Time: April 2013
Place: Big Sur, California
On a lofty bluff above the vast, sparkling ocean clings a rustic house. The rushing sound of waves dancing on the shore in effortless harmony wafts uninhibited into its open windows. The house is separated from the water only by the Pacific Coast Highway, which at this early hour is empty of cars and passersby except for a few joggers. In the afternoon, the road will teem with vehicles and bicycles of every kind and color, but for now a thick, silent fog shrouds the hill, the pitter-pat of light rainfall adding to a feeling of cozy comfort within the house. Tom’s cell phone rings—an unwelcome sound at this hour.
Tom turns over in bed, hoping the ringing will stop, but it doesn’t. He pushes the phone away until it drops off the nightstand, but it keeps on ringing. Grudgingly, he picks it up and slowly answers.
“Hello?” he asks gruffly.
“I’m sorry, sir. I hope I’m not disturbing you,” says a woman at the other end.
“Disturbing me! It’s 6 a.m., for God’s sake!” he growls, barely able to open his eyes to see the clock hanging on his bedroom wall.
“I’m sorry … I forgot the time difference between here and California. I’m calling from Salem, on the East Coast. It’s 9 a.m. here.”
“It’s Saturday … the weekend!” says Tom, slowly pulling his thoughts together.
“We haven’t stopped working since we were hit by the storm.”
Tom’s memory is jolted to the news of the hurricane that hit the eastern seaboard. News coverage over the past two weeks has been non-stop. He usually cuts a call short as soon as he senses a solicitation, but something makes him stay on the line this time.
“So, what do you want?” Tom asks, yawning.
“I would first like to make sure that you are Thomas Paul. Do I have that right?”
“Who wants to know?”
“Sorry, I forgot to introduce myself. I’m Leslie Clark of the Federal Emergency Management Agency, FEMA. But before I explain the reason for my call, I have to check … do you have any relatives in Salem, Massachusetts?”
“What? No … no, I don’t know anyone there.”
“Are you sure?”
“Uh … yes.”
“All right, then. Maybe you’re not the person we are looking for. I’m very sorry to bother you.”
“Wait—” Tom says, slowly realizing something.
The sound of rain on the patio outside intensifies. Chasing a vague memory from childhood, Tom recalls his mother telling him his father had a great-great-uncle who lived in Massachusetts. That was a long time ago. A very long time.
“Yes?”
“Oh, it’s nothing. I was thinking that maybe a relative lived on the East Coast, but that was a long time ago. It probably wouldn’t concern you now.”
“About how long ago?”
“I don’t know … probably more than a hundred years,” he says, now ready to end the call and go back to sleep.
“Could I ask his name and birthplace and some other questions about your family history?”
“You can, but I’m not sure you’ll get a proper answer from me now.” He hangs up and is soon back asleep.
At 9 a.m., Tom is sitting on the rocking chair on the patio, enjoying the gentle April breeze and expansive view. The rain has stopped and the sun is peeking through clouds that are looking lighter now. He contemplates the hazy, distant horizon and wonders idly what might happen to those fated to go out to sea when they reach that liminal space where earth meets sky, one blending into the other.
His dog fetches the newspaper from the doorstep for him to read as he sips his carefully prepared coffee. Tom owns a coffee shop, a popular stop for tourists cruising the scenic Pacific Coast Highway. He spends most of his time there, but on the weekends he escapes work to spend time in this bucolic place he inherited from his father. The phone rings again, and this time Leslie leads with the reason for her call. She reminds him of the storm and the damage it caused to a lot of property. No deaths, fortunately, but some injuries.
“But what does all this have to do with me?”
“The damage extended beyond buildings. It also struck some graveyards, including one in the town of Salem. The rising water level brought some coffins to the surface. We were able to return all the coffins to their places quite quickly, except one.”
Tom wonders impatiently where this tedious conversation is heading.
“We opened the coffin in order to fix the lid and found a wooden box inside, wrapped in a tattered cloth. It’s possibly of historical importance. The FEMA people didn’t know how to handle such a case. Should we return the box to the coffin or keep it out and return the coffin to the ground? After conferring with FEMA’s legal division, we decided to search for living relatives of the person in the grave and hand the box over to either them or the city’s museum.”
“Okay, so how does this relate to me?”
“The person in the grave is a woman with your family’s surname.”
“There are hundreds, probably thousands of people with the same last name,” Tom interjects.
“That is true, but thanks to some genealogy websites, we were able to exclude most of them very quickly, narrowing down the possible relatives to three people. Two of them, I believe, are your cousins living in Santa Barbara, Kyle and Mark.”
“Yes, I know Kyle and Mark—”
“At first they were interested, but later they changed their minds. I think they expected to receive an inheritance from someone who died recently, but when they learned it was just a box we would hand over to them, they pulled out. Anyway, you’re the only person we can give the box to, because legally it belongs to you and we are obligated to inform you of it.”
“So why don’t you just send it to me?”
“We can’t do that. City law requires attendance in person. Listen, Tom, I have spent much more time on this matter than I should have. Frankly, there are a lot of living people I should be helping instead of wasting my time with this. We will give you three days. Then we’ll have to hand over the items we found in the coffin to the museum and they’ll become state property.”
“Hmm, okay. I need an address in case I decide to come,” he says indifferently.
Leslie gives him her office address in Salem, doubtful she’s even convinced him of the story. Before hanging up, she asks, “You work in coffee, right? … Was that inherited?”
“What do you mean?”
“Did you know that the people of Salem used to trade in coffee long ago, back when it was still a precious product? Maybe you’ll find something of interest to you here. Goodbye.”
Tom doesn’t take a lot of time to think it over. He’s been looking for an excuse for a short vacation after weeks of non-stop work anyway, and he’d already been thinking of a trip to New England. He calls his assistant to let him know he’ll be gone for a week. It’ll be an adventure, he thinks, and who knows? Maybe I’ll discover an heirloom or two handed down by some distant ancestor.
He has no difficulty reserving a seat on a flight to Boston the next day. Through the five-hour flight, he alternates between wondering what’s in the mysterious box and second-guessing his compulsion to find out. He reminds himself that he’s really here because he was overdue for a vacation, and it was only coincidence that he took a phone call from FEMA about something that happened to be near his intended itinerary through New Hampshire, Maine, and Vermont.
On arrival at Logan Airport, Tom rents a car and heads towards Salem, no more than twenty miles away. He goes directly to the address that Leslie gave him on Lafayette Street.
He hadn’t given her any reason to expect him, but she looks happy to see him. After he signs off on some forms, she hands him the box, wrapped in a plastic bag, which he takes back to the small hotel where he plans to spend the night. He places the box on the nightstand and goes out to get some dinner.
Though worn out from travelling, on his return he can’t resist the impulse to open the package he has travelled across the continent to collect. He takes from the bag the mysterious box, carefully releasing it from the tattered piece of cotton broadcloth in which unknown hands wrapped it long ago. The box is plain, wooden, with rusty hinges that, with a little force, open to reveal the contents: a book, with many yellowed vellum pages and a leather cover. He opens it gingerly and tries to read the words, but they’re not in English. He opens an app on his phone to check the unfamiliar script and determines that it is, as he suspected, Arabic. A bit overwhelmed, he closes the book and goes to bed.
In the morning, after a rushed breakfast, he searches his browser for a local Arabic translator—not an easy task in a small town. After finding a freelancer willing to take on the job in Boston, he heads back to the city. The drive gives him time to think about the potential historical value of the little tome, and he stops off at an office supply store to make a careful photocopy to give the translator. He’ll keep the original with him, he decides.
Tom spends his vacation hopping from one New England state to the next, and finally returns to Boston to collect the completed translation.
Some of the pages were actually in antique English handwriting, not Arabic, the translator points out, which indicates there were two or possibly more writers. He tells him, with a bemused look, that this was a particularly absorbing assignment. But Tom, busy handing over his credit card to pay, doesn’t take the time to ask why; he’s already late for his plane.
Back at Logan, though, Tom discovers that his flight to L.A. has been delayed a couple of hours, so he heads for the Starbucks in the departure lounge, orders a mocha, and finds a secluded spot to relax. The airport monitors are soundlessly replaying the same boring political coverage as always, making the contents of his carry-on bag a more enticing prospect.
He stretches his legs out to the low table in front of him and pulls the translated pages from his bag. As he leafs through the manuscript, he realizes the translations from Arabic have been interspersed with short narratives in English, apparently composed by a different hand. He begins to read, letting his imagination fill in the details that passing time has blurred.
Time: 1805
Place: Salem, Massachusetts
It is autumn in Salem, a famous port in the fledgling United States of America. Thomas Jefferson is serving as the third president of the united former British colonies. In many ways, this place is the fruit of the age of exploration that began in the fifteenth century, notably with Portuguese navigators and then the Spanish, both seeking alternative routes to Asia. Their impetus was a quest to expand trading, particularly in the spices coveted for their use in preserving and enhancing food. For centuries, Arab traders transported many of the desired goods from the Middle East, India and the Far East to the eastern coasts of the Mediterranean, from which ships from Genoa and Venice carried the goods into the heart of Europe.
European rulers sought to circumvent Muslim control of eastern trade routes and commenced sea campaigns with the dual purpose of exploration and discovery and spreading Christianity. As the Portuguese-Spanish hegemony over such trade waned, competition emerged between the English and the French to control land and sea territories and extend their influence by way of colonization, particularly in North America. By the eighteenth century, a wave of European emigration to the New World had led to the creation of the thirteen British colonies that would come to constitute the original core of the United States.
In one of those colonies, John Herman Paul was born, which is where this story is set in motion.
***
Young boys laugh as they race across the wharf, unencumbered by adult worries, as grizzled longshoremen unload a sailing ship’s goods onto the pier, lifting heavy crates onto their backs to deliver them to carts for transport. Mounds of sacks filled with coffee beans are piled next to stacked boxes of tea. Other crates redolent of nutmeg, cloves, and black pepper send their aromatic scents into the air, filling the October breeze with a teasing hint of their exotic origins.
One of the boys jumps into a small cart he has made for himself, and his pal pushes him under a horse-drawn cart; he manages to reach the other side and double back again, inciting shouts from the laborers to stay away and not hamper their work. Another boy sits proudly in his own cart, on which he has erected a wooden mast and spread across it a sail made of an old patched-up shirt. Sitting there, he imagines himself to be sailing on the high seas, the winds of adventure propelling him to hitherto unknown shores. Gusts and a spirit of exploration transport him to lands no one has heard of, to meet people the likes of whom no one has seen—perhaps the strangers his mother tells him about at bedtime.
His imagination lingering in distant times and places, the boy is oblivious to the calls of his friend, trying to warn him of the huge merchandise cart about to collide with him. Swiftly rolling his make-believe ship, he remains engrossed in his reverie. Suddenly, a man’s hand reaches out and grabs the little boy, deftly pulling him from danger just before the overloaded cart crashes into him.
“You should pay more attention, son,” the man says to the boy, whose nerves have been shaken by this near accident. Panting from fright, the boy notes that the man doesn’t look like the rough working men at the port. He wears a finely tailored vest over a dazzling white linen shirt, topped by an elegant overcoat. Everything about his bearing and manner of dress indicate a man of affluence.
“What’s your name, son?” the man asks, keeping one eye on the ships that have appeared on the horizon, headed for the port—eight in all, he noted moments ago.
“John … John Herman Paul. I didn’t mean to hurt anyone, sir,” says the boy, his voice shaking.
“It’s all right, John. Don’t forget to take your shirt. As for your tiny ship, I’m afraid there’s nothing left of it after that merchandise cart ran over it.”
The man goes on his way, leaving John to gaze sorrowfully at the scattered bits of wood trampled under horses’ hooves, as if his dreams have evaporated with the obliteration of his ship on the wharf. His friend Henry, who had been watching this brief encounter closely, rushes toward him, reminding him that he warned him of the impending danger. As usual, John had drifted into daydreams when he got into that little cart.
“Do you know who that was?” Henry asks about the man who rescued him. John shakes his head no. “That was William Orne, the trader. His family is famous in Salem. He owns the coffee trading store in Essex County.”
As the sun sets, the two boys race each other home, passing the port warehouses and the grand three-story home facing the sea built by the Derby clan and now occupied by the Hawkes family. When they part, John begs his friend to not tell his father about the cart accident, making him swear on it. If they heard of it, his parents would no doubt forbid him from going to the wharf and watching the ships coming in to dock. John arrives to find his father fixing a broken kitchen window near the front door. He sneaks in through the back door and goes quietly up to his attic room to avoid being questioned about his tardiness.
Having dutifully washed his hands, he joins the family at the table, dinner preceded as always by giving thanks to the Lord for His bounty. John’s family descends from English settlers who sailed from Holland to New England between 1620 and 1640 and settled in the Massachusetts colony, bringing with them their Puritan version of Protestantism. His father, Herman, chats with his wife, Faith, sharing news heard about town. Today he mentions the ships returning from the southern Arabian Peninsula and the profits being made by their traders. John listens attentively. This is the first time the word “Arab” has fallen on his ears. He knows a little about China and India, but he had not yet heard of the Arabs.
At bedtime, as usual, John asks his mother to tell him a story. This time, she tells him about the supposed witches who lived in Salem a century ago, before the founding of the country. Innocent people were put on trial amid mass hysteria about witchcraft all around Salem. It is a hair-raising story indeed, but John prefers her other tales about pirates on the high seas, and the merchants who sail to utopias in far-off lands. Faith is a wonderful teller of stories, which she narrates in a hushed voice that makes him feel as if he is meeting the people in her story face to face.
John’s eyes begin to droop as night falls over the houses facing the sea, announcing the end of the busy work day in what has become the sixth largest city in the United States. Its daily economy is mostly devoted to fishing, but Salem is also famous for its skilled seamen and navigators, often privateers, who not long ago played a prominent role in the revolutionary war against the King by storming and seizing British ships.
The town’s markets open their doors early in the morning, displaying myriad wares to their customers. Among the row of shops is a warehouse established by Captain Henry Prince, from which he sells goods from the West Indies and all over the world: finely crafted tea and coffee cups made of Chinese porcelain; Russian fabrics; Turkish silk; Indian cotton; and most prized of all, spices such as Ceylon and Cochin cinnamon and black pepper from Sumatra—the most sought-after and expensive. The streets begin to abound with passersby, their faces reflecting a broad spectrum of peoples and occupations. There are storeowners, traders, and customs workers at the port; sailors and craftsmen such as carpenters and iron workers, shipbuilders, fishermen. And dark-skinned, enslaved men and women. All on their way somewhere, seeking their daily bread. This diverse population reflects Salem’s role as a major stop on the emerging trade routes connecting Europe with China and India, whose seamen form a human link between the city and the four corners of the earth. Carved above the entrance of the Salem Customs House is the slogan, “To the Farthest Ports of the Rich East.”
About a quarter of a mile from the port is a small building belonging to William Orne, whose family business includes about forty ships, all highest-quality commercial vessels, listed on the records of the state’s ship registration department. The coffee in a cup on Orne’s desks shimmers with the rumble of horse-drawn carriages passing by as he reviews some calculations. He pauses to glance at his pocket watch, in anticipation of the nephew he is expecting at any moment. At a knock on the door, he responds, “Come in, Joseph.”
“I’m not Joseph, sir … I … I’m Herman Paul.”
“Oh, I thought you were my nephew, Joseph.” What could have delayed him? Orne mutters to himself.
“Please come in, Mr. Paul. What can I do for you?”
He rises to shake the visitor’s hand and offer him a cup of hot coffee, which he accepts gratefully.
“I heard that you are planning to send one of your ships to the Arabian Peninsula,” Paul begins.
“Word moves fast in this town.”
“I would like you to take on my son, John. He’s a dreamer, I’m afraid. Keeps wandering away from school and can’t be kept at a desk, no matter how often the schoolmaster raps his knuckles. His mother and I have nearly given up on his learning how to do figures or anything useful, really. Learning a trade would benefit the boy. As it is, he’s much given to idle amusement, especially dallying around the wharves. He seems peculiarly drawn to the life of a sailor. He would certainly be of much help to you. He could clean decks and work in the galley—”
“John—you mean the lad playing foolishly on the wharf that I rescued from being crushed the other day? John Paul? That’s your boy? How old is he?”
“Er, eleven years of age,” Paul answers, startled by Orne’s words and exaggerating his son’s maturity just a little.
“I don’t know, Mr. Paul. Your son is very young for the rigors of such a voyage. Also, I am not the one who decides such matters. Responsibility for hiring a crew belongs to my nephew, Captain Joseph Orne.”
Orne takes a sip of his coffee and wonders how to gracefully see the man out. This venture to Arabia is a new and more perilous one for his company; mostly his ships ply the regular trade between the port of Salem and the West Indies, carrying lumber and dried codfish to the British colonies there and returning with molasses.
The office door squeaks as it opens, to reveal a young man in his mid-twenties, wearing a captain’s uniform.
“I’m so sorry I’m late, Uncle,” he announces, rather more loudly than necessary. “I was looking for a replacement for the cook’s assistant, who has come down with a fever. I fear he won’t be able to sail with us. Oh, I beg your pardon,” he says, noticing Paul. “I didn’t know you had a visitor.”
“No, it’s all right. Come in. Seems you came at the right time. The man sitting before you may have a solution for your present dilemma.”
Paul’s eyes glisten. “He could assist the cook. Yes, John is quite fond of kitchen work.”
Orne introduces his nephew to his guest and explains the context for this exchange. On hearing the boy’s age, Joseph Orne is hesitant, expressing his concern that the cook, a crusty old freedman named Leon, might not accept such a recruit. But he yields to the father’s insistence, given that replacing the assistant is one of many urgent tasks yet to be tackled before the ship sails.
Reluctantly, he agrees to take Paul’s son, but only after describing the hardships to come on the months-long journey at sea. They will probably not return before mid-year at least, he warns, probably later. Paul nods his head in comprehension of the trip’s risks, expresses his gratitude to the captain, and leaves hastily before the captain has an opportunity to change his mind.
“Half a year,” he mumbles to himself. “It will pass like a feather in the wind … who knows, maybe John will return before I finish building the new stable.” He puts far from mind the knowledge that winds may blow ships in undesirable directions, that passing days will reveal what was previously unknown, and news will come to the unprepared.
Joseph Orne removes the coffee cups from his uncle’s big desk and rolls out the navigational maps he has brought with him, along with a copy of The American Practical Navigator, the book by the self-taught mathematician Nathaniel Bowditch, which was published three years ago but is already an indispensable guide for the sailors of his native Salem. He traces his finger over a map detailing the eastern coast of the great continent of Africa and pauses when his finger reaches the lower end of the Red Sea, on the western shore of Yemen. Here is Mokha, and to the north Luhayya, and Hudaydah just south.
With his uncle, he reviews the ports on the ship’s itinerary, the quantity of merchandise they hope to purchase, the type of coffee, and the budget allocated for it all—an heretofore unimaginable sum of sixty thousand dollars, counted in cash from Orne’s funds, that he will carry with him. The journey is motivated by his uncle’s high hopes for even higher profits, having heard of the gains made by the eight ships that have anchored at Salem’s port after voyages to Arabia Felix.
Orne’s family controls scores of ships, some by direct ownership and some by having a family member as the captain. William also co-owns some ships with other traders and has a retinue of captains to man the helm. He has chosen his nephew Joseph for this voyage in spite of the doubts his assistant raised as to the young man’s preparedness for such a difficult trip.
Faith doesn’t need to do much to prepare for her son’s travels, beyond suppressing her fears and tender emotions. Their standard of living is like that of most residents of Salem who feel compelled to send their boys out to sea, to fish or to work on commercial trading ships, in hopes of learning the skills to earn a proper living by the age of seventeen or eighteen. That his father would go looking for a suitable place for him at some point was inevitable, and John is instantly enthusiastic about the idea.
But he is a child, not even ten yet! Despite his disregard for school, he has a keen intellect and listens avidly to his mother’s stories and to port workers’ stories of lands beyond the sea. He has no idea of what is to come, other than his father’s rosy description of a sea outing that will take him on a grand adventure for a few weeks or possibly months. When he returns, the father says, he will find the new stable completed and will be able to ride the pony he has been promised.
Herman Paul has no direct experience to bear on this choice, having spent his life working as a carpenter, his time on the sea limited to a few days on a ship to visit his sister to the south. The most difficult part of it is convincing his wife that John’s travel would be for his own benefit. How does one persuade a mother to cast her only son upon the mercy of the sea, in the company of strangers!
“Missions make men!” he tells Faith, to which she replies, “Rather, mothers make men!”
The father lists the names of influential and famous figures in Salem, Roger Williams and Henry Prince and others, who were only boys when they first went to sea. He comforts mostly himself with this recollection, quietly fearing that his wife will succeed in changing his mind. “But … but he is nine years old,” she responds.
Though Faith has always anticipated the day when her son would depart on one of the ships moored in their harbor, she had not imagined it would be so soon. She wants nothing more than to keep her sweet boy in her embrace, and agreeing to allow John to take up the sailing life means agreeing to allow her heart to crumble on the day he goes aboard. Every day, John’s father goes to William Orne’s office to inquire about the departure date, and every day the answer is the same: when the winds are right.
The smell of cheap coffee wafts through the small house, even to the attic where John lies sleeping in his warm bed. Slowly opening his eyes, he finds his mother kneeling at the end of the bed in silent prayer. Seeing his devout mother in prayer is nothing new, but there is something unintelligible in her expression now, something staid and coldly resigned. She seems frozen in place, unaware that he is watching her. He closes his eyes again, pretending to sleep. He does not want her to know he saw her in such a state. Some time passes.
Suddenly, Faith gently shakes her son’s shoulder to wake him. “John, John … it’s time.”
Later, sitting together at the breakfast table, Herman Paul speaks of what remains to be done to prepare for the voyage and asks John if he has forgotten any of the items on the list. John shakes his head yes or no on each point. His mother says nothing.
It is said that a thousand-mile journey begins with a single step. Thousands of miles lie ahead on this voyage, and the first step begins with pain and sorrow pressing on a woman’s heart. Faith tries to separate her heart from her body so she can bid him a proper farewell, but walks through the morning as if drugged. She watches her son lift his knapsack over his shoulder and go down the stairs. He has filled the knapsack with a few supplies, old clothing, and some puppets and toys his friend Henry gave him. Crumbs from his favorite biscuits, ones she made, leave a faint trail behind him. He stops at the bottom of the stairs to gingerly gather up the pieces dropped along the way, as if they were the scattered remnants of her broken heart. He lingers at the doorstep, waiting for his father to arrive from the stable, his mother gazing at him with desperate longing from the kitchen. Her lower lip trembles as if saying a prayer. Just a few steps separate them now, perhaps as close as she will ever be to him again, but her feet refuse to move toward a final goodbye.
Herman Paul calls from outside, interrupting this moment. Casting a last look towards his mother, John says goodbye and asks her to leave his bedroom door open in case he returns at night and does not want to wake her up. Their eyes meet for a moment, and the mother stretches out her arms just as John turns to step outside. He closes the door behind him, leaving her standing still, with outstretched arms.
“Closing the door behind you is the hardest part of a journey,” his father says as he snaps the reins to send the open cart rattling through the streets of Salem on this wet and cloudy day. The trip down Chestnut Street takes them to Derby Wharf, where three huge warehouses receive imported goods. They are built three stories high, to prevent seawater from reaching the merchandise in a storm; the difference between low and high tides in Salem can be as much as fifteen feet. There are dozens of wharves at the port and Derby is the longest, reaching nearly half a mile in length.
The wharf’s namesake, Elias Derby, is one of the most famous traders in Salem and owner of the well-known Grand Turk, the first New England vessel engaged in direct trade with China. Derby both supported and benefited from the American Revolution by using his ship as a privateer to capture dozens of English ships and integrate them into his commercial fleet.
Bit by bit, activity in the port pulls into full swing. Customs inspectors pass by the tall ships at the dock and observe those still coming in. A customs worker earns a dollar and a quarter a day for his work, which includes boarding incoming ships to inspect their cargo and determine their conformity with the laws of the new country. The customs tax collector and his notebook-bearing assistants make the rounds with surveyors responsible for weighing and measuring the goods heaped up on the wharves and in the warehouses and calculating the corresponding tax to be levied on the traders.
Uncharacteristically, John walks holding his father’s hand and clinging to him, hardly detaching himself until they reach the end of the wharf. This is the same wharf he has visited so often, romping unhindered from corner to corner and gleefully playing with his friends. But today he approaches it somberly, without his usual enthusiasm. Essex rocks gently at the edge of the pier. Men purposefully walk up and down the gangway. Young Captain Orne emerges on deck and, spotting the pair, calls down to John. Releasing his tight grip on his son’s hand, the father turns him over to the captain and implores him to treat John well. Herman Paul peers into the young captain’s eyes and asks him if he believes in God.
“Of course,” he replies.
“Then, I beseech you in the name of the good Lord to return my son to me in sound health, just as I have delivered him to you.”
The captain gives him his word that he will not return unless his son is with him. Otherwise, he will never return. Joseph Orne speaks with confidence, as if he sees the future before his eyes, although he has no idea what fate has in store for him.
The father doesn’t wait for the ship to depart. He has unfinished work waiting for him. But as he walks away, Herman Paul finds it difficult to take his eyes off his young boy he has now entrusted to the belly of that ship. When he finally returns home, he opens the door to find Faith frozen in the position she took at the moment she bid her son farewell, her arms still outstretched.
