my hair, I saw that the roots had turned white. That was
this August; my hair has grown in all-white since then. At my age, my hair was
already turning gray; even my students think that my white hair is distinguished-an
improvement. The morning after Owen Meany "spoke" to me, Dan Needham
said: "Of course, we were both drunk-you, especially."

"Me, 'especially'!" I said.

"That's right," Dan said. "Look: I have never
mocked your belief-have I? I will never make fun of your religious faith-you
know that. But you can't expect me to believe that Owen Meany's actual hand
kept you from falling down those cellar stairs; you can't expect me to be
convinced that Owen Meany's actual voice 'spoke' to you in the secret passageway."

"Dan," I said, "I understand you. I'm not a
proselytizer, I'm no evangelist. Have I ever tried to make you a believer? If I
wanted to preach, I'd be a minister, I'd have a congregation- wouldn't I?"

"Look: I understand you," Dan said; but he couldn't
stop staring at the snow-white roots of my hair. A little later, Dan said:
"You actually felt pulled-you felt an actual tug, as if from an actual
hand?"

"I admit I was drunk," I said. And a little later, Dan
said: "It was his voice-you're sure it wasn't something / said that you
heard? It was his voice?"

I replied rather testily: "How many voices have you heard,
Dan, that could ever be mistaken for his voice?"

"Well, we were both drunk-weren't we? That's my
point," Dan Needham said. I remember the summer of , when my finger was
healing-how that summer slipped away. That was the summer Owen Meany was
promoted; his uniform would look a little different when Hester and I saw him again-
he would be a first lieutenant. The bars on his shoulder epaulets would turn
from brass to silver. He would also help me begin my Master's thesis on Thomas
Hardy. I had much trouble beginning anything-and, according to Owen, even more
trouble seeing something through.

"YOU MUST JUST PLUNGE IN," Owen wrote to me.
"THINK OF HARDY AS A MAN WHO WAS ALMOST RELIGIOUS, AS A MAN WHO CAME SO
CLOSE TO BELIEVING IN GOD THAT WHEN HE REJECTED GOD, HIS REJECTION MADE HIM
FEROCIOUSLY BITTER. THE KIND OF FATE HARDY BELIEVES IN IS ALMOST LIKE BELIEVING
IN GOD-AT LEAST IN THAT TERRIBLE, JUDGMENTAL GOD OF THE OLD TESTAMENT. HARDY
HATES INSTITUTIONS: THE CHURCH-MORE THAN FAITH OR BELIEF-AND CERTAINLY MAR-
RIAGE (THE INSTITUTION OF IT), AND THE INSTITUTION OF EDUCATION. PEOPLE ARE
HELPLESS TO FATE, VICTIMS OF TIME-THEIR OWN EMOTIONS UNDO THEM, AND SOCIAL
INSTITUTIONS OF ALL KINDS FAIL THEM.

''DON'T YOU SEE HOW A BELIEF IN SUCH A BITTER UNIVERSE IS NOT
UNLIKE RELIGIOUS FAITH? LIKE FAITH, WHAT HARDY BELIEVED WAS NAKED, PLAIN,
VULNERABLE. BELIEF IN GOD, OR A BELIEF THAT- EVENTUALLY-EVERYTHING HAS TRAGIC
CONSEQUENCES . . . EITHER WAY, YOU DON'T LEAVE YOURSELF ANY ROOM FOR
PHILOSOPHICAL DETACHMENT. EITHER WAY, YOU'RE NOT BEING VERY CLEVER. NEVER THINK
OF HARDY AS CLEVER; NEVER CONFUSE FAITH, OR BELIEF-OF ANY KIND- WITH SOMETHING
EVEN REMOTELY INTELLECTUAL.

"PLUNGE IN-JUST BEGIN. I'D BEGIN WITH HIS NOTES, HIS
DIARIES-HE NEVER MINCED WORDS THERE. EVEN EARLY-WHEN HE WAS TRAVELING IN
FRANCE, IN -HE WROTE: 'SINCE I DISCOVERED SEVERAL YEARS AGO, THAT I WAS LIVING
IN A WORLD WHERE NOTHING BEARS OUT IN PRACTICE WHAT IT PROMISES INCIPIENTLY, I
HAVE TROUBLED MYSELF VERY LITTLE ABOUT THEORIES. I AM CONTENT WITH
TENTATIVENESS FROM DAY TO DAY.' YOU COULD APPLY THAT OBSERVATION TO EACH OF HIS
NOVELS! THAT'S WHY I SAY HE WAS 'ALMOST RELIGIOUS'-BECAUSE HE WASN'T A GREAT
THINKER, HE WAS A GREAT FEELERl

"TO BEGIN, YOU SIMPLY TAKE ONE OF HIS BLUNT OBSERVATIONS
AND PUT IT TOGETHER WITH ONE OF HIS MORE LITERARY OBSERVATIONS-YOU KNOW, ABOUT
THE CRAFT. I LIKE THIS ONE: 'A STORY MUST BE EXCEPTIONAL ENOUGH TO JUSTIFY ITS
TELLING. WE STORYTELLERS ARE ALL ANCIENT MARINERS, AND NONE OF US IS JUSTIFIED
IN STOPPING WEDDING GUESTS, UNLESS HE HAS SOMETHING MORE UNUSUAL TO RELATE THAN
THE ORDINARY EXPERIENCES OF EVERY AVERAGE MAN AND WOMAN.'

"YOU SEE? IT'S EASY. YOU TAKE HIS HIGH STANDARDS FOR
STORIES THAT ARE 'EXCEPTIONAL' AND YOU PUT THAT TOGETHER WITH HIS BELIEF THAT

'NOTHING BEARS OUT IN PRACTICE WHAT IT PROMISES INCIPIENTLY,'
AND THERE'S YOUR THESIS! ACTUALLY, THERE IS HIS THESIS-ALL YOU HAVE TO DO IS
FILL IN THE EXAMPLES. PERSONALLY, I'D BEGIN WITH ONE OF THE BITTEREST-TAKE
ALMOST ANYTHING FROM JUDE THE OBSCURE. HOW ABOUT THAT TERRIBLE LITTLE PRAYER
THAT JUDE REMEMBERS FALLING ASLEEP TO, WHEN HE WAS A CHILD?

"TEACH ME TO LIVE, THAT I MAY DREAD "THE GRAVE AS
LITTLE AS MY BED. "TEACH ME TO DIE ...

"WHAT COULD BE EASIER?" wrote Owen Meany. And
thus-having cut off my ringer and allowed me to finish graduate school-he
started my Master's thesis for me, too. This August in Gravesend-where I try to
visit every August-Dan's students in the summer school were struggling with
Euripides; I told Dan that I thought he'd made an odd and merciless choice. For
students the age of my Bishop Strachan girls to spend seven weeks of the summer
memorizing The Medea and The Trojan Women must have been an exercise in
tedium-and one that risked disabusing the youngsters of their infatuation with
the stage. Dan said: "What was I going to do? I had twenty-five kids in
the class and only six boys!" Indeed, those boys looked mightily
overworked as it was; a particularly pallid young man had to be Creon in one
play and Poseidon in the other. All the girls were shuffled in and out of the
Chorus of Corinthian Women and the Chorus of Trojan Women as if Corinthian and
Trojan women possessed an interchangable shrillness. I was quite taken by the
dolorous girl Dan picked to play Hecuba; in addition to the sorrows of her
role, she had to physically remain on the stage for the entirety of The Trojan
Women. Therefore, Dan rested her in The Medea; he gave her an especially rueful
but largely silent part in the Chorus of Corinthian Women-although he singled
her out at the end of the play; she was clearly one of his better actresses,
and Dan was wise to emphasize those end lines of the Chorus by having his girl
speak solo.

" 'Many things the gods achieve beyond our judgment,'
" said the sorrowful girl. " 'What we thought is not confirmed and
what we thought not God contrives.' "

How true. Not even Owen Meany would dispute that. I sometimes
envy Dan his ability to teach onstage; for the theater is a great
emphasizer-especially to young people, who have no great experience in life by
which they might judge the experiences they encounter in literature; and who
have no great confidence in language, neither in using it nor in hearing it.
The theater, Dan quite rightly claims, dramatizes both the experience and the
confidence in language that young people- Such as our students-lack. Students
of the age of Dan's, and mine, have no great feeling-for example-for wit; wit
simply passes them by, or else they take it to be an elderly form of snobbery,
a mere showing off with the language that they use (at best) tentatively. Wit
isn't tentative; therefore, neither is it young. Wit is one of many aspects of
life and literature that is far easier to recognize onstage than in a book. My
students are always missing the wit in what they read, or else they do not
trust it; onstage, even an amateur actor can make anyone see what wit is.
August is my month to talk about teaching with Dan. When I meet DanTor
Christmas, when we go together to Sawyer Depot, it is a busy time and there are
always other people around. But in August we are often alone; as soon as the
summer-school theater productions are over, Dan and I take a vacation
together-although this usually means that we stay in Gravesend and are no more
adventuresome than to indulge in day trips to the beach at Little Boar's Head.
We spend our evenings at  Front Street, just talking; since Dan moved in,
the television has been gone. When Grandmother went to the Gravesend Retreat
for the Elderly, she took her television set with her; when Grandmother died,
she left the house at  Front Street to Dan and me. It is a huge and lonely
house for a man who's never even considered remarrying; but the house contains
almost as much history for Dan as it holds for me. Although I enjoy my visits,
not even the tempting nostalgia of the house at  Front Street could entice
me to return to the United States. This is a subject-my return-that Dan
broaches every August, always on an evening when it is clear to him that I am
enjoying the atmosphere of  Front Street, and his friendship.

"There's more than enough room here for a couple of old
bachelors like us," he says. "And with your years of experience at
Bishop Strachan-not to mention the recommendation I'm sure your headmistress
would write for you, not to mention

 
 
that you're a
distinguished alumnus-of course the Gravesend Academy English Department would
be happy to have you. Just say the word."

Not to be polite, but out of my affection for Dan, I let the
subject pass. This August, when he started that business again, I simply said:
"How hard it is-without the showplace of the stage-to teach wit to
teenagers. I despair that another fall is almost upon me and once again I shall
strive to make my Grade Ten girls notice something in Wuthering Heights besides
every little detail about Catherine and Heathcliff-the story, the story; it is
all they are interested in!"

"John, dear John," Dan Needham said. "He's been
dead for twenty years. Forgive it. Forgive and forget-and come home."

"There's a passage right at the beginning-they miss it
every year!" I said. "I'm referring to Lockwood's description of
Joseph, I've been pointing it out to them for so many years that I know the
passage by heart: 'looking ... in my face so sourly that I charitably
conjectured he must have need of divine aid to digest his dinner ..." I've
even read this aloud to them, but it sails right over their heads-they don't
crack a smile! And it's not just Emily Bronte's wit that whistles clean past
them. They don't get it when it's contemporary. Is Mordecai Richler too witty
for eleventh-grade girls? It would appear so. Oh yes, they think The
Apprenticeship of Duddy Kravitz is 'funny'; but they miss half the humor! You
know that description of the middle-class Jewish resort? It's always
description that they miss; I swear, they think it's unimportant. They want
dialogue, they want action; but there's so much writing in the description!
'There were still some pockets of Gentile resistance, it's true. Neither of the
two hotels that were still in their hands admitted Jews but that, like the
British raj who still lingered on the Malabar Coast, was not so discomforting
as it was touchingly defiant.' Every year I watch their faces when I read to
them-they don't bat an eye!"