“You can’t break up a marriage—”
“It’s already done,” Cressida says. “Besides, he was never in love with her.”
“Yes, he was,” Lille argues. “She was the smartest woman he ever met.”
“That was before he met me,” Cressida boasts. “Now he gets beauty and brains.”
“He moved here to teach with her,” Lille says. “Of course he loved her.”
“Like a best mate or a little sister,” Cressida clarifies, probably quoting Mr. Fithern verbatim. “It was never passionate. Not like what we have.”
Cressida turns her back to them and resumes straightening her hair. The iron makes a ssssss sound as it fries her curls into submission.
“Do you ever think about what you’re doing to her?” Kersti asks Cressida.
“Who? Mrs. Fithern?”
“Yes.”
“No.”
“How can you not? Don’t you love her?”
“Yes, but I told you, I love him more. And I love me more,” she says. “If Charlie and I are meant to be together, which we are, why should I let her have him? So that we can all be miserable? Just because it’s the right thing?”
“Yes!”
“That’s absurd,” she says. “I’m not going to live my life by default. They’re not meant for each other or else he never would have fallen in love with me. I’m setting her free. She’ll be happier with someone else. Her soul mate is out there.”
“So you’re doing her a favor,” Lille quips.
“I’m doing what needs to be done. For all of us.”
“Even Magnus,” Kersti says, not that it makes any difference anymore. Kersti is going home in just a few weeks, probably never to see him again.
“I don’t love him anymore.”
“He really loves you, you know,” Lille says, her voice breaking.
“It’s just a trivial high school thing between us.”
“He doesn’t think so,” Kersti says, reaching across the bed for the package.
“He’ll figure it out eventually.”
“Why don’t you just finish the year?” Lille says. “Let him think the long-distance thing is the reason it’s ending.”
“I can’t keep pretending,” Cressida says. “It’s making me resent him.”
“He’s going to be crushed,” Lille murmurs.
“I have no control over how Magnus feels,” Cressida responds coolly. The same thing she said to Kersti almost three years ago. Kersti has to wonder if it’s the victory over another woman—a beloved teacher no less—along with the inevitable upheaval of the Lycée’s complacent, embryonic world, that gives Cressida the real rush, or does she actually love Mr. Fithern?
Not long ago, Cressida asked Kersti if she was a bad person for always expecting to get her way. Kersti wouldn’t answer any differently today. The truth is, Cressida genuinely believes she’s doing the right thing. She knows no other way but to follow that intuitive voice inside her, whether it resides in her heart or her gut or the most spoiled, damaged part of her brain. Whatever it is, she’s following something instinctual, the only compass she’s ever known. How can that make her bad?
Kersti glances down and checks the postmark on Cressida’s package. “It’s from Brussels,” she says, looking up. “A. El-Bahz—”
Cressida drops her hot iron in the sink and grabs the package out of Kersti’s hands. “It’s from Amoryn Lashwood—”
Kersti jumps off the bed and stands behind Cressida as she attacks the envelope with scissors. “Holy shit,” she gasps, holding up a leather book the size of a diary. “It’s the ledger.”
Chapter 29
LAUSANNE—June 2016
Lausanne is like a dream. Walking up Rue Marterey toward the Lycée, Kersti experiences a visceral sense of nostalgia. Although most of the shops have changed, it could be 1995. Everything comes back to her at once—the snippets of singsong Swiss French, the Migros grocery store on the corner, the patisserie windows beckoning her inside with their artful fruits Charlotte and St. Honorés. Lausanne is a feeling for her, distinct and timeless, as much as it is a place.
“I need one of those,” she says, pointing to the window of a patisserie. Jay follows her inside and she orders two cheese tartlets. “One for each of the boys,” she explains. They’ve started referring to the babies as “the boys.”
Jay orders an apricot tart and they continue walking toward Avenue de Béthusy, which will take them to the Lycée.
They arrived last night by train. Flying would have been quicker and easier, but Kersti insisted on taking the Eurostar to Paris and then the TGV to Lausanne. She tried to convince Jay that traveling through Europe by train was part of the experience, the only way to do it. “Easy for the person exempt from schlepping luggage to say,” he countered.
This morning, after gorging on fresh baked croissants with Hero strawberry jam and Suchard hot chocolate—her favorite Swiss brands, which she’s never been able to find in Toronto—they decided to walk from their hotel to the school, stopping as necessary so Kersti could either rest, pee, eat, or show Jay the sights. Their first stop was Place St. François to see the church, and then on to Rue de Bourg for a Coca and a pizza at Chez Mario, where Kersti celebrated her sixteenth birthday. Even the graffiti on the walls was still there, and she was able to show Jay where she and Cressida and Lille had scribbled their names.
As they continue strolling hand in hand toward the Lycée, Kersti’s memories are becoming more intense. Not just concrete memories or linear recollections, but sensory memories. The grape soda smell of lupine flowers, the glacier blue of the lake from her window, the feel of cobblestone beneath her shoes.
“I’m feeling really sentimental,” she says.
“It’s probably your hormones.”
“Mm.”
It’s easier for her not to try to explain it. It was here in Lausanne, at the most impressionable age in a girl’s life, that she first felt everything meaningful, worthwhile, life altering. Enchantment. Desire. Acceptance. Belonging. Connection. Loss.
She became who she is here, in the absence of her family and their expectations; in relation to Cressida; when she lost her virginity to someone who didn’t love her back. And in that moment when she found out her best friend, equal parts soul mate and nemesis, had fallen from her balcony.
“You crying?” Jay asks, touching her wet cheek.
“Being here is just bringing up so much. . . .”
He pulls her close and they walk along, his arm around her waist, her head resting on his shoulder.
Deirdre is waiting for them in the Lycée garden when they arrive. It takes Kersti a moment to recognize the woman sitting next to her on the bench, and then she cries out, “Madame Hamidou!”
Hamidou looks toward Kersti, lifts her sunglasses, and says, “Mon Dieu! Mademoiselle Kuusk!”
She springs to her feet and holds out her arms. They hug tightly and Kersti is flooded with affection. “You’re still here!” she exclaims.
“What else can I do?” Hamidou says. “I’m an old lady. I’ve been living off campus at 14 Béthusy, but I miss Huber House. I’m going to move back here in September.”
Her short hair is completely white now. She’s more petite than Kersti remembers, and a little frailer, but otherwise the same. Her chocolate brown eyes are twinkling with pleasure as she looks Kersti up and down and hugs her again.
“And what’s in here?” Hamidou asks, touching Kersti’s pregnant belly.
“Twin boys,” Kersti announces.
“Congratulations,” she says, beaming.
“Twin boys?” Deirdre squeals, jumping to her feet and embracing Kersti. “Why didn’t you tell me?”
“I waited to tell you in person,” she says. “We just found out.”
Kersti remembers Jay, standing quietly behind her, and gently pulls him forward. “This is my husband, Jay.”
Hamidou pumps his hand and Deirdre throws her arms around him. Whether he likes it o
r not, they have a powerful bond now, a lifelong connection. It still feels surreal to Kersti. Jay’s sperm and Cressida’s eggs growing inside her body.
“I’m going for a walk,” Jay tells her. “I’ll meet you at the hotel later.” He waves good-bye to them and saunters off toward the garden.
“I was just showing Madame Hamidou some pictures of Sloane,” Deirdre says.
“She look exactly like Cress-ee-da,” Hamidou says, her eyes glistening with tears. “It’s like looking at an esprit.” The lines in her face sink deeper into themselves and she suddenly looks ancient, mournful.
“Sloane will be here Saturday for the ceremony.”
“I can’t wait to meet her,” Hamidou says, brightening, forcing a smile. She still has that gap between her front teeth.
A young girl of about fourteen or fifteen approaches them. She’s lovely, with long dark hair and licorice black eyes. “Bonjour, Madame Hamidou,” she says.
“Bonjour, Amandine.” Hamidou introduces the girl to Kersti and Deirdre. “Amandine is one of our top students,” she says. “She’s getting the maths award on Saturday. She’s the first sophomore ever to receive it.”
“Congratulations,” Kersti says, envying the girl’s youth, her brightness, all the promise that lies ahead like rolling Swiss hills.
“Right now Amandine and I have a science class to get to,” Hamidou says. “A plus tard.”
When they’re alone, Deirdre links her arm in Kersti’s. “I found out something interesting,” she says.
“What time are we speaking to Monsieur Bueche?”
“Now,” she says. “But listen to me. I did a little snooping.”
Kersti lets Deirdre lead her up the path toward Bueche’s office. “I had my lawyer look into Cressida’s police investigation,” she says. “It turns out the lead detective was Gavin Lashwood.”
“Lashwood?” Kersti repeats. “That doesn’t make any sense. Aren’t the Lashwoods American?”
“Gavin Lashwood graduated from the Lycée in 1959,” she explains. “The same year as Bueche.”
“They were good friends,” Kersti says, remembering something Amoryn Lashwood said at the Charity Ball years ago. “Bueche and Amoryn Lashwood’s uncle were friends at the Lycée—”
“Bueche went on to université here and then started teaching at the Lycée. Gavin Lashwood married a Swiss girl and stayed in Lausanne. He became a gendarme for the Vaud police.”
“So he was the detective who investigated Cressida’s accident? Have you spoken to him?”
“He died,” Deirdre says. “Lung cancer two years ago.”
“He must have covered something up for Bueche,” Kersti says. “It’s too much of a coincidence.”
Deirdre stops suddenly and faces Kersti. Her expression changes without any warning. “I should have done something years ago,” she says, her voice trembling. “I should have demanded an investigation right after it happened.”
“Deirdre, you were in shock—”
“I didn’t even go to Lausanne,” she says. “I didn’t ask any questions. Not even about the note or how quickly they wrapped up the investigation—”
“You were dealing with Cressida back home.”
“I didn’t want to know,” she admits. “That’s the truth, Kersti. I was too scared to know the truth. And now it’s probably too late.”
“Whatever Bueche and Harzenmoser covered up, we can find out.”
Deirdre nods, sniffling. She puts on her Chanel sunglasses, the large lenses covering most of her face. “I failed her,” she says, as they continue on to Bueche’s office.
“Everyone did.”
M. Bueche is one of those ageless men who could be in their fifties or sixties. If Kersti didn’t know, she never would have guessed seventy-four. He still has all his hair, dyed a dark chestnut brown and smoothed back with gel, and good white teeth that may or not be real. He always dressed well, favoring ascots and pocket squares with his blazers. A man for whom the word debonair was invented.
“Madame Strauss,” he says solemnly, shaking Deirdre’s hand. “Kersti, welcome back. And congratulations on being one of our One Hundred Women.”
His English is perfect. There’s no trace of a French or German accent. Kersti realizes she has no idea where he’s from. She always thought of him as being generically European.
“How’s Cressida?” he asks Deirdre, sitting down at his desk.
“She’s basically a vegetable,” Deirdre responds tersely. “So I’m not sure how to answer your question.”
“I’m sorry,” he says contritely. “It must be hard for you.”
The French windows behind Bueche are wide open and Kersti has a perfect view of the back garden and vast green lawn that leads to the tennis courts. Lausanne in June is a thing of beauty, something Kersti had almost forgotten.
There’s an antique cuckoo clock on the wall, alongside framed photographs of Bueche with faculty from eras past, including several with Mme. Harzenmoser. Kersti recognizes one of him with M. Mahler, holding up a trophy.
“What happened to Monsieur Mahler?” Kersti asks, staring at the picture.
“Mahler? He retired years ago. He’s eighty-five and in fine form. He visits occasionally. Comes to cheer on the teams.”
“And Madame Harzenmoser?”
“She’s in a home nearby,” he says. “She may be at the ceremony tomorrow, if she’s well enough.”
Kersti notices a photograph on Bueche’s desk of him with his wife, children, and grandchildren at Ouchy. Something else Kersti never knew about him. He has a family. When you’re a teenager, you really don’t think about the grown-ups around you as having a life. You don’t think about who they are as people. How old they are. Do they have kids. What do they do outside school. These things never crossed Kersti’s mind about any of the teachers at the Lycée, perhaps other than the Fitherns.
“That’s why we wanted to speak with you,” Deirdre says. “Kersti and I have been revisiting Cressida’s fall.”
“Revisiting it?”
“Asking ourselves questions we should have asked when it happened.”
When Bueche doesn’t say anything, she continues. “We’re both convinced it wasn’t an accident.”
Bueche leans back in his chair, his gaze unflinching. He has dark brown eyes—intelligent, incisive—and Kersti considers he must have been quite handsome back in the nineties.
“Madame Strauss,” he says, in his deep velvet voice. “It was almost twenty years ago.”
“Yes,” Deirdre acknowledges. “But we have new information.”
“New information about what?”
“About the circumstances surrounding her fall.”
Kersti watches him carefully. If he’s the least bit uncomfortable, she can’t tell. His demeanor is calm. Relaxed, even.
“Did you know Cressida was having an affair with her history teacher?” Deirdre asks him. “Charles Fithern?”
“I remember hearing something about it after the fact. After both of the Fitherns resigned.”
“Did anyone ever question the fact that Mrs. Fithern was the teacher on duty at Huber House the night my daughter fell?”
“Madame Strauss,” he says. “We didn’t know anything about the affair then. Of course we spoke to Mrs. Fithern that morning. We asked her what she’d seen, what she’d heard, if anything unusual had happened the night before—”
“And what did she tell you?”
“From what I remember, there was nothing unusual.”
“Did she tell you Cressida’s boyfriend, Magnus Foley, was at Huber House that night?” Kersti asks him. “That he went there to see Mrs. Fithern? And that he told her about the affair?”
The expression on M. Bueche’s suntanned face turns grim.
“Did any students ever mention seeing Magnus that night?” Kersti asks.
“Not that I recall.”
“Did anyone—either you or the police—ever question the students?” Deirdre interje
cts, her voice rising.
“I’m sure we did,” Bueche responds, a fleck of defensiveness coming into his tone. “It’s hard to remember after all this time, but I’m sure the police spoke to the students.”
“The police never spoke to me,” Kersti says. “Or Lille. Lille is the one who saw Magnus leaving Huber that night.”
“I guess the police were satisfied that Cressida’s fall was accidental,” he reasons. “Cressida was very intoxicated. I remember she had a very high blood alcohol level—”
“And when you found the suicide note?” Deirdre produces the note from inside her purse and shoves it at him.
“I found no such note,” he says in defense. “Your husband found it.”
“And what happened then?”
“Monsieur Strauss asked me why the note hadn’t been found sooner.”
“Why hadn’t it?”
“It was hidden in one of Cressida’s books. Your husband found it when he was packing her things. It wasn’t deliberate on the school’s part to keep it a secret.”
“How could the police not have found it, Monsieur Bueche? Didn’t they search her room?” Kersti asks him. “Why didn’t they bother to look for evidence? Why didn’t they ever interview us?”
“I can’t speak to what the police did or didn’t do—”
“Can’t you?” Deirdre says fiercely. “Wasn’t the detective your best friend?”
“Our friendship would never have interfered with a case,” Bueche says hotly. “I take offense to that. As I’m sure Gavin would have.”
“Cressida was pregnant,” Kersti says. “The baby was Mr. Fithern’s, which is a motive in itself. Mrs. Fithern also had opportunity—”
“Cressida was pregnant?”
“Why wasn’t a proper investigation conducted?” Deirdre wants to know. “Your friend Gavin didn’t turn up any information, it seems. Not the affair, not the note, not the pregnancy. He must not have been a very good detective.”
“Madame Strauss—”
“Why was the case closed so quickly?”
“I understand how unpleasant this must be for you—”
“Unpleasant?” Deirdre repeats, her lips curling into a sneer. “I lost my daughter, Monsieur Bueche. She would have been better off dead! It was a lot more than ‘unpleasant.’”
The Finishing School Page 20
