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. Fran?ois 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 or 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?”