The young woman in the Press Gallery was ready to move as soon as the officiating judge's gavel came down and the lunch recess began. Picking up her leather briefcase she dashed up the steps to the door that gave onto the corridor, and turning to her right, headed for the stairs. Once she reached the ground floor, and the main lobby of the building, she scanned the crowd for her quarry, eventually sighting the person she'd been watching all morning.
She had to leave the court building and cross the street to a little café, where she looked around the room for a few moments before ordering a sandwich and pot of coffee at the counter. Then, threading her way between tables, she made for a table at the window, noting that, as usual, the young woman already sitting there was alone.
"May I join you?" she asked in perfectly-accented German. The other nodded, glancing at her briefly, and then staring more intently, as though trying to recall where they had last met. Seeing this, her guest took pity on her.
"It's Alixe von Elsen, isn't it?" she asked. "It was the dark eyebrows against the blonde hair that gave you away!" Alixe nodded. "Yes, I'm fairly easy to pick out in a crowd. But you?" and here she paused, "I seem to know you also. You have a look of Margia Stevens about you, but I know she's overseas right now. Besides, I can't see her services being required here, of all places!"
"Very astute of you!" replied the other. "I'm Amy, Margia's younger sister. You probably don't remember me very well, although we did spend some time at the Annexe together, do you remember? Even when you went back to the Tiernsee we still heard stories of your exploits – I think the staff considered you the naughtiest girl they'd ever had in the school up to then!"
Alixe laughed, blushing slightly, but before she could reply, a new voice broke in on their reminiscences.
"Well, well, Amy Stevens as I live and breathe!"
Amy and Alixe looked up, startled, to find themselves being regarded by a smiling young woman laden with documents tied with red ribbon, and holding a paper bag precariously in one hand. She was elegantly dressed in a tweed suit, and with an ease born of practice she pulled a nearby chair towards her with her foot and sat down at their table. She dumped the heavy load of paperwork on the table with a smothered "Oof!" and beamed at her two companions.
"Alixe von Elsen as well, if I'm not mistaken! Is this a Chalet School reunion, or something? What on earth would Madame make of it?"
Suddenly Alixe knew who she was. "Faith Barbour," she said, slowly. "We were in the same form until the School had to leave Austria. . ."
"The same!" replied Faith merrily. Then, more soberly, "It's good to see you, Alixe. Good to know you got through the War safely." She turned to Amy. "So, Stevens, for which of your many outlets are you covering this little shindig? Not The Lady, or Good Housekeeping, I'm sure, but I know you write for other more – shall we say? – robust journals, so which is it this time?"
Amy was silent as she chewed her sandwich. At length she managed to reply: "I've got a commission for the Manchester Guardian. I'm not exactly a staffer, but they've published a few of my pieces so I was able to talk them into giving me a place on the team covering the trials. I should get a few articles for other places as well, maybe even a book eventually. Dad's here as well, of course, so we might collaborate on something. What about you, Faith? How do you come to be here?"
"Well, after I came down from Oxford three years ago, my uncle took me on as a pupil in his Chambers, and I'm here as his assistant. He's part of the British legal team, you know: Terence Allenby, KC. He's a poppet, for all his legalese and crusty temper! I didn't even have to beg to be allowed come, any more than I had to beg for my pupillage: he just said he knew I'd been trained by the best (i.e. him!) so he had every faith in my abilities. So here I am, fetching and carrying papers 'til my back is about to break, taking notes until my hand is about to drop off, staying up to midnight trying to decipher my own abysmal scrawl, and loving every minute of it!" she ended happily, before recalling where she was. "Apart from hearing the details of what went on, of course," she added soberly. "I think I'll have nightmares for quite some time to come, but that's nothing compared to what some poor souls actually experienced. But it's good to feel part of the machinery of justice, to feel that we're still doing our bit even though the war itself is over."
Throughout these exchanges, Alixe had been silent. Now, as Faith's voice tailed away, she felt the eyes of her companions on her, and braced herself for what would come next.
"What brings you here, Alixe?" asked Amy.
What, indeed?
"Well," she began, "as you know, at the Anschluss, all the German and Austrian girls at the Chalet School were called home, to go to German schools. My parents were in Berlin at that time, because my father's business interests were there and he felt it best to be on hand rather than out in the country at the Schlöss. Anyway, I went to a Höchschule for the next three years, and then joined an office in the Ministry of Labour when I left school. All very straightforward office work and essential to the success of the Reich, so I was exempt from any munitions work, which was lucky for me."
"What about your family?" interjected Amy. "Are they all o.k.?"
Alixe nodded. "Yes, as luck would have it my parents and brother had just gone to Switzerland when war was declared. Mama was recovering from a bout of pneumonia and Papa thought she should convalesce in the mountains, so they went to my aunt Dagmar, who was living in a chalet just above Geneva. Gerhard went with them on leave from his regiment and was stuck there when the war started. He couldn't come back, even voluntarily, because they'd have tried him as a deserter – he overstayed his leave because the border closed, you see – so he sat out the war in Switzerland. They thought about going to America but Mama was too weak to make the journey so they stayed."
She fell silent, thinking about her parents about how different her own life might have been had she gone with them to Geneva. Shaking her head slightly she resumed her story.
"But you wanted to know about me. Well, they did their best at school, heaven help them, but I spent my formative years, the important ones, at the Chalet School, and the lessons I learned there ran very deep. You know we all, I mean all the German and Austrian girls, had to be 'examined' at our new schools? Oh, don't look so worried!" as she saw their stricken faces, "not tortured! Just tested to see if we had absorbed any anti-German attitudes or beliefs. Well, my father and mother prepared me well for that, so I was able to give the authorities the impression that I was only too happy to be returning to good, sound, Aryan teaching.
"Do you remember Hanna Berger? She was in the third form, that last term at the Tiernsee. She lived in the next street to us in Berlin, and I assumed that we'd go to the same school. But on my first day there I looked around for her and couldn't find her. I asked a teacher why Hanna wasn't starting that day as well, and was told that our school was only for purebred children of sound Aryan stock, and not Jews."
"Hold on," said Faith, "as far as I can recall, there weren't any Jewish girls at the Chalet School. Wasn't Hanna Catholic?"
"That didn't matter to the Nazis," said Alixe, bitterly. "Hanna's father came from Lithuania originally. His parents were murdered in one of the pogroms around fifty years ago, and he was adopted by a Catholic family and baptised, and the family moved to Berlin. But when he went to have his background checked it all came out that he'd been born to Jews. Even the fact that he'd grown up Catholic, and had married one, didn't matter. Racially he was Jewish, so he and his family were condemned along with all the others. Herr Berger was sent to a labour camp in around 1940, I think, but we got Hanna and her mother away in time"
"What do you mean?" asked Faith. "Who got them away? You said you were with one of the Ministries. I'm pretty sure it wasn't your job, under Nazi rule, to save Jewish people!"
Alixe shook her head. "My job was to keep records of who was sent to which labour camp, and how many units of production they were responsible for. That's how I knew about the Bergers. I couldn't let them just go to be worked until they dropped, Hanna was my friend! And even without that, what the Nazis were doing was wrong, evil!" She spoke in a furious whisper, anxious not to draw attention to herself. All around them the noise of the dining room ebbed and flowed.
"No, my work was fairly routine," she continued more calmly, "and it was all above board. But my work outside the Ministry was rather more. . .challenging." She took a sip of water from her glass. "I helped to get Hanna and Frau Berger, and many others, out of Germany into Switzerland and further. By the Untergrundbahn."
"Underground. . .," translated Amy, her eyes widening. "Oh my word, Alixe, you were in the Resistance?" Alixe nodded and Amy's eyes filled with tears.
"Oh my dear!" she exclaimed, "How brave you were! Working at the centre of government and undermining it all the while!" and she sat back in her chair, overcome by what Alixe had just told them. Faith, meanwhile, was looking at her erstwhile schoolmate with respect.
"All that time you spent looking angelic and plotting mischief paid off then?" she said in a flippant tone that belied the sympathy and respect she felt for Alixe. Alixe laughed sadly.
"Yes, that stood me in very great stead! Do you know, I lost count of the times I was stopped by the Gestapo and managed to talk my way out of it?"
She had relaxed a little now, and felt easier about relating some of what she had done. Not all though, not yet anyway. She had only just met these old friends for the first time in many years, and some of what she had to tell had not even been told to her family.
"So, you asked what I am doing here. Well, I'm a witness. A witness to what went on. I've already been questioned and examined myself. Just after the war ended those of us in non-military posts in the Ministries were interrogated. Some people were arrested and put in jail, but I had my youth in my favour."
She paused, and immediately Faith and Amy said in unison: "But the Resistance?"
Alixe shook her head.
"Everyone's claiming they were in the Resistance these days. And in the immediate aftermath, while the war in Asia was still going on, no-one knew what might happen so we couldn't just reveal ourselves to the world. So after a while there was no point in saying anything. What good would it have done anyone but myself?" she asked pragmatically.
Alixe rose from the table, and smiled at her two old friends.
"It's time to go back, and I will have to prepare to go into the witness box. Oh, it's been good to see you both! I will not say: Let's keep in touch, for our paths must take us in different directions, but it's been good to be reminded of the Chalet School. All through the war I thought of the School, and what it stood for. I'm proud to have been a Chalet School girl, even if only for a short time!"
Amy and Faith had also risen by the time she finished speaking. With tears in her eyes, Faith embraced Alixe, saying "I must go back as well, or Uncle will be peppering. Take care of yourself, Alixe. I'm glad you made it through. Good luck to you my dear, you deserve it!"
Turning to Amy she made a more laconic farewell: "See you in London some time, Stevens. Best of luck with the book." And she was gone.
Amy and Alixe made their way out of the café more slowly. They crossed the street in silence, and halted at the entrance to the courthouse. Alixe turned to Amy.
"I must go in by the side door now, for I am to be a witness at Speer's trial this afternoon. Goodbye, Amy."
"Alixe," said Amy with emotion, "I don't know if we'll meet again, but here's my card. If ever you're in London, please look me up!"
Alixe took the card and smiled at her friend.
"And Alixe," said Amy, as they both turned to go their separate ways, "it may only have been for a short few years, but you will always be a Chalet School girl! You represent all that it stands for. Please don't hide your bravery: tell someone about it! And don't disappear: we lost too many!"
And with that she went on into the courthouse, while Alixe went her way deep in thought, pondering not what lay ahead of her that afternoon, but how long a passport would take to come through, and if her English could still pass muster among its native speakers. . .