This Is How It Begins

by Joan Dempsey

  “We could tease your hair, too, if you like,” said Aggie, pushing at her own.

  “Always already with the jokes,” said Ludka, smiling at Tommy. She sat between Izaac and Marta at the conference table while Frank and Lolek stood nearby. Izaac took her hand, something he’d been doing often since the fire.

  “Our boys,” he whispered.

  He was gazing at Lolek and Frank, who did make a formidable pair: Frank strong and trustworthy in his dress blues, Lolek powerful and determined in his tailored gray suit. Sitting here in Lolek’s majestic office, in the seat of the state’s government, surrounded by her family, Ludka let herself relax a bit for the first time since the fire. She and Izaac had talked extensively since then, finally sharing again what they’d shared all those years ago when they’d first been together in this country—stories of the war, this time fully told. Oskar’s betrayal of her parents—and of Żegota—had gutted her. She’d deleted his e-mails unread. Countless times she’d gone over what had transpired in his studio, how distraught he’d been to learn Żegota had bribed a guard to free him, how so much of what he’d said had felt rehearsed. Now she understood the answer to her question about what had happened to his life—his terrible guilt had taken its toll, but she was nowhere near ready to declare it payment enough.

  “Are we all set then?” asked Wendy Chen.

  Tommy took Robert’s hand and lifted it in Wendy Chen’s direction, then checked his lapel mic. Wendy Chen sat on the opposite couch. She addressed the woman holding the camera.

  “Focus on them alone, and after we’ll get a couple of shots of me sitting here, okay?” To Tommy and Robert, she said, “We’re not live, so no worries. Editing is our friend.”

  She smiled, took a breath, signaled to start the camera rolling, then asked her first question. The three of them talked easily for a few minutes about the assault, the harassment, and the fire. What Ludka noticed most was the absence of emotion in Tommy’s and Robert’s responses, how quickly these violent things had become commonplace. Izaac had remarked on this phenomenon just yesterday, when she finally allowed him to tell her about the interview he’d done with the Shoah Foundation for their Holocaust survivor archives.

  “It struck me,” Izaac had said, “how someone watching me would think I was a cold fish, I was so dispassionate. But really, over time everything becomes ordinary, doesn’t it? It’s just what happened in my life, nothing more.”

  Ludka had missed Wendy Chen’s last question, but the energy of the interview had grown chilly. Marta tensed beside her, and Aggie nervously bumped her clasped hands against her mouth.

  “I’m sorry, Wendy,” said Robert, “but that question isn’t relevant.”

  “But surely it’s not a surprise to you. Many of the Christian parents are concerned that Tommy may have molested their kids. Here’s your chance to tell your side of the story.”

  “The way you’ve framed the question,” said Robert, “assumes that the stories the parents are telling are valid, and worthy of our defense. They’re not valid stories. They’re misplaced, mythical fears. All parents are concerned about protecting their kids from predators, and they’re right to be concerned. But they’re not right to be concerned about Tommy.”

  “I want to introduce them to great literature,” said Tommy. “That’s all. Not gay literature. Not straight literature. Not Christian or atheist literature. Just literature. You know, beautifully written, moving books that turn kids into lifelong readers.”

  Lolek was suddenly behind Marta, his hands on her shoulders. She leaned her head against him.

  “You’re a news journalist, Wendy,” Robert said firmly, “so I know you appreciate fact-finding to get to the truth. Let me make your job a little easier. Want to know who’s more apt to molest children? I’ll give you a hint—it’s not Tommy. Read the research that proves it. I’ll send you these citations: Finkelhor and Araji; Groth and Birnbaum; Jenny, et al; Freund, et al; Groth and Gary; Dr. Nathanial McConaghy. Please, do your homework.”

  Wendy Chen indicated she would do just that.

  “One more question. You lost in arbitration, which means the arbitrator believed there was good cause not to reinstate you. Of the other ten gay teachers who were also fired, only one of them has been reinstated. It doesn’t look good for you, you have to admit. How do you account for this?”

  Tommy and Robert glanced at each other, determining who should answer. Tommy leaned away from Robert, smiled, and jerked a thumb at him.

  “He’s the attorney.”

  “And like a good attorney,” said Robert, “I’ll address only what I know and refrain from speculating on what I don’t know. In Tommy’s case, we’re appealing the arbitration decision because the arbitrator should have recused himself. His former law firm is comprised almost solely of people who attend the Hampshire Redeemer Fellowship, and the Fellowship is behind this antigay campaign. They’re behind the legislation we’re here at the State House today to combat.”

  “So you’re saying the arbitrator was biased.”

  “That’s right.”

  “And what of the other nine? Surely nine independent arbitrators can’t all be biased. You have to admit that’s a stretch.”

  “We’ll find out more during the appeals processes.”

  Tommy pushed his hands between his knees and hunched his shoulders forward.

  “I’m not a lawyer, but I do have one … observation, I guess you would call it. The one teacher who was reinstated is the only one who doesn’t live in a district that houses a branch of the Redeemer Fellowship.”

  This seemed to be news to Wendy Chen. She leaned forward.

  “Are you saying what I think you’re saying? That the arbitration system was rigged?”

  “I’m saying I think that’s an excellent question worth exploring.”

  Wendy Chen, her eyes shining, sat back and shook her head as if to say wow. Aggie stepped forward.

  “Sorry to interrupt, but we really need to get downstairs for the press conference.”

  Wendy Chen checked her watch and immediately told the camerawoman to get the B-roll so they could head out. She thanked Tommy and Robert and told them she hoped to have the interview ready for the news at noon and would most likely have clips on the evening news as well. Tommy grabbed Robert’s hand again and lifted it up.

  “Our own personal paparazzi, at last!”

  The press conference held no surprises for Meck, which gave him confidence; he’d done his homework and felt well-prepared for the hearing. The usual suspects spoke—Senator Zeilonka, Izaac, Tommy and his friend Robert, and a couple of Tommy’s students. The crowd they’d gathered was impressive, though, and Meck had raced down to A-1 and laid out on one of the pew-like benches his overcoat, Pastor Royce’s parka, and Whit’s jacket. He wasn’t the only one who’d had the idea; nearly every seat was already saved.

  The crowd jammed the expansive marble foyer at the foot of the Grand Staircase and spilled back into Memorial Hall. Every major TV station was there, and out of the dozen or more reporters milling around, Meck recognized the State House reporter and journalists from the Boston Globe, the Boston Herald, and the Hampshire Gazette. Meck, Whit, and Pastor Royce had decided against calling a press conference because they knew the media would attend the hearing and they wanted the focus to be on people’s testimony. Committees typically heard the arguments in favor of legislation first, so Meck’s wager had been that the media would get their footage and leave before the other side even got to testify. Now he hoped he hadn’t miscalculated. It’s possible the media would take what they got at the press conference and not even attend the hearing, although he couldn’t believe they’d all skip out. Gauch was talking with the State House reporter, and Pastor Royce was holding court with the reporter from the Hampshire Gazette. Pastor Royce seemed to have regained his energy. Meck was just about to suggest to Whit that they split up and try to get in a word with the two major city papers, when Senator Zeilonka stepped back u
p to the podium. He said nothing. High above and behind him up the stairs, the colorful stained glass window over the stairway’s broad landing shone brightly with light from the Great Hall beyond. After a moment, people noticed he was there and the noise began to subside. The senator took a step back, went up a couple stairs, and made a beckoning gesture up to the third-floor horseshoe of balconies. Meck noticed Aggie Roth talking with Tommy and Robert, who stood with Izaac and his wife. Meck felt a momentary shame, remembering how he’d wanted to throw something at the professor. Behind the senator, a wave of tuxedo-clad men came down the stairs, and quickly covered the entire staircase. Meck saw Tommy’s mouth drop open and he pressed his hands to his chest, then grabbed hold of Robert’s arm and shook it, as if trying to compel Robert to jump up and down. Tommy said something to Aggie, and she inclined her head toward the senator. Tommy shook his head in disbelief then called out to his father, who smiled. Meck turned to Whit, who sighed heavily and briefly closed his eyes.

  “The Boston Gay Men’s Chorus,” said Whit.

  “Smart,” said Meck. “They’ve succeeded at framing this whole thing around discrimination. Pastor Royce never should have permitted those dismissals.”

  Arnie Dengler was suddenly next to them, asking if he’d properly heard Whit. Whit nodded.

  “Oh, criminy,” said Arnie. His voice was too loud in the quieting crowd and people glared. Meck took a step away from him, closer to Whit.

  One man, the conductor, Meck assumed, stepped out of the front row of the chorus and shook the senator’s hand. The senator left the podium, and Eric Barton came forward and wheeled it away. Another man in a tuxedo wheeled in a portable electronic keyboard, and a second man walked in with a snare drum secured to a shoulder harness. When they’d taken up their positions, the conductor faced the chorus, raised his arms, and the crowd grew quieter still. Finally, the conductor nodded to the drummer, who started a quiet and intermittent drumroll that stirred Meck’s heart even before he recognized the song. The flinty snare evoked echoes of the drum and fife corps from revolutionary days, and what better place to hear it than in this august building? The conductor nodded to the pianist, who began a quiet prelude, and then with a gentle lift of his arms, the conductor called forth the men. The vast chorus sang so softly at first that Meck wasn’t certain they’d truly begun, and then he recognized the traditional song. In unison the men sang.

  We shall overcome, we shall overcome,

  We shall overcome someday.

  Dengler stepped closer and said with disgust, “Every one of them, a faggot.”

  Without even turning his head, Meck said, “For once in your life, Arnie, give it a rest.”

  More people quietly joined the crowd. People on the third floor hung over the balcony’s iron railing and peered down on the singers. The door to the treasurer’s office opened, and the staff sidled out, their arms self-consciously crossed. Memorial Hall at Meck’s back filled with tourists and staffers and legislators alike, and Meck imagined John Eliot stepping down out of Henry Walker’s mural to see who was stealing the show.

  In six-part harmony, the chorus came quietly down from the refrain, ending in unison. Just as quietly, the restrained piano and drum began again. Within seconds the conductor had given them permission to let loose, and they did. The pounding drum and piano invited the chorus into the next verse, and the conductor threw himself onto his toes and marched his arms and asked for a rousing volume that the men met full voice, singing,

  We are not afraid, we are not afraid,

  We are not afraid today.

  Meck, who had closed his eyes, who felt the thrum of his own humming deep in his chest, whose throat ached, thought he’d never heard anything quite so beautiful. He searched for Pastor Royce in the crowd and found him studying the chorus, arms crossed necessarily high on his chest, his stomach straining to be free of his dress shirt. Meck had hoped to exchange a look of shared wonder, of acknowledgment that this had been a brilliant move on Zeilonka’s part, of disappointment that they hadn’t thought to do the same with the Christian Chorale, the exact same thing, with the same timeless song. But Meck caught Pastor Royce in an unguarded moment, and his disgusted, compassionless expression sent a shard of horrified understanding straight into Meck’s heart. His suspicions about the origins of the violence—which he thought he had quelled—instantly flared up, took hold, and turned into a steady flame of certainty. Numerous moments from the past several weeks rushed to mind: in the studio, the way Clancy had silenced Danny when he’d started to explain what Pastor Royce had told them to do; in the arbitration hearing, when Pastor Royce had stood up to keep Brandon from saying anything more about how much the pastor hated the gays; during Sunday’s sermon, which Meck now knew had been scripted for two sets of listeners, one of which was meant to read between the lines. Meck swallowed back a sudden threatening bile and blindly reached out for something to hold on to so he wouldn’t double over. Whit grabbed his arm.

  “What is it, Warren? What’s wrong?”

  “I think Pastor Royce … I think …”

  But what if Meck was wrong? He shook his head and gave Whit what he hoped would seem like an embarrassed smile.

  “I got a little dizzy there. Not enough breakfast, I guess. I’m fine.”

  Something pressed against Meck’s leg, and there was his son Andrew, gazing up at him. Meck hoisted Andrew into his arms and hugged him, his own heart thumping fast against his small son’s chest. Jill was beside him now, with John and Ben. Their presence steadied him, and Meck knew he’d have to confront Pastor Royce, and if his suspicions were accurate, report his transgressions to the national leaders. It was the right thing to do. It would also decimate their campaign. Andrew squirmed against him. Meck set him down. The chorus began another verse, and once again they sang in hushed tones, the drumroll airy, skittering: Truth will make us free someday.

  Meck stood a little taller. He would talk with Whit. Maybe together they would renounce Pastor Royce, and go as a team to Washington. The national leaders wouldn’t be able to blame them for the campaign’s failure; they’d make sure of that. But then a troubling new thought occurred to Meck. His arms got heavy. He smelled the acidic aftermath of bile on his breath. Maybe inciting the violence hadn’t been Pastor Royce’s idea. Maybe he was following orders as part of the grander national plan, in which case Meck had to rethink absolutely everything, in which case maybe that old professor had been right. Maybe Meck was merely a pawn.

  33

  The Public Hearing

  Lolek ushered Ludka and Izaac through one of the two public entrances at the back of the wood-paneled hearing room and steered them to a pew-like bench on the left side of the room, already mobbed with like-minded people. The carpeted, utilitarian, windowless room was a far cry from the Victorian majesty of Lolek’s office or the marble grandeur of the Grand Staircase, but the anticipatory excitement Ludka had felt all morning hadn’t diminished. Since the fire, only five days ago, and since her terrible but cathartic recollection, Ludka had been both exhausted and agitated. The fire had sobered her into finally acknowledging the full and frightening extent of what they were dealing with, and the security team that now patrolled their property and guarded Tommy and Robert’s house was there to remind her, should she forget. But today’s turnout, both here and at the press conference, gave her a guarded hope; such widespread public resistance so early in the fight surely meant that they could readily rout this infestation of so-called Christian crusaders.

  Members of the Boston Gay Men’s Chorus stood three deep against the back wall. Ludka was surprised to see Will there, too, with Annika and two other students from her class. Will waved. A group of men and women wearing hospital scrubs lingered against the wall to her left, trying to hold their meager space on the floor as the media set up all around them. Frank, his chief’s hat under his arm, was talking with the heavyset woolly-haired nurse who had cared for Tommy. High school students besieged Tommy when he came in, and Lud
ka thought he might be fighting back tears of gratitude. Had Alexander Roslan painted this scene there would have been ample eye contact, even joy; he might have titled it Resolve, 2009.

  He would also, of course, have captured the equally evident resolve of the people on the other side of the room. The students over there gave Tommy sideways glances. Izaac greeted Warren Meck with a lift of his hand, but Ludka shifted her gaze without acknowledging him. Another man sat with Meck, along with a woman who must be Meck’s wife. A serious young boy sat on her lap. The pastor looked a little the worse for wear. His snowy hair needed a good brushing.

  The pew-shaped bench Ludka sat on was ancient oak with taut leather riveted onto the back and had been set at an angle to form one side of the large semicircle of benches that faced the wooden dais up front. The dais itself spanned the length of the wide room and it, too, was curved so that committee members could see each other without effort. Committee members were arriving haphazardly, without fanfare, through the two private entrances behind the dais. They slid brass nameplates into wooden slots in front of their seats. Between the benches and the dais stood a plain wood table with three armchairs set to face the committee. People clustered around the table, signing up to testify.

  Izaac sat on Ludka’s right and on her left sat Tommy, then Robert, then Marta. Five in one bench was a snug fit, and Ludka was immediately too warm. She took off her silk scarf and stuffed it into her bag, which sat on the floor in front of her feet.

  “There’s never any good air in these rooms,” said Izaac. “It’s only going to get hotter.”

  Lolek leaned in from the aisle, and asked who would testify. Ludka hesitated. In the hospital, in the aftermath of the shock from the fire, she had felt so determined to speak out, but this morning’s turnout made her wonder if her participation was necessary. If even half of all these people got up to offer brief comments, it would still take most of the day. Already the cushion beneath her felt too thin.