The Finishing School Read Free

a scene. Something will have to go wrong. Root it out, stop it. And “Oh, my God,” thought Rowland, “what am I thinking?”
    Chris came down to Ouchy from the town past a row of private villas, so quiet inside their gates, you would think that no one was there.
    It was the fourth house in the long road that he approached with expectation. The house stood behind a long low wall. Four times, now, at varying hours, he had passed this house, and—listen—the sound of a violin the moment he appeared passing the wall, and continuing till he had passed, when the music stopped. Once he had caught sight, only a flash, of a head and shoulder at an upper window. He could not tell whether it was a man or woman, or what age the person was. It was simply that someone watched for him to pass and played a few bars of an unknown tune on the violin and then, when he had reached the end of the wall, abruptly stopped.
    It was getting dark. As he entered the hall of College Sunrise he heard, from Rowland’s television, the familiar voice of Hazel on Sky News: “As we go through this evening and into tonight . . .” The weather in England was warm, scattered showers in the southeast and rain in the north of Scotland.
    Chris tried to recall the few notes of the tune that was played on the violin, but the more he tried the more it escaped him. He decided to continue passing the house every day until he had resolved the question that arose. He went in search of Rowland, to tell him of the strange experience. “Someone,” he said to Rowland, “who has time to sit waiting for hours at the window.”
    Rowland had turned down the television sound.
    “Sit down,” he said.
    “No, I’ve got to get on with my novel.”
    “Oh, God, you’ll wear yourself out. Take a night off.”

3
    The next night about nine o’clock Rowland and Chris went along to the mysterious house of the violin. They found the gate open, the vestibule light on, but the front of the house in darkness. On the front door was a well-shined brass plate: “Dr. Israel Brown.” Round the back of the house, which they approached carefully in the dark, there was equally no sign of an inhabitant. But a torchlight shone in the darkness on the pathway to the back door and French window. A man shaped himself forth, holding the torch. He was elderly and walked with a stoop, evidently a guardian or gardener of the house. “Looking for someone?” he said in his singsong Vaudois.
    “We come from College Sunrise,” said Rowland. “I understand there is a violin player in this house. I am looking for a violin teacher.”
    The man laughed. “Giovanna plays the violin,” he said. “She doesn’t need a job.”
    “Who is Giovanna?” said Chris.
    “Giovanna Brown, Dr. Brown’s aunt, believe it or not, although she is ten years his junior. It’s one of those things that occur sometimes in families.”
    “I believe I heard her play,” said Chris. “I happened to be passing. A couple of times.”
    “Ah.”
    “Are they away?” said Rowland.
    “Yes, they’ve left. If you want to leave a message there’s a maid comes in the mornings.”
    “No message,” said Rowland, “just a courtesy call.”
    Chris said, on the way back, “Obviously she’s a cripple or had an accident which induced her to sit at the window all day, so she played a joke on me when I passed by the house.”
    “How you romance about things.”
    “No, it’s a perfectly logical supposition.”
    Which it was, for the young aunt of Israel Brown had suffered a broken shin at an ice-hockey stadium in Vienna, where she was studying music. She had been flown to her nephew’s house at Lausanne to recover. Sure enough, she had amused herself by playing a few bars on her violin at the window where she sat daily with her leg up, as Chris, a red-haired target, was passing.
    Neither Chris nor Rowland, however, was yet aware of this actual construction of events. Rowland said, “Have you been taking