‘I am in a way,’ said Zelda. ‘Besides, it’s an interesting story.’
‘Probably not half as interesting as yours.’
Zelda looked away. ‘You wouldn’t...’ she said. ‘You don’t want to...’
‘I’ve upset you, my dear. I apologise. It was a flippant remark. I can see there has been much grief in your life.’
Zelda shook her head. ‘It’s not... Oh, never mind. It’s about the orphanage.’
‘What about it?’
‘The books, for a start. Did you send them?’
‘I did. For many years. I suppose I was trying to spread my culture to a heathen land. No, that’s not strictly true. Forgive me, I was arrogant. Moldova has her own poets. I wanted people — I wanted the charges at St. George’s in particular — to experience the same pleasures I myself experienced when I read those books as a child.’
‘Were you an orphan, may I ask?’
‘You may. And, yes, I was. Am. My parents were both killed during the Blitz, in London. I have no brothers or sisters or any other living relatives as far as I know. It gave me more freedom than I knew what to do with. I don’t mean to belittle the grief and terrible sense of loss and aloneness, but did you have that experience yourself, a kind of odd relief that there was no one else to satisfy, to please, no one to make demands on you, to tell you what to do or in which direction to push?’
‘I’m afraid I never got to experience the positive side of being an orphan. At least, not in that way. Kind as they were, the nuns were always all too willing to make demands and tell us what to do!’
Buckley smiled. ‘Of course. I meant later.’
‘There was no later.’ Zelda leaned forward and clasped her hands on her knees. ‘But the books. I must... I have to thank you. Without them, I don’t know what I would have done.’
‘I’m happy my gifts didn’t fall on stony ground.’
‘Oh, not at all! Those were some of the happiest times of my life, curled up in bed reading Enid Blyton or Charlotte Brontë. I felt as if I had always known English, as if it were my first language. I don’t remember working hard to learn it. Even later, in my darkest times, when I couldn’t make time to read, I always tried to summon up those memories. Peggotty. Jane. Julian, Dick, Anne, and George. And Timmy, of course. And Modesty Blaise. I loved Modesty Blaise. She became my benchmark if ever I was in trouble. Sometimes it worked. Sometimes they made me feel safe again, but...’
‘It’s a hard, cruel world out there, my dear. I know,’ said Buckley. ‘And there’s rarely a Willie Garvin to charge in and rescue you.’
Zelda stared down at her clasped hands. She felt the tears struggling for release again. Held them back. This man could not have been her destroyer; she was certain of it.
‘So you were born here?’ Buckley asked.
‘Dubăsari.’
‘I don’t know it.’
‘There’s nothing to know. It’s a small place. In Transnistria. Near the Ukraine border. There’s an amusement park.’
‘And your parents?’
‘Both killed in the civil war. They weren’t participating, you understand. Just civilian casualties.’
‘Indeed. There was plenty of “collateral damage.” You must have been very young.’
‘I was four.’
‘And so you arrived at St. George’s.’
‘Yes. It was very new at the time. Only in its second year, I think.’ Zelda laughed. ‘You could still smell the fresh paint.’
‘For all that you have to thank a man called Klaus Bremner.’
Zelda frowned. ‘Klaus Bremner. I’ve never heard the name.’
‘You wouldn’t,’ said Buckley. ‘Besides, he’s long dead now. But for a while, in the uncertain days of the late 80s, when the Russian Empire was collapsing and a new Eastern Europe was struggling to be born, we were the best of friends. It was Klaus who put up the money for the orphanage and established the St. George’s Trust to keep it running even after his death. For a while, at any rate.’
‘But why? Was he an orphan, too?’
‘Klaus? No. And he was much older than me. He was a German soldier during World War Two. He fought in the Jassy-Kishinev Offensive.’
‘I remember learning about that in history class.’
‘It was an important battle. 1944. The Russians defeated the occupying German army and drove them out of Moldova. It was what Klaus witnessed in Kishinev, as it was known then — especially the number of orphaned children wandering the streets — that stayed with him. The guilt. He had never been a fully-fledged Nazi. Like many Germans, he was just doing his duty to save himself from being shot. He didn’t do it with as much relish as some.’
‘But what has that to do with St. George’s?’
‘After the war, Klaus went to America, where he made his fortune in the engineering industry. I don’t know all the details, but he was a very clever man, an industrial engineer before the war, and he came up with a few new ideas that were embraced by the new West Germany. I imagine he took a few of those secrets with him to share with the Americans. That way they could easily overlook his having been on the other side during the war. By the end of the Soviet era, when the Wall came down, Klaus, now called Claude, was a very rich man. He travelled to Moldova and Romania often and he even owned a winery here, near Cricova, but less famous.’
‘When you were the cultural attaché?’
‘Towards the end of my time in Bucharest. But that was where we first met, yes. Klaus was a very cultured man. We shared a passion for opera and symphony concerts. He and I travelled from Bucharest to Kishinev together on several occasions. He told me about the devastation he had witnessed, the scale of human suffering, the misery of the war. You won’t remember, but there were also terrible stories about Romanian orphanages then, too. Abuse and neglect. I suppose you could say he had an epiphany. And he hatched a plan.’
‘For an orphanage?’
‘Yes. St. George’s.’
‘Whose idea was the books?’
‘Both of us. Believe it or not, Klaus was an anglophile. Teaching English was to be a priority. Other languages, too, of course, but particularly English. Your English is excellent, by the way, my dear. He saw it as the future, and none of us knew what lay ahead for Moldova or Romania. We both loved the English classics, and I was still able to get my hands on as many books as I wanted through my connection with the British Council and the newspapers I reviewed for. Also, I don’t know if you’re aware, but this village is famous for its monastery, the Monastery of St. George. It’s been here since 1785 and is home to a group of Orthodox nuns. Even the Soviets tolerated them. They still farm the land on the edges of the village. I had been coming here for years to get away from city life in Bucharest, for peace and quiet to write, and I had got to know some of them.’
‘The nuns?’
‘You remember, of course. Yes. These nuns helped with the orphanage. They taught lessons, cooked the food, did the cleaning, took care of you children.’
‘I never knew,’ Zelda said. ‘Where they came from, I mean. Why they did what they did.’
‘They did it because it was in their nature to do good.’
‘They were kind. Distant, but kind.’
‘So I heard. Not always the case with nuns, as I understand. Ask the Irish. So that was your lucky childhood.’
‘Your books and Klaus Bremner’s epiphany. Yes.’
‘And the nuns.’
‘And the nuns.’
Zelda swallowed. She felt overwhelmed by the information and the emotion it generated. But she knew she had to steel herself to find out what she had come for, even though the thought of doing so made her feel duplicitous. From all she had heard and observed so far, she was convinced that neither William Buckley nor Klaus Bremner had anything to do with her fate. She knew she might be wrong, of course. Often the nastiest of monsters lurk behind the most pleasing facades, and Nazis, of course, were among the nastiest. The whole orphanage, for example, could have been a scheme to raise young virgins for the sacrifice. But she didn’t think so. Nor did she think they knew what went on. After all, both Buckley and Bremner had only distant connections with St. George’s. She had never heard of either of them the entire time she was there. They weren’t involved in the day-to-day management of who was coming or going. That would have been Vasile Lupescu.