Fiona felt a thread of tension unspooling in her, to hear her research confirmed so clearly. “There is evidence that Sonia spent time in Ravensbrück,” she said.
Roberta’s eyebrows rose again. She paused for a long time, and Fiona realized she had truly surprised the other woman. “You’ve done your research,” she commented. “And you’re very good.”
If it was a compliment, somehow it didn’t sound like one; it sounded more like Fiona had discovered something Roberta considered private, intruded on it. “Did Sonia ever talk to you about Ravensbrück?” she asked.
“No one ever talked about the war in those days,” Roberta replied. “We were teenage girls. No one talked to us about anything.”
That wasn’t an answer, Fiona realized. Not at all. “What about your own family?” she asked. “They didn’t talk to you about the war?”
“No,” came the answer. And then, repeated more softly: “No.”
“Did your family ever come to visit you on Family Visit Day while you were at Idlewild?”
“Only a few times over the years. The way I left home was difficult.”
“Because you stopped talking after what happened with your uncle,” Fiona said.
Roberta blinked at her. “Yes,” she said, her voice chilled. “I’m sorry, but may I ask how you know about my uncle?”
“It’s in your file.”
“My file?”
“From Idlewild.”
The other woman’s voice grew even colder. “There are no Idlewild files. The records have been lost.”
For a second Fiona was pinned by that cold gaze, which had probably been used in courtrooms and judges’ chambers for thirty years. It was impressive, and a little frightening, even in an old woman. Roberta was angry, Fiona realized, because she thought Fiona was lying. “The records weren’t lost,” Fiona insisted. “They exist. I’ve read them.” She left out Sarah London’s shed, and the fact that the records were currently stacked in boxes in her own neglected apartment.
“That isn’t possible.”
“Then how do I know you were sent to Idlewild after witnessing your uncle attempting suicide with a pistol? It wasn’t covered in the newspapers at the time.” She’d checked, of course. Journalistic habits died hard.
Roberta pressed her lips together, thinking. Then she said, “My uncle Van came home from the war with a severe case of PTSD, though that term didn’t exist at the time. He was very ill, but everyone simply told him to move on and it would get better.” She blinked and looked out the window. “When I was fourteen, I walked into our garage to find him sitting in a chair, bent over, holding a gun in his mouth. The radio was playing an old GI song. He was weeping. He hadn’t known anyone was home.”
“What happened?” Fiona asked softly.
“I started screaming. Uncle Van looked up at me, and he couldn’t do it. He couldn’t blow his brains out while I watched. So in a stupid way, I saved his life.” She turned to look at Fiona again. “I couldn’t talk after that. I don’t know why; I simply couldn’t. It was some kind of shock or stress. We had no knowledge in those days to help people. We barely have it now.” She paused. “So my parents sent me to Idlewild, and while I was away, they sent Uncle Van to a mental hospital and had him locked up against his will. Instead of having any feeling for him at all, they thought he was a disgrace to the family. I was a disgrace, too, because I’d had to see a psychiatrist, which in those days was a shameful thing to do. I had exemplary parents, as you can guess.”
“I’m so sorry,” Fiona said. “You didn’t think your uncle was crazy?”
“No. I was sad for him, sorry for him. He felt horrible about what I had seen, that I’d stopped speaking, that I was being sent away. It was another burden of guilt on him. My parents’ marriage fell apart the following year, and they thought I was better off away at school—that shame again, you see. When I left Idlewild, I went to law school partly so I could legally find a way to set my uncle free. To set men like him free of their ashamed families. To prevent men like my uncle from having their freedom, their assets, their homes and children, taken away. That day in the garage ended up shaping the rest of my life.”
“So after everything that happened,” Fiona said, “your parents paid for law school?”
Roberta blinked. “If one wants something very badly, I suppose, one can find a way.”
Another nonanswer, delivered smoothly and easily. Roberta Greene was a lawyer through and through. “And did you?” Fiona asked. “Get your uncle out?”
Roberta smiled. “Oh, yes. I got Uncle Van out. It took time, but I helped him get a job, set up his life again. There weren’t many tools to help him with his problems, but I gave him what I could. Things got better. He got married in 1973, when he was in his fifties. His wife was the woman who had lived next door to him for years and had always secretly wanted to marry him. They were married twenty years, until he died. I spent much of my career doing pro bono work for other veterans. It was the best part of the work for me.”
“Did you have children?”
“Yes. My husband, Edward, died of cancer last year. Our son lives in Connecticut, and our daughter lives in Sydney, Australia. I have no grandchildren. But they are both happy, I think. At least, I tried to raise them to be as happy as they can be. Happier than I was. My husband helped with that.”
“What about your other friends from Idlewild?” Fiona asked, hoping that the talkative mood would continue. “Cecelia Frank and Katie Winthrop. Did you keep in touch with them? Do you know where I could find them? I’d like to interview them as well.”
But Roberta shook her head. “No, dear. It was over sixty years ago. I’m sorry.”
“Miss London told me the four of you were good friends.”
“We were. We stuck together. But we fell apart after Sonia died. We were all so certain she was murdered, but no one would listen to us. No one at all.”
“What about the headmistress, Julia Patton? She wouldn’t listen to you?”
“No. Is there anything about Sonia’s disappearance in the files?”
It was said calmly, but Fiona sensed that Roberta wanted to know. Badly. The files were news to her, and she was burning with curiosity, though she hid it well.
“Not much, I’m afraid,” Fiona said. “There doesn’t seem to have been much of an investigation. And there was that bullshit theory about a boy.”
The words were out before she thought them, and she surprised herself with them. She’d never realized until this minute that the boy theory made her angry. That someone would dismiss the disappearance of a fifteen-year-old Holocaust survivor as an impulsive everyday tramp’s hooking up with a boy and running away without saying good-bye, without even her suitcase. She wanted to dig Julia Patton and Garrett Creel Sr. out of their graves and shake them, shout at them. If you’d only listened, maybe you could have saved her before she died. Now we’ll never know.
She looked up to see Roberta watching her from across the table. There was a faint smile on her lips, as if she knew exactly what Fiona was thinking. “Bullshit, indeed,” she said.
Fiona swallowed. She was tired, off her game. She was losing control of this interview, if she’d ever had it. “A few more questions,” she said, trying to sound businesslike. “Do you know a woman named Margaret Eden?”
Roberta shook her head. “No, dear, I’m sorry. I don’t.”
“Or her son, Anthony Eden? They’re the ones who bought and are restoring Idlewild.”
“Then I feel sorry for them, but no, I don’t know them.”
“Can you think of a reason they’d want to restore the school?”
That brought the smile again. “People who don’t know Idlewild look at it and think it might be a good investment. They are quite wrong.”
Fiona met her gaze straight on. “Why are they wrong? Is it because of Mary Hand?”
There was not a whisper of surprise, of derision, of deflecting humor on Roberta’s face. Only a softening around the eyes, which looked remarkably like pity. “She’s still there, isn’t she?” she said. “Of course Mary is still there. You’ve seen her.”