'I'M SORRY!' Owen called after her. 'IT'S JUST ME!'
But it was Owen whom Germaine was especially afraid of. She was a girl who believed in the supernatural, in what she was always calling 'signs'-for example, the rather commonplace mutilation and murder of a robin by one of the Front Street cats; to witness this torture' was 'a sure sign'' you would be involved with an even greater violence yet to come. Owen himself was taken as a 'sign' by poor Germaine; his diminutive size suggested to her that Owen was small enough to actually enter the body and soul of another person-and cause that person to perform unnatural acts. It was a dinner table conversation about Owen's voice that revealed to me Germaine's point of view concerning that unnatural aspect of him. My grandmother had asked me if Owen or his family had ever taken any pains to inquire if something could be 'done' about Owen's voice-'I mean medically,' Grandmother said, and Lydia nodded so vigorously that I thought her hair pins might fall onto her dinner plate. I knew that my mother had once suggested to Owen that her old voice and singing teacher might be able to offer Owen some advice of a corrective kind-or even suggest certain vocal exercises, designed to train Owen to speak more . . . well. . . normally. My grandmother and Lydia exchanged their usual glances upon the mere mention of that voice and singing teacher; I explained, further, that Mother had even written out the address and telephone number of this mysterious figure, and she had given the information to Owen. Owen, I was sure, had never contacted the teacher.
'And why not?' Grandmother asked. Why not, indeed! Lydia appeared to ask, nodding and nodding. Lydia's nodding was the most detectable manifestation of how her senility was in advance of my grandmother's senility-or so my grandmother had observed, privately, to me. Grandmother was
extremely-almost clinically-interested in Lydia's senility, because she took Lydia's behavior as a barometer regarding what she could soon expect of herself. Ethel was clearing the table in her curious combination of aggression and slow motion; she took too many dishes at one time, but she lingered at the table with them for so long that you were sure she was going to put some of them back. I think now that she was just collecting her thoughts concerning where she would take the dishes. Germaine was also clearing-the way a crippled swallow might swoop down for a crumb off your plate at a picnic. Germaine took too little away-one spoon at a time, and often the wrong spoon; or else she took your salad fork before you'd been served your salad. But if her disturbance of your dinner area was slight and fanciful, it was also fraught with Germaine's vast potential for accident. When Ethel approached, you feared a landslide of plates might fall in your lap-but this never happened. When Germaine approached, you guarded your plate and silverware, fearing that something you needed would be snatched from you, and that your water glass would be toppled during the sudden, flighty attack-and this often happened. It was therefore within this anxious arena-of having the dinner table cleared-that I announced to my grandmother and Lydia why Owen Meany had not sought the advice of Mother's voice and singing teacher.
'Owen doesn't think it's right to try to change his voice,' I said. Ethel, lumbering away from the table under the considerable burden of the two serving platters, the vegetable bowl, and all our dinner plates and silver, held her ground. My grandmother, sensing Germaine's darting presence, held her water glass in one hand, her wine glass in the other. 'Why on earth doesn't he think it's rightT' she asked, as Germaine pointlessly removed the peppermill and let the salt shaker stay.
'He thinks his voice is for a purpose; that there's a reason for his voice being like that,' I said.
'What reason?' my grandmother asked. Ethel had approached the kitchen door, but she seemed to be waiting, shifting her vast armload of dishes, wondering- possibly-if she should take them into the living room, instead. Germaine positioned herself directly behind Lydia's chair, which made Lydia tense.
'Owen thinks his voice comes from God,' I said quietly, as Germaine-reaching for Lydia's unused dessert spoon- dropped the peppermill into Lydia's water glass.
'Merciful Heavens!' Lydia said; this was a pet phrase of my grandmother's, and Grandmother eyed Lydia as if this thievery of her favorite language were another manifestation of Lydia's senility being in advance of her own. To everyone's astonishment, Germaine spoke. 'I think his voice comes from the Devil,' Germaine said.
'Nonsense!' my grandmother said. 'Nonsense to it coming from God-or from the Devil! It comes from granite, that's what it comes from. He breathed in all that dirt when he was a baby! It made his voice queer and it stunted his growth!'
Lydia, nodding, prevented Germaine from trying to extract the peppermill from her water glass; to be safe, she did it herself. Ethel stumbled into the kitchen door with a great crash; the door swung wide, and Germaine fled the dining room- with absolutely nothing in her hands. My grandmother sighed deeply; even to Grandmother's sighing, Lydia nodded-a more modest little nod. 'From God,' my grandmother repeated contemptuously. And then she said: 'The address and phone number of the voice and singing teacher ... I don't suppose your little friend would have kept it-not if he didn't intend to use it, I mean?'' To this artful question, my grandmother and Lydia exchanged their usual glances; but I considered the question carefully-its many levels of seriousness were apparent to me. I knew this was information that my grandmother had never known-and how it must have interested her! And, of course, I also knew that Owen would never have thrown this information away; that he never intended to make use of the information was not the point. Owen rarely threw anything away; and something that my mother had given him would not only have been saved--it would have been enshrined! I am indebted to my grandmother for many things-among them the use of an artful question. 'Why would Owen have kept it?' I asked her innocently. Again, Grandmother
