“They’re from C. You’re the only C—”
“I’m sorry, Kersti. I can see you’re still in a lot of pain, you’ve had no closure, I can understand that. But I’m as baffled as you. Cressida obviously had other lovers. I didn’t write those letters. Do whatever you want with them.”
Not what Kersti was hoping to hear. She looks hard into his eyes, searching for that elusive tell that might betray him, something to reveal he’s lying, but there’s nothing other than genuine bewilderment. He doesn’t seem the least bit concerned about what she might do with these letters. Unless he’s the world’s best bluffer.
“Maybe you should let it go,” he says. “If the Lycée wants something covered up, it’ll bloody stay covered up.”
They stare at each other for a few tense moments before he turns and walks off.
As she leaves the field, her heart is pumping. She’s excited, vibrating with adrenaline. She may not have heard what she wanted to hear today but the mystery is only deepening. Who the hell is C?
She looks back once as Mr. Fithern disappears into one of the buildings and then she quickens her pace, almost running to get back to Jay and tell him her news.
She’s going to officially abandon The Jewel of Reval and write this story, wherever it takes her. She can already feel that creative euphoria kicking in. It’s been there all along, percolating in her mind, teasing her, but until now she’s felt an obligation to finish the Estonian novel. No more. This story is demanding to be birthed. And it’s not just Cressida’s story; it’s Kersti’s story, too.
Chapter 28
LAUSANNE—June 1998
A few weeks after the Charity Ball, Lille and Kersti are lying on Cressida’s bed, watching her straighten her hair—an arduous, painstaking process that she’s doing merely to kill time. The calendar beside her mirror has red X’s on every day, counting down to graduation.
The door is open and Mme. Hamidou walks past with the mail. As usual, Angela Zumpt is trailing after her like a loyal dog. She’s Hamidou’s pet, always telling on people who smoke in their rooms or stay up past curfew. Acting like she’s been specially appointed to enforce the house rules.
“Cress-ee-da,” Hamidou says. “A package for you.” She tosses a padded manila envelope onto the bed and disappears, Angela at her heels.
“Probably more bubble gum from Deirdre,” Cressida mutters, ignoring the package.
“You don’t look like you,” Kersti says, as one-half of Cressida’s usually untamed hair lies flat and smooth against her perfect skull. The room smells of singed hair.
“Good,” she says. “Maybe Magnus will hate it.”
“You’re going to see him tonight?”
Cressida sets the hot iron down on the edge of her sink. “I have to tell him,” she says, her lips making a pretty pout.
“You’re going to tell him about Mr. Fithern?”
“I’m going to tell him there’s someone else. I won’t mention Mr. Fithern. But I can’t keep doing this.”
“But where can it go with Mr. F.?” Lille says, trying to be the voice of reason. “There’s no future.”
Cressida’s pout explodes into a wide smile. “Charlie and I are going to travel around Europe this summer,” she confesses. “He’s leaving her.”
“He’s leaving Mrs. F.?” Lille cries, horrified. “To be with you? But you’re his student—”
“He’s in love with me. He’s going to tell her as soon as school ends.”
“What about his job?”
“He can teach anywhere.”
“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