The Finishing School

by Joanna Goodman

  “Do you think Hamidou pushed Cressida?”

  “No,” Alison says. “I think Cressida tried to kill herself. And I get that.”

  “But Cressida was going to expose the whole thing—”

  “You know what I think?” Alison interrupts. “I think Hamidou really loved Cressida. I think she was probably in love with her, and I don’t think she could have pushed her off that balcony any more than I think she could have pushed me. She loved us, Kersti. That was the worst part of it. I know it’s twisted, but she really loved us.”

  She stands up and Kersti has to shield her eyes from the sun to see her.

  “So, no,” Alison concludes. “I don’t think Hamidou pushed Cressida, but I do believe she’s one hundred percent responsible for what happened to her. And for that she has to pay.”

  After the ceremony, when everyone starts to mingle around the grounds and sip champagne, Kersti makes a beeline for Bueche.

  “Excellent speech,” he says, popping a petit four in his mouth. “We’re very proud of you. You’ve represented the Lycée very well. Madame Harzenmoser wasn’t up to being here today, but she asked me to give you her regards and congratulate you.”

  “Monsieur Bueche,” Kersti says urgently. “Something is about to come out that will destroy the Lycée’s reputation.”

  She can see the panic darken his eyes. A vein starts to pulsate down the middle of his forehead.

  “What did those girls spray-paint on the statue in ’74?” she asks him.

  “This is hardly the time—”

  “I know about Hamidou,” Kersti says, glaring at him.

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” he responds.

  “What did they write on the statue of Helvetia?” she repeats. “Did it directly implicate Hamidou?”

  “No,” he says, looking around nervously, sweat dribbling down both sides of his face. He pulls his handkerchief out of the breast pocket of his blazer and pats his skin.

  He’s always known, she realizes. Known and turned a blind eye to protect the school.

  “They added some words to our motto,” he admits. “They wrote: ‘Molesting young women to become fucked-up citizens of the world.’”

  “They were expelled for that?”

  “It was very disrespectful and vulgar,” he whispers, still looking around him like a frightened animal. “And they were doing drugs—”

  “You didn’t bother to ask them why they did it?” Kersti says accusingly. “You weren’t concerned they were trying to tell you something?”

  “Hamidou felt they were troublemakers—”

  “So you got rid of them and kept Hamidou.”

  “There was nothing in the world to suggest Madame Hamidou was doing anything inappropriate,” he says. “The students adored her! I have to trust the members of my faculty—”

  “But you’re not at all surprised by what I’m telling you, are you?”

  He averts his dark eyes and leads her by the elbow farther away from the minglers.

  “You suspected, didn’t you?” she presses, when they’re hidden behind a tree.

  “Madame Harzenmoser occasionally used to roam the dorms late at night,” he confesses. “Over the years, on more than one occasion, she observed Madame Hamidou leaving some of the students’ rooms.”

  “Harzenmoser told you that?”

  “Yes, but we decided to give her the benefit of the doubt,” he explains. “The students loved her, as you know. We both felt strongly that if she were doing anything untoward, the students in question would come forward. No one ever did, so we surmised she was just offering comfort. Maternal comfort. Or perhaps the girls were sick when she visited them—”

  His voice falls off and he withers visibly under Kersti’s hard stare.

  “You knew,” Kersti hisses. “You both knew and you let it go on. You didn’t even fire her!”

  “We didn’t know. She is beloved here—”

  “She’s been molesting students for four decades!”

  “We never knew that,” he repeats, his voice climbing. “No one in forty years ever came forward! Certainly we would have dismissed her and pressed charges if anyone had ever spoken up. You can’t expect us to have fired her without grounds.”

  “But the vandalism? Those girls came forward! And Hamidou’s late night visits to students’ rooms?” Kersti reminds him. “My God, shouldn’t you have investigated?”

  “It was a different world back then,” he tells her. “It was not the topic du jour like it is now. Even when you were students in the nineties, no one knew or understood anything about such matters.”

  “And what about the past twenty years?” she fires back.

  “We’ve never had a complaint.”

  “Did you ever suspect she had something to do with Cressida’s fall?” Kersti pursues. “Is that why you had your friend close the investigation so quickly?”

  “Of course not—”

  “As soon as I tell Deirdre what Hamidou did to Cressida, she’s going to demand a new investigation. Be prepared.”

  She leaves Bueche standing there, stunned, and goes off in search of Jay.

  “Where do you keep disappearing?” he asks, coming toward her.

  “I was talking to Bueche,” she says. “I’m sorry.”

  “What the hell is going on?”

  “I have to talk to Deirdre,” she tells him. “I have to tell her.”

  “Kerst, it’s like a hundred degrees out here,” he says. “You’re getting worked up, you haven’t eaten since breakfast . . .”

  “There’s nothing to worry about, Babe.”

  “We’ve worked so hard for this,” he says, placing his hands on her stomach. “For them. First we flew to the UK, then we took a train here. You’re speaking to all these people and getting stressed and emotional. I agreed to come here to celebrate this hundred-year anniversary thing. Not to follow you around while you play detective.”

  “I’m not playing detective,” she says. “You want me to eat? I’ll eat.”

  She grabs a handful of cheese tarts from a passing tray and devours them all, realizing she’s actually starving. “Look, why don’t you go back to the hotel.”

  “No way. Not without you.”

  “Just wait for me at the hotel,” she says calmly. “I’m going to talk to Deirdre, and then I’d like to hang out with Noa, Raf, and Alison for a few hours. I came here to see them, too.”

  “What about Hamidou?”

  “Hamidou is Deirdre’s problem,” Kersti says. “She can handle it however she wants. I’m just going to tell her what I know and give her the Polaroids.”

  “Promise?”

  “Of course.”

  He pulls her into his arms and holds her. “You’ve got my sons in there,” he reminds her.

  “I know.”

  “What time will you be back at the hotel?”

  “We’re grabbing a bite at the Pont Bessières,” she says. “No later than eleven?”

  He nods reluctantly. “Any idea yet who sent you the Polaroids?” he asks her.

  “Not yet.” She looks at her watch. “It’s not quite four. I’m still waiting for the guy at the front desk to call me.”

  “Behave,” he tells her, and disappears across the lawn.

  Kersti spots Alison sitting by herself on the front stoop of Huber House. “I’m hiding,” Alison confides. “I’m afraid to bump into Hamidou right now. I saw her sitting there in the audience—it was just the back of her head—and I started shaking and I wanted to throw up.”

  “Bueche knows,” Kersti says.

  Alison turns to her. “You told him? Or he already knew?”

  “I told him, but I think he knew.”

  “Fucker,” she mutters. “Of course he did. I feel like going up to that podium and telling everyone right now.”

  Kersti imagines how that would go down. May I have your attention please? I’d like to let everyone know that our treasured Madame Hamidou has be
en sexually abusing her students for forty years, me included. If it’s happened to any of you out there, please put up your hand! Dozens of hands shooting into the air. Oh, and Monsieur Bueche and Madame Harzenmoser have known all along but they covered it up to protect the school’s reputation. Happy 100th birthday, Lycée. Enjoy yourselves, everyone!

  “I could never do it though,” Alison admits. “I couldn’t even tell you up till today. It’s so fucking humiliating.”

  “You have nothing to feel humiliated about.”

  “I let her,” Alison says. “Even when I was old enough to know better. I loved her.”

  “As a mother.”

  “Who knows anymore?”

  Kersti puts her arm around Alison, but Alison quickly squirms away. “I’m fine,” she says stiffly.

  “So what’s your plan?” Kersti asks her.

  “I guess on Monday morning I’ll go see Bueche,” she says. “I’ll tell him everything that happened. Maybe you could let Deirdre know and ask her if she’d like to join me? Power in numbers.”

  “Of course,” Kersti says. “I want to tell her first, though. I was just about to go and find her.”

  “If Deirdre presses criminal charges for sexual abuse, that’s fine. But I don’t want any part of a civil suit. I’ll help, but I’m not interested in suing or getting any money out of this.”

  “What do you want then?”

  “I want Hamidou fired,” Alison responds. “I want the students to be safe. I want everyone at the school to know what she’s done and what she is. I want her to be publicly shamed and disgraced and I want to be the one to do it. I don’t want any more regrets.”

  “Regrets,” Kersi murmurs. “You know, when Cressida and I were friends I thought she had the most charmed life. I would look at her and think how lucky she was to be so beautiful and revered and completely exempt from the rules the rest of us had to follow.”

  “You didn’t know what was going on.”

  “I was so jealous of her,” Kersti confesses. “There was never a moment when I wasn’t jealous. I don’t think I even realized it at the time. I was constantly comparing myself to her; always bitter about how easily everything came to her. I thought she was the one who made me feel worthless and inadequate.”

  Kersti lets out a sad laugh. “But then I also blamed my family for making me feel worthless and inadequate. And then I blamed not being able to get pregnant. Notice a theme here?”

  “You’ve always felt inadequate?”

  “Turns out I didn’t need Cressida for that,” Kersti acknowledges out loud, probably for the first time. “But I always held her accountable anyway.”

  “You seem more than adequate to me.”

  “Thanks,” Kersti says. “But I’m still always focusing on what’s wrong with me. What I didn’t do, what I didn’t say. What I can’t be. Cress was always trying to get me to see what I had to offer. I’m the one who took her beauty and her magic and twisted them into something threatening and diminishing. Not the other way around.”

  “You were a teenager.”

  “I’m not anymore. And I’ve been doing this my whole life.”

  “You’re doing it now,” Alison says. “You’re still talking about what’s wrong with you. There’s a lot right about you, too.”

  Kersti nods, trying to absorb that. “I don’t want regrets anymore, either,” she says.

  They sit there for a while, the sun still blazing above them, the spicy scent of dianthus hanging thick in the air. It isn’t until Kersti’s phone rings that she remembers she’s expecting the call.

  “This is Afzal from the Chateau D’Ouchy.”

  “Yes, thank you for calling,” Kersti says. “Someone left a package for me last night?”

  “Yes, she didn’t leave her name.”

  “She?”

  “Yes. A woman.”

  Kersti’s heart is pounding. Her whole body feels like it’s vibrating, or maybe it’s the babies. “This may sound bizarre,” she says, “but can you describe her?”

  Poor Afzal is silent on the other end. He probably speaks to dozens if not hundreds of people a day behind that front desk. “It’s hard to remember,” he finally says. “She didn’t say much.”

  “Was she American?”

  “Oh no. She spoke French. Swiss French.”

  “Was she old? Did she have short hair?”

  “She was older, maybe forty?” he says. “I didn’t see her hair. She wore a hat.”

  “A baseball cap?”

  Alison is looking at her strangely.

  “Yes,” Afzal says. “It might have been blue. Or brown?”

  “Anything else?” Kersti asks, desperate.

  “I’m sorry, Madame. She handed it to me and left immediately.”

  Kersti thanks him and hangs up, discouraged. She’s not one step closer to figuring out who gave her the Polaroids. Alison is watching her, but doesn’t ask any questions.

  “I have to find Deirdre before she leaves,” Kersti says.

  The chairs have been removed and the crowd is thinning on the back lawn. Kersti scans the grounds looking for Deirdre. She sees Bueche, talking with some alumni, his smile forced and his charm cranked up at full volume. He must be sweating on the inside, Kersti thinks. Praying that whatever happens with Hamidou happens after today’s celebration, behind closed doors.

  Someone offers Kersti a glass of champagne, which she waves away, annoyed. She could use a glass of water and some food, though, so she sets off in the direction of the buffet—an enticing spread of all her favorite Swiss pastries. She stops when her eyes land on Deirdre and Mme. Hamidou, huddled together in deep conversation, with little Sloane by their side.

  Kersti forgot Sloane was going to be here. Beautiful, precocious Sloane, the spitting image of Cressida with her mane of curls, loose and wild, and her exquisite features. She’s got a pastry in the palm of each hand and a wide grin on her face. Hamidou playfully tugs on a coil of her hair and she giggles.

  Kersti takes a couple of steps back, a wave of revulsion rising up inside her. Part of her wants to flee; another part wants to ambush Hamidou and snatch Sloane away. She realizes she can’t speak to Deirdre now, not with Sloane here.

  “Kersti?”

  She spins around. Noa and Raf are standing there, looking sunburnt and wilted. “You okay?” Noa asks her.

  Kersti looks back at Hamidou and Sloane, standing side by side. Hamidou’s fingers are still twirling the little girl’s hair. “I have to get out of here,” Kersti says, and she rushes away from the Lycée garden as fast as her chafing pregnant legs will take her.

  Chapter 34

  LAUSANNE—June 1998

  Kersti wakes up with the sun shining directly in her eyes. There are noises outside her door, which is probably what woke her. Banging, yelling. She sits up and waits. She hears someone say her name. Where’s Kersti? Is she in her room?

  And then she hears wailing in the background. She jumps out of bed just as someone throws open the door. It’s Mme. Hamidou. Her face is as white as the bedsheets, her eyes swollen and ringed with red. She comes to Kersti and takes both Kersti’s hands in hers. Her body is trembling violently. Kersti can feel it just holding her hands. Hamidou can hardly look her in the eyes.

  “What is it?” Kersti whispers, expecting to be told her parents are dead.

  “It’s Cressida,” she says softly.

  “What?”

  “Something’s happened—”

  “What?” Kersti starts shaking. Her heart is in her throat, pulsating.

  “She fell.”

  “Fell?” Kersti is confused. “Where?”

  “From her balcony.”

  “Is she alive?” Kersti cries, trying to understand if it’s a matter of broken legs or a broken back or—

  “Yes, but it doesn’t look good,” Hamidou says, her voice quivering. “She . . . if she lives, I don’t know if she’ll ever be the same.”

  If she lives?

  Ker
sti collapses on the edge of her bed, struggling to breathe. She can’t find her voice to ask more questions. Mme. Hamidou must be in her own private hell—Cressida is like her daughter. Fell from her balcony on the fourth floor.

  Everything comes rushing into Kersti’s mind at once, a random blur. What time did Cressida get home last night? Is she alive? How the hell did she fall over the railing?

  “Did she jump?” Kersti asks Hamidou, suddenly remembering something Cressida said the night Noa’s boyfriend tried to kill himself. Anyone who doesn’t die didn’t really mean to.

  “Of course not,” Hamidou responds, horrified.

  Kersti has to see. She runs from her room, ignoring Hamidou’s imploring screams for her to come back; ignoring the other Huber House girls, who are huddled together on every floor, some crying, others shell-shocked. Lille, Alison, Nastia, Komiko, Angela. She notices Mrs. Fithern, sobbing quietly into her hands in the staff lounge on the second floor. Kersti races downstairs to the main floor, out the front door, and around back, where Cressida would have landed. Half-expecting to find her there, her beautiful body broken, mangled. But Cressida is gone. Her body has been removed and all that’s left is her blood, splattered like red graffiti on the cement. The police are clustered around the spot where she landed.

  Mme. Harzenmoser and M. Bueche must have taken care of everything before they woke the students, just like they did with the vandalized statue twenty years ago. They called the ambulance, the police, the house supervisors.

  “Kersti!” Hamidou is running toward her. “Come here, mon amour,” she cries, enveloping Kersti in her thin arm and leading her away. “You shouldn’t see this.”

  “Where is she?” Kersti manages, her voice strangled.

  “They’ve taken her to the hospital,” Hamidou says, rubbing Kersti’s back.

  Kerst breaks away and heads back to Huber. She runs up the stairs and locks herself in a stall in the third-floor bathroom. Why didn’t she go to Cressida last night at dinner when she had that dread feeling in her gut? Why didn’t she go over to her and hug her and tell her it would be okay? Why didn’t she tell her she loved her? She knew Cressida was troubled. In trouble. She could see it in her face, in the grim set of her mouth and the melancholy look in her eyes. Instead, Kersti did nothing.