A Way Through the Sea (10 page)

“What? Philosophy, politics, the war, or how to save the world?”

“No, really, what you said before, when we were talking about the Germans.”

“Oh.” He looked out over the water toward Sweden, now a blue green blur in the distance as they headed south into the open waters of the Sound. He cocked his head at his nephew, looking up with one eye. “Look, I don’t know how much more I can tell you about that. I’ve already said too—"

“No, not about the Germans,” Peter interrupted. “Or about what you do in the Under—” He bit his tongue again. “It’s what you said about becoming a Christian.”

Peter felt himself asking the questions, but it was almost as if it
wasn’t
him. He had avoided it pretty well before. “I mean, I’m just curious, a little. I know you go to that little house church, and all those other meetings, but you’ve always been a Christian, right?”

At that, Uncle Morten leaned up against the pilothouse, threw back his head, and laughed, big.

“What’s so funny?” Peter asked, suddenly feeling dumb. It wasn’t that strange a question, but his uncle just kept laughing.

“I’m sorry,” he finally said, catching his breath. “No, it’s really not a strange or funny question.”

“I didn’t think so.” Peter was regretting that he had opened his big mouth.

“Really, I didn’t mean anything,” Uncle Morten said. “I’m sorry to laugh. It’s just that Arne, I mean your father, asked me exactly the same question, in exactly those words, when I told him I had become a Christian.”

“Was that before you and Grandpa took me to that prayer meeting?”

“You remember that?” He smiled. “Good. I wasn’t ever sure if we scared you off or something, because you didn’t say anything about it afterward. But anyway, yes, it was just a couple of months before that meeting when I committed my life to Jesus.”

“Oh,” said Peter. “Well, that makes sense... kind of.” Of course, he had always considered
himself
a Christian, too. He was baptized when he was a baby, like everyone else he knew, except Henrik. Peter figured that if anyone had a chance at getting to heaven, he probably did, too. No murders or robberies on his record.

“Kind of?” asked Uncle Morten. “It didn’t make sense to me for a long time. Almost all my life, in fact. I thought I was a Christian way before that.”

“But you weren’t? How could you tell?”

“Listen,” said Uncle Morten. He pulled off his gloves and looked straight at Peter. “I don’t want to sound preachy to you, and that’s why I’ve never told you this before. But since you asked, maybe this is the right time.” He paused for a second, watching for Peter’s reaction.

“I’m listening, Uncle Morten,” he said. It was his turn to be nervous, but now there was no longer any question. He wanted to hear the rest of the story.

“Okay, then, here’s what happened: I met this guy, Knud Kvist, another fisherman, and there was something very different about him. He went to this little church I’m going to now. I ended up asking him about the same questions you’re asking me now. Basically, he told me that I wasn’t a Christian because I went to church once in a while, or because I was baptized, or because I believed in God, or not even because I did the right things most of the time.”

“So what’s left?” Peter went down the list in his head, trying to think of anything that was missing. He couldn’t think of anything.

Uncle Morten grinned. “Kvist told me that to follow Jesus—to become a Christian—we need to confess our sins and surrender our whole selves to Christ. Becoming a Christian means realizing that you can’t get to heaven by being good. So that’s my sermon. Does that make sense?”

Peter nodded, doing his best to take it all in. “It makes sense.”

Peter didn’t have time to think about it much more, though, because it was time for Uncle Morten to turn back to his net, and they were hauling in a pretty big load. That kept the two busy for the next hour, and then it was time to head back. Uncle Morten let Peter take the wheel again, and he tried to keep a straight course back to Helsingor Harbor.

“Keep the steeple straight ahead,” said Uncle Morten.

“No problem,” said Peter. It was still clear and beautiful, but an afternoon chop had picked up. With the wind from behind, the waves scooted under the boat and tossed it around more than earlier in the day. All the things Peter’s uncle had told him felt like waves, too, knocking his head silly. He had heard it all before, but somehow it had never registered.
What if Uncle Morten is right about this Jesus thing?

“You’re all over the place, Peter,” said Uncle Morten, interrupting Peter’s thoughts. He had been zigzagging. Morten put his big hand on the wheel to help straighten them out.

“Sorry,” said Peter, lining up on his bearing again. But he was still thinking.
Uncle Morten said I haven’t really been a Christian all this time. At least, I think that’s what he was saying....

Peter tried to keep his attention on steering, on the waves. A larger wave slipped under the boat just then, and he held on tight to keep from falling over. He was thinking, thinking hard, but still doing pretty well at steering a straight course back to the harbor.
Just so he doesn’t ask me what I’m thinking. This isn’t what I came on the fishing boat to find out about.

Before Uncle Morten could say anything else, Peter handed him the wheel and escaped out onto the breezy deck. Maybe he could think better out there, he thought, without embarrassing himself.

It took a few minutes, but Peter’s heart slowly settled down. The spray in his face from an occasional wandering wave even felt good. Cold, but good.
That’s better.
He got as far back as he could on the rear deck of the boat and watched the seagulls behind and above. “Lucky bird,” he told one that glided closer to the boat than the rest. “You don’t have to worry about anything.”

He dug his hands deep into the pockets of his overcoat. He felt a hard bread crust in his right pocket, forgotten there a long time ago. For the birds. Picking out a seagull, Peter leaned over the edge of the boat and heaved the bread crust as hard as he could.

It all happened in an instant. Peter grabbed for something—anything—but only came up with air. The next moment he was coughing on ice cold salt water, thrashing around, panicky. Only when his head popped up again above the water did Peter realize what was going on, and by that time the fishing boat was already well out of reach.

“Uncle Morten!” he tried to yell, but he was still choking on seawater. His jacket and pants billowed up around him, and it was hard to stay on top of the green waves. The cold made him instantly numb, squeezing the breath out of him.

“Uncle Morten! Hey! HEY!”
Is he just going to sail off without me?
Peter waved with one hand, paddled with the other, and yelled as loudly as he could.
There’s no way he can hear me.
Peter panicked, swallowed a salty wave, gagged and spit. The boat was still moving away fast. His best hope now, he thought, would just be to stay afloat as long as he could. Uncle Morten couldn’t get far before he would notice Peter was gone. But he would probably have to start stripping off his shoes; his coat was already off. Anything to make it easier to stay up.
Don’t panic,
he told himself. Then his teeth started chattering, and he couldn’t stop shivering.

He was just unlacing his shoes, bobbing down underwater, coming up for air, when he saw the
Anna Marie
. She was heading straight at Peter, full speed, waves spraying out in front. A moment later two big hands pulled Peter over the rail. He kneeled on the deck, dripping and gasping.

“Take that wet stuff off,” ordered Uncle Morten with a no nonsense voice. Peter obeyed, his teeth still chattering and his body shaking all over from the cold. His uncle pulled out a blanket and a big parka from underneath a seat and wrapped him snuggly. Inside the pilothouse, out of the wind, he started to warm up again.

“I saw you standing back there one minute, and the next second you were gone,” said the fisherman, steering once again toward home. “You couldn’t have been in the water for more than a minute or two before I pulled around and got you.”

“A minute or two?” asked Peter. “It seemed more like an hour. I just panicked when I saw the boat sailing away from me.” It was easier to describe now that he was getting warm and dry, or mostly dry.

“So if you wanted to go swimming, you should have told me, Peter.” Then he got serious. “Really, though, if you want to go out again, you’re going to have to be extra careful around that railing.”

Peter nodded and shivered, feeling as if he had almost died. Then he remembered what he had been thinking about when he fell overboard.

“Warming up?” Uncle Morten’s question interrupted his thoughts.

“Uh huh.”

“I think there’s an old pair of work clothes under there where I got the blanket. See if you can find them. They won’t fit you very well, and they probably smell pretty bad, but it’s better than walking home in just a blanket.”

Peter nodded, then found a pair of grease stained pants and a ripped gray shirt under a cork life jacket. They were big—way big—but he put them on. Better than wet clothes for sure. After a few minutes, he started to warm back up.

Uncle Morten kept his course and looked over at Peter. “About what I said earlier, Peter, I’ll say one more thing, and then I won’t preach at you anymore.” Peter looked up at him, but didn’t say anything. “If you really want to follow Jesus, it’s your move. All you have to do is tell Him so. I won’t ever bug you about it.”

“Thanks,” Peter managed to mumble as his uncle kept the boat on course through the waves. He wasn’t quite sure what to think anymore. It all made sense, but.... He sat on the seat over the life jacket box in the corner of the wheelhouse, his knees pulled up to his chest under the huge shirt, and the parka wrapped around his shoulders. He closed his eyes, listened to all the sounds, felt the boat rock. Before Peter knew what was happening, his head was nodding, and he was asleep.

When Peter woke up, the boat had stopped rocking. He sat up with a jerk, trying to figure out where he was. A fisherman friend of Uncle Morten’s was tying up the front end of the boat, but Peter couldn’t see his uncle.

“Hey, sailor, we’re back.” There he was, poking his head into the wheelhouse.

“Oh,” said Peter, still a little groggy. “I must have fallen asleep.”

“Yeah, you really conked out. Must have been all that swimming.” Then he looked around for a moment. “Why don’t you just go ahead; I have plenty of help here unloading. Besides, you’d trip over yourself in those old clothes.” He chuckled. “They’re a little big for me, too. I don’t know where I got them.”

Peter looked down at himself. The shirt was twice as big as he was, and the only way the big pants stayed on was with a cord wrapped two times around. But he had to laugh, too, it looked so silly.

“Well, okay. But I feel pretty stupid walking through town like this. I hope nobody sees me.”

“Up to you, Peter. You could change back into your salty, wet clothes.” Peter shuddered at the thought but considered it. “Tell your mom and dad that I’ll be by in about forty five minutes. I’ll explain to them what happened when you fell in.”

“Thanks, Uncle Morten. You saved my life.”

“Well, hardly,” he smiled. “We’re still working on that.”

Peter shivered, thinking again about his wet clothes that had wrapped around him like seaweed, about the numbing cold water, and about everything his uncle had told him that afternoon. With his wet clothes rolled up and tucked under his arm, Peter jumped down onto the dock and ran toward home.

Home for Dinner

8

As the pigeon flies, it was only about six city blocks from the harbor to the Andersen home. Eight to Henrik’s apartment above the little bookstore on Star Street. First Peter had to check in with the birds, though. He poked his head in the door of the shed and counted:
One, two, three, four, five.... All there.
He knew Number Two would make it back just fine.

Now he had to find a quick way home, without being seen by anyone. He tried a few back streets, smaller ones like Mountain Street and Stone Street. It was getting dark, he thought, so maybe no one would see him there. At least he didn’t hear anybody laugh yet, but a couple of boys on their bikes—older teenagers—gave him a good stare.
I look like some kind of hobo.
Down Rose Spring Street, past the red brick City Hall with its tall tower and large entryway, around the corner, and Peter was home.

He almost made it to his room, but Elise caught him in the hallway. “So, Peter, who designed your new wardrobe? No, really, it’s kind of cute, and the color matches—"

Peter slipped into his room and slammed the door.
Sisters.

Even though Peter was glad his uncle came by for dinner and explained what happened, Elise still kept grinning the whole time. It was a funny story, but maybe not that funny.

“Hey, don’t laugh,” he growled at her. “That water was cold.”

“But how long were you in the ocean?” asked Mrs. Andersen. She seemed the most concerned, even after Uncle Morten had explained to everybody that he had turned right around and picked up Peter within minutes.

“Really, not long,” Uncle Morten explained. He tried again to make everyone understand that it wasn’t such a big thing. “It only took me a moment to realize Peter had flipped off the back end, and...”

“But how did you get so tipsy, Peter?” asked Elise. At this point, Peter hated having to explain himself.

“I told you,” he said again. “I had some bread, and I was just throwing it to the seagulls.” That was enough to send off another round of giggles.

“Speaking of birds,” said Elise, looking more serious. “Henrik and I were down at the boathouse when Number Two came back, at two thirty. We got the message you sent. Henrik said to tell you he got it, if he didn’t see you first.”