Jean Philippe smiled. “What did you expect the Lord to look like? Don’t we always say, ‘If only we could see God, we would know he was real’? What if He has finally given us a chance to see Him? Is it still not enough?”

No, I would say, it is not. I know we had that bizarre moment today. And the small miracle of Bernadette’s revival. But as with any miracle left long enough in man’s hands, more earthly explanations arise.

“Sheer coincidence,” Lambert said this morning when we were discussing it. “She was probably already regaining consciousness.”

“Or he roused her awake,” Nevin suggested.

The stranger emerged from the canopy, and Mrs. Laghari shot him a look as if she’d figured him out.

“Is that what you did with Bernadette?” she said. “Some sort of trick?”

He cocked his head. “It was not a trick.”

“I have my doubts.”

“I am quite used to doubt.”

“It doesn’t bother you?” Nina asked.

“Many who find me begin with hesitation.”

“Or they don’t find you at all,” Yannis said, “and they stick to science.”

“Science,” the stranger said, looking at the sky. “Yes. With science, you have explained away the sun. You have explained away the stars I put in the firmament. You have explained away all the creatures, large and small, with which I populated the Earth. You have even explained my greatest creation.”

“What’s that?” I asked.

“You.”

He ran his hand along the skin of the raft. “Science has traced your existence back to primitive life-forms, and to primitive forms before those. But it will never be able to answer the final question.”

“Which is?”

“Where did it all begin?” He smiled. “That answer can only be found in me.”

Lambert stifled a laugh. “OK, OK. If you’re so great, get us out of this mess. Make an ocean liner appear. Do something besides talk. How about actually saving us?”

“I have told you all you need for that,” the man said.

“Yeah, yeah, we all have to believe in you at the same time,” Lambert said. “Don’t hold your breath.”

The conversation dwindled. The man is an enigma for sure, Annabelle, a source of confusion and sometimes even frustration. But, in the end, he is not the answer. We don’t have an answer. When Mrs. Laghari asks “Where are the planes?” I know what many of us are thinking. If planes were coming, they’d have been here already.

* * *