Silent to the Bone

by E. L. Konigsburg

  “Now, I didn’t say that. ‘Vivi, come here. It’s Nikki’ don’t mean that. Like maybe the baby was breathing normal when the kid comes home from school, and the kid was the one who did it. He could’ve been the one to make her breathe funny. I didn’t know he was even there. He could’ve pounded her head on the floor like the bathroom floor or he could’ve had her to hit her head against the bathtub, for all I seen.” He was facing the yellow brick wall across the street, but then he looked at me out of the corner of his eye. When he saw me watching him, he focused on the yellow brick wall. “Vivi, she’s real worried.”

  “Is she worried that Branwell will be able to speak and tell the agency that Nikki was breathing funny when he found her?”

  “Nah. Vivi’s not worried about anything Branwell might say.”

  “So what is she worried about?”

  “Her career.”

  “What career?”

  “As an au pair. She says that the agency won’t place her if they find out.”

  “Find out what?”

  He looked directly at me. “Someone might tell them that she’s started in smoking again.” He smiled and took a long drag on his cigarette. “She don’t look it, but she’s real high-strung, and with all that’s happened, she’s back to smoking to soothe her nerves.”

  “Morris?”

  “What?”

  “Are you in love with Vivi?”

  “Dunno ’bout me. But I’m sure about him.”

  “Branwell?”

  “Yeah, Branwell,” he said. “Brannie thinks she hung the moon.” He took another long drag on his cigarette and let it drop to the ground. He danced around it for a minute, studying it, then he stamped it out. “Gotta go,” he said.

  “Morris?”

  “What?”

  “Will you tell me your last name?”

  “Sure. It’s Ditmer. Morris Ditmer. Spelled the way it sounds.”

  He pulled his motorbike keys out of his pocket with one hand and waved good-bye with the other.

  I crossed the street to the Behavioral Center, so lost in thought that I was startled when Margaret approached and said, “Penny for those thoughts.”

  “Oh! Hi, Margaret,” I said. “I just had a conversation with Morris.”

  “What did he have to say?”

  I took a long look at my sister. I realized that she had been waiting, watching us from across the street. She probably suspected that Morris wanted to meet me when he asked what time I got out of school, but she had not come over, had not interrupted at all. She just watched. Probably the whole time we had been there. She didn’t trust Morris, but she trusted me. Trusted me enough to allow me to find things out on my own. I said, “Thanks,” and she knew what it was for.

  “Blue peter,” she said.

  “His name is Morris Ditmer. He was there on the day it happened. But he didn’t see what happened. He didn’t see Branwell drop the baby. Didn’t even hear him come in. He was in Vivian’s room and, as they say, otherwise engaged. He says that the first thing he heard was Branwell’s yelling, ‘Vivi, come here. It’s Nikki.’ But he emphasized that for all he knew, Branwell could have been the one that made it happen.”

  Suddenly Margaret asked, “Do you have your pack of cards with you?”

  I reached into my backpack and pulled them out. Margaret hesitated, then asked me to tell her again what Branwell’s reaction had been when I had teased him about Vivian. I told her how he had blushed at first but then he had gotten angry and had jumped up so fast that he overturned his chair and was ready to walk out on me. I had never before seen him look the way he had looked then.

  “I think you should write Jack-and-Jill bathroom on one of those cards.”

  I figured that I would be telling Bran about my conversation with Morris and how Morris had admitted that Branwell had seen him in the bathroom that day. I found the card that had Margaret’s name on it, crossed it out, and wrote BATHROOM.

  “Good,” Margaret said. “I don’t think Branwell is ready to spell out exactly what happened, but—”

  “Spell out? Are you making a pun?”

  Margaret smiled. “Not intentionally.”

  * * *

  After Margaret left, I went into the Behavioral Center, but I didn’t sign in. The woman behind the desk knew me by now and called to me and said, “There’s no one up there now, Connor. You can go up if you want to.” I told her that I needed to straighten something out first. I sat down on one of those orange plastic chairs they have in the waiting area off to one side of the lobby. What I wanted to straighten out was my thoughts.

  Something—something that lay as deep as my friendship with Branwell—was telling me that I should not have a card with the word BATHROOM written on it. Maybe I started thinking that because all of my other cards were things that Bran and I had between us. Maybe that is what started my thinking that BATHROOM didn’t belong.

  I sat there, trying to figure out what to do about the BATHROOM. I couldn’t help but think about Branwell’s reaction the day I had teased him about Vivian. I had never seen him act that way before. Something strong was driving him.

  I sat there on the orange plastic chair and I thought and thought and thought. I don’t even know if I could call what I was doing thinking.

  This is what I know: In fourth grade, we learned about the Greek goddess Athena and how she was sprung—full-grown—from the forehead of Zeus. And that’s the best way I can explain how the word shame sprang from me. I suddenly understood that shame was making Branwell silent. Something happened in that bathroom. Something that made Branwell ashamed.

  The opposite of shame is respect, and Margaret had shown me a lot of respect. She always had. Like today, she had shown me a lot of respect by not interfering with my talk with Morris. When a person loses respect—self-respect or the respect of others—that’s when he feels shame.

  I had almost known that BATHROOM did not belong in my set of cards the moment Margaret had made the suggestion, but it wasn’t until shame sprang full-grown from my head that I knew that I absolutely should not use it.

  Maybe I wouldn’t find out what happened that day of the 911 call unless Morris Ditmer told me, and maybe Morris Ditmer didn’t really know. But that was a chance I had to take. Things change. Just yesterday, Morris Ditmer had said that he didn’t even know Branwell Zamborska.

  He knew something. And, sooner or later, he was going to tell. Otherwise, why would he have told me his last name?

  Margaret had trusted me to handle Morris Ditmer without her. I knew she would understand why I decided not to show Branwell a card that said BATHROOM. I took the pack of cards from my backpack and, with a heavy black marker, I crossed it out.

  I returned to the registration desk. As the woman examined the contents of my backpack, she said, “So you decided to go up anyway.”

  I smiled and nodded, glad I didn’t have to explain.

  Branwell had been waiting for me. I don’t know how I knew. I just knew. So had the guard. I could tell that, too. I didn’t take the cards out of my backpack at all, and that surprised them, too.

  I told Branwell that I had seen Morris, that I knew his last name. I told him that Morris said to be sure to tell him that he didn’t see what happened, but that he did hear him yell for Vivian and that he didn’t know what time he had come in or what time Branwell had called. I left out the part about Morris’s saying that for all he knew, Branwell could have been the one that made Nikki breathe funny. Then I said, “You’ll never guess what he says Vivian is worried about.” Branwell looked puzzled. “He says that she’s worried that someone might tell the agency that she’s started smoking again. I guess it’s a rule that au pairs have to promise not to smoke.”

  Branwell looked agitated and started moving his hands in a pantomime of shuffling cards.

  I got the cards out of my backpack. The one with the blacked-out BATHROOM was on top, so I slipped it off and let it fall into the backpack. I spread the cards out on
the table. Branwell looked them all over and then made a flipping motion with his hand. I knew he wanted me to turn them over, so I did. He wanted the alphabet. He looked them over again, and, of course, the letters that were on the backside of the X’d-out MARGARET/blacked-out BATHROOM card were missing. I pulled the card out my backpack, allowing only the letter side—M and N—to show.

  Now all the letters were laid out, and I started searching in my pockets for a piece of paper. Without saying a word, the guard put a notepad in front of me, and I thanked him by nodding and smiling in his direction. It was as if Branwell’s silence had become contagious. I started pointing with my pencil. Branwell did not blink until I got to XYZ. He blinked twice at Y. Then O, then at L . . . and I needed no more letters to finish writing YOLANDA. Branwell blinked twice. I gathered up the cards. “I’ll talk to her,” I said.

  Then Branwell opened his mouth as if to say something in reply, but nothing came out. I had the strange feeling that his silence had changed. It was strained. Whereas in the days past, Branwell had seemed to accept the fact that he could not speak, now he didn’t. The change must have registered on my face, for Branwell stood, quickly turned around, and nodded to the guard that he was ready to be returned to his room.

  As I was taking the elevator down, I felt about as uneasy as I had felt going up, but for a different reason. Now I had a mission. I had to find Yolanda.

  15.

  Yolanda is the day worker who takes care of Mrs. Farkas who has multiple sclerosis and who lives across the street from the Zamborskas on Tower Hill Road. Yolanda works for Mr. and Mrs. Farkas every weekday afternoon from 1:30 to 5:30. In the mornings she helps some of the other families who live on our street. She cleans house for my mother on Friday mornings, and she goes to the Zamborskas’ on Thursdays. After Nikki was born, Tina asked her to come on Monday mornings, too, to help with the laundry. Whether she was working for my mother or Tina, Yolanda always arrived on the 8:30 A.M. bus and worked until 12:30. Then she walked across the street, where she made lunch for Mrs. Farkas and herself. She helped Mrs. Farkas bathe, took care of the house, and prepared the evening meal before she left in time to catch the 5:35 city bus back downtown. She left the Farkas house at 5:30 and walked down to the bus stop, which is right across the street from my house at 184. That was her routine Mondays through Fridays.

  I looked at my watch. It was five o’clock. I called my mother and told her that I’d be home late. She wanted to know how late, and I did a quick calculation. I could catch the city bus across the street from the Behavioral Center, at the stop where Morris and I had had our talk. I could ride the route all the way up to Tower Hill Road, where it would pick up Yolanda and then ride back down with her. If the bus left here at 5:15 and got to Yolanda’s stop at 5:35, that meant twenty minutes up, twenty minutes back, and then twenty minutes to get back home again. “An hour,” I told my mother.

  It was my lucky day. Yolanda was standing by the curb waiting when the bus pulled up.

  I caught the driver looking in his rearview mirror, waiting for me to get off. “This is the end of the line,” he said.

  “I know.”

  “Time to get off.”

  “I want to ride back down.”

  “Gotta pay another fare,” he said.

  “I don’t have any more money with me,” I said. “Can I charge it?”

  “ ’Fraid not.”

  Yolanda had boarded and looked back and spotted me. “Why, Connor, what are you doing on the five thirty-five heading to town?”

  “I really wanted to talk to you, Yolanda. Can you loan me the bus fare?”

  Yolanda rode on a pass, but I couldn’t, so she calmly reached into her pocketbook and took out her wallet and patiently counted out the exact change and dropped it in the slot. Then she slowly walked back and sat down next to me.

  Yolanda is a person who can be more still than anyone. And she is equally good at doing one thing at a time. She is not like anyone who lives on Tower Hill Road and who are all university people except for Trevor James and John Hanson, who have Hanson-James House of Design. For example, if anyone else living on Tower Hill Road were waiting at the bus stop—not that any of them would, for they would either be driving or riding a bicycle, but, if they were—they would be reading or brushing off their clothes or checking their watch. They would be doing something besides just waiting.

  Waiting the way that Yolanda does it is an art. She’s the same way when she’s working. She picks something up and puts it back down before she goes on to the next thing. Sometimes she listens to music as she works, but that’s not quite doing two things at once. I think Mrs. Farkas needs Yolanda’s calming ways as much as she needs her helping hands.

  Yolanda put her pocketbook on her lap and rested both her arms on top of it. “How is Nikki?” she asked.

  “She’s off the respirator.”

  “A good sign,” she said, smiling. “And Branwell? Can he talk?”

  “Not yet. But we have a way of communicating.”

  “That’s nice. Friends always find a way to keep in touch.”

  “Branwell wanted me to talk to you, Yolanda. That’s why I’m riding the bus back downtown. So that we can talk.”

  “What do you want to talk about?”

  “About Vivian.”

  “You mean that English baby-sitter? I don’t think Mrs. Zamborska should hire her back.”

  “Why not?”

  “She smokes. Mrs. Zamborska did not allow anyone to smoke in the house and especially around the baby. Nobody allows that anymore. But that one smoked right there next to the nursery.” She thought a minute and said, “That very first Monday I was there after she had come to live in, I caught her. I do the laundry on Monday. I had come upstairs to put the clean linens away. I stopped first at the nursery to put away the baby’s things. The door to the bathroom was open, so I just walked in. What do I find but this Vivian taking a bath, lying there in water up to her neck. Her head was resting against the back of the tub, her face was pointing up. She was blowing smoke up toward the ceiling. I guess she didn’t hear me come in because I obviously startled her. I said, ‘Mrs. Zamborska doesn’t allow smoking in the house.’ She sat bolt upright and put her arms across her chest to cover up, still holding the cigarette. ‘I didn’t know,’ she said. ‘Doesn’t that agency that placed you tell you that you shouldn’t smoke around a baby?’ She said that she wasn’t told anything like that. I know that was a lie, but then she said that if Mrs. Zamborska didn’t want her to smoke in the house, she wouldn’t do it again. I asked her why she left the door to the baby’s room open like that, and she said that she wanted to hear if the baby cried. I did wonder about that. After all, she had not heard me come clear into the bathroom.”

  “You do work really quiet, Yolanda. Maybe she couldn’t hear you but could’ve heard the baby.”

  “Maybe. But she left the door open another time.”

  “When was that?”

  “It must have been a Monday again. I know it was a laundry day. It was a school holiday. Let me think. It was sometime in October. What school holiday would you be having in October?”

  “Columbus Day,” I said, anxious now, thinking I was going to get some important background information. “Columbus Day is the only October holiday that was on a Monday.”

  “Then Columbus Day it must have been. I remember I arrived at eight-thirty. I always do. I picked up a laundry basket from the utility room—that room just off the kitchen, and I went into Branwell’s room to change the bed linen and, much to my surprise, he was still in bed. I asked him if he was not feeling well, and that’s when I found out it was a school holiday. He hopped out of bed and went into that little half-bath that is off the downstairs hallway. He still had to go upstairs for his showers, you know. He said that was all right because he always showered at night, and Vivian bathed in the morning. I told him to leave his pajamas on top of the washing machine. I do hate to have the odd piece hanging over, you kno
w.

  “I went upstairs. The baby was asleep. She’s a pretty little thing, isn’t she?”

  “She sure is.”

  “When she opens those bright little eyes, it’s like plugging in a string of Christmas lights, isn’t it?”

  “That’s a beautiful way to put it, Yolanda.”

  “Well, that Monday, I went into the baby’s room to gather up the laundry, and I saw that the door to the bathroom was open. I heard the water running. There was Vivian, sitting naked on the edge of the tub, running the water for her bath. I said to her, ‘You better close that door.’ Without looking up, she said, ‘I told you, I can’t hear the baby if I do.’ I told her that it was a school holiday and that Branwell was home, and I didn’t think she would want him walking in on her—naked as she was.

  “ ‘Oh!’ she says. ‘We can’t satisfy a little boy’s curiosity all at once, now, can we?’ She winked at me in a way I didn’t like. Didn’t like at all. It was, I thought, sort of brazen. I also didn’t like that we. We can’t satisfy a little boy’s curiosity. I never intended to. I am a very modest person. I just turned around and told her to keep the door closed and don’t stay in the tub too long and bring her towels down to the laundry when she was through.”

  “Did Branwell hear any of this?”

  “I can’t imagine that he did. He was downstairs getting dressed, and then he had gone into the kitchen to fix himself a bowl of cereal for breakfast. When I passed through the kitchen on the way to the laundry room, he asked me if Nikki was up yet. I told him that she was having her morning nap. He was about to ask me something else when Vivian appears, fully dressed, carrying a bundle of laundry, including her bed linen. ‘I decided it might be better if I bathe later in the day,’ she said.”

  “Do you know what she meant by that?”

  “No idea. But I can tell you, I don’t think she stopped smoking in the house even though I never caught her at it again. But on Thursdays when I did my cleaning, in her room, I would sometimes pick up a Coke can that had a wet cigarette butt in it. When I asked her about them, she said that a friend of hers sometimes had a smoke outside if the weather was nice. But I wondered about that. Why would someone bring a can with a cigarette butt in it back upstairs when the recycle bin is right there by the back door?