21

Kalajoki, Finland

Anna wrinkled her nose at the dingy basement and brought her hand up to her face, trying to brush away the tickle so she wouldn't sneeze.

Pastor Laiho had agreed to let her use the church's basement for her Junior War Committee meetings, but since the maintenance staff rarely ventured down there, it was up to her to make the room usable.

Looking around, this was a tall order. Concrete walls stood starkly around her with only rusty pipes to break the monotony of gray. The floor was also concrete, only it had been painted a dingy cream color. Whoever had come up with the idea of painting a floor cream had clearly not thought that through. Muddy stains marked the floor every few inches. She needed to go find some chairs. There wasn't a woman in her committee who would agree to sit on that floor. Good thing she had come twenty minutes early.

She inspected two dark closets looking for chairs before finally finding eight wooden ones. They would have to do. If more than eight people came, she'd stand. Dragging the chairs one-by-one into the meeting room, she arranged them in a circle around a small pine table. The table was in much better shape than the rest of the furniture. It actually even looked clean, so Anna placed a loaf of her Äiti's pulla on the table along with a knife and some linen napkins.

Nothing like making do.

A rustle startled her and she looked up to see Kaino, as well as their friend Mary scooting into two of the chairs. Last winter, Anna and Mary had knitted socks and packed boxes for soldiers.

"Hi, Anna. How are things?" Mary looked at her with sad eyes. Mary's father had been killed last winter by a Russian bullet.

"Good, Mary. And you?"

"Better. We still miss my father so much, but things are looking up now that Mr. Annala and the boys are helping with the farm." Mary had grown up an only child, and so her father's death had nearly destroyed their family's farm. Mary and her mother weren't able to keep up on their own, but fortunately, the Annala family from Karelia had moved in just in time to help with the spring planting. Now they were helping with the fall harvest. A blessing in disguise.

Kind of like when the Rantas had moved in with them.

"I'm so glad, Mary. If you need more, I know that Mr. Ranta and the boys would be happy to help. We have more than enough men to share."

Everyone laughed.

Mary shook her head. "And Kaino? How's Johannes doing?" Mary's voice was pinched.

Tears sprang to Kaino's eyes. She missed her on-again, off-again boyfriend. It was enough to drive everyone around her crazy. Anna and Mary shared a commiserating look as Kaino launched into a sappy dissertation about the agony of being away from the only man she’d ever loved and the anguish of having to communicate by letters when he was stuck in a hospital somewhere in Helsinki. Kaino wouldn’t rest easy until he was home safe in her arms. Oh, and until there was a shiny, gold ring on her finger.

Anna smiled. Sure, Kaino was a bit dramatic, but she was also her best friend and she meant well. "Maybe we can think of something to help Johannes and the boys this winter."

"I hear that most of the soldiers have been reassigned to help with the refugee crisis as part of the Rapid Resettlement Act." Their friend Paivi walked into the room and set a notebook on a chair.

"Yes, that's what I've heard." Anna hated the thought of so many refugees pouring into Helsinki. Not only because it would mean a tough winter, but also because she knew what it would tear Matti up. Anna couldn't imagine how he would react to seeing fresh reminders on every street corner. She glanced at her wristwatch. Five minutes more and they would get started.

Mary stood up and helped herself to some pulla, slathering her slice with the butter Anna had carefully churned this morning. At least they weren't under strict food rations yet. Anna had heard that flour and sugar and butter were practically non-existent in London. She couldn't imagine life without sugar or flour. What would they eat? With the way things were going, she might soon find out.

And if giving up her pulla would bring Matti and the other soldiers home quicker, she would do it in a heartbeat.

Two of her other committee members, Soylï and Katarina walked in.

Anna looked at them with a smile. "Thank you for coming."

A few more stragglers trickled in.

Anna handed each a napkin with a slice of sweet, warm bread. "Shall we get started?" She brushed crumbs off of her skirt. Pulling her chair closer to the center, she prayed over their meeting and then pulled out a bag.

Balls of gray wool yarn and knitting needles fell out onto the floor. "I know we don't need socks for the soldiers right now, but I figured that some of the refugees could probably use something warm. Plus, sitting here with idle hands drives me crazy."

Kaino grabbed a ball of yarn and two needles and elbowed Anna in the side. "We haven't even decided what our next group effort is and you're already giving us jobs to do."

"Just doing my part to keep everyone warm and dry."

"Everyone?Or a certain blond-haired soldier?" Kaino teased.

Glaring, Anna looked around the room, not sure if any of the others knew about Matti. Or if she wanted them to know.

Mary looked up. "Anna?"

Anna puckered her lips and blew out a frustrated breath. "All right, so I met someone. He's a soldier from Karelia and he's now working on Rapid Resettlement Duty in Helsinki."

"And his name is?" Katarina stood up to help herself to another slice of bread.

"Matti Ranta."

"Wait…" Wheels seemed to turn in Mary's head. "Isn't the refugee family that your family took in called Ranta?"

Anna looked down at her shoe and rubbed a speck of mud off the painted floor vigorously. "Yes, they are. I met him when his family moved in with us…"

"…and within a week, she was head over heels in love with the guy." Kaino finished her sentence with a smug smile.

Anna frowned at her over her knitting needles. Head over heels in love? Not even close. "Shall we discuss what we came for?" Anna straightened her yarn and restored the conversation to a place that was a bit more comfortable.

"You mean how to help Matti Ranta stay warm this winter?" Kaino was taking this a bit too far.

Well, she wouldn't be telling Kaino anything ever again. "Maybe we could focus on refugees from Karelia this winter. I hear there are hundreds of thousands of them flooding Helsinki, and many have nowhere to live and very little to eat.”

The conversation turned to a serious discussion about how they—just a ragtag group of poor farm girls from Kalajoki—could help.

"I have an idea." Mary's cheeks reddened as the group turned to her. "What if we were to collect foodstuffs and blankets for the refugees? Then we could package up the goods in boxes and ship them to the camps in Helsinki."

"But everyone here is trying to store up as much as they can to survive the winter with our own flood of refugees. Not many have food and clothes to spare." Katarina brought the voice of reason.

Anna's family had doubled their garden size and sent the boys out on countless fishing expeditions to make sure they'd have enough to feed both themselves and the Rantas over the winter. How could they ask the townspeople to give, when they hardly had enough for themselves?

"Well," Mary added, "we're all short on supplies right now, but we have so much more than most of the refugees. In fact, I read in the newspaper that we are best off. Relatively few refugees have made it all the way up here, and relatively little of our food is going to the front. We have more than most. I was talking to my mother, and she suggested that we could ask each family to give up five items—it could be five tins of pickled herring or five jars of applesauce or five pairs of socks. That way, everyone is sacrificing a little. A lot of little sacrifices can go a long way."

Anna's mind reeled with the possibility. She knew her family didn't have a tin of herring to spare, but she could probably convince everyone to miss one measly meal. It could make a huge difference. Anna looked around the room and saw her own concerns mirrored on the faces of the others.

Could they make this work?

Kaino's eyes brightened. "Maybe we make posters. Say something like ‘Five to Keep Them Alive’ and hang them all over town."

Excited murmurs picked up.

"I think this really could work," Mary said.

"I think we should do it." For the first time in weeks, Anna felt fulfilled. She was doing something worthwhile.

"Wait," Katrina said. "How would we get the supplies to Helsinki? Last winter, shipping cost almost more money than we could afford."

"I thought of that." Mary smiled. "What if we were to load the boxes into the cargo compartment of the passenger train to Helsinki? I asked down at the train station, and it costs less to buy cargo space than it does to ship using the postal service. We would have to send someone to Helsinki to make sure everything gets offloaded and carted away as it should."

Anna's heart danced into her throat. Someone would go to Helsinki?

"But train tickets are expensive too." Katarina's eyes widened.

"I know. But still not as much as shipping. We can buy tickets on standby for only a few marks if there are open seats. We would just have to be flexible with our dates. And whoever goes would have to arrange to pack and haul several loads of supplies when she arrived."

Anna smiled at her friend. Clearly, she had been doing a lot of thinking as of late.

"And I think Kaino and Anna should be the ones to make the trip to Helsinki," Mary finished.

Anna's gaze snapped over to Mary. She had never been more than ten kilometers away from Kalajoki. Helsinki? If she went, could she see Matti?

"How would we pay for those tickets?" Kaino sounded so skeptical.

Anna had been wondering the same thing. She had money saved for her passage to America, but she simply couldn't spend it on a frivolous trip to the capitol. Or should she? For the refugees?

Mary grinned. "My mother told me she was willing to chip in cash from my father's death benefit if it would help the refugees. She said if we can raise the supplies, she'll pay for the train tickets."

The entire group erupted into applause.

Kaino and Anna exchanged a wary look. Was it possible?

Anna cleared her throat, unable to hide her smile. "Do you think we could have our collection done by the end of November? I'd love to have supplies collected so we could get them on a train down to Helsinki before Christmas. We would be like Saint Nicholas—taking the Christmas train to spread gifts and cheer to the refugees."

"I think we can do it if we all work together." Mary set her hands in her lap as if the decision was made.

"I like this plan. Thank you, Mary." Anna looked at her feet. Why didn't she feel as excited as she should? Was it that she didn't believe it would happen? Maybe she wasn't sure what she would find when she arrived in Helsinki. Or maybe she couldn't quite allow her heart to imagine what it would be like to see Matti again. If she let her thoughts go there, she'd be able to think of nothing else until December.