The Journey Begun (26 page)

“Why?”

“The storm stopped.” Simon sat back, as though the story were over.

“It just stopped?” Gali raised an eyebrow.

“It just stopped. The clouds didn’t blow away. They vanished, and the sun appeared so suddenly we thought lightning struck us. The gale dropped to nothing more than a breeze. The waves didn’t gradually settle, they flattened. It was as though nothing had happened, but for the damage to the ship.”

Gali sat back and rubbed his chin. His mind was pinched between the credibility of his friend and the incredibility of the story. Storms don’t just stop, but Simon was as level-headed a seaman as he knew. This just didn’t make sense. His musing was interrupted by a subtle odor that wafted into the corner where they sat. He sniffed the air, and then wished he hadn’t. Wrinkling his nose, he looked up at Simon. “What do ya s’pose—?”

Simon paid no attention. His widened eyes were locked onto a small man who settled into a chair two tables away. “No…it can’t be…”

Twenty-eight

onah turned the crust of bread over in his fingers. His mind wanted it, but his body did not. Despite numerous rinses, he couldn’t wash the rancidity from his tongue. He wondered if anything would ever taste the same again. A painful growl from his stomach decided the issue, and, with a sigh, he dipped it into the honey syrup and nudged it between his chapped lips. He chewed slowly, trying not to move his cheeks any more than he had to. His skin, now dry for the first time in three days, drew taut over his emaciated frame and threatened to split with any excuse. His gaze fell onto the back of his hand and he paused midway through a bite. Paper-thin and mottled, his skin stretched over angry blue veins that coursed in rivers over a rippled landscape of bone and tendon. Slowly he extended his fingers, testing his skin and the willingness of his muscles to respond. Closing his hand into a fist, he grimaced as the cuticle on his middle fingernail split.

He choked the morsel down, surprised his sour stomach could retain anything. He wondered how long it would take to feel normal again—or whether he would even recognize “normal” again.

Arriving early that morning as breakfast preparations were underway at the inn, he paid extra silver for a small room. The innkeeper’s wife made a valiant effort not to stare at his disheveled appearance, or recoil at the odor, but he could read it on her face. He couldn’t blame her. There were no reasonable explanations for his appearance. It would be a wasted effort to try to explain. Instead, he just thanked her and asked for some olive oil and hot water from the cook fire so he could wash. A few more pieces of silver procured a cloak and sandals from her husband’s wardrobe. The fit was not exact, but close enough.

Once in his room, he set about oiling and scraping the foul residue from his body, allowing the dregs to drip onto his ruined cloak that lay piled on the floor. He rinsed as best he could from the earthenware pot, flinching each time the hot water touched his raw skin. Twice he emptied the pot through a small window in the back wall. The inn perched on the edge of a small cliff that dropped off to the water’s edge, allowing the foul concoction to splash into the surf below. Twice he pushed it back through the door to the inn’s mistress to be refilled.

The last time she nudged the despoiled pot into the room, she told him to keep it, that it was no longer usable for anything else. Two more discs of silver redeemed the small cistern and, with the last emptying, he let the container drop through the window and shatter on the rocks below. The sodden cloak and sandals joined the shards to be washed out with the next tide.

Exhausted, Jonah stretched onto the straw tick in the corner of the room and two breaths later was asleep.

He awoke late that afternoon when a ray of sunlight crawling across the floor came to rest on his face. Now sitting at a corner table with a loaf of bread, a bowl of honey, and a small cup of wine, he pondered what to do next. He felt the stare even before he heard the cough over his shoulder.

Jonah straightened against the back of the chair and swiveled his stiff neck.

“Are you...you are Jonah…the…the prophet, no?” Simon gawked at the man who should be dead, but who instead was sitting at a table in an inn eating bread and drinking wine.

“I a-am.” Jonah’s voice cracked in pain. The alcohol in the wine had stripped much of the mucus away, but his voice remained raw. He squinted in vague recognition. “You’re—it’s Simon, isn’t it?”

The seaman nodded, but remained where he was, staring dumbly.

Jonah gestured at the chair across the table and attempted a smile. He flinched and touched a split in his lower lip, a streak of blood staining his fingertip.

The sailor edged around the table, not taking his gaze off Jonah. He eased into the chair and slid his cup of wine onto the table
[B41]
 
. He glanced toward the innkeeper and signaled for a flagon of wine.

Jonah nodded his thanks. “I guess you’re wondering what I’m doing here.” He shifted under Simon’s steady gaze.

“Well...” The sailor paused. “I...you...
you’re supposed to be
dead!”
He blurted out the last phrase. Two men seated at the next table turned and stared at him. He glanced at them and then leaned forward, forcing a whisper. “I don’t understand. How did you...the storm...we threw you overboard and you sank like a rock!” His eyes were wide. “Are you...a god?”

Jonah’s head jerked up. “Of course—” His voice caught at the force of the words and he hacked. “Of course not. You remember what I said, don’t you? I’m a prophet of
Adonai
, the God of Abraham, Creator of the land and the sea. He is the only true God. There are no others.”

“Sure, I remember.” Impatience sharpened Simon’s tone. “But how could you have survived the sea? Your god demanded a sacrifice and we obeyed, although we didn’t want to.” His eyes went distant. “You know, the storm calmed as soon as you hit the water. I’ve never seen anything like it.”

“Sacrifice? No, it wasn’t a sacrifice. It was a rescue.” Jonah paused and sat back as the wine carafe arrived at their table. He nodded his thanks to the innkeeper’s wife, who wrinkled her nose and hurried away to clear another table. He took the carafe and tipped it toward Simon’s cup. The sailor lifted his vessel and Jonah filled it before topping off his own.

“Rescue? What do you mean?”

Jonah set the carafe down. Taking another sip to treat his throat, he pondered the best way to explain.
Of course, he’s not going to believe this
. “God—
Elohim
Adonai
—does not demand human sacrifice in His service. That’s abhorrent to Him.”

“But what else could it have been? I don’t understand ‘rescue.’”

“As I told your crew, I had rejected
Adonai’s
call and was running from Him. He wants me for a purpose I could not abide, so I ran.” Jonah paused to collect his thoughts. “But just because I rebelled doesn’t mean that He’s forgotten what He sent me to do, nor does it mean I’m relieved of my responsibility. The storm was the instrument He chose to stop me, to turn me around. I put the whole crew in danger by involving you in my escape. Delivering me back into His hands was the only way to save yourselves and the ship.”

“But I still don’t see how you survived. We were more than two days at sea. You couldn’t have swum that far, even if you resurfaced out of our sight.”

Jonah swallowed. “After I sank beneath the waves, as I was about to drown, I was...well, there was a huge fish...” He glanced up at his companion’s face. “It...uh...well, it swallowed me.”

Simon just looked at him.

“Really.”

Silence.

“It spat me onto the beach not far from here early this morning.”

“This is not funny.”

“I’m serious.” Jonah set his face defensively.

“Right. So, tell me, what kind of fish was it?”

Jonah frowned. “Well, I don’t know. They all look pretty much the same from the inside.”

A muffled snigger interrupted their conversation. They looked over at the two men who were still staring at them. One had his mouth agape at Jonah and the other was stifling a smirk with his hand.

“What?” Jonah glared at them.

The mirthful one cleared his throat. “Nuthin’.”

The two men stood, stretched, and shuffled to the door. As they stepped outside, Jonah’s ear caught a burst of laughter before the door closed.

“Philistines!” Jonah muttered under his breath.

Simon pursed his lips. “I don’t think you can blame them.”

Jonah shrugged. “I suppose not.”

 
“So, what about this fish?”

“The fish isn’t the important part. Besides, I don’t remember that much about it. I was unconscious most of the time.” Jonah leaned his arms on the table.
“Adonai
chooses the methods and the means for making Himself and His will known. I was drowning far out at sea. God used a creature of the sea to rescue me. Really, a big fish makes sense, if you look at it like that.”

“I suppose. Still...”

“I know, I know. But if you had seen me this morning when I awoke on the beach, you’d have no problem believing it.”

Simon leaned back and studied Jonah’s face. “You know we didn’t want to throw you overboard, don’t you? We tried everything else first. We tried rowing. We deployed the sea anchors. We had already jettisoned the cargo, so the ship was as light as it was going to get.”

“I know. There was only one more piece of cargo to jettison—me,” Jonah muttered.

Simon glanced up at Jonah. “She’ll never sail again, you know.”

“What?”

“The
Ba’al Hayam
. That was her last voyage.”

“Why? Was there that much damage?”

Simon shook his head. “Well, she’s pretty beaten up, but it wasn’t the damage.” He held Jonah’s gaze. “She’s bad luck. Black-marked. No seaman will ever go out on her again. Two storms on two voyages, all cargo lost, and serious damage both times. And this last time she suffered from the anger of the gods—no place else but over us was there even a cloud in the sky, let alone a tempest like we went through. The word has already spread all over Joppa that she’s jinxed. It won’t take long before all Philistia and Phoenicia will hear about the storm that wrecked the
Ba’al
, but that no other ship in the area even noticed.”

Jonah looked back down.

Simon’s pursed his lips. “‘Master of the Sea.’ The sea showed her differently, eh?” He took another draw from his cup.

“Adonai
has shown her differently—shown all of us differently.”

Simon leaned forward. “Tell me of this
Adonai
, this god who created the sea. You know, when we threw you overboard and the weather settled, many of the sailors vowed allegiance to him. We even made sacrifices.”

Jonah narrowed his brow. “What do you mean ‘sacrifices’? What was left on the ship to sacrifice? We had no live animals and everything of value had already been thrown overboard.”

Simon shrugged. “No matter, this god had shown himself to be powerful and one worthy of our devotion. But he also showed himself to be an angry god who was thirsty for human blood—or so we believed when the sea calmed. We thought of throwing another man overboard for good measure—a Cypriote who believed in no god and who we didn’t like very much anyway—but Shem wouldn’t allow it.” Simon sighed. “He said we needed every crewmember we had to make repairs and man what few oars we had left.”

Jonah was speechless. He just stared at the seaman, his eyes begging the questions his mouth could not voice.

An awkward half-smile framed Simon’s mouth. “Several of us made a pact.” He looked down at his wine cup. “We sliced our hands or arms with knives, and then leaned over the gunwales and let our blood drip into the water.” He glanced back up at Jonah’s ashen face. “We hoped this would please your god and that he would allow us to return to land.”