Act of Faith Read Online Free PDF

ready to dock.’
    The captain rushed past yelling, paying no attention to us.
    ‘It sounds rather serious,’ I said.
    ‘Sailors never talk when they can bellow, that’s all. They’re used to shouting over the noise of storms. Still, there’s no sign of a storm today.’
    ‘The sky is getting rather gloomy,’ I said. ‘But we’ll be safe in Amsterdam in a few hours.’
    ‘The greatest city on earth,’ my father said, one hand warm on my shoulder.
    ‘You used to say that about London.’
    ‘Perhaps.’ He smiled. ‘But we’re finished with London now, aren’t we, Bella? From tomorrow, we are citizens of Europe.’ The breeze flicked at his hair. ‘Imagine,’ he said softly. ‘A whole new life lies before us.’
    Then, all at once, it seemed as if God’s forefinger burst through the clouds and pressed down upon us — out of all the people in the world, we were chosen to be swirled about in our suddenly fragile ship, hammered by surging seas, and cast upon the shores of Hell.
    Green and white water foamed over the bow and crashed along the length of the deck, swirling around our legs, clutching at our clothing. The ship shuddered and twisted. I clung to Father’s arm, partly to help him stay on his feet and also in fear.He held onto the mast; one hand clutched a rope. Another wave, even higher this time. Cold, so cold — and suddenly dark, as if God had left us.
    Someone grabbed at me — a sailor who shrieked into my face so I could hear him above the wind. ‘Come, Mistress. You must come to the boat.’
    I stared at him. ‘Is it that bad?’
    He wouldn’t answer. ‘Please, Mistress. Hurry.’
    I felt a lurching terror in my belly, in the dark of my soul. I nodded, as calmly as I could.
    ‘Father,’ I shouted. ‘We have to go to the boats.’
    Water streamed through his silvery hair and dripped from his beard. He gazed at the waves, at the ship, at the crew — at everyone but me. ‘Magnificent,’ he said.
    ‘Father?’
    He smiled, cupped one cold hand around my face and looked at last into my eyes. ‘You go first, child, with the other women. I’ll come in the next boat.’
    The sailor tugged at my sleeve.
    ‘Go, Isabella, they are waiting for you,’ said Father. ‘God willing, you will soon be safely ashore. I will join you there.’
    He kissed me twice — once on the temple, once on my fingers — before the sailor dragged me away.
     
    In the feverish days and nights that followed, while I waited for my father to find me, the narrow bed in the hospice seemed to rear and rock beneath me, wrenched this way and that by the tides, by the storm, by the hand of God, until one morning I woke up and knew the truth.
    There was only one boat.
    The nuns bustled about with compresses and hot towels but I barely acknowledged they were there. I would not speak or cry or sleep. I lay there, swimming in the bleak certainty that my father had gone back to our cabin to pray amongst his books and his precious papers, until the ocean folded over him like sleep and took him down through its depths.
    Those books, his papers, the mahogany writing desk, the silver goblets, his great fur coat, the sketch of my mother’s face, her earrings, the little book he had made me with his own hands, our small pouch of gold pieces: they were all gone.
    They were all we had.
    He was all I had.
    He had left me, abandoned me, given me up to the strong arms of sailors straining against oars, to the pummelling waves, pebble-wracked sand, and a city filled with strangers. Our new lives, my father’s life, were over.
    I sat on a chair by the window and stared out across a tiny courtyard towards the hospice garden filled with healing herbs, where the Sisters worked in the afternoons before prayer. I watched them, and wondered about their days here in this place of silence and sunshine. Such peace. Such a long way, in every sense, from my past.
    Strange how the leap from one life to the other had taken only a few minutes — a