The Unlikely Allies (26 page)

“Good-bye, Major Grüber.” She turned and went to the door, but before she left, she turned back and said, “Sometimes a simple thing will make us take a new way. I hope this letter from our dear Rachel will help you to choose the right path. Good-bye, my friend.”

Derek stood there as the door closed, and her words brought back memories of his dream and of the voice.
“If you take the easy way, you will be forever miserable.”
For a long time he stood there not moving, and then finally, with unsteady hands, he opened the envelope. It was a few paragraphs on a single sheet of rough paper. The sight of Rachel’s handwriting hit him like a blow, and his eyes so burned that he could not see to read for a time. Finally, getting control of himself, he read the letter. He could almost hear her voice. She did not speak of her sufferings at all, and in the last paragraph, she said,

Derek turned blindly and made his way back to his desk. He sat down, put his head on his arms, and struggled with the emotions that rushed through him like a mighty waterfall. He could not find the strength to get up for a long time, but when he heard a knock on the door, he quickly sat up and said, “Come.”

The door opened, and Corporal Schultz said, “Colonel Ritter wants to see you, sir.”

“Very well. Thank you, Corporal.” Getting up, Derek took a handkerchief out, cleaned his face, and then set his jaw. He left his office and went at once to meet Ritter. As soon as he entered the colonel’s office, he saw that Ritter was triumphant.

“I knew you were wrong about this American woman!”

“Sir?”

“This Mallory Winslow. Look here. She’s a Jew.”

Derek took the magazine that Ritter thrust under his nose. “There’s a story here about Mallory’s mother. She was quite a celebrity, it seemed. Escaped from going down on the
Titanic.
But look what it says. Her father was a Spanish Jew. That means that Mallory Winslow is a Jew. Go arrest her. She’ll go to Dachau with the rest of the filthy Jews!”

Derek automatically said, “Yes, sir,” then turned and left the room. He was unconscious of the laughter and the talking in the outer office, and instead of going to his own office, he walked straight out the front door. He felt like a man who had been badly wounded as he walked mechanically down the street. It was covered with snow, and large flakes were drifting down to add a new layer. He had not worn his hat, and the flakes bit at his flesh with a fiery fervor.

Everything seemed strangely quiet on the streets of Oslo. The snow muffled the sounds of traffic, and there were few pedestrians in this bitter weather.

Derek Grüber suddenly put all the pieces of his life together. He had thought it was all terribly complicated, but now it was simple enough.

I lost Rachel because I was a coward, but now I’ve got another chance. I told her I would marry her and take her and her parents to safety in Switzerland, but then I had second thoughts and worried about what my father would think.
He began to pray, but there was no confusion in his mind now. “God,” he said, “I believe this dream is from you, and I believe you sent this woman. I am going to take the hard way, Lord. If it costs my life to save Mallory, then so be it!”

Derek walked the streets for a long time, unaware of the
bitter cold, and finally he found himself standing before the cold, gray sea. Ships were bobbing up in the harbor, but Derek paid them no heed. He was praying in a way that he had never prayed before.

“Lord Jesus, I want you in my life. It doesn’t matter what it costs. If I must die, then so be it. But I need you. Like Simon Peter, I have no one else to turn to. I am at the very bottom of my whole life’s experience, and I’m asking you to come into my heart and show me the way to go.”

The snowflakes, some of them as large as a fingernail, drifted down, adding a layer of glistening snow on the streets of the city. The tall man stood there, his hair turned white by the flakes but not feeling them. His lips moved, and finally he uttered out loud in a voice tinged with triumph, “Thank you, God! I love you with all my heart!”

CHAPTER NINETEEN

A Matter of Faith

Outside, the wind was sweeping around Lars and Eva’s house. It seemed to claw at the windows like a beast trying to gain admission. At least so it seemed to Mallory, who was sitting in the living room at a small desk she had drawn up close to the fire. November had brought with it terrible weather, and she thought of the Lapps, concerned about how they were faring. It was a useless worry, of course, for this hardy people had survived hundreds of years of harsh Norwegian winters.

A log settled in the fireplace, making a hissing sound and sending a myriad of sparks flying up the chimney. They swirled as they rose, golden flecks of fire, and the wood popped and crackled vigorously. Mallory had always liked the smell of woodsmoke, and she hypnotically watched the fire, grateful for its radiant heat.

The room was murky, for she had only one small light on the desk, which did little to illuminate most of the room. Again the wind sighed and moaned, and the whole house seemed to shake with the violence of its power.

Mallory rose and went to peer out the window at the night sky, but she could see nothing, for the storm that had gripped the land for the past two days had shut out the heavens.
The stars are still out there,
she thought,
and in Africa I know they can see them, but here, it’s like being buried underground.
She could make out nothing but the swirling of the icy snowflakes, which made a sibilant sound as they brushed the glass, driven by the moaning wind.

No planes can fly in this weather,
she thought as she turned and walked back toward her desk beside the fire. She sat down, held her hands out, and luxuriated in the warmth.
I always took warmth for granted in Africa. How many times did I complain about how hot it was? Well, I don’t have that problem here.

The place was quiet, for Lars and Eva had gone on a mission. They were often gone, for it was their strength and determination that kept the resistance in this area tied together. They lived a precarious existence, unsafe and in danger every day. Of course Mallory knew that she was at risk herself, but she had learned to live with the fears that would sometimes rise in her.

A sound caught her attention then, and she turned to see the Klovstads’ large gray cat named Michael as he jumped from the table and walked across the floor. He was a huge animal with large golden eyes, rather aristocratic and hard to get to know. Mallory had won him over with frequent offerings of tuna and had discovered that he seemed to like olives. One had fallen to the floor, and he had pounced on it immediately and devoured it. “You want an olive, Michael?”

Michael looked up and said, “
Yow!
” and turned to pad back toward the refrigerator. Laughing at the antics of the huge cat, Mallory went to the refrigerator and fished out three olives out of a can with her fingers. She put one on the floor, and Michael ate it and then meowed again. He repeated this twice more, and then without a meow of gratitude, he turned and walked away, headed for the fire. He curled up, and Mallory made a face at him. “You’re welcome,” she said. “If there was such a thing as a cat charm school, I’d send you to it!”

Going back to the desk, she sat down and took up the letter she was writing to her parents. She had written them several times, on each occasion finding a way to smuggle the letter back to England, but it was a one-way communication. She had received no mail from her parents for over two months. She suspected that the battle in the Atlantic had something to
do with this, for the mails depended upon the shipping lanes, which were dangerous, with German submarines prowling incessantly, looking for their prey.

She had a hard time concentrating on her letter as her thoughts kept turning to Derek. She missed seeing him and kept wondering if they could ever have a relationship. That was hard to imagine as long as the war was on. Derek just didn’t seem like a Nazi to her, although Eva kept reminding her that of course he was. But to Mallory, he seemed much too gentle and kind to be a Nazi in his heart.

Even as she thought this, Mallory felt a deep conflict going on inside her heart. There was a gentleness in Derek Grüber she did not see in any of the other Nazis she’d had to deal with. She sensed it and had also seen it in his quick agreement to release the retarded boy. No other Nazi she knew would have done that, but Derek had done it readily. She could not picture his being a part of a wicked system that shot hostages mercilessly. “I mustn’t think about him anymore,” she told herself and went back to her letter.

She finished the letter, signed it, and sealed it in an envelope, then stood and stretched. It was getting past eight o’clock, and she was a little concerned about Eva and Lars, but they had told her not to be worried if they did not get home before ten o’clock. She turned abruptly, went to her bedroom, and came out bearing a radio she had put into working order. It had been damaged in transit from the last plane that flew in,
and it had been difficult to repair. Now, however, it was working perfectly.

She set it on the table while she put on her heavy coat and pulled a black wool cap down over her ears. Picking up the radio, she opened the door and stepped outside. As always, the biting cold hit her like a fist and she gasped, keeping her mouth closed, for she had learned how cold the air could feel in the lungs. She thought of the Lapps as she made her way back around the house and headed for the barn. She had seen Lapp children playing in weather not much warmer than this with lightweight clothing on. That was their heritage, but she knew she herself could never endure it. The wind pulled at her and was strong enough to actually propel her forward.

She had almost reached the barn when suddenly she heard a voice call her name. She whirled around and saw a tall figure, and for a moment she could not tell who it was in the darkness. Then he came closer, and she said, “Derek!”

“Hello, Mallory.”

She stood transfixed. The radio in her hand was enough to send her to a firing squad! She ordinarily was a very quick thinker, but the suddenness of his appearance and the abruptness of his greeting stopped her mental processes. The only thing she could think of was,
I’m caught! I need to do something.

“Can I help you with that?”

Derek reached forward and took the radio; then she saw his head drop as he stared at it. In that one moment Mallory made a heartrending decision. She reached inside her coat and pulled the thirty-eight from the band of her trousers. He straightened up and his eyes widened.

“I wish you hadn’t come here, Derek. You don’t give me any choice.”

Derek Grüber silently looked not at the gun but into her eyes. She could not read his face, so intense was the blackness of the night.

“You’re going to shoot me?”

Mallory knew she could do no such thing. Still she had to do something! “Go back to the house,” she said curtly.

Derek turned and walked alongside the house. Mallory stayed behind him, the gun held tightly in her hand but pointed at the ground. When they reached the front door, she said, “Go on inside.” When he entered, she stepped inside after him and shut the door. “Put the radio down on the table, Derek.”

He did so and then turned to face her. The snow had dusted across the shoulders of his black overcoat, which was belted with a black leather belt. The peaked officer’s cap was also coated with white. He pulled off his hat and laid it down beside the radio. The silence in the room was broken only by the popping of the wood in the fireplace.

“Sit down.” He opened his coat, and when he did, she saw his Luger in the black holster. “Take off your coat and put your pistol on the table.” She waited until he had done so, still without saying a word. He sat down in the chair and watched her. His face was leaner than it was when she had first met him, and she knew he had lost weight. The clean line of his jaw and the strong lines of his face bespoke the strength that was in him, and he sat there clasping his hands and making no move to say anything.

Mallory had regained her swiftness of thought, but it troubled her that he showed no surprise and certainly not any fear. He was simply watching her, ignoring the gun. “Why did you come here, Derek?”

He did not answer her directly but said, “What about the Jewish family? Did they get away safely?”

The question caught her off guard. She was so startled she could not answer for a moment, but then she nodded and said, “Yes.”

“That’s good. I’m glad.”