Can You See Her?

When it was so dark at the St. Michael's playground that we couldn't see the basket, we couldn't see Mary Magdalene, either. What Owen liked best was to practice the shot until we lost Mary Magdalene in the darkness. Then he would stand under the basket with me and say, "CAN YOU SEE HER?"

"Not anymore," I'd say.

"YOU CAN'T SEE HER, BUT YOU KNOW SHE'S STILL THERE--RIGHT?" he would say.

"Of course I'm sure!" I'd say.

"BUT YOU CAN'T SEE HER," he'd say--very teasingly, "HOW DO YOU KNOW SHE'S STILL THERE IF YOU CAN'T ACTUALLY SEE HER?"

"Because I know she's still there--because I know she couldn't have gone anywhere--because I just know!" I would say.

And one cold, late-fall day--it was November or even early December; Johnson had defeated Goldwater for the presidency; Krushchev had been replaced by Brezhnev and Kosygin; five Americans had been killed in a Viet Cong attack on the air base at Bien Hoa--I was especially exasperated by this game he played about not seeing Mary Magdalene but still knowing she was there.

"YOU HAVE NO DOUBT SHE'S THERE?" he nagged at me.

"Of course I have no doubt!" I said.

"BUT YOU CAN'T SEE HER--YOU COULD BE WRONG," he said.

"No, I'm not wrong--she's there, I know she's there!" I yelled at him.

"YOU ABSOLUTELY KNOW SHE'S THERE--EVEN THOUGH YOU CAN'T SEE HER?" he asked me.

"Yes!" I screamed.

"WELL, NOW YOU KNOW HOW I FEEL ABOUT GOD," said Owen Meany. "I CAN'T SEE HIM--BUT I ABSOLUTELY KNOW HE IS THERE!"

-John Irving, A Prayer For Owen Meany, p. 451