by Robert Elmer
“Do you remember what Uncle Morten called him?” Peter asked his sister.
“Olaf, I think,” she answered. Neither of them said anything else for a time.
Mr. Andersen didn’t ask how they had met Olaf, but after a while he looked at his two quiet children again. Both of them were staring out the window at the dark waves. “Aren’t you tired?” he asked them.
“Not really,” answered Peter. Somehow he wasn’t. Or if his body was tired, his mind wouldn’t let go. Too many pictures were flashing through. The escape. The row over. The soldiers. The running. His mom. Captain Knut’s rescue. His father in Sweden. The story about Uncle Morten. And now seeing Olaf. Everything jumbled together, and Peter couldn’t tell where one picture started and the other ended. He thought about things he wished he had done, and still wanted to do, and he thought of what his uncle had told him about being a Christian. And then he had seen a new side of his dad, a dad he had missed before.
Henrik? It was as if Peter and Elise had lost a friend, but not really. There would be another time, after the war, Peter hoped, when Henrik and his family would come back. I could even take care of their place until then. Or someone could rent it. Lots of other Danes would do the same for the Jewish Danes they knew. It was just what friends did.
He looked over at his sister. In the darkness he could make out her face but not much else. She had her nose pressed against the glass, looking out, probably thinking some of the same things.
They made it back to Denmark an hour later and found a dark beach, close to the same beach where Uncle Morten was captured. With the boat’s engine shut off, Olaf quietly pulled the line of a small boat they had dragged behind them, like a dog on a leash. He motioned with his hand and barely whispered. “In you go,” he said. “You’re almost home.”
Without a word, the four of them stepped carefully into the little boat. Peter and Elise perched in the back end, Mr. Andersen in the front, Olaf in the middle. They slipped away from the larger fishing boat, and Olaf rowed quietly up to within a few yards of the shore.
As they were about to get out of the little boat, Mr. Andersen tried to thank the Swede, but he just shook his head.
“No, you don’t thank me,” said the Swede. “Your brother would have done the same thing for me.”
So without another word, Mr. Andersen helped Elise and Peter slip over the side, and waded the last few steps through icy water to home. Olaf nodded at Elise and Peter, pulled hard on his oars, and shot back to his boat.
This time, Peter was glad there was no one to meet them. Cold, tired, and wet, they hiked back through the woods, found a thickly covered place, and dozed until the morning light gave them permission to hike the last few miles home. Peter’s Swedish shoes never dried, and they made squishy noises all the way.
“You know what, kids?” Mr. Andersen finally broke the silence as they turned onto a busier street. He was in between Elise and Peter, and he had his arms around both their shoulders. Morning traffic was starting to stir around the old city, and they could see the buildings of the old section of town. Elise just looked up at him sleepily. Then he reached around and mussed her hair, the way he used to do when she was little. She smiled weakly. “Your mom is going to need a day’s worth of hugs when we get home.”
She did. It was even more emotional when they walked back into their apartment than it had been in Sweden. The hugs, the kisses. In between more hugs, Mrs. Andersen explained how she had sneaked through the bushes the night before to find everyone on the beach gone. Everyone, fortunately, including the German patrol. The only thing for her to do had been to drive carefully home and wait. Grandfather had stayed there with her.
When Grandfather heard the whole story, though, he was hit hard by the news about Uncle Morten. For over an hour, he just sat completely still in Peter’s favorite stuffed chair in their living room, staring straight ahead. Mr. Andersen, who had explained everything to him, came over and put his hand on his father’s shoulder.
“Dad, believe me. There was nothing we could do.”
Grandfather’s eyes flashed with anger, but not at his son. “Maybe not, Arne, but I should have been there.” He let out his breath. “And I wasn’t.” Then he got up and started to pace around the apartment.
“Maybe we can find a way to get him out,” suggested Peter as his grandfather brushed by. Peter looked around, making sure no one else heard them. “Maybe if we prayed, something would happen, Grandpa. I... I prayed when we were running away with Henrik.”
His grandfather stopped and stared at Peter. He looked like he was surprised to hear his grandson talk about prayer. Then a smile spread over his face, and he nodded. He took Peter by the arm as they walked into the hallway.
“Yes, maybe something would happen,” he said. “So let’s be sure to do that. But how—"
Elise came down the hall just then, looking for Peter and her grandfather. “Grandfather? Have you been down to the boathouse?” she asked. “Henrik may have let his pigeon go by now.”
“The pigeon,” said her grandfather. “Oh, yes.” He gave Peter a wink, his way of telling him that he would not forget what they had started to talk about. “I mean, no, I haven’t been down there today, but you two could run down and check.”
Peter and Elise didn’t need any more encouragement. They raced all the way down to the boathouse.
“Maybe Number One is waiting already,” said Elise as they pushed open the boathouse door.
Actually, the bird wasn’t really waiting, but he was doing his daily strutting routine, bobbing his head, marching in place, and generally making a lot of noise. Elise cornered him inside the cage.
“Come on, give me the message,” said Peter as he unclipped the capsule. The bird didn’t struggle much, only pedaled his legs a little, like a bird on a bicycle. Peter had to smile. The homing pigeon seemed to know he was carrying something important, after all that time in the basket. “Thanks, Number One,” Peter told the bird as Elise gently tossed him back to the others, to his water dish and to his food.
Nervously, Peter unscrewed the halves of the tiny capsule and hurried to pull out the scrap of paper. It was wrinkled, the back of a candy wrapper. Henrik had obviously worked hard to write in small, neat letters on it. Peter squinted and moved over to the sunlight coming in through the tiny window.
“Let me see,” said Elise, and she crowded over to take a look.
“Safe in Sweden,” Peter read aloud. “Thanks to you both. Please take care of Number One until I get back. Your friend always, Henrik.”
Below that, Henrik had added something else. A Bible verse? thought Peter. This was really from Henrik? Peter looked closer. It was his friend’s handwriting, for sure.
“There’s something else,” he said.
Elise took the note; it was her turn to read aloud. “Isaiah forty three,” she said, looking up at Peter. “From the Bible?”
“Of course it’s from the Bible,” said Peter, just as puzzled as his sister. “Read it.”
“Isaiah forty three. `This is what the Lord says, he who made a way through the sea, a path through the mighty waters...’ “
Then she looked up, and they both knew what Henrik had meant. About the way through the sea, and about who had made it for them. Without a word, she handed the candy wrapper back over to Peter, who stuffed it into his pants pocket. Closing the door of the shed behind them, they walked down the street toward home. But Peter had one more thing he had to do.
“You go ahead, Elise,” he told his sister. “I have to do something.”
“Sure,” she replied and headed in the direction of home.
“Oh, hey, Elise, I forgot to tell you.”
“Yeah?” She looked back, and Peter realized then that they had changed a lot over the last few days. Even though they had their little fights, he and his sister had always gotten along pretty well. But now there was something extra, and they both knew it.
“I forgot to tell you thanks for stickin
g up for me, when Keld and Jesper were after me the other day.”
“No problem,” she said easily, with a little smile. “Seeyou at home.” She turned and trotted off down the street, leaving Peter by the pier.
“Thanks,” he said again, under his breath. Peter looked out at the boats and the place where the Anna Marie used to tie up. He had saved a corner of the crusty bread roll Captain Knut had given them back in Sweden. He pulled it out of his coat pocket, crushed it in his hand, and tossed the crumbs as hard as he could out into the harbor.
Epilogue
There are many true stories of the rescue of Danish Jews during World War II, even though this one uses fictional characters. In the space of just a few days, thousands of men, women, and children were hidden in Danish homes, and the Danish people helped them to escape. The rescue of the Jews was a bright spot in the dark year of 1943; out of about seven thousand Danish Jews, only a few hundred were captured. It made the German leader, Hitler, furious.
Part of the reason so many escaped from Denmark was because everyone agreed that they would not let their friends and neighbors be captured and sent to prison or death. That had already happened in other parts of Europe. All at once, everyone in the country knew what they had to do. They weren’t afraid to do the right thing, no matter what the risk.
Just like Moses. One writer has said that if the Danish rescue of the Jews had happened during Bible times, it would have been included as another chapter in the Old Testament. Who knows? The story does remind us of the Exodus account, when God’s people escaped through the Red Sea. God was working in special ways then, and again in 1943.