T-Backs, T-Shirts, Coat, and Suit

by E. L. Konigsburg

  So that was why Bernadette wouldn’t wear a T-back or a bathing suit. Bernadette in a T-back would be like Grady Oates in one: a combination of curiosity and embarrassment. Chloë threw her head back against the sofa and wailed at the ceiling. “Oh, oh, oh, I am stupid. A stupid child.”

  Chloë sat very still and thought. She couldn’t let things rest like this. She knew now what they could do. They could get Bernadette’s medical records—X rays and reports of her chemo—and show that she had had a mastectomy. After all, a lot of famous women—movie stars, presidents’ wives—had had one, and there was nothing to be ashamed of. In that way, Bernadette could keep her privacy and still prove that she had no pap.

  She got up from the sofa, marched straight to Bernadette’s room, and pounded on the door. “Get up, Bernadette,” she said.

  Bernadette swung open the door. She was still in her robe. She had also stayed up thinking. “Is this an emergency?” she asked.

  “Yes, it is. We have to talk.”

  “Come in,” Bernadette said, opening the door wider and inviting Chloë in. There was only one chair in the room. Chloë took it. Bernadette sat on the edge of her bed.

  “I figured out about the pap,” she said. “I’m sorry I was so stupid.”

  Bernadette replied, “I do accept your apology, but let me tell you three things I don’t accept.” She counted them off, raising her fingers one at a time. “Sympathy, lectures about how I shouldn’t be embarrassed, and late-night conversations with twelve-year-olds.”

  Chloë settled deeper into the chair. “I’m not going,” she said. “You invited me in, remember, and I think you want to listen to what I have to say.” Daisy chose that minute to get up and rub against Chloë’s legs and rest her head in her lap. Chloë automatically reached down and patted her. She whispered, “Good girl. Good girl. Bernadette and I have to talk, don’t we?”

  Bernadette swung her feet up on the bed, inched her way back to the headboard, and crossed her arms over her chest. “I’m listening,” she said, not too kindly.

  Chloë said, “The way I figure it is this: Your pap explains everything. Why you won’t wear a bathing suit, why you won’t wear a T-back, and why you won’t show anyone your tattoo.”

  Bernadette said, “I don’t have a tattoo.”

  For the second time that night, Chloë was dumbfounded. “What?”

  Bernadette repeated, “I don’t have a tattoo. My tattoo was on my upper arm. When I had my mastectomy, they had to remove some lymph nodes under my arm, and when they sewed up the fold of flesh, my tattoo got lost. There’s only a small arc of the circle left.”

  “That changes everything.”

  “It changes nothing.”

  “That’s where you’re wrong, Bernadette. You can show them that you don’t have a tattoo, and the doctor’s reports will show that you don’t have a pap. Zack will have to back off all this witch talk….”

  “That’s where you’re wrong, you stupid child. Zack knows about the so-called pap just as he knows where my tattoo was. And he knows about the surgery too. You just don’t seem to get it, Chloë. My not having a tattoo no more proves that I am not a witch than Zack’s having one proves that he is.” Then Bernadette said, “Daisy will show you to the door. We need to get some sleep around here.”

  Chloë got up from her chair and walked the few steps to the side of the bed. She sat down on the edge of the bed and looked at Bernadette until Bernadette looked back at her. “Please, may I hug you?” she asked.

  The time to touch had come.

  Bernadette did not hesitate. Her arms reached out to Chloë, and their arms went around each other.

  They hugged, their arms tightening and tightening as the unexpected became comfortable and then comforting. Daisy nuzzled between them, and still they did not let go of each other. Chloë knew that more than anything in the world, she loved this feeling. At that moment, she loved being three-in-one more than she had ever loved anything.

  They held each other close for a long time. A long, long time.

  Chloë got up early—she had hardly been able to sleep anyway—scurried around, set the table, brought in the morning paper, started the coffee, was more helpful than a whole ship’s crew. She had gotten used to being helpful, but the unexpected was something else. How could a person give the unexpected a chance when it kept happening? How could anyone be expected to know that Bernadette no longer had a tattoo?

  Bernadette was a little awkward with Chloë when she first got up. Chloë quickly went to Bernadette, hugged her around the waist, and planted a kiss on her cheek. Bernadette returned her hug, then pulled back looking embarrassed and said, “No time for mushy stuff this morning. There’s work to do.”

  When they got to the commissary, they got the silent treatment. No one would talk to either of them. The air inside was charged enough to light up Chicago, They were not just made to feel unwelcome, they were shunned.

  Bernadette said, “Chloë, darling, if they choose to divide the world between them and us, I’ll take us.”

  Bernadette had never called her darling before. Never. And Chloë knew that she had helped Bernadette with more than chopped onions.

  They went directly home after work.

  Bernadette wanted to take Daisy for a walk. Chloë understood that she needed to be alone, and Chloë too welcomed a chance to think. She took a minute to stand by the back window and watch. Bernadette released Daisy from her leash and let her run free in the field behind the house. Daisy scampered back and forth as Bernadette meandered slowly farther and farther into the woods.

  Chloë came away from the window. She had to think of a way to help Bernadette get out of the mess she, Chloë, had created. She was surprised to hear a car pull up into the driveway. She forgot how accustomed she had become to having Daisy warn them if someone was coming.

  It was Bayard McKnight. He asked to see Bernadette, and when Chloë told him that she was not there, he asked if he could come in and wait.

  Chloë was not only glad to have company but glad that it was Bayard. She wanted to know something about the law. “How do you prove that you are not a witch?” she asked.

  He laughed. “The same way I prove that I don’t beat my wife.”

  “But you’re not married.”

  He replied, “And that’s about the only way a person can prove he doesn’t beat his wife.”

  “You’re not very helpful.” She wasn’t being sarcastic. She was worried.

  “It’s easier to prove what you are than what you are not. That’s why our courts always assume that a person is innocent until proven guilty. I really don’t know how you prove that you are not a Communist or that you are not a wife beater … or not …”

  “A heretic,” she added.

  “What do you know about heretics?” he asked.

  “I know about the Bonfire of the Vanities.”

  Bayard asked if she knew about Galileo.

  “Is this a test?”

  Chloë said she only knew that Galileo had had a telescope and proved that the earth revolved around the sun.

  “Did you also know that he was accused of being a heretic? Would you like a few of the details? We suits earn our living from details.”

  Galileo was born in 1564, the year that Shakespeare was also born and the year that Michelangelo died. Even though people had gotten over their fear of vanities and nudity, they still worried about people who held controversial opinions.

  Galileo turned his telescope toward the heavens and discovered that the earth revolved around the sun, not vice versa. He published his findings in a book. The pope called his findings heresy. Was it not written in the Bible: The Sun also ariseth, and the Sun goeth down? Did Galileo mean to say that the Bible was wrong?

  In 1633 the punishment for heresy was death. Galileo was threatened with torture and brought to trial. He confessed. Kneeling before his judges, Galileo confessed to being a heretic. He was not hanged, but he was put under house arrest for th
e rest of his life.

  Legend has it that when Galileo rose from his knees, after being sentenced, he muttered, “Nevertheless, it moves.”

  Chloë was puzzled. “How can they call him a heretic when everyone knows that the sun stays still and the earth revolves?”

  “They can call him a heretic because at the time his opinion differed from that of the church. The church believed what the Bible said, and Galileo believed what he saw through his telescope.”

  “Couldn’t the pope’s men look through the telescope and see for themselves?”

  “I suppose they could have if they had wanted to. But that’s not the point, Chloë. The point is that Galileo could not prove that he was not a heretic because each age makes up its own definition of heresy. Joan of Arc refused to wear women’s clothes, and that was heresy. Imagine that! Or think of this: People who claimed they saw angels at his side as Savonarola spoke were calling him a heretic a few years later. Three hundred years ago in this country, men and women in Salem, Massachusetts, were arrested for being witches. They were put on trial. None of them could prove that they were not witches. None. Like Galileo, those who confessed were not executed.”

  Chloë was fighting back tears of frustration. “Are you saying that Bernadette should save herself by confessing to being a witch?”

  “Not at all. I am saying that people always accuse someone with different views of being a heretic or a witch—or whatever—when they are worried about losing.”

  “Losing what?” Chloë asked.

  “What it always is. What it always has been. Control or profit. Control, in the case of COAT. Profit, in the case of Zack. If Zack shows that his one holdout is a witch and that is why she won’t wear a T-back, the reverend has to back down. Zack fires Bernadette to show that he doesn’t mess with witches. Wanda and Velma look virtuous by comparison, Tyler stays in school, Zack makes more money. With Zack it’s all business.”

  Chloë said, “I can’t believe that Zack would do this to Bernadette just to make money.”

  “Not just fortune. Fame and fortune,” Bayard said. “Zack is ambitious. He loves making news as much as he loves making money.”

  Then Chloë asked, “If there’s no way Bernadette can prove she’s not a witch, does she have to embarrass herself trying? Isn’t there some law against harassing heretics?”

  That question brought Bayard McKnight to his feet. “I think we need to find out.”

  Chloë asked, “Are you going to help Bernadette?”

  “I am. I most certainly am.”

  “Aren’t you going to be Wanda’s lawyer anymore?” she asked.

  “Zack, not Wanda, hired me.”

  “Zack?” she asked.

  “Oh, yes. Zack.”

  “I cant believe that Zack hired you. I thought you took this case for free to defend Wanda’s civil liberties, the way you defended the protestors of Spinach Hill.”

  “No. Zack hired me.”

  Chloë interrupted. “Bernadette must have known that. She told me that solidarity was Zack’s word, not Wanda’s.”

  “Oh, yes,” he said. “T-backs were Zack’s idea. Not Wanda’s and not Velma’s …”

  “Why did you take this case?” she asked.

  “Money.”

  “You’re as bad as Zack.”

  “Not quite. I told myself that I was defending a freedom, but I think I was fooling myself. That is, until now. I think I ought to really do something for freedom—Bernadette’s freedom to remain silent. There is still no way for a person to prove that she is not a witch. It took three hundred and fifty-nine years for Galileo’s pardon. But even so, the pardon was done less on evidence—after all, the evidence had been in for three hundred and fifty-nine years—than on the fact that what seemed like a good idea in 1633 did not seem like a good idea in 1992. One generation’s peace-symbol tattoo becomes another generation’s upsidedown broken cross.”

  * * *

  They heard the kitchen door open. Bernadette was returning with Daisy. Daisy appeared in the living room and went into her heading-dog stare and stalked Bayard from the front door to the living room sofa. “Can you call off this animal?” he asked. He felt decidedly unwelcome.

  “Daisy is a her,” Chloë said, gently taking Daisy’s collar and making soft clucking sounds. “It’s not a good idea to show fear.”

  “Fine,” Bayard said. “Because what I’m feeling is terror.”

  Chloë smiled. It seemed like such a long time ago when she had said the very same thing. “Daisy’s really very gentle,” she said quietly.

  “That’s what they all say.”

  Chloë smiled again. She made more soft clucking noises in the direction of the dog, and Daisy lifted her head. Chloë said, “You can pet her now.”

  Bayard hesitated. Chloë said, “You don’t have to, but Daisy will remember that she offered herself to you, and you refused.”

  He gingerly patted the top of Daisy’s head.

  Chloë said, “Bayard knows everything, Bernadette, and he’s your lawyer now. I told him everything.”

  “Everything?”

  Chloë nodded.

  “Well, actually, Bernadette, I haven’t been able to tell him how you got Daisy to follow you out of the warehouse when Jake died.”

  Bernadette sighed. “I can’t tell him either. When I went into that warehouse. I had no idea that Daisy would allow me, and no one else, to touch Jake. If I could explain everything I ever did and everything that ever happened to me in my lifetime, I would be either too smart to live or too dumb.”

  When autumn came, the T-backers lost the first battle of the T-back war. COAT got the city council to pass a law that says no T-backs, not even in your own backyard, unless you are under ten years of age. The Reverend Mr. Butler’s sermons are packing them in. Needless to say, he’s developed a very large following. His Church of the Endless Horizon is filled to the rafters, and the reverend himself has become a consultant to other communities with a T-back problem.

  Zack engaged another suit to help him fight city hall. In the meantime, he made so much money that he opened another commissary in Tampa. Wanda stayed in Peco to manage the business here. Velma went with Zack to start a T-back war there. When they make the news, they plan on sending the Reverend Mr. Butler all their tapes and newspaper clippings.

  Tyler is enrolled in karate classes after school, and he is showing his talent for learning stuff.

  At Bayard’s urging, Bernadette quit working for Zack and took a job working in his law office. She learned word processing and enrolled in evening classes to become a paralegal.

  Bayard often helps Bernadette with her homework. They are not yet three-in-one, but they are working on it. Daisy is adjusting.

  On her return flight from Peco, Chloë had time to think. She had a lot to think about. She knew a lot that she didn’t know before.

  She knew that she no longer feared total immersion or hair contracts, the frizzies or finding them in the mirror. She no longer feared saying no to a slumber party or saying no to Anjelica and Krystal. She no longer feared feeling one-third or less than a third as she often had with them.

  She knew the difference between being three-in-one and being one-third. She knew she returned to Ridgewood much more the one she was meant to be. Not entirely, not completely, but well on her way, and she knew she would sometimes take a long look in the mirror to find the face of Chloë.

  She no longer feared Rollerblades or dogs.

  She knew she was going to get a Labrador retriever. A black one with a wet nose. She knew his name already: Lorenzo de’Medici.

  And when people would ask her why she picked such an unusual name for a dog, she knew she would tell them, “Because it is unexpected,” or “Because it seemed like a good idea at the time,” or she would tell them, “Because five hundred years ago in a city called Florence …”

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