“The Lord bless you and keep you …” the little boy peeked up at their pastor — just for a moment! It was a sin if you opened your eyes while praying. But maybe it didn’t matter so much at the end of a service. After all, he saw some of the elders looking around too. Counting people! That was obvious!

Soon he’d be nicely home again. It was New Year’s morning and there were bound to be a lot of visitors. Those plates of oliebollen have to be finished, Mom had said before church, laughing. He hoped Jansje didn’t come. She was his cousin. He would have to play with her in the back room, while the ‘big people’ were in the beautiful parlour. It was bound to end in ‘father and mother’ again. Then she’d want to kiss him, just like that, on the mouth. A very long kiss. Gross!  “But fathers and mothers do that every day,” Jansje had said. Yuck, why would they? He was already sure he would never get married. Just like the priest at the church with the big cross. They didn’t marry because children would keep them from their work, said Opa with the goatee.

His no-goatee grandfather died last year, and they put him in a coffin, right in the middle of the front room of his house. The coffin sat on the kitchen table that Father and Jantje from The Island had dragged into the beautiful room, and there was a pitch-black rug over it — where they got that from, he did not know.

The dead Opa had been nowhere near as nice as his grandfather with the goatee. He always looked so stern. That came from the other church, Mom said. There they sang the psalms so slowly and with so many verses, that sometimes they sat in church for two hours, and still that Opa never felt forgiven — that’s why he always looked so sad, Mom said. The Opa who was now dead had once taken him to that church. When they’d finally come home, everyone was eating already. “That’s once, but never again,” he’d said sourly. “Well, well”, said Dad. But Mom just laughed.

Angels 

The sleeves of the vicar’s black dress looked like wings. After each short phrase, he moved his arms up and down, as if he might fly right off the pulpit. Perhaps the pastor wanted to remind people that angels were hovering over their pews. Because the angels needed to be very close to you to keep you from doing bad things, like stealing a sugar cube or telling a lie. That’s what Mother had told him.

His own angel, who sat at the foot of his bed at night to keep him from dying at night like Opa, or peeing in his bed, would be around too. You couldn’t see them, those angels, but they did have wings. How else could his angel get from his own bedroom to the church?  His angel really liked it when he sat very still and sucked on his peppermint instead of biting it to pieces. Well done! Otherwise, he got a nudge from his mother.

His angel never nudged him but would probably look very sad! Sinning was very bad you know. But if he prayed for forgiveness every night, he could start again the next morning with a clean slate, mother had said. But then she got a tick on her wrist from Opa without a goatee — who was still alive then. He had never seen a slate. Maybe it was like a shirt — he also had to put a clean one on every morning.

Flying

“And give you peace …” Fortunately, the vicar had swerved away just in time. Of course, the angels had seen that too. Perhaps they had given him a nudge, because they obviously did not want him to climb up the pulpit that afternoon with a bump on his head, wrapped in a cold, wet cloth. Just like what he’d had yesterday, when he slid down the banister and hit his head on the wooden ball at the bottom at full speed. That hurt like crazy, but he had not cried, because Pete was in the kitchen scraping carrots, and he always got teased when he cried.

“Amen!” How did the vicar get back behind the thick Bible so quickly again? He didn’t understand it at all. He glanced up at his father’s face, who looked as if nothing had happened. “Did you see him too, Dad?”, he whispered

“See whom?” Dad said.

“The vicar of course!”

“Ach, son, you saw them flying,” Dad said.

After Church

He walked home between his father and mother. He had to take big steps. Mother was in a hurry to take care of the coffee, because of the whole mess of visitors coming. Dad and Mom both wanted to hold his hand — to drag him along, no doubt. Like he was a little boy. Resolutely, he put his fists in the pockets of his jacket. “You go ahead, I’ll come,” he grumbled, “I’m big now!” Father laughed loudly. “Don’t you want to sit on my shoulder?”  The little boy shook his head vigorously and spat on the ground. Opa with the goatee always did that, so it should be fine. “Shame,” said mother, “you must never do that again. Understand?”

At home, he went to play with his little train in the back room for a while. Jansje would come, mother said, when the slow church was done. So, he still had some time, because the preacher over there could never find the thread, Opa without a goatee had said. “Darn,” the little boy had shot back, “I’m not looking forward to that! That’s even worse than ironing Dad’s shirts.” Why did his mother suddenly laugh so much?

Carefully he slid the doors to the parlor room ajar. Father was already smoking a cigar. He slid the door open a little further. That way, the smoke could get into the back room too — it smelled so good!

After Slow Church

There was clattering in the front hall. He heard Uncle Derk say, “he was right on again”. That ‘he’ was the preacher without the collar, he figured. When his other Grandfather was buried, this preacher wore a very long coat with dots, just like the men in the hotel on the corner by the harbour carrying plates of fancy food with one hand.

Jansje had to go with him to the back room. Quickly he put the train in the big box — what did a girl know about trains. Go play checkers, said mother. But Jansje didn’t feel like it, she wanted to play ‘father and mother’ again, as if there were no other games in the world. “That would be crazy,” he said, “I sure wouldn’t marry you, no way, that wouldn’t do, because if two faiths share one pillow the devil is sure to sleep between them — and after all, you go to the two-hour church.”  Jansje said surly, “You sing much too fast, there’s no keeping up with that, and your vicar is too light too … and then in that crazy long dress!”  “Oh dear,” said the little boy, “you can see them flying.” He was suddenly reminded of his vicar again. “And after all, I’m going to be a priest, I can’t have a wife with that.”

“Well, you can’t even preach,” Jansje said coolly.

“Sure I can.”

“No way!”

“Yes way.” 

“Let me see then.”

That was what the little boy had been waiting for. He climbed onto a chair and spread his little arms. “The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be …” 

“You must start at the beginning. First, shake my hand, because I am your elder,” Jansje whined, “and preach about the baby in the manger — we just had that at Sunday school.”

Believing

Mother brought cups of hot chocolate and four oliebollen. As Jansje took out the fattest one, the little boy said sweetly, “We’re playing church Mom, just listen.”  “I don’t have time, I’m afraid, just preach on,” Mom said laughing. The little boy climbed onto a chair anyway and began the Christmas story. Jansje folded her arms piously across her chest. Together, at the end of the sermon, they sang of the little shepherds who were in the field by night.

Then came the big moment. “The grace of…”  He did it like the bald-headed vicar. Even more violently, he moved his arms. And more slowly, he spoke the words. Why wasn’t he flying off the chair now? Jansje interrupted him, “Just say Amen, otherwise we’ll still be sitting here till four o’clock.” Disappointed, the little boy jumped off the chair. Maybe it took a whole sea of angels to lift you up. Jansje was ready to run into the front room. The sliding doors opened and there the whole company could now see him dangling from the ceiling. “I’m not playing anymore,” he told his cousin.    

“The reason you can’t preach is because you’re not wearing a black suit,” said Jansje, “and I’m going to tell your mom that you don’t want to play with me anymore.”  “Then you better start your crying first,” said the little boy, “otherwise no one will believe you.”  “Believing is what you do in church,” said Jansje.