by Robert Elmer
Only one man was in the dining room, reading a dog‑eared magazine in a language Peter didn’t recognize. The reader didn’t look up, but Peter could tell through the dark cloud of cigarette smoke around his head that it wasn’t the man they were looking for.
“The crew is from all over the world,” explained Matthias, answering the question Peter hadn’t asked. “That is, mostly Greek, a few Italians. I think the first mate is Norwegian.”
“How many are there?” asked Peter, wondering where the rest of the men were.
“Good question.” Matthias led Peter down another passageway. Now Peter was completely turned around. “Let’s ask Captain Papanikolas. Up this way.”
Peter peeked into several open doors as they walked down the hall.
“Is this where all your people are going to stay?” he asked, and Matthias laughed.
“Peter, we’re going to put hundreds of people on this ship.”
Peter stopped for a second to look into one of the small cabins. There was just enough room for a built‑in bunk bed and a small dresser. A white canvas duffel bag hung in the corner, dirty clothes spilling out.
“But there’s not enough room,” Peter said.
“They’ll stay out on deck, Peter.” Matthias laughed again. “It’s going to be one great camp‑out. Now let’s go see the galley.”
The ship’s kitchen was roomier than Peter had expected, with three men in white aprons preparing a meal of something that must have used a lot of potatoes, judging from the piles of peels on the floor. One of the men looked up, smiled, and waved his peeler.
“Good morning, gentlemen,” Matthias said. He didn’t step in but gave Peter a sideways look.
“Nice place,” commented Peter, taking a step backward.
“Okay, one more stop,” answered Matthias as he hurried up the nearby ladder. Up above, they could hear the captain barking out a mixture of English and what had to be Greek.
“Coming up, Captain,” announced Matthias.
“Karlsson, boss‑man! Join us!”
Once Matthias was out of the way, Peter looked up to see the almost toothless smile of the big captain looking down at him.
“And your young friend, what does he think of the old Acropolis, eh? Oh yes, I forget. Karlsson says the new name is Alisa.” He shrugged. “So we call it Alisa for one trip. And who cares, eh?”
Matthias cleared his throat. “Uh, Captain, that’s Aliya. Ali‑ya.”
“Yes, yes, Alisa, Aliya. You can call ship after your girlfriend, sure, as long as you pay good money. What’s the difference?”
Matthias sighed.
“Nice old lady, this ship, eh, boy?” Captain Papanikolas slapped Peter hard on the back, sending him scrambling for balance.
“Great,” he gulped, trying to get his breath back.
“This is the bridge, Peter,” Matthias said, pulling him gently to the side, out of the way of two men in uniforms only a little less raggedy than the captain’s. One man, a lanky beanpole with a fearsomely pockmarked face, gripped the spokes of a giant wooden steering wheel and stared straight ahead without a word. Another, a darker man with a beard, kept a pair of binoculars glued to his eyes and scanned the blue horizon ahead. Three other men were studying a map in the far corner while one was plotting a course with a two‑pointed compass. No one looked their way. Peter shook his head gently.
“How many in your crew, Captain?” Matthias looked curious.
The captain stood on his tiptoes to peek over the shoulder of his tall helmsman, the man who steered, before he looked back to his visitors. He counted quietly on his fingers for a moment before answering.
“Five in the engine room,” he began. “Ten on deck crew, three in the galley, five up here on the bridge. See? I give you the best crew in the Mediterranean. No finer...”
“Twenty‑three?” asked Matthias.
The captain poked his pudgy finger in Matthias’s chest. “Good arithmetic, secret agent man.”
Peter looked quickly out the row of small windows at the back deck of the ship, where the seaplane was sitting, and did his own counting. He could see eight men out on deck, some sitting on the plane’s floats, or pontoons, while others leaned against railings and looked out over the water. With five in the bridge, five in the engine room, the one in the dining room, and three more in the galley, that made twenty‑two.
The captain said twenty‑three, thought Peter. Where’s the last man?
“How many out there, Peter?” Matthias asked, looking back in the direction of the plane.
“What are you worried about, eh?” asked Captain Papanikolas. “Same cost to you and your Jewish people with three crew or thirty.”
Matthias nodded politely at the captain.
“I still see only eight out there,” Peter reported quietly. “That makes twenty‑two.”
“Right. Well, Captain, could you have your men help me with my plane once more? I’ll need to get it back into the sea so I can take off.”
“So soon?” The captain flashed another one of his toothless smiles. “You come back with the woman next time. I can hitch you up good. Then you take her to that promised land of yours?”
“I’m working on it.” Matthias shook the captain’s hand before backing down the ladder once more in the direction of the galley. “I’ll meet you in Bremen.”
“You come back visit again, boy?” inquired the captain before Peter had a chance to follow Matthias. Peter could only nod and smile.
“The seas, they are bigger now,” the captain warned from above them. “You will be more careful with that airplane.”
Matthias and Peter huddled in the hallway once they had made it past the galley and far enough away so no one could hear them.
“Did you add it up?” Matthias asked seriously.
“Twenty‑two,” reported Peter. “There’s one more somewhere. You think he’s the one I saw before?”
Matthias held up his hands. “You tell me. Look, we can’t even tell the captain who we’re looking for. But maybe he’s in one of these rooms here.”
Peter looked nervously up and down the hallway, wondering behind which of the five or six doors the man could be.
“One way to find out,” he told Matthias. Peter took a deep breath and hurried down the hallway, knocking on doors with both hands.
“Peter, what are you doing?”
Peter motioned for Matthias to follow him, and they stopped in the dining room where the man with the magazine was still sitting. They looked back to see one of the doors opening. A short man in a white T‑shirt looked out.
“Yeah?” the man said, looking straight at Peter and Matthias and scratching his chin. His face was scarred and clean‑shaven. Matthias looked at Peter, and Peter half waved to the man.
“Uh, sorry,” Peter mumbled. “We were looking for someone else.”
They turned and hurried out on deck once more, where the wind caught them in the face.
“No match?” asked Matthias.
“That wasn’t him, Matthias. A couple of these guys look almost like him, but he’s not here.”
Matthias crossed his arms and frowned. “I was afraid of that. He’s not on the ship at all. Whoever is following me is still out there.”
“So what do we do now?” Peter looked out at the waves, still gentle and glassy, but bigger than before.
“I’ll get you home before the wind picks up so much that we can’t take off.”
Matthias hurried over to the knot of crewmen by his plane and began pointing the way for them to lower the plane back over the side, the way it had come.
“Okay, Peter, inside,” he said, and Peter pulled himself into the plane.
After the safety of the big, old ship, he bit his lip as they lifted the airplane over the side. Matthias rode on the top of the wings again, but they seemed to swing around more than they had on the way up. There was nothing for Peter to do except hang on and watch. High above him, Peter caught a quick glimpse of the Greek
captain, his arms folded, watching them intently.
“Easy!” Matthias yelled from above as they neared the water. A moment later, they were bobbing in the ocean and Matthias swung around into the cockpit like a gymnast.
“Let’s go!” he told Peter. The plane scraped lightly against the rusty side of the freighter before Matthias brought the engine to life and guided them away from behind the enormous black shadow. Using the protected pathway of flat water the big ship had carved out of the ocean, they headed in the direction of home, picking up speed.
“Hang on,” said Matthias, but Peter didn’t need the advice. He was already tightly gripping the handle next to him while the pilot worked the controls of the small plane, trying to keep steady as they picked up speed and started to hit bigger and bigger waves.
“Is this okay?” Peter wondered aloud. They knocked into the top of a small wave with a burst of spray, and it seemed to slap them to the side.
“No problem,” Matthias assured him. “I’ve taken off in a lot worse.” They hit another wave. “Only I can’t remember right now when that might have been.”
Peter closed his eyes and held on. Another jolt, and he felt the spray cover the airplane.
“You swim, don’t you?” asked Matthias.
Peter snapped open his eyes and looked over at the pilot, who was grinning.
“Sorry, bad joke.” Matthias pulled back at the controls, and the plane roared into a steep climb to the left. Peter was afraid to look at their left wing, for fear they would catch another wave. Without thinking, he lifted his feet off the floor, and Matthias laughed.
“I used to do that, too. Perhaps it makes the load a little lighter, do you think, Peter?”
Peter slipped his feet back down to the floor and relaxed a bit. Through the salt spray, he could see Denmark. They were headed in the right direction.
Neither said anything for the next twenty minutes as the steeples and roofs of Helsingør came into view. Matthias pointed the nose of the plane toward the safe, calm waters of the harbor, then glanced over at Peter.
“I want to thank you for your help back there,” he said, studying Peter’s face.
Peter shrugged. “We didn’t find him. I wasn’t much help.”
“Ah, but you were. Now I know one place where we don’t have to look for this fellow.”
“But he knows what you’re doing. You think he’s just going to go away?”
Matthias shook his head. “No. But listen. If you see that character here in town while I’m gone, stay out of his way. Don’t try to be a hero.”
“That won’t be hard,” replied Peter. “At least he doesn’t know who we are—I mean, Henrik and me.”
“That may be,” said Matthias. “Unless he’s seen you with me and makes a connection.”
I hadn’t thought about that, Peter worried as Matthias set the plane down just inside the harbor and taxied quickly back to the same place at the dock where he had tied up before. Elise ran down from the boathouse, a basket in her hand. Peter saw his mother and Mrs. Melchior hurrying behind her.
Peter opened the door on his side of the plane, but Matthias let the engine run and motioned for Henrik’s mother to come closer.
“There you are,” said Mrs. Melchior, leaning across to help hold on to the plane. “Did you... ?”
Matthias shook his head but patted Peter on the back. “He was a great bloodhound, but the fellow isn’t on the ship... which is good, in a way.”
Peter looked at the empty dock. “Is Henrik around?”
Mrs. Melchior handed across the basket Elise gave her and a paper sack Peter’s mother offered. “He’s still back home,” she answered, then turned to Matthias. “We put together a few more snacks for you, Matthias. And Peter’s grandfather had the idea to send you off with one of the pigeons.”
“Pigeon? But—”
“Take it,” urged Mrs. Melchior, pushing the basket into Peter’s lap. “The kids have had so much fun with flying messages around. Just take him out of the sack and let him go with a message when you get to Bremen.”
Matthias hesitated, then looked up at Peter’s grandfather standing by the boathouse and nodded. “Sure, why not? It’s going to take a few weeks to get the ship loaded.”
Peter held the basket, thinking about all the times they had taken their homing pigeons on trips to let them fly home. They hadn’t spent much time with the birds in the last couple of years, but it had still been fun once in a while to take them out.
“I can’t stay,” Matthias said, waving up at the others on the dock. “So I’ll see you?”
Peter felt as if he was in the middle of a private conversation, which he was, but Mrs. Melchior didn’t seem to mind.
“I’m going with all the Andersens to the coast, just like we planned,” she told Matthias, then looked back at Peter’s mother and smiled.
“Well, that’s fine,” Matthias assured her. “As soon as we’re loaded, we’ll turn right back this way, sail around Denmark, and head south for the Mediterranean. I can have the ship stop off the coast near Ho on the way.”
Mrs. Melchior pressed her lips together, as if she didn’t know how to answer. Peter wanted to squirm out of his seat, but his seat belt was still buckled and Henrik’s mother was standing in the way.
“Well, my offer still stands,” Matthias went on. “I’ll contact you again when I can.” He chuckled. “Maybe by carrier pigeon.”
He patted Peter on the leg to send him off, and Mrs. Melchior smiled weakly and backed away from the plane. Peter was glad to slip out but turned to Matthias before shutting the door.
“I’m sorry I thought you were... uh...” Peter wondered how to finish his sentence without saying, “I’m sorry I thought you were one of the bad guys.”
Matthias just smiled and waved him off. “I’m used to it, Peter. Shalom.”
Peter shut the door and stepped back onto the dock while Matthias powered up the plane’s engine and pulled away.
“Sha‑lom.” Peter tried to repeat what Matthias had said.
“Shalom,” said Mrs. Melchior. “That’s a way of saying ‘good‑bye’ in Hebrew. It also means ‘peace.’ ”
Peter turned away from the water for a moment, just in time to see someone shove his way past Grandfather Andersen, knock him over onto his face, and disappear into the city.
“Grandfather!” Peter shouted. He vaulted past Elise up the ramp to the boathouse.
6
Grandfather’s Idea
“Grandfather!” Peter kneeled beside his grandfather, who rolled over and gasped for air like a fish out of water. His eyes were wide with surprise—or pain.
“What happened?” screamed Elise. There was no sign of whoever had run off. Peter tried to cradle his grandfather’s head in his hands, but the older man just waved his arms.
“Someone knocked him over and ran,” Peter said, looking again toward the city streets. “You didn’t recognize him, did you?”
Grandfather tried to catch his breath. “It was just a blur. He came out of nowhere.”
“Are you hurt?” Peter’s mother asked. She hovered next to her father‑in‑law with a worried expression on her face.
Grandfather Andersen shook his head. “I suppose I haven’t been hit that hard since I played soccer.”
Elise looked furious. “I can’t believe someone would be that rude!”
“Are you sure you’re all right, Grandfather?” Peter wanted to know. His hands trembled as he helped his grandfather sit up, then he gently dusted off the back of his grandfather’s shirt.
“Here, just help me get to my feet and I’ll be fine.”
With Peter on one side and Elise on the other, they slowly helped Grandfather Andersen straighten out and get to his feet. The old man closed his eyes in pain but said nothing.
“Do you want us to call a doctor?” Mrs. Melchior asked.
“We should call a doctor,” Elise agreed. “And the police.”
“NO!” insisted Gran
dfather Andersen. “We’re not calling anyone.”
“But...” objected Mrs. Andersen.
“Grandfather...” began Elise, holding him up by his left arm. Grandfather just shook his head.
“If you could just find me my cane, I’ll put it to good use and walk on home—ouch!”
He winced as he took his first step, then smiled and nodded as he looked at Mrs. Melchior.
“We’ll walk home with you,” she insisted.
“Dad,” Peter’s mother said, “I don’t like that old Viking tough‑guy act you put on.”
“No act,” Grandfather said, but he winced again as they slowly made their way down the street toward his small apartment by the harbor.
“Look, he even made you scrape your knee,” said Peter.
“Hmm, I suppose.” Grandfather glanced down quickly at the rip in the knee of his pants. “I’m glad you were there with your strong legs to pick me up. And speaking of strong legs, where are they going to take you this summer? You’re not going to sit at home, are you?”
Peter and Elise looked at each other, and Peter shrugged. Grandfather was obviously done talking about himself.
“We didn’t really have any plans....” began Elise.
“No plans? My grandchildren don’t have any plans?”
Peter stepped up to the curb in front of Grandfather’s apartment. “Where would we go?”
“Anywhere!” their grandfather replied. “When I was your age, I wanted to hike across Europe. Switzerland. Norway. France. Of course, we didn’t have nice bicycles like you have today.”
Peter brightened up at the thought. “We should go on our bikes. Maybe from here to Paris!”
Grandfather chuckled and looked over at Mrs. Melchior, who raised her eyebrows. Mrs. Andersen frowned in disapproval, too.
“Well, I don’t think anyone’s parents would like that idea too much,” admitted Grandfather. “Maybe a shorter trip would be better.”
A block away, they could see Henrik running toward them. Peter waved as his friend caught up to them.
“You’re back,” Henrik puffed. He looked down at Grandfather Andersen’s knee and stared back in surprise.
