The Unlikely Allies Page 2

  Mallory felt a glow of pride at being a part of the Winslow family, and when Barney stood up suddenly, she felt a rush of emotion. He had been the first of the Winslows to come to Africa, and now at age sixty-eight, with his hair gray and his figure somewhat stooped, he still seemed a strong man.

  “All right. Let’s have a little quiet here. I’m going to make a speech.”

  “Oh no!” Ross said. “Get your wallets out, everybody. He’s going to take up a collection!”

  The laughter went around the table, and Barney could not help grinning. “I’ll skip the collection this time, but I do want us to join together in wishing well our latest missionary addition to the family.” Barney’s eyes turned to Mallory as he said, “Sending missionaries is new for us. We’re the ones who have always gone, and now a Winslow will be preaching the Gospel in Europe. I want you to know how very proud I am of you, Mallory.”

  Mallory’s face grew warm as she listened to Barney’s words of love and affection. Then, to her surprise, he finished with, “Now, let’s have a sermon from the newest missionary in the Winslow family.”

  Not expecting to be put on the spot like that, Mallory rose slowly to her feet and looked around at all the family and friends she knew would be praying for her. “I feel so incapable of doing this job,” she began. “But if you’ll all pray for me, as I’ll pray for you every day, I know I’ll have the victory.” The crowd broke into smiles and clapped, some voicing their agreement and praise to God at her declaration of faith. Then as they quieted, she spoke, more confidently now, about how God had blessed her with such a wonderful family.

  “What are the Lapps like?” her brother Chance asked when she paused for a moment. “Tell us about them.”

  “What I know about them I’ve mostly learned from Anna,” Mallory replied. “They are a small group, no more than twenty thousand, and they live in Lapland, which is the northern part of Norway, Sweden, Finland, and Russia. I plan to work primarily with the Lapps who live in Norway, because I don’t know a word of the other languages. Nobody knows where these people came from, but it was probably Russia. They are short people with high cheekbones, dark hair, and olive skin. Their way of life is very simple. They’ve tamed huge herds of wild reindeer, and they follow these herds to use for their food and clothing.”

  She ended by saying, “I don’t mind telling you I’m a little afraid of what life will be like for me there in such a cold, primitive place, but my heart is very joyful that I’ll be telling the Lapps about Jesus.”

  “How will you approach them?” Chance questioned. “I know you’ve learned Norwegian, but I thought they spoke another language called Lapp.”

  “That’s true, but most of them speak some Norwegian. And I’ll pick up some of their language after I get there. As for how I’ll approach them . . . why, it’ll be the same as it is here. I’ll try to hold up Jesus to them.”

  John Winslow smiled. “That’s the only way, daughter. Your mother and I are very proud of you.”

  “We’re all proud of Mallory,” Barney said. “And we’ll be expecting glorious victories for the kingdom of God.”

  Mallory felt a lump in her throat. She was leaving all she’d ever known, and life in northern Norway would be very difficult. Here she had always been surrounded by loving, supportive family and friends. There she would be alone in a strange, alien world. But looking around in that dining hall at all the loving faces of these people she knew would be praying for her, she was filled with a new confidence that told her she could not fail.

  CHAPTER TWO

  A New World

  Mallory’s stomach fluttered uneasily at her first sight of Norway. Standing on the deck of the ship that had brought her from Africa and gazing at the dark, forbidding wall of rock that rose out of the churning waters, her apprehension grew. The snow-covered peaks above were beautiful, but cold and remote. She could not say why, but they seemed very different from the warm majesty of Kilimanjaro and other African mountains.

  The skies were blue and the clouds were white and fluffy on this beautiful April day, which somewhat mitigated her fear of the dangerous-looking fjords. As they approached Oslo, Mallory peered eagerly ahead at the crowded harbor, filled with shipping vessels of all kinds. The winters in Norway were so dismally long and the northern days so short that as soon as the spring sunshine arrived, people made the most of their daylight hours. Anna had told her that from November on, the country was dark and wet; then the frost and snow would come, transforming the Nordic gloom into brilliant white under a cloudless blue sky. While she was in Africa, Mallory had looked forward to the snow and learning how to ski, but now the thought of winter was far from her mind.

  The ship pulled into the dock, and Mallory made her way down the gangplank with the other passengers, her eyes searching the crowd. She spotted a young woman about her own age with a young man standing beside her. The woman waved and called her name, and as Mallory stepped onto Norwegian soil for the first time, a strange feeling enveloped her. I’m here at last. I’m really here!

  “Hello, Mallory. I’m Eva.”

  The young blond woman with blue eyes came forward with a broad welcoming smile. She wore a simple blue dress that picked up the color of her eyes, and an energy flowed from her that Mallory sensed at once.

  “This is my fiancé, Lars Klovstad,” she said in Norwegian.

  “Welcome to Norway,” Lars said in his deep voice. He was a tall, powerfully built man with sandy hair and light blue eyes.

  “I’m glad to meet you, Mr. Klovstad.”

  “Just call me Lars. We’re not very formal here. Your Norwegian is good.”

  “Anna and I have worked hard on it. I’m afraid my pronunciation may not be the best.”

  “Much better than my English,” Eva said with a laugh, her lively eyes sparkling. “We’re going to take you to the house where you’ll be staying for a while. Then we’ll go out and eat.”

  “The car is right over here,” Lars said. “Are you ready?”

  ****

  Mallory was delighted with the trip through Oslo. It was not a large city, she observed, but seemed expansive with its buildings spaced far apart. The center of Oslo was as busy as any other capital, and Eva pointed out the streets with pride. “This is Karl Johans Gate. Gate means street, of course. Most of the city’s important buildings are here.”

  They reached the end of the street where stood an impressive square white building, the Royal Palace. Masses of lilacs blossomed all around it, and their heady scent floated over the city.

  They passed the Parliament Building, where, as Eva explained, Norway’s national assembly met. Across from there stood the University of Oslo and the National Theatre.

  “I’ll be taking some classes there at the university this summer, if possible,” Mallory said.

  “Oh yes. That’s all been arranged.”

  “That’s the Oslo Cathedral over there,” Eva said, pointing, “and there’s the square with the fruit and flower market.”

  “That church was built in 1699,” Lars said, “and has been restored several times since then. You’ll have to visit it.”

  “Oh, what’s that?” Mallory asked as Lars expertly maneuvered the car down the busy street.

  “That’s Frogner Park, one of Oslo’s showplaces,” Eva said. “It has an open-air swimming pool and a magnificent rose garden.”

  “Do you like sculpture?” Lars asked.

  “I’ve only seen Masai sculpture.”

  “Well, Gustav Vigeland is the foremost Norwegian sculptor. There are nearly two hundred of his statues here in the park—many made of granite or iron, and some in bronze. He worked on them all of his life.”

  “I’d like to spend some time there and see them,” Mallory said.

  “Oh, we’ll have plenty of time to see the sights.”

  They drove into the residential area, where Mallory took in the late-nineteenth-century stone houses. As they made their way into the suburbs, Mallory looke
d first one way and then the other at the brightly painted wooden houses. It was all so different from Africa. Many of the streets were narrow and winding, and blue-and-white trams clattered around the sharp corners of the thoroughfares.

  As they reached the edge of town, Lars pulled up in front of a small farmhouse painted a brilliant yellow with light blue trim. When they went inside, Mallory exclaimed, “What a lovely house!”

  “Yes, it is nice, isn’t it?” Eva said. “My grandfather built it. He’s gone now, of course, so Lars and I will live here after we’re married.”

  “It doesn’t have as many windows as houses have in England or America, but here we like our homes to be cozy in the cold winter. If we want the out-of-doors,” Lars said with a grin, “we’ve got plenty of that. But indoors in the winter, we like to close out the cold and ice and enjoy a nice roaring fire.”

  “You can give her your lectures on Norwegian architecture later, Lars,” Eva said with a laugh. “Come along. Let’s take Mallory’s bags to her room and then go get something to eat.”

  The three went to a restaurant, and Mallory got her first taste of a Norwegian meal. There was a hot fruit soup, which in Norwegian was fruktsuppe, followed by brown river trout, and roasted reindeer steaks with cranberry sauce. For dessert they had a wonderful concoction of golden-colored cloudberries with thick whipped cream.

  “This is delicious!” Mallory exclaimed.

  “Did you really mean what you said in your letter about how the Masai mix blood and milk and then drink it?” Eva asked, leaning forward, her eyes intent.

  “Oh yes. They milk the cow, and then they puncture its neck and drain the blood into the milk. And then they plug the wound with cow dung, stir the milk up, and drink it down.”

  “Oh my! You never tried it, I hope,” Lars said.

  “Certainly! It’s very good.”

  They talked for a while about the new customs she would encounter in Norway and among the Lapps before Eva changed the subject with a touch of sadness. “You’ve come at a hard time. Europe is very unsettled right now.”

  In 1938 Europe was indeed unsettled. Adolf Hitler had risen over the continent like a dark specter. He had organized the National Socialist Party and had unified Germany, which had been practically demolished by the Great War. In 1935 Hitler had defied the Treaty of Versailles, announcing that he would create an army of a million men, which he did. That same year Hitler had marched into the Rhineland, and no one had opposed him. The Nazis had grown in power until finally, in 1938, Hitler took over Austria, annexing it to Germany. Since then he had announced that the Czechs should surrender to the Third Reich, and Neville Chamberlain, the British prime minister, had caved in, declaring to his nation, “I believe it is peace in our time.”

  Winston Churchill, a member of parliament, however, had warned, “Be ready for war. We must stop Hitler now.”

  “This man Hitler,” Mallory said, “I don’t understand why England or France doesn’t stop him. Nobody in Africa understands.”

  “We don’t understand either, but we’re safe here,” Lars said. “Norway is neutral.”

  “Lars, no one is safe with a maniac like Adolf Hitler,” Eva said grimly. Then she forced herself to smile. “But let’s not think about such things now. You’re going to love this country, Mallory.”

  “I think I will.”

  “You’ll freeze to death, though,” Lars said with a grin. “I understand you’ve never even seen snow.”

  “No, I never have.”

  “Well, just wait. You’ll see plenty of it!”

  “Yes, and you must learn to ski,” Eva said. “I’ve got an instructor lined up for you. But first you need to settle in here and rest up from your trip.”

  ****

  A week later Eva brought home a tall young man with tawny hair and dark blue eyes. “This is Rolf Bjelland,” she announced. “He will be your skiing teacher. Rolf, this is your pupil, Mallory Anne Winslow.”

  “I am so happy to make your acquaintance,” Rolf said in precise English.

  “Why thank you. Your English is very good.”

  “I like to study, but I like better to ski.”

  “Rolf was born in Narvik,” Eva said. “He knows the Lapps very well.”

  “Not too well,” Rolf objected, shaking his head. “They’re a strange people, but I have spent some time with them.”

  “I’d be very interested in whatever you can tell me about them,” Mallory said. “Perhaps you can tell me about your experiences with the Lapps while we’re on our way to the mountains.”

  “I would be very glad to do that.” Rolf spread his arms, palms up. “Well, is everybody packed?”

  “We’re all ready,” Lars said, picking up his suitcase that he had placed by the door. Eva turned off the lights as the group made their way out the door.

  “I brought some skis that I think would do for you,” Rolf told Mallory. They stuffed all of their belongings into Lars’s car. “You have never skied?”

  “No. I’ve never even walked on snow.”

  “You have a fine teacher,” Rolf said, slapping himself on the chest.

  “And modest too.” Eva laughed. “Watch out for this one, Mallory. He considers himself a ladies’ man.”

  “Pay her no attention, Miss Winslow,” Rolf retorted. “For you, I’m just what the doctor ordered, as they say in English.”

  ****

  The trip to the mountains was a delight to Mallory, both because of the gorgeous scenery and because she found Rolf, Eva, and Lars to be the best of company. They made their way there with scores of happy Norwegians who had begun their summer holidays. Dressed in gaily colored sweaters and anoraks, they all headed toward Nordfjord, some five hundred kilometers northwest of Oslo, where the snow still coated the upper slopes. Mallory found the air cool, sharp, and refreshing after the stifling heat of Africa.

  The mountains were beautiful to Mallory. The ground was covered with mosses and lichens, and the lakes were fringed with bog cotton grass. Dense turfs of low-lying plants included rose-tinted heaths, saxifrages, and many species of white- and blue-blossomed Arctic plants. Mallory delighted in the clear mountain lakes, the foaming waterfalls, and the fast-flowing rivers. As they drove higher into the mountains, the road sometimes passed through dark forests and other times clung to rocky mountainsides with breathtaking views of glaciers and fjords.

  It took the better part of the day to get there, but they weren’t in any hurry. They stopped along the way to eat, and Mallory found the food quite delicious. For snacks they nibbled on hearty crackers and sweet goat’s milk cheese.

  When they arrived at the ski area, they hauled their packs into a hytte, a furnished cabin that offered a bed for the night very cheaply. Eva and Mallory stayed in a room with two other women, and the men shared another room.

  That evening the foursome gathered outside around a huge fire, joining with the other travelers in their singing and folk dancing. Mallory learned that the oldest surviving type of Norwegian folk music was called kveding, which was unaccompanied singing. She even learned the words to some of the songs and was able to join in the singing.

  Rolf insisted on teaching her some of the folk dances, and it was during one of these sessions she found out that his reputation as a ladies’ man was well deserved. They had been dancing around among the crowd, and he had drawn her off to one side into the shadows of the tall fir trees, out of sight of their chaperones, Eva and Lars. She had tried to pull away, but he had caught her and kissed her before she could move.

  “Rolf, don’t do that!”

  “Don’t do what?”

  “Don’t kiss me. I’m not used to it.”

  “But I think it’s my duty to get you used to it.” Rolf’s eyes danced with merriment, and when he reached for her again, she pushed him away. “No! Eva warned me about you. Anyway, I’m too old for you.”

  “You’re only four years older than I am. When I’m sixty-five you’ll only be sixty-nine. Beside
s, I think women should marry younger men so they can wait on their wives when they get old.”

  Mallory could not help but laugh. “You’re going to have to find yourself a young Norwegian girl.”

  “No, I think I like older African women. Yes, that’s what I like.” Rolf reached for her again, but she laughed and turned away, going back to the fire to look for Eva and Lars. When he followed her, she said, “You’re just my skiing instructor, Rolf. Stick to your job!”

  ****

  Mallory found that skiing came easily to her, for her balance was good and was fearless. Rolf was a good instructor, although he never missed an opportunity to touch her, and she had to be constantly on her guard. She quickly learned to take the slopes at a fair rate of speed. She knew she would never be as good as Rolf or others who were practically born on skis, but she was satisfied with her progress.

  They skied for the better part of a week, and on the last night before they all went back to Oslo, she was sitting on the couch with Rolf in front of the fire inside the hytte. The others had all gone to bed, and the fire crackled and hissed and snapped, making a comforting noise in the silence.

  “You know what?” Rolf asked, staring into the yellow flames.

  “What?”

  “I think I’m falling in love with you.”

  “Don’t be foolish. Eva says you’re going through all the girls in Oslo alphabetically.”

  “That’s not true! She’s always telling those stories on me.”

  “Well, even so, you can’t be interested in me. I’ve come to Norway to do a job.”

  “You can be a preacher. That’s all right with me. It would be nice to be married to a preacher.” He turned, and she could see a smile playing about his lips. “What about it? You think we should get married this summer or wait until winter? Maybe we’d better wait until winter. You’ll need a man to keep you warm then.”

  Mallory burst out laughing. She could no more be angry with Rolf than she could be angry at a puppy.