Recalled to Life.

The suburbs sped by. Occasionally she caught a glimpse of a long forgotten place name as, almost silently, the train glided through suburban stations entering one of the world’s great cities. The last time she had travelled this route the train had rattled on the tracks and over the points, a smell of steam in the air. But modern trains were so quiet and now it seemed she was almost creeping back into this place that had once been so much of her life but where she had in fact spent so little time. And even that so long ago. The journey had been long – a life time one could say - but now she was here and wondering should she have come? Her thoughts were suddenly jolted as the train, still speeding, flashed through a station. People were standing on the platform and she briefly caught the station’s name, too fast to read but somehow registering in her brain - Charlottenburg . She had once lived here her subconscious told her – indeed had always lived here – until......... . And she felt the tears well up inside her again. Her sister had always teased her – she was “Charlotte aus Charlottenburg".......her sister had giggled and it had somehow stuck. She strained her tired eyes again trying to catch some long forgotten building or park but it seemed all changed. Or maybe, she was just a silly old woman, she had simply forgotten. She watched the city glide by, now passing skyscrapers and tall office blocks. And then suddenly the train lurched slightly, and she felt the brakes go on. The high speed, international train was reaching its journey’s end; her journey’s end. Her life journey’s end.

Travellers began collecting their coats and bags, crowding the aisle as they raced to get home or meet connections. She still sat. The train announcer, in a strange and yet so well known language, told them that they were coming into the station.  She strained, peering through the window into the distance as the train slowed. The platform at last coming into view as they glided under the great arched station roof. Slower and slower. So long. It had been so long. A life time. More. Still she tried to catch a first glimpse, her heart pounding in her chest, her breath caught in her throat.  As the train halted and passengers picked up their belongings and hurried for the door she still sat. She looked across at him and no words were needed. He put his hand across the table top and touched her gloved fingers.  The carriage began to empty and she sat gazing at the platform, now filled with hurrying people, and thought back to how she had come to be here – after all these years......... .

v

It was her great grandson, Michael, who started it. Teenage Michael with his loud music, his  i-pads and his computers. On a wet, dismal Christmas holiday afternoon as the wind and rain whipped across the Yorkshire Dales she had stayed at her granddaughter’s home for Christmas. “You can’t be alone for the first Christmas without Granddad”  the family had said and so she had packed her suitcase and made the short trip to her granddaughter’s. She would stay for a few weeks, through the worst of winter, and be looked after, glad for the company and faces she knew. The TV had been on, a Christmas game show, no-one really watching; she had sat half flicking through a magazine while Michael looked at the screen of his i-pad. Her granddaughter, Michael’s mother, prepared dinner in the kitchen while Michael’s father carved the last of the meat from the turkey carcass.  Then, just as she was dropping off into one of the afternoon nods that she seemed to need more frequently these days Michael’s voice: “Gran you were in the war weren’t you?  She looked up: “Yes dear, why?  Michael looked up from the computer screen, “Oh it’s nothing, but we’re studying World War 2 for GCSE at school and I have some homework. Did you know anything about this Gran?”  She smiled, adjusted her glasses and stood up, “Let me see what you’re doing” and she walked over to him, still a little disorientated from her nod, and sat on settee by his side. He touched the screen and, as if by magic, it lit up and she was suddenly looking at a grainy, flickering, black and white film showing children, many in tears, carrying cases. In the background she could make out waving adults and yes, soldiers, herding the youngsters towards a train. By now she was wide awake and frighteningly engrossed, unable, almost, to watch but also unable to tear her eyes away from the flickering screen. She realised that her hand was in front of her mouth and she was struggling to catch her breath. And then, as the camera panned, she knew, and her heart froze, trapped in the moment. The signs on the walls, the great flags and banners......each bearing the dreaded black symbol that she still feared.....and unable to hold it in any longer she half whispered, half gasped and without thinking,“ I’ve been there, I was there”. Michael looked up, “What did you say Gran?“  And then the words came again – and then the tears “I was there, I was there”.  She had suddenly been swept back by a few seconds of old film to another time, another place, another life. 

“Anyone like a cuppa”, her granddaughter appeared at the lounge door “or maybe a glass of sherry Gran?”  But then she saw her grandmother hunched up sitting by her son, her body throbbing as the sobs came. Michael, not knowing what he should do simply looked at his mother for help. “Michael, what’s wrong with Gran?  The woman hurried across the room, her hands still covered in baking flour and sat on the arm of the settee by the old woman and took her hand. Michael, silent, embarrassed by this womanly show of emotion and not wanting to watch sat silent pressing buttons on his i-pad. He was not part of this, an intruder, unwelcome at this display of affection between the two women. The room was silent apart from the low laughter of the TV game show and of the now quiet sobbing.  And then, like a torrent, the words and the tears came; memories and emotions pent up for a life time came gushing out to the 15 year old and his mother. Michael’s father appeared at the kitchen door, carving knife in hand. “What’s the mat...! “ – he never finished; a look from his wife told him this was not yet for him. It was deeply personal, there would be time for explanations later. Relieved he stepped back into the kitchen and the cold turkey but even there he could pick up the main points.  Words, places and names long forgotten burst forth among the Christmas baubles and the TV game show. Tears for a lost life and lost years filled the Christmas air. Tears for a husband, Joe, whose death, three weeks before Christmas she was still mourning. “Michael go and make a cup of tea – make Gran’s strong with two sugars” Michael like his Dad, relieved to have a reason to leave, leapt up and ran to the kitchen. In the weeks and months to come Michael’s speed in leaping up to  make  that cup of tea became the stuff of family legend, never before had he shown any inclination to do anything in the kitchen! Michael’s mother hugged the old woman to her, almost squeezing the sobs out of her and as the emotion slowly eased and as the cup of tea warmed her she had told them. Her granddaughter sitting silent, unmoving, squeezing her hand through her own wet handkerchief while Dad stood in the kitchen doorway, carving knife in hand hearing a story that was new to all of them, a tale that Lottie had kept to herself all her life. And Michael, the brash teenager,– sat by his gran, his great gran, mouth wide open and unable to comprehend the tale he was hearing from this wrinkled old woman who he had always known – but it now seemed had never known - until now. She had told them in between bouts of tears. Perhaps Joe’s recent death, perhaps the emotion of Christmas, perhaps the realisation of her own mortality – but whatever, something of which she had never spoken to anyone – except Joe, and he had been sworn to secrecy - came pouring forth.

Yes, it was Michael that started it. Later that night she sat in bed thinking and writing the little diary she still kept as she had done all her life. She was calmer now but still shaken by the outpouring of her emotions and then there had been a gentle knock at her door. It was Michael. With the openness of youth, he wanted to know more – names, places, dates. He had even brought a little note book. And as he  sat on the edge of her bed he was flicking buttons on his little computer......she saw words that meant nothing to her but that she half recognised from reading the newspaper - Facebook, Twitter, Google................ . The minutes passed, Michael intent on what he was doing, asking the occasional question. Almost an hour passed, Lottie was nodding, hoping that Michael would soon go. But then......just as she felt herself beginning to nod off her heart almost stopped. There, on the brightly lit little screen in front of her was a faded black and white photograph of two girls smiling happily back at the camera. Two girls both with neatly plaited hair and summer dresses. Behind them trees and, parkland and couples – ladies with parasols and smartly dressed gentlemen walking in the sun. Her hand was again at her mouth as she pulled her dressing gown around her and climbed out of bed and stumbled to her handbag. Fingers trembling she rummaged around until she found it. Something that she had carried with her every single day for nearly 80 years.  Silently she placed it alongside the computer screen – they were mirror images. A crumpled, faded old photograph from her handbag and its double on the brightly lit screen. It was Michael who broke the silence – “Is that her, is that her, Gran – is it Alexandra?” Dumbly, she nodded. “And, Gran....... is that you?”. Again the stiff nod........and then the tears.  And through the sobs, she whispered to herself “The Tiergarten....our birthday in 1939.....we had lunch at a restaurant in Unter Den Linden”. Michael leapt from the bed and ran. “Mum, Dad, I think I’ve found her”. Come here”. And so, in their dressing gowns they had gathered around the bed. Michael explained – “Gran, I think she is alive” – this was only posted a few weeks ago. It looks like it was her son or grandson or someone that posted it. He pressed more buttons and then almost shouted .......Yes, she is still alive. Look she’s mentioned here – Alexandra - on her grandson’s Facebook Christmas post! He’s written it in English and he mentions two sisters who were separated before the war. He’s been trying for several months to find his grandmother’s sister for her. He’s been posting on Facebook and Twitter asking if anybody knows you.”

And the old woman looked and sobbed.........

So, here she was. Six months later – at the end of a long train journey, one could say the journey of her life: York, London, Harwich, Hook of Holland...... and now Berlin where it had all begun. She had sat with Michael at Liverpool Street station in London as they had eaten their McDonald’s burgers together before boarding the train for Harwich and then, as they sat she had seen them: statues. Statues of children outside the shop. Her burger had fallen from her fingers as she pushed back her chair and almost flew outside tears streaming down her face gazing at the bronze group of children, looking slightly old fashioned in their pre-war dresses and suits and with their battered suit cases. Through the tears she read the inscription below the statues: “Children of the Kindertransport. In gratitude to the people of Britain for saving the lives of 10,000 unaccompanied mainly Jewish children who fled from Nazi persecution in 1938 and 1939.Whosoever rescues a single soul is credited as though they had saved the whole world. Talmud.” These statues were her story, as she had once been a lifetime ago. Michael had joined her and as she sobbed uncontrollably he, without embarrassment, had put his arms around her. He had gazed at the statues over his great grandmother’s shoulders and he read the words of the inscription; suddenly his school history lessons made sense, suddenly they took on a totally new dimension. This was history made real. And now, here she was, her journey almost at an end, here they were, the two of them sitting together across a railway carriage table, across the generations, across wars, across nations both sitting in an almost empty carriage at the Berlin Hauptbahnhof with the cleaners already moving into the carriage.

And as she sat, motionless, looking at him she remembered how, after that Christmas holiday afternoon, only a few months ago, Michael had set about it with a crusading zeal. In the days that followed he had come again, every hour, it seemed, to check some detail or other. For weeks through late winter and spring Michael had – what was it he called it? - “Surfed the net”, scribbling down names, places and dates in a hard backed note book he had  bought specially in WH Smith's. Occasionally he would ask her questions – how to say certain words, what others meant. He had even bought a German/English dictionary at Smith's on the same day he bought the note book. He had shown her the Facebook posts and the replies and then there had been that first email from her, Alexandra..... Alex. She would never forget that day when Michael brought his little computer to her and said “Look Gran – it’s from her” She looked at the screen – filled with writing. “What is it, Michael?” she dumbly asked.”It’s an e-mail” he replied – “a sort of electronic letter. It’s from her.....I contacted her great grandson by Facebook  and he’s got Alexandra to reply to me....to you, I mean.”  And she read, haltingly at first trying to remember the long forgotten German words and grammar. The words swam before her eyes and she found herself continually looking at the name at the bottom.....”Alex”.

And then the first phone call. Even now after several more calls she still found it difficult to speak of it. Two 86 year old women – twin sisters, separated by war for 76 years – each trying to remember the words of a long lost language; she striving to recall her half forgotten birth language, her sister trying to piece together English words and phrases learned at school so long ago. But they had managed and by the third phone call she was chattering away to her sister in long forgotten German; the years, it seemed, were slipping away.  Until now each thinking the other dead,  they were, what was it Dickens had called it in A Tale of Two Cities? – that’s it “Recalled to life.” She remembered that book from across the years – their father had read it to them in German just before she left in 1939 and the phrase had stuck with her. When she had at last learned English it was one of the first books she read in her new language; bought for a few pennies in an old second hand shop in the Yorkshire village where she had then lived. And now she, they, really were “recalled to life”.

She reached out across the train table separating them and without thinking squeezed Michael’s hand. It warmed her when she felt the boy’s hand squeeze back. She looked at her great grandson, too choked to speak, but he spoke for her “Don’t worry Gran, you’ll be fine, just go for it”.

“Just go for it” – yes she would. Taking a deep breath she stood and gathered her belongings; her coat, her old battered suitcase – she had to bring that one – and last of all the brightly coloured  silk scarf, faded now but still red, yellow and green. It was the first grown up scarf she had ever owned – and she treasured it. Her mother had given each of the girls an identical brightly coloured scarf to wave as the train left the station so that they would be able to pick each other out in the crowd of waving children and parents.  Her mother had worn a bright red coat for the same reason. And it had worked. As the Kindertransport had slowly chugged out of Berlin’s Hauptbahnhof, its windows filled with tiny waving arms and hands, she had been able to see her tall father with his brown homburg hat, her mother in her red coat and her sister’s brightly coloured scarf waving in the crowd until the station had finally disappeared from view.

She put on her coat. Feeling in the pocket she took out the label and looked down at it. Yes, it was there. Crumpled now, the brown cardboard faded but the copper plate writing clear: 536: Charlotte Saltzmann: 10 Jahre alt 20 Februar 1939: London, and at the side of her name a large yellow Star of David.  It was the name label she had worn all those years ago. She looked at the number and the name – how she hated being called Charlotte – she insisted on Lottie just as her sister had always been Alex. Alex had been given a label too – number 535, but her label had never been used on that journey. How Lottie had hated the frightening black symbol in the corner of the label - the swastika. But  her eyes were constantly drawn to it despite her efforts to look elsewhere. With trembling fingers she took the frayed cord and tied it to the top button of her coat. Her mother had tied the label to her lapel as they stood on the platform on that far off day - the last time that she saw her mother, her father – and her sister, until now. Lottie stood erect, the label in place; perhaps it was an act of defiance, victory or was it personal pride but she was determined to return to this place exactly as she left it a lifetime ago.

Michael put his rucksack on his back. “Let me carry your case gran.”  She looked at him. “Thank you Michael but no – it’s part of my return. I will arrive as I left.” The little case was heavy. She smiled to herself. It had been lighter all those years ago, they had only been allowed to take a very few things but now she returned with all the stuff that goes with age and possessions; an old woman needed her creams and potions and changes of clothes. Michael had kindly stuffed lots of her things into his own rucksack. Such a good boy. She looked at him, so grown up now, she was so proud of him. At first when there had been talk of meeting her sister again everyone had wanted to come. But she knew this was for her, this first meeting, and so she had insisted that she would return “home” alone – back to where she had come from. There would be time for her sister to visit her in England – yes, lots of time. And she had resisted flying to Berlin – “No”, she said, “I’ll go by train, as I left” – for Lottie it was a kind of closure. And then, a few days later, as she lay in bed wide awake in the early hours thinking of all that had happened she had had another thought. No, she would not go alone, she would like Michael to be there. After all, she reasoned, it was him who had started it all and the more that she thought about it the more she was convinced it was right. “This isn’t only about the past” she had told the family over breakfast – “it’s about my future, your future - and Michael is the family’s future”. Michael was beside himself with excitement.

So, later that day Lottie had visited Michael’s school to see the Head Teacher to request time off for Michael to go with her. The Head had listened politely but explained that time off was only given in the most exceptional circumstances and he wasn’t sure if the latest government regulations permitted  “a holiday with his granny, especially when Michael’s GCSEs were so close”  as adequate reason for absence from school.  At that she had risen. “No, Mr Swift” she had curtly replied “it’s not a holiday it’s the start of the rest of my life, and I think the start of the rest of Michael’s life too. Thank you for your time Headmaster, but I have to go. The local radio and TV are coming at 4 pm to interview me and Michael about the trip. I would have liked to have said how helpful your school had been but I fear I must say you will not allow the trip.”  That settled it - the Head Teacher, looking rather sheepish, coughed and then smiled, “Oh no, no, no, you misunderstand Mrs Stevens. He coughed again and choosing his words carefully said “Hmmm... of course Michael can go, I’m sure that I can use my discretion on this one. Please tell the local media that we all look forward to Michael telling the whole school about it when he returns.....and if the radio and TV want to interview me then please give them my phone number. I would be delighted to show them round the school and say how much the school wished to support this marvellous venture”.  And as she had walked out of the Head’s office she smiled to herself – she hadn’t lost all her marbles yet! She hadn’t lost the old touch! All those years of being a doctor’s receptionist had paid off – she could still make excuses, bend the truth and think on her feet and all without blushing! “Not bad”, she thought “for an 86 year old! Wait till I tell Michael – he’ll love it”.  And he did – “Gran you’re one cool dude” he had exclaimed as they stood in the kitchen, later that afternoon, he towering over her, hugging each other.

They stepped down from the train, the platform almost empty now and she peered towards the barrier in the distance. And yes it was there; the red, yellow and green scarf already waving to her as it had done all those years ago. She put down her case and waved back – two identical brightly coloured scarves waving but this time they were coming together not speeding apart.

As they walked the length of the platform towards the barrier she remembered so clearly, as if it was yesterday. A tear trickled down her face as she recalled being told that she and her sister had to leave their parents and the only world they knew: Berlin. It wasn’t safe anymore for people like them Vater had said.  Her father, a solicitor by profession, using sympathetic contacts in the Berlin police force, had managed to arrange two places on the Kindertransport to take Alexandra and Charlotte to England where they would be looked after by a distant relative in London. Mutti und Vater would follow them in a few weeks as soon as they got their own papers. But then, a few days before they were due to travel Alexandra had fallen from the park swing and broken her leg – with a heavy plaster dressing up to her thigh she was unable to travel and her place was reallocated. Alex had come to the station in a wheel chair pushed by Vater. She would come to London on the next train a week or two later their parents had promised. “Her place is already arranged and by then  the cast will be off” Mutti had said. But it was never to be. As Europe tumbled towards war the  scramble for places on the Kindertransport became an overwhelming flood and Alexandra’s place was lost in the panic. Alex never came. Mutti und Vater never came. Europe was in turmoil. After the war Lottie had tried to find them but Germany was split into east and west. Berlin was split; it was almost impossible to get information out of Berlin or Germany. She had tried the various refugee and repatriation groups and organisations but in the end accepted the advice – it was certain, she was told, that her parents and sister had been taken in one of the purges against Jews in Nazi Germany. And in the end Lottie had accepted it; moved on, married, had children, looked to the future...... but for all these years she kept her thoughts and memories in a closed box at the back of her mind. Until last Christmas when Michael had said “Gran you were in the war weren’t you? - and she had looked at that grainy piece of black and white film on his i-pad.

Lottie and Michael continued down the platform, the suitcase in one hand, her other arm resting on Michael’s. Her handbag slung across her shoulders and chest. She could now see her sister more clearly. The little suitcase was heavy, pulling on her arm but she would not give it up. She had to bring it, to carry it; it was one of the defining parts of her life – perhaps the defining part of her life. She rested, put the suitcase down. How the world had changed. Now there were bright advertising hoarding not great red and black banners with swastikas looking down on them. When last she trod this place she had looked around in fear; grey clad soldiers had lined the platform barking orders to frightened children. Yelping dogs, teeth bared prowled with their grey uniformed masters – since then Lottie had always had a fear of Alsatian and Doberman dogs. She remembered climbing into the carriage and pressing her face to the window trying to spot her parents and sister in the crowd at the barrier. Yes, there they were and she had squeezed her arm through the narrow sliding window and waved the scarf. Then they were moving and her family, her life until then had disappeared in the distance. Until, now.

She remembered it all as she stood there, Michael at the side of her, suitcase by her knee. She recalled the journey in 1939 through Germany and then Holland. For hours it seemed they had sat unmoving as the train was directed into sidings while stern faced soldiers with guns searched and inspected their papers. She remembered the stop in the middle of the night just after they had crossed the border. She knew they were in a different country because of the station signs. As the train stopped they had been shepherded onto the platform and taken to the toilets. Then to a series of long trestle table where Dutch ladies and men spooned hot soup into cups and bowls for them. She had sat on her case sipping the soup and tearing at the rough bread she had been given. Remembering Mutti’s last few words: ”It will be a long journey Charlotte so make sure that you eat. And don’t forget your manners”. So, when she took her empty cup back to the trestle tables she leaned across and said to the lady who took it from her “Danke”. The lady had smiled and felt in her apron pocket and pulled out a small bar of chocolate which she thrust into Lottie’s hand. Lottie smiled, thanked her again and ran back to the train, the case banging against her thin legs as she ran.

And the train had rumbled on through the night and into the next day. She had tried to sleep but sleep would not come. As the train journeyed through the darkness she had heard some of the younger children crying. She, too, felt like crying but Mutti had told her to be brave. All would be well and they would all be together soon in England. And she had believed her. At last the train ground to a halt. Another check by soldiers? But no – this time there was a platform and the children were being led off in a long crocodile. She gathered up the little case and followed until she was standing in a long line in a building. Men and women in uniform were checking papers in the early morning light. She showed hers and it was stamped and the woman at the desk pointed to a door. She walked though and looked up at the sign above: “Hoek van Holland/Harwich” and out into the open air. In front of her were other children all walking in the same direction – and in the distance a ship. England. Lottie remembered it all as she stood on that Berlin platform looking towards her long lost sister, now clearly visible.

And as she walked the last yards Lottie remembered arriving in England and being met by an elderly couple, Mr and Mrs Sachs, distant relatives of her mother. They had taken her to their house – her new home, and had kindly lavished things on her as she waited for her sister to arrive. The weeks passed. She received two letters one from her sister and one from her mother and father explaining that there were no more Kindertransports. But she should not worry they would be there soon. But then the letters had stopped and at the end of that summer as she walked down the street she heard a newspaper seller shouting something about war: “War with Germany. Read all about it”. Her English was still limited so she didn’t understand it all but deep down she knew this was bad news. She asked the Sachs’ when her mother, father and sister would come but as the weeks passed their answers became ever more embarrassed and vague. Mutti and Vater and Alex never did come. And then the bombs started falling on London.

Lottie was evacuated out of London to a village in the Yorkshire countryside and the war dragged on.  She was put into the care of Mr and Mrs Fisher – Ron and Hilda - a middle aged childless couple who took her in and poured the sort of affection that they would have done had they had children of their own. They rented a little smallholding raising a few sheep and hens. Ron doing a bit of carpentry and other odd jobs for locals and Hilda taking in ironing and doing some daily cleaning at what she called “t’big ‘ouse”  on the edge of the village. About six months after arriving in Yorkshire she returned home from school one day to find Ron and Hilda standing on the doorstep waiting for her. They took her inside and sat her down. Hilda brought a piece of homemade cake and a glass of milk. And, grim faced they told her. She was alone in the world. They had received a telegram informing them that Mr and Mrs Sachs were dead – a direct hit by a bomb on their house in the East End of London. And worse was to come. A few weeks later they received a letter from some government department saying that Charlotte was to be put into a home, an orphanage. Lottie didn’t really understand all this, but she did understand it when Ron put his arm round her shoulder, squeezed her, and said “Look Lottie, you ain’t got no-one now. Bit like me and Hilda, see. We ain’t got no-one neither. So we was thinking, like. We don’t want you to go to no orphanage. How would you like it if you stayed ‘ere, like, as our real daughter. Like, we’d be your new Mum and Dad. We’ll go and see about getting you adopted, do it all legal and proper. Is that alright”  Again, Lottie didn’t really understand all of it but she loved the Fishers and through the tears she nodded her head.

And so it was done. A few months later, Charlotte Saltzmann, who had briefly been Charlotte Sachs became Lottie Fisher. Lottie attended the village school and learned English quickly, albeit with a Yorkshire accent. Later she transferred “t’big school”, as Ron called it just outside Harrogate. She didn’t excel but did well enough to make Ron and Hilda proud and when she left school she got a job back in the village. By now the war had just ended and a new GP, Dr Stevens was opening a surgery in the village. Part of what Ron explained was part of this new  “Elf service thing”. Lottie got a job there as a clerk and spent her days filing records and occasionally answering the telephone. And after being there for three years she was made Doctor’s Receptionist. Oh, how proud Ron and Hilda were - Ron was buying drinks all round at the village pub that night; his daughter a doctor’s receptionist! And it didn’t end there – three years later Lottie Fisher, Charlotte Sachs and Charlotte Saltzmann as was, became Mrs Lottie Stevens, wife of the respected young GP Joseph Stevens. Since then she and Joe had had over 60 years together, always in the same area of her beloved Yorkshire where she had at last found a home and a family. Until, that is, Joe, her Joe, had passed away suddenly just before Christmas. They had raised three children of their own, four grandchildren, and one great grandchild – Michael. Yes, Lottie remembered it all. She had lain in bed at night for weeks getting all the names and events in order, rehearsing her story for she knew she would have to tell it many times – and in German too!

Of course, her sister had tried after the war to find Lottie. In April 1939 Alex had returned home after school one day to find their house empty and in a mess. Her father and mother had been taken. She was looked after by neighbours and as the world tumbled into war she seemed to be passed around from family to family as more and more Jews were herded onto trains. Somehow she survived the months and years. Then the Red Army had marched into Germany and with the ending of the war Alex found herself trapped behind the “iron curtain”, living in the rubble of Dresden, then part of East Germany. She had tried so many times to find her sister, writing letters to England asking of Charlotte Salzmann or maybe Charlotte Sachs but all to no avail – no one knew of Charlotte Salzmann or Charlotte Sachs  for she no longer existed – she had become Lottie Fisher and then Mrs Joseph Stevens - Lottie Stevens. Alex meanwhile, had done well for herself. A bright girl she had attended Dresden University and become a teacher. She had married, had a family and when at last the Berlin Wall came down she had moved back to Berlin where she was now standing to welcome her long lost sister at the barrier where they had parted a lifetime ago.

The years had passed and now only a few steps to go. Lottie could see the smile and the tears on her sister’s face. She could see her sister’s family standing around her. And she could see reporters and a TV crew pointing their camera at her and Michael as they approached the barrier. She, they, her and Michael, would be on TV – German TV - after all! She couldn’t resist looking at Michael – he smiled and she knew that he was thinking exactly the same thing. She, he .....yes they were both..... what was it he called her? Yes, that was it, “Cool dudes”.

And then Lottie stopped. She knelt down and flicked up the two rusted clips that held her old suitcase together. She opened the lid.  And she took out the old battered book: A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens, bought in a Yorkshire second hand book shop for a penny a lifetime ago. She opened the faded and well thumbed pages and hesitantly, through tears and laughter, read the opening lines: “Chapter 1 – Recalled to life... . It was the best of times it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness...........”. And, leaving the case open on the floor with Michael standing by it, she ran as fast as her old legs would carry her, clutching the scarf and the book, towards her sister. Recalled to life indeed.

Tony Beale November 2015