“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, Jaanip?ev—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 been 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?”