47 
New Year and Changes

One by one the sisters of the Chalet of Hope returned to Wengen as the days of the year 1915 opened.

Changes were in the wind, and not only from the blustery black clouds swirling about the Jungfrau and other peaks that were now mostly lost to sight.

All immediately beheld the change on Kasmira Tesar’s radiant unveiled face.

But they sensed an alteration in Amanda’s spirit as well, not so visible yet perhaps extending as deep in different ways as the transformation that had come to the young Muslim. For though the pilgrimages of the two young women whose lives had intersected high in the Swiss Alps were very different, they were both learning to turn their faces toward Fatherhood, which is the central necessity of the universe.

Meanwhile, a hundred miles to the southeast, a young German teacher in a Catholic school in Milan resumed her duties after the Christmas holiday. As her class of little Italian girls filed from the room on their first day back at school, Elsie Reinhardt was surprised to see two men standing in the corridor outside the classroom, apparently waiting to see her.

She did not recognize either of them. Neither did she like their looks.

“You are Elsie Reinhardt?” said the smaller of the two in Italian.

She nodded, glancing at the other man as she did.

“Have you or someone in your family been traveling recently by train to Switzerland?”

“I have recently returned from a Christmas visit to Munich. I traveled through Innsbruck.”

“No—before the end of the year . . . weeks ago.”

“I . . . my sister Gretchen visited me two months ago,” she answered slowly.

“And did she return to Switzerland by train?”

“She was on her way back to Inter—”

The young teacher hesitated. Something in the man’s eye caused her to stop. The sense came over her that these two were not here in any official capacity.

“Inter . . . what?” said one of the men.

“I think I should say nothing further,” replied Elsie, on her guard yet the more.

“Was a young Englishwoman with her?” now demanded the other man in a tone Elsie did not like.

“I know nothing about an Englishwoman,” she said. “My sister visited me and left . . . alone. What is this all about?”

“We are looking for the Englishwoman. She is a spy.”

“I know nothing about her.”

“Where does your sister live?”

“I really think I have said enough. Please . . . you will have to excuse me,” she added, now walking past them and down the hall toward the headmistress’s office. She was relieved when she did not hear their footsteps following behind her.