The Finishing School

by Joanna Goodman

  Raf and Noa fall silent. She’s got their full attention now. She tells them about Lille’s letter, her first meeting with Deirdre, their suspicions that someone might have pushed Cressida off her balcony. The subsequent conversations with Magnus, the Fitherns, M. Bueche. The half-assed police investigation. Cressida’s pregnancy.

  “He got her pregnant?” Noa cries.

  “Wait. What if Bueche and Mrs. Fithern were having an affair?” Raf says excitedly. “Maybe Mrs. Fithern pushed Cressida and Bueche covered it up to protect her?”

  “That’s ridiculous,” Noa says.

  “Plus it doesn’t explain the ledger—”

  “Maybe the ledger has nothing to do with Cressida’s fall,” Raf says. “Or with those girls getting expelled.”

  “I agree,” Noa says. “If anyone pushed Cressida off her balcony it was because she was sleeping with Mr. Fithern.”

  “Here’s the suicide note,” Kersti says, retrieving it from her purse. She hands it to Raf first, who reads it and makes a strange face, and then to Noa.

  I will miß you. Im sorry

  Noa looks up, frowning. “Who wrote this?” she asks.

  “Cressida, supposedly.”

  “No. It wasn’t Cressida.”

  “How do you know?”

  “This is an eszett.”

  “A what?”

  “Eszett. A ‘sharp s.’” Noa points to the misspelling of the word miss, which Kersti always figured was a drunken scribble. “It says ‘I will “miß” you,’ the old German way.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “It’s the eszett,” Noa states. “Only the German alphabet has that letter. Before ’96, the eszett was always used instead of ss. Words like dass and strass were spelled with a sharp s, just like in Cressida’s note.”

  “So the person who write the note was German?”

  “Yes.”

  “It could just be a messy double s. Cress was drunk—”

  “It’s an eszett.”

  “Isn’t Bueche German?” Raf says.

  “No. Swiss French.”

  “Mahler was German,” Kersti says. And it hits her like the kaleidoscope of blindness that precedes a migraine. Could Bueche be covering up for Mahler?

  The next day, Kersti takes a taxi up to the Lycée and waits outside the chemistry lab for Mme. Hamidou. When she finally emerges in her lab coat and protective goggles, Kersti pulls her aside and asks if they can speak.

  “Bien sur,” she says, stuffing the goggles in her pocket.

  They go outside into the sunshine, where a crowd of young smokers has gathered between classes. “They still allow smoking?” Kersti says, incredulous.

  “It’s Europe,” Hamidou responds, lighting up a trademark Gauloises.

  Kersti takes a few steps back and waves away the smoke. It would be bad enough if she weren’t pregnant.

  “Oh, Mon Dieu,” Hamidou says, hiding the cigarette behind her back. “I’m sorry. Come.”

  They move away from the smokers and Hamidou throws her free arm around Kersti’s shoulders. “It’s so good to see you,” she says. “Your year was one of my favorites. Such a special group of girls.”

  “I saw Rafaella and Noa last night,” Kersti tells her.

  “I’m looking forward to seeing them tomorrow.”

  “Madame?” Kersti says, not sure how to bring up what she wants to say. “I don’t think Cressida fell off her balcony by accident, and neither does Deirdre. Bueche’s friend was the detective in charge of the investigation. The case was closed too quickly—”

  “Bueche may be an ass, but he would never cover up a crime.”

  “How can you be so sure?” Kersti asks her. “Wouldn’t he do just about anything to protect the Lycée’s reputation?”

  “And its bank account.”

  “Exactly.”

  “Oui, mais quand meme . . .”

  “Deirdre wants to reopen the investigation. Too many things don’t add up.”

  “Like what?”

  “There was a ledger,” Kersti says. “I think Cressida discovered something in it that had to do with Monsieur Mahler and those expulsions in 1974. It went missing the day she fell—”

  “Monsieur Mahler?” Hamidou says. “What could he possibly have to do with anything?”

  “I have my suspicions. But . . . well, Bueche said you were the one who wanted those girls expelled, not him. I don’t believe him, but I just wanted to check with you. . . . I think he’s still trying to cover something up.”

  Hamidou sucks on her cigarette. “I can’t imagine why he would say I’m the one who wanted them expelled. C’est ridicule.”

  “That’s what I thought. I just wanted to be sure.”

  “What is Deirdre going to do?”

  “Go to the police, I guess.”

  “And what can they do now?”

  Kersti shrugs. “Order a proper investigation, I hope. There’s enough new evidence to warrant it.”

  Hamidou sighs and crushes her cigarette under her heel. “Tragique,” she murmurs. “Of all my girls to have wound up this way, why Cressida?”

  “Did you know she was pregnant?”

  Hamidou stops. She looks straight at Kersti. “You mean when she was thirteen? She told you about the abortion?”

  “No. When she fell.”

  Hamidou clears her throat. “She was pregnant again?”

  “With Mr. Fithern’s baby.”

  Her eyes close for a moment as she takes it in. She looks upset. “I did not,” she manages. “This is the first I hear of it.”

  Kersti rolls onto her back and stretches.

  She tucks her feet between Jay’s legs, which are warm and soft under the duvet. She’s piecing together a dream from last night—she dreamed she was lost in a forest, calling out for her mother. When she was a little girl, Anni used to tell her about the swamp forest in Soomaa, just outside of Tallinn. Soomaa meant “bog land” and its many walking trails wound through the peat bogs and bog pools surrounded by dunes, the ground carpeted with mushrooms and berries. In some places, her mother told her, the thickness of the peat layer could be as tall as four daddies. Back then Kersti’s father was like a giant to her; four times his height reached the sky. Anni’s favorite trail was the Riisa because you had to walk under a giant wood wishbone to enter it. In winter, they would snowshoe or ski through the towering pines, cold and free. Kersti always wanted to go. She imagined the Soomaa forest was enchanted, magical.

  “What are you thinking about?” Jay asks her.

  “Estonia. I want to take the boys there one day.”

  “Of course we will.”

  Next week is June 23, Jaanipäev—the night of the Estonian summer solstice—and all she can think about is celebrating with her family. Sitting around the bonfire watching her nieces run wild, knowing that in a couple of years, her sons will be running with them.

  “Maybe my parents could come to Estonia with us,” she says, snuggling closer to Jay.

  “They haven’t been back in fifty years,” he reminds her. “They’ll never go back.”

  “I think they would.”

  “What for?” Jay says. “For all intents and purposes, they still live in Estonia.”

  “Toronto isn’t Tallinn.”

  “Geographically, no,” he says. “But that doesn’t matter to them. What they love about Estonia is exactly what they’ve created in Toronto. It’s their world. Their culture, their language, their people. Their family.”

  Kersti thinks about this in the context of Lausanne. Maybe Jay’s right. Maybe all that sentimentality and nostalgia she feels has more to do with her memories of the experience and the people with whom she shared it. Which reminds her the Lycée is one hundred years old today.

  She’s been practicing her speech; she fell asleep last night rehearsing it in her head. It’s an honor and a privilege to stand up here as one of the One Hundred Women of the Lycée. I would not be here speaking about my literary career had it not be
en for the foundation I received as a student in the early nineties, particularly from my English teacher—

  “You nervous for today?” he asks, knowing exactly where her mind has gone.

  “A bit.”

  “I’m proud of you,” he says. “It blows my mind how you never give up on anything. You got us pregnant when I was ready to quit. You believed enough for the both of us.”

  “You’re right about that.”

  He kisses the top of her head and rubs her belly. “Babe,” he says. “I’ve been thinking. I’d like to name the boys after my Bubbe Chana and Zadie Hyman. They were really special to me.”

  “You want to name our sons Chana and Hyman?”

  “No. I was thinking Chase and Hayden,” he says, clearly bracing for a fight. “I’ve been pretty flexible with all the Estonian stuff, with the donor. But this is something I really want and it means a lot to me. I know the names aren’t Estonian—”

  “I love them.”

  “You do?”

  “Chase and Hayden,” she says, testing out the way they sound. “They’re kind of perfect.”

  “They’re not Estonian.”

  “I know that, and I don’t care. Let’s be honest, the babies aren’t really Estonian, are they?”

  “Really?” he says, sitting up.

  “Maybe their middle names could be Nuut and Jaagup?” she jokes.

  “Chase Nuut and Hayden Jaagup,” he says. “I could live with that.”

  “Or maybe Chase Jaagup and Hayden Nutt?”

  “I like that, too,” he says, lying back down.

  “Do you think we’ll be a normal family?” she asks him.

  “Of course not.”

  “What about happy?”

  “I think it’s definitely a possibility,” he says pragmatically. And then, upon further reflection, he says, “Yes. Happiness is most certainly on the horizon for us.”

  The phone rings on Kersti’s bedside table and they look at each other. Who would be calling their hotel? She reaches for it with a slight palpitation of dread.

  “Mrs. Wax? There’s something here for you at the front desk.”

  Jay is looking at her mouthing, Who is it?

  “There’s something for me downstairs,” she whispers.

  Kersti slides her legs out and hoists herself up off the bed, something that’s becoming increasingly difficult. “I’ll be right back,” she says.

  “I’ll go down for you,” Jay offers.

  “It’s fine, I’m also going to grab breakfast. The boys need a croissant immediately.”

  She bends over and kisses him, throws on one of her maternity sundresses, and heads down to the lobby. The man at the front desk hands her a blank envelope. “Who left this for me?” Kersti asks him.

  “I don’t know, Madame. It was left here late last night.” He looks down at a logbook and then back at Kersti. “It was just after midnight.”

  Kersti thanks him and takes the envelope. On her way back to the elevator, she looks inside. There are two Polaroid pictures and a note. She removes one of the pictures and stops short.

  With shaking hands, she shoves it back into the envelope and rushes over to the front desk. “Who was working last night when this was delivered?” she asks. “Can you look that up?”

  “It was Afzal. He starts at five p.m. today.”

  “Can you have him call my cell phone as soon as he’s in?”

  “Bien sur, Madame.”

  Kersti stands in the middle of the lobby for a few moments, waiting for her heartbeat to slow down. Wondering who’s left this for her. And why?

  She goes back up to her room with the envelope in hand, having completely forgotten about breakfast.

  “What is it?” Jay asks her. “Did you bring me a croissant?”

  She wordlessly hands him the envelope.

  “I don’t have my glasses—”

  “You don’t need them,” she says. “Look inside.”

  He opens the envelope and dumps out the contents. “Shit,” he mutters, looking at the pictures. “Who left this?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Do you know who this is?”

  “No idea,” she says, looking at a young naked girl, staring into the camera with a vacant expression. Haunted eyes. Hair spread out on the pillow beneath her. Breasts bare and one hand attempting to cover the patch of black pubic hair between her legs. The Polaroid looks old, possibly from the late seventies or early eighties. Kersti can tell the room is in Huber House but not much else.

  “And this one?” Jay holds up the second Polaroid.

  “It’s Cressida,” she murmurs, tears springing to her eyes.

  Cressida naked. Her legs spread open, her face defiant, seductive. Posing like she wasn’t the victim, which is exactly how she would have acted.

  Thinking about you is written on the Polaroid in black marker. Across her body.

  “That’s not her room,” Kersti says. “It’s a room in Huber House, but not hers. That wasn’t her bed—”

  “Whose was it?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “What the hell was going on at that school?” Jay asks, putting on his reading glasses. “Nothing like this ever happened to you, did it?”

  “No. No. Absolutely not. This is . . . I’m shocked.”

  “Did any of the male teachers have access to your dorm?”

  “Bueche, I guess. Maybe all of them. I don’t know.”

  She wonders now if Mahler used to sneak in and visit certain girls, the ones he’d had access to since they were little, who’d been boarding since elementary school.

  “Maybe Hamidou knew,” Kersti says, with a wave of despair. “Maybe she was part of covering it up.”

  “This is one of those sexually explicit notes,” Jay says, handing it to her.

  “I can’t read it,” Kersti says, getting up and going over to her laptop.

  “What are you doing?”

  “Looking something up.”

  She types “Mahler Bobsled ’52 Olympics.” His name pops up immediately. Friedrich Mahler. “Shit.”

  “What?”

  “I couldn’t remember his name. It’s Friedrich.”

  “Who?”

  “The coach. He’s German. I thought it might be him but his name doesn’t start with C—”

  “What if C was just a code name?”

  “What if it was Mr. Fithern?” she says, pacing around the room. “His name is Charles. It makes the most sense. Maybe he’s just a damn good actor and he fooled me—”

  “Kersti, please sit down. You’re making me nervous.”

  She sits reluctantly, still trying to fit the pieces together.

  “What does this all mean?” he asks her, reaching for her hand.

  “Cressida was obsessed with those girls who were expelled in ’74,” Kersti says. “I never understood why, but she must have suspected they’d been sexually abused, just like she was being abused.”

  “She probably figured out that whatever they spray-painted on the statue of Helvetia incriminated their abuser.”

  “And got them expelled,” she adds. “Cressida was determined to get to the bottom of it . . . right up until she fell.”

  “Who do you think left this for you?”

  “Another of the victims.”

  “Someone who’s here for the Lycée’s hundredth birthday.”

  “Why give it to me, though?”

  “They couldn’t tell you at the front desk who left it?”

  “I’m waiting to hear.”

  Kersti tosses the Polaroids and the note on the bed, feeling as sad for Cressida as she is confused. “I’m guessing there’s a lot more incriminating evidence in that ledger,” she says.

  “Maybe Cressida was going to give it to someone.”

  “And someone stopped her.”

  “Are you going to tell Deirdre?”

  Kersti lies back and stares miserably up at the ceiling. “How can I not?”

 
; “You don’t even know who it was.”

  “Someone who was there since the seventies,” Kersti says. “Whose name starts with C. Or doesn’t. You think I remember any of the teachers’ names?”

  “And German.”

  “Maybe.”

  “We’ll start researching after your speech. All that information must be at the school—”

  “My speech?” she cries. “Are you fucking kidding me? I can’t stand up there and talk about the Lycée’s hundredth birthday.”

  “You’re not. You’re talking about you. This is an honor.”

  “No, not anymore. I don’t want anything to do with this school.”

  She reaches for the Polaroid of Cressida, drawn to it as though to a car accident. She stares into Cressida’s frozen eyes and sees there, beneath the mask of defiance, a brokenness as plain and straightforward as her beauty. Maybe she was the suicide type after all, Kersti reflects.

  And then she notices something. On the very edge of the bedside table, of which only the corner is visible, there’s a pack of cigarettes. Kersti recognizes the navy blue box without having to see the brand. Gauloises.

  “Look at this,” Kersti says, grabbing the note. “It’s not the same handwriting as the other C love notes. This one is from Cressida, not to her.” And she reads it out loud.

  C, Thinking of you every minute. Your fingers inside me, mine inside you.

  C

  Kersti lets the note slip out of her hand. Jay picks it up and stares at it. “How did we miss that?” he says, his skin flushing deep red. “It’s a woman.”

  “Yes,” she says. “It’s Hamidou.”

  “Please welcome one of our One Hundred Women of the Lycée, bestselling author and soon to be mother of twins, Kersti Kuusk-Wax.”

  Kersti rises amid the applause. She decided to wear her strapless black empire sundress and ballet flats. Less chance of tripping and falling on her face. Turns out it was the right call because the sun is blazing hot today. She can already see the redness flaring up on her shoulders.

  It was Jay who convinced her to come and give the speech as planned. In the end, she agreed. Not because she wants to be part of the celebration, but because she wants to confront Hamidou.