Middlesex by Jeffrey Eugenedis
MIDDLESEX
Jeffrey Eugenedis
Farrar, Straus and Giroux
19 Union Square West, New York 10003
Copyright © 2002 by Jeffrey Eugenides
All rights reserved
Published simultaneously in Canada by Alfred A. Knopf Canada,
a division of Random House of Canada Limited, Toronto
First edition, 2002
Portions of this novel appeared, in different form, inThe New Yorker andGranta .
The author would like to thank the Whiting Younger Writers Awards, the John Simon
Guggenheim Foundation, the National Endowment for the Arts, the Deutscher
Akademischer Austauschdienst, the American Academy in Berlin, the MacDowell
Colony, Yaddo, Helen Papanikolas, and Milton Karafilis, for their help and support. In
addition, the author would like to cite the following works from which he drew
information crucial in the writing ofMiddlesex :The Smyrna Affair by Marjorie
Housepian Dobkin; Wrestling with Death: Greek Immigrant Funeral Customs in Utah
by Helen Z. Papanikolas;An Original Man by Claude Andrew Clegg III;The Black
Muslims in America by C. Eric Lincoln;Venuses Penuses: Sexology, Sexosophy, and
Exigency Theory by Dr. John Money;Third Sex, Third Gender: Beyond Sexual
Dimorphism in Culture and History , edited by Gilbert Herdt;Hermaphrodites and the
Medical Invention of Sex by Alice Domurat Dreger; Androgens and the Evolution of
Male Gender Identity Among Male Pseudo-hermaphrodites with 5-alpha-reductase
Deficiency by Julianne Imperato-McGinley, M.D., Ralph E. Peterson, M.D., Teofilo
Gautier, M.D., and Erasmo Sturla, M.D.; andHermaphrodites with Attitude, the
newspaper published by the Intersex Society of North America.
FOR YAMA, WHO COMES FROM A
DIFFERENT GENE POOL ENTIRELY
CONTENTS
BOOK ONE
The Silver Spoon
Matchmaking
An Immodest Proposal
The Silk Road
BOOK TWO
Henry Fords English-Language Melting Pot
Minotaurs
Marriage on Ice
Tricknology
Clarinet Serenade
News of the World
Ex Ovo Omnia
BOOK THREE
Home Movies
Opa!
Middlesex
The Mediterranean Diet
The Wolverette
Waxing Lyrical
The Obscure Object
Tiresias in Love
Flesh and Blood
The Gun on the Wall
BOOK FOUR
The Oracular Vulva
Looking Myself Up in Websters
Go West, Young Man
Gender Dysphoria in San Francisco
Hermaphroditus
Air-Ride
The Last Stop
BOOK ONE
THE SILVER SPOON
Iwas born twice: first, as a baby girl, on a remarkably
smogless Detroit day in January of 1960; and then again,
as a teenage boy, in an emergency room near Petoskey,
Michigan, in August of 1974. Specialized readers may
have come across me in Dr. Peter Luces study, Gender
Identity in 5-Alpha-Reductase Pseudohermaphrodites,
published in theJournal of Pediatric Endocrinology in
1975. Or maybe youve seen my photograph in chapter
sixteen of the now sadly outdatedGenetics and Heredity.
Thats me on page 578, standing naked beside a height
chart with a black box covering my eyes.
My birth certificate lists my name as Calliope Helen
Stephanides. My most recent drivers license (from the
Federal Republic of Germany) records my first name
simply as Cal. Im a former field hockey goalie, longstanding
member of the Save-the-Manatee Foundation,
rare attendant at the Greek Orthodox liturgy, and, for most
of my adult life, an employee of the U.S. State Department.
Like Tiresias, I was first one thing and then the other. Ive
been ridiculed by classmates, guinea-pigged by doctors,
palpated by specialists, and researched by the March of
Dimes. A redheaded girl from Grosse Pointe fell in love
with me, not knowing what I was. (Her brother liked me,
too.) An army tank led me into urban battle once; a
swimming pool turned me into myth; Ive left my body in
order to occupy othersand all this happened before I
turned sixteen.
But now, at the age of forty-one, I feel another birth coming
on. After decades of neglect, I find myself thinking about
departed great-aunts and -uncles, long-lost grandfathers,
unknown fifth cousins, or, in the case of an inbred family like
mine, all those things in one. And so before its too late I
want to get it down for good: this roller-coaster ride of a
single gene through time. Sing now, O Muse, of the
recessive mutation on my fifth chromosome! Sing how it
bloomed two and a half centuries ago on the slopes of
Mount Olympus, while the goats bleated and the olives
dropped. Sing how it passed down through nine
generations, gathering invisibly within the polluted pool of
the Stephanides family. And sing how Providence, in the
guise of a massacre, sent the gene flying again; how it blew
like a seed across the sea to America, where it drifted
through our industrial rains until it fell to earth in the fertile
soil of my mothers own midwestern womb.
Sorry if I get a little Homeric at times. Thats genetic, too.
Three months before I was born, in the aftermath of one of
our elaborate Sunday dinners, my grandmother
Desdemona Stephanides ordered my brother to get her
silkworm box. Chapter Eleven had been heading toward
the kitchen for a second helping of rice pudding when she
blocked his way. At fifty-seven, with her short, squat figure
and intimidating hairnet, my grandmother was perfectly
designed for blocking peoples paths. Behind her in the
kitchen, the days large female contingent had
congregated, laughing and whispering. Intrigued, Chapter
Eleven leaned sideways to see what was going on, but
Desdemona reached out and firmly pinched his cheek.
Having regained his attention, she sketched a rectangle in
the air and pointed at the ceiling. Then, through her ill-fitting
dentures, she said, Go foryia yia , dollymou .
Chapter Eleven knew what to do. He ran across the hall into
the living room. On all fours he scrambled up the formal
staircase to the second floor. He raced past the bedrooms
along the upstairs corridor. At the far end was a nearly
invisible door, wallpapered over like the entrance to a
secret passageway. Chapter Eleven located the tiny
doorknob level with his head and, using all his strength,
pulled it open. Another set of stairs lay behind it. For a long
moment my brother stared hesitantly into the darkness
above, before climbing, very slowly now, up to the attic
where my grandparents lived.
In sneakers he passed beneath the twelve damply
newspapered birdcages suspended from the rafters. With
a brave face he immersed himself in the sour odor of the
parakeets, and in my grandparents own particular aroma,
a mixture of mothballs and hashish. He negotiated his way
past my grandfathers book-piled desk and his collection of
rebetika records. Finally, bumping into the leather ottoman
and the circular coffee table made of brass, he found my
grandparents bed and, under it, the silkworm box.
Carved from olivewood, a little bigger than a shoe box, it
had a tin lid perforated by tiny airholes and inset with the
icon of an unrecognizable saint. The saints face had been
rubbed off, but the fingers of his right hand were raised to
bless a short, purple, terrifically self-confident-looking
mulberry tree. After gazing awhile at this vivid botanical
presence, Chapter Eleven pulled the box from under the
bed and opened it. Inside were the two wedding crowns
made from rope and, coiled like snakes, the two long
braids of hair, each tied with a crumbling black ribbon. He
poked one of the braids with his index finger. Just then a
parakeet squawked, making my brother jump, and he
closed the box, tucked it under his arm, and carried it
downstairs to Desdemona.
She was still waiting in the doorway. Taking the silkworm
box out of his hands, she turned back into the kitchen. At
this point Chapter Eleven was granted a view of the room,
where all the women now fell silent. They moved aside to let
Desdemona pass and there, in the middle of the linoleum,
was my mother. Tessie Stephanides was leaning back in a
kitchen chair, pinned beneath the immense, drum-tight
globe of her pregnant belly. She had a happy, helpless
expression on her face, which was flushed and hot.
Desdemona set the silkworm box on the kitchen table and
opened the lid. She reached under the wedding crowns
and the hair braids to come up with something Chapter
Eleven hadnt seen: a silver spoon. She tied a piece of
string to the spoons handle. Then, stooping forward, she
dangled the spoon over my mothers swollen belly. And, by
extension, over me.
Up until now Desdemona had had a perfect record: twentythree
correct guesses. Shed known that Tessie was going
to be Tessie. Shed predicted the sex of my brother and of
all the babies of her friends at church. The only children
whose genders she hadnt divined were her own, because
it was bad luck for a mother to plumb the mysteries of her
own womb. Fearlessly, however, she plumbed my mothers.
After some initial hesitation, the spoon swung north to
south, which meant that I was going to be a boy.
Splay-legged in the chair, my mother tried to smile. She
didnt want a boy. She had one already. In fact, she was so
certain I was going to be a girl that shed picked out only
one name for me: Calliope. But when my grandmother
shouted in Greek, A boy! the cry went around the room,
and out into the hall, and across the hall into the living room
where the men were arguing politics. And my mother,
hearing it repeated so many times, began to believe it
might be true.
As soon as the cry reached my father, however, he
marched into the kitchen to tell his mother that, this time at
least, her spoon was wrong. And how you know so much?
Desdemona asked him. To which he replied what many
Americans of his generation would have:
Its science, Ma.
Ever since they had decided to have another childthe
diner was doing well and Chapter Eleven was long out of
diapersMilton and Tessie had been in agreement that
they wanted a daughter. Chapter Eleven had just turned five
years old. Hed recently found a dead bird in the yard,
bringing it into the house to show his mother. He liked
shooting things, hammering things, smashing things, and
wrestling with his father. In such a masculine household,
Tessie had begun to feel like the odd woman out and saw
herself in ten years time imprisoned in a world of hubcaps
and hernias. My mother pictured a daughter as a
counterinsurgent: a fellow lover of lapdogs, a seconder of
proposals to attend the Ice Capades. In the spring of 1959,
when discussions of my fertilization got under way, my
mother couldnt foresee that women would soon be burning
their brassieres by the thousand. Hers were padded, stiff,
fire-retardant. As much as Tessie loved her son, she knew
there were certain things shed be able to share only with a
daughter.
On his morning drive to work, my father had been seeing
visions of an irresistibly sweet, dark-eyed little girl. She sat
on the seat beside himmostly during stoplights
directing questions at his patient, all-knowing ear. What do
you call that thing, Daddy? That? Thats the Cadillac seal.
Whats the Cadillac seal? Well, a long time ago, there
was a French explorer named Cadillac, and he was the one
who discovered Detroit. And that seal was his family seal,
from France. Whats France? France is a country in
Europe. Whats Europe? Its a continent, which is like a
great big piece of land, way, way bigger than a country. But
Cadillacs dont come from Europe anymore,kukla . They
come from right here in the good old U.S.A. The light
turned green and he drove on. But my prototype lingered.
She was there at the next light and the next. So pleasant
was her company that my father, a man loaded with
initiative, decided to see what he could do to turn his vision
into reality.
Thus: for some time now, in the living room where the men
discussed politics, they had also been discussing the
velocity of sperm. Peter Tatakis, Uncle Pete, as we called
him, was a leading member of the debating society that
formed every week on our black love seats. A lifelong
bachelor, he had no family in America and so had become
attached to ours. Every Sunday he arrived in his wine-dark
Buick, a tall, prune-faced, sad-seeming man with an
incongruously vital head of wavy hair. He was not interested
in children. A proponent of the Great Books serieswhich
he had read twiceUncle Pete was engaged with serious
thought and Italian opera. He had a passion, in history, for
Edward Gibbon, and, in literature, for the journals of
Madame de Staël. He liked to quote that witty ladys
opinion on the German language, which held that German
wasnt good for conversation because you had to wait to
the end of the sentence for the verb, and so couldnt
interrupt. Uncle Pete had wanted to become a doctor, but
the catastrophe had ended that dream. In the United
States, hed put himself through two years of chiropractic
school, and now ran a small office in Birmingham with a
human skeleton he was still paying for in installments. In
those days, chiropractors had a somewhat dubious
reputation. People didnt come to Uncle Pete to free up
their kundalini. He cracked necks, straightened spines, and
made custom arch supports out of foam rubber. Still, he
was the closest thing to a doctor we had in the house on
those Sunday afternoons. As a young man hed had half his
stomach surgically removed, and now after dinner always
drank a Pepsi-Cola to help digest his meal. The soft drink
had been named for the digestive enzyme pepsin, he
sagely told us, and so was suited to the task.
It was this kind of knowledge that led my father to trust what
Uncle Pete said when it came to the reproductive
timetable. His head on a throw pillow, his shoes
off,Madama Butterfly softly playing on my parents stereo,
Uncle Pete explained that, under the microscope, sperm
carrying male chromosomes had been observed to swim
faster than those carrying female chromosomes. This
assertion generated immediate merriment among the
restaurant owners and fur finishers assembled in our living
room. My father, however, adopted the pose of his favorite
piece of sculpture,The Thinker , a miniature of which sat
across the room on the telephone table. Though the topic
had been brought up in the open-forum atmosphere of
those postprandial Sundays, it was clear that,
notwithstanding the impersonal tone of the discussion, the
sperm they were talking about was my fathers. Uncle Pete
made it clear: to have a girl baby, a couple should have
sexual congress twenty-four hours prior to ovulation. That
way, the swift male sperm would rush in and die off. The
female sperm, sluggish but more reliable, would arrive just
as the egg dropped.
My father had trouble persuading my mother to go along
with the scheme. Tessie Zizmo had been a virgin when she
married Milton Stephanides at the age of twenty-two. Their
engagement, which coincided with the Second World War,
had been a chaste affair. My mother was proud of the way
shed managed to simultaneously kindle and snuff my
fathers flame, keeping him at a low burn for the duration of
a global cataclysm. This hadnt been all that difficult,
however, since she was in Detroit and Milton was in
Annapolis at the U.S. Naval Academy. For more than a
year Tessie lit candles at the Greek church for her fiancé,
while Milton gazed at her photographs pinned over his
bunk. He liked to pose Tessie in the manner of the movie
magazines, standing sideways, one high heel raised on a
step, an expanse of black stocking visible. My mother looks
surprisingly pliable in those old snapshots, as though she
liked nothing better than to have her man in uniform arrange
her against the porches and lampposts of their humble
neighborhood.
She didnt surrender until after Japan had. Then, from their
wedding night onward (according to what my brother told
my covered ears), my parents made love regularly and
enjoyably. When it came to having children, however, my
mother had her own ideas. It was her belief that an embryo
could sense the amount of love with which it had been
created. For this reason, my fathers suggestion didnt sit
well with her.
What do you think this is, Milt, the Olympics?
We were just speaking theoretically, said my father.
What does Uncle Pete know about having babies?
He read this particular article inScientific American ,
Milton said. And to bolster his case: Hes a subscriber.
Listen, if my back went out, Id go to Uncle Pete. If I had flat
feet like you do, Id go. But thats it.
This has all been verified. Under the microscope. The
male sperms are faster.
I bet theyre stupider, too.
Go on. Malign the male sperms all you want. Feel free. We
dont want a male sperm. What we want is a good old,
slow, reliable female sperm.
Even if its true, its still ridiculous. I cant just do it like
clockwork, Milt.
Itll be harder on me than you.
I dont want to hear it.
I thought you wanted a daughter.
I do.
Well, said my father, this is how we can get one.
Tessie laughed the suggestion off. But behind her sarcasm
was a serious moral reservation. To tamper with something
as mysterious and miraculous as the birth of a child was an
act of hubris. In the first place, Tessie didnt believe you
could do it. Even if you could, she didnt believe you should
try.
Of course, a narrator in my position (prefetal at the time)
cant be entirely sure about any of this. I can only explain the
scientific mania that overtook my father during that spring of
59 as a symptom of the belief in progress that was
59 as a symptom of the belief in progress that was
infecting everyone back then. Remember,Sputnik had
been launched only two years earlier. Polio, which had kept
my parents quarantined indoors during the summers of
their childhood, had been conquered by the Salk vaccine.
People had no idea that viruses were cleverer than human
beings, and thought theyd soon be a thing of the past. In
that optimistic, postwar America, which I caught the tail end
of, everybody was the master of his own destiny, so it only
followed that my father would try to be the master of his.
A few days after he had broached his plan to Tessie, Milton
came home one evening with a present. It was a jewelry
box tied with a ribbon.
Whats this for? Tessie asked suspiciously.
What do you mean, what is it for?
Its not my birthday. Its not our anniversary. So why are you
giving me a present?
Do I have to have a reason to give you a present? Go on.
Open it.
Tessie crumpled up one corner of her mouth, unconvinced.
But it was difficult to hold a jewelry box in your hand without
opening it. So finally she slipped off the ribbon and
snapped the box open.
Inside, on black velvet, was a thermometer.
A thermometer, said my mother.
Thats not just any thermometer, said Milton. I had to go
to three different pharmacies to find one of these.
A luxury model, huh?
Thats right, said Milton. Thats what you call a basal
thermometer. It reads the temperature down toa tenth of a
degree. He raised his eyebrows. Normal thermometers
only read every two tenths. This one does it every tenth. Try
it out. Put it in your mouth.
I dont have a fever, said Tessie.
This isnt about a fever. You use it to find out what your
base temperature is. Its more accurate and precise than a
regular fever-type thermometer.
Next time bring me a necklace.
But Milton persisted: Your body temperatures changing all
the time, Tess. You may not notice, but it is. Youre in
constant flux, temperature-wise. Say, for instancea little
coughyou happen to be ovulating. Then your
temperature goes up. Six tenths of a degree, in most case
scenarios. Now, my father went on, gaining steam, not
noticing that his wife was frowning, if we were to
implement the system we talked about the other dayjust
for instance, saywhat youd do is,first , establish
yourbase temperature. It might not be ninety-eight point six.
Everybodys a little different. Thats another thing I learned
from Uncle Pete. Anyway, once you established yourbase
temperature, then youd look for that six-tenths-degree rise.
And thats when, if we were to go through with this, thats
when wed know to, you know, mix the cocktail.
My mother said nothing. She only put the thermometer into
the box, closed it, and handed it back to her husband.
Okay, he said. Fine. Suit yourself. We may get another
boy. Number two. If thats the way you want it, thats the way
itll be.
Im not so sure were going to have anything at the
moment, replied my mother.
Meanwhile, in the greenroom to the world, I waited. Not
even a gleam in my fathers eye yet (he was staring
gloomily at the thermometer case in his lap). Now my
mother gets up from the so-called love seat. She heads for
the stairway, holding a hand to her forehead, and the
likelihood of my ever coming to be seems more and more
remote. Now my father gets up to make his rounds, turning
out lights, locking doors. As he climbs the stairway, theres
hope for me again. The timing of the thing had to be just so
in order for me to become the person I am. Delay the act by
an hour and you change the gene selection. My conception
was still weeks away, but already my parents had begun
their slow collision into each other. In our upstairs hallway,
the Acropolis nightlight is burning, a gift from Jackie Halas,
who owns a souvenir shop. My mother is at her vanity when
my father enters the bedroom. With two fingers she rubs
Noxzema into her face, wiping it off with a tissue. My father
had only to say an affectionate word and she would have
forgiven him. Not me but somebody like me might have
been made that night. An infinite number of possible selves
crowded the threshold, me among them but with no
guaranteed ticket, the hours moving slowly, the planets in
the heavens circling at their usual pace, weather coming
into it, too, because my mother was afraid of thunderstorms
and would have cuddled against my father had it rained that
night. But, no, clear skies held out, as did my parents
stubbornness. The bedroom light went out. They stayed on
their own sides of the bed. At last, from my mother, Night.
And from my father, See you in the morning. The moments
that led up to me fell into place as though decreed. Which, I
guess, is why I think about them so much.
The following Sunday, my mother took Desdemona and my
brother to church. My father never went along, having
become an apostate at the age of eight over the exorbitant
price of votive candles. Likewise, my grandfather preferred
to spend his mornings working on a modern Greek
translation of the restored poems of Sappho. For the next
seven years, despite repeated strokes, my grandfather
worked at a small desk, piecing together the legendary
fragments into a larger mosaic, adding a stanza here, a
coda there, soldering an anapest or an iamb. In the
evenings he played his bordello music and smoked a
hookah pipe.
In 1959, Assumption Greek Orthodox Church was located
on Charlevoix. It was there that I would be baptized less
than a year later and would be brought up in the Orthodox
faith. Assumption, with its revolving chief priests, each sent
to us via the Patriarchate in Constantinople, each arriving in
the full beard of his authority, the embroidered vestments of
his sanctity, but each wearying after a timesix months
was the rulebecause of the squabbling of the
congregation, the personal attacks on the way he sang, the
constant need to shush the parishioners who treated the
church like the bleachers at Tiger Stadium, and, finally, the
effort of delivering a sermon each week twice, first in Greek
and then again in English. Assumption, with its spirited
coffee hours, its bad foundation and roof leaks, its
strenuous ethnic festivals, its catechism classes where our
heritage was briefly kept alive in us before being allowed to
die in the great diaspora. Tessie and company advanced
down the central aisle, past the sand-filled trays of votive
candles. Above, as big as a float in the Macys
Thanksgiving Day Parade, was the Christ Pantocrator. He
curved across the dome like space itself. Unlike the
suffering, earthbound Christs depicted at eye level on the
church walls, our Christ Pantocrator was clearly
transcendent, all-powerful, heaven-bestriding. He was
reaching down to the apostles above the altar to present
the four rolled-up sheepskins of the Gospels. And my
mother, who tried all her life to believe in God without ever
quite succeeding, looked up at him for guidance.
The Christ Pantocrators eyes flickered in the dim light.
They seemed to suck Tessie upward. Through the swirling
incense, the Saviors eyes glowed like televisions flashing
scenes of recent events . . .
First there was Desdemona the week before, giving advice
to her daughter-in-law. Why you want more children,
Tessie? she had asked with studied nonchalance.
Bending to look in the oven, hiding the alarm on her face
(an alarm that would go unexplained for another sixteen
years), Desdemona waved the idea away. More children,
more trouble . . .
Next there was Dr. Philobosian, our elderly family
physician. With ancient diplomas behind him, the old doctor
gave his verdict. Nonsense. Male sperm swim faster?
Listen. The first person who saw sperm under a
microscope was Leeuwenhoek. Do you know what they
looked like to him? Like worms . . .
And then Desdemona was back, taking a different angle:
God decides what baby is. Not you . . .
These scenes ran through my mothers mind during the
interminable Sunday service. The congregation stood and
sat. In the front pew, my cousins, Socrates, Plato, Aristotle,
and Cleopatra, fidgeted. Father Mike emerged from behind
the icon screen and swung his censer. My mother tried to
pray, but it was no use. She barely survived until coffee
hour.
From the tender age of twelve, my mother had been unable
to start her day without the aid of at least two cups of
immoderately strong, tar-black, unsweetened coffee, a
taste for which she had picked up from the tugboat
captains and zooty bachelors who filled the boardinghouse
where she had grown up. As a high school girl, standing
five foot one inch tall, she had sat next to auto workers at
the corner diner, having coffee before her first class. While
they scanned the racing forms, Tessie finished her civics
homework. Now, in the church basement, she told Chapter
Eleven to run off and play with the other children while she
got a cup of coffee to restore herself.
She was on her second cup when a soft, womanly voice
sighed in her ear. Good morning, Tessie. It was her
brother-in-law, Father Michael Antoniou.
Hi, Father Mike. Beautiful service today, Tessie said, and
immediately regretted it. Father Mike was the assistant
priest at Assumption. When the last priest had left,
harangued back to Athens after a mere three months, the
family had hoped that Father Mike might be promoted. But
in the end another new, foreign-born priest, Father
Gregorios, had been given the post. Aunt Zo, who never
missed a chance to lament her marriage, had said at
dinner in her comediennes voice, My husband. Always the
bridesmaid and never the bride.
By complimenting the service, Tessie hadnt intended to
compliment Father Greg. The situation was made still more
delicate by the fact that, years ago, Tessie and Michael
Antoniou had been engaged to be married. Now she was
married to Milton and Father Mike was married to Miltons
sister. Tessie had come down to clear her head and have
her coffee and already the day was getting out of hand.
Father Mike didnt appear to notice the slight, however. He
stood smiling, his eyes gentle above the roaring waterfall of
his beard. A sweet-natured man, Father Mike was popular
with church widows. They liked to crowd around him,
offering him cookies and bathing in his beatific essence.
Part of this essence came from Father Mikes perfect
contentment at being only five foot four. His shortness had a
charitable aspect to it, as though he had given away his
height. He seemed to have forgiven Tessie for breaking off
their engagement years ago, but it was always there in the
air between them, like the talcum powder that sometimes
puffed out of his clerical collar.
Smiling, carefully holding his coffee cup and saucer, Father
Mike asked,So, Tessie, how are things at home?
My mother knew, of course, that as a weekly Sunday guest
My mother knew, of course, that as a weekly Sunday guest
at our house, Father Mike was fully informed about the
thermometer scheme. Looking in his eyes, she thought she
detected a glint of amusement.
Youre coming over to the house today, she said
carelessly. You can see for yourself.
Im looking forward to it, said Father Mike. We always
have such interesting discussions at your house.
Tessie examined Father Mikes eyes again but now they
seemed full of genuine warmth. And then something
happened to take her attention away from Father Mike
completely.
Across the room, Chapter Eleven had stood on a chair to
reach the tap of the coffee urn. He was trying to fill a coffee
cup, but once he got the tap open he couldnt get it closed.
Scalding coffee poured out across the table. The hot liquid
splattered a girl who was standing nearby. The girl jumped
back. Her mouth opened, but no sound came out. With
great speed my mother ran across the room and whisked
the girl into the ladies room.
No one remembers the girls name. She didnt belong to
any of the regular parishioners. She wasnt even Greek.
She appeared at church that one day and never again, and
seems to have existed for the sole purpose of changing my
mothers mind. In the bathroom the girl held her steaming
shirt away from her body while Tessie brought damp
shirt away from her body while Tessie brought damp
towels. Are you okay, honey? Did you get burned?
Hes very clumsy, that boy, the girl said.
He can be. He gets into everything.
Boys can be very obstreperous.
Tessie smiled. You have quite a vocabulary.
At this compliment the girl broke into a big smile.
Obstreperous is my favorite word. My brother is very
obstreperous. Last month my favorite word was turgid. But
you cant use turgid that much. Not that many things are
turgid, when you think about it.
Youre right about that, said Tessie, laughing. But
obstreperous is all over the place.
I couldnt agree with you more, said the girl.
Two weeks later. Easter Sunday, 1959. Our religions
adherence to the Julian calendar has once again left us out
of sync with the neighborhood. Two Sundays ago, my
brother watched as the other kids on the block hunted
multicolored eggs in nearby bushes. He saw his friends
eating the heads off chocolate bunnies and tossing
handfuls of jelly beans into cavity-rich mouths. (Standing at
the window, my brother wanted more than anything to
believe in an American God who got resurrected on the
right day.) Only yesterday was Chapter Eleven finally
allowed to dye his own eggs, and then only in one color:
red. All over the house red eggs gleam in lengthening,
solstice rays. Red eggs fill bowls on the dining room table.
They hang from string pouches over doorways. They crowd
the mantel and are baked into loaves of cruciformtsoureki .
But now it is late afternoon; dinner is over. And my brother
is smiling. Because now comes the one part of Greek
Easter he prefers to egg hunts and jelly beans: the eggcracking
game. Everyone gathers around the dining table.
Biting his lip, Chapter Eleven selects an egg from the bowl,
studies it, returns it. He selects another. This looks like a
good one, Milton says, choosing his own egg. Built like a
Brinks truck. Milton holds his egg up. Chapter Eleven
prepares to attack. When suddenly my mother taps my
father on the back.
Just a minute, Tessie. Were cracking eggs here.
She taps him harder.
What?
My temperature. She pauses. Its up six tenths.
She has been using the thermometer. This is the first my
father has heard of it.
Now? my father whispers. Jesus, Tessie, are you sure?
No, Im not sure. You told me to watch for any rise in my
temperature and Im telling you Im up six tenths of a
degree. And, lowering her voice, Plus its been thirteen
days since my last you know what.
Come on, Dad, Chapter Eleven pleads.
Time out, Milton says. He puts his egg in the ashtray.
Thats my egg. Nobody touch it until I come back.
Upstairs, in the master bedroom, my parents accomplish
the act. A childs natural decorum makes me refrain from
imagining the scene in much detail. Only this: when theyre
done, as if topping off the tank, my father says, That should
do it. It turns out hes right. In May, Tessie learns shes
pregnant, and the waiting begins.
By six weeks, I have eyes and ears. By seven, nostrils,
even lips. My genitals begin to form. Fetal hormones, taking
chromosomal cues, inhibit Müllerian structures, promote
Wolffian ducts. My twenty-three paired chromosomes have
linked up and crossed over, spinning their roulette wheel,
as mypapou puts his hand on my mothers belly and says,
Lucky two! Arrayed in their regiments, my genes carry out
their orders. All except two, a pair of miscreantsor
revolutionaries, depending on your viewhiding out on
chromosome number 5. Together, they siphon off an
enzyme, which stops the production of a certain hormone,
which complicates my life.
In the living room, the men have stopped talking about
politics and instead lay bets on whether Milts new kid will
be a boy or a girl. My father is confident. Twenty-four hours
after the deed, my mothers body temperature rose another
two tenths, confirming ovulation. By then the male sperm
had given up, exhausted. The female sperm, like tortoises,
won the race. (At which point Tessie handed Milton the
thermometer and told him she never wanted to see it
again.)
All this led up to the day Desdemona dangled a utensil over
my mothers belly. The sonogram didnt exist at the time;
the spoon was the next best thing. Desdemona crouched.
The kitchen grew silent. The other women bit their lower
lips, watching, waiting. For the first minute, the spoon didnt
move at all. Desdemonas hand shook and, after long
seconds had passed, Aunt Lina steadied it. The spoon
twirled; I kicked; my mother cried out. And then, slowly,
moved by a wind no one felt, in that unearthly Ouija-board
way, the silver spoon began to move, to swing, at first in a
small circle but each orbit growing gradually more elliptical
until the path flattened into a straight line pointing from oven
to banquette. North to south, in other words. Desdemona
cried,Koros! And the room erupted with shouts ofKoros,
koros.
That night, my father said, Twenty-three in a row means
shes bound for a fall. This time, shes wrong. Trust me.
I dont mind if its a boy, my mother said. I really dont. As
long as its healthy, ten fingers, ten toes.
Whats this it. Thats my daughter youre talking about.
I was born a week after New Years, on January 8, 1960. In
the waiting room, supplied only with pink-ribboned cigars,
my father cried out, Bingo! I was a girl. Nineteen inches
long. Seven pounds four ounces.
That same January 8, my grandfather suffered the first of
his thirteen strokes. Awakened by my parents rushing off to
the hospital, hed gotten out of bed and gone downstairs to
make himself a cup of coffee. An hour later, Desdemona
found him lying on the kitchen floor. Though his mental
faculties remained intact, that morning, as I let out my first
cry at Womens Hospital, mypapou lost the ability to speak.
According to Desdemona, my grandfather collapsed right
after overturning his coffee cup to read his fortune in the
grounds.
When he heard the news of my sex, Uncle Pete refused to
accept any congratulations. There was no magic involved.
Besides, he joked, Milt did all the work. Desdemona
became grim. Her American-born son had been proven
right and, with this fresh defeat, the old country, in which she
still tried to live despite its being four thousand miles and
thirty-eight years away, receded one more notch. My arrival
marked the end of her baby-guessing and the start of her
husbands long decline. Though the silkworm box
reappeared now and then, the spoon was no longer among
its treasures.
I was extracted, spanked, and hosed off, in that order. They
wrapped me in a blanket and put me on display among six
other infants, four boys, two girls, all of them, unlike me,
correctly tagged. This cant be true but I remember it:
sparks slowly filling a dark screen.
Someone had switched on my eyes.
MATCHMAKING
When this story goes out into the world, I may become the
most famous hermaphrodite in history. There have been
others before me. Alexina Barbin attended a girls boarding
school in France before becoming Abel. She left behind an
autobiography, which Michel Foucault discovered in the
archives of the French Department of Public Hygiene. (Her
memoirs, which end shortly before her suicide, make
unsatisfactory reading, and it was after finishing them years
ago that I first got the idea to write my own.) Gottlieb
Göttlich, born in 1798, lived as Marie Rosine until the age
of thirty-three. One day abdominal pains sent Marie to the
doctor. The physician checked for a hernia and found
undescended testicles instead. From then on, Marie
donned mens clothes, took the name of Gottlieb, and
made a fortune traveling around Europe, exhibiting himself
to medical men.
As far as the doctors are concerned, Im even better than
Gottlieb. To the extent that fetal hormones affect brain
chemistry and histology, Ive got a male brain. But I was
raised as a girl. If you were going to devise an experiment
to measure the relative influences of nature versus nurture,
you couldnt come up with anything better than my life.
During my time at the Clinic nearly three decades ago, Dr.
Luce ran me through a barrage of tests. I was given the
Benton Visual Retention Test and the Bender Visual-Motor
Gestalt Test. My verbal IQ was measured, and lots of other
things, too. Luce even analyzed my prose style to see if I
wrote in a linear, masculine way, or in a circular, feminine
one.
All I know is this: despite my androgenized brain, theres an
innate feminine circularity in the story I have to tell. In any
genetic history. Im the final clause in a periodic sentence,
and that sentence begins a long time ago, in another
language, and you have to read it from the beginning to get
to the end, which is my arrival.
And so now, having been born, Im going to rewind the film,
so that my pink blanket flies off, my crib scoots across the
floor as my umbilical cord reattaches, and I cry out as Im
sucked back between my mothers legs. She gets really fat
again. Then back some more as a spoon stops swinging
and a thermometer goes back into its velvet case.Sputnik
chases its rocket trail back to the launching pad and polio
stalks the land. Theres a quick shot of my father as a
twenty-year-old clarinetist, playing an Artie Shaw number
into the phone, and then hes in church, age eight, being
scandalized by the price of candles; and next my
grandfather is untaping his first U.S. dollar bill over a cash
register in 1931. Then were out of America completely;
were in the middle of the ocean, the sound track sounding
funny in reverse. A steamship appears, and up on deck a
lifeboat is curiously rocking; but then the boat docks, stern
first, and were up on dry land again, where the film
unspools, back at the beginning . . .
In the late summer of 1922, my grandmother Desdemona
Stephanides wasnt predicting births but deaths,
specifically, her own. She was in her silkworm cocoonery,
high on the slope of Mount Olympus in Asia Minor, when
her heart, without warning, missed a beat. It was a distinct
sensation: she felt her heart stop and squeeze into a ball.
Then, as she stiffened, it began to race, thumping against
her ribs. She let out a small, astonished cry. Her twenty
thousand silkworms, sensitive to human emotion, stopped
spinning cocoons. Squinting in the dim light, my
grandmother looked down to see the front of her tunic
visibly fluttering; and in that instant, as she recognized the
insurrection inside her, Desdemona became what shed
remain for the rest of her life: a sick person imprisoned in a
healthy body. Nevertheless, unable to believe in her own
endurance, despite her already quieting heart, she stepped
out of the cocoonery to take a last look at the world she
wouldnt be leaving for another fifty-eight years.
The view was impressive. A thousand feet below lay the old
Ottoman capital of Bursa, like a backgammon board
spread out across the valleys green felt. Red diamonds of
roof tile fit into diamonds of whitewash. Here and there, the
sultans tombs were stacked up like bright chips. Back in
1922, automobile traffic didnt clog the streets. Ski lifts
didnt cut swaths into the mountains pine forests.
Metallurgic and textile plants didnt ring the city, filling the air
with smog. Bursa lookedat least from a thousand feet up
pretty much as it had for the past six centuries, a holy city,
necropolis of the Ottomans and center of the silk trade, its
quiet, declining streets abloom with minarets and cypress
trees. The tiles of the Green Mosque had turned blue with
age, but that was about it. Desdemona Stephanides,
however, kibitzing from afar, gazed down on the board and
saw what the players had missed.
To psychoanalyze my grandmothers heart palpitations:
they were the manifestations of grief. Her parents were
deadkilled in the recent war with the Turks. The Greek
Army, encouraged by the Allied Nations, had invaded
western Turkey in 1919, reclaiming the ancient Greek
territory in Asia Minor. After years of living apart up on the
mountain, the people of Bithynios, my grandmothers
village, had emerged into the safety of theMegale Idea
the Big Idea, the dream of Greater Greece. It was now
Greek troops who occupied Bursa. A Greek flag flew over
the former Ottoman palace. The Turks and their leader,
Mustafa Kemal, had retreated to Angora in the east. For
the first time in their lives the Greeks of Asia Minor were out
from under Turkish rule. No longer were the giaours (infidel
dogs) forbidden to wear bright clothing or ride horses or
use saddles. Never again, as in the last centuries, would
Ottoman officials arrive in the village every year, carting off
the strongest boys to serve in the Janissaries. Now, when
the village men took silk to market in Bursa, they were free
Greeks, in a free Greek city.
Desdemona, however, mourning her parents, was still
imprisoned by the past. And so she stood on the mountain,
looking down at the emancipated city, and felt cheated by
her inability to feel happy like everybody else. Years later, in
her widowhood, when shed spend a decade in bed trying
with great vitality to die, she would finally agree that those
two years between wars a half century earlier had been the
only decent time in her life; but by then everyone shed
known would be dead and she could only tell it to the
television.
For the greater part of an hour Desdemona had been trying
to ignore her foreboding by working in the cocoonery.
Shed come out the back door of the house, through the
sweet-smelling grape arbor, and across the terraced yard
into the low, thatch-roofed hut. The acrid, larval smell inside
didnt bother her. The silkworm cocoonery was my
grandmothers own personal, reeking oasis. All around her,
in a firmament, soft white silkworms clung to bundled
mulberry twigs. Desdemona watched them spinning
cocoons, moving their heads as though to music. As she
watched, she forgot about the world outside, its changes
and convulsions, its terrible new music (which is about to
be sung in a moment). Instead she heard her mother,
Euphrosyne Stephanides, speaking in this very cocoonery
years ago, elucidating the mysteries of silkwormsTo
have good silk, you have to be pure, she used to tell her
daughter. The silkworms know everything. You can always
tell what somebody is up to by the way their silk looks
and so on, Euphrosyne giving examplesMaria Poulos,
whos always lifting her skirt for everyone? Have you seen
her cocoons? A stain for every man. You should look next
timeDesdemona only eleven or twelve and believing
every word, so that now, as a young woman of twenty-one,
she still couldnt entirely disbelieve her mothers morality
tales, and examined the cocoon constellations for a sign of
her own impurity (the dreams shed been having!). She
looked for other things, too, because her mother also
maintained that silkworms reacted to historical atrocities.
After every massacre, even in a village fifty miles away, the
silkworms filaments turned the color of bloodIve seen
them bleed like the feet of Christos Himself, Euphrosyne
again, and her daughter, years later, remembering,
squinting in the weak light to see if any cocoons had turned
red. She pulled out a tray and shook it; she pulled out
another; and it was right then that she felt her heart stop,
squeeze into a ball, and begin punching her from inside.
She dropped the tray, saw her tunic flutter from interior
force, and understood that her heart operated on its own
instructions, that she had no control over it or, indeed, over
anything else.
So myyia yia , suffering the first of her imaginary diseases,
stood looking down at Bursa, as though she might spot a
visible confirmation of her invisible dread. And then it came
from inside the house, by means of sound: her brother,
Eleutherios (Lefty) Stephanides, had begun to sing. In
badly pronounced, meaningless English:
Evry morning, evry evening, aint we got fun, Lefty sang,
standing before their bedroom mirror as he did every
afternoon about this time, fastening the new celluloid collar
to the new white shirt, squeezing a dollop of hair pomade
(smelling of limes) into his palm and rubbing it into his new
Valentino haircut. And continuing: In the meantime, inbetween
time, aint we got fun. The lyrics meant nothing to
him, either, but the melody was enough. It spoke to Lefty of
jazz-age frivolity, gin cocktails, cigarette girls; it made him
slick his hair back with panache . . . while, out in the yard,
Desdemona heard the singing and reacted differently. For
her, the song conjured only the disreputable bars her
brother went to down in the city, those hash dens where
they played rebetika and American music and where there
were loose women who sang . . . as Lefty put on his new
striped suit and folded the red pocket handkerchief that
matched his red necktie . . . and she felt funny inside,
especially her stomach, which was roiled by complicated
emotions, sadness, anger, and something else she couldnt
name that hurt most of all. The rents unpaid, dear, we
havent a car, Lefty crooned in the sweet tenor I would later
inherit; and beneath the music Desdemona now heard her
mothers voice again, Euphrosyne Stephanides last words
spoken just before she died from a bullet wound, Take
care of Lefty. Promise me. Find him a wife! . . . and
Desdemona, through her tears, replying, I promise. I
promise! . . . these voices all speaking at once in
Desdemonas head as she crossed the yard to go into the
house. She came through the small kitchen where she had
dinner cooking (for one) and marched straight into the
bedroom she shared with her brother. He was still singing
Not much money, Oh! but honeyfixing his cuff links,
parting his hair; but then he looked up and saw his sister
Aint we gotand pianissimo nowfunfell silent.
For a moment, the mirror held their two faces. At twentyone,
long before ill-fitting dentures and self-imposed
invalidism, my grandmother was something of a beauty.
She wore her black hair in long braids pinned up under her
kerchief. These braids were not delicate like a little girls
but heavy and womanly, possessing a natural power, like a
beavers tail. Years, seasons, and various weather had
gone into the braids; and when she undid them at night they
fell to her waist. At present, black silk ribbons were tied
around the braids, too, making them even more imposing,
if you got to see them, which few people did. What was on
view for general consumption was Desdemonas face: her
large, sorrowful eyes, her pale, candlelit complexion. I
should also mention, with the vestigial pang of a once flatchested
girl, Desdemonas voluptuous figure. Her body
was a constant embarrassment to her. It was always
announcing itself in ways she didnt sanction. In church
when she knelt, in the yard when she beat rugs, beneath the
peach tree when she picked fruit, Desdemonas feminine
elaborations escaped the constraints of her drab, confining
clothes. Above the jiggling of her body, her kerchief-framed
face remained apart, looking slightly scandalized at what
her breasts and hips were up to.
Eleutherios was taller and skinnier. In photographs from the
time he looks like the underworld figures he idolized, the
thin mustachioed thieves and gamblers who filled the
seaside bars of Athens and Constantinople. His nose was
aquiline, his eyes sharp, the overall impression of his face
hawk-like. When he smiled, however, you saw the softness
in his eyes, which made it clear that Lefty was in fact no
gangster but the pampered, bookish son of comfortably
well-off parents.
That summer afternoon in 1922, Desdemona wasnt
looking at her brothers face. Instead her eyes moved to the
suit coat, to the gleaming hair, to the striped trousers, as
she tried to figure out what had happened to him these past
few months.
Lefty was one year younger than Desdemona and she often
wondered how shed survived those first twelve months
without him. For as long as she could remember hed
always been on the other side of the goats-hair blanket that
separated their beds. Behind thekelimi he performed
puppet shows, turning his hands into the clever,
hunchbacked Karaghiozis who always outwitted the Turks.
In the dark he made up rhymes and sang songs, and one of
the reasons she hated his new American music was that he
sang it exclusively to himself. Desdemona had always
loved her brother as only a sister growing up on a mountain
could love a brother: he was the whole entertainment, her
best friend and confidant, her co-discoverer of short cuts
and monks cells. Early on, the emotional sympathy shed
felt with Lefty had been so absolute that shed sometimes
forgotten they were separate people. As kids theyd
scrabbled down the terraced mountainside like a fourlegged,
two-headed creature. She was accustomed to their
Siamese shadow springing up against the whitewashed
house at evening, and whenever she encountered her
solitary outline, it seemed cut in half.
Peacetime seemed to be changing everything. Lefty had
taken advantage of the new freedoms. In the last month
hed gone down to Bursa a total of seventeen times. On
three occasions hed stayed overnight in the Cocoon Inn
across from the Mosque of Sultan Ouhan. Hed left one
morning dressed in boots, knee socks,
breeches,doulamas , and vest and come back the
following evening in a striped suit, with a silk scarf tucked
into his collar like an opera singer and a black derby on his
head. There were other changes. Hed begun to teach
himself French from a small, plum-colored phrase book.
Hed picked up affected gestures, putting his hands in his
pockets and rattling change, for instance, or doffing his
cap. When Desdemona did the laundry, she found scraps
of paper in Leftys pockets, covered with mathematical
figures. His clothes smelled musky, smoky, and sometimes
sweet.
Now, in the mirror, their joined faces couldnt hide the fact
of their growing separation. And my grandmother, whose
constitutional gloom had broken out into full cardiac
thunder, looked at her brother, as she once had her own
shadow, and felt that something was missing.
So where are you going all dressed up?
Where do you think Im going? To the Koza Han. To sell
cocoons.
You went yesterday.
Its the season.
With a tortoiseshell comb Lefty parted his hair on the right,
adding pomade to an unruly curl that refused to stay flat.
Desdemona came closer. She picked up the pomade and
sniffed it. It wasnt the smell on his clothes. What else do
you do down there?
Nothing.
You stay all night sometimes.
Its a long trip. By the time I walk there, its late.
What are you smoking in those bars?
Whatevers in the hookah. Its not polite to ask.
If Mother and Father knew you were smoking and drinking
like this . . . She trailed off.
They dont know, do they? said Lefty. So Im safe. His
light tone was unconvincing. Lefty acted as though he had
recovered from their parents deaths, but Desdemona saw
through this. She smiled grimly at her brother and, without
comment, held out her fist. Automatically, while still
admiring himself in the mirror, Lefty made a fist, too. They
counted, One, two, three . . . shoot!
Rock crushes snake. I win, said Desdemona. So tell me.
Tell you what?
Tell me whats so interesting in Bursa.
Lefty combed his hair forward again and parted it on the
left. He swiveled his head back and forth in the mirror.
Which looks better? Left or right?
Let me see. Desdemona raised her hand delicately to
Leftys hairand mussed it.
Hey!
What do you want in Bursa?
Leave me alone.
Tell me!
You want to know? Lefty said, exasperated with his sister
now. What do you think I want? He spoke with pent-up
force. I want a woman.
Desdemona gripped her belly, patted her heart. She took
two steps backward and from this vantage point examined
her brother anew. The idea that Lefty, who shared her eyes
and eyebrows, who slept in the bed beside hers, could be
possessed by such a desire had never occurred to
Desdemona before. Though physically mature,
Desdemonas body was still a stranger to its owner. At
night, in their bedroom, shed seen her sleeping brother
press against his rope mattress as though angry with it. As
a child shed come upon him in the cocoonery, innocently
rubbing against a wooden post. But none of this had made
an impression. What are you doing? shed asked Lefty,
eight or nine at the time, and gripping the post, moving his
knees up and down. With a steady, determined voice, hed
answered, Im trying to get that feeling.
What feeling?
You knowgrunting, puffing, pumping knees
thatfeeling .
But she didnt know. It was still years before Desdemona,
cutting cucumbers, would lean against the corner of the
kitchen table and, without realizing it, would lean in a little
harder, and after that would find herself taking up that
position every day, the table corner snug between her legs.
Now, preparing her brothers meals, she sometimes struck
up her old acquaintance with the dining table, but she
wasnt conscious of it. It was her body that did it, with the
cunning and silence of bodies everywhere.
Her brothers trips to the city were different. He knew what
he was looking for, apparently; he was in full
communication with his body. His mind and body had
become one entity, thinking one thought, bent on one
obsession, and for the first time ever Desdemona couldnt
read that thought. All she knew was that it had nothing to do
with her.
It made her mad. Also, I suspect, a little jealous. Wasnt she
his best friend? Hadnt they always told each other
everything? Didnt she do everything for him, cook, sew,
and keep house as their mother used to? Wasnt she the
one who had been taking care of the silkworms singlehandedly
so that he, her smart little brother, could take
lessons from the priest, learning ancient Greek? Hadnt she
been the one to say, You take care of the books, Ill take
care of the cocoonery. All you have to do is sell the
cocoons at the market. And when he had started lingering
down in the city, had she complained? Had she mentioned
the scraps of paper, or his red eyes, or the musky-sweet
smell on his clothes? Desdemona had a suspicion that her
dreamy brother had become a hashish smoker. Where
there was rebetika music there was always hashish. Lefty
was dealing with the loss of their parents in the only way he
could, by disappearing in a cloud of hash smoke while
listening to the absolutely saddest music in the world.
Desdemona understood all this and so had said nothing.
But now she saw that her brother was trying to escape his
grief in a way she hadnt expected; and she was no longer
content to be quiet.
You want a woman? Desdemona asked in an incredulous
voice. What kind of woman? A Turkish woman?
Lefty said nothing. After his outburst he had resumed
combing his hair.
Maybe you want a harem girl. Is that right? You think I dont
know about those types of loose girls, thosepoutanes ?
Yes, I do. Im not so stupid. You like a fat girl shaking her
belly in your face? With a jewel in her fat belly? You want
one of those? Let me tell you something. Do you know why
those Turkish girls cover their faces? You think its because
of religion? No. Its because otherwise no one can stand to
look at them!
And now she shouted, Shame on you, Eleutherios! Whats
the matter with you? Why dont you get a girl from the
village?
It was at this point that Lefty, who was now brushing off his
jacket, called his sisters attention to something she was
overlooking. Maybe you havent noticed, he said, but
there arent any girls in this village.
Which, in fact, was pretty much the case. Bithynios had
never been a big village, but in 1922 it was smaller than
ever. People had begun leaving in 1913, when the
phylloxera blight ruined the currants. They had continued to
leave during the Balkan Wars. Lefty and Desdemonas
cousin, Sourmelina, had gone to America and was living
now in a place called Detroit. Built along a gentle slope of
the mountain, Bithynios wasnt a precarious, cliffside sort of
place. It was an elegant, or at least harmonious, cluster of
yellow stucco houses with red roofs. The grandest houses,
of which there were two, hadçikma , enclosed bay windows
that hung out over the street. The poorest houses, of which
there were many, were essentially one-room kitchens. And
then there were houses like Desdemona and Leftys, with
an overstuffed parlor, two bedrooms, a kitchen, and a
backyard privy with a European toilet. There were no shops
in Bithynios, no post office or bank, only a church and one
taverna. For shopping you had to go into Bursa, walking
first and then taking the horse-drawn streetcar.
In 1922 there were barely a hundred people living in the
village. Fewer than half of those were women. Of fortyseven
women, twenty-one were old ladies. Another twenty
were middle-aged wives. Three were young mothers, each
with a daughter in diapers. One was his sister. That left two
marriageable girls. Whom Desdemona now rushed to
nominate.
What do you mean there arent any girls? What about
Lucille Kafkalis? Shes a nice girl. Or Victoria Pappas?
Lucille smells, Lefty answered reasonably. She bathes
maybe once a year. On her name day. And Victoria? He
ran a finger over his upper lip. Victoria has a mustache
bigger than mine. I dont want to share a razor with my
wife. With that, he put down his clothing brush and put on
his jacket. Dont wait up, he said, and left the bedroom.
Go! Desdemona called after him. See what I care. Just
remember. When your Turkish wife takes off her mask,
dont come running back to the village!
But Lefty was gone. His footsteps faded away. Desdemona
felt the mysterious poison rising in her blood again. She
paid no attention. I dont like eating alone! she shouted, to
no one.
The wind from the valley had picked up, as it did every
afternoon. It blew through the open windows of the house. It
rattled the latch on her hope chest and her fathers old worry
beads lying on top. Desdemona picked the beads up. She
began to slip them one by one through her fingers, exactly
as her father had done, and her grandfather, and her greatgrandfather,
performing a family legacy of precise,
codified, thorough worrying. As the beads clicked together,
Desdemona gave herself up to them. What was the matter
with God? Why had He taken her parents and left her to
worry about her brother? What was she supposed to do
with him? Smoking, drinking, and now worse! And where
does he get the money for all his foolishness? From my
cocoons, thats how! Each bead slipping through her
fingers was another resentment recorded and released.
Desdemona, with her sad eyes, her face of a girl forced to
grow up too fast, worried with her beads like all the
Stephanides men before and after her (right down to me, if I
count).
She went to the window and put her head out, heard the
wind rustling in the pine trees and the white birch. She kept
counting her worry beads and, little by little, they did their
job. She felt better. She decided to go on with her life. Lefty
wouldnt come back tonight. Who cared? Who needed him
anyway? It would be easier for her if he never came back.
But she owed it to her mother to see that he didnt catch
some shameful disease or, worse, run off with a Turkish
girl. The beads continued to drop, one by one, through
Desdemonas hands. But she was no longer counting her
pains. Instead, the beads now summoned to her mind
images in a magazine hidden in their fathers old desk.
One bead was a hairstyle. The next bead was a silk slip.
The next was a black brassiere. My grandmother had
begun to matchmake.
Lefty, meanwhile, carrying a sack of cocoons, was on his
way down the mountain. When he reached the city, he
came down Kapali Carsi Caddesi, turned at Borsa Sokak,
and soon was passing through the arch into the courtyard of
the Koza Han. Inside, around the aquamarine fountain,
hundreds of stiff, waist-high sacks foamed over with
silkworm cocoons. Men crowded everywhere, either selling
or buying. They had been shouting since the opening bell at
ten that morning and their voices were hoarse. Good
price! Good quality! Lefty squeezed through the narrow
paths between the cocoons, holding his own sack. He had
never had any interest in the family livelihood. He couldnt
judge silkworm cocoons by feeling or sniffing them as his
sister could. The only reason he brought the cocoons to
market was that women were not allowed. The jostling, the
bumping of porters and sidestepping of sacks made him
tense. He thought how nice it would be if everyone would
just stop moving a moment, if they would stand still to
admire the luminosity of the cocoons in the evening light;
but of course no one ever did. They went on yelling and
thrusting cocoons in one anothers faces and lying and
haggling. Leftys father had loved market season at the
Koza Han, but the mercantile impulse hadnt been passed
down to his son.
Near the covered portico Lefty saw a merchant he knew.
He presented his sack. The merchant reached deep into it
and brought out a cocoon. He dipped it into a bowl of water
and then examined it. Then he dipped it into a cup of wine.
I need to make organzine from these. Theyre not strong
enough.
Lefty didnt believe this. Desdemonas silk was always the
best. He knew that he was supposed to shout, to act
offended, to pretend to take his business elsewhere. But he
had gotten such a late start; the closing bell was about to
sound. His father had always told him not to bring cocoons
late in the day because then you had to sell them at a
discount. Leftys skin prickled under his new suit. He
wanted the transaction to be over. He was filled with
embarrassment: embarrassment for the human race, its
preoccupation with money, its love of swindle. Without
protest he accepted the mans price. As soon as the deal
was completed he hurried out of the Koza Han to attend to
his real business in town.
It wasnt what Desdemona thought. Watch closely: Lefty,
setting his derby at a rakish angle, walks down the sloping
streets of Bursa. When he passes a coffee kiosk, however,
he doesnt go in. The proprietor hails him, but Lefty only
waves. In the next street he passes a window behind whose
waves. In the next street he passes a window behind whose
shutters female voices call out, but he pays no attention,
following the meandering streets past fruit sellers and
restaurants until he reaches another street where he enters
a church. More precisely: a former mosque, with minaret
torn down and Koranic inscriptions plastered over to
provide a fresh canvas for the Christian saints that are,
even now, being painted on the interior. Lefty hands a coin
to the old lady selling candles, lights one, stands it upright in
sand. He takes a seat in a back pew. And in the same way
my mother will later pray for guidance over my conception,
Lefty Stephanides, my great-uncle (among other things)
gazes up at the unfinished Christ Pantocrator on the ceiling.
His prayer begins with words he learned as a child,Kyrie
eleison, Kyrie eleison, I am not worthy to come before Thy
throne , but soon it veers off, becoming personal withI dont
know why I feel this way, its not natural . . . and then turning
a little accusatory, prayingYou made me this way, I didnt
ask to think things like . . . but getting abject finally
withGive me strength, Christos, dont let me be this way, if
she even knew . . . eyes squeezed shut, hands bending the
derbys brim, the words drifting up with the incense toward
a Christ-in-progress.
He prayed for five minutes. Then came out, replaced his hat
on his head, and rattled the change in his pockets. He
climbed back up the sloping streets and, this time (his heart
unburdened), stopped at all the places hed resisted on his
way down. He stepped into a kiosk for coffee and a smoke.
He went to a café for a glass of ouzo. The backgammon
players shouted, Hey, Valentino, how about a game? He
let himself get cajoled into playing, just one, then lost and
had to go double or nothing. (The calculations Desdemona
found in Leftys pants pockets were gambling debts.) The
night wore on. The ouzo kept flowing. The musicians
arrived and the rebetika began. They played songs about
lust, death, prison, and life on the street. At the hash den
on the seashore, where Id go every day, Lefty sang along,
Every morning, bright and early, to chase the blues away; I
ran into two harem girls sitting on the sand; Quite stoned
the poor things were, and they were really looking grand.
Meanwhile, the hookah was being filled. By midnight, Lefty
came floating back onto the streets.
An alley descends, turns, dead-ends. A door opens. A face
smiles, beckoning. The next thing Lefty knows, hes sharing
a sofa with three Greek soldiers, looking across at seven
plump, perfumed women sharing two sofas opposite. (A
phonograph plays the hit song thats playing everywhere:
Evry morning, evry evening . . .) And now his recent
prayer is forgotten completely because as the madam
says, Anyone you like, sweetheart, Leftys eyes pass over
the blond, blue-eyed Circassian, and the Armenian girl
suggestively eating a peach, and the Mongolian with the
bangs; his eyes keep scanning to fix on a quiet girl at the
end of the far couch, a sad-eyed girl with perfect skin and
black hair in braids. (Theres a scabbard for every
dagger, the madam says in Turkish as the whores laugh.)
Unconscious of the workings of his attraction, Lefty stands
up, smooths his jacket, holds out his hand toward his
choice . . . and only as she leads him up the stairs does a
voice in his head point out how this girl comes up to exactly
where . . . and isnt her profile just like . . . but now theyve
reached the room with its unclean sheets, its blood-colored
oil lamp, its smell of rose water and dirty feet. In the
intoxication of his young senses Lefty doesnt pay attention
to the growing similarities the girls disrobing reveals. His
eyes take in the large breasts, the slim waist, the hair
cascading down to the defenseless coccyx; but Lefty
doesnt make connections. The girl fills a hookah for him.
Soon he drifts off, no longer hearing the voice in his head.
In the soft hashish dream of the ensuing hours, he loses
sense of who he is and who hes with. The limbs of the
prostitute become those of another woman. A few times he
calls out a name, but by then he is too stoned to notice.
Only later, showing him out, does the girl bring him back to
reality. By the way, Im Irini. We dont have a Desdemona
here.
The next morning he awoke at the Cocoon Inn, awash in
recriminations. He left the city and climbed back up the
mountain to Bithynios. His pockets (empty) made no sound.
Hung over and feverish, Lefty told himself that his sister was
right: it was time for him to get married. He would marry
Lucille, or Victoria. He would have children and stop going
down to Bursa and little by little hed change; hed get older;
everything he felt now would fade into memory and then into
nothing. He nodded his head; he fixed his hat.
Back in Bithynios, Desdemona was giving those two
beginners finishing lessons. While Lefty was still sleeping it
off at the Cocoon Inn, she invited Lucille Kafkalis and
Victoria Pappas over to the house. The girls were even
younger than Desdemona, still living at home with their
parents. They looked up to Desdemona as the mistress of
her own home. Envious of her beauty, they gazed
admiringly at her; flattered by her attentions, they confided
in her; and when she began to give them advice on their
looks, they listened. She told Lucille to wash more regularly
and suggested she use vinegar under her arms as an
antiperspirant. She sent Victoria to a Turkish woman who
specialized in removing unwanted hair. Over the next week,
Desdemona taught the girls everything shed learned from
the only beauty magazine shed ever seen, a tattered
catalogue calledLingerie Parisienne. The catalogue had
belonged to her father. It contained thirty-two pages of
photographs showing models wearing brassieres, corsets,
garter belts, and stockings. At night, when everyone was
sleeping, her father used to take it out of the bottom drawer
of his desk. Now Desdemona studied the catalogue in
secret, memorizing the pictures so that she could re-create
them later.
She told Lucille and Victoria to stop by every afternoon.
They walked into the house, swaying their hips as
instructed, and passed through the grape arbor where Lefty
liked to read. They wore a different dress each time. They
also changed their hairstyles, walks, jewelry, and
mannerisms. Under Desdemonas direction, the two drab
girls multiplied themselves into a small city of women, each
with a signature laugh, a personal gemstone, a favorite
song she hummed. After two weeks, Desdemona went out
to the grape arbor one afternoon and asked her brother,
What are you doing here? Why arent you down in Bursa? I
thought youd have found a nice Turkish girl to marry by
now. Or do they all have mustaches like Victorias?
Funny you should mention that, Lefty said. Have you
noticed? Vicky doesnt have a mustache anymore. And do
you know what else?getting up now, smilingeven
Lucilles starting to smell okay. Every time she comes over,
I smell flowers. (He was lying, of course. Neither girl looked
or smelled more appealing to him than before. His
enthusiasm was only his way of giving in to the inevitable:
an arranged marriage, domesticity, childrenthe complete
disaster.) He came up close to Desdemona. You were
right, he said. The most beautiful girls in the world are
right here in this village.
She looked shyly back up into his eyes. You think so?
Sometimes you dont even notice whats right under your
nose.
They stood gazing at each other, as Desdemonas
stomach began to feel funny again. And to explain the
stomach began to feel funny again. And to explain the
sensation I have to tell you another story. In his presidential
address at the annual convention of the Society for the
Scientific Study of Sexuality in 1968 (held that year in
Mazatlán among lots of suggestive piñatas), Dr. Luce
introduced the concept of periphescence. The word itself
means nothing; Luce made it up to avoid any etymological
associations. The state of periphescence, however, is well
known. It denotes the first fever of human pair bonding. It
causes giddiness, elation, a tickling on the chest wall, the
urge to climb a balcony on the rope of the beloveds hair.
Periphescence denotes the initial drugged and happy
bedtime where you sniff your lover like a scented poppy for
hours running. (It lasts, Luce explained, up to two years
tops.) The ancients would have explained what
Desdemona was feeling as the workings of Eros. Now
expert opinion would put it down to brain chemistry and
evolution. Still, I have to insist: to Desdemona
periphescence felt like a lake of warmth flooding up from
her abdomen and across her chest. It spread like the 180-
proof, fiery flood of a mint-green Finnish liqueur. With the
pumping of two efficient glands in her neck, it heated her
face. And then the warmth got other ideas and started
spreading into places a girl like Desdemona didnt allow it
to go, and she broke off the stare and turned away. She
walked to the window, leaving the periphescence behind,
and the breeze from the valley cooled her down. I will
speak to the girls parents, she said, trying to sound like
her mother. Then you must go pay court.
The next night, the moon, like Turkeys future flag, was a
crescent. Down in Bursa the Greek troops scrounged for
food, caroused, and shot up another mosque. In Angora,
Mustafa Kemal let it be printed in the newspaper that he
would be holding a tea at Chankaya while in actuality hed
left for his headquarters in the field. With his men, he drank
the last raki hed take until the battle was over. Under cover
of night, Turkish troops moved not north toward Eskissehir,
as everyone expected, but to the heavily fortified city of
Afyon in the south. At Eskissehir, Turkish troops lit
campfires to exaggerate their strength. A small
diversionary force feinted northward toward Bursa. And,
amid these deployments, Lefty Stephanides, carrying two
corsages, stepped out the front door of his house and
began walking to the house where Victoria Pappas lived.
It was an event on the level of a birth or a death. Each of the
nearly hundred citizens of Bithynios had heard about Leftys
upcoming visits, and the old widows, the married women,
and the young mothers, as well as the old men, were
waiting to see which girl he would choose. Because of the
small population, the old courting rituals had nearly ceased.
This lack of romantic possibility had created a vicious
cycle. No one to love: no love. No love: no babies. No
babies: no one to love.
Victoria Pappas stood half in and half out of the light, the
shading across her body exactly that of the photograph on
page 8 ofLingerie Parisienne. Desdemona (costume lady,
stage manager, and director all in one) had pinned up
Victorias hair, letting ringlets fall over her forehead and
warning her to keep her biggish nose in shadow.
Perfumed, depilated, moist with emollients, wearing kohl
around her eyes, Victoria let Lefty look upon her. She felt
the heat of his gaze, heard his heavy breathing, heard him
try to speak twicesmall squeaks from a dry throatand
then she heard his feet coming toward her, and she turned,
making the face Desdemona had taught her; but she was
so distracted by the effort to pout her lips like the French
lingerie model that she didnt realize the footsteps werent
approaching but retreating; and she turned to see that Lefty
Stephanides, the only eligible bachelor in town, had taken
off . . .
. . . Meanwhile, back at home, Desdemona opened her
hope chest. She reached in and pulled out her own corset.
Her mother had given it to her years ago in expectation of
her wedding night, saying, I hope you fill this out someday.
Now, before the bedroom mirror, Desdemona held the
strange, complicated garment against herself. Down went
her knee socks, her gray underwear. Off came her highwaisted
skirt, her high-collared tunic. She shook off her
kerchief and unbraided her hair so that it fell over her bare
shoulders. The corset was made of white silk. As she put it
on, Desdemona felt as though she were spinning her own
cocoon, awaiting metamorphosis.
But when she looked in the mirror again, she caught
herself. It was no use. She would never get married. Lefty
would come back tonight having chosen a bride, and then
he would bring her home to live with them. Desdemona
would stay where she was, clicking her beads and growing
even older than she already felt. A dog howled. Someone in
the village kicked over a bundle of sticks and cursed. And
my grandmother wept silently because she was going to
spend the rest of her days counting worries that never went
away . . .
. . . While in the meantime Lucille Kafkalis was standing
exactly as shed been told, half in and half out of the light,
wearing a white hat sashed with glass cherries, a mantilla
over bare shoulders, a bright green, décolleté dress, and
high heels, in which she didnt move for fear of falling. Her
fat mother waddled in, grinning and shouting, Here he
comes! Even one minute he couldnt stay with Victoria! . . .
. . . Already he could smell the vinegar. Lefty had just
entered the low doorway of the Kafkalis house. Lucilles
father welcomed him, then said, Well leave you two alone.
To get acquainted. The parents left. It was dim in the room.
Lefty turned . . . and dropped another corsage.
What Desdemona hadnt anticipated: her brother, too, had
pored over the pages ofLingerie Parisienne. In fact, hed
done it from the time he turned twelve to the time he turned
fourteen, when he discovered the real loot: ten postcardsized
photographs, hidden in an old suitcase, showing
Sermin, Girl of the Pleasure Dome, in which a bored,
pear-shaped twenty-five-year-old assumed a variety of
positions on the tasseled pillows of a staged seraglio.
Finding her in the toiletries pocket was like rubbing a
genies lamp. Up she swirled in a plume of shining dust:
wearing nothing but a pair of Arabian Nights slippers and a
sash around her waist (flash); lying languidly on a tiger skin,
fondling a scimitar (flash); and bathing, lattice-lit, at a
marble hammam. Those ten sepia-toned photographs
were what had started Leftys fascination with the city. But
he had never entirely forgotten his first loves inLingerie
Parisienne. He could summon them in his imagination at
will. When he had seen Victoria Pappas looking like page
8, what had struck Lefty most acutely was the distance
between her and his boyhood ideal. He tried to imagine
himself married to Victoria, living with her, but every image
that came to mind had a gaping emptiness at the center,
the lack of the person he loved more and knew better than
any other. And so he had fled from Victoria Pappas to
come down the street and find Lucille Kafkalis, just as
disappointingly, failing to live up to page 22 . . .
. . . And now it happens. Desdemona, weeping, takes off
the corset, folds it back up, and returns it to the hope chest.
She throws herself on the bed, Leftys bed, to continue
crying. The pillow smells of his lime pomade and she
breathes it in, sobbing . . .
. . . until, drugged by weepings opiates, she falls asleep.
She dreams the dream shes been having lately. In the
dream everythings the way it used to be. She and Lefty are
children again (except they have adult bodies). Theyre
lying in the same bed (except now its their parents bed).
They shift their limbs in sleep (and it feels extremely nice,
how they shift, and the bed is wet) . . . at which point
Desdemona wakes up, as usual. Her face is hot. Her
stomach feels funny, way deep down, and she can almost
name the feeling now . . .
. . . As I sit here in my Aeron chair, thinking E. O. Wilson
thoughts. Was it love or reproduction? Chance or destiny?
Crime or nature at work? Maybe the gene contained an
override, ensuring its expression, which would explain
Desdemonas tears and Leftys taste in prostitutes; not
fondness, not emotional sympathy; only the need for this
new thing to enter the world and hence the hearts rigged
game. But I cant explain it, any more than Desdemona or
Lefty could have, any more than each one of us, falling in
love, can separate the hormonal from what feels divine, and
maybe I cling to the God business out of some altruism
hard-wired to preserve the species; I cant say. I try to go
back in my mind to a time before genetics, before everyone
was in the habit of saying about everything, Its in the
genes. A time before our present freedom, and so much
freer! Desdemona had no idea what was happening. She
didnt envision her insides as a vast computer code, all 1s
and 0s, an infinity of sequences, any one of which might
contain a bug. Now we know we carry this map of ourselves
around. Even as we stand on the street corner, it dictates
our destiny. It brings onto our faces the same wrinkles and
age spots our parents had. It makes us sniff in
idiosyncratic, recognizable family ways. Genes embedded
so deep they control our eye muscles, so that two sisters
have that same way of blinking, and boy twins dribble in
unison. I feel myself sometimes, in anxious moods, playing
with the cartilage of my nose exactly as my brother does.
Our throats and voice boxes, formed from the same
instructions, press air out in similar tones and decibels.
And this can be extrapolated backward in time, so that
when I speak, Desdemona speaks, too. Shes writing these
words now. Desdemona, who had no idea of the army
inside her, carrying out its million orders, or of the one
soldier who disobeyed, going AWOL . . .
. . . Running like Lefty away from Lucille Kafkalis and back
to his sister. She heard his feet hurrying as she was
refastening her skirt. She wiped her eyes with her kerchief
and put a smile on as he came through the door.
So, which one did you choose?
Lefty said nothing, inspecting his sister. He hadnt shared a
bedroom with her all his life not to be able to tell when shed
been crying. Her hair was loose, covering most of her face,
but the eyes that looked up at him were brimming with
feeling. Neither one, he said.
At that Desdemona felt tremendous happiness. But she
At that Desdemona felt tremendous happiness. But she
said, Whats the matter with you? You have to choose.
Those girls look like a couple of whores.
Lefty!
Its true.
You dont want to marry them?
No.
You have to. She held out her fist. If I win, you marry
Lucille.
Lefty, who could never resist a bet, made a fist himself.
One, two, three . . . shoot!
Ax breaks rock, Lefty said. I win.
Again, said Desdemona. This time, if I win, you marry
Vicky. One, two, three . . .
Snake swallows ax. I win again! So long to Vicky.
Then who will you marry?
I dont knowtaking her hands and looking down at her.
How about you?
Too bad Im your sister.
Youre not only my sister. Youre my third cousin, too. Third
cousins can marry.
Youre crazy, Lefty.
This way will be easier. We wont have to rearrange the
house.
Joking but not joking, Desdemona and Lefty embraced. At
first they just hugged in the standard way, but after ten
seconds the hug began to change; certain positions of the
hands and strokings of the fingers werent the usual
displays of sibling affection, and these things constituted a
language of their own, announced a whole new message in
the silent room. Lefty began waltzing Desdemona around,
European-style; he waltzed her outside, across the yard,
over to the cocoonery, and back under the grape arbor, and
she laughed and covered her mouth with her hand. Youre
a good dancer, cousin, she said, and her heart jumped
again, making her think she might die right then and there
in Leftys arms, but of course she didnt; they danced on.
And lets not forget where they were dancing, in Bithynios,
that mountain village where cousins sometimes married
third cousins and everyone was somehow related; so that
as they danced, they started holding each other more
tightly, stopped joking, and then just danced together, as a
man and a woman, in lonely and pressing circumstances,
might sometimes do.
And in the middle of this, before anything had been said
outright or any decisions made (before fire would make
those decisions for them), right then, mid-waltz, they heard
explosions in the distance, and looked down to see, in
firelight, the Greek Army in full retreat.
AN IMMODEST PROPOSAL
Descended from Asia Minor Greeks, born in America, I
live in Europe now. Specifically, in the Schöneberg district
of Berlin. The Foreign Service is split into two parts, the
diplomatic corps and the cultural staff. The ambassador
and his aides conduct foreign policy from the newly
opened, extensively barricaded embassy on Neustädtische
Kirchstrasse. Our department (in charge of readings,
lectures, and concerts) operates out of the colorful concrete
box of Amerika Haus.
This morning I took the train to work as usual. The U-Bahn
carried me gently west from Kleistpark to Berliner Strasse
and then, after a switch, northward toward Zoologischer
Garten. Stations of the former West Berlin passed one after
another. Most were last remodeled in the seventies and
have the colors of suburban kitchens from my childhood:
avocado, cinnamon, sunflower yellow. At Spichernstrasse
the train halted to conduct an exchange of bodies. Out on
the platform a street musician played a teary Slavic melody
on an accordion. Wing tips gleaming, my hair still damp, I
was flipping through theFrankfurter Allgemeine when she
rolled her unthinkable bicycle in.
You used to be able to tell a persons nationality by the
face. Immigration ended that. Next you discerned
nationality via the footwear. Globalization ended that. Those
Finnish seal puppies, those German floundersyou dont
see them much anymore. Only Nikes, on Basque, on Dutch,
on Siberian feet.
The bicyclist was Asian, at least genetically. Her black hair
was cut in a shag. She was wearing a short olive green
windbreaker, flared black ski pants, and a pair of maroon
Campers resembling bowling shoes. The basket of her
bike contained a camera bag.
I had a hunch she was American. It was the retro bike.
Chrome and turquoise, it had fenders as wide as a
Chevrolets, tires as thick as a wheelbarrows, and
appeared to weigh at least a hundred pounds. An
expatriates whim, that bike. I was about to use it as a
pretext for starting a conversation when the train stopped
again. The bicyclist looked up. Her hair fell away from her
beautiful, hooded face and, for a moment, our eyes met.
The placidity of her countenance along with the smoothness
of her skin made her face appear like a mask, with living,
human eyes behind it. These eyes now darted away from
mine as she grasped the handlebars of her bike and
pushed her great two-wheeler off the train and toward the
elevators. The U-Bahn resumed, but I was no longer
reading. I sat in my seat, in a state of voluptuous agitation,
of agitated voluptuousness, until my stop. Then I staggered
out.
Unbuttoning my suit jacket, I took a cigar from the inner
pocket of my coat. From a still smaller pocket I took out my
cigar cutter and matches. Though it wasnt after dinner, I lit
the cigara Davidoff Grand Cru No. 3and stood
smoking, trying to calm myself. The cigars, the doublebreasted
suitstheyre a little too much. Im well aware of
that. But I need them. They make me feel better. After what
Ive been through, some overcompensation is to be
expected. In my bespoke suit, my checked shirt, I smoked
my medium-fat cigar until the fire in my blood subsided.
Something you should understand: Im not androgynous in
the least. 5-alpha-reductase deficiency syndrome allows for
normal biosynthesis and peripheral action of testosterone,
in utero, neonatally, and at puberty. In other words, I operate
in society as a man. I use the mens room. Never the
urinals, always the stalls. In the mens locker room at my
gym I even shower, albeit discreetly. I possess all the
secondary sex characteristics of a normal man except one:
my inability to synthesize dihydrotestosterone has made
me immune to baldness. Ive lived more than half my life as
a male, and by now everything comes naturally. When
Calliope surfaces, she does so like a childhood speech
impediment. Suddenly there she is again, doing a hair flip,
or checking her nails. Its a little like being possessed.
Callie rises up inside me, wearing my skin like a loose
robe. She sticks her little hands into the baggy sleeves of
my arms. She inserts her chimps feet through the trousers
of my legs. On the sidewalk Ill feel her girlish walk take
over, and the movement brings back a kind of emotion, a
desolate and gossipy sympathy for the girls I see coming
home from school. This continues for a few more steps.
Calliopes hair tickles the back of my throat. I feel her press
tentatively on my chestthat old nervous habit of hersto
see if anything is happening there. The sick fluid of
adolescent despair that runs through her veins overflows
again into mine. But then, just as suddenly, she is leaving,
shrinking and melting away inside me, and when I turn to
see my reflection in a window theres this: a forty-one-yearold
man with longish, wavy hair, a thin mustache, and a
goatee. A kind of modern Musketeer.
But thats enough about me for now. I have to pick up where
explosions interrupted me yesterday. After all, neither Cal
nor Calliope could have come into existence without what
happened next.
I told you! Desdemona cried at the top of her lungs. I told
you all this good luck would be bad! This is how they
liberate us? Only the Greeks could be so stupid!
By the morning after the waltz, you see, Desdemonas
forebodings had been borne out. TheMegale Idea had
come to an end. The Turks had captured Afyon. The Greek
Army, beaten, was fleeing toward the sea. In retreat, it was
setting fire to everything in its path. Desdemona and Lefty,
in dawns light, stood on the mountainside and surveyed the
devastation. Black smoke rose for miles across the valley.
Every village, every field, every tree was aflame.
We cant stay here, Lefty said. The Turks will want
revenge.
Since when did they need a reason?
Well go to America. We can live with Sourmelina.
It wont be nice in America, Desdemona insisted, shaking
her head. You shouldnt believe Linas letters. She
exaggerates.
As long as were together well be okay.
He looked at her, in the way of the night before, and
Desdemona blushed. He tried to put his arm around her,
but she stopped him. Look.
Down below, the smoke had thinned momentarily. They
could see the roads now, clogged with refugees: a river of
carts, wagons, water buffalo, mules, and people hurrying
out of the city.
Where can we get a boat? In Constantinople?
Well go to Smyrna, said Lefty. Everyone says Smyrnas
the safest way. Desdemona was quiet for a moment, trying
to fathom this new reality. Voices rumbled in the other
houses as people cursed the Greeks, the Turks, and
started packing. Suddenly, with resolve: Ill bring my
silkworm box. And some eggs. So we can make money.
Lefty took hold of her elbow and shook her arm playfully.
They dont farm silk in America.
They wear clothes, dont they? Or do they go around
naked? If they wear clothes, they need silk. And they can
buy it from me.
Okay, whatever you want. Just hurry.
Eleutherios and Desdemona Stephanides left Bithynios on
August 31, 1922. They left on foot, carrying two suitcases
packed with clothes, toiletries, Desdemonas dream book
and worry beads, and two of Leftys texts of Ancient Greek.
Under her arm Desdemona also carried her silkworm box
containing a few hundred silkworm eggs wrapped in a
white cloth. The scraps of paper in Leftys pockets now
recorded not gambling debts but forwarding addresses in
Athens or Astoria. Over a single week, the hundred or so
remaining citizens of Bithynios packed their belongings
and set out for mainland Greece, most en route to America.
(A diaspora which should have prevented my existence, but
didnt.)
Before leaving, Desdemona walked out into the yard and
crossed herself in the Orthodox fashion, leading with the
thumb. She said her goodbyes: to the powdery, rotting
smell of the cocoonery and to the mulberry trees lined along
the wall, to the steps shed never have to climb again and to
this feeling of living above the world, too. She went inside
the cocoonery to look at her silkworms for the last time.
They had all stopped spinning. She reached up, plucked a
cocoon from a mulberry twig, and put it in her tunic pocket.
On September 6, 1922, General Hajienestis, Commander
in Chief of the Greek forces in Asia Minor, awoke with the
impression that his legs were made of glass. Afraid to get
out of bed, he sent the barber away, forgoing his morning
shave. In the afternoon he declined to go ashore to enjoy
his usual lemon ice on the Smyrna waterfront. Instead he lay
on his back, still and alert, ordering his aideswho came
and went with dispatches from the frontnot to slam the
door or stomp their feet. This was one of the commanders
more lucid, productive days. When the Turkish Army had
attacked Afyon two weeks earlier, Hajienestis had believed
that he was dead and that the ripples of light reflecting on
his cabin walls were the pyrotechnics of heaven.
At two oclock, his second-in-command tiptoed into the
generals cabin to speak in a whisper: Sir, I am awaiting
your orders for a counterattack, sir.
Do you hear how they squeak?
Sir?
My legs. My thin, vitreous legs.
Sir, I am aware the general is having trouble with his legs,
but I submit, with all due respect, sira little louder than a
whisper nowthis is not a time to concentrate on such
matters.
You think this is some kind of joke, dont you, lieutenant?
But if your legs were made of glass, youd understand. I
cant go into shore. Thats exactly what Kemal is banking
on! To have me stand up and shatter my legs to pieces.
These are the latest reports, General. His second-incommand
held a sheet of paper over Hajienestis face.
The Turkish cavalry has been sighted one hundred miles
east of Smyrna, he read. The refugee population is now
180,000. Thats an increase of 30,000 people since
yesterday.
I didnt know death would be like this, lieutenant. I feel
close to you. Im gone. Ive taken that trip to Hades, yet I can
still see you. Listen to me. Death is not the end. This is what
Ive discovered. We remain, we persist. The dead see that
Im one of them. Theyre all around me. You cant see them,
but theyre here. Mothers with children, old women
everyones here. Tell the cook to bring me my lunch.
Outside, the famous harbor was full of ships. Merchant
vessels were tied up to a long quay alongside barges and
wooden caiques. Farther out, the Allied warships lay at
anchor. The sight of them, for the Greek and Armenian
citizens of Smyrna (and the thousands and thousands of
Greek refugees), was reassuring, and whenever a rumor
circulatedyesterday an Armenian newspaper had
claimed that the Allies, eager to make amends for their
support of the Greek invasion, were planning to hand the
city over to the victorious Turksthe citizens looked out at
the French destroyers and British battleships, still on hand
to protect European commercial interests in Smyrna, and
their fears were calmed.
Dr. Nishan Philobosian had set off for the harbor that
afternoon seeking just such reassurance. He kissed his
wife, Toukhie, and his daughters, Rose and Anita,
goodbye; he slapped his sons, Karekin and Stepan, on the
back, pointing at the chessboard and saying with mock
gravity, Dont move those pieces. He locked the front door
behind him, testing it with his shoulder, and started down
Suyane Street, past the closed shops and shuttered
windows of the Armenian Quarter. He stopped outside
Berberians bakery, wondering whether Charles Berberian
had taken his family out of the city or whether they were
hiding upstairs like the Philobosians. For five days now
theyd been under self-imprisonment, Dr. Philobosian and
his sons playing endless games of chess, Rose and Anita
looking at a copy ofPhotoplay hed picked up for them on a
recent visit to the American suburb of Paradise, Toukhie
cooking day and night because eating was the only thing
that relieved the anxiety. The bakery door showed only a
sign that said open soon and a portraitwhich made
Philobosian winceof Kemal, the Turkish leader resolute
in astrakhan cap and fur collar, his blue eyes piercing
beneath the crossed sabers of his eyebrows. Dr.
Philobosian turned away from the face and moved on,
rehearsing all the arguments against putting up Kemals
portrait like that. For one thingas hed been telling his
wife all weekthe European powers would never let the
Turks enter the city. Second, if they did, the presence of the
warships in the harbor would restrain the Turks from looting.
Even during the massacres of 1915 the Armenians of
Smyrna had been safe. And finallyfor his own family, at
leastthere was the letter he was on his way to retrieve
from his office. So reasoning, he continued down the hill,
reaching the European Quarter. Here the houses grew
more prosperous. On either side of the street rose twostory
villas with flowering balconies and high, armored
walls. Dr. Philobosian had never been invited into these
villas socially, but he often made house calls to attend the
Levantine girls living inside; girls of eighteen or nineteen
who awaited him in the water palaces of the courtyards,
lying languidly on daybeds amid a profusion of fruit trees;
girls whose desperate need to find European husbands
gave them a scandalous amount of freedom, cause itself
for Smyrnas reputation as being exceptionally kind to
military officers, and responsible for the fever blushes the
girls betrayed on the mornings of Dr. Philobosians visits,
as well as for the nature of their complaints, which ran from
the ankle twisted on the dance floor to more intimate
scrapes higher up. All of which the girls showed no
modesty about, throwing open silk peignoirs to say, Its all
red, Doctor. Do something. I have to be at theCasin by
eleven. These girls all gone now, taken out of the city by
their parents after the first fighting weeks ago, off in Paris
and Londonwhere the Season was beginningthe
houses quiet as Dr. Philobosian passed by, the crisis
receding from his mind at the thought of all those loosened
robes. But then he turned the corner, reaching the quay,
and the emergency came back to him.
From one end of the harbor to the other, Greek soldiers,
exhausted, cadaverous, unclean, limped toward the
embarkation point at Chesme, southwest of the city,
awaiting evacuation. Their tattered uniforms were black
with soot from the villages theyd burned in retreat. Only a
week before, the waterfronts elegant open-air cafés had
been filled with naval officers and diplomats; now the quay
was a holding pen. The first refugees had come with
carpets and armchairs, radios, Victrolas, lampstands,
dressers, spreading them out before the harbor, under the
open sky. The more recent arrivals turned up with only a
sack or a suitcase. Amid this confusion, porters darted
everywhere, loading boats with tobacco, figs, frankincense,
silk, and mohair. The warehouses were being emptied
before the Turks arrived.
Dr. Philobosian spotted a refugee picking through chicken
bones and potato peels in a heap of garbage. It was a
young man in a well-tailored but dirty suit. Even from a
distance, Dr. Philobosians medical eye noticed the cut on
the young mans hand and the pallor of malnutrition. But
when the refugee looked up, the doctor saw only a blank for
a face; he was indistinguishable from any of the refugees
swarming the quay. Nevertheless, staring into this
blankness, the doctor called, Are you sick?
I havent eaten for three days, said the young man.
The doctor sighed. Come with me.
He led the refugee down back streets to his office. He
ushered him inside and brought gauze, antiseptic, and tape
from a medical cabinet, and examined the hand.
The wound was on the mans thumb, where the nail was
missing.
How did this happen?
First the Greeks invaded, the refugee said. Then the
Turks invaded back. My hand got in the way.
Dr. Philobosian said nothing as he cleaned the wound. Ill
have to pay you with a check, Doctor, the refugee said. I
hope you dont mind. I dont have a lot of money on me at
the moment.
Dr. Philobosian reached into his pocket. I have a little. Go
on. Take it.
The refugee hesitated only a moment. Thank you, Doctor.
Ill repay you as soon as I get to the United States. Please
give me your address.
Be careful what you drink, Dr. Philobosian ignored the
request. Boil water, if you can. God willing, some ships
may come soon.
The refugee nodded. Youre Armenian, Doctor?
Yes.
And youre not leaving?
Smyrna is my home.
Good luck, then. And God bless you.
You too. And with that Dr. Philobosian led him out. He
watched the refugee walk off. Its hopeless, he thought. Hell
be dead in a week. If not typhus, something else. But it
wasnt his concern. Reaching inside a typewriter, he
extracted a thick wad of money from beneath the ribbon.
He rummaged through drawers until he found, inside his
medical diploma, a faded typewritten letter: This letter is to
certify that Nishan Philobosian, M.D., did, on April 3, 1919,
treat Mustafa Kemal Pasha for diverticulitis. Dr.
Philobosian is respectfully recommended by Kemal Pasha
to the esteem, confidence, and protection of all persons to
whom he may present this letter. The bearer of this letter
now folded it and tucked it into his pocket.
By then the refugee was buying bread at a bakery on the
quay. Where now, as he turns away, hiding the warm loaf
under his grimy suit, the sunlight off the water brightens his
face and his identity fills itself in: the aquiline nose, the
hawk-like expression, the softness appearing in the brown
eyes.
For the first time since reaching Smyrna, Lefty Stephanides
was smiling. On his previous forays hed brought back only
a single rotten peach and six olives, which hed
encouraged Desdemona to swallow, pits and all, to fill
herself up. Now, carrying the sesame-seededchureki , he
squeezed back into the crowd. He skirted the edges of
open-air living rooms (where families sat listening to silent
radios) and stepped over bodies he hoped were sleeping.
He was feeling encouraged by another development, too.
Just that morning word had spread that Greece was
sending a fleet of ships to evacuate refugees. Lefty looked
out at the Aegean. Having lived on a mountain for twenty
years, hed never seen the sea before. Somewhere over
the water was America and their cousin Sourmelina. He
smelled the sea air, the warm bread, the antiseptic from his
bandaged thumb, and then he saw herDesdemona,
sitting on the suitcase where hed left herand felt even
happier.
Lefty couldnt pinpoint the moment hed begun to have
thoughts about his sister. At first hed just been curious to
see what a real womans breasts looked like. It didnt
matter that they were his sisters. He tried toforget that they
were his sisters. Behind the hangingkelimi that separated
their beds, he saw Desdemonas silhouette as she
undressed. It was just a body; it could have been anyones,
or Lefty liked to pretend so. What are you doing over
there? Desdemona asked, undressing. Why are you so
quiet?
Im reading.
What are you reading?
The Bible.
Oh, sure. You never read the Bible.
Soon hed found himself picturing his sister after the lights
went out. Shed invaded his fantasies, but Lefty resisted.
He went down to the city instead, in search of naked
women he wasnt related to.
But since the night of their waltz, hed stopped resisting.
Because of the messages of Desdemonas fingers,
because their parents were dead and their village
destroyed, because no one in Smyrna knew who they were,
and because of the way Desdemona looked right now,
sitting on a suitcase.
And Desdemona? What did she feel? Fear foremost, and
worry, punctuated by unprecedented explosions of joy. She
had never rested her head in a mans lap before while
riding in an oxcart. Shed never slept like spoons, encircled
by a mans arms; shed never experienced a man getting
hard against her spine while trying to talk as though nothing
were happening. Only fifty more miles, Lefty had said one
night on the arduous journey to Smyrna. Maybe well be
lucky tomorrow and get a ride. And when we get to Smyrna,
well get a boat to Athenshis voice tight, funny-sounding,
a few tones higher than normaland from Athens well get
a boat to America. Sound good? Okay. I think thats good.
What am I doing? Desdemona thought. Hes my brother!
She looked at the other refugees on the quay, expecting to
see them shaking their fingers, saying, Shame on you!
But they only showed her lifeless faces, empty eyes.
Nobody knew. Nobody cared. Then she heard her brothers
excited voice, as he lowered the bread before her face.
Behold. Manna from heaven.
Desdemona glanced up at him. Her mouth filled with saliva
as Lefty broke thechureki in two. But her face remained
sad. I dont see any boats coming, she said.
Theyre coming. Dont worry. Eat. Lefty sat down on the
suitcase beside her. Their shoulders touched. Desdemona
moved away.
Whats the matter?
Nothing.
Every time I sit down you move away. He looked at
Desdemona, puzzled, but then his expression softened and
he put his arm around her. She stiffened.
Okay, have it your way. He stood up again.
Where are you going?
To find more food.
Dont go, Desdemona pleaded. Im sorry. I dont like
sitting here all alone.
But Lefty had stormed off. He left the quay and wandered
the city streets, muttering to himself. He was angry with
Desdemona for rebuffing him and he was angry at himself
for being angry at her, because he knew she was right. But
he didnt stay angry long. It wasnt in his nature. He was
tired, half-starved, he had a sore throat, a wounded hand,
but for all that Lefty was still twenty years old, on his first real
trip away from home, and alert to the newness of things.
When you got away from the quay you could almost forget
that there was a crisis on. Back here there were fancy
shops and high-toned bars, still operating. He came down
the Rue de France and found himself at the Sporting Club.
Despite the emergency, two foreign consuls were playing
tennis on the grass courts out back. In fading light they
moved back and forth, swatting the ball while a darkskinned
boy in a white jacket held a tray of gin and tonics
courtside. Lefty kept walking. He came to a square with a
fountain and washed his face. A breeze came up, bringing
the smell of jasmine all the way in from Bournabat. And
while Lefty stops to breathe it in, Id like to take this
opportunity to resuscitatefor purely elegiac reasons and
only for a paragraphthat city which disappeared, once
and for all, in 1922.
Smyrna endures today in a few rebetika songs and a
stanza fromThe Waste Land :
Mr. Eugenides, the Smyrna merchant
Unshaven, with a pocketful of currants
C.i.f. London: documents at sight,
Asked me in demotic French
To luncheon at the Cannon Street Hotel
To luncheon at the Cannon Street Hotel
Followed by a weekend at the Metropole.
Everything you need to know about Smyrna is contained in
that. The merchant is rich, and so was Smyrna. His
proposal was seductive, and so was Smyrna, the most
cosmopolitan city in the Near East. Among its reputed
founders were, first, the Amazons (which goes nicely with
my theme), and second, Tantalus himself. Homer was born
there, and Aristotle Onassis. In Smyrna, East and West,
opera andpolitakia , violin andzourna , piano anddaouli
blended as tastefully as did the rose petals and honey in
the local pastries.
Lefty started walking again and soon came to the
SmyrnaCasin . Potted palms flanked a grand entrance, but
the doors stood wide open. He stepped inside. No one
stopped him. There was no one around. He followed a red
carpet to the second floor and into the gaming room. The
craps table was unoccupied. Nobody was at the roulette
wheel. In the far corner, however, a group of men were
playing cards. They glanced up at Lefty but then returned to
their game, ignoring his dirty clothes. That was when he
realized that the gamblers werent regular club members;
they were refugees like him. Each had wandered through
the open door in hopes of winning money to buy passage
out of Smyrna. Lefty approached the table. A card player
asked, You in?
Im in.
He didnt understand the rules. Hed never played poker
before, only backgammon, and for the first half hour he lost
again and again. Eventually, though, Lefty began to
understand the difference between five-card draw and
seven-card stud, and gradually the balance of payments
around the table began to shift. Three of these, Lefty said,
showing three aces, and the men started to grumble. They
watched his dealing more closely, mistaking his clumsiness
for a cardsharps sleight of hand. Lefty began to enjoy
himself, and after winning a big pot cried, Ouzo all around!
But when nothing happened, he looked up and saw again
how truly deserted theCasin was, and the sight brought
home to him the high stakes they were playing for. Life.
They were playing for their lives, and now, as he examined
his fellow gamblers, and saw perspiration beading their
brows and smelled their sour breath, Lefty Stephanides,
showing far more restraint than he would four decades later
when he played the Detroit numbers, stood up and said,
Im folding.
They nearly killed him. Leftys pockets bulged with
winnings, and the men insisted he couldnt leave without
giving them a chance to win some of it back. He bent over
to scratch his leg, insisting, I can go out any time I want.
One of the men grabbed him by his soiled lapels, and Lefty
added, And I dont want to yet. He sat down, scratching
his other leg, and thereafter started losing again and again.
When all his money was gone, Lefty got up and said with
disgusted anger, Can I leave now? The men said sure,
leave, laughing as they dealt the next hand. Lefty walked
stiffly, dejectedly, out of theCasin . In the entrance, between
the potted palms, he bent down to collect the money hed
stashed in his ripe-smelling socks.
Back at the quay, he sought out Desdemona. Look what I
found, he said, flashing his money. Somebody must have
dropped it. Now we can get a ship.
Desdemona screamed and hugged him. She kissed him
right on the lips. Then she pulled back, blushing, and turned
to the water. Listen, she said, those British are playing
music again.
She was referring to the service band on theIron Duke.
Every night, as officers dined, the band began playing on
the ships deck. Strains of Vivaldi and Brahms floated out
over the water. Over brandy, Major Arthur Maxwell of His
Majestys Marines and his subordinates passed around
binoculars to observe the situation ashore.
Jolly crowded, what?
Looks like Victoria Station on Christmas Eve, sir.
Look at those poor wretches. Left to fend for themselves.
When word gets out about the Greek commissioners
leaving, its going to be pandemonium.
leaving, its going to be pandemonium.
Will we be evacuating refugees, sir?
Our orders are to protect British property and citizens.
But, surely, sir, if the Turks arrive and theres a
massacre . . .
Theres nothing we can do about it, Phillips. Ive spent
years in the Near East. The one lesson Ive learned is that
there is nothing you can do with these people. Nothing at
all! The Turks are the best of the lot. The Armenian I liken to
the Jew. Deficient moral and intellectual character. As for
the Greeks, well, look at them. Theyve burned down the
whole country and now they swarm in here crying for help.
Nice cigar, what?
Awfully good, sir.
Smyrna tobacco. Finest in the world. Brings a tear to my
eyes, Phillips, the thought of all that tobacco lying in those
warehouses out there.
Perhaps we could send a detail to save the tobacco, sir.
Do I detect a note of sarcasm, Phillips?
Faintly, sir, faintly.
Good Lord, Phillips, Im not heartless. I wish we could help
these people. But we cant. Its not our war.
Are you certain of that, sir?
What do you mean?
We might have supported the Greek forces. Seeing as we
sent them in.
They were dying to be sent in! Venizelos and his bunch. I
dont think you fathom the complexity of the situation. We
have interests here in Turkey. We must proceed with the
utmost care. We cannot let ourselves get caught up in these
Byzantine struggles.
I see, sir. More cognac, sir?
Yes, thank you.
Its a beautiful city, though, isnt it?
Quite. You are aware of what Strabo said of Smyrna, are
you not? He called Smyrna the finest city in Asia. That was
back in the time of Augustus. Its lasted that long. Take a
good look, Phillips. Take a good long look.
By September 7, 1922, every Greek in Smyrna, including
Lefty Stephanides, is wearing a fez in order to pass as a
Turk. The last Greek soldiers are being evacuated at
Chesme. The Turkish Army is only thirty miles awayand
no ships arrive from Athens to evacuate the refugees.
Lefty, newly moneyed and befezzed, makes his way
through the maroon-capped crowd at the quay. He crosses
tram tracks and heads uphill. He finds a steamship office.
Inside, a clerk is bending over passenger lists. Lefty takes
out his winnings and says, Two seats to Athens!
The head remains down. Deck or cabin?
Deck.
Fifteen hundred drachmas.
No, not cabin, Lefty says, deck will be fine.
That is deck.
Fifteen hundred? I dont have fifteen hundred. It was five
hundred yesterday.
That was yesterday.
On September 8, 1922, General Hajienestis, in his cabin,
sits up in bed, rubs first his right leg and then his left, raps
his knuckles against them, and stands up. He goes above
deck, walking with great dignity, much as he will later
proceed to his death in Athens when he is executed for
losing the war.
On the quay, the Greek civil governor, Aristedes
Sterghiades, boards a launch to take him out of the city.
The crowd hoots and jeers, shaking fists. General
Hajienestis takes the scene in calmly. The crowd obscures
the waterfront, his favorite café. All he can see is the
marquee of the movie theater at which, ten days earlier,
hed been to seeLe Tango de la Mort. Brieflyand
possibly this is another hallucinationhe smells the fresh
jasmine of Bournabat. He breathes this in. The launch
reaches the ship and Sterghiades, ashen-faced, climbs
aboard.
And then General Hajienestis gives his only military order of
the past few weeks: Up anchors. Reverse engines. Full
steam ahead.
On shore, Lefty and Desdemona watched the Greek fleet
leaving. The crowd surged toward the water, raised its four
hundred thousand hands, and shouted. And then it fell
silent. Not one mouth uttered a sound as the realization
came home that their own country had deserted them, that
Smyrna now had no government, that there was nothing
between them and the advancing Turks.
(And did I mention how in summer the streets of Smyrna
were lined with baskets of rose petals? And how everyone
in the city could speak French, Italian, Greek, Turkish,
English, and Dutch? And did I tell you about the famous
figs, brought in by camel caravan and dumped onto the
ground, huge piles of pulpy fruit lying in the dirt, with dirty
women steeping them in salt water and children squatting
to defecate behind the clusters? Did I mention how the reek
of the fig women mixed with pleasanter smells of almond
trees, mimosa, laurel, and peach, and how everybody wore
masks on Mardi Gras and had elaborate dinners on the
decks of frigates? I want to mention these things because
they all happened in that city that was no place exactly, that
was part of no country because it was all countries, and
because now if you go there youll see modern high-rises,
amnesiac boulevards, teeming sweatshops, a NATO
headquarters, and a sign that says Izmir . . .)
Five cars, bedecked with olive branches, burst the city
gates. Cavalry gallop fender to fender. The cars roar past
the covered bazaar, through cheering throngs in the Turkish
Quarter where every streetlamp, door, and window streams
red cloth. By Ottoman law, Turks must occupy a citys
highest ground, so the convoy is high above the city now,
heading down. Soon the five cars pass through the
deserted sections where houses have been abandoned or
where families hide. Anita Philobosian peeks out to see the
beautiful, leaf-covered vehicles approaching, the sight so
arresting she starts to unfasten the shutters before her
mother pulls her away . . . and there are other faces
pressed to slats, Armenian, Bulgarian, and Greek eyes
peeking out of hideaways and attics to get a look at the
conqueror and divine his intentions; but the cars move too
fast, and the sun on the cavalrys raised sabers blinds the
eyes, and then the cars are gone, reaching the quay, where
horses charge into the crowd and refugees scream and
scatter.
In the backseat of the last car sits Mustafa Kemal. He is
lean from battle. His blue eyes flash. He hasnt had a drink
in over two weeks. (The diverticulitis Dr. Philobosian had
treated the pasha for was just a cover-up. Kemal, champion
of Westernization and the secular Turkish state, would
remain true to those principles to the end, dying at fiftyseven
of cirrhosis of the liver.)
And as he passes he turns and looks into the crowd, as a
young woman stands up from a suitcase. Blue eyes pierce
brown. Two seconds. Not even two. Then Kemal looks
away; the convoy is gone.
And now it is all a matter of wind. 1A.M. , Wednesday,
September 13, 1922. Lefty and Desdemona have been in
the city seven nights now. The smell of jasmine has turned
to kerosene. Around the Armenian Quarter barricades have
been erected. Turkish troops block the exits from the quay.
But the wind remains blowing in the wrong direction.
Around midnight, however, it shifts. It begins blowing
southwesterly, that is, away from the Turkish heights and
toward the harbor.
In the blackness, torches gather. Three Turkish soldiers
stand in a tailor shop. Their torches illuminate bolts of cloth
and suits on hangers. Then, as the light grows, the tailor
himself becomes visible. He is sitting at his sewing
machine, right shoe still on the foot treadle. The light grows
brighter still to reveal his face, the gaping eye sockets, the
beard torn out in bloody patches.
All over the Armenian Quarter fires bloom. Like a million
fireflies, sparks fly across the dark city, inseminating every
place they land with a germ of fire. At his house on Suyane
Street, Dr. Philobosian hangs a wet carpet over the
balcony, then hurries back inside the dark house and
closes the shutters. But the blaze penetrates the room,
lighting it up in stripes: Toukhies panicked eyes; Anitas
forehead, wrapped with a silver ribbon like Clara Bows
inPhotoplay ; Roses bare neck; Stepans and Karekins
dark, downcast heads.
By firelight Dr. Philobosian reads for the fifth time that night
. . . is respectfully recommended . . . to the esteem,
confidence, and protection . . . You hear that?
Protection . . .
Across the street Mrs. Bidzikian sings the climactic three
notes of the Queen of the Night aria fromThe Magic Flute.
The music sounds so strange amid the other noisesof
doors crashing in, people screaming, girls crying outthat
they all look up. Mrs. Bidzikian repeats the B flat, D, and F
two more times, as though practicing the aria, and then her
voice hits a note none of them has ever heard before, and
they realize that Mrs. Bidzikian hasnt been singing an aria
at all.
Rose, get my bag.
Nishan, no, his wife objects. If they see you come out,
theyll know were hiding.
No one will see.
The flames first registered to Desdemona as lights on the
ships hulls. Orange brushstrokes flickered above the
waterline of the U.S.S.Litchfield and the French
steamerPierre Loti. Then the water brightened, as though a
school of phosphorescent fish had entered the harbor.
Leftys head rested on her shoulder. She checked to see if
he was asleep. Lefty. Lefty? When he didnt respond, she
kissed the top of his head. Then the sirens went off.
She sees not one fire but many. There are twenty orange
dots on the hill above. And they have an unnatural
persistence, these fires. As soon as the fire department
puts out one blaze, another erupts somewhere else. They
start in hay carts and trash bins; they follow kerosene trails
down the center of streets; they turn corners; they enter
bashed-in doorways. One fire penetrates Berberians
bakery, making quick work of the bread racks and pastry
carts. It burns through to the living quarters and climbs the
front staircase where, halfway up, it meets Charles
front staircase where, halfway up, it meets Charles
Berberian himself, who tries to smother it with a blanket.
But the fire dodges him and races up into the house. From
there it sweeps across an Oriental rug, marches out to the
back porch, leaps nimbly up onto a laundry line, and
tightrope-walks across to the house behind. It climbs in the
window and pauses, as if shocked by its good fortune:
because everything in this house is just made to burn, too
the damask sofa with its long fringe, the mahogany end
tables and chintz lampshades. The heat pulls down
wallpaper in sheets; and this is happening not only in this
apartment but in ten or fifteen others, then twenty or twentyfive,
each house setting fire to its neighbor until entire
blocks are burning. The smell of things burning that arent
meant to burn wafts across the city: shoe polish, rat poison,
toothpaste, piano strings, hernia trusses, baby cribs, Indian
clubs. And hair and skin. By this time, hair and skin. On the
quay, Lefty and Desdemona stand up along with everyone
else, with people too stunned to react, or still half-asleep, or
sick with typhus and cholera, or exhausted beyond caring.
And then, suddenly, all the fires on the hillside form one
great wall of fire stretching across the city andits
inevitable nowstart moving down toward them.
(And now I remember something else: my father, Milton
Stephanides, in robe and slippers, bending over to light a
fire on Christmas morning. Only once a year did the need to
dispose of a mountain of wrapping paper and cardboard
packaging overrule Desdemonas objections to using our
fireplace. Ma, Milton would warn her, Im going to burn up
some of this garbage now. To which Desdemona would
cry,Mana! and grab her cane. At the hearth, my father
would pull a long match from the hexagonal box. But
Desdemona would already be moving away, heading for
the safety of the kitchen, where the oven was electric.
Youryia yia doesnt like fires, my father would tell us. And,
lighting the match, he would hold it to paper covered with
elves and Santas as flames leapt up, and we ignorant,
American children went crazy throwing paper, boxes, and
ribbons into the blaze.)
Dr. Philobosian stepped out into the street, looked both
ways, and ran straight across through the door opposite.
He climbed to the landing, where he could see the top of
Mrs. Bidzikians head from behind as she sat in the living
room. He ran to her, telling her not to worry, it was Dr.
Philobosian from across the street. Mrs. Bidzikian seemed
to nod, but her head didnt come back up. Dr. Philobosian
knelt beside her. Touching her neck, he felt a weak pulse.
Gently he pulled her out of the chair and laid her on the
floor. As he did so, he heard footsteps on the stairway. He
hurried across the room and hid behind the drapes just as
the soldiers stormed in.
For fifteen minutes, they ransacked the apartment, taking
whatever the first band had left. They dumped out drawers
and slit open sofas and clothing, looking for jewelry or
money hidden inside. After they were gone, Dr. Philobosian
waited a full five minutes before stepping out from behind
the drapes. Mrs. Bidzikians pulse had stopped. He spread
his handkerchief over her face and made the sign of the
cross over her body. Then he picked up his doctors bag
and hurried down the stairs again.
The heat precedes the fire. Figs heaped along the quay,
not loaded in time, begin to bake, bubbling and oozing
juice. The sweetness mixes with the smell of smoke.
Desdemona and Lefty stand as close to the water as
possible, along with everyone else. There is no escape.
Turkish soldiers remain at the barricades. People pray,
raise their arms, pleading to ships in the harbor.
Searchlights sweep across the water, lighting up people
swimming, drowning.
Were going to die, Lefty.
No were not. Were going to get out of here. But Lefty
doesnt believe this. As he looks up at the flames, he is
certain, too, that they are going to die. And this certainty
inspires him to say something he would never have said
otherwise, something he would never even have thought.
Were going to get out of here. And then youre going to
marry me.
We should never have left. We should have stayed in
Bithynios.
As the fire approaches, the doors of the French consulate
open. A marine garrison forms two lines stretching across
the quay to the harbor. The Tricolor descends. From the
consulates doors people emerge, men in cream-colored
suits and women in straw hats, walking arm in arm to a
waiting launch. Over the Marines crossed rifles, Lefty sees
fresh powder on the womens faces, lit cigars in the mens
mouths. One woman holds a small poodle under her arm.
Another woman trips, breaking her heel, and is consoled by
her husband. After the launch has motored away, an official
turns to the crowd.
French citizens only will be evacuated. We will begin
processing visas immediately.
When they hear knocking, they jump. Stepan goes to the
window and looks down. It must be Father.
Go. Let him in! Quick! Toukhie says.
Karekin vaults down the stairs two at a time. At the door he
stops, collects himself, and quietly unbolts the door. At first,
when he pulls it open, he sees nothing. Then theres a soft
hiss, followed by a ripping noise. The noise sounds as
though it has nothing to do with him until suddenly a shirt
button pops off and clatters against the door. Karekin looks
down as all at once his mouth fills with a warm fluid. He
feels himself being lifted off his feet, the sensation bringing
back to him childhood memories of being whisked into the
air by his father, and he says, Dad, my button, before he is
lifted high enough to make out the steel bayonet puncturing
his sternum. The fires reflection leads along the gun barrel,
over the sight and hammer, to the soldiers ecstatic face.
The fire bore down on the crowd at the quay. The roof of the
American consulate caught. Flames climbed the movie
theater, scorching the marquee. The crowd inched back
from the heat. But Lefty, sensing his opportunity, was
undeterred.
Nobody will know, he said. Whos to know? Theres
nobody left but us.
Its not right.
Roofs crashed, people screamed, as Lefty put his lips to
his sisters ear. You promised youd find me a nice Greek
girl. Well. Youre it.
On one side a man jumped into the water, trying to drown
himself; on the other, a woman was giving birth, as her
husband shielded her with his coat.Kaymaste! Kaymaste!
people shouted. Were burning! Were burning!
Desdemona pointed, at the fire, at everything. Its too late,
Lefty. It doesnt matter now.
But if we lived? Youd marry me then?
A nod. That was all. And Lefty was gone, running toward the
flames.
On a black screen, a binocular-shaped template of vision
sweeps back and forth, taking in the distant refugees. They
scream without sound. They hold out their arms,
beseeching.
Theyre going to cook the poor wretches alive.
Permission to retrieve a swimmer, sir.
Negative, Phillips. Once we take one aboard well have to
take them all.
Its a girl, sir.
How old?
Looks to be about ten or eleven.
Major Arthur Maxwell lowers his binoculars. A triangular
knot of muscle tenses in his jaw and disappears.
Have a look at her, sir.
We mustnt be swayed by emotions here, Phillips. There
are greater things at stake.
Have a look at her, sir.
The wings of Major Maxwells nose flare as he looks at
Captain Phillips. Then, slapping one hand against his thigh,
he moves to the side of the ship.
The searchlight sweeps across the water, lighting up its
own circle of vision. The water looks odd under the beam, a
colorless broth littered with a variety of objects: a bright
orange; a mans fedora with a brim of excrement; bits of
paper like torn letters. And then, amid this inert matter, she
appears, holding on to the ships line, a girl in a pink dress
the water darkens to red, hair plastered to her small skull.
Her eyes make no appeal, staring up. Her sharp feet kick
every so often, like fins.
Rifle fire from shore hits the water around her. She pays no
attention.
Turn off the searchlight.
The light goes off and the firing stops. Major Maxwell looks
at his watch. It is now 2115 hours. I am going to my cabin,
Phillips. I will stay there until 0700 hours. Should a refugee
be taken aboard during that period, it would not come to my
attention. Is that understood?
Understood, sir.
It didnt occur to Dr. Philobosian that the twisted body he
stepped over in the street belonged to his younger son. He
noticed only that his front door was open. In the foyer, he
stopped to listen. There was only silence. Slowly, still
holding his doctors bag, he climbed the stairs. All the
lamps were on now. The living room was bright. Toukhie
was sitting on the sofa, waiting for him. Her head had fallen
backward as though in hilarity, the angle opening the wound
so that a section of windpipe gleamed. Stepan sat slumped
at the dining table, his right hand, which held the letter of
protection, nailed down with a steak knife. Dr. Philobosian
took a step and slipped, then noticed a trail of blood
leading down the hallway. He followed the trail into the
master bedroom, where he found his two daughters. They
were both naked, lying on their backs. Three of their four
breasts had been cut off. Roses hand reached out toward
her sister as though to adjust the silver ribbon across her
forehead.
The line was long and moved slowly. Lefty had time to go
over his vocabulary. He reviewed his grammar, taking
quick peeks at the phrase book. He studied Lesson 1:
Greetings, and by the time he reached the official at the
table, he was ready.
Name?
Eleutherios Stephanides.
Place of birth?
Paris.
The official looked up. Passport.
Everything was destroyed in the fire! I lost all my papers!
Lefty puckered his lips and expelled air, as hed seen
Frenchmen do. Look at what Im wearing. I lost all my good
suits.
The official smiled wryly and stamped the papers. Pass.
I have my wife with me.
I suppose she was born in Paris, too.
Of course.
Her name?
Desdemona.
Desdemona Stephanides?
Thats right. Same as mine.
When he returned with the visas, Desdemona wasnt alone.
A man sat beside her on the suitcase. He tried to throw
himself in the water. I caught him just in time. Dazed,
bloody, a shining bandage wrapping one hand, the man
kept repeating, They couldnt read. They were illiterate!
Lefty checked to see where the man was bleeding but
couldnt find a wound. He unwrapped the mans bandage, a
silver ribbon, and tossed it away. They couldnt read my
letter, the man said, looking at Lefty, who recognized his
face.
You again? the French official said.
My cousin, said Lefty, in execrable French. The man
stamped a visa and handed it to him.
A motor launch took them out to the ship. Lefty kept hold of
Dr. Philobosian, who was still threatening to drown himself.
Desdemona opened her silkworm box and unwrapped the
white cloth to check on her eggs. In the hideous water,
bodies floated past. Some were alive, calling out. A
searchlight revealed a boy halfway up the anchor chain of a
battleship. Sailors dumped oil on him and he slipped back
into the water.
On the deck of theJean Bart , the three new French citizens
looked back at the burning city, ablaze from end to end.
The fire would continue for the next three days, the flames
visible for fifty miles. At sea, sailors would mistake the
rising smoke for a gigantic mountain range. In the country
they were heading for, America, the burning of Smyrna
made the front pages for a day or two, before being
bumped off by the Hall-Mills murder case (the body of Hall,
a Protestant minister, had been found with that of Miss
Mills, an attractive choir member) and the opening of the
World Series. Admiral Mark Bristol of the U.S. Navy,
concerned about damage to American-Turkish relations,
cabled a press release in which he stated that it is
impossible to estimate the number of deaths due to killings,
fire, and execution, but the total probably does not exceed
2,000. The American consul, George Horton, had a larger
estimate. Of the 400,000 Ottoman Christians in Smyrna
before the fire, 190,000 were unaccounted for by October
1. Horton halved that number and estimated the dead at
100,000.
The anchors surged up out of the water. The deck rumbled
underfoot as the destroyers engines were thrown into
reverse. Desdemona and Lefty watched Asia Minor
recede.
As they passed theIron Duke , the British military service
band started into a waltz.
THE SILK ROAD
According to an ancient Chinese legend, one day in the
year 2640B.C. , Princess Si Ling-chi was sitting under a
mulberry tree when a silkworm cocoon fell into her teacup.
When she tried to remove it, she noticed that the cocoon
had begun to unravel in the hot liquid. She handed the
loose end to her maidservant and told her to walk. The
servant went out of the princesss chamber, and into the
palace courtyard, and through the palace gates, and out of
the Forbidden City, and into the countryside a half mile
away before the cocoon ran out. (In the West, this legend
would slowly mutate over three millennia, until it became the
story of a physicist and an apple. Either way, the meanings
are the same: great discoveries, whether of silk or of
gravity, are always windfalls. They happen to people loafing
under trees.)
I feel a little like that Chinese princess, whose discovery
gave Desdemona her livelihood. Like her I unravel my story,
and the longer the thread, the less there is left to tell.
Retrace the filament and you go back to the cocoons
beginning in a tiny knot, a first tentative loop. And following
my storys thread back to where I left off, I see theJean Bart
dock in Athens. I see my grandparents on land again,
making preparations for another voyage. Passports are
placed into hands, vaccinations administered to upper
arms. Another ship materializes at the dock, theGiulia . A
foghorn sounds.
And look: from the deck of theGiulia something else
unwinds now. Something multicolored, spinning itself out
over the waters of Piraeus.
It was the custom in those days for passengers leaving for
America to bring balls of yarn on deck. Relatives on the
pier held the loose ends. As theGiulia blew its horn and
moved away from the dock, a few hundred strings of yarn
stretched across the water. People shouted farewells,
waved furiously, held up babies for last looks they wouldnt
remember. Propellers churned; handkerchiefs fluttered,
and, up on deck, the balls of yarn began to spin. Red,
yellow, blue, green, they untangled toward the pier, slowly at
first, one revolution every ten seconds, then faster and
faster as the boat picked up speed. Passengers held the
yarn as long as possible, maintaining the connection to the
faces disappearing onshore. But finally, one by one, the
balls ran out. The strings of yarn flew free, rising on the
breeze.
From two separate locations on theGiulia s deck, Lefty
and Desdemonaand I can say it now, finally, my
grandparentswatched the airy blanket float away.
Desdemona was standing between two air manifolds
shaped like giant tubas. At midships Lefty slouched in a
brace of bachelors. In the last three hours they hadnt seen
each other. That morning, theyd had coffee together in a
café near the harbor after which, like professional spies,
theyd picked up their separate suitcasesDesdemona
keeping her silkworm boxand had departed in different
directions. My grandmother was carrying falsified
documents. Her passport, which the Greek government had
granted under the condition that she leave the country
immediately, bore her mothers maiden name, Aristos,
instead of Stephanides. Shed presented this passport
along with her boarding card at the top of theGiulia s
gangway. Then shed gone aft, as planned, for the send-off.
At the shipping channel, the foghorn sounded again, as the
boat came around to the west and picked up more speed.
Dirndls, kerchiefs, and suit coats flapped in the breeze. A
few hats flew off heads, to shouts and laughter. Yarn driftnetted
the sky, barely visible now. People watched as long
as they could. Desdemona was one of the first to go below.
Lefty lingered on deck for another half hour. This, too, was
part of the plan.
For the first day at sea, they didnt speak to each other.
They came up on deck at the appointed mealtimes and
stood in separate lines. After eating, Lefty joined the men
smoking at the rail while Desdemona hunched on deck with
the women and children, staying out of the wind. You have
someone meeting you? the women asked. A fiancé?
No. Just my cousin in Detroit.
Traveling all by yourself? the men asked Lefty.
Thats right. Free and easy.
At night, they descended to their respective compartments.
In separate bunks of seaweed wrapped in burlap, with life
vests doubling as pillows, they tried to sleep, to get used to
the motion of the ship, and to tolerate the smells.
Passengers had brought on board all manner of spices and
sweetmeats, tinned sardines, octopus in wine sauce, legs
of lamb preserved with garlic cloves. In those days you
could identify a persons nationality by smell. Lying on her
back with eyes closed, Desdemona could detect the telltale
oniony aroma of a Hungarian woman on her right, and the
raw-meat smell of an Armenian on her left. (And they, in
turn, could peg Desdemona as a Hellene by her aroma of
garlic and yogurt.) Leftys annoyances were auditory as well
as olfactory. To one side was a man named Callas with a
snore like a miniature foghorn itself; on the other was Dr.
Philobosian, who wept in his sleep. Ever since leaving
Smyrna the doctor had been beside himself with grief.
Racked, gut-socked, he lay curled up in his coat, blue
around the eye sockets. He ate almost nothing. He refused
to go up on deck to get fresh air. On the few occasions he
did go, he threatened to throw himself overboard.
did go, he threatened to throw himself overboard.
In Athens, Dr. Philobosian had told them to leave him alone.
He refused to discuss plans about the future and said that
he had no family anywhere. My familys gone. They
murdered them.
Poor man, Desdemona said. He doesnt want to live.
We have to help him, Lefty insisted. He gave me money.
He bandaged my hand. Nobody else cared about us. Well
take him with us. While they waited for their cousin to wire
money, Lefty tried to console the doctor and finally
convinced him to come with them to Detroit. Wherevers
far away, said Dr. Philobosian. But now on the boat he
talked only of death.
The voyage was supposed to take from twelve to fourteen
days. Lefty and Desdemona had the schedule all worked
out. On the second day at sea, directly after dinner, Lefty
made a tour of the ship. He picked his way among the
bodies sprawled across the steerage deck. He passed the
stairway to the pilothouse and squeezed past the extra
cargo, crates of Kalamata olives and olive oil, sea sponges
from Kos. He proceeded forward, running his hand along
the green tarps of the lifeboats, until he met the chain
separating steerage from third class. In its heyday,
theGiulia had been part of the Austro-Hungarian Line.
Boasting modern conveniences (lumina electrica,
ventilatie et comfortu cel mai mare), it had traveled once
a month between Trieste and New York. Now the electric
lights worked only in first class, and even then sporadically.
The iron rails were rusted. Smoke from the stack had
soiled the Greek flag. The boat smelled of old mop buckets
and a history of nausea. Lefty didnt have his sea legs yet.
He kept falling against the railing. He stood at the chain for
an appropriate amount of time, then crossed to port and
returned aft. Desdemona, as arranged, was standing alone
at the rail. As Lefty passed, he smiled and nodded. She
nodded coldly and looked back out to sea.
On the third day, Lefty took another after-dinner stroll. He
walked forward, crossed to port, and headed aft. He smiled
at Desdemona and nodded again. This time, Desdemona
smiled back. Rejoining his fellow smokers, Lefty inquired if
any of them might happen to know the name of that young
woman traveling alone.
On the fourth day out, Lefty stopped and introduced himself.
So far the weathers been good.
I hope it stays that way.
Youre traveling alone?
Yes.
I am, too. Where are you going to in America?
Detroit.
What a coincidence! Im going to Detroit, too.
They stood chatting for another few minutes. Then
Desdemona excused herself and went down below.
Rumors of the budding romance spread quickly through the
ship. To pass the time, everybody was soon discussing
how the tall young Greek with the elegant bearing had
become enamored of the dark beauty who was never seen
anywhere without her carved olivewood box. Theyre both
traveling alone, people said. And they both have relatives
in Detroit.
I dont think theyre right for each other.
Why not?
Hes a higher class than she is. Itll never work.
He seems to like her, though.
Hes on a boat in the middle of the ocean! What else does
he have to do?
On the fifth day, Lefty and Desdemona took a stroll on deck
together. On the sixth day, he presented his arm and she
took it.
I introduced them! one man boasted. City girls sniffed.
She wears her hair in braids. She looks like a peasant.
My grandfather, on the whole, came in for better treatment.
He was said to have been a silk merchant from Smyrna
whod lost his fortune in the fire; a son of King Constantine I
by a French mistress; a spy for the Kaiser during the Great
War. Lefty never discouraged any speculation. He seized
the opportunity of transatlantic travel to reinvent himself. He
wrapped a ratty blanket over his shoulders like an opera
cape. Aware that whatever happened now would become
the truth, that whatever he seemed to be would become
what he wasalready an American, in other wordshe
waited for Desdemona to come up on deck. When she did,
he adjusted his wrap, nodded to his shipmates, and
sauntered across the deck to pay his respects.
Hes smitten!
I dont think so. Type like that, hes just out for a little fun.
That girl better watch it or shell have more than that box to
carry around.
My grandparents enjoyed their simulated courtship. When
people were within earshot, they engaged in first- or
second-date conversations, making up past histories for
themselves. So, Lefty would ask, do you have any
siblings?
I had a brother, Desdemona replied wistfully. He ran off
with a Turkish girl. My father disowned him.
Thats very strict. I think love breaks all taboos. Dont you?
Alone, they told each other, I think its working. No one
suspects.
Each time Lefty encountered Desdemona on deck, he
pretended hed only recently met her. He walked up, made
small talk, commented on the beauty of the sunset, and
then, gallantly, segued into the beauty of her face.
Desdemona played her part, too. She was standoffish at
first. She withdrew her arm whenever he made an offcolor
joke. She told him that her mother had warned her about
men like him. They passed the voyage playing out this
imaginary flirtation and, little by little, they began to believe
it. They fabricated memories, improvised fate. (Why did
they do it? Why did they go to all that trouble? Couldnt they
have said they were already engaged? Or that their
marriage had been arranged years earlier? Yes, of course
they could have. But it wasnt the other travelers they were
trying to fool; it was themselves.)
Traveling made it easier. Sailing across the ocean among
half a thousand perfect strangers conveyed an anonymity in
which my grandparents could recreate themselves. The
driving spirit on theGiulia was self-transformation. Staring
out to sea, tobacco farmers imagined themselves as race
car drivers, silk dyers as Wall Street tycoons, millinery girls
as fan dancers in theZiegfeld Follies . Gray ocean
stretched in all directions. Europe and Asia Minor were
dead behind them. Ahead lay America and new horizons.
On the eighth day at sea, Lefty Stephanides, grandly, on
one knee, in full view of six hundred and sixty-three
steerage passengers, proposed to Desdemona Aristos
while she sat on a docking cleat. Young women held their
breath. Married men nudged bachelors: Pay attention and
youll learn something. My grandmother, displaying a
theatrical flair akin to her hypochondria, registered complex
emotions: surprise; initial delight; second thoughts; prudent
near refusal; and then, to the applause already starting up,
dizzy acceptance.
The ceremony took place on deck. In lieu of a wedding
dress, Desdemona wore a borrowed silk shawl over her
head. Captain Kontoulis loaned Lefty a necktie spotted with
gravy stains. Keep your coat buttoned and nobody will
notice, he said. Forstephana , my grandparents had
wedding crowns woven with rope. Flowers werent
available at sea and so thekoumbaros , a guy named
Pelos serving as best man, switched the kings hempen
crown to the queens head, the queens to the kings, and
back again.
Bride and bridegroom performed the Dance of Isaiah. Hip
to hip, arms interwoven to hold hands, Desdemona and
Lefty circumambulated the captain, once, twice, and then
again, spinning the cocoon of their life together. No
patriarchal linearity here. We Greeks get married in circles,
to impress upon ourselves the essential matrimonial facts:
that to be happy you have to find variety in repetition; that to
go forward you have to come back where you began.
Or, in my grandparents case, the circling worked like this:
as they paced around the deck the first time, Lefty and
Desdemona were still brother and sister. The second time,
they were bride and bridegroom. And the third, they were
husband and wife.
The night of my grandparents wedding, the sun set directly
before the ships bow, pointing the way to New York. The
moon rose, casting a silver stripe over the ocean. On his
nightly tour of the deck, Captain Kontoulis descended from
the pilothouse and marched forward. The wind had picked
up. TheGiulia pitched in high seas. As the deck tilted back
and forth, Captain Kontoulis didnt stumble once, and was
even able to light one of the Indonesian cigarettes he
favored, dipping his caps braided brim to cut the wind. In
his not terribly clean uniform, wearing knee-high Cretan
boots, Captain Kontoulis scrutinized running lights, stacked
deck chairs, lifeboats. TheGiulia was alone on the vast
Atlantic, hatches battened down against swells crashing
over the side. The decks were empty except for two firstclass
passengers, American businessmen sharing a
nightcap under lap blankets. From what I hear, Tilden
doesnt just play tennis with his protégés, if you get my
drift. Youre kidding. Lets them drink from the loving
cup. Captain Kontoulis, understanding none of this,
nodded as he passed . . .
Inside one of the lifeboats, Desdemona was saying, Dont
look. She was lying on her back. There was no goats-hair
blanket between them, so Lefty covered his eyes with his
hands, peeking through his fingers. A single pinhole in the
tarp leaked moonlight, which slowly filled the lifeboat. Lefty
had seen Desdemona undress many times, but usually as
no more than a shadow and never in moonlight. She had
never curled onto her back like this, lifting her feet to take
off her shoes. He watched and, as she pulled down her skirt
and lifted her tunic, was struck by how different his sister
looked, in moonlight, in a lifeboat. Sheglowed . She gave
off white light. He blinked behind his hands. The moonlight
kept rising; it covered his neck, it reached his eyes until he
understood: Desdemona was wearing a corset. That was
the other thing shed brought along: the white cloth
enfolding her silkworm eggs was nothing other than
Desdemonas wedding corset. She thought shed never
wear it, but here it was. Brassiere cups pointed up at the
canvas roof. Whalebone slats squeezed her waist. The
corsets skirt dropped garters attached to nothing because
my grandmother owned no stockings. In the lifeboat, the
corset absorbed all available moonlight, with the odd result
that Desdemonas face, head, and arms disappeared. She
looked like Winged Victory, tumbled on her back, being
carted off to a conquerors museum. All that was missing
was the wings.
Lefty took off his shoes and socks, as grit rained down.
When he removed his underwear, the lifeboat filled with a
mushroomy smell. He was ashamed momentarily, but
Desdemona didnt seem to mind.
She was distracted by her own mixed feelings. The corset,
of course, reminded Desdemona of her mother, and
suddenly the wrongness of what they were doing assailed
her. Until now she had been keeping it at bay. She had had
no time to dwell on it in the chaos of the last days.
Lefty, too, was conflicted. Though he had been tortured by
thoughts of Desdemona, he was glad for the darkness of
the lifeboat, glad, in particular, that he couldnt see her face.
For months Lefty had slept with whores who resembled
Desdemona, but now he found it easier to pretend that she
was a stranger.
The corset seemed to possess its own sets of hands. One
was softly rubbing her between the legs. Two more cupped
her breasts, one, two, three hands pressing and caressing
her; and in the lingerie Desdemona saw herself through
new eyes, her thin waist, her plump thighs; she felt beautiful,
desirable, most of all: not herself. She lifted her feet, rested
her calves on the oarlocks. She spread her legs. She
opened her arms for Lefty, who twisted around, chafing his
knees and elbows, dislodging oars, nearly setting off a
flare, until finally he fell into her softness, swooning. For the
flare, until finally he fell into her softness, swooning. For the
first time Desdemona tasted the flavor of his mouth, and the
only sisterly thing she did during their lovemaking was to
come up for air, once, to say, Bad boy. Youve done this
before. But Lefty only kept repeating, Not like this, not like
this . . .
And I was wrong before, I take it back. Underneath
Desdemona, beating time against the boards and lifting
her up: a pair of wings.
Lefty! Desdemona now, breathlessly. I think I felt it.
Felt what?
You know. Thatfeeling .
Newlyweds, Captain Kontoulis said, watching the lifeboat
rock. Oh, to be young again.
After Princess Si Ling-chiwhom I find myself picturing as
the imperial version of the bicyclist I saw on the U-Bahn the
other day; I cant stop thinking about her for some reason, I
keep looking for her every morningafter Princess Si Lingchi
discovered silk, her nation kept it a secret for three
thousand one hundred and ninety years. Anyone who
attempted to smuggle silkworm eggs out of China faced
punishment of death. My family might never have become
silk farmers if it hadnt been for the Emperor Justinian, who,
according to Procopius, persuaded two missionaries to
risk it. In a.d. 550, the missionaries snuck silkworm eggs
out of China in the swallowed condom of the time: a hollow
staff. They also brought the seeds of the mulberry tree. As a
result, Byzantium became a center for sericulture. Mulberry
trees flourished on Turkish hillsides. Silkworms ate the
leaves. Fourteen hundred years later, the descendants of
those first stolen eggs filled my grandmothers silkworm
box on theGiulia .
Im the descendant of a smuggling operation, too. Without
their knowing, my grandparents, on their way to America,
were each carrying a single mutated gene on the fifth
chromosome. It wasnt a recent mutation. According to Dr.
Luce, the gene first appeared in my bloodline sometime
around 1750, in the body of one Penelope Evangelatos, my
great-grandmother to the ninth power. She passed it on to
her son Petras, who passed it on to his two daughters, who
passed it on to three of their five children, and so on and so
on. Being recessive, its expression would have been fitful.
Sporadic heredity is what the geneticists call it. A trait that
goes underground for decades only to reappear when
everyone has forgotten about it. That was how it went in
Bithynios. Every so often a hermaphrodite was born, a
seeming girl who, in growing up, proved otherwise.
For the next six nights, under various meteorological
conditions, my grandparents trysted in the lifeboat.
Desdemonas guilt flared up during the day, when she sat
on deck wondering if she and Lefty were to blame for
everything, but by nighttime she felt lonely and wanted to
escape the cabin and so stole back to the lifeboat and her
new husband.
Their honeymoon proceeded in reverse. Instead of getting
to know each other, becoming familiar with likes and
dislikes, ticklish spots, pet peeves, Desdemona and Lefty
tried to defamiliarize themselves with each other. In the
spirit of their shipboard con game, they continued to spin
out false histories for themselves, inventing brothers and
sisters with plausible names, cousins with moral
shortcomings, in-laws with facial tics. They took turns
reciting Homeric genealogies, full of falsifications and
borrowings from real life, and sometimes they fought over
this or that favorite real uncle or aunt, and had to bargain
like casting directors. Gradually, as the nights passed,
these fictional relatives began to crystallize in their minds.
Theyd quiz each other on obscure connections, Lefty
asking, Whos your second cousin Yiannis married to?
And Desdemona replying, Thats easy. Athena. With the
limp. (And am I wrong to think that my obsession with
family relations started right there in the lifeboat? Didnt my
mother quiz me on uncles and aunts and cousins, too? She
never quizzed my brother, because he was in charge of
snow shovels and tractors, whereas I was supposed to
provide the feminine glue that keeps families together,
writing thank-you notes and remembering everybodys
birthdays and name days. Listen, Ive heard the following
genealogy come out of my mothers mouth: Thats your
cousin Melia. Shes Uncle Mikes sister Lucilles brother-inlaw
Stathiss daughter. You know Stathis the mailman,
whos not too swift? Melias his third child, after his boys
Mike and Johnny. You should know her. Melia! Shes your
cousin-in-law by marriage!)
And here I am now, sketching it all out for you, dutifully
oozing feminine glue, but also with a dull pain in my chest,
because I realize that genealogies tell you nothing. Tessie
knew who was related to whom but she had no idea who
her own husband was, or what her in-laws were to each
other; the whole thing a fiction created in the lifeboat where
my grandparents made up their lives.
Sexually, things were simple for them. Dr. Peter Luce, the
great sexologist, can cite astonishing statistics asserting
that oral sex didnt exist between married couples prior to
1950. My grandparents lovemaking was pleasurable but
unvarying. Every night Desdemona would disrobe down to
her corset and Lefty would press its clasps and hooks,
searching for the secret combination that sprung the locked
garment open. The corset was all they needed in terms of
an aphrodisiac, and it remained for my grandfather the
singular erotic emblem of his life. The corset made
Desdemona new again. As I said, Lefty had glimpsed his
sister naked before, but the corset had the odd power of
making her seem somehow more naked; it turned her into
a forbidding, armored creature with a soft inside he had to
hunt for. When the tumblers clicked, it popped open; Lefty
crawled on top of Desdemona and the two of them hardly
even moved; the ocean swells did the work for them.
Their periphescence existed simultaneously with a less
passionate stage of pair bonding. Sex could give way, at
any moment, to coziness. So, after making love, they lay
staring up through the pulled-back tarp at the night sky
passing overhead and got down to the business of life.
Maybe Linas husband can give me a job, Lefty said.
Hes got his own business, right?
I dont know what he does. Lina never gives me a straight
answer.
After we save some money, I can open a casino. Some
gambling, a bar, maybe a floor show. And potted palms
everywhere.
You should go to college. Become a professor like Mother
and Father wanted. And we have to build a cocoonery,
remember.
Forget the silkworms. Im talking roulette, rebetika,
drinking, dancing. Maybe Ill sell some hash on the side.
They wont let you smoke hashish in America.
Who says?
And Desdemona announced with certitude:
Its not that kind of country.
They spent what remained of their honeymoon on deck,
learning how to finagle their way through Ellis Island. It
wasnt so easy anymore. The Immigration Restriction
League had been formed in 1894. On the floor of the U.S.
Senate, Henry Cabot Lodge thumped a copy ofOn the
Origin of Species, warning that the influx of inferior peoples
from southern and eastern Europe threatened the very
fabric of our race. The Immigration Act of 1917 barred
thirty-three kinds of undesirables from entering the United
States, and so, in 1922, on the deck of theGiulia ,
passengers discussed how to escape the categories. In
nervous cram sessions, illiterates learned to pretend to
read; bigamists to admit to only one wife; anarchists to
deny having read Proudhon; heart patients to simulate
vigor; epileptics to deny their fits; and carriers of hereditary
diseases to neglect mentioning them. My grandparents,
unaware of their genetic mutation, concentrated on the
more blatant disqualifications. Another category of
restriction: persons convicted of a crime or misdemeanor
involving moral turpitude. And a subset of this group:
Incestuous relations.
They avoided passengers who seemed to be suffering
from trachoma or favus. They fled anyone with a hacking
cough. Occasionally, for reassurance, Lefty took out the
certificate that declared:
ELEUTHERIOS STEPHANIDES
HAS BEEN VACCINATED AND
UNLOUSED
AND IS PASSED AS VERMIN-FREE THIS DATE
SEPT. 23, 1922
DISINFECTION MARITIME PIRAEUS
Literate, married to only one person (albeit a sibling),
democratically inclined, mentally stable, and authoritatively
deloused, my grandparents saw no reason why they would
have trouble getting through. They each had the requisite
twenty-five dollars apiece. They also had a sponsor: their
cousin Sourmelina. Just the year before, the Quota Act had
reduced the annual numbers of southern and eastern
European immigrants from 783,000 to 155,000. It was
nearly impossible to get into the country without either a
sponsor or stunning professional recommendations. To
help their own chances, Lefty put away his French phrase
book and began memorizing four lines of the King James
New Testament. TheGiulia was full of inside sources
familiar with the English literacy test. Different nationalities
were asked to translate different bits of Scripture. For
Greeks, it was Matthew 19:12: For there are some
eunuchs, which were so born from their mothers womb:
and there are some eunuchs, which were made eunuchs of
men: and there be eunuchs, which have made themselves
eunuchs for the kingdom of heavens sake.
Eunuchs? Desdemona quailed. Who told you this?
This is a passage from the Bible.
What Bible? Not the Greek Bible. Go ask somebody else
whats on that test.
But Lefty showed her the Greek at the top of the card and
the English below. He repeated the passage word by word,
making her memorize it, whether or not she understood it.
We didnt have enough eunuchs in Turkey? Now we have
to talk about them at Ellis Island?
The Americans let in everyone, Lefty joked. Eunuchs
included.
They should let us speak Greek if theyre so accepting,
Desdemona grumbled.
Summer was abandoning the ocean. One night it grew too
cold in the lifeboat to crack the corsets combination.
Instead they huddled under blankets, talking.
Is Sourmelina meeting us in New York? Desdemona
asked.
No. We have to take a train to Detroit.
Why cant she meet us?
Its too far.
Just as well. She wouldnt be on time anyway.
The ceaseless sea wind made the tarps edges flap. Frost
formed on the lifeboats gunwales. They could see the top
of theGiulia s smokestack, the smoke itself discernible
only as a starless patch of night sky. (Though they didnt
know it, that striped, canted smokestack was already
informing them about their new home; it was whispering
about River Rouge and the Uniroyal plant, and the Seven
Sisters and Two Brothers, but they didnt listen; they
wrinkled up their noses and ducked down in the lifeboat
away from the smoke.)
And if the smell of industry didnt insist on entering my story
already, if Desdemona and Lefty, who grew up on a pinescented
mountain and who could never get used to the
polluted air of Detroit, hadnt ducked down in the lifeboat,
then they might have detected a new aroma wafting in on
the brisk sea air: a humid odor of mud and wet bark. Land.
New York. America.
What are we going to tell Sourmelina about us?
Shell understand.
Will she keep quiet?
There are a few things shed rather her husband didnt
know about her.
You mean Helen?
I didnt say a thing, said Lefty.
They fell asleep after that, waking to sunlight, and a face
staring down at them.
Did you have a good sleep? Captain Kontoulis said.
Maybe I could get you a blanket?
Im sorry, Lefty said. We wont do it again.
You wont get the chance, said the captain and, to prove
his point, pulled the lifeboats tarp completely away.
Desdemona and Lefty sat up. In the distance, lit by the
rising sun, was the skyline of New York. It wasnt the right
shape for a cityno domes, no minaretsand it took them
a minute to process the tall geometric forms. Mist curled off
the bay. A million pink windowpanes glittered. Closer,
crowned with her own sunrays and dressed like a classical
Greek, the Statue of Liberty welcomed them.
How do you like that? Captain Kontoulis asked.
Ive seen enough torches to last the rest of my life, said
Lefty.
But Desdemona, for once, was more optimistic. At least
its a woman, she said. Maybe here people wont be
killing each other every single day.
BOOK TWO
HENRY FORDS ENGLISH-LANGUAGE
MELTING POT
Everyone who builds a factory builds a temple.
Calvin Coolidge
Detroit was always made of wheels. Long before the Big
Three and the nickname Motor City; before the auto
factories and the freighters and the pink, chemical nights;
before anyone had necked in a Thunderbird or spooned in
a Model T; previous to the day a young Henry Ford
knocked down his workshop wall because, in devising his
quadricycle, hed thought of everything but how to get the
damn thing out; and nearly a century prior to the cold March
night, in 1896, when Charles King tiller-steered his
horseless carriage down St. Antoine, along Jefferson, and
up Woodward Avenue (where the two-stroke engine
promptly quit); way, way back, when the city was just a
piece of stolen Indian land located on the strait from which it
got its name, a fort fought over by the British and French
until, wearing them out, it fell into the hands of the
Americans; way back then, before cars and cloverleaves,
Detroit was made of wheels.
I am nine years old and holding my fathers meaty, sweaty
hand. We are standing at a window on the top floor of the
Pontchartrain Hotel. I have come downtown for our annual
lunch date. I am wearing a miniskirt and fuschia tights. A
white patent leather purse hangs on a long strap from my
shoulder.
The fogged window has spots on it. We are way up high.
Im going to order shrimp scampi in a minute.
The reason for my fathers hand perspiration: hes afraid of
heights. Two days ago, when he offered to take me
wherever I wanted, I called out in my piping voice, Top of
the Pontch! High above the city, amid the business
lunchers and power brokers, was where I wanted to be.
And Milton has been true to his promise. Despite racing
pulse he has allowed the maître d to give us a table next to
the window; so that now here we areas a tuxedoed
waiter pulls out my chairand my father, too frightened to
sit, begins a history lesson instead.
Whats the reason for studying history? To understand the
present or avoid it? Milton, olive complexion turning a
shade pale, only says, Look. See the wheel?
And now I squint. Oblivious, at nine, to the prospect of
crows-feet, I gaze out over downtown, down to the streets
where my father is indicating (though not looking). And
there it is: half a hubcap of city plaza, with the spokes of
Bagley, Washington, Woodward, Broadway, and Madison
radiating from it.
Thats all that remains of the famous Woodward Plan.
Drawn up in 1807 by the hard-drinking, eponymous judge.
(Two years earlier, in 1805, the city had burned to the
ground, the timber houses and ribbon farms of the
settlement founded by Cadillac in 1701 going up in the
span of three hours. And, in 1969, with my sharp vision, I
can read the traces of that fire on the citys flag a half mile
away in Grand Circus Park:Speramus meliora; resurget
cineribus. We hope for better things; it will rise from the
ashes.)
Judge Woodward envisioned the new Detroit as an urban
Arcadia of interlocking hexagons. Each wheel was to be
separate yet united, in accordance with the young nations
federalism, as well as classically symmetrical, in
accordance with Jeffersonian aesthetics. This dream never
quite came to be. Planning is for the worlds great cities, for
Paris, London, and Rome, for cities dedicated, at some
level, to culture. Detroit, on the other hand, was an
American city and therefore dedicated to money, and so
design had given way to expediency. Since 1818, the city
had spread out along the river, warehouse by warehouse,
factory by factory. Judge Woodwards wheels had been
squashed, bisected, pressed into the usual rectangles.
Or seen another way (from a rooftop restaurant): the wheels
hadnt vanished at all, theyd only changed form. By 1900
Detroit was the leading manufacturer of carriages and
wagons. By 1922, when my grandparents arrived, Detroit
made other spinning things, too: marine engines, bicycles,
handrolled cigars. And yes, finally: cars.
All this was visible from the train. Approaching along the
shore of the Detroit River, Lefty and Desdemona watched
their new home take shape. They saw farmland give way to
fenced lots and cobblestone streets. The sky darkened with
smoke. Buildings flew by, brick warehouses painted in
pragmatic Bookman white:WRIGHT AND KAY CO. . . . J.
H. BLACK & SONS . . . DETROIT STOVE WORKS. Out on
the water, squat, tar-colored barges dragged along, and
people popped up on the streets, workmen in grimy
overalls, clerks thumbing suspenders, the signs of eateries
and boardinghouses appearing next:We Serve Strohs
Temperance Beer . . . Make This Your Home Meals 15
cents . . .
. . . As these new sights flooded my grandparents brains,
they jostled with images from the day before. Ellis Island,
rising like a Doges Palace on the water. The Baggage
Room stacked to the ceiling with luggage. Theyd been
herded up a stairway to the Registry Room. Pinned with
numbers from theGiulia s manifest, theyd filed past a line
of health inspectors whod looked in their eyes and ears,
rubbed their scalps, and flipped their eyelids inside out with
buttonhooks. One doctor, noticing inflammation under Dr.
Philobosians eyelids, had stopped the examination and
chalked anX on his coat. He was led out of line. My
grandparents hadnt seen him again. He must have caught
something on the boat, Desdemona said. Or his eyes
were red from all that crying. Meanwhile, chalk continued to
do its work all around them. It marked aPg on the belly of a
pregnant woman. It scrawled anH over an old mans failing
heart. It diagnosed theC of conjunctivitis, theF of favus, and
theT of trachoma. But, no matter how well trained, medical
eyes couldnt spot a recessive mutation hiding out on a fifth
chromosome. Fingers couldnt feel it. Buttonhooks couldnt
bring it to light . . .
Now, on the train, my grandparents were tagged not with
manifest numbers but with destination cards: To the
Conductor: Please show bearer where to change and
where to get off, as this person does not speak English.
Bearer is bound to: Grand Trunk Sta. Detroit. They sat next
to each other in unreserved seats. Lefty faced the window,
looking out with excitement. Desdemona stared down at
her silkworm box, her cheeks crimson with the shame and
fury shed been suffering for the last thirty-six hours.
Thats the last time anyone cuts my hair, she said.
You look fine, said Lefty, not looking. You look like
anAmerikanidha .
I dont want to look like anAmerikanidha .
In the concessions area at Ellis Island, Lefty had cajoled
Desdemona to step into a tent run by the YWCA. Shed
gone in, shawled and kerchiefed, and had emerged fifteen
minutes later in a dropwaisted dress and a floppy hat
shaped like a chamber pot. Rage flamed beneath her new
face powder. As part of the makeover, the YWCA ladies
had cut off Desdemonas immigrant braids.
Obsessively, in the way a person worries a rip deep in a
pocket, she now reached up under the floppy hat to feel her
denuded scalp for the thirtieth or fortieth time. Thats the
last haircut, she said again. (She was true to this vow.
From that day on, Desdemona grew her hair out like Lady
Godiva, keeping it under a net in an enormous mass and
washing it every Friday; and only after Lefty died did she
ever cut it, giving it to Sophie Sassoon, who sold it for two
hundred and fifty dollars to a wigmaker who made five
separate wigs out of it, one of which, she claimed, was later
bought by Betty Ford, post White House and rehab, so that
we got to see it on television once, during Richard Nixons
funeral, my grandmothers hair, sitting on the ex-Presidents
wifes head.)
But there was another reason for my grandmothers
unhappiness. She opened the silkworm box in her lap.
Inside were her two braids, still tied with the ribbons of
mourning, but otherwise the box was empty. After carrying
her silkworm eggs all the way from Bithynios, Desdemona
had been forced to dump them out at Ellis Island. Silkworm
eggs appeared on a list of parasites.
Lefty remained glued to the window. All the way from
Hoboken hed gazed out at the marvelous sights: electric
trams pulling pink faces up Albanys hills; factories glowing
like volcanoes in the Buffalo night. Once, waking as the
train pulled through a city at dawn, Lefty had mistaken a
pillared bank for the Parthenon, and thought he was in
Athens again.
Now the Detroit River sped past and the city loomed. Lefty
stared out at the motor cars parked like giant beetles at the
curbsides. Smokestacks rose everywhere, cannons
bombarding the atmosphere. There were red brick stacks
and tall silver ones, stacks in regimental rows or all alone
puffing meditatively away, a forest of smokestacks that
dimmed the sunlight and then, all of a sudden, blocked it
out completely. Everything went black: theyd entered the
train station.
Grand Trunk Station, now a ruin of spectacular dimensions,
was then the citys attempt to one-up New York. Its base
was a mammoth marble neoclassical museum, complete
with Corinthian pillars and carved entablature. From this
temple rose a thirteen-story office building. Lefty, whod
been observing all the ways Greece had been handed
down to America, arrived now at where the transmission
stopped. In other words: the future. He stepped off to meet
it. Desdemona, having no alternative, followed.
But just imagine it in those days! Grand Trunk! Telephones
in a hundred shipping offices ringing away, still a relatively
new sound; and merchandise being sent east and west;
passengers arriving and departing, having coffee in the
Palm Court or getting their shoes shined, the wing tips of
banking, the cap toes of parts supply, the saddle shoes of
rumrunning. Grand Trunk, with its vaulted ceilings of
Guastavino tilework, its chandeliers, its floors of Welsh
quarry stone. There was a six-chair barbershop, where
civic leaders were mummified in hot towels; and bathtubs
for rent; and elevator banks lit by translucent egg-shaped
marble lamps.
Leaving Desdemona behind a pillar, Lefty searched
through the mob in the station for the cousin who was
meeting their train. Sourmelina Zizmo, née
Papadiamandopoulos, was my grandparents cousin and
hence my first cousin twice removed. I knew her as a
colorful, older woman. Sourmelina of the precarious
cigarette ash. Sourmelina of the indigo bathwater.
Sourmelina of the Theosophical Society brunches. She
wore satin gloves up to the elbow and mothered a long line
of smelly dachshunds with tearstained eyes. Footstools
populated her house, allowing the short-legged creatures
access to sofas and chaise longues. In 1922, however,
Sourmelina was only twenty-eight. Picking her out of this
crowd at Grand Trunk is as difficult for me as identifying
guests in my parents wedding album, where all the faces
wear the disguise of youth. Lefty had a different problem.
He paced the concourse, looking for the cousin hed grown
up with, a sharp-nosed girl with the grinning mouth of a
comedy mask. Sun slanted in from the skylights above. He
squinted, examining the passing women, until finally she
called out to him, Over here, cousin. Dont you recognize
me? Im the irresistible one.
Lina, is that you?
Im not in the village anymore.
In the five years since leaving Turkey, Sourmelina had
managed to erase just about everything identifiably Greek
about her, from her hair, which she dyed to a rich chestnut
and now wore bobbed and marcelled, to her accent, which
had migrated far enough west to sound vaguely
European, to her reading material (Colliers, Harpers), to
her favorite foods (lobster thermidor, peanut butter), and
finally to her clothes. She wore a short green flapper dress
fringed at the hemline. Her shoes were a matching green
satin with sequined toes and delicate ankle straps. A black
feather boa was wrapped around her shoulders, and on her
head was a cloche hat that dangled onyx pendants over her
plucked eyebrows.
For the next few seconds she gave Lefty the full benefit of
her sleek, American pose, but it was still Lina inside there
(under the cloche) and soon her Greek enthusiasm bubbled
out. She spread her arms wide. Kiss me hello, cousin.
They embraced. Lina pressed a rouged cheek against his
neck. Then she pulled back to examine him and, dissolving
into laughter, cupped her hand over his nose. Its still you.
Id know this nose anywhere. Her laugh completed its
follow-through, as her shoulders went up and down, and
then she was on to the next thing. So, where is she?
Where is this new bride of yours? Your telegram didnt even
give a name. What? Is she hiding?
Shes . . . in the bathroom.
She must be a beauty. You got married fast enough. Which
did you do first, introduce yourself or propose?
I think I proposed.
What does she look like?
She looks . . . like you.
Oh, darling, not that good surely.
Sourmelina brought her cigarette holder to her lips and
inhaled, scanning the crowd. Poor Desdemona! Her
brother falls in love and leaves her behind in New York.
How is she?
Shes fine.
Why didnt she come with you? Shes not jealous of your
new wife, is she?
No, nothing like that.
She clutched his arm. We read about the fire.Terrible! I
was so worried until I got your letter. The Turks started it. I
know it. Of course, my husband doesnt agree.
He doesnt?
One suggestion, since youll be living with us? Dont talk
politics with my husband.
All right.
And the village? Sourmelina inquired.
Everybody left thehoreo , Lina. Theres nothing now.
If I didnt hate that place, maybe Id shed two tears.
Lina, theres something I have to explain to you . . .
But Sourmelina was looking away, tapping her foot. Maybe
she fell in.
. . . Something about Desdemona and me . . .
Yes?
. . . My wife . . . Desdemona . . .
Was I right? They dont get along?
No . . . Desdemona . . . my wife . . .
Yes?
Same person. He gave the signal. Desdemona stepped
from behind the pillar.
Hello, Lina, my grandmother said. Were married. Dont
tell.
And that was how it came out, for the next-to-last time.
Blurted out by myyia yia , beneath the echoing roof of
Grand Trunk, toward Sourmelinas cloche-covered ears.
The confession hovered in the air a moment, before floating
away with the smoke rising from her cigarette. Desdemona
took her husbands arm.
My grandparents had every reason to believe that
Sourmelina would keep their secret. Shed come to
America with a secret of her own, a secret that would be
guarded by our family until Sourmelina died in 1979,
whereupon, like everyones secrets, it was posthumously
declassified, so that people began to speak of
Sourmelinas girlfriends. A secret kept, in other words,
only by the loosest definition, so that nowas I get ready to
leak the information myselfI feel only a slight twinge of
filial guilt.
Sourmelinas secret (as Aunt Zo put it): Lina was one of
those women they named the island after.
As a girl in thehoreo , Sourmelina had been caught in
compromising circumstances with a few female friends.
Not many, she told me herself, years later, two or three.
People think if you like girls, you like every single one. I was
always picky. And there wasnt much to pick from. For a
while shed struggled against her predisposition. I went to
church. It didnt help. In those days that was the best place
to meet a girlfriend. In church! All of us praying to be
different. When Sourmelina was caught not with another
girl but with a full-grown woman, a mother of two children, a
scandal arose. Sourmelinas parents tried to arrange her
marriage but found no takers. Husbands were hard enough
to come by in Bithynios without the added liability of an
uninterested, defective bride.
Her father had then done what Greek fathers of
unmarriageable girls did in those days: he wrote to
America. The United States abounded with dollar bills,
baseball sluggers, raccoon coats, diamond jewelryand
lonely, immigrant bachelors. With a photograph of the
prospective bride and a considerable dowry, her father had
come up with one.
Jimmy Zizmo (shortened from Zisimopoulos) had come to
America in 1907 at the age of thirty. The family didnt know
much about him except that he was a hard bargainer. In a
series of letters to Sourmelinas father, Zizmo had
negotiated the amount of the dowry in the formal language
of a barrister, even going so far as to demand a bank
check before the wedding day. The photograph Sourmelina
received showed a tall, handsome man with a virile
mustache, holding a pistol in one hand and a bottle of liquor
in the other. When she stepped off the train at Grand Trunk
two months later, however, the short man who greeted her
was clean-shaven, with a sour expression and a laborers
dark complexion. Such a discrepancy might have
disappointed a normal bride, but Sourmelina didnt care
one way or another.
Sourmelina had written often, describing her new life in
America, but she concentrated on the new fashions, or her
Aeriola Jr., the radio she spent hours each day listening to,
wearing earphones and manipulating the dial, stopping
every so often to clean off the carbon dust that built up on
the crystal. She never mentioned anything connected to
what Desdemona referred to as the bed, and so her
cousins were forced to read between the lines of those
aerograms, trying to see, in a description of a Sunday drive
through Belle Isle, whether the face of the husband at the
wheel was happy or unsatisfied; or inferring, from a
passage about Sourmelinas latest hairstylesomething
called cootie garageswhether Zizmo was ever allowed
to muss it up.
This same Sourmelina, full of her own secrets, now took in
her new co-conspirators. Married? You mean sleepingtogether
married?
Lefty managed, Yes.
Sourmelina noticed her ash for the first time, and flicked it.
Just my luck. Soon as I leave the village, things get
interesting.
But Desdemona couldnt abide such irony. She grabbed
Sourmelinas hands and pleaded, You have to promise
never to tell. Well live, well die, and that will be the end of
it.
I wont tell.
People cant even know Im your cousin.
I wont tell anyone.
What about your husband?
He thinks Im picking up my cousin and his new wife.
You wont say anything to him?
Thatll be easy. Lina laughed. He doesnt listen to me.
Sourmelina insisted on getting a porter to carry their
suitcases to the car, a black-and-tan Packard. She tipped
him and climbed behind the wheel, attracting looks. A
woman driving was still a scandalous sight in 1922. After
resting her cigarette holder on the dashboard, she pulled
out the choke, waited the requisite five seconds, and
pressed the ignition button. The cars tin bonnet shuddered
to life. The leather seats began to vibrate and Desdemona
took hold of her husbands arm. Up front, Sourmelina took
off her satin-strap high heels to drive barefoot. She put the
car into gear and, without checking traffic, lurched off down
Michigan Avenue toward Cadillac Square. My
grandparents eyes glazed over at the sheer activity,
streetcars rumbling, bells clanging, and the monochrome
traffic swerving in and out. In those days downtown Detroit
was filled with shoppers and businessmen. Outside
Hudsons Department Store the crowd was ten thick,
jostling to get in the newfangled revolving doors. Lina
pointed out the sights: theCafé Frontenac . . . the Family
Theatre . . . and the enormous electric signs:Ralston . . .
Wait & Bond Blackstone Mild 10¢ Cigar. Above, a thirtyfoot
boy spread Meadow Gold Butter on a ten-foot slice of
bread. One building had a row of giant oil lamps over the
entrance to promote a sale on until October 31. It was all
swirl and hubbub, Desdemona lying against the backseat,
already suffering the anxiety that modern conveniences
would induce in her over the years, cars mainly, but
toasters, too, lawn sprinklers and escalators; while Lefty
grinned and shook his head. Skyscrapers were going up
everywhere, and movie palaces and hotels. The twenties
saw the construction of nearly all Detroits great buildings,
the Penobscot Building and the second Buhl Building
colored like an Indian belt, the New Union Trust Building,
the Cadillac Tower, the Fisher Building with its gilded roof.
To my grandparents Detroit was like one big Koza Han
during cocoon season. What they didnt see were the
workers sleeping on the streets because of the housing
shortage, and the ghetto just to the east, a thirty-squareblock
area bounded by Leland, Macomb, Hastings, and
Brush streets, teeming with the citys African Americans,
who werent allowed to live anywhere else. They didnt see,
in short, the seeds of the citys destructionits second
destructionbecause they were part of it, too, all these
people coming from everywhere to cash in on Henry Fords
five-dollar-a-day promise.
The East Side of Detroit was a quiet neighborhood of
single-family homes, shaded by cathedral elms. The house
on Hurlbut Street Lina drove them to was a modest, twostory
building of root-beer-colored brick. My grandparents
gaped at it from the car, unable to move, until suddenly the
front door opened and someone stepped out.
Jimmy Zizmo was so many things I dont know where to
begin. Amateur herbalist; antisuffragist; big-game hunter;
ex-con; drug pusher; teetotalertake your pick. He was
forty-five years old, nearly twice as old as his wife. Standing
on the dim porch, he wore an inexpensive suit and a shirt
with a pointy collar that had lost most of its starch. His frizzy
black hair gave him the wild look of the bachelor hed been
for so many years, and this impression was heightened by
his face, which was rumpled like an unmade bed. His
eyebrows, however, were as seductively arched as a
nautch girls, his eyelashes so thick he might have been
wearing mascara. But my grandmother didnt notice any of
that. She was fixated on something else.
An Arab? Desdemona asked as soon as she was alone
with her cousin in the kitchen. Is that why you didnt tell us
about him in your letters?
Hes not an Arab. Hes from the Black Sea.
This is thesala , Zizmo was meanwhile explaining to Lefty
as he showed him around the house.
Pontian! Desdemona gasped with horror, while also
examining the icebox. Hes not Muslim, is he?
Not everybody from the Pontus converted, Lina scoffed.
What do you think, a Greek takes a swim in the Black Sea
and turns into a Muslim?
But does he have Turkish blood? She lowered her voice.
Is that why hes so dark?
I dont know and I dont care.
Youre free to stay as long as you likeZizmo was now
leading Lefty upstairsbut there are a few house rules.
First, Im a vegetarian. If your wife wants to cook meat, she
has to use separate pots and dishes. Also, no whiskey. Do
you drink?
Sometimes.
No drinking. Go to a speakeasy if you want to drink. I dont
want any trouble with the police. Now, about the rent. You
just got married?
Yes.
What kind of dowry did you get?
Dowry?
Yes. How much?
But did you know he was so old? Desdemona whispered
downstairs as she inspected the oven.
At least hes not my brother.
Quiet! Dont even joke.
I didnt get a dowry, answered Lefty. We met on the boat
over.
No dowry! Zizmo stopped on the stairs to look back at
Lefty with astonishment. Why did you get married, then?
We fell in love, Lefty said. Hed never announced it to a
stranger before, and it made him feel happy and frightened
all at once.
If you dont get paid, dont get married, Zizmo said.
Thats why I waited so long. I was holding out for the right
price. He winked.
Lina mentioned you have your own business now, Lefty
said with sudden interest, following Zizmo into the
bathroom. What kind of business is it?
Me? Im an importer.
I dont know of what, Sourmelina answered in the kitchen.
An importer. All I know is he brings home money.
But how can you marry somebody you dont know anything
about?
To get out of that country, Des, I would have married a
cripple.
I have some experience with importing, Lefty managed to
get in as Zizmo demonstrated the plumbing. Back in
Bursa. In the silk industry.
Your portion of the rent is twenty dollars. Zizmo didnt take
the hint. He pulled the chain, unleashing a flood of water.
As far as Im concerned, Lina was continuing downstairs,
when it comes to husbands, the older the better. She
opened the pantry door. A young husband would be after
me all the time. It would be too much of a strain.
Shame on you, Lina. But Desdemona was laughing now,
despite herself. It was wonderful to see her old cousin
again, a little piece of Bithynios still intact. The dark pantry,
full of figs, almonds, walnuts, halvah, and dried apricots,
made her feel better, too.
But where can I get the rent? Lefty finally blurted out as
they headed back downstairs. I dont have any money left.
Where can I work?
Not a problem. Zizmo waved his hand. Ill speak to a few
people. They came through thesala again. Zizmo stopped
and looked significantly down. You havent complimented
my zebra skin rug.
Its very nice.
I brought it back from Africa. Shot it myself.
Youve been to Africa?
Ive been all over.
Like everybody else in town, they squeezed in together.
Desdemona and Lefty slept in a bedroom directly above
Zizmo and Linas, and the first few nights my grandmother
climbed out of bed to put her ear to the floor. Nothing, she
said, I told you.
Come back to bed, Lefty scolded. Thats their business.
What business? Thats what Im telling you. They arent
having any business.
While in the bedroom below, Zizmo was discussing the
new boarders upstairs. What a romantic! Meets a girl on
the boat and marries her. No dowry.
Some people marry for love.
Marriage is for housekeeping and for children. Which
reminds me.
Please, Jimmy, not tonight.
Then when? Five years weve been married and no
children. Youre always sick, tired, this, that. Have you been
taking the castor oil?
Yes.
And the magnesium?
Yes.
Good. We have to reduce your bile. If the mother has too
much bile, the child will lack vigor and disobey his parents.
Good night,kyrie .
Good night,kyria .
Before the week was out, all my grandparents questions
about Sourmelinas marriage had been answered.
Because of his age, Jimmy Zizmo treated his young bride
more like a daughter than a wife. He was always telling her
what she could and couldnt do, howling over the price and
necklines of her outfits, telling her to go to bed, to get up, to
speak, to keep silent. He refused to give her the car keys
until she cajoled him with kisses and caresses. His
nutritional quackery even led him to monitor her regularity
like a doctor, and some of their biggest fights came as a
result of his interrogating Lina about her stools. As for
sexual relations, they had happened, but not recently. For
the last five months Lina had complained of imaginary
ailments, preferring her husbands herbal cures to his
amatory attentions. Zizmo, in turn, harbored vaguely yogic
beliefs about the mental benefits of semen retention, and
so was disposed to wait until his wifes vitality returned. The
house was sex-segregated like the houses in thepatridha ,
the old country, men in thesala , women in the kitchen. Two
spheres with separate concerns, duties, eventhe
evolutionary biologists might saythought patterns. Lefty
and Desdemona, accustomed to living in their own house,
were forced to adapt to their new landlords ways. Besides,
my grandfather needed a job.
In those days there were a lot of car companies to work for.
There was Chalmers, Metzger, Brush, Columbia, and
Flanders. There was Hupp, Paige, Hudson, Krit, Saxon,
Liberty, Rickenbacker, and Dodge. Jimmy Zizmo, however,
had connections at Ford.
Im a supplier, he said.
Of what?
Assorted fuels.
They were in the Packard again, vibrating on thin tires. A
light mist was falling. Lefty squinted through the fogged
windshield. Little by little, as they approached along
Michigan Avenue, he began to be aware of a monolith
looming in the distance, a building like a gigantic church
organ, pipes running into the sky.
There was also a smell: the same smell that would drift
upriver, years later, to find me in my bed or in the field
hockey goal. Like my own, similarly beaked nose at those
times, my grandfathers nose went on alert. His nostrils
flared. He inhaled. At first the smell was recognizable, part
of the organic realm of bad eggs and manure. But after a
few seconds the smells chemical properties seared his
nostrils, and he covered his nose with his handkerchief.
Zizmo laughed. Dont worry. Youll get used to it.
No, I wont.
Do you want to know the secret?
What?
Dont breathe.
When they reached the factory, Zizmo took him into the
Personnel Department.
How long has he lived in Detroit? the manager asked.
Six months.
Can you verify that?
Zizmo now spoke in a low tone. I could drop the necessary
documents by your house.
The personnel manager looked both ways. Old Log
Cabin?
Only the best.
The chief jutted out his lower lip, examining my grandfather.
Hows his English?
Not as good as mine. But he learns fast.
Hell have to take the course and pass the test. Otherwise
hes out.
Its a deal. Now, if youll write down your home address, we
can schedule a delivery. Would Monday evening, say
around eight-thirty, be suitable?
Come around to the back door.
My grandfathers short employ at the Ford Motor Company
marked the only time any Stephanides has ever worked in
the automobile industry. Instead of cars, we would become
manufacturers of hamburger platters and Greek salads,
industrialists of spanikopita and grilled cheese
sandwiches, technocrats of rice pudding and banana
cream pie. Our assembly line was the grill; our heavy
machinery, the soda fountain. Still, those twenty-five weeks
gave us a personal connection to that massive, forbidding,
awe-inspiring complex we saw from the highway, that
controlled Vesuvius of chutes, tubes, ladders, catwalks, fire,
and smoke known, like a plague or a monarch, only by a
color: the Rouge.
On his first day of work, Lefty came into the kitchen
modeling his new overalls. He spread his flannel-shirted
arms and snapped his fingers, dancing in work boots, and
Desdemona laughed and shut the kitchen door so as not to
wake up Lina. Lefty ate his breakfast of prunes and yogurt,
reading a Greek newspaper a few days old. Desdemona
packed his Greek lunch of feta, olives, and bread in a new
American container: a brown paper bag. At the back door,
when he turned to kiss her she stepped back, anxious that
people might see. But then she remembered that they were
married now. They lived in a place called Michigan, where
the birds seemed to come in only one color, and where no
one knew them. Desdemona stepped forward again to
meet her husbands lips. Their first kiss in the great
American outdoors, on the back porch, near a cherry tree
losing its leaves. A brief flare of happiness went off inside
her and hung, raining sparks, until Lefty disappeared
around the front of the house.
My grandfathers good mood accompanied him all the way
to the trolley stop. Other workers were already waiting,
loose-kneed, smoking cigarettes and joking. Lefty noticed
their metal lunch pails and, embarrassed by his paper
sack, held it behind him. The streetcar showed up first as a
hum in the soles of his boots. Then it appeared against the
rising sun, Apollos own chariot, only electrified. Inside, men
stood in groups arranged by language. Faces scrubbed for
work still had soot inside the ears, deep black. The
streetcar sped off again. Soon the jovial mood dissipated
and the languages fell silent. Near downtown, a few blacks
boarded the car, standing outside on the runners, holding
on to the roof.
And then the Rouge appeared against the sky, rising out of
the smoke it generated. At first all that was visible was the
tops of the eight main smokestacks. Each gave birth to its
own dark cloud. The clouds plumed upward and merged
into a general pall that hung over the landscape, sending a
shadow that ran along the trolley tracks; and Lefty
understood that the mens silence was a recognition of this
shadow, of its inevitable approach each morning. As it
came on, the men turned their backs so that only Lefty saw
the light leave the sky as the shadow enveloped the
streetcar and the mens faces turned gray and one of
themavros on the runners spat blood onto the roadside.
The smell seeped into the streetcar next, first the bearable
eggs and manure, then the unbearable chemical taint, and
Lefty looked at the other men to see if they registered it, but
they didnt, though they continued to breathe. The doors
opened and they all filed out. Through the hanging smoke,
Lefty saw other streetcars letting off other workers,
hundreds and hundreds of gray figures trudging across the
paved courtyard toward the factory gates. Trucks were
driving past, and Lefty let himself be taken along with the
flow of the next shift, fifty, sixty, seventy thousand men
hurrying last cigarettes or getting in final wordsbecause
as they approached the factory theyd begun to speak
again, not because they had anything to say but because
beyond those doors language wasnt allowed. The main
building, a fortress of dark brick, was seven stories high,
the smokestacks seventeen. Running off it were two chutes
topped by water towers. These led to observation decks
and to adjoining refineries studded with less impressive
stacks. It was like a grove of trees, as if the Rouges eight
main smokestacks had sown seeds to the wind, and now
ten or twenty or fifty smaller trunks were sprouting up in the
infertile soil around the plant. Lefty could see the train
tracks now, the huge silos along the river, the giant spice
box of coal, coke, and iron ore, and the catwalks stretching
overhead like giant spiders. Before he was sucked in the
door, he glimpsed a freighter and a bit of the river French
explorers named for its reddish color, long before the water
turned orange from runoff or ever caught on fire.
Historical fact: people stopped being human in 1913. That
was the year Henry Ford put his cars on rollers and made
his workers adopt the speed of the assembly line. At first,
workers rebelled. They quit in droves, unable to accustom
their bodies to the new pace of the age. Since then,
however, the adaptation has been passed down: weve all
inherited it to some degree, so that we plug right into
joysticks and remotes, to repetitive motions of a hundred
kinds.
But in 1922 it was still a new thing to be a machine.
On the factory floor, my grandfather was trained for his job
in seventeen minutes. Part of the new production methods
genius was its division of labor into unskilled tasks. That
way you could hire anyone. And fire anyone. The foreman
showed Lefty how to take a bearing from the conveyor,
grind it on a lathe, and replace it. Holding a stopwatch, he
timed the new employees attempts. Then, nodding once,
he led Lefty to his position on the Line. On the left stood a
man named Wierzbicki; on the right, a man named
OMalley. For a moment, they are three men, waiting
together. Then the whistle blows.
Every fourteen seconds Wierzbicki reams a bearing and
Stephanides grinds a bearing and OMalley attaches a
bearing to a camshaft. This camshaft travels away on a
conveyor, curling around the factory, through its clouds of
metal dust, its acid fogs, until another worker fifty yards on
reaches up and removes the camshaft, fitting it onto the
engine block (twenty seconds). Simultaneously, other men
are unhooking parts from adjacent conveyorsthe
carburetor, the distributor, the intake manifoldand
connecting them to the engine block. Above their bent
heads, huge spindles pound steam-powered fists. No one
says a word. Wierzbicki reams a bearing and Stephanides
grinds a bearing and OMalley attaches a bearing to a
camshaft. The camshaft circles around the floor until a hand
reaches up to take it down and attach it to the engine block,
growing increasingly eccentric now with swooshes of pipe
and the plumage of fan blades. Wierzbicki reams a bearing
and Stephanides grinds a bearing and OMalley attaches a
bearing to a camshaft. While other workers screw in the air
filter (seventeen seconds) and attach the starter motor
(twenty-six seconds) and put on the flywheel. At which point
the engine is finished and the last man sends it soaring
away . . .
Except that he isnt the last man. There are other men
below hauling the engine in, as a chassis rolls out to meet
it. These men attach the engine to the transmission (twentyfive
seconds). Wierzbicki reams a bearing and
Stephanides grinds a bearing and OMalley attaches a
bearing to a camshaft. My grandfather sees only the
bearing in front of him, his hands removing it, grinding it,
and putting it back as another appears. The conveyor over
his head extends back to the men who stamp out the
bearings and load ingots into the furnaces; it goes back to
the Foundry where the Negroes work, goggled against the
infernal light and heat. They feed iron ore into the Blast
Oven and pour molten steel into core molds from ladles.
They pour at just the right ratetoo quickly and the molds
will explode; too slowly and the steel will harden. They cant
stop even to pick the burning bits of metal from their arms.
Sometimes the foreman does it; sometimes not. The
Foundry is the deepest recess of the Rouge, its molten
core, but the Line goes back farther than that. It extends
outside to the hills of coal and coke; it goes to the river
where freighters dock to unload the ore, at which point the
Line becomes the river itself, snaking up to the north woods
until it reaches its source, which is the earth itself, the
limestone and sandstone therein; and then the Line leads
back again, out of substrata to river to freighters and finally
to the cranes, shovels, and furnaces where it is turned into
molten steel and poured into molds, cooling and hardening
into car partsthe gears, drive shafts, and fuel tanks of
1922 Model Ts. Wierzbicki reams a bearing and
Stephanides grinds a bearing and OMalley attaches a
bearing to a camshaft. Above and behind, at various
angles, workers pack sand into core molds, or hammer
plugs into molds, or put casting boxes into the cupola
furnace. The Line isnt a single line but many, diverging and
intersecting. Other workers stamp out body parts (fifty
seconds), bump them (forty-two seconds), and weld the
pieces together (one minute and ten seconds). Wierzbicki
reams a bearing and Stephanides grinds a bearing and
OMalley attaches a bearing to a camshaft. The camshaft
flies around the factory until a man unhooks it, attaches it to
the engine block, growing eccentric now with fan blades,
pipes, and spark plugs. And then the engine is finished. A
man sends it dropping down onto a chassis rolling out to
meet it, as three other workers remove a car body from the
oven, its black finish baked to a shine in which they can see
their own faces, and they recognize themselves,
momentarily, before they drop the body onto the chassis
rolling out to meet it. A man jumps into the front seat (three
seconds), turns the ignition (two seconds), and drives the
automobile away.
By day, no words; by night, hundreds. Every evening at
quitting time my exhausted grandfather would come out of
the factory and tramp across to an adjacent building
housing the Ford English School. He sat in a desk with his
workbook open in front of him. The desk felt as though it
were vibrating across the floor at the Lines 1.2 miles per
hour. He looked up at the English alphabet in a frieze on the
classroom walls. In rows around him, men sat over identical
workbooks. Hair stiff from dried sweat, eyes red from metal
dust, hands raw, they recited with the obedience of
choirboys:
Employees should use plenty of soap and water in the
home.
Nothing makes for right living so much as cleanliness.
Do not spit on the floor of the home.
Do not allow any flies in the house.
The most advanced people are the cleanest.
Sometimes the English lessons continued on the job. One
week, after a lecture by the foreman on increasing
productivity, Lefty speeded up his work, grinding a bearing
every twelve seconds instead of fourteen. Returning from
the lavatory later, he found the word RAT written on the
side of his lathe. The belt was cut. By the time he found a
new belt in the equipment bin, a horn sounded. The Line
had stopped.
What the hells the matter with you? the foreman shouted
at him. Every time we shut down the line, we lose money. If
it happens again, youre out. Understand?
Yes, sir.
Okay! Let her go!
And the Line started up again. After the foreman had gone,
OMalley looked both ways and leaned over to whisper,
Dont try to be a speed king. You understand? We all have
to work faster that way.
Desdemona stayed home and cooked. Without silkworms
to tend or mulberry trees to pick, without neighbors to
gossip with or goats to milk, my grandmother filled her time
with food. While Lefty ground bearings nonstop,
Desdemona built pastitsio, moussaka and galactoboureko.
She coated the kitchen table with flour and, using a
bleached broomstick, rolled out paper-thin sheets of dough.
The sheets came off her assembly line, one after another.
They filled the kitchen. They covered the living room, where
shed laid bedsheets over the furniture. Desdemona went
up and down the line, adding walnuts, butter, honey,
spinach, cheese, adding more layers of dough, then more
butter, before forging the assembled concoctions in the
oven. At the Rouge, workers collapsed from heat and
fatigue, while on Hurlbut my grandmother did a double shift.
She got up in the morning to fix breakfast and pack a lunch
for her husband, then marinated a leg of lamb with wine and
garlic. In the afternoon she made her own sausages,
spiced with fennel, and hung them over the heating pipes in
the basement. At three oclock she started dinner, and only
when it was cooking did she take a break, sitting at the
kitchen table to consult her dream book on the meaning of
her previous nights dreams. No fewer than three pots
simmered on the stove at all times. Occasionally, Jimmy
Zizmo brought home a few of his business associates,
hulking men with thick, ham-like heads stuffed into their
fedoras. Desdemona served them meals at all hours of the
day. Then they were off again, into the city. Desdemona
cleaned up.
The only thing she refused to do was the shopping.
American stores confused her. She found the produce
depressing. Even many years later, seeing a Krogers
McIntosh in our suburban kitchen, she would hold it up to
ridicule, saying, This is nothing. This we fed to goats. To
step into a local market was to miss the savor of the
peaches, figs, and winter chestnuts of Bursa. Already, in
her first months in America, Desdemona was suffering the
homesickness that has no cure. So, after working at the
plant and attending English class, Lefty was the one to pick
up the lamb and vegetables, the spices and honey.
And so they lived . . . one month . . . three . . . five. They
suffered through their first Michigan winter. A January night,
just past 1A.M. Desdemona Stephanides asleep, wearing
her hated YMCA hat against the wind blowing through the
thin walls. A radiator sighing, clanking. By candlelight, Lefty
finishes his homework, notebook propped on knees, pencil
in hand. And from the wall: rustling. He looks up to see a
pair of red eyes shining out from a hole in the baseboard.
He writes R-A-T before throwing his pencil at the vermin.
Desdemona sleeps on. He brushes her hair. He says, in
English, Hello, sweetheart. The new country and its
language have helped to push the past a little further
behind. The sleeping form next to him is less and less his
sister every night and more and more his wife. The statute
of limitations ticks itself out, day by day, all memory of the
crime being washed away. (But what humans forget, cells
remember. The body, that elephant . . .)
Spring arrived, 1923. My grandfather, accustomed to the
multifarious conjugations of ancient Greek verbs, had found
English, for all its incoherence, a relatively simple tongue to
master. Once he had swallowed a good portion of the
English vocabulary, he began to taste the familiar
ingredients, the Greek seasoning in the roots, prefixes, and
suffixes. A pageant was planned to celebrate the Ford
English School graduation. As a top student, Lefty was
asked to take part.
What kind of pageant? Desdemona asked.
I cant tell you. Its a surprise. But you have to sew me
some clothes.
What kind?
Like from thepatridha .
It was a Wednesday evening. Lefty and Zizmo were in
thesala when suddenly Lina came in to listen to The
Ronnie Ronnette Hour. Zizmo gave her a disapproving
look, but she escaped behind her headphones.
She thinks shes one of theseAmerikanidhes , Zizmo said
to Lefty. Look. See? She even crosses her legs.
This is America, Lefty said. Were allAmerikanidhes
now.
This is not America, Zizmo countered. This is my house.
We dont live like theAmerikanidhes in here. Your wife
understands. Do you see her in thesala showing her legs
and listening to the radio?
Someone knocked at the door. Zizmo, who had an
inexplicable aversion to unannounced guests, jumped up
and reached under his coat. He motioned for Lefty not to
move. Lina, noticing something, took off her earphones.
The knock came again. Kyrie, Lina said, if they were
going to kill you, would they knock?
Whos going to kill! Desdemona said, rushing in from the
kitchen.
Just a way of speaking, said Lina, who knew more about
her husbands importing concern that shed been letting on.
She glided to the door and opened it.
Two men stood on the welcome mat. They wore gray suits,
striped ties, black brogues. They had short sideburns. They
carried matching briefcases. When they removed their
hats, they revealed identical chestnut hair, neatly parted in
the center. Zizmo took his hand out of his coat.
Were from the Ford Sociological Department, the tall one
said. Is Mr. Stephanides at home?
Yes? Lefty said.
Mr. Stephanides, let me tell you why were here.
Management has foreseen, the short one seamlessly
continued, that five dollars a day in the hands of some men
might work a tremendous handicap along the paths of
rectitude and right living and might make of them a menace
to society in general.
So it was established by Mr. Fordthe taller one again
took overthat no man is to receive the money who
cannot use it advisedly and conservatively.
Alsothe short one againthat where a man seems to
qualify under the plan and later develops weaknesses, that
it is within the province of the company to take away his
share of the profits until such time as he can rehabilitate
himself. May we come in?
Once across the threshold, they separated. The tall one
took a pad from his briefcase. Im going to ask you a few
questions, if you dont mind. Do you drink, Mr.
Stephanides?
No, he doesnt, Zizmo answered for him.
And who are you, may I ask?
My name is Zizmo.
Are you a boarder here?
This is my house.
So Mr. and Mrs. Stephanides are the boarders?
Thats right.
Wont do. Wont do, said the tall one. We encourage our
employees to obtain mortgages.
Hes working on it, Zizmo said.
Meanwhile, the short one had entered the kitchen. He was
lifting lids off pots, opening the oven door, peering into the
garbage can. Desdemona started to object, but Lina
checked her with a glance. (And notice how Desdemonas
nose has begun to twitch. For two days now, her sense of
smell has been incredibly acute. Foods are beginning to
smell funny to her, feta cheese like dirty socks, olives like
goat droppings.)
How often do you bathe, Mr. Stephanides? the tall one
asked.
Every day, sir.
How often do you brush your teeth?
Every day, sir.
What do you use?
Baking soda.
Now the short one was climbing the stairs. He invaded my
grandparents bedroom and inspected the linens. He
stepped into the bathroom and examined the toilet seat.
From now on, use this, the tall one said. Its a dentifrice.
Heres a new toothbrush.
Disconcerted, my grandfather took the items. We come
from Bursa, he explained. Its a big city.
Brush along the gum lines. Up on the bottoms and down on
the tops. Two minutes morning and night. Lets see. Give it
a try.
We are civilized people.
Do I understand you to be refusing hygiene instruction?
Listen to me, Zizmo said. The Greeks built the Parthenon
and the Egyptians built the pyramids back when the Anglo-
Saxons were still dressing in animal skins.
The tall one took a long look at Zizmo and made a note on
his pad.
Like this? my grandfather said. Grinning hideously, he
moved the toothbrush up and down in his dry mouth.
Thats right. Fine.
The short one now reappeared from upstairs. He flipped
open his pad and began: Item one. Garbage can in kitchen
has no lid. Item two. Housefly on kitchen table. Item three.
Too much garlic in food. Causes indigestion.
(And now Desdemona locates the culprit: the short mans
hair. The smell of brilliantine on it makes her nauseous.)
Very considerate of you to come here and take an interest
in your employees health, Zizmo said. We wouldnt want
anybody to get sick, now, would we? Might slow down
production.
Im going to pretend I didnt hear that, said the tall one.
Seeing as you are not an official employee of the Ford
Motor Company. Howeverturning back to my
grandfatherI should advise you, Mr. Stephanides, that in
my report I am going to make a note of your social
relations. Im going to recommend that you and Mrs.
Stephanides move into your own home as soon as it is
financially feasible.
And may I ask what your occupation is, sir? the short one
wanted to know.
Im in shipping, Zizmo said.
Nice of you gentlemen to stop by, Lina moved in. But if
youll excuse us, were just about to have dinner. We have
to go to church tonight. And, of course, Lefty has to be in
bed by nine to get rest. He likes to be fresh in the morning.
Thats fine. Fine.
Together, they put on their hats and left.
And so we come to the weeks leading up to the graduation
pageant. To Desdemona sewing apalikari vest,
embroidering it with red, white, and blue thread. To Lefty
getting off work one Friday evening and crossing over
Miller Road to be paid from the armored truck. To Lefty
again, the night of the pageant, taking the streetcar to
Cadillac Square and walking into Golds Clothes. Jimmy
Zizmo meets him there to help him pick out a suit.
Its almost summer. How about something cream-colored?
With a yellow silk necktie?
No. The English teacher told us. Blue or gray only.
They want to turn you into a Protestant. Resist!
Ill take the blue suit, please, thank you, Lefty says in his
best English.
(And here, too, the shop owner seems to owe Zizmo a
favor. He gives them a 20 percent discount.)
Meanwhile, on Hurlbut, Father Stylianopoulos, head priest
of Assumption Greek Orthodox Church, has finally come
over to bless the house. Desdemona watches the priest
nervously as he drinks the glass of Metaxa she has offered
him. When she and Lefty became members of his
congregation, the old priest had asked, as a formality, if
they had received an Orthodox wedding. Desdemona had
replied in the affirmative. She had grown up believing that
priests could tell whether someone was telling the truth or
not, but Father Stylianopoulos had only nodded and written
their names into the church register. Now he sets down his
glass. He stands and recites the blessing, shaking holy
water on the threshold. Before hes finished, however,
Desdemonas nose begins acting up again. She can smell
what the priest had for lunch. She can detect the aroma
under his arms as he makes the sign of the cross. At the
door, letting him out, she holds her breath. Thank you,
Father. Thank you. Stylianopoulos goes on his way. But its
no use. As soon as she inhales again, she can smell the
fertilized flower beds and Mrs. Czeslawski boiling cabbage
next door and what she swears must be an open jar of
mustard somewhere, all these scents gone wayward on
her, as she puts a hand to her stomach.
Right then the bedroom door swings open. Sourmelina
steps out. Powder and rouge cover one side of her face;
the other side, bare, looks green. Do you smell
something? she asks.
Yes. I smell everything.
Oh my God.
What is it?
I didnt think this would happen to me. To you maybe. But
not to me.
And now we are in the Detroit Light Guard Armory, later
that night, 7:00P.M. An assembled audience of two thousand
settles down as the house lights dim. Prominent business
leaders greet each other with handshakes. Jimmy Zizmo, in
a new cream-colored suit with yellow necktie, crosses his
legs, jiggling one saddle shoe. Lina and Desdemona hold
hands, joined in a mysterious union.
The curtain parts to gasps and scattered applause. A
painted flat shows a steamship, two huge smokestacks,
and a swath of deck and railing. A gangway extends into
the stages other focal point: a giant gray cauldron
emblazoned with the words ford english school melting pot.
A European folk melody begins to play. Suddenly a lone
figure appears on the gangway. Dressed in a Balkan
costume of vest, ballooning trousers, and high leather
boots, the immigrant carries his possessions bundled on a
stick. He looks around with apprehension and then
descends into the melting pot.
What propaganda, Zizmo murmurs in his seat.
Lina shushes him.
Now SYRIA descends into the pot. Then ITALY. POLAND.
NORWAY. PALESTINE. And finally: GREECE.
Look, its Lefty!
Wearing embroideredpalikari vest, puffysleevedpoukamiso
, and pleatedfoustanella skirt, my
grandfather bestrides the gangway. He pauses a moment
to look out at the audience, but the bright lights blind him.
He cant see my grandmother looking back, bursting with
her secret. GERMANY taps him on the back. Macht
schnell.Excuse me. Go fastly.
In the front row, Henry Ford nods with approval, enjoying the
show. Mrs. Ford tries to whisper in his ear, but he waves
her off. His blue seagulls eyes dart from face to face as the
English instructors appear onstage next. They carry long
spoons, which they insert into the pot. The lights turn red
and flicker as the instructors stir. Steam rises over the
stage.
Inside the cauldron, men are packed together, throwing off
immigrant costumes, putting on suits. Limbs are tangling
up, feet stepping on feet. Lefty says, Pardon me, excuse
me, feeling thoroughly American as he pulls on his blue
wool trousers and jacket. In his mouth: thirty-two teeth
brushed in the American manner. His underarms: liberally
sprinkled with American deodorant. And now spoons are
descending from above, men are churning around and
around . . .
. . . as two men, short and tall, stand in the wings, holding a
piece of paper . . .
. . . and out in the audience my grandmother has a stunned
look on her face . . .
. . . and the melting pot boils over. Red lights brighten. The
orchestra launches into Yankee Doodle. One by one, the
Ford English School graduates rise from the cauldron.
Dressed in blue and gray suits, they climb out, waving
American flags, to thunderous applause.
The curtain had barely come down before the men from the
Sociological Department approached.
I pass the final exam, my grandfather told them. Ninetythree
percent! And today I open savings account.
That sounds fine, the tall one said.
But unfortunately, its too late, said the short one. He took
a slip from his pocket, a color well known in Detroit: pink.
We did some checking on your landlord. This so-called
Jimmy Zizmo. Hes got a police record.
I dont know anything, my grandfather said. Im sure is a
mistake. He is a nice man. Works hard.
Im sorry, Mr. Stephanides. But you can understand that
Mr. Ford cant have workers maintaining such associations.
You dont need to come down to the plant on Monday.
As my grandfather struggled to absorb this news, the short
one leaned in. I hope you learn a lesson from this. Mixing
with the wrong crowd can sink you. You seem like a nice
guy, Mr. Stephanides. You really do. We wish you the best
of luck in the future.
A few minutes later, Lefty came out to meet his wife. He
was surprised when, in front of everyone, she hugged him,
refusing to let go.
You liked the pageant?
Its not that.
What is it?
Desdemona looked into her husbands eyes. But it was
Sourmelina who explained it all. Your wife and I? she said
in plain English. Were both knocked up.
MINOTAURS
Which is something Ill never have much to do with. Like
most hermaphrodites but by no means all, I cant have
children. Thats one of the reasons why Ive never married.
Its one of the reasons, aside from shame, why I decided to
join the Foreign Service. Ive never wanted to stay in one
place. After I started living as a male, my mother and I
moved away from Michigan and Ive been moving ever
since. In another year or two Ill leave Berlin, to be posted
somewhere else. Ill be sad to go. This once-divided city
reminds me of myself. My struggle for unification, forEinheit
. Coming from a city still cut in half by racial hatred, I feel
hopeful here in Berlin.
A word on my shame. I dont condone it. Im trying my best
to get over it. The intersex movement aims to put an end to
infant genital reconfiguration surgery. The first step in that
struggle is to convince the worldand pediatric
endocrinologists in particularthat hermaphroditic genitals
are not diseased. One out of every two thousand babies is
born with ambiguous genitalia. In the United States, with a
population of two hundred and seventy-five million, that
comes to one hundred and thirty-seven thousand
intersexuals alive today.
But we hermaphrodites are people like everybody else.
And I happen not to be a political person. I dont like
groups. Though Im a member of the Intersex Society of
North America, I have never taken part in its
demonstrations. I live my own life and nurse my own
wounds. Its not the best way to live. But its the way I am.
The most famous hermaphrodite in history? Me? It felt good
to write that, but Ive got a long way to go. Im closeted at
work, revealing myself only to a few friends. At cocktail
receptions, when I find myself standing next to the former
ambassador (also a native of Detroit), we talk about the
Tigers. Only a few people here in Berlin know my secret. I
tell more people than I used to, but Im not at all consistent.
Some nights I tell people Ive just met. In other cases I keep
silent forever.
That goes especially for women Im attracted to. When I
meet someone I like and who seems to like me, I retreat.
There are lots of nights out in Berlin when, emboldened by
a good-value Rioja, I forget my physical predicament and
allow myself to hope. The tailored suit comes off. The
Thomas Pink shirt, too. My dates cant fail to be impressed
by my physical condition. (Under the armor of my doublebreasted
suits is another of gym-built muscle.) But the final
protection, my roomy, my discreet boxer shorts, these I do
not remove. Ever. Instead I leave, making excuses. I leave
and never call them again. Just like a guy.
And soon enough I am at it again. I am trying once more,
toeing the line. I saw my bicyclist again this morning. This
time I found out her name: Julie. Julie Kikuchi. Raised in
northern California, graduate of the Rhode Island School of
Design, and currently in Berlin on a grant from the
Künstlerhaus Bethanien. But more important, right now: my
date for Friday night.
Its just a first date. It wont come to anything. No reason to
mention my peculiarities, my wandering in the maze these
many years, shut away from sight. And from love, too.
The Simultaneous Fertilization had occurred in the early
morning hours of March 24, 1923, in separate, vertical
bedrooms, after a night out at the theater. My grandfather,
not knowing he was soon to be fired, had splurged on four
tickets toThe Minotaur , playing at the Family. At first
Desdemona had refused to go. She disapproved of theater
in general, especially vaudeville, but in the end, unable to
resist the Hellenic theme, she had put on a new pair of
stockings, and a black dress and overcoat, and made her
way with the others down the sidewalk and into the terrifying
Packard.
When the curtain rose at the Family Theater, my relatives
expected to get the whole story. How Minos, King of Crete,
failed to sacrifice a white bull to Poseidon. How Poseidon,
enraged, caused Minoss wife Pasiphaë to be smitten with
love for a bull. How the child of that union, Asterius, came
out with a bulls head attached to a human body. And then
Daedalus, the maze, etc. As soon as the footlights came
on, however, the productions nontraditional emphasis
became clear. Because now they pranced onstage: the
chorus girls. Dressed in silver halters, robed in see-through
shifts, they danced, reciting strophes that didnt scan to the
eerie piping of flutes. The Minotaur appeared, an actor
wearing a papier-mâché bulls head. Lacking any sense of
classical psychology, the actor played his half-human
character as pure movie monster. He growled; drums
pounded; chorus girls screamed and fled. The Minotaur
pursued, and of course he caught them, each one, and
devoured her bloodily, and dragged her pale, defenseless
body deeper into the maze. And the curtain came down.
In the eighteenth row my grandmother gave her critical
opinion. Its like the paintings in the museum, she said.
Just an excuse to show people with no clothes.
She insisted on leaving before Act II. At home, getting
ready for bed, the four theatergoers went about their nightly
routines. Desdemona washed out her stockings, lit the vigil
lamp in the hallway. Zizmo drank a glass of the papaya
juice he touted as beneficial for the digestion. Lefty neatly
hung up his suit, pinching each trouser crease, while
Sourmelina removed her makeup with cold cream and went
to bed. The four of them, moving in their individual orbits,
pretended that the play had had no effect on them. But now
Jimmy Zizmo was turning off his bedroom light. Now he
was climbing into his single bedto find it occupied!
Sourmelina, dreaming of chorus girls, had sleepwalked
across the throw rug. Murmuring strophes, she climbed on
top of her stand-in husband. (You see? Zizmo said in the
dark. No more bile. Its the castor oil.) Upstairs,
Desdemona might have heard something through the floor
if she hadnt been pretending to be asleep. Against her will,
the play had aroused her, too. The Minotaurs savage,
muscular thighs. The suggestive sprawl of his victims.
Ashamed of her excitement, she gave no outward sign.
She switched off the lamp. She told her husband good
night. She yawned (also theatrical) and turned her back.
While Lefty stole up from behind.
Freeze the action. A momentous night, this, for all involved
(including me). I want to record the positions (Lefty dorsal,
Lina couchant) and the circumstances (nights amnesty)
and the direct cause (a play about a hybrid monster).
Parents are supposed to pass down physical traits to their
children, but its my belief that all sorts of other things get
passed down, too: motifs, scenarios, even fates. Wouldnt I
also sneak up on a girl pretending to be asleep? And
wouldnt there also be a play involved, and somebody dying
onstage?
Leaving these genealogical questions aside, I return to the
biological facts. Like college girls sharing a dorm room,
Desdemona and Lina were both synchronized in their
menstrual cycles. That night was day fourteen. No
thermometer verified this, but a few weeks later the
symptoms of nausea and hypersensitive noses did.
Whoever named it morning sickness was a man, Lina
declared. He was just home in the morning to notice. The
nausea kept no schedule; it owned no watch. They were
sick in the afternoon, in the middle of the night. Pregnancy
was a boat in a storm and they couldnt get off. And so they
lashed themselves to the masts of their beds and rode out
the squall. Everything they came in contact with, the
bedsheets, the pillows, the air itself, began to turn on them.
Their husbands breath became intolerable, and when they
werent too sick to move, they were waving their arms,
gesturing to the men to keep away.
Pregnancy humbled the husbands. After an initial rush of
male pride, they quickly recognized the minor role that
nature had assigned them in the drama of reproduction,
and quietly withdrew into a baffled reserve, catalysts to an
explosion they couldnt explain. While their wives grandly
suffered in the bedrooms, Zizmo and Lefty retreated to
thesala to listen to music, or drove to a coffee house in
Greektown where no one would be offended by their smell.
They played backgammon and talked politics, and no one
spoke about women because in the coffee house everyone
was a bachelor, no matter how old he was or how many
was a bachelor, no matter how old he was or how many
children hed given a wife who preferred their company to
his. The talk was always the same, of the Turks and their
brutality, of Venizelos and his mistakes, of King
Constantine and his return, and of the unavenged crime of
Smyrna burned.
And does anybody care? No!
Its like what Bérenger said to Clemenceau: He who owns
the oil owns the world.
Those damn Turks! Murderers and rapists!
They desecrated the Hagia Sophia and now they
destroyed Smyrna!
But here Zizmo spoke up: Stop bellyaching. The war was
the Greeks fault.
What!
Who invaded who? asked Zizmo.
The Turks invaded. In 1453.
The Greeks cant even run their own country. Why do they
need another?
At this point, men stood up, chairs were knocked over.
Who the hell are you, Zizmo? Goddamned Pontian! Turksympathizer!
I sympathize with the truth, shouted Zizmo. Theres no
evidence the Turks started that fire. The Greeks did it to
blame it on the Turks.
Lefty stepped between the men, preventing a fight. After
that, Zizmo kept his political opinions to himself. He sat
morosely drinking coffee, reading an odd assortment of
magazines or pamphlets speculating on space travel and
ancient civilizations. He chewed his lemon peels and told
Lefty to do so, too. Together, they settled into the random
camaraderie of men on the outskirts of a birth. Like all
expectant fathers, their thoughts turned to money.
My grandfather had never told Jimmy the reason for his
dismissal from Ford, but Zizmo had a good idea why it
might have happened. And so, a few weeks later, he made
what restitution he could.
Just act like were going for a drive.
Okay.
If we get stopped, dont say anything.
Okay.
This is a better job than the Rouge. Believe me. Five
dollars a day is nothing. And here you can eat all the garlic
you want.
They are in the Packard, passing the amusement grounds
of Electric Park. Its foggy out, and latejust past 3A.M. To
be honest, the amusement grounds should be closed at this
hour, but, for my own purposes, tonight Electric Park is
open all night, and the fog suddenly lifts, all so that my
grandfather can look out the window and see a roller
coaster streaking down the track. A moment of cheap
symbolism only, and then I have to bow to the strict rules of
realism, which is to say: they cant see a thing. Spring fog
foams over the ramparts of the newly opened Belle Isle
Bridge. The yellow globes of streetlamps glow, aureoled in
the mist.
Lot of traffic for this late, Lefty marvels.
Yes, says Zizmo. Its very popular at night.
The bridge lifts them gently above the river and sets them
back down on the other side. Belle Isle, a parameciumshaped
island in the Detroit River, lies less than half a mile
from the Canadian shore. By day, the park is full of
picnickers and strollers. Fisherman line its muddy banks.
Church groups hold tent meetings. Come dark, however,
the island takes on an offshore atmosphere of relaxed
morals. Lovers park in secluded lookouts. Cars roll over the
bridge on shadowy missions. Zizmo drives through the
gloom, past the octagonal gazebos and the monument of
the Civil War Hero, and into the woods where the Ottawa
the Civil War Hero, and into the woods where the Ottawa
once held their summer camp. Fog wipes the windshield.
Birch trees shed parchment beneath an ink-black sky.
Missing from most cars in the 1920s: rearview mirrors.
Steer, Zizmo keeps saying, and turns around to see if
theyre being followed. In this fashion, trading the wheel,
they weave along Central Avenue and The Strand, circling
the island three times, until Zizmo is satisfied. At the
northeastern end, he pulls the car over, facing Canada.
Why are we stopping?
Wait and see.
Zizmo turns the headlights on and off three times. He gets
out of the car. So does Lefty. They stand in the darkness
amid river sounds, waves lapping, freighters blowing
foghorns. Then theres another sound: a distant hum. You
have an office? my grandfather asks. A warehouse?
This is my office. Zizmo waves his hands through the air.
He points to the Packard. And thats my warehouse. The
hum is getting louder now; Lefty squints through the fog. I
used to work for the railroad. Zizmo takes a dried apricot
out of his pocket and eats it. Out West in Utah. Broke my
back. Then I got smart. But the hum has almost reached
them; Zizmo is opening the trunk. And now, in the fog, an
outboard appears, a sleek craft with two men aboard. They
cut the engine as the boat glides into the reeds. Zizmo
hands an envelope to one man. The other whisks the tarp
off the boats stern. In moonlight, neatly stacked, twelve
wooden crates gleam.
Now I run a railroad of my own, says Zizmo. Start
unloading.
The precise nature of Jimmy Zizmos importing business
was thus revealed. He didnt deal in dried apricots from
Syria, halvah from Turkey, and honey from Lebanon. He
imported Hiram Walkers whiskey from Ontario, beer from
Quebec, and rum from Barbados by way of the St.
Lawrence River. A teetotaler himself, he made his living
buying and selling liquor. If theseAmerikani are all drunks,
what can I do? he justified, driving away minutes later.
You should have told me! Lefty shouted, enraged. If we
get caught, I wont get my citizenship. Theyll send me back
to Greece.
What choice do you have? You have a better job? And
dont forget. You and I, we have babies on the way.
So began my grandfathers life of crime. For the next eight
months he worked in Zizmos rum-running operation,
observing its odd hours, getting up in the middle of the night
and having dinner at dawn. He adopted the slang of the
illegal trade, increasing his English vocabulary fourfold. He
learned to call liquor hooch, bingo, squirrel dew, and
monkey swill. He referred to drinking establishments as
boozeries, doggeries, rumholes, and schooners. He
learned the locations of blind pigs all over the city, the
funeral parlors that filled bodies not with embalming fluid
but with gin, the churches that offered something more than
sacramental wine, and the barbershops whose Barbicide
jars contained blue ruin. Lefty grew familiar with the
shoreline of the Detroit River, its screened inlets and secret
landings. He could identify police outboards at a distance
of a quarter mile. Rum-running was a tricky business. The
major bootlegging was controlled by the Purple Gang and
the Mafia. In their beneficence they allowed a certain
amount of amateur smuggling to go onthe day trips to
Canada, the fishing boats out for a midnight cruise. Women
took the ferry to Windsor with gallon flasks under their
dresses. As long as such smuggling didnt cut into the main
business, the gangs allowed it. But Zizmo was far
exceeding the limit.
They went out five to six times a week. The Packards trunk
could fit four cases of liquor, its commodious, curtained
backseat eight more. Zizmo respected neither rules nor
territories. As soon as they voted in Prohibition, I went to
the library and looked at a map, he said, explaining how
hed gotten into the business. There they were, Canada
and Michigan, almost kissing. So I bought a ticket to
Detroit. When I got here, I was broke. I went to see a
marriage broker in Greektown. The reason I let Lina drive
this car? She paid for it. He smiled with satisfaction, but
then followed his thoughts a little further and his face
darkened. I dont approve of women driving, mind you. And
now they get to vote! He grumbled to himself. Remember
that play we saw? All women are like that. Given the
chance, theyd all fornicate with a bull.
Those are just stories, Jimmy, said Lefty. You cant take
them literally.
Why not? Zizmo continued. Women arent like us. They
have carnal natures. The best thing to do with them is to
shut them up in a maze.
What are you talking about?
Zizmo smiled. Pregnancy.
It was like a maze. Desdemona kept turning this way and
that, left side, right side, trying to find a comfortable
position. Without leaving her bed, she wandered the dark
corridors of pregnancy, stumbling over the bones of women
who had passed this way before her. For starters, her
mother, Euphrosyne (whom she was suddenly beginning to
resemble), her grandmothers, her great-aunts, and all the
women before them stretching back into prehistory right
back to Eve, on whose womb the curse had been laid.
Desdemona came into a physical knowledge of these
women, shared their pains and sighs, their fear and
protectiveness, their outrage, their expectation. Like them
she put a hand to her belly, supporting the world; she felt
omnipotent and proud; and then a muscle in her back
spasmed.
I give you now the entire pregnancy in time lapse.
Desdemona, at eight weeks, lies on her back, bedcovers
drawn up to her armpits. The light at the window flickers
with the change of day and night. Her body jerks; shes on
her side, her belly; the covers change shape. A wool
blanket appears and disappears. Food trays fly to the
bedside table, then jump away before returning. But
throughout the mad dance of inanimate objects the
continuity of Desdemonas shifting body remains at center.
Her breasts inflate. Her nipples darken. At fourteen weeks
her face begins to grow plump, so that for the first time I can
recognize theyia yia of my childhood. At twenty weeks a
mysterious line starts drawing itself down from her navel.
Her belly rises like Jiffy Pop. At thirty weeks her skin thins,
and her hair gets thicker. Her complexion, pale with nausea
at first, grows less so until there it is: a glow. The bigger she
gets, the more stationary. She stops lying on her stomach.
Motionless, she swells toward the camera. The windows
strobe effect continues. At thirty-six weeks she cocoons
herself in bedsheets. The sheets go up and down, revealing
her face, exhausted, euphoric, resigned, impatient. Her
eyes open. She cries out.
Lina wrapped her legs in putties to prevent varicose veins.
Worried that her breath was bad, she kept a tin of mints
beside her bed. She weighed herself each morning, biting
her lower lip. She enjoyed her new buxom figure but fretted
about the consequences. My breasts will never be the
same. I know it. After this, just flaps. Like in theNational
Geographic. Pregnancy made her feel too much like an
animal. It was embarrassing to be so publicly colonized.
Her face felt on fire during hormone surges. She perspired;
her makeup ran. The entire process was a holdover from
more primitive stages of development. It linked her with the
lower forms of life. She thought of queen bees spewing
eggs. She thought of the collie next door, digging its hole in
the backyard last spring.
The only escape was radio. She wore her earphones in
bed, on the couch, in the bathtub. During the summer she
carried her Aeriola Jr. outside and sat under the cherry
tree. Filling her head with music, she escaped her body.
On a third-trimester October morning, a cab pulled up
outside 3467 Hurlbut Street and a tall, slender figure
climbed out. He checked the address against a piece of
paper, collected his thingsumbrella and suitcaseand
paid the driver. He took off his hat and stared into it as
though reading instructions along the lining. Then he put the
hat back on and walked up onto the porch.
Desdemona and Lina both heard the knocking. They met at
the front door.
When they opened it, the man looked from belly to belly.
Im just in time, he said.
It was Dr. Philobosian. Clear-eyed, clean-shaven,
recovered from his grief. I saved your address. They
invited him in and he told his story. He had indeed
contracted the eye disease favus on theGiulia . But his
medical license had saved him from being sent back to
Greece; America needed physicians. Dr. Philobosian had
stayed a month in the hospital at Ellis Island, after which,
with sponsorship from the Armenian Relief Agency, he had
been admitted into the country. For the last eleven months
hed been living in New York, on the Lower East Side.
Grinding lenses for an optometrist. Recently hed
managed to retrieve some assets from Turkey and had
come to the Midwest. Im going to open a practice here.
New York has too many doctors already.
He stayed for dinner. The womens delicate conditions
didnt excuse them from domestic duties. On swollen legs
they carried out dishes of lamb and rice, okra in tomato
sauce, Greek salad, rice pudding. Afterward, Desdemona
brewed Greek coffee, serving it in demitasse cups with the
brown foam, thelakia , on top. Dr. Philobosian remarked to
the seated husbands, Hundred-to-one odds. Are you sure
it happened on the same night?
Yes, Sourmelina replied, smoking at the table. There
must have been a full moon.
It usually takes a woman five or six months to get
pregnant, the doctor went on. To have you two do it on the
same nighta-hundred-to-one odds!
Hundred-to-one? Zizmo looked across the table at
Sourmelina, who looked away.
Hundred-to-one at least, assured the doctor.
Its all the Minotaurs fault, Lefty joked.
Dont talk about that play, Desdemona scolded.
Why are you looking at me like that? asked Lina.
I cant look at you? asked her husband.
Sourmelina let out an exasperated sigh and wiped her
mouth with her napkin. There was a strained silence. Dr.
Philobosian, pouring himself another glass of wine, rushed
in.
Birth is a fascinating subject. Take deformities, for
instance. People used to think they were caused by
maternal imagination. During the conjugal act, whatever the
mother happened to look at or think about would affect the
child. Theres a story in Damascene about a woman who
had a picture of John the Baptist over her bed. Wearing the
traditional hair shirt. In the throes of passion, the poor
woman happened to glance up at this portrait. Nine months
later, her baby was bornfurry as a bear! The doctor
laughed, enjoying himself, sipping more wine.
That cant happen, can it? Desdemona, suddenly
alarmed, wanted to know.
But Dr. Philobosian was on a roll. Theres another story
about a woman who touched a toad while making love. Her
baby came out with pop eyes and covered with warts.
This is in a book you read? Desdemonas voice was tight.
ParésOn Monsters and Marvels has most of this. The
Church got into it, too. In hisEmbryological Sacra,
Cangiamilla recommended intrauterine baptisms. Suppose
you were worried that you might be carrying a monstrous
baby. Well, there was a cure for that. You simply filled a
syringe with holy water and baptized the infant before it was
born.
Dont worry, Desdemona, Lefty said, seeing how anxious
she looked. Doctors dont think that anymore.
Of course not, said Dr. Philobosian. All this nonsense
comes from the Dark Ages. We know now that most birth
deformities result from the consanguinity of the parents.
From the what? asked Desdemona.
From families intermarrying.
Desdemona went white.
Causes all kinds of problems. Imbecility. Hemophilia. Look
at the Romanovs. Look at any royal family. Mutants, all of
them.
I dont remember what I was thinking that night,
Desdemona said later while washing the dishes.
I do, said Lina. Third one from the right. With the red
hair.
I had my eyes closed.
Then dont worry.
Desdemona turned on the water to cover their voices. And
what about the other thing? The con . . . the con . . .
The consanguinity?
Yes. How do you know if the baby has that?
You dont know until its born.
Mana!
Why do you think the Church doesnt let brothers and
sisters get married? Even first cousins have to get
permission from a bishop.
I thought it was because . . . and she trailed off, having no
answer.
Dont worry, Lina said. These doctors exaggerate. If
families marrying each other was so bad, wed all have six
arms and no legs.
But Desdemona did worry. She thought back to Bithynios,
trying to remember how many children had been born with
something wrong with them. Melia Salakas had a daughter
with a piece missing from the middle of her face. Her
brother, Yiorgos, had been eight years old his whole life.
Were there any babies with hair shirts? Any frog babies?
Desdemona recalled her mother telling stories about
strange infants born in the village. They came every few
generations, babies who were sick in some way,
Desdemona couldnt remember how exactlyher mother
had been vague. Every so often these babies appeared,
and they always met with tragic ends: they killed
themselves, they ran off and became circus performers,
they were seen years later in Bursa, begging or prostituting
themselves. Lying alone in bed at night, with Lefty out
working, Desdemona tried to recall the details of these
stories, but it was too long ago and now Euphrosyne
Stephanides was dead and there was no one to ask. She
thought back to the night shed gotten pregnant and tried to
reconstruct events. She turned on her side. She made a
pillow stand in for Lefty, pressing it against her back. She
looked around the room. There were no pictures on the
walls. She hadnt been touching any toads. What did I
see? she asked herself. Only the wall.
But she wasnt the only one tormented by anxieties.
Recklessly now, and with an official disclaimer as to the
veracity of what Im about to tell youbecause, of all the
actors in my midwestern Epidaurus, the one wearing the
biggest mask is Jimmy ZizmoIll try to give you a glimpse
into his emotions that last trimester. Was he excited about
becoming a father? Did he bring home nutritive roots and
brew homeopathic teas? No, he wasnt, he didnt. After Dr.
Philobosian came to dinner that night, Jimmy Zizmo began
to change. Maybe it was what the doctor had said
regarding the synchronous pregnancies. A-hundred-to-one
odds. Maybe it was this stray bit of information that was
responsible for Zizmos increasing moodiness, his
suspicious glances at his pregnant wife. Maybe he was
doubting the likelihood that a single act of intercourse in a
five-month dry spell would result in a successful pregnancy.
Was Zizmo examining his young wife and feeling old?
Tricked?
In the late autumn of 1923, minotaurs haunted my family. To
Desdemona they came in the form of children who couldnt
stop bleeding, or who were covered with fur. Zizmos
monster was the well-known one with green eyes. It stared
out of the rivers darkness while he waited onshore for a
shipment of liquor. It leapt up from the roadside to confront
him through the Packards windshield. It rolled over in bed
when he got home before sunrise: a green-eyed monster
lying next to his young, inscrutable wife, but then Zizmo
would blink and the monster would disappear.
When the women were eight months pregnant, the first
snow fell. Lefty and Zizmo wore gloves and mufflers as they
waited on the shore of Belle Isle. Nevertheless, despite his
insulation, my grandfather was shivering. Twice in the last
month theyd had close calls with the police. Sick with
jealous suspicions, Zizmo had been erratic, forgetting to
schedule rendezvous, choosing drop-off points with
insufficient preparation. Worse, the Purple Gang was
consolidating its hold on the citys rum-running. It was only a
matter of time before they ran afoul of it.
Meanwhile, back on Hurlbut, a spoon was swinging.
Sourmelina, legs bandaged, lay back in her boudoir as
Desdemona performed the first of the many
prognostications that would end with me.
Tell me its a girl.
You dont want a girl. Girls are too much trouble. You have
to worry about them going with the boys. You have to get a
dowry and find a husband
They dont have dowries in America, Desdemona.
The spoon began to move.
If its a boy, Ill kill you.
A daughter youll fight with.
A daughter I can talk to.
A son you will love.
The spoons arc increased.
Its . . . its . . .
What?
Start saving money.
Yes?
Lock the windows.
Is it? Is it really?
Get ready to fight.
You mean its a . . .
Yes. A girl. Definitely.
Oh, thank God.
. . . And a walk-in closet being cleaned out. And the walls
being painted white to serve as a nursery. Two identical
cribs arrive from Hudsons. My grandmother sets them up
in the nursery, then hangs a blanket between them in case
her child is a boy. Out in the hall, she stops before the vigil
light to pray to the All-Holy: Please dont let my baby be
this thing a hemophiliac. Lefty and I didnt know what we
were doing. Please, I swear I will never have another baby.
Just this one.
Thirty-three weeks. Thirty-four. In uterine swimming pools,
babies perform half-gainers, flipping over headfirst. But
Sourmelina and Desdemona, so synchronized in their
pregnancies, diverged at the end. On December 17, while
listening to a radio play, Sourmelina removed her
earphones and announced that she was having pains.
Three hours later, Dr. Philobosian delivered a girl, as
Desdemona predicted. The baby weighed only four pounds
three ounces and had to be kept in an incubator for a week.
See? Lina said to Desdemona, gazing at the baby
through the glass. Dr. Phil was wrong. Look. Her hairs
black. Not red.
Jimmy Zizmo approached the incubator next. He removed
his hat and bent very close to squint. And did he wince?
Did the babys pale complexion confirm his doubts? Or
provide answers? As to why a wife might complain of
aches and pains? Or why she might be conveniently cured,
in order to prove his paternity? (Whatever his doubts, the
child was his. Sourmelinas complexion had merely stolen
the show. Genetics, a crapshoot, entirely.)
All I know is this: shortly after Zizmo saw his daughter, he
came up with his final scheme. A week later, he told Lefty,
Get ready. We have business tonight.
And now the mansions along the lake are lit with Christmas
lights. The great snow-covered lawn of Rose Terrace, the
Dodge mansion, boasts a forty-foot Christmas tree trucked
in from the Upper Peninsula. Elves race around the pine in
miniature Dodge sedans. Santa is chauffeured by a
reindeer in a cap. (Rudolph hasnt been created yet, so the
reindeers nose is black.) Outside the mansions gates, a
black-and-tan Packard passes by. The driver looks straight
ahead. The passenger gazes out at the enormous house.
Jimmy Zizmo is driving slowly because of the chains on the
tires. Theyve come out along E. Jefferson, past Electric
Park and the Belle Isle Bridge. Theyve continued through
Detroits East Side, following Jefferson Avenue. (And now
were here, my neck of the woods: Grosse Pointe. Heres
the Starks house, where Clementine Stark and I will
practice kissing the summer before third grade. And
theres the Baker & Inglis School for Girls, high on its hill
over the lake.) My grandfather is well aware that Zizmo
hasnt come to Grosse Pointe to admire the big houses.
Anxiously, he waits to see what Zizmo has in mind. Not far
from Rose Terrace, the lakefront opens up, black, empty,
and frozen solid. Near the bank the ice piles up in chunks.
Zizmo follows the shoreline until he comes to a gap in the
road where boats launch in summer. He turns in to it and
stops.
Were going over the ice? my grandfather says.
Easiest way to Canada at the moment.
Are you sure it will hold?
In response to my grandfathers question, Zizmo only opens
his door: to facilitate escape. Lefty follows suit. The
Packards front wheels drop onto ice. It feels as if the entire
frozen lake shifts. A high-pitched noise follows, as when
teeth bear down on ice cubes. After a few seconds, this
stops. The rear wheels drop. The ice settles.
My grandfather, who hasnt prayed since he was in Bursa,
has the impulse to give it another go. Lake St. Clair is
controlled by the Purple Gang. It provides no trees to hide
behind, no side roads to sneak down. He bites his thumb
where the nail is missing.
Without a moon, they see only what the insectile headlamps
illuminate: fifteen feet of granular, ice-blue surface,
crisscrossed by tire tracks. Vortices of snow whirl up in
front of them. Zizmo wipes the fogged windshield with his
shirt sleeve. Keep a lookout for dark ice.
Why?
That means its thin.
Its not long before the first patch appears. Where shoals
rise, lapping water weakens the ice. Zizmo steers around it.
Soon, however, another patch appears and he has to go in
the other direction. Right. Left. Right. The Packard snakes
along, following the tire tracks of other rumrunners.
Occasionally an ice house blocks their path and they have
to back up, return the way they came. Now to the right, now
the left, now backward, now forward, moving into the
darkness over ice as smooth as marble. Zizmo leans over
the wheel, squinting toward where the beams die out. My
grandfather holds his door open, listening for the sound of
the ice groaning . . .
. . . But now, over the engine noise, another noise starts up.
Across town on this very same night, my grandmother is
having a nightmare. Shes in a lifeboat aboard theGiulia .
Captain Kontoulis kneels between her legs, removing her
wedding corset. He unlaces it, pulls it open, while puffing on
a clove cigarette. Desdemona, filled with embarrassment
at her sudden nakedness, looks down at the object of the
captains fascination: a heavy ships rope disappears
inside her. Heave ho! Captain Kontoulis shouts, and Lefty
appears, looking concerned. He takes the end of the rope
and begins pulling. And then:
Pain. Dream pain, real but not real, just the neurons firing.
Deep inside Desdemona, a water balloon explodes.
Warmth gushes against her thighs as blood fills the lifeboat.
Lefty gives a tug on the rope, then another. Blood spatters
the captains face, but he lowers his brim and weathers it.
Desdemona cries out, the lifeboat rocks, and then theres a
popping sound and she feels a sick sensation, as if shes
being torn in two, and there, on the end of the rope, is her
child, a little knot of muscle, bruise-colored, and she looks
to find the arms and cannot, and she looks to find the legs
and cannot, and then the tiny head lifts and she looks into
her babys face, a single crescent of teeth opening and
closing, no eyes, no mouth, only teeth, flapping open and
shut . . .
Desdemona bolts awake. Its a moment before she
realizes that her actual, real-life bed is soaked through. Her
water has broken . . .
. . . while out on the ice the Packards headlamps brighten
with each acceleration, as more juice flows from the
battery. Theyre in the shipping lane now, equidistant from
both shores. The sky a great black bowl above them,
pierced with celestial fires. They cant remember the way
they came now, how many turns they took, where the bad
ice is. The frozen terrain is scrawled with tire tracks leading
in every possible direction. They pass the carcasses of old
jalopies, front ends fallen through the ice, doors riddled with
bullet holes. There are axles lying about, and hubcaps, and
a few spare tires. In the darkness and whirling snow, my
grandfathers eyes play tricks on him. Twice he thinks he
sees a phalanx of cars approaching. The cars toy with
them, appearing now in front, now to the side, now behind,
coming and going so quickly he cant be sure if he saw
them at all. And there is another smell in the Packard now,
above leather and whiskey, a stringent, metallic smell
overpowering my grandfathers deodorant: fear. Its right
then that Zizmo, in a calm voice, says, Something I always
wondered about. Why dont you ever tell anyone that Lina is
your cousin?
The question, coming out of the blue, takes my grandfather
off guard. We dont keep it a secret.
No? says Zizmo. Ive never heard you mention it.
Where we come from, everybody is a cousin, Lefty tries to
joke. Then: How much farther do we have to go?
Other side of the shipping lane. Were still on the American
side.
How are you going to find them out here?
Well find them. You want me to speed up? Without
waiting for a reply, Zizmo steps on the accelerator.
Thats okay. Go slow.
Something else I always wanted to know, Zizmo says,
accelerating.
Jimmy, be safe.
Why did Lina have to leave the village to get married?
Youre going too fast. I dont have time to check the ice.
Answer me.
Why did she leave? There was no one to marry. She
wanted to come to America.
Is that what she wanted? He accelerates again.
Jimmy. Slow down!
But Zizmo pushes the pedal to the floor. And shouts, Is it
you!
What are you talking about?
Is it you! Zizmo roars again, and now the engine is
whining, the ice is whizzing by underneath the car. Who is
it! he demands to know. Tell me! Who is it? . . .
. . . But before my grandfather can come up with an answer,
another memory comes careening across the ice. It is a
Sunday night during my childhood and my father is taking
me to the movies at the Detroit Yacht Club. We ascend the
red-carpeted stairs, passing silver sailing trophies and the
oil portrait of the hydroplane racer Gar Wood. On the
second floor, we enter the auditorium. Wooden folding
chairs are set up before a movie screen. And now the lights
have been switched off and the clanking projector shoots
out a beam of light, showing a million dust motes in the air.
The only way my father could think of to instill in me a sense
of my heritage was to take me to dubbed Italian versions of
the ancient Greek myths. And so, every week, we saw
Hercules slaying the Nemean lion, or stealing the girdle of
the Amazons (Thats some girdle, eh, Callie?), or being
thrown gratuitously into snake pits without textual support.
But our favorite was the Minotaur . . .
. . . On the screen an actor in a bad wig appears. Thats
Theseus, Milton explains. Hes got this ball of string his
girlfriend gave him, see. And hes using it to find his way
back out of the maze.
Now Theseus enters the Labyrinth. His torch lights up stone
walls made of cardboard. Bones and skulls litter his path.
Bloodstains darken the fake rock. Without taking my eyes
from the screen, I hold out my hand. My father reaches into
the pocket of his blazer to find a butterscotch candy. As he
gives it to me, he whispers, Here comes the Minotaur!
And I shiver with fear and delight.
Academic to me then, the sad fate of the creature. Asterius,
through no fault of his own, born a monster. The poisoned
fruit of betrayal, a thing of shame hidden away; I dont
understand any of that at eight. Im just rooting for
understand any of that at eight. Im just rooting for
Theseus . . .
. . . as my grandmother, in 1923, prepares to meet the
creature hidden in her womb. Holding her belly, she sits in
the backseat of the taxi, while Lina, up front, tells the driver
to hurry. Desdemona breathes in and out, like a runner
pacing herself, and Lina says, Im not even mad at you for
waking me up. I was going to the hospital in the morning
anyway. Theyre letting me take the baby home. But
Desdemona isnt listening. She opens her prepacked
suitcase, feeling among nightgown and slippers for her
worry beads. Amber like congealed honey, cracked by
heat, theyve gotten her through massacres, a refugee
march, and a burning city, and she clicks them as the taxi
rattles over the dark streets, trying to outrace her
contractions . . .
. . . as Zizmo races the Packard over the ice. The
speedometer needle rises. The engine thunders. Tire
chains rooster-tail snow. The Packard hurtles into the
darkness, skidding on patches, fishtailing. Did you two
have it all planned? he shouts. Have Lina marry an
American citizen so she could sponsor you?
What are you talking about? my grandfather tries to
reason. When you and Lina got married, I didnt even know
I was coming to America. Please slow down.
Was that the plan? Find a husband and then move into his
house!
The never-failing conceit of Minotaur movies. The monster
always approaches from the direction you least expect.
Likewise, out on Lake St. Clair, my grandfather has been
looking out for the Purple Gang, when in reality the monster
is right next to him, at the wheel of the car. In the wind from
the open door, Zizmos frizzy hair streams back like a
mane. His head is lowered, his nostrils flared. His eyes
shine with fury.
Who is it!
Jimmy! Turn around! The ice! Youre not looking at the
ice.
I wont stop unless you tell me.
Theres nothing to tell. Linas a good girl. A good wife to
you. I swear!
But the Packard hurtles on. My grandfather flattens himself
against his seat.
What about the baby, Jimmy? Think about your daughter.
Who says its mine?
Of course its yours.
I never should have married that girl.
Lefty doesnt have time to argue the point. Without
answering any more questions, he rolls out the open door,
free of the car. The wind hits him like a solid force,
knocking him back against the rear fender. He watches as
his muffler, in slow motion, winds itself around the
Packards back wheel. He feels it tighten like a noose, but
then the scarf comes loose from his neck, and time speeds
up again as Lefty is thrown clear of the auto. He covers his
face as he hits the ice, skidding a great distance. When he
looks up again, he sees the Packard, still going. Its
impossible to tell if Zizmo is trying to turn, to brake. Lefty
stands up, nothing broken, and watches as Zizmo hurtles
crazily on into the darkness . . . sixty yards . . . eighty . . . a
hundred . . . until suddenly another sound is heard. Above
the engine roar comes a loud crack, followed by a
scintillation spreading underfoot, as the Packard hits a dark
patch on the frozen lake.
Just like ice, lives crack, too. Personalities. Identities.
Jimmy Zizmo, crouching over the Packards wheel, has
already changed past understanding. Right here is where
the trail goes cold. I can take you this far and no further.
Maybe it was a jealous rage. Or maybe he was just figuring
his options. Weighing a dowry against the expense of
raising a family. Guessing that it couldnt go on forever, this
boom time of Prohibition.
And theres one further possibility: he might have been
faking the whole thing.
But theres no time for these ruminations. Because the ice
is screaming. Zizmos front wheels crash through the
surface. The Packard, as gracefully as an elephant
standing on its front legs, flips up onto its grille. Theres a
moment where the headlamps illuminate the ice and water
below, like a swimming pool, but then the hood crashes
through and, with a shower of sparks, everything goes dark.
At Womens Hospital, Desdemona was in labor for six
hours. Dr. Philobosian delivered the baby, whose sex was
revealed in the usual manner: by spreading the legs apart
and looking. Congratulations. A son.
Desdemona, with great relief, cried out, The only hair is on
his head.
Lefty arrived at the hospital soon thereafter. He had walked
back to shore and hitched a ride on a milk truck home. Now
he stood at the window of the nursery, his armpits still rank
with fear, his right cheek roughened by his fall on the ice
and his lower lip swollen. Just that morning, fortuitously,
Linas baby had gained enough weight to leave the
incubator. The nurses held up both children. The boy was
named Miltiades after the great Athenian general, but
would be known as Milton, after the great English poet. The
girl, who would grow up without a father, was named
Theodora, after the scandalous empress of Byzantium
whom Sourmelina admired. She would later get an
American nickname, too.
But there was something else I wanted to mention about
those babies. Something impossible to see with the naked
eye. Look closer. There. Thats right:
One mutation apiece.
MARRIAGE ON ICE
Jimmy Zizmos funeral was held thirteen days later by
permission of the bishop in Chicago. For nearly two weeks
the family stayed at home, polluted by death, greeting the
occasional visitor who came to pay respects. Black cloths
covered the mirrors. Black streamers draped the doors.
Because a person should never show vanity in the
presence of death, Lefty stopped shaving and by the day of
the funeral had grown nearly a full beard.
The failure of the police to recover the body had caused the
delay. On the day after the accident, two detectives had
gone out to inspect the scene. The ice had refrozen during
the night and a few inches of new snow had fallen. The
detectives trudged back and forth, searching for tire tracks,
but after a half hour gave up. They accepted Leftys story
that Zizmo had gone ice-fishing and might have been
drinking. One detective assured Lefty that bodies often
turned up in the spring, remarkably preserved because of
the freezing water.
The family went ahead with their grief. Father
Stylianopoulos brought the case to the attention of the
bishop, who granted the request to give Zizmo an Orthodox
funeral, provided an interment ceremony be held at the
graveside if the body were later found. Lefty took care of
the funeral arrangements. He picked out a casket, chose a
plot, ordered a headstone, and paid for the death notices in
the newspaper. In those days Greek immigrants were
beginning to use funeral parlors, but Sourmelina insisted
that the viewing be held at home. For over a week
mourners arrived into the darkenedsala , where the window
shades had been drawn and the scent of flowers hung
heavy in the air. Zizmos shadowy business associates
made visits, as well as people from the speakeasies he
supplied and a few of Linas friends. After giving the widow
their condolences, they crossed the living room to stand
before the open coffin. Inside, resting on a pillow, was a
framed photograph of Jimmy Zizmo. The picture showed
Zizmo in three-quarters profile, gazing up toward the
celestial glow of studio lighting. Sourmelina had cut the
ribbon between their wedding crowns and placed her
husbands inside the coffin, too.
Sourmelinas anguish at her husbands death far exceeded
her affection for him in life. For ten hours over two days she
keened over Jimmy Zizmos empty coffin, reciting
themirologhia . In the best histrionic village style,
Sourmelina unleashed soaring arias in which she lamented
the death of her husband and castigated him for dying.
When she was finished with Zizmo she railed at God for
taking him so soon, and bemoaned the fate of her newborn
daughter. You are to blame! It is all your fault! she cried.
What reason was there for you to die? You have left me a
widow! You have left your child on the streets! She nursed
the baby as she keened and every so often held her up so
that Zizmo and God could see what they had done. The
older immigrants, hearing Linas rage, found themselves
returning to their childhood in Greece, to memories of their
own grandparents or parents funerals, and everyone
agreed that such a display of grief would guarantee Jimmy
Zizmos soul eternal peace.
In accordance with Church law, the funeral was held on a
weekday. Father Stylianopoulos, wearing a tallkalimafkion
on his head and a large pectoral cross, came to the house
at ten in the morning. After a prayer was said, Sourmelina
brought the priest a candle burning on a plate. She blew it
out, the smoke rose and dispersed, and Father
Stylianopoulos broke the candle in two. After that, everyone
filed outside to begin the procession to the church. Lefty
had rented a limousine for the day, and opened the door for
his wife and cousin. When he got in himself, he gave a
small wave to the man who had been chosen to stay
behind, blocking the doorway to keep Zizmos spirit from
reentering the house. This man was Peter Tatakis, the
future chiropractor. Following tradition, Uncle Pete guarded
the doorway for more than two hours, until the service at the
church was over.
The ceremony contained the full funeral liturgy, omitting only
the final portion where the congregation is asked to give
the deceased a final kiss. Instead, Sourmelina passed by
the casket and kissed the wedding crown, followed by
Desdemona and Lefty. Assumption Church, which at that
time operated out of a small storefront on Hart Street, was
still less than a quarter full. Jimmy and Lina had not been
regular churchgoers. Most of the mourners were old
widows for whom funerals were a form of entertainment. At
last the pallbearers brought the casket outside for the
funeral photograph. The participants clustered around it, the
simple Hart Street church in the background. Father
Stylianopoulos took his position at the head of the casket.
The casket itself was reopened to show the photo of Jimmy
Zizmo resting against the pleated satin. Flags were held
over the coffin, the Greek flag on one side, the American
flag on the other. No one smiled for the flash. Afterward, the
funeral procession continued to Forest Lawn Cemetery on
Van Dyke, where the casket was put in storage until spring.
There was still a possibility that the body might materialize
with the spring thaw.
Despite the performance of all the necessary rites, the
family remained aware that Jimmy Zizmos soul wasnt at
rest. After death, the souls of the Orthodox do not wing their
way directly to heaven. They prefer to linger on earth and
annoy the living. For the next forty days, whenever my
grandmother misplaced her dream book or her worry
beads, she blamed Zizmos spirit. He haunted the house,
making fresh milk curdle and stealing the bathroom soap.
As the mourning period drew to an end, Desdemona and
Sourmelina prepared thekolyvo . It was like a wedding
cake, made in three blindingly white tiers. A fence
surrounded the top layer, from which grew fir trees made of
green gelatin. There was a pond of blue jelly, and Zizmos
name was spelled out in silver-coated dragées. On the
fortieth day after the funeral, another church ceremony was
held, after which everyone returned to Hurlbut Street. They
gathered around thekolyvo , which was sprinkled with the
powdered sugar of the afterlife and mixed with the immortal
seeds of pomegranates. As soon as they ate the cake, they
could all feel it: Jimmy Zizmos soul was leaving the earth
and entering heaven, where it couldnt bother them
anymore. At the height of the festivities, Sourmelina caused
a scandal when she returned from her room wearing a
bright orange dress.
What are you doing? Desdemona whispered. A widow
wears black for the rest of her life.
Forty days is enough, said Lina, and went on eating.
Only then could the babies be baptized. The next Saturday,
Desdemona, seized with conflicting emotions, watched as
the childrens godfathers held them above the baptismal
font at Assumption. As she entered the church, my
grandmother had felt an intense pride. People crowded
around, trying to get a look at her new baby, who had the
miraculous power of turning even the oldest women into
young mothers again. During the rite itself, Father
Stylianopoulos clipped a lock of Miltons hair and dropped
it into the water. He chrismed the sign of the cross on the
babys forehead. He submerged the infant under the water.
But as Milton was cleansed of original sin, Desdemona
remained cognizant of her iniquity. Silently, she repeated
her vow never to have another child.
Lina, she began a few days later, blushing.
What?
Nothing.
Not nothing. Something. What?
I was wondering. How do you . . . if you dont want . . . And
she blurted it out: How do you keep from getting
pregnant?
Lina gave a low laugh. Thats not something I have to worry
about anymore.
But do you know how? Is there a way?
My mother always said as long as youre nursing, you cant
get pregnant. I dont know if its true, but thats what she
said.
But after that, what then?
Simple. Dont sleep with your husband.
At present, it was possible. Since the birth of the baby, my
grandparents had taken a hiatus from lovemaking.
Desdemona was up half the night breast-feeding. She was
always exhausted. In addition, her perineum had torn during
the delivery and was still healing. Lefty politely kept himself
from starting anything amorous, but after the second month
he began to come over to her side of the bed. Desdemona
held him off as long as she could. Its too soon, she said.
We dont want another baby.
Why not? Milton needs a brother.
Youre hurting me.
Ill be gentle. Come here.
No, please, not tonight.
What? Are you turning into Sourmelina? Once a year is
enough?
Quiet. Youll wake the baby.
I dont care if I wake the baby.
Dont shout. Okay. Here. Im ready.
But five minutes later: Whats the matter?
Nothing.
Dont tell me nothing. Its like being with a statue.
Oh, Lefty! And she burst into sobs.
Lefty comforted her and apologized, but as he turned over
to go to sleep he felt himself being enclosed in the
loneliness of fatherhood. With the birth of his son,
Eleutherios Stephanides saw his future and continuing
diminishment in the eyes of his wife, and as he buried his
face in his pillow, he understood the complaint of fathers
everywhere who lived like boarders in their own homes. He
felt a mad jealousy toward his infant son, whose cries were
the only sounds Desdemona seemed to hear, whose little
body was the recipient of unending ministrations and
caresses, and who had muscled his own father aside in
Desdemonas affections by a seemingly divine subterfuge,
a god taking the form of a piglet in order to suckle at a
womans breast. Over the next weeks and months, Lefty
watched from the Siberia of his side of the bed as this
mother-infant love affair blossomed. He saw his wife
scrunch her face up against the babys to make cooing
noises; he marveled at her complete lack of disgust toward
the infants bodily processes, the tenderness with which
she cleaned up and powdered the babys bottom, rubbing
with circular motions and even once, to Leftys shock,
spreading the tiny buttocks to daub the rosebud between
with petroleum jelly.
From then on, my grandparents relationship began to
change. Up until Miltons birth, Lefty and Desdemona had
enjoyed an unusually close and egalitarian marriage for its
time. But as Lefty began to feel left out, he retaliated with
tradition. He stopped calling his wifekukla , which meant
doll, and began calling herkyria , which meant Madame.
He reinstituted sex segregation in the house, reserving
thesala for his male companions and banishing
Desdemona to the kitchen. He began to give orders.
Kyria, my dinner. Or: Kyria, bring the drinks! In this he
acted like his contemporaries and no one noticed anything
out of the ordinary except Sourmelina. But even she
couldnt entirely throw off the chains of the village, and when
Lefty had his male friends over to the house to smoke
cigars and sing kleftic songs, she retreated to her
bedroom.
Shut up in the isolation of paternity, Lefty Stephanides
concentrated on finding a safer way to make a living. He
wrote to the Atlantis Publishing Company in New York,
offering his services as a translator, but received in return
only a letter thanking him for his interest, along with a
catalogue. He gave the catalogue to Desdemona, who
ordered a new dream book. Wearing his blue Protestant
suit, Lefty visited the local universities and colleges in
person to inquire about the possibility of becoming a Greek
instructor. But there were few positions, and all were filled.
My grandfather lacked the necessary classics degree; he
hadnt even graduated from university. Though he learned
to speak a fluent, somewhat eccentric English, his written
command of the language was mediocre at best. With a
wife and child to support, there was no thought of his
returning to school. Despite these obstacles or maybe
because of them, during the forty-day mourning period Lefty
had set up a study for himself in the living room and
returned to his scholarly pursuits. Obstinately, and for sheer
escape, he spent hours translating Homer and Mimnermos
into English. He used beautiful, much too expensive
Milanese notebooks and wrote with a fountain pen filled
with emerald ink. In the evenings, other young immigrant
men came over, bringing bootleg whiskey, and they all
drank and played backgammon. Sometimes Desdemona
smelled the familiar musky-sweet scent seeping under the
door.
During the daytime, if he felt cooped up, Lefty pulled his
new fedora low on his forehead and left the house to think.
He walked down to Waterworks Park, amazed that the
Americans had built such a palace to house plumbing filters
and intake valves. He went down to the river and stood
among the dry-docked boats. German shepherds, chained
in ice-whitened yards, snarled at him. He peeked into the
windows of bait shops closed for the winter. During one of
these walks he passed a demolished apartment building.
The façade had been torn down, revealing the inner rooms
like a dollhouse. Lefty saw the brightly tiled kitchens and
bathrooms hanging in midair, half-enclosed spaces whose
rich colors reminded him of the sultans tombs, and he had
an idea.
The next morning he climbed down into the basement on
Hurlbut and went to work. He removed Desdemonas
spiced sausages from the heating pipes. He swept up the
cobwebs and laid a rug over the dirt floor. He brought down
Jimmy Zizmos zebra skin from upstairs and tacked it on
the wall. In front of the sink he built a small bar out of
discarded lumber and covered it with scavenged tiles: blueand-
white arabesques; Neapolitan checkerboard; red
heraldic dragons; and local, earth-tone Pewabics. For
tables, he upended cable reels and spread them with
cloths. He tented bedsheets overhead, hiding the pipes.
From his old connections in the rum-running business he
rented a slot machine and ordered a weeks supply of beer
and whiskey. And on a cold Friday night in February of
1924, he opened for business.
The Zebra Room was a neighborhood place with irregular
hours. Whenever Lefty was open for business he put an
icon of St. George in the living room window, facing the
street. Patrons came around back, giving a coded knock
a long and two shorts followed by two longson the
basement door. Then they descended out of the America of
factory work and tyrannical foremen into an Arcadian grotto
of forgetfulness. My grandfather put the Victrola in the
corner. He set out braided sesamekoulouria on the bar. He
greeted people with the exuberance they expected from a
foreigner and he flirted with the ladies. Behind the bar a
stained glass window of liquor bottles glowed: the blues of
English gin, the deep reds of claret and Madeira, the tawny
browns of scotch and bourbon. A hanging lamp spun on its
chain, speckling the zebra skin with light and making the
customers feel even drunker than they were. Occasionally
someone would stand up from his chair and begin to twitch
and snap his fingers to the strange music, while his
companions laughed.
Down in that basement speakeasy, my grandfather
acquired the attributes of the barkeep he would be for the
rest of his life. He channeled his intellectual powers into the
science of mixology. He learned how to serve the evening
rush one-man-band style, pouring whiskeys with his right
hand while filling beer steins with his left, as he pushed out
coasters with his elbow and pumped the keg with his foot.
For fourteen to sixteen hours a day he worked in that
sumptuously decorated hole in the ground and never
stopped moving the entire time. If he wasnt pouring drinks,
he was refilling thekoulouria trays. If he wasnt rolling out a
new beer keg, he was placing hard-boiled eggs in a wire
hamper. He kept his body busy so that his mind wouldnt
have a chance to think: about the growing coldness of his
wife, or the way their crime pursued them. Lefty had
dreamed of opening a casino, and the Zebra Room was as
close as he ever came to it. There was no gambling, no
potted palms, but there was rebetika and, on many nights,
hashish. Only in 1958, when he had stepped from behind
the bar of another Zebra Room, would my grandfather have
the leisure to remember his youthful dreams of roulette
wheels. Then, trying to make up for lost time, he would ruin
himself, and finally silence his voice in my life forever.
Desdemona and Sourmelina remained upstairs, raising the
children. Practically speaking, this meant that Desdemona
got them out of bed in the morning, fed them, washed their
faces, and changed their diapers before bringing them in to
Sourmelina, who by then was receiving visitors, still
smelling of the cucumber slices she put over her eyelids at
night. At the sight of Theodora, Sourmelina spread her
arms and crooned,Chryso fili! snatching her golden girl
from Desdemona and covering her face with kisses. For
the rest of the morning, drinking coffee, Lina amused
herself by applying kohl to little Theodoras eyelashes.
When odors arose, she handed the baby back, saying,
Something happened.
It was Sourmelinas belief that the soul didnt enter the body
until a child started speaking. She let Desdemona worry
about the diaper rashes and whooping coughs, the
earaches and nosebleeds. Whenever company came over
for Sunday dinner, however, Sourmelina greeted them with
the overdressed baby pinned to her shoulder, the perfect
accessory. Sourmelina was bad with babies but terrific with
teenagers. She was there for your first crushes and
heartbreaks, your party dresses and spins at sophisticated
states like anomie. And so, in those early years, Milton and
Theodora grew up together in the traditional Stephanides
way. As once akelimi had separated a brother and sister,
now a wool blanket separated second cousins. As once a
double shadow had leapt up against a mountainside, now a
similarly conjoined shadow moved across the back porch
of the house on Hurlbut.
They grew. At one, they shared the same bathwater. At two,
the same crayons. At three, Milton sat in a toy airplane
while Theodora spun the propeller. But the East Side of
Detroit wasnt a small mountain village. There were lots of
kids to play with. And so when he turned four, Milton
renounced his cousins companionship, preferring to play
with neighborhood boys. Theodora didnt care. By then she
had another cousin to play with.
Desdemona had done everything she could to fulfill her
promise of never having another child. She nursed Milton
until he was three. She continued to rebuff Leftys
advances. But it was impossible to do so every night. There
were times when the guilt she felt for marrying Lefty
conflicted with the guilt she felt for not satisfying him. There
were times when Leftys need seemed so desperate, so
pitiful, that she couldnt resist giving in to him. And there
were times when she, too, needed physical comfort and
release. It happened no more than a handful of times each
year, though more often in the summer months.
Occasionally Desdemona had too much wine on
somebodys name day, and then it also happened. And on
a hot night in July of 1927 it significantly happened, and the
result was a daughter: Zoë Helen Stephanides, my Aunt Zo.
From the moment she learned that she was pregnant, my
grandmother was again tormented by fears that the baby
would suffer a hideous birth defect. In the Orthodox Church,
even the children of closely related godparents were kept
from marrying, on the grounds that this amounted to
spiritual incest. What was that compared with this? This
was much worse! So Desdemona agonized, unable to
sleep at night as the new baby grew inside her. That she
had promised the Panaghia, the All-Holy Virgin, that she
would never have another child only made Desdemona feel
more certain that the hand of judgment would now fall heavy
on her head. But once again her anxieties were for naught.
The following spring, on April 27, 1928, Zoë Stephanides
was born, a large, healthy girl with the squarish head of her
grandmother, a powerful cry, and nothing at all the matter
with her.
Milton had little interest in his new sister. He preferred
shooting his slingshot with his friends. Theodora was just
the opposite. She was enthralled with Zoë. She carried the
new baby around with her like a new doll. Their lifelong
friendship, which would suffer many strains, began from day
one, with Theodora pretending to be Zoës mother.
The arrival of another baby made the house on Hurlbut feel
crowded. Sourmelina decided to move out. She found a job
in a florists shop, leaving Lefty and Desdemona to assume
the mortgage on the house. In the fall of that same year,
Sourmelina and Theodora took up residence nearby in the
OToole Boardinghouse, right behind Hurlbut on Cadillac
Boulevard. The backs of the two houses faced each other
and Lina and Theodora were still close enough to visit
nearly every day.
On Thursday, October 24, 1929, on Wall Street in New York
City, men in finely tailored suits began jumping from the
windows of the citys famous skyscrapers. Their lemminglike
despair seemed far away from Hurlbut Street, but little
by little the dark cloud passed over the nation, moving in the
opposite direction to the weather, until it reached the
Midwest. The Depression made itself known to Lefty by a
growing number of empty barstools. After nearly six years
of operating at full capacity, there began to be slow
periods, nights when the place was only two-thirds full, or
just half. Nothing deterred the stoic alcoholics from their
calling. Despite the international banking conspiracy
(unmasked by Father Coughlin on the radio), these
stalwarts presented themselves for duty whenever St.
George galloped in the window. But the social drinkers and
family men stopped showing up. By March of 1930, only
half as many patrons gave the secret dactylic-spondaic
knock on the basement door. Business picked up during
the summer. Dont worry, Lefty told Desdemona.
President Herbert Hoover is taking care of things. The
worst is over. They skated along through the next year and
a half, but by 1932 only a few customers were coming in
each day. Lefty extended credit, discounted drinks, but it
was no use. Soon he couldnt pay for shipments of liquor.
One day two men came in and repossessed the slot
machine.
It was terrible. Terrible! Desdemona still cried fifty years
later, describing those years. Throughout my childhood the
slightest mention of the Depression would set myyia yia off
into a full cycle of wailing and breast-clutching. (Even once
when the subject was manic depression.) She would go
limp in her chair, squeezing her face in both hands like the
figure in MunchsThe Scream and then would do so:
Mana!The Depression! So terrible you no can believe!
Everybody they no have work. I remember the marches for
the hunger, all the people they are marching in the street, a
million people, one after one, one after one, to go to tell Mr.
Henry Ford to open the factory. Then we have in the alley
one night a noise was terrible. The people they are killing
rats, plam plam plam, with sticks, to go to eat the rats. Oh
my God! And Lefty he was no working in the factory then.
He only having, you know, the speakeasy, where the people
they use to come to drink. But in the Depression was in the
middle another bad time, economy very bad, and nobody
they have money to drink. They no can eat, how they can
drink? So soonpapou andyia yia we no have money.
Andthen hand to heartthen they make me go to work
for thosemavros . Black people! Oh my God!
It happened like this. One night, my grandfather got into bed
with my grandmother to find that she wasnt alone. Milton,
eight years old now, was snuggled up against her side. On
her other side was Zoë, who was only four. Lefty, exhausted
from work, looked down at the spectacle of this menagerie.
He loved the sight of his sleeping children. Despite the
problems of his marriage, he could never blame his son or
daughter for them. At the same time, he rarely saw them. In
order to make enough money he had to keep the
speakeasy open sixteen, sometimes eighteen, hours a
day. He worked seven days a week. To support his family
he had to be exiled from them. In the mornings when he
was around the house, his children treated him like a
familiar relative, an uncle maybe, but not a father.
And then there was the problem of the bar ladies. Serving
drinks day and night, in a dim grotto, he had many
opportunities to meet women drinking with their friends or
even alone. My grandfather was thirty years old in 1932. He
had filled out and become a man; he was charming,
friendly, always well dressedand still in his physical
prime. Upstairs his wife was too frightened to have sex, but
down in the Zebra Room women gave Lefty bold, hot looks.
Now, as my grandfather gazed down at the three sleeping
figures in the bed, his head contained all these things at
once: love for his children, love for his wife, along with
frustration with his marriage, and boyish, unmarried-feeling
excitement around the bar ladies. He bent his face close to
Zoës. Her hair was still wet from the bath, and richly
fragrant. He took his fatherly delights while at the same time
he remained a man apart. Lefty knew that all the things in
his head couldnt hold together. And so after gazing on the
beauty of his childrens faces, he lifted them out of the bed
and carried them back to their own room. He returned and
got into bed beside his sleeping wife. Gently, he began
stroking her, moving his hand up under her nightgown. And
suddenly Desdemonas eyes opened.
What are you doing!
What do you think Im doing?
Im sleeping.
Im waking you up.
Shame on you. My grandmother pushed him away. And
Lefty relented. He rolled angrily away from her. There was a
long silence before he spoke.
I dont get anything from you. I work all the time and I get
nothing.
You think I dont work? I have two children to take care of.
If you were a normal wife, it might be worth it for me to be
working all the time.
If you were a normal husband, you would help with the
children.
How can I help you? You dont even understand what it
takes to make money in this country. You think Im having a
good time down there?
You play music, you drink. I can hear the music in the
kitchen.
Thats my job. Thats why the people come. And if they
dont come, we cant pay our bills. The whole thing rests on
me. Thats what you dont understand. I work all day and
night and then when I come to bed I cant even sleep.
Theres no room!
Milton had a nightmare.
Im having a nightmare every day.
He switched the light on and, in its glow, Desdemona saw
her husbands face screwed up with a malice shed never
seen before. It was no longer Leftys face, no longer that of
her brother or her husband. It was the face of someone
new, a stranger she was living with.
And this terrible new face delivered an ultimatum:
Tomorrow morning, Lefty spat, youre going to go get a
job.
The next day, when Lina came over for lunch, Desdemona
asked her to read the newspaper for her.
How can I work? I dont even know English.
You know a little.
We should have gone to Greece. In Greece a husband
wouldnt make his wife go out and get a job.
Dont worry, Lina said, holding up the recycled newsprint.
There arent any. The 1932Detroit Times classifieds,
advertised to a population of four million, ran to just over
one column. Sourmelina squinted, looking for something
appropriate.
Waitress, Lina read.
No.
Why not?
Men would flirt with me.
You dont like to flirt?
Read, Desdemona said.
Tool and dye, said Lina.
My grandmother frowned. What is that?
I dont know.
Like dyeing fabric?
Maybe.
Go on, said Desdemona.
Cigar roller, Lina continued.
I dont like smoke.
Housemaid.
Lina, please. I cant be a maid for somebody.
Silk worker.
What?
Silk worker. Thats all it says. And an address.
Silk worker? Im a silk worker. I know everything.
Then congratulations, you have a job. If its not gone by the
time you get there.
An hour later, dressed for job hunting, my grandmother
reluctantly left the house. Sourmelina had tried to persuade
her to borrow a dress with a low neckline. Wear this and
no one will notice what kind of English you speak, she
said. But Desdemona set out for the streetcar in one of her
plain dresses, gray with brown polka dots. Her shoes, hat,
and handbag were each a brown that almost matched.
Though preferable to automobiles, streetcars didnt appeal
to Desdemona either. She had trouble telling the lines
apart. The fitful, ghost-powered trolleys were always
making unexpected turns, shuttling her off into unknown
parts of the city. When the first trolley stopped, she shouted
at the conductor, Downtown? He nodded. She boarded,
flipped down a seat, and took from her purse the address
Lina had written out. When the conductor passed by, she
showed it to him.
Hastings Street? That what you want?
Yes. Hastings Street.
Stay on this car to Gratiot. Then take the Gratiot car
downtown. Get off at Hastings.
At the mention of Gratiot, Desdemona felt relieved. She
and Lefty took the Gratiot line to Greektown. Now
everything made sense.So, they dont make silk in Detroit?
she triumphantly asked her absent husband.Thats how
much you know. The streetcar picked up speed. The
storefronts of Mack Avenue passed by, more than a few
closed up, windows soaped over. Desdemona pressed her
closed up, windows soaped over. Desdemona pressed her
face to the glass, but now, because she was alone, she had
a few more words to say to Lefty.If those policemen at Ellis
Island hadnt taken my silkworms, I could set up a
cocoonery in the backyard. I wouldnt have to get a job.
We could make a lot of money. I told you so. Passengers
clothes, still dressy in those days, nevertheless showed
wear and tear: hats gone unblocked for months, hemlines
and cuffs frayed, neckties and lapels gravy-stained. On the
curb a man held up a hand-painted sign: WORK iS WHAT I
WANT AND NOT CHARiTY WHO WiLL HELP ME GET A
JOB. 7 YEARS IN DETROIT. NO MONEy. SENT AWAY
FURNISH BEST OF REFERENCES.Look at that poor
man. Mana!He looks like a refugee. Might as well be
Smyrna, this city. Whats the difference? The streetcar
labored on, moving away from the landmarks she knew, the
greengrocers, the movie theater, the fire hydrants and
neighborhood newspaper stands. Her village eyes, which
could differentiate between trees and bushes at a glance,
glazed over at the signage along the route, the
meaningless roman letters swirling into one another and the
ragged billboards showing American faces with the skin
peeling off, faces without eyes, or with no mouth, or with
nothing but a nose. When she recognized Gratiots
diagonal swath, she stood up and called out in a ringing
voice: Sonnamabiche! She had no idea what this English
word meant. She had heard Sourmelina employ it
whenever she missed her stop. As usual, it worked. The
driver braked the streetcar and the passengers moved
quickly aside to let her off. They seemed surprised when
she smiled and thanked them.
On the Gratiot streetcar she told the conductor, Please, I
want Hastings Street.
Hastings? You sure?
She showed him the address and said it louder:Hastings
Street.
Okay. Ill let you know.
The streetcar made for Greektown. Desdemona checked
her reflection in the window and fixed her hat. Since her
pregnancies she had put on weight, thickened in the waist,
but her skin and hair were still beautiful and she was still an
attractive woman. After looking at herself, she returned her
attention to the passing scenery. What else would my
grandmother have seen on the streets of Detroit in 1932?
She would have seen men in floppy caps selling apples on
corners. She would have seen cigar rollers stepping
outside windowless factories for fresh air, their faces
stained a permanent brown from tobacco dust. She would
have seen workers handing out pro-union pamphlets while
Pinkerton detectives tailed them. In alleyways, she might
have seen union-busting goons working over those same
pamphleteers. She would have seen policemen, on foot
and horseback, 60 percent of whom were secretly
members of the white Protestant Order of the Black Legion,
who had their own methods for disposing of blacks,
Communists, and Catholics. But come on, Cal, I hear my
mothers voice, dont you have anything nice to say?
Okay, all right. Detroit in 1932 was known as The City of
Trees. More trees per square mile here than any other city
in the country. To shop, you had Kerns and Hudsons. On
Woodward Avenue the auto magnates had built the
beautiful Detroit Institute of Arts, where, that very minute
while Desdemona rode to her job interview, a Mexican
artist named Diego Rivera was working on his own new
commission: a mural depicting the new mythology of the
automobile industry. On scaffolding he sat on a folding
chair, sketching the great work: the four androgynous races
of humankind on the upper panels, gazing down on the
River Rouge assembly line, where auto workers labored,
their bodies harmonized with effort. Various smaller panels
showed the germ cell of an infant wrapped in a plant bulb,
the wonder and dread of medicine, the indigenous fruits
and grains of Michigan; and way over in one corner Henry
Ford himself, gray-faced and tight-assed, going over the
books.
The trolley passed McDougal, Jos. Campau, and Chene,
and then, with a little shiver, it crossed Hastings Street. At
that moment every passenger, all of whom were white,
performed a talismanic gesture. Men patted wallets,
women refastened purses. The driver pulled the lever that
closed the rear door. Desdemona, noticing all this, looked
out to see that the streetcar had entered the Black Bottom
ghetto.
There was no roadblock, no fence. The streetcar didnt so
much as pause as it crossed the invisible barrier, but at the
same time in the length of a block the world was different.
The light seemed to change, growing gray as it filtered
through laundry lines. The gloom of front porches and
apartments without electricity seeped out into the streets,
and the thundercloud of poverty that hung over the
neighborhood directed attention downward toward the
clarity of forlorn, shadowless objects: red bricks crumbling
off a stoop, piles of trash and ham bones, used tires,
crushed pinwheels from last years fair, someones old lost
shoe. The derelict quiet lasted only a moment before Black
Bottom erupted from all its alleys and doorways.Look at all
the children! So many! Suddenly children were running
alongside the streetcar, waving and shouting. They played
chicken with it, jumping in front of the tracks. Others
climbed onto the back. Desdemona put a hand to her
throat.Why do they have so many children? Whats the
matter with these people? The mavrowomen should nurse
their babies longer. Somebody should tell them. Now in
the alleys she saw men washing themselves at open
faucets. Half-dressed women jutted out hips on secondstory
porches. Desdemona looked in awe and terror at all
the faces filling the windows, all the bodies filling the
streets, nearly a half million people squeezed into twentyfive
square blocks. Ever since World War I when E. I.
Weiss, manager of the Packard Motor Company, had
brought, by his own report, the first load of niggers to the
city, here in Black Bottom was where the establishment had
thought to keep them. All kinds of professions now crowded
in together, foundry workers and lawyers, maids and
carpenters, doctors and hoodlums, but most people, this
being 1932, were unemployed. Still, more and more were
coming every year, every month, seeking jobs in the North.
They slept on every couch in every house. They built shacks
in the yards. They camped on roofs. (This state of affairs
couldnt last, of course. Over the years, Black Bottom, for all
the whites attempts to contain itand because of the
inexorable laws of poverty and racismwould slowly
spread, street by street, neighborhood by neighborhood,
until the so-called ghetto would become the entire city itself,
and by the 1970s, in the no-tax-base, white-flight, murdercapital
Detroit of the Coleman Young administration, black
people could finally live wherever they wanted to . . .)
But now, back in 1932, something odd was happening. The
streetcar was slowing down. In the middle of Black Bottom,
it was stopping andunheard of!opening its doors.
Passengers fidgeted. The conductor tapped Desdemona
on the shoulder. Lady, this is it. Hastings.
Hastings Street? She didnt believe him. She showed him
the address again. He pointed out the door.
Silk factory here? she asked the conductor.
No telling whats here. Not my neighborhood.
No telling whats here. Not my neighborhood.
And so my grandmother stepped off onto Hastings Street.
The streetcar pulled away, as white faces looked back at
her, a woman thrown overboard. She started walking.
Gripping her purse, she hurried down Hastings as though
she knew where she was going. She kept her eyes fixed
straight ahead. Children jumped rope on the sidewalk. At a
third-story window a man tore up a piece of paper and
shouted, From now on, you can send my mail to Paris,
postman. Front porches were full of living room furniture,
old couches and armchairs, people playing checkers,
arguing, waving fingers, and breaking into laughter.Always
laughing, these mavros.Laughing, laughing, as though
everything is funny. What is so funny, tell me? And what is
oh my God!a man doing his business in the street! I
wont look. She passed the yard of a junk artist: the Seven
Wonders of the World made in bottle caps. An ancient
drunk in a colorful sombrero moved in slow motion, sucking
his toothless maw and holding out a hand for spare
change.But what can they do? They dont have any
plumbing. No sewers, terrible, terrible. She walked by a
barbershop where men were getting their hair straightened,
wearing shower caps like women. Across the street young
men were calling out to her:
Baby, you got so many curves you make a car crash!
You must be a doughnut, baby, cause you make my jelly
roll!
Laughter erupted behind her as she hurried on. Farther and
farther in, past streets she didnt know the names of. The
smell of unfamiliar food in the air now, fish caught from the
nearby river, pig knuckles, hominy grits, fried baloney,
black-eyed peas. But also many houses where nothing was
cooking, where no one was laughing or even talking, dark
rooms full of weary faces and scroungy dogs. It was from a
porch like this that somebody finally spoke. A woman, thank
God.
You lost?
Desdemona took in the soft, molded face. I am looking for
factory. Silk factory.
No factories around here. If there was theyd be closed.
Desdemona handed her the address.
The lady pointed across the street. You there.
And turning, what did Desdemona see? Did she see a
brown brick building known until recently as McPherson
Hall? A place rented out for political meetings, weddings,
or demonstrations by the occasional traveling clairvoyant?
Did she notice the ornamental touches around the
entrance, the Roman urns spilling granite fruit, the harlequin
marble? Or did her eyes focus instead on the two young
black men standing at attention outside the front door? Did
she notice their impeccable suits, one the light blue of a
globes watery portions, the other the pale lavender of
French pastilles? Certainly she must have noticed their
military bearing, the high polish of their shoes, their vivid
neckties. She must have felt the contrast between the
young mens confident air and that of the downtrodden
neighborhood, but whatever she felt at that moment, her
complex reaction has come down to me as a single,
shocked realization.
Fezzes. They were wearing fezzes. The soft, maroon, flattopped
headgear of my grandparents former tormentors.
The hats named for the city in Morocco where the bloodcolored
dye came from, and which (on the heads of
soldiers) had chased my grandparents out of Turkey,
staining the earth a dark maroon. Now here they were
again, in Detroit, on the heads of two handsome young
Negroes. (And fezzes will appear once more in my story, on
the day of a funeral, but the coincidence, being the kind of
thing only real life can come up with, is too good to give
away right now.)
Tentatively, Desdemona crossed the street. She told the
men shed come about the ad. One nodded. You have to
go around back, he said. Politely, he led her down an alley
and into the well-swept backyard. At that moment, as at a
discreet signal, the back door swung open and
Desdemona received her second shock. Two women in
chadors appeared. They looked, to my grandmother, like
devout Muslims from Bursa, except for the color of their
garments. They werent black. They were white. The
chadors started at their chins and hung all the way to their
ankles. White headscarves covered their hair. They wore
no veils, but as they came forward, Desdemona saw brown
school oxfords on their feet.
Fezzes, chadors, and next this: a mosque. Inside, the
former McPherson Hall had been redecorated according to
a Moorish theme. The attendants led Desdemona over
geometric tilework. They took her past thick, fringed
draperies that shut out the light. There was no sound but the
swishing of the womens robes and, from far off, what
sounded like a voice speaking or praying. Finally, they
showed her into an office where a woman was hanging a
picture.
Im Sister Wanda, the woman said, without turning around.
Supreme Captain, Temple No. 1. She wore another sort
of chador entirely, with piping and epaulettes. The picture
she was hanging showed a flying saucer hovering over the
skyline of New York. It was shooting out rays.
You come about the job?
Yes. I am silk worker. Have lot experience. Farming the
silk, making the cocoonery, weaving the . . .
Sister Wanda swiveled around. She scanned
Desdemonas face. We got a problem. What you is?
Im Greek.
Greek, huh. Thats a kind of white, isnt it? You born in
Greece?
No. From Turkey. We come from Turkey. My husband and
me, too.
Turkey! Why didnt you say so? Turkeys a Muslim country.
You a Muslim?
No, Greek. Greek Church.
But you born in Turkey.
Ne.
What?
Yes.
And your people come from Turkey?
Yes.
So you probably mixed up a little bit, right? You not all
white.
Desdemona hesitated.
See, Im trying to see how we can work it, Sister Wanda
went on. Minister Fard, who come to us from the Holy City
of Mecca, he always be impressing on us the importance of
self-reliance. Cant rely on no white man no more. Got to do
for ourself, understand? She lowered her voice. Problem
is, nobody worth a toot come for the ad. People come in
here, theysay they know silk, but they dont know nothing.
Just hoping to get hired and fired. Get a days pay. She
narrowed her eyes. That what you planning?
No. I want only hire. No fire.
But what you is? Greek, Turkish, or what?
Again Desdemona hesitated. She thought about her
children. She imagined coming home to them without any
food. And then she swallowed hard. Everybody mixed.
Turks, Greeks, same same.
Thats what I wanted to hear. Sister Wanda smiled
broadly. Minister Fard, he mixed, too. Let me show you
what we need.
She led Desdemona down a long, wainscoted corridor,
through a telephone operators office, and into another
darker hallway. At the far end heavy drapes blocked off the
main lobby. Two young guards stood at attention. You
come to work for us, few things you should know. Never,
ever, go through them curtains. Main temple in there, where
Minister Fard deliver his sermons. You stay back here in
the womens quarters. Best cover your hair, too. That hat
shows your ears, which be an enticement.
Desdemona instinctively touched her ears, looking back at
the guards. Their expressions remained impassive. She
turned back, following the Supreme Captain.
Let me show you the operation we got going, Sister
Wanda said. We got everything. All we need is a little, you
know, know- how. She started up the stairs and
Desdemona followed.
(Its a long stairway, three flights up, and Sister Wanda has
bad knees, so it will take some time for them to reach the
top. Leave them there, climbing, while I explain what my
grandmother had gotten herself into.)
Sometime in the summer of 1930, an amiable but faintly
mysterious peddler suddenly appeared in the black ghetto
of Detroit. (Im quoting from C. Eric LincolnsThe Black
Muslims of America. ) He was thought to be an Arab,
although his racial and national identity remain
undocumented. He was welcomed into homes of culturehungry
African-Americans who were eager to purchase his
silks and artifacts, which he claimed were those worn by
black people in their homeland across the sea . . . His
customers were so anxious to learn of their own past and
the country from which they came that the peddler soon
began holding meetings from house to house throughout
the community.
At first, the prophet, as he came to be known, confined
his teachings to a recitation of his experiences in foreign
lands, admonitions against certain foods, and suggestions
for improving listeners physical health. He was kind,
friendly, unassuming and patient.
Having aroused the interests of his host (we move now
toAn Original Man by Claude Andrew Clegg II), [the
peddler] would then deliver his sales pitch on the history
and future of African-Americans. The tactic worked well,
and eventually he honed it to the point that meetings of
curious blacks were held in private homes. Later, public
halls were rented for his orations, and an organizational
structure for his Nation of Islam began to take shape in the
midst of poverty-stricken Detroit.
The peddler had many names. Sometimes he called
himself Mr. Farrad Mohammad, or Mr. F. Mohammad Ali.
Other times he referred to himself as Fred Dodd, Professor
Ford, Wallace Ford, W. D. Ford, Wali Farrad, Wardell
Fard, or W. D. Fard. He had just as many origins. People
claimed he was a black Jamaican whose father was a
Syrian Muslim. One rumor maintained that he was a
Palestinian Arab who had fomented racial unrest in India,
South Africa, and London before moving to Detroit. There
was a story that he was the son of rich parents from the
tribe of Koreish, the Prophet Muhammads own tribe, while
FBI records stated that Fard was born in either New
Zealand or Portland, Oregon, to either Hawaiian or British
and Polynesian parents.
One thing is clear: by 1932, Fard had established Temple
No. 1 in Detroit. It was the back stairs of this temple that
Desdemona found herself climbing.
We sell the silks right from the temple, Sister Wanda
explained above. Make the clothes ourself according to
Minister Fards own designs. From clothes our forefathers
wore in Africa. Used to be we just ordered the fabric and
sewed up the clothes ourself. But with this Depression,
fabric getting harder and harder to come by. So Minister
Fard he had one of his revelations. Come to me one
morning and said, We must own the means and ends of
sericulture itself. That how he talk. Eloquent? Man could
talk a dog off a meat truck.
Climbing, Desdemona was beginning to make sense of
things. The fancy suits of the men outside. The redecoration
within. Sister Wanda reached the landingIn here our
training classand threw open the door. Desdemona
stepped up and saw them.
Twenty-three teenage girls, in bright chadors and head
scarves, sewing clothes. They didnt so much as look up
from their labor as the Supreme Captain brought in the
stranger. Heads bent, mouths fanning straight pins, hemcovered
oxfords working unseen treadles, they continued
covered oxfords working unseen treadles, they continued
production. This be our Muslim Girls Training and General
Civilization Class. See how good and proper they are?
Dont say a word unless you do. Islam means submission.
You know that? But getting back to why I run the ad. We
running low on fabric. Everybody out of business seems
like.
She led Desdemona across the room. A wooden box full of
dirt lay open.
So what we did was, we ordered these silkworms from a
company. You know, mail order? We got more on the way.
Problem is, they dont seem to like it here in Detroit. Dont
blame em myself. They keep dying on us, and when they
do? Ooowhee, what a stink! My sweet Jes She caught
herself. Just an expression. I was brought up Sanctified.
Listen, what you say your name was?
Desdemona.
Listen, Des, before I became Supreme Captain, I did hair
and nails. Not no farmers daughter, understand? This
thumb look green to you? Help me out. What do these
silkworm fellas like? How we get them to, you know,
silkify?
It hard work.
We dont mind.
It take money.
We got plenty.
Desdemona picked up a shriveled worm, barely alive. She
cooed to it in Greek.
Listen up now, little sisters, Sister Wanda said, and, as
one, the girls stopped sewing, crossed hands in laps, and
looked up attentively. This the new lady gonna teach us
how to make silk. She a mulatto like Minister Fard and she
gonna bring us back the knowledge of the lost art of our
people. So we can do for ourself.
Twenty-three pairs of eyes fell on Desdemona. She
gathered courage. She translated what she wanted to say
into English and went over it twice before she spoke. To
make good silk, she then pronounced, beginning her
lessons to the Muslim Girls Training and General
Civilization Class, you have to be pure.
We trying, Des. Praise Allah. We trying.
TRICKNOLOGY
That was how my grandmother came to work for the
Nation of Islam. Like a cleaning lady working in Grosse
Pointe, she came and went by the back door. Instead of a
hat, she wore a head scarf to conceal her irresistible ears.
She never spoke above a whisper. She never asked
questions or complained. Having grown up in a country
ruled by others, she found it all familiar. The fezzes, the
prayer rugs, the crescent moons: it was a little like going
home.
For the residents of Black Bottom it was like traveling to
another planet. The temples front doors, in a sweet
reversal of most American entrances, let blacks in and kept
whites out. The former paintings in the lobbylandscapes
aglow with Manifest Destiny, scenes of Indians being
slaughteredhad been carted down to the basement. In
their place were depictions of African history: a prince and
princess strolling beside a crystal river; a conclave of black
scholars debating in an outdoor forum.
People came to Temple No. 1 to hear Fards lectures. They
also came to shop. In the old cloakroom, Sister Wanda
displayed the garments that the Prophet said were the
same kind that the Negro people use in their home in the
East. She rippled the iridescent fabrics under the lights as
converts stepped up to pay. Women exchanged the maids
uniforms of subservience for the white chadors of
emancipation. Men replaced the overalls of oppression
with the silk suits of dignity. The temples cash register
overflowed. In lean times, the mosque was flush. Ford was
closing factories but, at 3408 Hastings Street, Fard was
open for business.
Desdemona saw little of all this up on the third floor. She
spent her mornings teaching in the classroom and her
afternoons in the Silk Room, where the uncut fabrics were
stored. One morning she brought in her silkworm box for
show-and-tell. She passed the box around, telling the story
of its travels, how her grandfather had carved it from
olivewood and how it had survived a fire, and she managed
to do all this without saying anything derogatory about the
students co-religionists. In fact, the girls were so sweet and
friendly that Desdemona remembered what it had been like
in the times when the Greeks and Turks used to get along.
Nevertheless: black people were still new to myyia yia .
She was shocked by various discoveries: Inside the
hands, she informed her husband, themavros are white
like us. Or: Themavros dont have scars, only bumps. Or:
Do you know how themavro men shave? With a powder! I
saw it in the store window. In the streets of Black Bottom,
Desdemona was appalled at the way people lived.
Nobody sweeps up. Garbage on the porches and nobody
sweeps it. Terrible. But at the temple things were different.
The men worked hard and didnt drink. The girls were clean
and modest.
This Mr. Fard is doing something right, she said at
Sunday dinner.
Please, Sourmelina dismissed this, we left veils back in
Turkey.
But Desdemona shook her head. These American girls
could use a veil or two.
The Prophet himself remained veiled to Desdemona. Fard
was like a god: present everywhere and visible nowhere.
His glow lingered in the eyes of people leaving a lecture.
He expressed himself in the dietary laws, which favored
native African foodsthe yam, the cassavaand
prohibited the consumption of swine. Every so often
Desdemona saw Fards cara brand-new Chrysler coupe
parked in front of the temple. It always looked freshly
washed and waxed, its chrome grille polished. But she
never saw Fard at the wheel.
How do you expect to see him if hes God? Lefty asked
with amusement one night as they were going to bed.
Desdemona lay smiling, as though tickled by her first
weeks pay hidden under the mattress. Ill have to have a
vision, she said.
Her first project at Temple No. 1 was to convert the
outhouse into a cocoonery. Calling upon the Fruit of Islam,
as the military wing of the Nation was known, she stood by
while the young men pulled out the wooden commode from
the rickety shack. They covered the cesspool with dirt and
removed old pinup calendars from the walls, averting their
eyes as they threw the offending material in the trash. They
installed shelves and perforated the ceiling for ventilation.
Despite their efforts, a bad smell lingered. Just wait,
Desdemona told them. Compared to silkworms, this is
nothing.
Upstairs, the Muslim Girls Training and General Civilization
Class wove feeding trays. Desdemona tried to save the
initial batch of silkworms. She kept them warm under
electric lightbulbs and sang Greek songs to them, but the
silkworms werent fooled. Hatching from their black eggs,
they detected the dry, indoor air and the false sun of the
lightbulbs, and began to shrivel up. Got more on the way,
Sister Wanda said, brushing off this setback. Be here
directly.
The days passed. Desdemona became accustomed to the
pale palms of Negro hands. She got used to using the back
door and to not speaking until spoken to. When she wasnt
teaching the girls, she waited upstairs in the Silk Room.
The Silk Room: a description is in order. (So much
happened in that fifteen-by-twenty-foot space: God spoke;
my grandmother renounced her race; creation was
explained; and thats just for starters.) It was a small, lowceilinged
room, with a cutting table at one end. Bolts of silk
leaned against the walls. The plushness extended floor to
ceiling, like the inside of a jewelry box. Fabric was getting
harder to come by, but Sister Wanda had stockpiled quite
a bit.
Sometimes the silks seemed to be dancing. Stirred by air
currents of a mysterious origin, the fabrics flapped up and
floated around the room. Desdemona would have to catch
the cloth and roll it back up.
And one day, in the middle of a ghostly pas de deuxa
green silk leading as Desdemona backpedaledshe
heard a voice.
I WAS BORN IN THE HOLY CITY OF MECCA, ON FEBRUARY 17, 1877.
At first she thought someone had come into the room. But
when she turned, no one was there.
MY FATHER WAS ALPHONSO, AN EBONY-HUED MAN OF THE TRIBE OF
SHABAZZ. MY MOTHERS NAME WAS BABY GEE. SHE WAS A CAUCASIAN, A
DEVIL.
A what? Desdemona couldnt quite hear. Or determine the
location of the voice. It seemed to be coming from the floor
now.MY FATHER MET HER IN THE HILLS OF EAST ASIA. HE SAW POTENTIAL
IN HER. HE LED HER IN THE RIGHTEOUS WAYS UNTIL SHE BECAME A HOLY
MUSLIM.
It wasnt what the voice was saying that intrigued
Desdemonashe didnt catch what it was saying. It was
the sound of the voice, a deep bass that set her breastbone
humming. She let go of the dancing silk. She lowered her
kerchiefed head to listen. And when the voice started up
again, she searched through bolts of silk for its source.WHY
DID MY FATHER MARRY A CAUCASIAN DEVIL? BECAUSE HE KNEW THAT HIS
SON WAS DESTINED TO SPREAD THE WORD TO THE LOST PORTION OF THE
TRIBE OF SHABAZZ. Three, four, five bolts, and there it was: a
heating grate. And the voice was louder now.THEREFORE, HE
FELT THAT I, HIS SON, SHOULD HAVE A SKIN COLOR THAT WOULD ALLOW ME
TO DEAL WITH BOTH WHITE AND BLACK PEOPLE JUSTLY AND RIGHTEOUSLY.
SO I AM HERE, A MULATTO, LIKE MUSA BEFORE ME, WHO BROUGHT THE
COMMANDMENTS TO THE JEWS.
From the depths of the building the Prophets voice rose. It
began in the auditorium three floors below. It filtered down
through the trapdoor in the stage out of which, at the old
tobacconist conventions, the Rondega girl used to pop,
clad in nothing but a cigar ribbon. The voice reverberated in
the crawl space that led to the wings, whereupon it entered
a heating vent and circulated around the building, growing
distorted and echoey, until it rushed hotly out the grate at
which Desdemona now crouched.MY EDUCATION, AS WELL AS THE
ROYAL BLOOD THAT RUNS IN MY VEINS, MIGHT HAVE LED ME TO SEEK A
POSITION OF POWER. BUT I HEARD MY UNCLE WEEPING, BROTHERS. I HEARD
MY UNCLE IN AMERICA WEEPING.
She could make out a faint accent now. She waited for
more, but there was only silence. Furnace smell blew into
her face. She bent lower, listening. But the next voice she
heard was Sister Wandas on the landing: Yoo-hoo! Des!
We ready for you.
And she tore herself away.
My grandmother was the only white person who ever heard
W. D. Fard sermonize, and she understood less than half of
what he said. It was a result of the heating vents bad
acoustics, her own imperfect English, and the fact that she
kept lifting her head to hear if anyone was coming.
Desdemona knew that it was forbidden for her to listen to
Fards lectures. The last thing she wanted was to
jeopardize her new job. But there was no other place for her
to go.
Every day, at one oclock, the grate began to rumble. At
first she heard the noise of people coming into the
auditorium. This was followed by chanting. She rolled extra
bolts of silk in front of the grate to muffle the sound. She
moved her chair to the far corner of the Silk Room. But
nothing helped.
PERHAPS YOU RECALL, IN OUR LAST LECTURE, HOW I TOLD YOU ABOUT THE
DEPORTATION OF THE MOON?
No, I dont, said Desdemona.
SIXTY TRILLION YEARS AGO A GOD-SCIENTIST DUG A HOLE THROUGH THE
EARTH, FILLED IT WITH DYNAMITE AND BLEW THE EARTH IN TWO. THE
SMALLER OF THESE TWO PIECES BECAME THE MOON. DO YOU RECALL THAT?
My grandmother clamped her hands over her ears; on her
face was a look of refusal. But through her lips a question
slipped out: Somebody blew up the earth? Who?
TODAY I WANT TO TELL YOU ABOUT ANOTHER GOD-SCIENTIST. AN EVIL
SCIENTIST. BY THE NAME OF YACUB.
And now her fingers spread apart, letting the voice reach
her ears . . .
YACUB LIVED EIGHTY-FOUR HUNDRED YEARS AGO IN THE PRESENT TWENTYFIVE-
THOUSAND-YEAR-CYCLE OF HISTORY. HE WAS POSSESSED, THIS YACUB,
OF AN UNUSUALLY LARGE CRANIUM. A SMART MAN. A BRILLIANT MAN. ONE OF
THE PREEMINENT SCHOLARS OF THE NATION OF ISLAM. THIS WAS A MAN WHO
DISCOVERED THE SECRETS OF MAGNETISM WHEN HE WAS ONLY SIX YEARS
OLD. HE WAS PLAYING WITH TWO PIECES OF STEEL AND HE HELD THEM
TOGETHER AND DISCOVERED THAT SCIENTIFIC FORMULA: MAGNETISM.
Like a magnet itself, the voice worked on Desdemona.
Now it was pulling her hands down to her sides. It was
making her lean forward in her chair . . .
BUT YACUB WASNT CONTENT WITH MAGNETISM. WITH HIS LARGE CRANIUM
HE HAD OTHER GREAT IDEAS. AND SO ONE DAY YACUB THOUGHT TO HIMSELF
THAT IF HE COULD CREATE A RACE OF PEOPLE COMPLETELY DIFFERENT
FROM THE ORIGINAL PEOPLEGENETICALLY DIFFERENTTHAT RACE COULD
COME TO DOMINATE THE BLACK NATION THROUGH TRICKNOLOGY.
. . . And when leaning wasnt enough, she moved closer.
Walking across the room, moving silk bolts aside, she knelt
down before the grate, as Fard continued his
explanation:EVERY BLACK MAN IS MADE OF TWO GERMS: A BLACK GERM
AND A BROWN GERM. AND SO YACUB CONVINCED FIFTY-NINE THOUSAND NINE
HUNDRED AND NINETY-NINE MUSLIMS TO EMIGRATE TO THE ISLAND OF PELAN.
THE ISLAND OF PELAN IS IN THE AEGEAN. YOU WILL FIND IT TODAY ON
EUROPEAN MAPS, UNDER A FALSE NAME. TO THIS ISLAND YACUB BROUGHT
HIS FIFTY-NINE THOUSAND NINE HUNDRED AND NINETY-NINE MUSLIMS. AND
THERE HE COMMENCED HIS GRAFTING.
She could hear other things now. Fards footsteps as he
paced the stage. The squeaking of chairs as his listeners
bent forward, hanging on his every word.
IN HIS LABORATORIES ON PELAN, YACUB KEPT ALL ORIGINAL BLACK PEOPLE
FROM REPRODUCING. IF A BLACK WOMAN GAVE BIRTH TO A CHILD, THAT CHILD
WAS KILLED. YACUB ONLY LET BROWN BABIES LIVE. HE ONLY LET BROWNSKINNED
PEOPLE MATE.
Terrible, Desdemona said, up on the third floor. Terrible,
this Yacub person.
YOU HAVE HEARD OF THE DARWINIAN THEORY OF NATURAL SELECTION? THIS
WAS UNNATURAL SELECTION. BY HIS SCIENTIFIC GRAFTING YACUB PRODUCED
THE FIRST YELLOW AND RED PEOPLE. BUT HE DIDNT STOP THERE. HE WENT
ON MATING THE LIGHT-SKINNED OFFSPRING OF THOSE PEOPLE. OVER MANY,
MANY YEARS HE GENETICALLY CHANGED THE BLACK MAN, ONE GENERATION
AT A TIME, MAKING HIM PALER AND WEAKER, DILUTING HIS RIGHTEOUSNESS
AND MORALITY, TURNING HIM INTO THE PATHS OF EVIL. AND THEN, MY
BROTHERS, ONE DAY YACUB WAS DONE. ONE DAY YACUB WAS FINISHED WITH
HIS WORK. AND WHAT HAD HIS WICKEDNESS CREATED? AS I HAVE TOLD YOU
BEFORE: LIKE CAN ONLY COME FROM LIKE. YACUB HAD CREATED THE WHITE
MAN! BORN OF LIES. BORN OF HOMICIDE. A RACE OF BLUE-EYED DEVILS.
Outside, the Muslim Girls Training and General Civilization
Class installed silkworm trays. They worked in silence,
daydreaming of various things. Ruby James was thinking
about how handsome John 2X had looked that morning,
and wondered if they would get married someday. Darlene
Wood was beginning to get miffed because all the brothers
had gotten rid of their slave names but Minister Fard hadnt
gotten around to the girls yet, so here she was, still Darlene
Wood. Lily Hale was thinking almost entirely about the spit
curl hairdo she had hidden up under her headscarf and how
tonight she was going to stick her head out her bedroom
window, pretending to check the weather, so that Lubbock
T. Hass next door could see. Betty Smith was
thinking,Praise Allah Praise Allah Praise Allah. Millie Little
wanted gum.
While upstairs, her face hot from the air rushing out of the
vent, Desdemona resisted this new twist in the story line.
Devils? All white people? She snorted. She got up from
the floor, dusting herself off. Enough. Im not going to listen
to this crazy person anymore. I work. They pay me. Thats
it.
But the next morning, she was back at the temple. At one
oclock the voice began speaking, and again my
grandmother paid attention:
NOW LET US MAKE A PHYSIOLOGICAL COMPARISON BETWEEN THE WHITE
RACE AND THE ORIGINAL PEOPLE. WHITE BONES, ANATOMICALLY SPEAKING,
ARE MORE FRAGILE. WHITE BLOOD IS THINNER. WHITES POSSESS ROUGHLY
ONE-THIRD THE PHYSICAL STRENGTH OF BLACKS. WHO CAN DENY THIS? WHAT
DOES THE EVIDENCE OF YOUR OWN EYES SUGGEST?
Desdemona argued with the voice. She ridiculed Fards
pronouncements. But as the days passed, my grandmother
found herself obediently spreading out silk before the
heating vent to cushion her knees. She knelt forward,
putting her ear to the grate, her forehead nearly touching
the floor. Hes just a charlatan, she said. Taking
everyones money. Still, she didnt move. In a moment, the
heating system rumbled with the latest revelations.
What was happening to Desdemona? Was she, always so
receptive to a deep priestly voice, coming under the
influence of Fards disembodied one? Or was she just,
after ten years in the city, finally becoming a Detroiter,
meaning that she saw everything in terms of black and
white?
Theres one last possibility. Could it be that my
grandmothers sense of guilt, that sodden, malarial dread
that swamped her insides almost seasonallycould this
incurable virus have opened her up to Fards appeal?
Plagued by a sense of sin, did she feel that Fards
accusations had weight? Did she take his racial
denunciations personally?
One night she asked Lefty, Do you think anything is wrong
with the children?
No. Theyre fine.
How do you know?
Look at them.
Whats the matter with us? How could we do what we did?
Nothings the matter with us.
No, Lefty. Weshe started to crywe are not good
people.
The children are fine. Were happy. Thats all in the past
now.
But Desdemona threw herself onto the bed. Why did I
listen to you? she sobbed. Why didnt I jump into the water
like everybody else!
My grandfather tried to embrace her, but she shrugged him
off. Dont touch me!
Des, please . . .
I wish I had died in the fire! I swear to you! I wish I had died
in Smyrna!
She began to watch her children closely. So far, aside from
one scareat five, Milton had nearly died from a mastoid
infectionthey had both been healthy. When they cut
themselves, their blood congealed. Milton got good marks
at school, Zoë above average. But Desdemona wasnt
reassured by any of this. She kept waiting for something to
happen, some disease, some abnormality, fearing that the
punishment for her crime was going to be taken out in the
most devastating way possible: not on her own soul but in
the bodies of her children.
I can feel how the house changed in the months leading to
1933. A coldness passing through its root-beer-colored
bricks, invading its rooms and blowing out the vigil light
burning in the hall. A cold wind that fluttered the pages of
Desdemonas dream book, which she consulted for
interpretations to increasingly nightmarish dreams. Dreams
of the germs of infants bubbling, dividing. Of hideous
creatures growing up from pale foam. Now she avoided all
lovemaking, even in the summer, even after three glasses
of wine on somebodys name day. After a while, Lefty
stopped persisting. My grandparents, once so inseparable,
had drifted apart. When Desdemona went off to Temple
No. 1 in the morning, Lefty was asleep, having kept the
speakeasy open all night. He disappeared into the
basement before she returned home.
Following this cold wind, which kept blowing through the
Indian summer of 1932, I sail down the basement stairs to
find my grandfather, one morning, counting money. Shut out
of his wifes affections, Lefty Stephanides concentrated on
work. His business, however, had gone through some
changes. Responding to the fall-off in customers at the
speakeasy, my grandfather had diversified.
It is a Tuesday, just past eight oclock. Desdemona has left
for work. And in the front window, a hand is removing the
icon of St. George from view. At the curb, an old Daimler
pulls up. Lefty hurries outside and gets into the backseat.
My grandfathers new business associates: in the front seat
sits Mabel Reese, twenty-six years old, from Kentucky, face
rouged, hair giving off a burnt smell from the mornings
curling iron. Back in Paducah, she is telling the driver,
theres this deaf man whos got a camera. He just goes up
and down the river, taking pictures. He takes the darndest
things.
So do I, responds the driver. But mine make money.
Maurice Plantagenet, his Kodak box camera sitting in the
backseat beside Lefty, smiles at Mabel and drives out
Jefferson Avenue. Plantagenet has found these pre-WPA
years inimical to his artistic inclinations. As they head
toward Belle Isle he delivers a disquisition on the history of
photography, how Nicéphore Niepce invented it, and how
Daguerre got all the credit. He describes the first
photograph ever taken of a human being, a Paris street
scene done with an exposure so long that none of the fastmoving
pedestrians showed up except for a lone figure who
had stopped to get his shoes shined. I want to get in the
history books myself. But I dont think this is the right route,
exactly.
On Belle Isle, Plantagenet pilots the Daimler along Central
Avenue. Instead of heading toward The Strand, however,
he takes a small turnoff down a dirt road that dead-ends.
He parks and they all get out. Plantagenet sets up his
camera in favorable light, while Lefty attends to the
automobile. With his handkerchief he polishes the spoked
hubcaps and the headlamps; he kicks mud off the running
board, cleans the windows and windshield. Plantagenet
says, The maestro is ready.
Mabel Reese takes off her coat. Underneath she is wearing
only a corset and garter belt. Where do you want me?
Stretch out over the hood.
Like this?
Yeah. Good. Face against the hood. Now spread your legs
just a bit.
Like this?
Yeah. Now turn your head and look back at the camera.
Okay, smile. Like Im your boyfriend.
That was how it went every week. Plantagenet took the
photographs. My grandfather provided the models. The
girls werent hard to find. They came into the speakeasy
every night. They needed money like everybody else.
Plantagenet sold the photos to a distributor downtown and
gave Lefty a percentage of the take. The formula was
straightforward: women in lingerie lounging in cars. The
scantily dressed girls curled up in the backseat, or bared
breasts in the front, or fixed flat tires, bending way over.
Usually there was one girl, but sometimes there were two.
Plantagenet teased out all the harmonies, between a
buttocks curve and a fenders, between corset and
upholstery pleats, between garter belts and fan belts. It was
my grandfathers idea. Remembering his fathers old
hidden treasure, Sermin, Girl of the Pleasure Dome, hed
had a vision for updating an old ideal. The days of the
harem were over. Bring on the era of the backseat!
Automobiles were the new pleasure domes. They turned
the common man into a sultan of the open road.
Plantagenets photographs suggested picnics in out-of-theway
places. The girls napped on running boards, or dipped
to get a tire iron out of the trunk. In the middle of the
Depression, when people had no money for food, men
found money for Plantagenets auto-erotica. The
photographs provided Lefty with a steady side income. He
began to save money, in fact, which later brought about his
next opportunity.
Every now and then at flea markets, or in the occasional
photography book, I come across one of Plantagenets old
pictures, usually erroneously ascribed to the twenties
because of the Daimler. Sold during the Depression for a
nickel, they now fetch upward of six hundred dollars.
Plantagenets artistic work has all been forgotten, but his
erotic studies of women and automobiles remain popular.
He got into the history books on his day off, when he
thought he was compromising himself. Going through the
bins, I look at his women, their engineered hosiery, their
uneven smiles. I gaze into those faces my grandfather
gazed into, years ago, and I ask myself: Why did Lefty stop
searching for his sisters face and start searching for
others, for blondes with thin lips, for gun molls with
provocative rumps? Was his interest in these models
merely pecuniary? Did the cold wind blowing through the
house lead him to seek warmth in other places? Or had
guilt begun to infect him, too, so that to distract himself from
the thing hed done he ended up with these Mabels and
Lucies and Doloreses?
Unable to answer these questions, I return now to Temple
No. 1, where new converts are consulting compasses.
Tear-shaped, white with black numbers, the compasses
have a drawing of the Kaaba stone at the center. Still hazy
about the actual requirements of their new faith, these men
pray at no prescribed times. But at least theyve got these
compasses, bought from the same good sister who sells
the clothes. The men revolve, one step at a time, until
compass needles point to 34, the number coding for
Detroit. They consult the rims arrow to determine the
direction of Mecca.
LET US MOVE NOW TO CRANIOMETRY. WHAT IS CRANIOMETRY? IT IS THE
SCIENTIFIC MEASUREMENT OF THE BRAIN, OF WHAT IS CALLED BY THE
MEDICAL COMMUNITY ‘GRAY MATTER.’ THE BRAIN OF THE
AVERAGE WHITE MAN WEIGHS SIX OUNCES. THE BRAIN OF THE AVERAGE
BLACK MAN WEIGHS SEVEN OUNCES AND ONE HALF.Fard lacks the fire
of a Baptist preacher, the deep-gut oratory, but to his
audience of disaffected Christians (and one Orthodox
believer) this turns out to be an advantage. Theyre tired of
the holy-rolling, the shouting and brow-mopping, the raspy
breathing. Theyre tired of slave religion, by which the White
Man convinces the Black that servitude is holy.
BUT THERE IS ONE THING AT WHICH THE WHITE RACE EXCELLED THE
ORIGINAL PEOPLE. BY DESTINY, AND BY THEIR OWN GENETIC PROGRAMMING,
THE WHITE RACE EXCELLED AT TRICKNOLOGY. DO I HAVE TO TELL YOU THIS?
THIS IS WHAT YOU ALREADY KNOW. THROUGH TRICKNOLOGY THE EUROPEANS
BROUGHT THE ORIGINAL PEOPLE FROM MECCA AND OTHER PARTS OF EAST
ASIA. IN 1555 A SLAVE TRADER NAMED JOHN HAWKINS BROUGHT THE FIRST
MEMBERS OF THE TRIBE OF SHABAZZ TO THE SHORES OF THIS COUNTRY.
1555. THE NAME OF THE SHIP?JESUS . THIS IS IN THE HISTORY BOOKS. YOU
CAN GO TO THE DETROIT PUBLIC LIBRARY AND LOOK THIS UP.
WHAT HAPPENED TO THE FIRST GENERATION OF ORIGINAL PEOPLE IN
AMERICA? THE WHITE MAN MURDERED THEM. THROUGH TRICKNOLOGY. HE
MURDERED THEM SO THAT THEIR CHILDREN WOULD GROW UP WITH NO
KNOWLEDGE OF THEIR OWN PEOPLE, OF WHERE THEY CAME FROM. THE
DESCENDANTS OF THOSE CHILDREN, THE DESCENDANTS OF THOSE POOR
ORPHANSTHAT IS WHO YOU ARE. YOU HERE IN THIS ROOM. AND ALL THE SOCALLED
NEGROES IN THE GHETTOS OF AMERICA. I HAVE COME HERE TO TELL
YOU WHO YOU ARE. YOU ARE THE LOST MEMBERS OF THE TRIBE OF
SHABAZZ.
And riding through Black Bottom didnt help. Desdemona
realized now why there was so much trash in the streets:
the city didnt pick it up. White landlords let their apartment
buildings fall into disrepair while they continued to raise the
rents. One day Desdemona saw a white shop clerk refuse
to take change from a Negro customer. Just leave it on the
counter, she said.Didnt want to touch the ladys hand! And
in those guilt-ridden days, her mind crammed with Fards
theories, my grandmother started to see his point. There
were blue- eyed devils all over town. The Greeks had an old
saying, too: Red beard and blue eyes portend the Devil.
My grandmothers eyes were brown, but that didnt make
her feel any better. If anybody was a devil it was her. There
was nothing she could do to change the way things were.
But she could make sure that it didnt happen again. She
went to see Dr. Philobosian.
Thats a very extreme measure, Desdemona, the doctor
told her.
I want to make sure.
But youre still a young woman.
No, Dr. Phil, Im not, my grandmother said in a weary
voice. Im eighty-four hundred years old.
On November 21, 1932, theDetroit Times ran the following
headline: Altar Scene of Human Sacrifice. The story
followed: One hundred followers of a negro cult leader,
who is held for human sacrifice on a crude altar in his
home, were being rounded up today by police for
questioning. The self-styled king of the Order of Islam is
Robert Harris, 44, of 1429 Dubois Ave. The victim, whom
he admits bludgeoning with a car axle and stabbing with a
silver knife through the heart, was James J. Smith, 40,
negro roomer in the Harris home. This Harris, who came to
be known as the voodoo slayer, had hung around Temple
No. 1. Just possibly, he had read Fards Lost Found
Muslim Lessons No. 1 and 2, including the passage:ALL
MUSLIMS WILL MURDER THE DEVIL BECAUSE THEY KNOW HE IS A SNAKE AND
ALSO IF HE BE ALLOWED TO LIVE, HE WOULD STING SOMEONE ELSE. Harris
had then founded his own order. He had gone looking for a
(white) devil but, finding one hard to come by in his
neighborhood, had settled for a devil closer at hand.
Three days later, Fard was arrested. Under interrogation,
he insisted that he had never commanded anyone to
sacrifice a human being. He claimed that he was the
supreme being on earth. (At least, that was what he said
during his first interrogation. The second time he was
arrested, months later, he admitted, according to the
police, that the Nation of Islam was nothing but a racket.
He had invented the prophecies and the cosmologies to
get all the money he could.) Whatever the truth of the
matter, the upshot was this: in exchange for having the
charges dropped, Fard agreed to leave Detroit once and
for all.
And so we come to May 1933. And to Desdemona, saying
goodbye to the Muslim Girls Training and General
Civilization Class. Head scarves frame faces streaked with
tears. The girls file by, kissing Desdemona on both cheeks.
(My grandmother will miss the girls. She has grown very
fond of them.) My mother used to tell me in bad times
silkworms no can spin, she says. Make bad silk. Make
bad cocoons. The girls accept this truth and examine the
newly hatched worms for signs of despair.
In the Silk Room, all the shelves are empty. Fard
Muhammad has transferred power to a new leader. Brother
Karriem, the former Elijah Poole, is now Elijah Muhammad,
Supreme Minister of the Nation of Islam. Elijah Muhammad
has a different vision for the Nations economic future.
From now on, it will be real estate, not clothing.
And now Desdemona is descending the stairs on her way
out. She reaches the first floor and turns to look back at the
lobby. For the first time ever, the Fruit of Islam do not guard
the lobby entrance. The drapes hang open. Desdemona
knows she should keep going out the back door, but she
has nothing to lose now, and so ventures toward the front.
She approaches the double doors and pushes her way into
the sanctum sanctorum.
For the first fifteen seconds, she stands still, as her idea of
the room switches places with reality. She had imagined a
soaring dome, a richly colored Ezine carpet, but the room
is just a simple auditorium. A small stage at one end,
folding chairs stacked along the walls. She absorbs all this
quietly. And then, once more, there is a voice:
Hello, Desdemona.
On the empty stage, the Prophet, the Mahdi, Fard
Muhammad, stands behind the podium. He is barely more
than a silhouette, slender and elegant, wearing a fedora
that shadows his face.
Youre not supposed to be in here, he says. But I guess
today its all right.
Desdemona, her heart in her throat, manages to ask, How
you know my name?
Havent you heard? I know everything.
Coming through the heating vent, Fard Muhammads deep
voice had made her solar plexus vibrate. Now, closer up, it
penetrates her entire body. The rumble spreads down her
arms until her fingers are tingling.
Hows Lefty?
This question rocks Desdemona back on her heels. She is
speechless. She is thinking many things at once, first of all,
how can Fard know her husbands name, did she tell Sister
Wanda? . . . and, second, if its true he knows everything,
then the rest must be true, too, about the blue-eyed devils
and the evil scientist and the Mother Plane from Japan that
will come to destroy the world and take the Muslims away.
Dread seizes her, while at the same time she is
remembering something, asking where she has heard that
voice before . . .
Now Fard Muhammad steps from behind the podium. He
crosses the stage and descends to the main floor. He
approaches Desdemona while continuing to display his
omniscience.
Still running the speakeasy? Those days are numbered.
Lefty better find something else to do. Fedora tilted to one
side, suit neatly buttoned, face in shadow, the Mahdi
approaches her. She wants to flee but cannot. And how
are the children? Fard asks. Milton must be what now,
eight?
He is only ten feet away. As Desdemonas heart madly
thumps, Fard Muhammad removes his hat to reveal his
face. And the Prophet smiles.
Surely youve guessed by now. Thats right: Jimmy Zizmo.
Mana!
Hello, Desdemona.
You!
Who else?
She stares, wide-eyed. We thought you died, Jimmy! In the
car. In the lake.
Jimmy did.
But you are Jimmy. Having said this, Desdemona
becomes aware of the repercussions and begins to scold.
Why you leave your wife and child? Whats the matter with
you?
My only responsibility is to my people.
What people? Themavros ?
The Original People. She cannot tell if he is serious or not.
Why you dont like white people? Why you call them
devils?
Look at the evidence. This city. This country. Dont you
agree?
Every place has devils.
That house on Hurlbut, especially.
There is a pause, after which Desdemona cautiously asks,
How you mean?
Fard, or Zizmo, is smiling again. Much that is hidden has
been revealed to me.
What is hidden?
My so-called wife Sourmelina is a woman of, let us say,
unnatural appetites. And you and Lefty? Do you think you
fooled me?
Please, Jimmy.
Dont call me that. That isnt my name.
What you mean? You are my brother-in-law.
You dont know me! he shouts. You never knew me!
Then, composing himself: You never knew who I was or
where I came from. With that, the Mahdi walks past my
grandmother, through the lobby and double doors, and out
of our lives.
This last part Desdemona didnt see. But its well
documented. First, Fard Muhammad shook hands with the
Fruit of Islam. The young men fought back tears as he said
farewell. He then moved through the crowd outside Temple
No. 1 to his Chrysler coupe parked at the curb. He stepped
up on the running board. Afterward, every single person
would insist that the Mahdi had maintained personal eye
contact the entire time. Women were openly weeping now,
pleading for him not to go. Fard Muhammad removed his
hat and held it to his chest. He looked down kindly and
said, Dont worry. I am with you. He raised the hat in a
gesture that took in the entire neighborhood, the ghetto with
its shantytown porches, unpaved streets, and disconsolate
laundry. I will be back to you in the near future to lead you
out of this hell. Then Fard Muhammad got into the Chrysler,
turned the ignition, and with a final, reassuring smile,
motored away.
Fard Muhammad was never seen again in Detroit. He went
into occultation like the Twelfth Imam of the Shiites. One
report places him on an ocean liner bound for London in
1934. According to the Chicago newspapers in 1959, W.
D. Fard was a Turkish-born Nazi agent and ended up
working for Hitler in World War II. A conspiracy theory holds
that the police or the FBI were involved in his death. Its
anybodys guess. Fard Muhammad, my maternal
grandfather, returned to the nowhere from which hed come.
As for Desdemona, her meeting with Fard may have
contributed to the drastic decision she made around the
same time. Not long after the Prophets disappearance, my
grandmother underwent a fairly novel medical procedure. A
surgeon made two incisions below her navel. Stretching
open the tissue and muscle to expose the circuitry of the
fallopian tubes, he tied each in a bow, and there were no
more children.
CLARINET SERENADE
We had our date. I picked Julie up at her studio in
Kreuzberg. I wanted to see her work, but she wouldnt let
me. And so we went to dinner at a place called Austria.
Austria is like a hunting lodge. The walls are covered with
mounted deer horns, maybe fifty or sixty sets. These horns
look comically small, as though they come from animals you
could kill with your bare hands. The restaurant is dark,
warm, woody, and comfortable. Anybody who wouldnt like
it is someone I wouldnt like. Julie liked it.
Since you wont show me your work, I said as we sat
down, can you at least tell me what it is?
Photography.
You probably dont want to tell me of what.
Lets have a drink first.
Julie Kikuchi is thirty-six. She looks twenty-six. She is short
without being small. She is irreverent without being crude.
She used to see a therapist but stopped. Her right hand is
partly arthritic, from an elevator accident. This makes it
painful to hold a camera for a long period. I need an
assistant, she told me. Or a new hand. Her fingernails are
not particularly clean. In fact they are the dirtiest fingernails I
have ever seen on such a lovely, wonderful-smelling
person.
Breasts have the same effect on me as on anyone with my
testosterone level.
I translated the menu for Julie and we ordered. Out came
the platters of boiled beef, the bowls of gravy and red
cabbage, the knödels as big as softballs. We talked about
Berlin and the differences between European countries.
Julie told me a Barcelona story of getting locked in the
Parque Güell with her boyfriend after visiting hours. Here it
comes, I thought. The first ex-boyfriend had been
summoned. Soon the rest would follow. They would file
around the table, presenting their deficiencies, telling of
their addictions, their cheating hearts. After that, I would be
called on to present my own ragged gallery. And here is
where my first dates generally go wrong. I lack sufficient
data. I dont have it in quite the bulk a man of my years
should have. Women sense this and a strange, questioning
look comes into their eyes. And already I am retreating
from them, before dessert has been served . . .
But that didnt happen with Julie. The boyfriend popped up
in Barcelona and then was gone. None followed. This was
surely not because there werent any. This was because
Julie isnt husband-hunting. So she didnt have to interview
me for the job.
I like Julie Kikuchi. I like her a lot.
And so I have my usual questions. What does she want
from? How would she react if? Should I tell her that? No.
Too soon. We havent even kissed. And right now, Ive got
another romance to concentrate on.
We open on a summer evening in 1944. Theodora Zizmo,
whom everyone now calls Tessie, is painting her toenails.
She sits on a daybed at the OToole Boardinghouse, her
feet propped up on a pillow, a pillow of cotton between
each toe. The room is full of wilting flowers and her
mothers various messes: lidless cosmetics, discarded
hose, Theosophy books, and a box of chocolates, also
lidless, full of empty paper wrappings and a few toothscarred,
rejected creams. Over where Tessie is, its neater.
Pens and pencils stand upright in cups. Between brass
bookends, each a miniature bust of Shakespeare, are the
novels she collects at yard sales.
Tessie Zizmos twenty-year-old feet: size four and a half,
pale, blue-veined, the red toenails fanning out like suns on
a peacocks tail. She examines them sternly, going down
the line, just as a gnat, attracted by the lotion perfuming her
legs, lands on her big toenail and gets stuck. Oh, shoot,
Tessie says. Darn bugs. She sets to work again, picking
the gnat off, reapplying polish.
On this evening in the middle of World War II, a serenade is
about to begin. Its minutes away. If you listen closely you
can hear a window scraping open, a fresh reed being
inserted into a woodwinds mouthpiece. The music which
started everything and on which, you could say, my entire
existence depended, is on its way. But before the tune
launches into full volume, let me fill you in on what has
happened these last eleven years.
Prohibition has ended, for one thing. In 1933, by ratification
of all the states, the Twenty-first Amendment repealed the
Eighteenth. At the American Legion Convention in Detroit,
Julius Stroh removed the bung from a Gilded Keg of
Strohs Bohemian beer. President Roosevelt was
photographed sipping a cocktail at the White House. And
on Hurlbut Street, my grandfather, Lefty Stephanides, took
down the zebra skin, dismantled his underground
speakeasy, and emerged once again into the upper
atmosphere.
With the money hed saved from the auto-erotica, he put a
down payment on a building on Pingree Street, just off
West Grand Boulevard. The above-ground Zebra Room
was a bar & grill, set in the middle of a busy commercial
strip. The neighboring businesses were still there when I
was a kid. I can dimly remember them: A. A. Lauries
optometrists shop with its neon sign in the shape of a pair
of eyeglasses; New Yorker Clothes, in whose front window I
saw my first naked mannequins, dancing a murderous
tango. Then there was Value Meats, Hagermosers Fresh
Fish, and the Fine-Cut Barber Shop. On the corner was our
place, a narrow single-story building with a wooden zebras
head projecting over the sidewalk. At night, blinking red
neon outlined the muzzle, neck, and ears.
The clientele were mainly auto workers. They came in after
their shifts. They came in, quite often,before their shifts.
Lefty opened the bar at eight in the morning, and by eightthirty
the barstools were filled with men dulling themselves
before reporting to work. As he filled their shells with beer,
Lefty learned what was going on in the city outside. In 1935
his patrons had celebrated the forming of the United Auto
Workers. Two years later, they cursed the armed guards
from Ford who had beat up their leader, Walter Reuther, in
the Battle of the Overpass. My grandfather took no sides
in these discussions. His job was to listen, nod, refill, smile.
He said nothing in 1943 when talk at the bar turned ugly. On
a Sunday in August, fistfights had broken out between
blacks and whites on Belle Isle. Some nigger raped a
white woman, one customer said. Now all those niggers
are going to pay. You wait and see. By Monday morning a
race riot was under way. But when a group of men came in,
boasting of having beaten a Negro to death, my
grandfather refused to serve them.
Why dont you go back to your own country? one of them
shouted.
This is my country, Lefty said, and to prove it, he did a
very American thing: he reached under the counter and
produced a pistol.
These conflicts lie in the past nowas Tessie paints her
toenailsovershadowed by a much bigger conflict. All over
Detroit in 1944, automobile factories have been retooled.
At Willow Run, B-52s roll off the assembly line instead of
Ford sedans. Over at Chrysler, theyre making tanks. The
industrialists have finally found a cure for the stalled
economy: war. The Motor City, which hasnt been dubbed
Motown yet, becomes for a time the Arsenal of
Democracy. And in the boardinghouse on Cadillac
Boulevard, Tessie Zizmo paints her toenails and hears the
sound of a clarinet.
Artie Shaws big hit Begin the Beguine floats on the
humid air. It freezes squirrels on telephone lines, who cock
their heads alertly to listen. It rustles the leaves of apple
trees and sets a rooster on a weather vane spinning. With
its fast beat and swirling melody, Begin the Beguine rises
over the victory gardens and the lawn furniture, the bramblechoked
fences and porch swings; it hops the fence into the
backyard of the OToole Boardinghouse, stepping around
backyard of the OToole Boardinghouse, stepping around
the mostly male tenants recreational activitiesa lawnbowling
swath, some forgotten croquet malletsand then
the song climbs the ragged ivy along the brick facing, past
windows where bachelors snooze, scratch their beards, or,
in the case of Mr. Danelikov, formulate chess problems; up
and up it soars, Artie Shaws best and most beloved
recording from back in 39, which you can still hear playing
from radios all over the city, music so fresh and lively it
seems to ensure the purity of the American cause and the
Allies eventual triumph; but now here it is, finally, coming
through Theodoras window, as she fans her toes to dry
them. And, hearing it, my mother turns toward the window
and smiles.
The source of the music was none other than a
Brylcreemed Orpheus who lived directly behind her. Milton
Stephanides, a twenty-year-old college student, stood at
his own bedroom window, dexterously fingering his clarinet.
He was wearing a Boy Scout uniform. Chin lifted, elbows
out, right knee keeping time within khaki trousers, he
unleashed his love song on the summer day, playing with
an ardor that had burned out completely by the time I found
that fuzz-clogged woodwind in our attic twenty-five years
later. Milton had been third clarinet in the Southeastern
High School orchestra. For school concerts he had to play
Schubert, Beethoven, and Mozart, but now that he had
graduated, he was free to play whatever he liked, which
was swing. He styled himself after Artie Shaw. He copied
Shaws exuberant, off-balance stance, as if being blown
backward by the force of his own playing. Now, at the
window, he flourished his stick with Shaws precise,
calligraphic dips and circles. He looked along the length of
the shining black instrument, sighting on the house two
backyards away, and especially on the pale, timid, excited
face at the third-floor window. Tree branches and telephone
lines obscured his view, but he could make out the long
dark hair that shone like his clarinet itself.
She didnt wave. She made no signother than smile
that she heard him at all. In neighboring yards people
continued what they were doing, oblivious to the serenade.
They watered lawns or filled bird feeders; young kids
chased butterflies. When Milton got to the end of the song,
he lowered his instrument and leaned out the window,
grinning. Then he started again, from the beginning.
Downstairs, entertaining company, Desdemona heard her
sons clarinet and, as if orchestrating a harmony, let out a
long sigh. For the last forty-five minutes Gus and Georgia
Vasilakis and their daughter Gaia had been sitting in the
living room. It was Sunday afternoon. On the coffee table a
dish of rose jelly reflected light from the sparkling glasses of
wine the adults were drinking. Gaia nursed a glass of
lukewarm Vernors ginger ale. An open tin of butter cookies
sat on the table.
What do you think about that, Gaia? her father teased her.
Miltons got flat feet. Does that sour the deal for you?
Daddeee, said Gaia, embarrassed.
Better to have flat feet than to be knocked off your feet
forever, said Lefty.
Thats right, agreed Georgia Vasilakis. Youre lucky they
wouldnt take Milton. I dont think its any kind of dishonor at
all. I dont know what Id do if I had to send a son off to war.
Every so often during this conversation, Desdemona had
patted Gaia Vasilakis on the knee and said, Miltie he is
coming. Soon. She had been saying it since her guests
arrived. She had been saying it every Sunday for the past
month and a half, and not only to Gaia Vasilakis. She had
said it to Jeanie Diamond, whose parents had brought her
last Sunday, and she had said it to Vicky Logathetis, whod
come the week before that.
Desdemona had just turned forty-three and, in the manner
of women of her generation, she was practically an old
woman. Gray had infiltrated her hair. Shed begun to wear
rimless gold eyeglasses that magnified her eyes, making
her look even more perpetually dismayed than she already
was. Her tendency to worry (which the swing music upstairs
had aggravated of late) had brought back her heart
palpitations. They were a daily occurrence with her now.
Within the surround of this worrying, however, Desdemona
remained a bundle of activity, always cooking, cleaning,
doting on her children and the children of others, always
shrieking at the top of her lungs, full of noise and life.
Despite my grandmothers corrective lenses, the world
remained out of focus. Desdemona didnt understand what
the fighting was all about. At Smyrna the Japanese had
been the only country to send ships to rescue refugees. My
grandmother maintained a lifelong sense of gratitude.
When people brought up the sneak attack on Pearl Harbor,
she said, Dont tell me about an island in the middle of the
ocean. This country isnt big enough they have to have all
the islands, too? The Statue of Libertys gender changed
nothing. It was the same here as everywhere: men and their
wars. Fortunately, Milton had been turned down by the
Army. Instead of going off to war he was going to night
school and helping out at the bar during the day. The only
uniform he wore was that of the Boy Scouts, where he was
a troop leader. Every so often he took his scouts camping
up north.
After five more minutes, when Milton still had not
materialized, Desdemona excused herself and climbed the
stairs. She stopped outside Miltons bedroom, frowning at
the music coming from inside. Then, without knocking, she
entered.
In front of the window, clarinet erect, Milton played on,
oblivious. His hips swayed in an indecent fashion and his
lips glistened as brightly as his hair. Desdemona marched
across the room and slammed the window shut.
Come, Miltie, she commanded. Gaia is downstairs.
Im practicing.
Practice later. She was squinting out the window at the
OToole Boardinghouse across the yard. At the third-floor
window she thought she saw a head duck down, but she
couldnt be sure.
Why you always play by the window?
I get hot.
Desdemona was alarmed. How you mean hot?
From playing.
She snorted. Come. Gaia brought you cookies.
For some time now my grandmother had suspected the
growing intimacy between Milton and Tessie. She noted
the attention Milton paid to Tessie whenever Tessie came
over for dinner with Sourmelina. Growing up, Zoë had
always been Tessies best friend and playmate. But now it
was Milton whom Tessie sat in the porch swing with.
Desdemona had asked Zoë, Why you no go out with
Tessie no more? And Zoë, in a slightly bitter tone, had
replied, Shes busy.
This was what brought on the return of my grandmothers
heart palpitations. After everything she had done to atone
for her crime, after she had turned her marriage into an
arctic wasteland and allowed a surgeon to tie her fallopian
tubes, consanguinity wasnt finished with her. And so,
horrified, my grandmother had resumed an activity at which
she had tried her hand once before, with decidedly mixed
results. Desdemona was matchmaking again.
From Sunday to Sunday, as in the house in Bithynios, a
parade of marriageable girls came through the front door of
Hurlbut. The only difference was that in this case they
werent the same two girls multiplied over and over. In
Detroit, Desdemona had a large pool to choose from.
There were girls with squeaky voices or soft altos, plump
girls and thin ones, babyish girls who wore heart lockets
and girls who were old before their time and worked as
secretaries in insurance firms. There was Sophie
Georgopoulos, who walked funny ever since stepping on
hot coals during a camping trip, and there was Mathilda
Livanos, supremely bored in the way of beautiful girls,
whod shown no interest in Milton and hadnt even washed
her hair. Week after week, aided or coerced by their
parents, they came, and week after week Milton
Stephanides excused himself to go up to his bedroom and
play his clarinet out the window.
Now, with Desdemona riding herd behind, he came down
to see Gaia Vasilakis. She was sitting between her parents
on the overstuffed sea-foam-green sofa, a large girl herself,
wearing a white crinoline dress with a ruffled hem and
puffed sleeves. Her short white socks had ruffles, too. They
reminded Milton of the lace cover over the bathroom
trashcan.
Boy, those are a lot of badges, Gus Vasilakis said.
Milton needed one more badge and he could have been
an Eagle Scout, Lefty said.
Which one is that?
Swimming, said Milton. I cant swim for beans.
Im not a very good swimmer either, Gaia said, smiling.
Have a cookie, Miltie, Desdemona urged.
Milton looked down at the tin and took a cookie.
Gaia made them, Desdemona said. How you like it?
Milton chewed, meditatively. After a moment, he held up the
Boy Scout salute. I cannot tell a lie, he said. This cookie
is lousy.
Is there anything as incredible as the love story of your own
parents? Anything as hard to grasp as the fact that those
two over-the-hill players, permanently on the disabled list,
were once in the starting lineup? Its impossible to imagine
my father, who in my experience was aroused mainly by the
lowering of interest rates, suffering the acute, adolescent
passions of the flesh. Milton lying on his bed, dreaming
about my mother in the same way I would later dream about
the Obscure Object. Milton writing love letters and even,
after reading Marvells To His Coy Mistress at night
school, lovepoems . Milton mixing Elizabethan metaphysics
with the rhyming styles of Edgar Bergen:
Youre just as amazing, Tessie Zizmo
as some new mechanical gizmo
a GE exec might give a pal
youre a Worlds Fair kind of gal . . .
Even looking back through a daughters forgiving eye, I
have to admit: my father was never good-looking. At
eighteen, he was alarmingly, consumptively skinny.
Blemishes dotted his face. Beneath his doleful eyes the
skin was already darkening in pouches. His chin was weak,
his nose overdeveloped, his Brylcreemed hair as massive
and gleaming as a Jell-O mold. Milton, however, was aware
of none of these physical deficits. He possessed a flinty
self-confidence that protected him like a shell from the
worlds assaults.
Theodoras physical appeal was more obvious. She had
inherited Sourmelinas beauty on a smaller scale. She was
only five foot one, thin-waisted and small-busted, with a
long, swanlike neck supporting her pretty, heart-shaped
face. If Sourmelina had always been a European kind of
American, a sort of Marlene Dietrich, then Tessie was the
fully Americanized daughter Dietrich might have had. Her
mainstream, even countrified, looks extended to the slight
gap between her teeth and her turned-up nose. Traits often
skip a generation. I look much more typically Greek than my
mother does. Somehow Tessie had become a partial
product of the South. She said things like shucks and
golly. Working every day at the florists shop, Lina had left
Tessie in the care of an assortment of older women, many
of them Scotch Irish ladies from Kentucky, and in this way a
twang had gotten into Tessies speech. Compared with
Zoës strong, mannish features, Tessie had so-called all-
American looks, and this was certainly part of what
attracted my father.
Sourmelinas salary at the florists shop was not high.
Mother and daughter were forced to economize. At
secondhand shops, Sourmelina gravitated to Vegas
showgirl outfits. Tessie picked out sensible clothes. Back
at OTooles, she mended wool skirts and hand-washed
blouses; she de-pilled sweaters and polished used saddle
shoes. But the faint thrift-store smell never quite left her
clothes. (It would attach to me years later when I went on the
road.) The smell went along with her fatherlessness, and
with growing up poor.
Jimmy Zizmo: all that remained of him was what hed left on
Tessies body. Her frame was delicate like his, her hair,
though silken, was black like his. When she didnt wash it
enough, it got oily, and, sniffing her pillow, she would think,
Maybe this is what my dad smelled like. She got canker
sores in wintertime (against which Zizmo had taken vitamin
C). But Tessie was fair-skinned and burned easily in the
sun.
Ever since Milton could remember, Tessie had been in the
house, wearing the stiff, churchy oufits her mother found so
amusing. Look at the two of us, Lina would say. Like a
Chinese menu. Sweet and sour. Tessie didnt like it when
Lina talked this way. She didnt think she was sour; only
proper. She wished that her mother would act more proper
herself. When Lina drank too much, Tessie was the one
who took her home, undressed her, and put her to bed.
Because Lina was an exhibitionist, Tessie had become a
voyeur. Because Lina was loud, Tessie had turned out
quiet. She played an instrument, too: the accordion. It sat in
its case under her bed. Every so often she took it out,
throwing the strap over her shoulders to keep the huge,
many-keyed, wheezing instrument off the ground. The
accordion seemed nearly as big as she was and she
played it dutifully, badly, and always with the suggestion of a
carnival sadness.
As little children Milton and Tessie had shared the same
bedroom and bathtub, but that was long ago. Up until
recently, Milton thought of Tessie as his prim cousin.
Whenever one of his friends expressed interest in her,
Milton told them to give up the idea. Thats honey from the
icebox, he said, as Artie Shaw might have. Cold sweets
dont spread.
And then one day Milton came home with some new reeds
from the music store. He hung his coat and hat on the pegs
in the foyer, took out the reeds, and balled the paper bag
up in his fist. Stepping into the living room, he took a set
shot. The paper sailed across the room, hit the rim of the
trashcan, and bounced out. At which point a voice said,
You better stick to music.
Milton looked to see who it was. He saw who it was. But
who it was was no longer who it had been.
Theodora was lying on the couch, reading. She had on a
spring dress, a pattern of red flowers. Her feet were bare
and that was when Milton saw them: the red toenails. Milton
had never suspected that Theodora was the kind of girl who
would paint her toenails. The red nails made her look
womanly while the rest of herthe thin pale arms, the
fragile neckremained as girlish as always. Im watching
the roast, she explained.
Wheres my mom?
She went out.
She went out? She never goes out.
She did today.
Wheres my sister?
4-H. Tessie looked at the black case he was holding.
That your clarinet?
Yeah.
Play something for me.
Milton set his instrument case down on the sofa. As he
opened it and took out his clarinet, he remained aware of
the nakedness of Tessies legs. He inserted the
mouthpiece and limbered up his fingers, running them up
and down the keys. And then, at the mercy of an
overwhelming impulse, he bent forward, pressing the flaring
end of the clarinet to Tessies bare knee, and blew a long
note.
She squealed, moving her knee away.
That was a D flat, Milton said. You want to hear a D
sharp?
Tessie still had her hand over her buzzing knee. The
vibration of the clarinet had sent a shiver all the way up her
thigh. She felt funny, as though she were about to laugh, but
she didnt laugh. She was staring at her cousin, thinking,
Will you just look at him smiling away? Still got pimples but
thinks hes the cats meow. Where does he get it?
All right, she answered at last.
Okay, said Milton. D sharp. Here goes.
That first day it was Tessies knees. The following Sunday,
Milton came up from behind and played his clarinet against
the back of Tessies neck. The sound was muffled. Wisps
of her hair flew up. Tessie screamed, but not long. Yeah,
dad, said Milton, standing behind her.
And so it began. He played Begin the Beguine against
Tessies collarbone. He played Moonface against her
smooth cheeks. Pressing the clarinet right up against the
red toenails that had so dazzled him, he played It Goes to
Your Feet. With a secrecy they didnt acknowledge, Milton
and Tessie drifted off to quiet parts of the house, and there,
lifting her skirt a little, or removing a sock, or once, when
nobody was home, pulling up her blouse to expose her
lower back, Tessie allowed Milton to press his clarinet to
her skin and fill her body with music. At first it only tickled
her. But after a while the notes spread deeper into her
body. She felt the vibrations penetrate her muscles, pulsing
in waves, until they rattled her bones and made her inner
organs hum.
Milton played his instrument with the same fingers he used
for the Boy Scout salute, but his thoughts were anything but
wholesome. Breathing hard, bent over Tessie with
trembling concentration, he moved the clarinet in circles,
like a snake charmer. And Tessie was a cobra,
mesmerized, tamed, ravished by the sound. Finally, one
afternoon when they were all alone, Tessie, his proper
cousin, lay down on her back. She crossed one arm over
her face. Where should I play? whispered Milton, his
mouth feeling too dry to play anything. Tessie undid a
button on her blouse and in a strangled voice said, My
stomach.
I dont know a song about a stomach, Milton ventured.
My ribs, then.
I dont know any songs about ribs.
My sternum?
Nobody ever wrote a song about a sternum, Tess.
She undid more buttons, her eyes closed. And in barely a
whisper: How about this?
That one I know, said Milton.
When he couldnt play against Tessies skin, Milton opened
the window of his bedroom and serenaded her from afar.
Sometimes he called the boardinghouse and asked Mrs.
OToole if he could speak with Theodora. Minute, Mrs.
OToole said, and shouted up the stairs, Phone for Zizmo!
Milton heard the sound of feet running down the stairs and
then Tessies voice saying hello. And he began playing his
clarinet into the phone.
(Years later, my mother would recall the days when she was
wooed by clarinet. Your father couldnt play very well. Two
or three songs. That was it. Whaddya mean? Milton
would protest. I had a whole repertoire. Hed begin to
whistle Begin the Beguine, warbling the melody to evoke
a clarinets vibrato and fingering the air. Why dont you
serenade me anymore? Tessie would ask. But Milton had
something else on his mind: Whatever happened to that
old clarinet of mine? And then Tessie: How should I
know? You expect me to keep track of everything? Is it
down in the basement? Maybe I threw it out! You threw it
out! What the hell did you do that for! What are you going
to do, Milt, practice up? You couldnt play the darn thing
back then.)
All love serenades must come to an end. But in 1944, there
was no stop to the music. By July, when the telephone rang
at the OToole Boardinghouse, there was sometimes
another kind of love song issuing from the earpiece:Kyrie
eleison, Kyrie eleison. A soft voice, nearly as feminine as
Tessies own, cooing into a phone a few blocks away. The
singing continued for a minute at least. And then Michael
Antoniou would ask, How was that?
That was swell, my mother said.
It was?
Just like in church. You could have fooled me.
Which brings me to the final complication in that overplotted
year. Worried about what Milton and Tessie were getting
up to, my grandmother wasnt only trying to marry Milton off
to somebody else. By that summer she had a husband
picked out for Tessie, too.
Michael AntoniouFather Mike, as he would come to be
known in our familywas at that time a seminarian at the
Greek Orthodox Holy Cross Theological School out in
Pomfret, Connecticut. Back home for the summer, he had
been paying a lot of attention to Tessie Zizmo. In 1933,
Assumption Church had moved out of its quarters in the
storefront on Hart Street. Now the congregation had a real
church, on Vernor Highway just off Beniteau. The church
was made of yellow brick. It wore three dove-gray domes,
like caps, and had a basement for socializing. During
coffee hour, Michael Antoniou told Tessie what it was like
out at Holy Cross and educated her about the lesser-known
aspects of Greek Orthodoxy. He told her about the monks
of Mount Athos, who in their zeal for purity banned not only
women from their island monastery but the females of every
other species, too. There were no female birds on Mount
Athos, no female snakes, no female dogs or cats. A little
too strict for me, Michael Antoniou said, smiling
meaningfully at Tessie. I just want to be a parish priest.
Married with kids. My mother wasnt surprised that he
showed interest in her. Being short herself, she was used to
short guys asking her to dance. She didnt like being
chosen by virtue of her height, but Michael Antoniou was
persistent. And he might not have been pursuing her
because she was the only girl shorter than he was. He
might have been responding to the need in Tessies eyes,
her desperate yearning to believe that there was something
instead of nothing.
Desdemona seized her opportunity. Mikey is good Greek
boy, nice boy, she said to Tessie. And going to be a
priest! And to Michael Antoniou: Tessie is small but she is
strong. How many plates you think she can carry, Father
Mike? Im not a father yet, Mrs. Stephanides. Please,
how many? Six? That all you think? Six? And now
holding up two hands: Ten! Ten plates Tessie can carry.
Never break a thing.
She began inviting Michael Antoniou over for Sunday
dinner. The presence of the seminarian inhibited Tessie,
who no longer wandered upstairs for private swing
sessions. Milton, growing surly at this new development,
threw barbs across the dinner table. I guess it must be a lot
harder to be a priest over here in America, huh?
How do you mean? Michael Antoniou asked.
I just mean that over in the old country people arent too
well educated, Milton said. Theyll believe whatever
stories the priests tell them. Here its different. You can go
to college and learn to think for yourself.
The Church doesnt want people not to think, Michael
replied without taking offense. The Church believes that
thinking will take a person only so far. Where thinking ends,
revelation begins.
Chrysostomos!Desdemona exclaimed. Father Mike, you
have a mouth of gold.
But Milton persisted, Id say where thinking ends, stupidity
begins.
Thats how people live, MiltMichael Antoniou again, still
kindly, gentlyby telling stories. Whats the first thing a kid
says when he learns how to talk? Tell me a story. Thats
how we understand who we are, where we come from.
Stories are everything. And what story does the Church
have to tell? Thats easy. Its the greatest story ever told.
My mother, listening to this debate, couldnt fail to notice the
stark contrasts between her two suitors. On one side, faith;
on the other, skepticism. On one side, kindness; on the
other, hostility. An admittedly short though pleasant-looking
young man against a scrawny, pimply, 4-F boy with circles
under his eyes like a hungry wolf. Michael Antoniou hadnt
so much as tried to kiss Tessie, whereas Milton had led her
astray with a woodwind. D flats and A sharps licking at her
like so many tongues of flame, here behind the knee, up
here on the neck, right below the navel . . . the inventory
filled her with shame. Later that afternoon, Milton cornered
her. I got a new song for you, Tess. Just learned it today.
But Tessie told him, Get away. Why? Whats the matter?
Its . . . its . . .she tried to think of the most damning
pronouncementIts not nice! Thats not what you said
last week. Milton waved the clarinet, adjusting the reed
with a wink, until Tessie, finally: I dont want to do that
anymore! Do you understand? Leave me alone!
Every Saturday for the remainder of the summer, Michael
Antoniou came by OTooles to pick Tessie up. Taking her
purse as they walked along, he swung it by its strap,
pretending it was a censer. You have to do it just right, he
told her. If you dont swing it hard enough, the chain
buckles and the embers fall out. On their way down the
street, my mother tried to ignore her embarrassment at
being seen in public with a man swinging a purse. At the
drugstore soda fountain, she watched him tuck a napkin
into his shirt collar before eating his sundae. Instead of
popping the cherry into his mouth as Milton would have
done, Michael Antoniou always offered it to her. Later,
seeing her home, he squeezed her hand and looked
sincerely into her eyes. Thank you for another enjoyable
afternoon. See you in church tomorrow. Then he walked
away, folding his hands behind his back. Practicing how to
walk like a priest, too.
After he was gone, Tessie went inside and climbed the
stairs to her room. She lay down on her daybed to read.
One afternoon, unable to concentrate, she stopped reading
and put the book over her face. Just then, outside, a clarinet
began to play. Tessie listened for a while, without moving.
Finally, her hand rose to take the book off her face. It never
got there, however. The hand waved in the air, as if
conducting the music, and then, sensibly, resignedly,
desperately, it slammed the window shut.
Bravo! Desdemona shouted into the phone a few days
later. Then, holding the mouthpiece to her chest: Mikey
Antoniou just proposed to Tessie! Theyre engaged! They
are going to get married as soon as Mikey he finishes the
seminary.
Dont look too excited, Zoë told her brother.
Why dont you shut up?
Dont get sore at me, she said, blind to the future. Im not
marrying him. Youd have to shoot me first.
If she wants to marry a priest, Milton said, let her marry a
priest. The hell with her. His face turned red and he bolted
from the table and fled up the stairs.
But why did my mother do it? She could never explain. The
reasons people marry the people they do are not always
evident to those involved. So I can only speculate. Maybe
my mother, having grown up without a father, was trying to
marry one. Its possible, too, that her decision was a
practical one. Shed asked Milton what he wanted to do
with his life once. I was thinking of maybe taking over my
dads bar. On top of all the other oppositions, there may
have been this final one: bartender, priest.
Impossible to imagine my father weeping from a broken
heart. Impossible to imagine him refusing to eat.
Impossible, also, to imagine him calling the boardinghouse
again and again until finally Mrs. OToole said, Listen,
sugar. She dont want to talk to you. Get it? YeahMilton
swallowing hardI got it. Plenty of other fish in the sea.
Impossible to imagine any of these things, but they are, in
fact, what happened.
Maybe Mrs. OTooles maritime metaphor had given him an
idea. A week after Tessie became engaged, on a steamy
Tuesday morning, Milton put his clarinet away for good and
went down to Cadillac Square to exchange his Boy Scout
uniform for another.
Well, I did it, he told the family at dinner that night. I
enlisted.
In the Army! Desdemona said, horrified.
What did you do that for? said Zoë. The wars almost
over. Hitlers finished.
I dont know about Hitler. Its Hirohito Ive got to worry
about. I joined the Navy. Not the Army.
What about your feet? Desdemona cried.
They didnt ask about my feet.
My grandfather, who had sat through the clarinet serenades
as he sat through everything, aware of their significance but
unconvinced of the wisdom of getting involved, now glared
at his son. Youre a very stupid young man, do you know
that? You think this is some kind of game?
No, sir.
This is a war. You think it is some kind of fun, a war? Some
kind of big joke to play on your parents?
No, sir.
You will see what kind of a big joke it is.
The Navy! Desdemona meanwhile continued to moan.
What if your boat it sinks?
You see what you do? Lefty shook his head. Youre going
to make your mother sick worrying so much.
Ill be okay, said Milton.
Looking at his son, Lefty now saw a painful sight: himself
twenty years earlier, full of stupid, cocky optimism. There
was nothing to do with the spike of fear that shot through
him but to speak out in anger. Okay, then. Go to the Navy,
said Lefty. But you know what you forgot, Mr. almost Eagle
Scout? He pointed at Miltons chest. You forgot you never
win a badge for swimming.
NEWS OF THE WORLD
Iwaited three days before calling Julie again. It was ten
oclock at night and she was still in her studio working. She
hadnt eaten, so I suggested we get something. I said Id
come by and pick her up.
This time, she let me in. Her studio was a mess, frightening
in its chaos, but after the first few steps I forgot about all
that. My attention was arrested by what I saw on the walls.
Five or six large test prints were tacked up, each one
showing the industrial landscape of a chemical plant. Julie
had shot the factory from a crane, so that the effect for the
viewer was of floating just above the snaking pipes and
smokestacks.
Okay, thats enough, she said, pushing me toward the
door.
Hold on, I said. I love factories. Im from Detroit. This is
like an Ansel Adams for me.
Now youve seen it, she said, shooing me out, pleased,
uncomfortable, smiling, stubborn.
Ive got a Bernd and Hilla Becher in my living room, I
boasted.
Youve got a Bernd and Hilla Becher? She stopped
pushing me.
Its an old cement factory.
Okay, all right, said Julie, relenting. I do factories. Thats
what I do. Factories. These are the I. G. Farben plant. She
winced. Im worried its the typical thing for an American to
do over here.
Holocaust industry, you mean?
I havent read that book, but yeah.
If youve always done factories, I think its different, I told
her. Then youre not just glomming on. If factories are your
subject, how could younot do I. G. Farben.
You think its okay?
I pointed to the test prints. These are great.
We fell silent, looking at each other, and without thinking I
leaned forward and kissed Julie lightly on the lips.
When the kiss was over she opened her eyes very wide. I
thought you were gay when we met, she said.
Must have been the suit.
My gaydar went off completely. Julie was shaking her
head. Im always suspicious, being the last stop.
The last what?
Havent you ever heard of that? Asian chicks are the last
stop. If a guys in the closet, he goes for an Asian because
their bodies are more like boys.
Your bodys not like a boys, I said.
This embarrassed Julie. She looked away.
Youve had a lot of closeted gay guys go after you? I
asked her.
Twice in college, three times in graduate school,
answered Julie.
There was no other response to this but to kiss her again.
To resume my parents story, I need to bring up a very
embarrassing memory for a Greek American: Michael
Dukakis on his tank. Do you remember that? The single
image that doomed our hopes of getting a Greek into the
White House: Dukakis, wearing an oversize army helmet,
bouncing along on top of an M41 Walker Bulldog. Trying to
look presidential but looking instead like a little boy on an
amusement park ride. (Every time a Greek gets near the
Oval Office something goes wrong. First it was Agnew with
the tax evasion and then it was Dukakis with the tank.)
Before Dukakis climbed up on that armored vehicle, before
he took off his J. Press suit and put on those army fatigues,
we all feltI speak for my fellow Greek Americans, whether
they want me to or nota sense of exultation. This man
was the Democratic nominee for President of the United
States! He was from Massachusetts, like the Kennedys! He
practiced a religion even stranger than Catholicism, but no
one was bringing it up. This was 1988. Maybe the time had
finally come when anyoneor at least not the same old
someonescould be President. Behold the banners at the
Democratic Convention! Look at the bumper stickers on all
the Volvos. Dukakis. A name with more than two vowels in
it running for President! The last time that had happened
was Eisenhower (who looked good on a tank). Generally
speaking, Americans like their presidents to have no more
than two vowels. Truman. Johnson. Nixon. Clinton. If they
have more than two vowels (Reagan), they can have no
more than two syllables. Even better is one syllable and one
vowel: Bush. Had to do that twice. Why did Mario Cuomo
decide against running for President? What conclusion did
he come to as he withdrew to think the matter through?
Unlike Michael Dukakis, who was from academic
Massachusetts, Mario Cuomo was from New York and
knew what was what. Cuomo knew hed never win. Too
liberal for the moment, certainly. But also: too many vowels.
On top of a tank, Michael Dukakis rode toward a bank of
photographers and into the political sunset. Painful as the
image is to recall, I bring it up for a reason. More than
anything, that was what my newly enlisted father, Seaman
2nd Class Milton Stephanides, looked like as he bounced
in a landing craft off the California coast in the fall of 1944.
Like Dukakis, Milton was mostly helmet. Like Dukakiss,
Miltons chin strap looked as though it had been fastened
by his mother. Like Dukakiss, Miltons expression
betrayed a creeping awareness of error. Milton, too,
couldnt get off his moving vehicle. He, too, was riding
toward extinction. The only difference was the absence of
photographers because it was the middle of the night.
A month after joining the United States Navy, Milton found
himself stationed at Coronado naval base in San Diego.
He was a member of the Amphibious Forces, whose job it
was to transport troops to the Far East and assist their
storming of beaches. It was Miltons jobluckily so far only
in maneuversto lower the landing craft off the side of the
transport ship. For over a month, six days a week, ten hours
a day, thats what hed been doinglowering boats full of
men into various sea conditions.
When he wasnt lowering landing craft, he was in one
himself. Three or four nights a week, they had to practice
night landings. These were extremely tricky. The coast
around Coronado was treacherous. The inexperienced
pilots had trouble steering toward the diff lights, which
marked the beaches, and often brought the boats to shore
on the rocks.
Though the army helmet obscured Miltons present vision, it
gave him a pretty good picture of the future. The helmet
weighed as much as a bowling ball. It was as thick as the
hood of a car. You put it over your head, like a hat, but it
was nothing like a hat. In contact with the skull, an army
helmet transmitted images directly into the brain. These
were of objects the helmet was designed to keep out.
Bullets, for instance. And shrapnel. The helmet closed off
the mind for contemplation of these essential realities.
And if you were a person like my father, you began to think
about how you could escape such realities. After a single
week of drills, Milton realized that he had made a terrible
mistake joining the Navy. Battle could be only slightly less
dangerous than this preparation for it. Every night someone
got injured. Waves slammed guys up against the boats.
Guys fell and got swept underneath. The week before, a kid
from Omaha had drowned.
During the day they trained, playing football on the beach in
army boots to build up their legs, and then at night they had
the drills. Exhausted, seasick, Milton stood packed in like a
sardine, shouldering a heavy pack. He had always wanted
to be an American and now he got to see what his fellow
Americans were like. In close quarters he suffered their
backwoods lubricity and knucklehead talk. They were in the
boats for hours together, getting slammed around, getting
wet. They got to bed at three or four in the morning. Then
the sun came up and it was time to do it all over again.
Why had he joined the Navy? For revenge, for escape. He
wanted to get back at Tessie and he wanted to forget her.
Neither had worked. The dullness of military life, the
endless repetition of duties, the standing in line to eat, to
use the bathroom, to shave, served as no distraction at all.
Standing in line all day brought on the very thoughts Milton
wanted to avoid, of a clarinet imprint, like a ring of fire, on
Tessies flushed thigh. Or of Vandenbrock, the kid from
Omaha whod drowned: his battered face, the seawater
leaking through his busted teeth.
All around Milton in the boat now guys were already getting
sick. Ten minutes in the swells and sailors were bending
over and regurgitating the beef stew and instant mashed
potatoes of that evenings dinner onto the ridged metal
floor. This provoked no comment. The vomit, which was an
eerie blue color in the moonlight, had its own wave action,
sloshing back and forth over everybodys boots. Milton
lifted his face, trying to get a whiff of fresh air.
The boat pitched and rolled. It fell off waves and came
crashing down, the hull shuddering. They were getting close
to shore, where the surf picked up. The other men
readjusted their packs and got ready for the make-believe
assault, and Seaman Stephanides abandoned the solitude
of his helmet.
Saw it in the library, the sailor beside him was saying to
another. On the bulletin board.
What kind of test?
Some kind of admittance exam. For Annapolis.
Yeah, right, theyre gonna let a couple of guys like us into
Annapolis.
Doesnt matter if they let us in or not. Deal is, whoever
takes the test gets excused from drills.
What did you say about a test? Milton asked, butting in.
The sailor looked around to see if anyone else had heard.
Keep quiet about it. If we all sign up, it wont work.
When is it?
But before the sailor could answer there was a loud,
grinding sound: they had hit the rocks again. The sudden
stop knocked everyone forward. Helmets rang against one
another; noses broke. Sailors fell into a pile and the front
hatch fell away. Water was streaming into the boat now and
the lieutenant was yelling. Milton, along with everyone else,
leapt into the confusionthe black rocks, the sucking
undertow, the Mexican beer bottles, the startled crabs.
Back in Detroit, also in the dark, my mother was at the
movies. Michael Antoniou, her fiancé, had returned to Holy
Cross and now she had her Saturdays free. On the screen
of the Esquire theater, numerals flashed . . . 5 . . . 4 . . . 3 . . .
and a newsreel began. Muted trumpets blared. An
announcer began giving war reports. It had been the same
announcer throughout the war, so that by now Tessie felt
she knew him; he was almost family. Week after week he
had informed her about Monty and the Brits driving
Rommels tanks out of North Africa and the American
troops liberating Algeria and landing in Sicily. Munching
popcorn, Tessie had watched as the months and years
passed. The newsreels followed an itinerary. At first theyd
concentrated on Europe. There were tanks rolling through
tiny villages and French girls waving handkerchiefs from
balconies. The French girls didnt look like theyd been
through a war; they wore pretty, ruffled skirts, white ankle
socks, and silk scarves. None of the men wore berets,
which surprised Tessie. Shed always wanted to go to
Europe, not to Greece so much, but to France or Italy. As
she watched these newsreels, what Tessie noticed wasnt
the bombed-out buildings but the sidewalk cafés, the
fountains, the self-composed, urbane little dogs.
Two Saturdays ago, shed seen Antwerp and Brussels
liberated by the Allies. Now, as attention turned toward
Japan, the scenery was changing. Palm trees cropped up
in the newsreels, and tropical islands. This afternoon the
screen gave the date October 1944 and the announcer
announced,As American troops prepare for the final
invasion of the Pacific, General Douglas MacArthur,
vowing to make good on his promise of I shall return,
surveys his troops. The footage showed sailors standing at
attention on deck, or dropping artillery shells into guns, or
horsing around on a beach, waving to the folks back home.
And out in the audience my mother found herself doing a
crazy thing. She was looking for Miltons face.
Hewas her second cousin, wasnt he? It was only natural
she should worry about him. They had also been, not in love
exactly, but in something more immature, a kind of
infatuation or crush. Nothing like what she had with Michael.
Tessie sat up in her seat. She adjusted her purse in her lap.
She sat up like a young lady who was engaged to be
married. But after the newsreel ended and the movie
began, she forgot about being an adult. She sank down in
her seat and put her feet up over the seat in front.
Maybe it wasnt a very good movie that day, or maybe
shed seen too many movies latelyshed gone for the last
eight straight daysbut whatever the reason, Tessie
couldnt concentrate. She kept thinking that if something
happened to Milton, if he was wounded or, God forbid, if he
didnt come backshe would be somehow to blame. She
hadnt told him to enlist in the Navy. If hed asked her, she
would have told him not to. But she knew hed done it
because of her. It was a little likeInto the Sands , with
Claude Barron, which shed seen a couple of weeks ago. In
that picture Claude Barron enlists in the Foreign Legion
because Rita Carrol marries another guy. The other guy
turns out to be a cheater and drinker, and so Rita Carrol
leaves him and travels out to the desert where Claude
Barron is fighting the Arabs. By the time Rita Carrol gets
there hes in the hospital, wounded, or not a hospital really
but just a tent, and she tells him she loves him and Claude
Barron says, I went into the desert to forget about you. But
the sand was the color of your hair. The desert sky was the
color of your eyes. There was nowhere I could go that
wouldnt be you. And then he dies. Tessie cried buckets.
Her mascara ran, staining the collar of her blouse
something awful.
Drilling at night and going to Saturday matinees, jumping
into the sea and sliding down in movie seats, worrying and
regretting and hoping and trying to forgetnevertheless, to
be perfectly honest, mostly what people did during the war
was write letters. In support of my personal belief that real
life doesnt live up to writing about it, the members of my
family seem to have spent most of their time that year
engaged in correspondence. From Holy Cross, Michael
Antoniou wrote twice a week to his fiancée. His letters
arrived in light blue envelopes embossed with the head of
Patriarch Benjamin in the upper left-hand corner, and on the
stationery inside, his handwriting, like his voice, was
feminine and neat. Most likely, the first place theyll send us
after my ordination will be somewhere in Greece. Theres
going to be a lot of rebuilding to do now that the Nazis have
left.
At her desk beneath the Shakespeare bookends, Tessie
wrote back faithfully, if not entirely truthfully. Most of her daily
activities didnt seem virtuous enough to tell a seminarianfiancé.
And so she began to invent a more appropriate life
for herself. This morning Zo and I went down to volunteer at
the Red Cross, wrote my mother, who had spent the entire
day at the Fox Theater, eating nonpareils. They had us cut
up old bedsheets into strips for bandages. You should see
the blister Ive got on my thumb. Its a real whopper. She
didnt start out with these wholesale fictions. At first Tessie
had given an honest accounting of her days. But in one
letter Michael Antoniou had said, Movies are fine as
entertainment, but with the war I wonder if theyre the best
way to spend your time. After that, Tessie started making
things up. She rationalized her lying by telling herself that
this was her last year of freedom. By next summer shed be
a priests wife, living somewhere in Greece. To mitigate her
dishonesty, she deflected all honor from herself, filling her
letters with praise for Zoë. She works six days a week but
on Sundays gets up bright and early to take Mrs. Tsontakis
to churchpoor things ninety-three and can barely walk.
Thats Zoë. Always thinking of others.
Meanwhile, Desdemona and Milton were writing to each
other, too. Before going off to war, my father had promised
his mother that hed finally become literate in Greek. Now,
from California, lying on his bunk in the evenings, so sore
he could barely move, Milton consulted a Greek-English
dictionary to piece together reports on his navy life. No
matter how hard he concentrated, however, by the time his
letters arrived at Hurlbut Street something had been lost in
translation.
What kind of paper this is? Desdemona asked her
husband, holding up a letter that resembled Swiss cheese.
Like mice, military censors had nibbled at Miltons letters
before Desdemona got to digest them. They bit off any
mention of the word invasion, any reference to San
Diego or Coronado. They chewed through whole
paragraphs describing the naval base, the destroyers and
submarines docked at the pier. Since the censors Greek
was even worse than Miltons, they often made mistakes,
lopping off endearments, xs and os.
Despite the gaps in Miltons missives (syntactical and
physical), my grandmother registered the danger of his
situation. In his badly penned sigmas and deltas she spied
the shaking hand of her sons growing anxiety. Over his
grammatical mistakes she detected the note of fear in his
voice. The stationery itself frightened her because it already
looked blown to bits.
Seaman Stephanides, however, was doing his best to
prevent injury. On a Wednesday morning, he reported to the
base library to take the admittance exam for the U.S. Naval
Academy. Over the next five hours, every time he looked up
from his test paper, he saw his shipmates doing
calisthenics in the hot sun. He couldnt help smiling. While
his buddies were baking out there, Milton was sitting under
a ceiling fan, working out a mathematical proof. While they
were forced to run up and down the sandy gridiron, Milton
was reading a paragraph by someone named Carlyle and
answering the questions that followed. And tonight, when
they would be getting creamed against the rocks, he would
be snug in his bunk, fast asleep.
By the time the early months of 1945 rolled in, everyone
was looking for exemptions from duty. My mother hid from
charitable works by going to the movies. My father ducked
maneuvers by taking a test. But when it came to
exemptions, my grandmother sought one from nothing less
than heaven itself.
One Sunday in March, she arrived at Assumption before
the Divine Liturgy had started. Going into a niche, she
approached the icon of St. Christopher and proposed a
deal. Please, St. Christopher, Desdemona kissed her
fingertips and touched them to the saints forehead, if you
keep Miltie safe in the war, I will make him promise to go
back to Bithynios and fix the church. She looked up at St.
Christopher, the martyr of Asia Minor. If the Turks
destroyed it, Miltie will build it again. If it only needs
painting, hell paint. St. Christopher was a giant. He held a
staff and forded a rushing river. On his back was the Christ
Child, the heaviest baby in history because he had the
world in his hands. What better saint to protect her own son,
in peril on the sea? In the shadowy, lamplit space,
Desdemona prayed. She moved her lips, spelling out the
conditions. I would also like, if possible, St. Christopher, if
Miltie he could be excused from the training. He tells me it
is very dangerous. Hes writing to me in Greek now, too, St.
Christopher. Not too good but okay. I also make him
promise to put in the church new pews. Also, if you like,
some carpets. She lapsed into silence, closing her
eyelids. She crossed herself numerous times, waiting for
an answer. Then her spine suddenly straightened. She
opened her eyes, nodded, smiled. She kissed her
fingertips and touched them to the saints picture, and she
hurried home to write Milton the good news.
Yeah, sure, my father said when he got the letter. St.
Christopher to the rescue. He slipped the letter into his
Greek-English dictionary and carried both to the incinerator
behind the Quonset hut. (That was the end of my fathers
Greek lessons. Though he continued to speak Greek to his
parents, Milton never succeeded in writing it, and as he got
older he began to forget what even the simplest words
meant. In the end he couldnt say much more than Chapter
Eleven or me, which was almost nothing at all.)
Miltons sarcasm was understandable under the
circumstances. Only the day before, his C.O. had given
Milton a new assignment in the upcoming invasion. The
news, like all bad news, hadnt registered at first. It was as
if the C.O.s words, the actual syllables he addressed to
Milton, had been scrambled by the boys over in Intelligence.
Milton had saluted and walked out. Hed continued down to
the beach still unaffected, the bad news acting with a kind
of discretion, allowing him these last few peaceful, deluded
moments. He watched the sunset. He admired a neutral
Switzerland of seals out on the rocks. He took off his boots
to feel the sand against his feet, as if the world were a
place he was only beginning to live in instead of
somewhere he would soon be leaving. But then the fissures
appeared. A split in the top of his skull, through which the
bad news hissingly poured; a groove in his knees, which
buckled, and suddenly Milton couldnt keep it out any
longer.
Thirty-eight seconds. That was the news.
Stephanides, were switching you over to signalman.
Report to Building B at 0700 hours tomorrow morning.
Dismissed. That was what the C.O. had said. Only that.
And it was no surprise, really. As the invasion neared, there
had been a sudden rash of injuries to signalmen.
Signalmen had been chopping off fingers doing KP duty.
Signalmen had been shooting themselves in the feet while
cleaning their guns. In the nighttime drills, signalmen lustily
flung themselves onto the rocks.
Thirty-eight seconds was the life expectancy of a
signalman. When the landing took place, Seaman
Stephanides would stand in the front of the boat. He would
operate a sort of lantern, flashing signals in Morse code.
This lantern would be bright, clearly visible to enemy
positions onshore. That was what he was thinking about as
he stood on the beach with his boots off. He was thinking
that he would never take over his fathers bar. He was
thinking that he would never see Tessie again. Instead, a
few weeks from now, he would stand up in a boat, exposed
to hostile fire, holding a bright light. For a little while, at
least.
Not included in the News of the World: a shot of my fathers
AKA transport ship leaving Coronado naval base, heading
west. At the Esquire Theater, holding her feet off the sticky
floor, Tessie Zizmo watches as white arrows arc across the
Pacific.The U.S. Naval Twelfth Fleet forges ahead on its
invasion of the Pacific, the announcer says.Final
destination: Japan . One arrow starts out in Australia,
moving through New Guinea toward the Philippines.
Another arrow shoots out from the Solomon Islands and
another from the Marianas. Tessie has never heard of
these places before. But now the arrows continue on,
advancing toward other islands shes never heard ofIwo
Jima, Okinawaeach flagged with the Rising Sun. The
arrows converge from three directions on Japan, which is
just a bunch of islands itself. As Tessie is getting the
geography straight, the newsreel breaks into filmed
footage. A hand cranks an alarm bell; sailors jump out of
bunks, double-time it up stairways, assuming battle
stations. And then there he isMiltonrunning across the
deck of the ship! Tessie recognizes his skinny chest, his
raccoon eyes. She forgets about the floor and puts her feet
down. In the newsreel the destroyers guns fire without
sound and, half a world away, amid the elegance of an oldfashioned
cinema, Tessie Zizmo feels the recoils. The
theater is about half-full, mostly with young women like her.
They, too, are snacking on candies for emotional reasons;
they, too, are searching the grainy newsreel for the faces of
fiancés. The air smells of Tootsie Pops and perfume and of
the cigarette the usher is smoking in the lobby. Most of the
time the war is an abstract event, happening somewhere
else. Only here, for four or five minutes, squeezed between
the cartoon and the feature, does it become concrete.
Maybe the blurring of identity, the mob release, has an
effect on Tessie, inspiring the kind of hysteria Sinatra does.
Whatever the reason, in the bedroom light of the movie
theater Tessie Zizmo allows herself to remember things
shes been trying to forget: a clarinet nosing its way up her
bare leg like an invading force itself, tracing an arrow to her
own island empire, an empire which, she realizes at that
moment, she is giving up to the wrong man. While the
flickering beam of the movie projector slants through the
darkness over her head, Tessie admits to herself that she
doesnt want to marry Michael Antoniou. She doesnt want
to be a priests wife or move to Greece. As she gazes at
Milton in the newsreel, her eyes fill with tears and she says
out loud, There was nowhere I could go that wouldnt be
you.
And while people shush her, the sailor in the newsreel
approaches the cameraand Tessie realizes that it isnt
Milton. It doesnt matter, however. She has seen what she
has seen. She gets up to leave.
On Hurlbut Street that same afternoon, Desdemona was
lying in bed. She had been there for the last three days,
ever since the mailman had delivered another letter from
Milton. The letter wasnt in Greek but English and Lefty had
to translate:
Dear folks,
This is the last letter Ill be able to send you. (Sorry for
not writing in the native tongue, ma, but Im a little busy at
the moment.) The brass wont let me say much about
whats going on, but I just wanted to drop you this note to
tell you not to worry about me. Im headed to a safe
place. Keep the bar in good shape, Pop. This warll be
over some day and I want in on the family business. Tell
Zo to stay out of my room.
Love and laughs,
Milt
Unlike the previous letters, this one arrived intact. Not a
single hole anywhere. At first this had cheered Desdemona
until she realized what it implied. There was no need for
secrecy anymore. The invasion was already under way.
At that point, Desdemona stood up from the kitchen table
and, with a look of triumphant desolation, made a grave
pronouncement:
God has brought the judgment down on us that we
deserve, she said.
She went into the living room, where she straightened a
sofa cushion in passing, and climbed the stairs to the
bedroom. There she undressed and put on her nightgown,
even though it was only ten in the morning. And then, for the
first time since being pregnant with Zoë and the last time
before climbing in forever twenty-five years later, my
grandmother took to her bed.
For three days she had stayed there, getting up only to go
to the bathroom. My grandfather had tried in vain to coax
her out. When he left for work the third morning, he had
brought up some food, a dish of white beans in tomato
sauce and bread.
The meal was still lying untouched on the bedside table
when there came a knock at the front door. Desdemona did
not get up to answer it but only pulled a pillow over her face.
Despite this muffling, she heard the knocking continue. A
little later, the front door opened, and finally footsteps made
their way up the stairs and into her room.
Aunt Des? Tessie said.
Desdemona did not move.
Ive got something to tell you, Tessie continued. I wanted
you to be the first to know.
The figure in the bed remained motionless. Still, the
alertness that had seized Desdemonas body told Tessie
that she was awake and listening. Tessie took a breath and
announced, Im going to call off the wedding.
There was a silence. Slowly Desdemona pulled the pillow
off her face. She reached for her glasses on the bedside
table, put them on, and sat up in bed. You dont want to
marry Mikey?
No.
Mikey is a good Greek boy.
I know he is. But I dont love him. I love Milton.
Tessie expected Desdemona to react with shock or
outrage, but to her surprise my grandmother barely seemed
to register the confession. You dont know this, but Milton
asked me to marry him a while ago. I said no. Now Im
going to write him and say yes.
Desdemona gave a little shrug. You can write what you
want, honeymou . Miltie he wont get it.
Its not illegal or anything. First cousins can marry even.
Were only second cousins. Milton went and looked up all
the statutes.
Once again Desdemona shrugged. Drained by worry,
abandoned by St. Christopher, she stopped fighting an
eventuality that had never been fated in the first place. If
you and Miltie want to get married, you have my blessing,
she said. Then, having given her benediction, she settled
back into her pillows and closed her eyes to the pain of
living. And may God grant that you never have a child who
dies in the ocean.
In my family, the funeral meats have always furnished the
wedding tables. My grandmother agreed to marry my
grandfather because she never thought shed live to see
the wedding. And my grandmother blessed my parents
marriage, after vigorously plotting against it, only because
she didnt think Milton would survive to the end of the week.
At sea, my father didnt think so either. Standing at the bow
of the transport ship, he stared out over the water at his
fast-approaching end. He wasnt tempted to pray or to
settle his accounts with God. He perceived the infinite
before him but didnt warm it up with human wishing. The
infinite was as vast and cold as the ocean spreading
around the ship, and in all that emptiness what Milton felt
most acutely was the reality of his own buzzing mind.
Somewhere out over the water was the bullet that would
end his life. Maybe it was already loaded in the Japanese
gun from which it would be fired; maybe it was in an
ammunition roll. He was twenty-one, oily-skinned,
prominent about the Adams apple. It occurred to him that
he had been stupid to run off to war because of a girl, but
then he took this back, because it wasnt just some girl; it
was Theodora. As her face appeared in Miltons mind, a
sailor tapped him on the back.
Who do you know in Washington?
He handed my father a transfer, effective immediately. He
was to report to the Naval Academy at Annapolis. On the
admissions test, Milton had scored a ninety-eight.
Every Greek drama needs a deus ex machina. Mine
comes in the form of the bosuns chair that picked my father
off the deck of the AKA transport ship and whisked him
through the air to deposit him on the deck of a destroyer
heading back to the U.S. mainland. From San Francisco he
traveled by elegant Pullman car to Annapolis, where he was
enrolled as a cadet.
I tell you St. Christopher get you out of the war,
Desdemona exulted when he called home with the news.
He sure did.
Now you have to fix the church.
What?
The church. You have to fix it.
Sure, sure, Naval Cadet Stephanides said, and maybe he
even intended to. He was grateful to be alive and to have
his future back. But with one thing or another, Milton would
put off his trip to Bithynios. Within a years time he was
married; later, he was a father. The war ended. He
graduated from Annapolis and served in the Korean War.
Eventually he returned to Detroit and went into the family
business. From time to time Desdemona would remind her
son about his outstanding obligation to St. Christopher, but
my father always found an excuse for not fulfilling it. His
procrastination would have disastrous effects, if you believe
in that sort of thing, which, some days, when the old Greek
blood is running high, I do.
My parents were married in June of 1946. In a show of
generosity, Michael Antoniou attended the wedding. An
ordained priest now, he presented a dignified, benevolent
figure, but by the second hour of the reception it was clear
he was crushed. He drank too much champagne at dinner
and, when the band began playing, sought out the next best
thing to the bride: the bridesmaid, Zoë Stephanides.
Zoë looked down at himabout a foot. He asked her to
dance. The next thing she knew, they had started off across
the ballroom floor.
Tessie told me a lot about you in her letters, said Michael
Antoniou.
Nothing too bad, I hope.
Just the opposite. She told me what a good Christian you
are.
His long robe concealed his small feet, making it difficult for
Zoë to follow. Nearby, Tessie was dancing with Milton in his
white naval uniform. As the couples passed each other,
Zoë glared comically at Tessie and mouthed the words,
Im going to kill you. But then Milton twirled Tessie around
and the two rivals came face-to-face.
Hey there, Mike, said Milton cordially.
Its Father Mike now, said the vanquished suitor.
Got a promotion, eh? Congratulations. I guess I can trust
you with my sister.
He danced away with Tessie, who looked back in silent
apology. Zoë, who knew how infuriating her brother could
be, felt sorry for Father Mike. She suggested they get some
wedding cake.
EX OVO OMNIA
So, to recap: Sourmelina Zizmo (née
Papadiamandopoulos) wasnt only my first cousin twice
removed. She was also my grandmother. My father was his
own mothers (and fathers) nephew. In addition to being my
grandparents, Desdemona and Lefty were my great-aunt
and -uncle. My parents would be my second cousins once
removed and Chapter Eleven would be my third cousin as
well as my brother. The Stephanides family tree,
diagrammed in Dr. Luces Autosomal Transmission of
Recessive Traits, goes into more detail than I think you
would care to know about. Ive concentrated only on the
genes last few transmissions. And now were almost there.
In honor of Miss Barrie, my eighth-grade Latin teacher, Id
like to call attention to the quotation above:ex ovo omnia .
Getting to my feet (as we did whenever Miss Barrie entered
the room), I hear her ask, Infants? Can any of you translate
this little snippet and give its provenance?
I raise my hand.
Calliope, our muse, will start us off.
Its from Ovid.Metamorphoses . The story of creation.
Stunning. And can you render it into English for us?
Everything comes out of an egg.
Did you hear that, infants? This classroom, your bright
faces, even dear old Cicero on my deskthey all came out
of an egg!
Among the arcana Dr. Philobosian imparted to the dinner
table over the years (aside from the monstrous effects of
maternal imagination) was the seventeenth-century theory
of Preformation. The Preformationists, with their rollercoaster
namesSpallazani, Swammerdam, Leeuwenhoek
believed that all of humankind had existed in miniature
since Creation, in either the semen of Adam or the ovary of
Eve, each person tucked inside the next like a Russian
nesting doll. It all started when Jan Swammerdam used a
scalpel to peel away the outer layers of a certain insect.
What kind? Well . . . a member of the phylum Arthropoda.
Latin name? Okay, then:Bombyx mori . The insect
Swammerdam used in his experiments back in 1669 was
nothing other than a silkworm. Before an audience of
intellectuals, Swammerdam cut away the skin of the
silkworm to reveal what appeared to be a tiny model of the
future moth inside, from proboscis to antennae to folded
wings. The theory of Preformation was born.
In the same way, I like to imagine my brother and me,
floating together since the worlds beginning on our raft of
eggs. Each inside a transparent membrane, each slotted
for his or her (in my case both) hour of birth. Theres
Chapter Eleven, always so pasty, and bald by the age of
twenty-three, so that he makes a perfect homunculus. His
pronounced cranium indicates his future deftness with
mathematics and mechanical things. His unhealthy pallor
suggests his coming Crohns disease. Right next to him,
theres me, his sometime sister, my face already a
conundrum, flashing like a lenticular decal between two
images: the dark-eyed, pretty little girl I used to be; and the
severe, aquiline-nosed, Roman-coinish person I am today.
And so we drifted, the two of us, since the world began,
awaiting our cues and observing the passing show.
For instance: Milton Stephanides graduating from
Annapolis in 1949. His white hat flying up into the air. He
and Tessie were stationed at Pearl Harbor, where they
lived in austere marital housing and where my mother, at
twenty-five, got a terrible sunburn and was never seen in a
bathing suit again. In 1951 they were transferred to Norfolk,
Virginia, at which point Chapter Elevens egg sac next door
to mine began to vibrate. Nevertheless, he stuck around to
watch the Korean conflict, where Ensign Stephanides
served on a submarine chaser. We watched Miltons adult
character forming during those years, taking on the nononsense
attributes of our future father. The U.S. Navy was
responsible for the precision with which Milton Stephanides
ever after parted his hair, his habit of polishing his belt
buckle with his shirt sleeve, his yes, sirs and
shipshapes, and his insistence on making us synchronize
our watches at the mall. Under the brass eagle and fasces
of his ensigns cap, Milton Stephanides left the Boy Scouts
behind. The Navy gave him his love of sailing and his
aversion to waiting in lines. Even then his politics were
being formed, his anti-communism, his distrust of the
Russians. Ports of call in Africa and Southeast Asia were
already forging his beliefs about racial IQ levels. From the
social snubs of his commanding officers, he was picking up
his hatred of Eastern liberals and the Ivy League at the
same time as he was falling in love with Brooks Brothers
clothing. His taste for tasseled loafers and seersucker
shorts was seeping into him. We knew all this about our
father before we were born and then we forgot it and had to
learn it all over again. When the Korean War ended in
1953, Milton was stationed again in Norfolk. And in March
of 1954, as my father weighed his future, Chapter Eleven,
with a little wave of farewell to me, raised his arms and
traveled down the waterslide into the world.
And I was all alone.
Events in the years before my birth: after dancing with Zoë
at my parents wedding, Father Mike pursued her doggedly
for the next two and a half years. Zoë didnt like the idea of
marrying someone either so religious or so diminutive.
Father Mike proposed to her three times and in each case
she refused, waiting for someone better to come along. But
no one did. Finally, feeling that she had no alternative (and
coaxed by Desdemona, who still thought it was a wonderful
thing to marry a priest), Zoë gave in. In 1949, she married
Father Mike and soon they went off to live in Greece. There
she would give birth to four children, my cousins, and
remain for the next eight years.
In Detroit, in 1950, the Black Bottom ghetto was bulldozed
to put in a freeway. The Nation of Islam, now headquartered
at Temple No. 2 in Chicago, got a new minister by the
name of Malcolm X. During the winter of 1954, Desdemona
first began to talk of retiring to Florida someday. They have
a city in Florida you know what it is called? New Smyrna
Beach! In 1956, the last streetcar stopped running in
Detroit and the Packard plant closed. And that same year,
Milton Stephanides, tired of military life, left the Navy and
returned home to pursue an old dream.
Do something else, Lefty Stephanides told his son. They
were in the Zebra Room, drinking coffee. You go to the
Naval Academy to be a bartender?
I dont want to be a bartender. I want to run a restaurant. A
whole chain. This is a good place to start.
Lefty shook his head. He leaned back and spread his
Lefty shook his head. He leaned back and spread his
arms, taking in the whole bar. This is no place to start
anything, he said.
He had a point. Despite my grandfathers assiduous drinkrefilling
and counter-wiping, the bar on Pingree Street had
lost its luster. The old zebra skin, which he still had on the
wall, had dried out and cracked. Cigarette smoke had
dirtied the diamond shapes of the tin ceiling. Over the years
the Zebra Room had absorbed the exhalations of its auto
worker patrons. The place smelled of their beer and hair
tonic, their punch-clock misery, their frayed nerves, their
trade unionism. The neighborhood was also changing.
When my grandfather had opened the bar in 1933, the area
had been white and middle-class. Now it was becoming
poorer, and predominantly black. In the inevitable chain of
cause and effect, as soon as the first black family had
moved onto the block, the white neighbors immediately put
their houses up for sale. The oversupply of houses
depressed the real estate prices, which allowed poorer
people to move in, and with poverty came crime, and with
crime came more moving vans.
Business isnt so good anymore, Lefty said. If you want to
open a bar, try Greektown. Or Birmingham.
My father waved these objections aside. Bar business isnt
so good maybe, he said. Thats because theres too
many bars around here. Too much competition. What this
neighborhood needs is a decent diner.
Hercules Hot Dogs, which at its height would boast sixtysix
locations throughout Michigan, Ohio, and southeastern
Floridaeach restaurant identified by the distinctive
Pillars of Hercules out frontcould be said to have begun
on the snowy February morning in 1956 when my father
arrived at the Zebra Room to begin renovations. The first
thing he did was to remove the sagging venetian blinds
from the front windows to let in more light. He painted the
interior a bright white. With a G.I. business loan, he had the
bar remodeled into a diner counter and had a small kitchen
installed. Workmen put red vinyl booths along the far wall
and reupholstered the old barstools with Zizmos zebra
skin. One morning two deliverymen carried a jukebox in the
front door. And while hammers pounded and sawdust filled
the air, Milton acquainted himself with the papers and
deeds Lefty had haphazardly kept in a cigar box beneath
the register.
What the hell is this? he asked his father. Youve got
three insurance policies on this place.
You can never have too much insurance, Lefty said.
Sometimes the companies dont pay. Better to be sure.
Sure? Each one of these is for more than this place is
worth. Were paying on all these? Thats a waste of money.
Up until this point, Lefty had let his son make whatever
changes he wanted. But now he stood firm. Listen to me,
Milton. You havent lived through a fire. You dont know what
happens. Sometimes in a fire the insurance company burns
down, too. Then what can you do?
But three
We need three, insisted Lefty.
Just humor him, Tessie told Milton later that night. Your
parents have been through a lot.
Sure theyve been through a lot. But were the ones who
have to keep paying these premiums. Nevertheless, he did
as his wife said and maintained all three policies.
The Zebra Room I remember as a kid: it was full of artificial
flowers, yellow tulips, red roses, dwarf trees bearing wax
apples. Plastic daisies sprouted from teapots; daffodils
erupted from ceramic cows. Photos of Artie Shaw and Bing
Crosby adorned the wall, next to hand-painted signs that
said enjoy a nice lime rickey! and our french toast is the
toast of the town! There were photos of Milton putting a
finishing-touch cherry on a milk shake or kissing
someones baby like the mayor. There were photographs
of actual mayors, Miriani and Cavanaugh. The great first
baseman Al Kaline, who stopped in on his way to practice
at Tiger Stadium, had autographed his own head shot: To
my pal Milt, great eggs! When a Greek Orthodox church in
Flint burned down, Milton drove up and salvaged one of the
surviving stained glass windows. He hung it on the wall over
the booths. Athena olive oil tins lined the front window next
to a bust of Donizetti. Everything was hodgepodge:
grandmotherly lamps stood next to El Greco reproductions;
bulls horns hung from the neck of an Aphrodite statuette.
Above the coffeemaker an assortment of figurines marched
along the shelf: Paul Bunyan and Babe the Blue Ox, Mickey
Mouse, Zeus, and Felix the Cat.
My grandfather, trying to be of help, drove off one day and
returned with a stack of fifty plates.
I already ordered plates, said Milton. From a restaurant
supply place. Theyre only charging us 10 percent down.
You dont want these? Lefty looked disappointed. Okay.
Ill take them back.
Hey, Pop, his son called after him. Why dont you take the
day off? I can handle things here.
You dont need help?
Go home. Have Ma make you lunch.
Lefty did as he was told. But as he drove down West Grand
Boulevard, feeling unneeded, he passed Rubsamen
Medical Supplya store with dirty windows and a neon
sign that blinked even in the dayand felt the stirrings of
old temptation.
The following Monday, Milton opened the new diner. He
opened it at six in the morning, with a newly hired staff of
two, Eleni Papanikolas, in a waitress uniform purchased at
her own expense, and her husband, Jimmy, as short-order
cook. Remember, Eleni, you mostly work for tips, Milton
pep-talked. So smile.
At who? asked Eleni. For despite the red carnations in
bud vases gracing each booth, despite the zebra-striped
menus, matchbooks, and napkins, the Zebra Room itself
was empty.
Smartass, Milton said, grinning. Elenis ribbing didnt
bother him. Hed worked it all out. Hed found a need and
filled it.
In the interest of time, I offer you now a stock capitalist
montage. We see Milton greeting his first customers. We
see Eleni serving them scrambled eggs. We see Milton
and Eleni standing back, biting their lips. But now the
customers are smiling and nodding! Eleni runs to refill their
coffee. Next Milton, in different clothes, is greeting more
customers; and Jimmy the cook is cracking eggs onehanded;
and Lefty is looking left out. Give me two fried
whiskey down! Milton shouts, showing off his new lingo.
Dry white, 68, hold the ice! Close-up of the cash register
ringing open and closed; of Miltons hands counting money;
of Lefty putting on his hat and leaving unnoticed. Then more
eggs; eggs being cracked, fried, flipped, and scrambled;
eggs arriving in cartons through the back door and coming
out on plates through the front hatch; fluffy heaps of
scrambled eggs in gleaming yellow Technicolor; and the
cash register banging open again; and money piling up.
Until, finally, we see Milton and Tessie, dressed in their
best, following a real estate agent through a big house.
The neighborhood of Indian Village lay just twelve blocks
west of Hurlbut, but it was a different world altogether. The
four grand streets of Burns, Iroquois, Seminole, and Adams
(even in Indian Village the White Man had taken half the
names) were lined with stately houses built in eclectic
styles. Red-brick Georgian rose next to English Tudor,
which gave onto French Provincial. The houses in Indian
Village had big yards, important walkways, picturesquely
oxidizing cupolas, lawn jockeys (whose days were
numbered), and burglar alarms (whose popularity was only
just beginning). My grandfather remained silent, however,
as he toured his sons impressive new home. How do you
like the size of this living room? Milton was asking him.
Here, sit down. Make yourself comfortable. Tessie and I
want you and Ma to feel like this is your house, too. Now
that youre retired
What do you mean retired?
Okay, semiretired. Now that you can take it a little bit easy,
youll be able to do all the things you always wanted to do.
Look, in heres the library. You want to come over and work
on your translations, you can do it right here. How about that
table? Big enough for you? And the shelves are built right
into the wall.
Pushed out of the daily operations at the Zebra Room, my
grandfather began to spend his days driving around the
city. He drove downtown to the Public Library to read the
foreign newspapers. Afterward, he stopped to play
backgammon at a coffee house in Greektown. At fifty-four,
Lefty Stephanides was still in good shape. He walked three
miles a day for exercise. He ate sensibly and had less of a
belly than his son. Nevertheless, time was making its
inevitable depredations. Lefty had to wear bifocals now. He
had a touch of bursitis in his shoulder. His clothes had gone
out of style, so that he looked like an extra in a gangster
movie. One day, appraising himself with severity in the
bathroom mirror, Lefty realized that he had become one of
those older men who slicked their hair back in allegiance to
an era no one could remember. Depressed by this fact,
Lefty gathered up his books. He drove over to Seminole,
intending to use the library, but when he got to the house he
kept on going. With a wild look in his eyes, he headed
instead for Rubsamen Medical Supply.
Once youve visited the underworld, you never forget the
way back. Forever after, youre able to spot the red light in
the upstairs window or the champagne glass on the door
that doesnt open until midnight. For years now, driving past
Rubsamen Medical Supply, my grandfather had noticed the
unchanging window display of hernia truss, neck brace, and
crutches. Hed seen the desperate, crazily hopeful faces of
the Negro men and women who went in and out without
buying a thing. My grandfather recognized that desperation
and knew that now, in his forced retirement, this was the
place for him. Roulette wheels spun behind Leftys eyes as
he sped toward the West Side. The clicking of
backgammon dice filled his ears as he pressed the
accelerator. His blood grew hot with an old excitement, a
quickening of the pulse he hadnt felt since descending the
mountain to explore the back streets of Bursa. He parked
at the curb and hurried inside. He walked past the startled
customers (who werent used to seeing white people); he
strode past the props of aspirin bottles, corn plasters, and
laxatives, and went up to the pharmacists window in the
rear.
Can I help you? the pharmacist asked.
Twenty-two, said Lefty.
You got it.
Trying to reclaim the drama of his gambling days, my
grandfather started playing the West Side numbers. He
started small. Little bets of two or three dollars. After a few
weeks, to recoup his losses, he went up to ten bucks. Every
day he wagered a piece of the new profits from the
restaurant. One day he won and so went double or nothing
the next, and lost. Amid hot-water bottles and enema bags,
the next, and lost. Amid hot-water bottles and enema bags,
he placed his bets. Surrounded by cough medicine and
cold sore ointment, he started playing a gig, meaning
three numbers at once. As they had in Bursa, his pockets
filled up with scraps of paper. He wrote out lists of the
numbers he played along with the dates, so as not to
repeat any. He played Miltons birthday, Desdemonas
birthday, the date of Greek Independence minus the last
digit, the year of the burning of Smyrna. Desdemona,
finding the scraps in the wash, thought they had to do with
the new restaurant. My husband the millionaire, she said,
dreaming of Florida retirement.
For the first time ever, Lefty consulted Desdemonas dream
book, in the hope of calculating a winning number on the
abacus of his unconscious. He became alert to the integers
that appeared in his dreams. Many of the Negroes who
frequented Rubsamens Medical Supply noticed my
grandfathers preoccupation with the dream book, and after
he won for two weeks in a row, word spread. This led to the
only contribution Greeks have ever made to African
American culture (aside from the wearing of gold
medallions) as the blacks of Detroit began to buy dream
books themselves. The Atlantis Publishing Company
translated the books into English and shipped them to
major cities all over America. For a short time elderly
colored women began to hold the same superstitions my
grandmother did, believing, for instance, that a running
rabbit meant you were coming into money or that a black
bird on a telephone line augured that somebody was about
to die.
Taking that money to the bank? Milton asked, seeing his
father empty the cash register.
Yes, to the bank. And Lefty did go to the bank. He went to
withdraw money from his savings account, in order to
continue his steady assault on all nine hundred and ninetynine
possible permutations of a three-digit variable.
Whenever he lost, he felt awful. He wanted to stop. He
wanted to go home and confess to Desdemona. The only
antidote to this feeling, however, was the prospect of
winning the next day. Its possible that a hint of selfdestructiveness
played a part in my grandfathers numbersplaying.
Full of survivors guilt, he was surrendering himself
to the random forces of the universe, trying to punish
himself for still being alive. But, mostly, gambling just filled
his empty days.
I alone, from the private box of my primordial egg, saw what
was going on. Milton was too busy running the diner to
notice. Tessie was too busy taking care of Chapter Eleven
to notice. Sourmelina might have noticed something, but
she didnt make many appearances at our house during
those years. In 1953, at a Theosophical Society meeting,
Aunt Lina had met a woman named Mrs. Evelyn Watson.
Mrs. Watson had been attracted to the Theosophical
Society by the hope of contacting her deceased husband,
but soon lost interest in communicating with the spirit world
in favor of whispering with Sourmelina in the flesh. With
shocking speed, Aunt Lina had quit her job at the florists
shop and moved down to the Southwest with Mrs. Watson.
Every Christmas since, she sent my parents a gift box
containing hot sauce, a flowering cactus, and a photograph
of Mrs. Watson and herself in front of some national
monument. (One surviving photo shows the couple in an
Anasazi ceremonial cave at Bandelier, Mrs. Watson
looking as wisely lined as Georgia OKeeffe while Lina, in a
tremendous sunhat, descends a ladder into a kiva.)
As for Desdemona, during the mid-to-late fifties she was
experiencing a brief and completely uncharacteristic spell
of contentment. Her son had returned unhurt from another
war. (St. Christopher had kept his word during the police
action in Korea and Milton hadnt been so much as fired
on.) Her daughter-in-laws pregnancy had caused the usual
anxiety, of course, but Chapter Eleven had been born
healthy. The restaurant was doing well. Every week family
and friends gathered at Miltons new house in Indian Village
for Sunday dinner. One day Desdemona received a
brochure from the New Smyrna Beach Chamber of
Commerce, which she had sent away for. It didnt look like
Smyrna at all, but at least it was sunny, and there were fruit
stands.
Meanwhile, my grandfather was feeling lucky. Having
played at least one number every day for a little over two
years, he had now bet on every number from 1 to 740. Only
159 numbers to go to reach 999! Then what? What else?
start over. Bank tellers handed rolls of money to Lefty,
which he in turn handed to the pharmacist behind the
window. He played 741, 742, and 743. He played 744,
745, and 746. And then one morning the bank teller
informed Lefty that there werent sufficient funds in his
account to make a withdrawal. The teller showed him his
balance: $13.26. My grandfather thanked the teller. He
crossed the bank lobby, adjusting his tie. He felt suddenly
dizzy. The gambling fever hed had for twenty-six months
broke, sending a last wave of heat over his skin, and
suddenly his entire body was dripping wet. Mopping his
brow, Lefty walked out of the bank into his penniless old
age.
The earsplitting cry my grandmother let out when she
learned of the disaster cannot be done justice in print. The
shriek went on and on, as she tore her hair and rent her
garments and collapsed onto the floor. HOW WILL WE
EAT! Desdemona wailed, staggering around the kitchen.
WHERE WILL WE LIVE! She spread her arms,
appealing to God, then beat on her chest, and finally took
hold of her left sleeve and ripped it off. WHAT KIND OF
HUSBAND ARE YOU TO DO THIS TO YOUR WIFE WHO
COOKED AND CLEANED FOR YOU AND GAVE YOU
CHILDREN AND NEVER COMPLAINED! Now she tore
off her right sleeve. DIDNT I TELL YOU NOT TO
GAMBLE? DIDNT I? She started on her dress proper
now. She took the hem in her hands, as ancient Near
Eastern ululations issued from her throat.
OULOULOULOULOULOULOU!
OULOULOULOULOULOULOU! My grandfather watched
in astonishment as his modest wife shredded her clothing
before his eyes, the skirt of the dress, the waist, the bosom,
the neckline. With a final rip, the dress split in two and
Desdemona lay on the linoleum, exposing to the world the
misery of her underwear, her overburdened underwire
brassiere, her gloomy underpants, and the frantic girdle
whose stays she was even now popping as she
approached the summit of her dishevelment. But at last she
stopped. Before she was completely naked, Desdemona
fell back as though depleted. She pulled off her hairnet and
her hair spilled out to cover her and she closed her eyes,
spent. In the next moment, she said in a practical tone,
Now we have to move in with Milton.
Three weeks later, in October 1958, my grandparents
moved out of Hurlbut, one year before they would have paid
off the mortgage. Over a warm Indian summer weekend,
my father and dishonored grandfather carried furniture
outside for the yard sale, the sea-foam-green sofa and
armchairs, which still looked brand-new beneath plastic
slipcovers, the kitchen table, the bookcases. Lamps were
set out on the grass along with Miltons old Boy Scout
manuals, Zoës dolls and tap shoes, a framed photograph
of Patriarch Athenagoras, and a closetful of Leftys suits,
which my grandmother forced him to sell as punishment.
Hair safely restored beneath her hairnet, Desdemona
glowered around the yard, submerged in a despair too
deep for tears. She examined each object, sighing audibly
before affixing a price tag, and scolded her husband for
trying to carry things too heavy for him. Do you think youre
young? Let Milton do it. Youre an old man. Under one arm
she held the silkworm box, which wasnt for sale. When she
saw the portrait of the Patriarch, she gasped in horror. We
dont have bad luck enough you want to sell the Patriarch?
She snatched it up and carried it inside. For the rest of the
day she remained in the kitchen, unable to watch the
miscellaneous horde of yard sale scavengers pick over her
personal possessions. There were weekend antiquers from
the suburbs who brought their dogs along, and families
down on their luck who roped chairs to the roofs of battered
cars, and discriminating male couples who turned
everything over to search for trademarks on the bottom.
Desdemona would have felt no more ashamed had she
herself been for sale, displayed naked on the green sofa, a
price tag hanging from her foot. When everything had been
sold or given away, Milton drove my grandparents
remaining belongings in a rented truck the twelve blocks to
Seminole.
In order to give them privacy, my grandparents were offered
the attic. Risking injury, my father and Jimmy Papanikolas
carried everything up the secret stairway behind the
wallpapered door. Up into the peaked space they carted
my grandparents disassembled bed, the leather ottoman,
the brass coffee table, and Leftys rebetika records. Trying
to make up with his wife, my grandfather brought home the
first of the many parakeets my grandparents would have
over the years, and gradually, living on top of us all,
Desdemona and Lefty made their next-to-last home
together. For the next nine years, Desdemona complained
of the cramped quarters and of the pain in her legs when
she descended the stairs; but every time my father offered
to move her downstairs, she refused. In my opinion, she
enjoyed the attic because the vertigo of living up there
reminded her of Mount Olympus. The dormer window
provided a good view (not of sultans tombs but of the
Edison factory), and when she left the window open, the
wind blew through as it used to do in Bithynios. Up in the
attic, Desdemona and Lefty came back to where they
started.
As does my story.
Because now Chapter Eleven, my five-year-old brother,
and Jimmy Papanikolas are each holding a red egg. Dyed
the color of the blood of Christ, more eggs fill a bowl on the
dining room table. Red eggs are lined along the mantel.
They hang in string pouches over doorways.
Zeus liberated all living things from an egg.Ex ovo omnia .
The white flew up to become the sky, the yolk descended
into earth. And on Greek Easter, we still play the eggcracking
game. Jimmy Papanikolas holds his egg out,
passive, as Chapter Eleven rams his egg against it. Always
only one egg cracks. I win! shouts Chapter Eleven. Now
Milton selects an egg from the bowl. This looks like a good
one. Built like a Brinks truck. He holds it out. Chapter
Eleven prepares to ram it. But before anything happens, my
mother taps my father on the back. She has a thermometer
in her mouth.
As dinner dishes are cleared from the table downstairs, my
parents ascend hand in hand to their bedroom. As
Desdemona cracks her egg against Leftys, my parents
shuck off a strict minimum of clothing. As Sourmelina, back
from New Mexico for the holidays, plays the egg game with
Mrs. Watson, my father lets out a small groan, rolls
sideways off my mother, and declares, That should do it.
The bedroom grows still. Inside my mother, a billion sperm
swim upstream, males in the lead. They carry not only
instructions about eye color, height, nose shape, enzyme
production, microphage resistance, but a story, too.
Against a black background they swim, a long white silken
thread spinning itself out. The thread began on a day two
hundred and fifty years ago, when the biology gods, for their
own amusement, monkeyed with a gene on a babys fifth
chromosome. That baby passed the mutation on to her son,
who passed it on to his two daughters, who passed it on to
three of their children (my great-great-greats, etc.), until
finally it ended up in the bodies of my grandparents.
Hitching a ride, the gene descended a mountain and left a
village behind. It got trapped in a burning city and escaped,
speaking bad French. Crossing the ocean, it faked a
romance, circled a ships deck, and made love in a
lifeboat. It had its braids cut off. It took a train to Detroit and
moved into a house on Hurlbut; it consulted dream books
and opened an underground speakeasy; it got a job at
Temple No. 1 . . . And then the gene moved on again, into
new bodies . . . It joined the Boy Scouts and painted its
toenails red; it played Begin the Beguine out the back
window; it went off to war and stayed at home, watching
newsreels; it took an entrance exam; posed like the movie
magazines; received a death sentence and made a deal
with St. Christopher; it dated a future priest and broke off
an engagement; it was saved by a bosuns chair . . . always
moving ahead, rushing along, only a few more curves left in
the track now, Annapolis and a submarine chaser . . . until
the biology gods knew this was their time, this was what
theyd been waiting for, and as a spoon swung and ayia yia
worried, my destiny fell into place . . . On March 20, 1954,
Chapter Eleven arrived and the biology gods shook their
heads, nope, sorry . . . But there was still time, everything
was in place, the roller coaster was in free fall and there
was no stopping it now, my father was seeing visions of
little girls and my mother was praying to a Christ
Pantocrator she didnt entirely believe in, until finallyright
this minute!on Greek Easter, 1959, its about to happen.
The gene is about to meet its twin.
As sperm meets egg, I feel a jolt. Theres a loud sound, a
sonic boom as my world cracks. I feel myself shift, already
losing bits of my prenatal omniscience, tumbling toward the
blank slate of personhood. (With the shred of allknowingness
I have left, I see my grandfather, Lefty
Stephanides, on the night of my birth nine months from now,
turning a demitasse cup upside down on a saucer. I see his
coffee grounds forming a sign as pain explodes in his
temple and he topples to the floor.) Again the sperm rams
my capsule; and I realize I cant put it off any longer. The
lease on my terrific little apartment is finally up and Im
being evicted. So I raise one fist (male-typically) and begin
to beat on the walls of my eggshell until it cracks. Then,
slippery as a yolk, I dive headfirst into the world.
Im sorry, little baby girl, my mother said in bed, touching
her belly and already speaking to me. I wanted it to be
more romantic.
You want romantic? said my father. Wheres my
clarinet?
BOOK THREE
HOME MOVIES
My eyes, switched on at last, saw the following: a nurse
reaching out to take me from the doctor; my mothers
triumphant face, as big as Mount Rushmore, as she
watched me heading for my first bath. (I said it was
impossible, but still I remember it.) Also other things,
material and immaterial: the relentless glare of OR lights;
white shoes squeaking over white floors; a housefly
contaminating gauze; and all around me, up and down the
halls of Womens Hospital, individual dramas under way. I
could sense the happiness of couples holding first babies
and the fortitude of Catholics accepting their ninth. I could
feel one young mothers disappointment at the
reappearance of her husbands weak chin on the face of
her newborn daughter, and a new fathers terror as he
calculated the tuition for triplets. On the floors above
Delivery, in flowerless rooms, women lay recovering from
hysterectomies and mastectomies. Teenage girls with
burst ovarian cysts nodded out on morphine. It was all
around me from the beginning, the weight of female
suffering, with its biblical justification and vanishing acts.
The nurse who cleaned me up was named Rosalee. She
was a pretty, long-faced woman from the Tennessee
mountains. After suctioning the mucus from my nostrils, she
gave me a shot of vitamin K to coagulate my blood.
Inbreeding is common in Appalachia, as are genetic
deformities, but Nurse Rosalee noticed nothing unusual
about me. She was concerned about a purple splotch on
my cheek, thinking it was a port-wine stain. It turned out to
be placenta, and washed off. Nurse Rosalee carried me
back to Dr. Philobosian for an anatomical exam. She
placed me down on the table but kept one hand on me for
securitys sake. Shed noticed the doctors hand tremor
during the delivery.
In 1960, Dr. Nishan Philobosian was seventy-four. He had a
camels head, drooping on its neck, with all the activity in
the cheeks. White hair surrounded his otherwise bald head
in a nimbus and plugged his big ears like cotton. His
surgeons eyeglasses had rectangular loupes attached.
He began with my neck, searching for cretinous folds. He
counted my fingers and toes. He inspected my palate; he
noted my Moro reflex without surprise. He checked my
backside for a sacral tail. Then, putting me on my back
again, he took hold of each of my curved legs and pulled
them apart.
What did he see? The clean, saltwater mussel of the
female genitalia. The area inflamed, swollen with
hormones. That touch of the baboon all babies have. Dr.
Philobosian would have had to pull the folds apart to see
any better, but he didnt. Because right at that instant Nurse
Rosalee (for whom the moment was also destiny)
accidentally touched his arm. Dr. Phil looked up.
Presbyopic, Armenian eyes met middle-aged, Appalachian
ones. The gaze lingered, then broke away. Five minutes
old, and already the themes of my lifechance and sex
announced themselves. Nurse Rosalee blushed.
Beautiful, Dr. Philobosian said, meaning me but looking
at his assistant. A beautiful, healthy girl.
On Seminole, the birth celebrations were tempered by the
prospect of death.
Desdemona had found Lefty on our kitchen floor, lying next
to his overturned coffee cup. She knelt beside him and
pressed an ear to his chest. When she heard no heartbeat,
she cried out his name. Her wail echoed off the kitchens
hard surfaces: the toaster, the oven, the refrigerator. Finally
she collapsed on his chest. In the silence that followed,
however, Desdemona felt a strange emotion rising inside
her. It spread in the space between her panic and grief. It
was like a gas inflating her. Soon her eyes snapped open
as she recognized the emotion: it was happiness. Tears
were running down her face, she was already berating God
for taking her husband from her, but on the other side of
these proper emotions was an altogether improper relief.
The worst had happened. This was it: the worst thing. For
the first time in her life my grandmother had nothing to worry
about.
Emotions, in my experience, arent covered by single
words. I dont believe in sadness, joy, or regret. Maybe
the best proof that the language is patriarchal is that it
oversimplifies feeling. Id like to have at my disposal
complicated hybrid emotions, Germanic train-car
constructions like, say, the happiness that attends
disaster. Or: the disappointment of sleeping with ones
fantasy. Id like to show how intimations of mortality
brought on by aging family members connects with the
hatred of mirrors that begins in middle age. Id like to have
a word for the sadness inspired by failing restaurants as
well as for the excitement of getting a room with a minibar.
Ive never had the right words to describe my life, and now
that Ive entered my story, I need them more than ever. I
cant just sit back and watch from a distance anymore.
From here on in, everything Ill tell you is colored by the
subjective experience of being part of events. Heres where
my story splits, divides, undergoes meiosis. Already the
world feels heavier, now Im a part of it. Im talking about
bandages and sopped cotton, the smell of mildew in movie
theaters, and of all the lousy cats and their stinking litter
boxes, of rain on city streets when the dust comes up and
the old Italian men take their folding chairs inside. Up until
now it hasnt been my world. Not my America. But here we
are, at last.
The happiness that attends disaster didnt possess
Desdemona for long. A few seconds later she returned her
head to her husbands chestand heard his heart beating!
Lefty was rushed to the hospital. Two days later he
regained consciousness. His mind was clear, his memory
intact. But when he tried to ask whether the baby was a boy
or a girl, he found he was unable to speak.
According to Julie Kikuchi, beauty is always freakish.
Yesterday, over strudel and coffee at Café Einstein, she
tried to prove this to me. Look at this model, she said,
holding up a fashion magazine. Look at her ears. They
belong on a Martian. She started flipping pages. Or look
at the mouth on this one. You could put your whole head in
it.
I was trying to get another cappuccino. The waiters in their
Austrian uniforms ignored me, as they do everyone, and
outside, the yellow lindens were dripping and weeping.
Or what about Jackie O.? said Julie, still advocating. Her
eyes were so wide-set they were basically on the sides of
her head. She looked like a hammerhead.
Im working up with the foregoing to a physical description
of myself. Baby pictures of the infant Calliope show a
variety of features on the freakish side. My parents, looking
fondly down into my crib, got stuck on every one. (I
sometimes think that it was the arresting, slightly disturbing
quality of my face that distracted everyones attention from
the complications below.) Imagine my crib as a diorama in
a museum. Press one button and my ears light up like two
golden trumpets. Press another and my stark chin begins to
glow. Another, and the high, ethereal cheekbones appear
out of the darkness. So far the effect isnt promising. On the
evidence of ears, chin, and cheekbones I might be a baby
Kafka. But the next button illuminates my mouth and things
begin to improve. The mouth is small but well shaped,
kissable, musical. Then, in the middle of the map, comes
the nose. It is nothing like the noses you see in classical
Greek sculpture. Here is a nose that came to Asia Minor,
like silk itself, from the East. In this case, the Middle East.
The nose of the diorama baby already forms, if you look
closely, an arabesque. Ears, nose, mouth, chinnow eyes.
Not only are they widely set (like Jackie O.s), theyre big.
Too big for a babys face. Eyes like my grandmothers.
Eyes as big and sad as the eyes in a Keane painting. Eyes
rimmed with long, dark eyelashes my mother couldnt
believe had formed inside her. How had her body worked
in such detail? The complexion around these eyes: a pale
olive. The hair: jet black. Now press all the buttons at once.
Can you see me? All of me? Probably not. No one ever
really has.
As a baby, even as a little girl, I possessed an awkward,
extravagant beauty. No single feature was right in itself and
yet, when they were taken all together, something
captivating emerged. An inadvertent harmony. A
changeableness, too, as if beneath my visible face there
was another, having second thoughts.
Desdemona wasnt interested in my looks. She was
concerned with the state of my soul. The baby she is two
months old, she said to my father in March. Why you still
no baptize her? I dont want her baptized, answered
Milton. Its a bunch of hocus-pocus. Hokey pokey is it?
Desdemona now threatened him with an index finger. You
think Holy Tradition that the Church keep for two thousand
years is hokey pokey? And then she called on the
Panaghia, using every one of her names. All-Holy,
immaculate, most blessed and glorified Lady, Mother of
God and Ever-Virgin, do you hear what my son Milton is
saying? When my father still refused, Desdemona
unleashed her secret weapon. She started fanning herself.
To anyone who never personally experienced it, its difficult
to describe the ominous, storm-gathering quality of my
grandmothers fanning. Refusing to argue anymore with my
father, she walked on swollen ankles into the sun room. She
sat down in a cane chair by the window. The winter light,
coming from the side, reddened the far, translucent wing of
her nose. She picked up her cardboard fan. The front of the
fan was emblazoned with the words Turkish Atrocities.
Below, in smaller print, were the specifics: the 1955
pogrom in Istanbul in which 15 Greeks were killed, 200
Greek women raped, 4,348 stores looted, 59 Orthodox
churches destroyed, and even the graves of the Patriarchs
desecrated. Desdemona had six atrocity fans. They were a
collectors set. Each year she sent a contribution to the
Patriarchate in Constantinople, and a few weeks later a
new fan arrived, making claims of genocide and, in one
case, bearing a photograph of Patriarch Athenagoras in
the ruins of a looted cathedral. Not appearing on
Desdemonas particular fan that day, but denounced
nonetheless, was the most recent crime, committed not by
the Turks but by her own Greek son, who refused to give his
daughter a proper Orthodox baptism. Desdemonas
fanning wasnt a matter of moving the wrist back and forth;
the agitation came from deep within her. It originated from
the spot between her stomach and liver where she once
told me the Holy Spirit resided. It issued from a place
deeper than her own buried crime. Milton tried to take
shelter behind his newspaper, but the fan-disturbed air
rustled the newsprint. The force of Desdemonas fanning
could be felt all over the house; it swirled dustballs on the
stairs; it stirred the window shades; and, of course, since it
was winter, it made everyone shiver. After a while the entire
house seemed to be hyperventilating. The fanning even
pursued Milton into his Oldsmobile, which began to make a
soft hissing from the radiator.
In addition to the fanning, my grandmother appealed to
family feeling. Father Mike, her son-in-law and my very own
uncle, was by this time back from his years in Greece and
servingin an assistant capacityat Assumption Greek
Orthodox Church.
Please, Miltie, Desdemona said. Think of Father Mike.
They never give him top job at the church. You think if his
own niece she no gets baptized it will look good? Think of
your sister, Miltie. Poor Zoë! They no have much money.
Finally, in a sign that he was weakening, my father asked
my mother, What do they charge for a baptism these
days?
Theyre free.
Miltons eyebrows lifted. But after a moments
consideration he nodded, confirmed in his suspicions.
Figures. They let you in for free. Then you gotta pay for the
rest of your life.
By 1960, the Greek Orthodox congregation of Detroits
East Side had yet another new building to worship in.
Assumption had moved from Vernor Highway to a new site
on Charlevoix. The erection of the Charlevoix church had
been an event of great excitement. From the humble
beginnings of the storefront on Hart Street, to the
respectable but by no means splashy domicile off
Beniteau, Assumption was finally going to get a grand
church building. Many construction firms bid for the job, but
in the end it was decided to give it to someone from the
community, and that someone was Bart Skiotis.
The motives behind building the new church were twofold:
to resurrect the ancient splendor of Byzantium and to show
the world the financial wherewithal of the prospering Greek
American community. No expense was spared. An icon
painter from Crete was imported to render the iconography.
He stayed for over a year, sleeping in the unfinished
structure on a thin mat. A traditionalist, he refrained from
meat, alcohol, and sweets, in order to purify his soul and
receive divine inspiration. Even his paintbrush was by the
book, made from the tip of a squirrels tail. Slowly, over two
years, our East Side Hagia Sophia went up, not far from
the Ford Freeway. There was only one problem. Unlike the
icon painter, Bart Skiotis had not worked with a pure heart.
It turned out that he had used inferior materials, siphoning
the remaining cash into his personal bank account. He laid
the foundation incorrectly, so that it wasnt long before
cracks began to branch over the walls, scarring the
iconography. The ceiling leaked, too.
Within the substandard construction of the Charlevoix
church, literally upon a shaky foundation, I was baptized into
the Orthodox faith; a faith that had existed long before
Protestantism had anything to protest and before
Catholicism called itself catholic; a faith that stretched back
to the beginnings of Christianity, when it was Greek and not
Latin, and which, without an Aquinas to reify it, had
remained shrouded in the smoke of tradition and mystery
whence it began. My godfather, Jimmy Papanikolas, took
me from my fathers arms. He presented me to Father
Mike. Smiling, overjoyed to be center stage for once,
Father Mike cut a lock of my hair and tossed it into the
baptismal pool. (It was this part of the ritual, I later
suspected, that was responsible for the fuzzy quality of our
fonts surfaces. Years and years of baby hair, stimulated by
the life-giving water, had taken root and grown.) But now
Father Mike was ready for the dunking. The servant of
God, Calliope Helen is baptized in the Name of the Father,
Amen . . . and he pushed me under for the first time. In the
Orthodox Church, we dont go in for partial immersion; no
sprinkling, no forehead dabbing for us. In order to be
reborn, you have to be buried first, so under the water I
went. My family looked on, my mother seized with anxiety
(what if I inhaled?), my brother dropping a penny into the
water when no one was looking, my grandmother stilling her
fan for the first time in weeks. Father Mike pulled me up into
the air againand of the Son, Amenand dunked me
under once more. This time I opened my eyes. Chapter
Elevens penny, in freefall, glinted through the murk. Down it
sank to the bottom where, I now noticed, lots of things were
collected: other coins, for instance, hairpins, somebodys
old Band-Aid. In the green, scummy, holy water, I felt at
peace. Everything was silent. The sides of my neck tingled
in the place where humans once had gills. I was dimly
aware that this beginning was somehow indicative of the
rest of my life. My family were around me; I was in the
hands of God. But I was in my own, separate element, too,
submerged in rare sensations, pushing evolutions
envelope. This knowledge whizzed through my mind, and
then Father Mike pulled me up againand of the Holy
Spirit, Amen . . . One more dunking to go. Down I went and
back up again, into light and air. The three submersions
had taken a while. In addition to being murky, the water was
warm. By the third time up, therefore, I had indeed been
reborn: as a fountain. From between my cherubic legs a
stream of crystalline liquid shot into the air. Lit from the
dome above, its yellow scintillance arrested everyones
attention. The stream rose in an arc. Propelled by a full
bladder, it cleared the lip of the font. And before mynouno
had time to react, it struck Father Mike right in the middle of
the face.
Suppressed laughter from the pews, a few old ladies
gasping in horror, then silence. Disgraced by his own
partial immersionand dabbing himself like a Protestant
Father Mike completed the ceremony. Taking the chrism on
his fingertips, he anointed me, marking the sign of the
Cross on the required places, first my forehead, then eyes,
nostrils, mouth, ears, breast, hands, and feet. As he
touched each place, he said, The seal of the gift of the
Holy Spirit. Finally he gave me my First Communion (with
one exception: Father Mike didnt forgive me for my sin).
Thats my girl, Milton crowed on the way home. Pissed on
a priest.
It was an accident, Tessie insisted, still hot with
embarrassment. Poor Father Mike! Hell never get over it.
That went reallyfar , marveled Chapter Eleven.
In all the commotion, no one wondered about the
engineering involved.
Desdemona took my reverse baptism of her son-in-law as
a bad omen. Already potentially responsible for her
husbands stroke, I had now committed a sacrilege at my
first liturgical opportunity. In addition, I had humiliated her by
being born a girl. Maybe you should try guessing the
weather, Sourmelina teased her. My father rubbed it in:
So much for your spoon, Ma. It sort of pooped out on you.
The truth was that in those days Desdemona was struggling
against assimilationist pressures she couldnt resist.
Though she had lived in America as an eternal exile, a
visitor for forty years, certain bits of her adopted country
had been seeping under the locked doors of her
disapproval. After Lefty came home from the hospital, my
father took a TV up to the attic to provide some
entertainment. It was a small black-and-white Zenith, prone
to vertical shift. Milton placed it on a bedside table and
went back downstairs. The television remained, rumbling,
glowing. Lefty adjusted his pillows to watch. Desdemona
tried to do housework but found herself looking over at the
screen more and more often. She still didnt like cars. She
covered her ears whenever the vacuum cleaner was on. But
the TV was somehow different. My grandmother took to
television right away. It was the first and only thing about
America she approved of. Sometimes she forgot to turn the
set off and would awaken at 2A.M. to hear The Star-
Spangled Banner playing before the station signed off.
The television replaced the sound of conversation that was
missing from my grandparents lives. Desdemona watched
all day long, scandalized by the love affairs onAs the World
Turns . She liked detergent commercials especially,
anything with animated scrubbing bubbles or avenging
suds.
Living on Seminole contributed to the cultural imperialism.
On Sundays, instead of serving Metaxa, Milton fixed
cocktails for his guests. Drinks with the names of people,
Desdemona complained to her mute husband back in the
attic. Tom Collins. Harvey Wall Bang. This is a drink! And
they are listening to music on the, how you say, the hi-fi.
Milton he puts this music, and they drink Tom Collins and
sometimes they are, you know, dancing, one on one, men
together with the women. Like wrestling.
What was I to Desdemona but another sign of the end of
things? She tried not to look at me. She hid behind her
fans. Then one day Tessie had to go out and Desdemona
was forced to baby-sit. Warily, she entered my bedroom.
Taking cautious steps, she approached my crib. Blackdraped
sexagenarian leaned down to examine pinkswaddled
infant. Maybe something in my expression set off
an alarm. Maybe she was already making the connections
she would later make, between village babies and this
suburban one, between old wives tales and new
endocrinology . . . Then again, maybe not. Because as she
peered distrustfully over the rail of my crib, she saw my face
and blood intervened. Desdemonas worried expression
hovered above my (similarly) perplexed one. Her mournful
eyes gazed down at my (equally) large black orbs.
Everything about us was the same. And so she picked me
up and I did what grandchildren are supposed to do: I
erased the years between us. I gave Desdemona back her
original skin.
From then on, I was her favorite. Midmornings she would
relieve my mother by taking me up to the attic. Lefty had
regained most of his strength by this time. Despite his
speech paralysis, my grandfather remained a vital person.
He got up early every day, bathed, shaved, and put on a
necktie to translate Attic Greek for two hours before
breakfast. He no longer had aspirations to publish his
translations but did the work because he liked it and
because it kept his mind sharp. In order to communicate
with the rest of the family, he kept a little chalkboard with
him at all times. He wrote messages in words and personal
hieroglyphics. Aware that he and Desdemona were a
burden to my parents, Lefty was extremely helpful around
the house, doing repairs, assisting with the cleaning,
running errands. Every afternoon he took his three-mile
walk, no matter the weather, and returned cheerful, his
smile full of gold fillings. At night he listened to his rebetika
records in the attic and smoked his hookah pipe.
Whenever Chapter Eleven asked what was in the pipe,
Lefty wrote on his chalkboard, Turkish mud. My parents
always believed it was an aromatic brand of tobacco.
Where Lefty obtained the hash is anybodys guess. Out on
his walks, probably. He still had lots of Greek and
Lebanese contacts in the city.
From ten to noon every day my grandparents took care of
me. Desdemona fed me my bottles and changed my
diapers. She finger-combed my hair. When I got fussy,
Lefty carried me around the room. Since he couldnt speak
to me, he bounced me a lot and hummed to me, and
touched his big, arching nose to my little, latent one. My
grandfather was like a dignified, unpainted mime, and I was
almost five before I realized that anything was wrong with
him. When he tired of making faces, he carried me to the
dormer window, where, together, from the opposite ends of
life, we gazed down at our leafy neighborhood.
Soon I was walking. Animated by brightly wrapped
presents, I scampered into the frames of my fathers home
movies. On those first celluloid Christmases I look as
overdressed as the Infanta. Starved for a daughter, Tessie
went a little overboard in dressing me. Pink skirts, lace
ruffles, Yuletide bows in my hair. I didnt like the clothes, or
the prickly Christmas tree, and am usually shown bursting
dramatically into tears . . .
Or it might have been my fathers cinematography. Miltons
camera came equipped with a rack of merciless
floodlights. The brightness of those films gives them the
quality of Gestapo interrogations. Holding up our presents,
we all cringe, as though caught with contraband. Aside from
their blinding brightness, there was another odd thing about
Miltons home movies: like Hitchcock, he always appeared
in them. The only way to check the amount of film left in the
camera was by reading the counter inside the lens. In the
middle of Christmas scenes or birthday parties there
always came a moment when Miltons eye would fill the
screen. So that now, as I quickly try to sketch my early
years, what comes back most clearly is just that: the brown
orb of my fathers sleepy, bearish eye. A postmodern touch
in our domestic cinema, pointing up artifice, calling
attention to mechanics. (And bequeathing me my
aesthetic.) Miltons eye regarded us. It blinked. An eye as
big as the Christ Pantocrators at church, it was better than
any mosaic. It was a living eye, the cornea a little bloodshot,
the eyelashes luxuriant, the skin underneath coffee-stained
and pouchy. This eye would stare us down for as long as
ten seconds. Finally the camera would pull away, still
recording. Wed see the ceiling, the lighting fixture, the
floor, and then us again: the Stephanides.
First of all, Lefty. Still dapper despite stroke damage,
wearing a starched white shirt and glenplaid trousers, he
writes on his chalkboard and holds it up: Christos Anesti.
Desdemona sits across from him, her dentures making her
look like a snapping turtle. My mother, in this home movie
marked Easter 62, is two years from turning forty. The
crows-feet around her eyes are another reason (aside
from the floodlights) why she holds a hand over her face. In
this gesture I see the emotional sympathy Ive always felt
with Tessie, the two of us never happier than when
unobserved, people-watching. Behind her hand I can see
the traces of the novel she stayed up reading the previous
night. All the big words she had to look up in the dictionary
crowd her tired head, waiting to show up in the letters she
writes me today. Her hand is also a refusal, her only way of
getting back at a husband who has begun to disappear on
her. (Milton came home every night; he didnt drink or
womanize but, preoccupied with business worries, he
began to leave a little more of himself at the diner each day,
so that the man who returned to us seemed less and less
present, a kind of robot who carved turkeys and filmed
holidays but who wasnt really there at all.) Finally, of
course, my mothers upraised hand is a kind of warning,
too, a predecessor of the black box.
Chapter Eleven sprawls on the carpet, wolfing candy.
Grandson of the two former silk farmers (with chalkboard
and worry beads), he has never had to help in the
cocoonery. He has never been to the Koza Han.
Environment has already made its imprint on him. He has
the tyrannical, self-absorbed look of American children . . .
And now two dogs come bounding into the frame. Rufus
and Willis, our two boxers. Rufus sniffs my diaper and, with
perfect comic timing, sits on me. He will later bite
someone, and both dogs will be given away. My mother
appears, shooing Rufus . . . and there I am again. I stand up
and toddle toward the camera, smiling, trying out my
wave . . .
I know this film well. Easter 62 was the home movie Dr.
Luce talked my parents into giving him. This was the film he
screened each year for his students at Cornell University
Medical School. This was the thirty-five-second segment
that, Luce insisted, proved out his theory that gender
identity is established early on in life. This was the film Dr.
Luce showed to me, to tell me who I was. And who was
that? Look at the screen. My mother is handing me a baby
doll. I take the baby and hug it to my chest. Putting a toy
bottle to the babys lips, I offer it milk.
My early childhood passed, on film and otherwise. I was
brought up as a girl and had no doubts about this. My
mother bathed me and taught me how to clean myself.
From everything that happened later, I would guess that
these instructions in feminine hygiene were rudimentary at
best. I dont remember any direct allusions to my sexual
apparatus. All was shrouded in a zone of privacy and
fragility, where my mother never scrubbed me too hard.
(Chapter Elevens apparatus was called a pitzi. But for
what I had there was no word at all.) My father was even
more squeamish. In the rare times he diapered me or gave
me a bath, Milton studiously averted his eyes. Did you
wash her all over? my mother would ask him, speaking
obliquely as usual. Notall over. Thats your department.
It wouldnt have mattered anyway. 5-alpha-reductase
deficiency syndrome is a skillful counterfeiter. Until I
reached puberty and androgens flooded my bloodstream,
the ways in which I differed from other little girls were hard
to detect. My pediatrician never noticed anything unusual.
And by the time I was five Tessie had started taking me to
Dr. PhilDr. Phil with his failing eyesight and his cursory
examinations.
On January 8, 1967, I turned seven years old. 1967 marked
the end of many things in Detroit, but among these was my
fathers home movies. Callies 7th B-Day was the last of
Miltons Super 8s. The setting was our dining room,
decorated with balloons. On my head sits the usual conical
hat. Chapter Eleven, twelve years old, does not join the
boys and girls at the table but instead stands back against
the wall, drinking punch. The difference in our ages meant
that my brother and I were never close growing up. When I
was a baby Chapter Eleven was a kid, when I was a kid he
was a teenager, and by the time I became a teenager he
was an adult. At twelve, my brother liked nothing better than
to cut golf balls in half to see what was inside. Usually, his
vivisection of Wilsons and Spaldings revealed cores
consisting of extremely tightly bundled rubber bands. But
sometimes there were surprises. In fact, if you look very
closely at my brother in this home movie, you will notice a
strange thing: his face, arms, shirt, and pants are covered
by thousands of tiny white dots.
Just before my birthday party had started, Chapter Eleven
had been down in his basement laboratory, using a
hacksaw on a newfangled Titleist that advertised a liquid
center. The ball was held firmly in a vise as Chapter Eleven
sawed. When he reached the center of the Titleist, there
was a loud popping sound followed by a puff of smoke. The
center of the ball was empty. Chapter Eleven was mystified.
But when he emerged from the basement, we all saw the
dots . . .
Back at the party, my birthday cake is coming out with its
seven candles. My mothers silent lips are telling me to
make a wish. What did I wish for at seven? I dont
remember. In the film I lean forward and, Aeolian, blow the
candles out. In a moment, they reignite. I blow them out
again. Same thing happens. And then Chapter Eleven is
laughing, entertained at last. That was how our home
movies ended, with a prank on my birthday. With candles
that had multiple lives.
The question remains: Why was this Miltons last movie?
Can it be explained by the usual petering out of parents
enthusiasm for documenting their children on film? By the
fact that Milton took hundreds of baby photographs of
Chapter Eleven and no more than twenty or so of me? To
answer these questions, I need to go behind the camera
and see things through my fathers eyes.
The reason Milton was disappearing on us: after ten years
in business, the diner was no longer making a profit.
Through the front window (over Athena olive oil tins) my
father looked out day after day at the changes on Pingree
Street. The white family whod lived across the way, good
customers once, had moved out. Now the house belonged
to a colored man named Morrison. He came into the diner
to buy cigarettes. He ordered coffee, asked for a million
refills, and smoked. He never ordered any food. He didnt
seem to have a job. Sometimes other people moved into
his house, a young woman, maybe Morrisons daughter,
with her kids. Then they were gone and it was just Morrison
again. There was a tarp up on his roof with bricks around it,
to cover a hole.
Just down the block an after-hours place had opened up. Its
patrons urinated in the doorway of the diner on their way
home. Streetwalkers had started working Twelfth Street.
The dry cleaners on the next block over had been held up,
the white owner severely beaten. A. A. Laurie, who ran the
optometrists shop next door, took down his eye chart from
the wall as workers removed the neon eyeglasses out front.
He was moving to a new shop in Southfield.
My father had considered doing the same.
That whole neighborhoods going down the tubes, Jimmy
Fioretos had advised one Sunday after dinner. Get out
Fioretos had advised one Sunday after dinner. Get out
while the gettings good.
And then Gus Panos, who had had a tracheotomy and
spoke through a hole in his neck, hissing like a bellows:
Jimmys right . . . sssss . . . You should move out to . . .
ssss . . . Bloomfield Hills.
Uncle Pete had disagreed, making his usual case for
integration and support for President Johnsons War on
Poverty.
A few weeks later, Milton had had the business appraised
and was met with a shock: the Zebra Room was worth less
than when Lefty had acquired it in 1933. Milton had waited
too long to sell it. The getting out was no longer good.
And so the Zebra Room remained on the corner of Pingree
and Dexter, the swing music on the jukebox growing
increasingly out of date, the celebrities and sports figures
on the walls more and more unrecognizable. On Saturdays,
my grandfather often took me for a ride in the car. We
drove out to Belle Isle to look for deer and then stopped in
for lunch at the family restaurant. At the diner we sat in a
booth while Milton waited on us, pretending we were
customers. He took Leftys order and winked. And whatll
the Mrs. have?
Im not the Mrs.!
Youre not?
I ordered my usual of a cheeseburger, milk shake, and
lemon meringue pie for dessert. Opening the cash register,
Milton gave me a stack of quarters to use in the jukebox.
While I chose songs, I looked out the front window for my
neighborhood friend. Most Saturdays he was installed on
the corner, surrounded by other young men. Sometimes he
stood on a broken chair or a cinder block while he orated.
Always his arm was in the air, waving and gesticulating. But
if he happened to see me, his raised fist would open up,
and he would wave.
His name was Marius Wyxzewixard Challouehliczilczese
Grimes. I was not allowed to speak to him. Milton
considered Marius to be a troublemaker, a view in which
many Zebra Room patrons, white and black both,
concurred. I liked him, though. He called me Little Queen of
the Nile. He said I looked like Cleopatra. Cleopatra was
Greek, he said. Did you know that? No. Yeah, she was.
She was a Ptolemy. Big family back then. They were Greek
Egyptians. Ive got a little Egyptian blood in me, too. You
and me are probably related. If he was standing on his
broken chair, waiting for a crowd to form, he would talk to
me. But if other people were there he would be too busy.
Marius Wyxzewixard Challouehliczilczese Grimes had been
named after an Ethiopian nationalist, a contemporary of
Fard Muhammad, in fact, back in the thirties. Marius had
been an asthmatic child. Hed spent most of his childhood
inside, reading the eclectic books in his mothers library.
As a teenager hed been beaten up a lot (he wore glasses,
Marius did, and had a habit of mouth-breathing). But by the
time I got to know him, Marius W. C. Grimes was coming
into his manhood. He worked at a record store and was
going to U. of D. Law School, nights. There was something
happening in the country, in the black neighborhoods
especially, that was conducive to the ascension of a brother
like Marius to the corner soapbox. It was suddenly cool to
know stuff, to expatiate on the causes of the Spanish Civil
War. Ché Guevara had asthma, too. And Marius wore a
beret. A black paramilitary beret with black glasses and a
little fledgling soul patch. In beret and glasses Marius stood
on the corner waking people up to things. Zebra Room, he
pointed a bony finger, white-owned. Then the finger went
down the block. TV store, white-owned. Grocery store,
white-owned. Bank . . . Brothers looked around . . . You
got it. No bank. They dont give loans to black folks. Marius
was planning to become a public advocate. As soon as he
graduated from law school he was going to sue the city of
Dearborn for housing discrimination. He was currently
number three in his law school class. But now it was humid
out, his childhood asthma acting up, and Marius was
feeling unhappy and unwell when I came roller-skating by.
Hi, Marius.
He did not vocally respond, a sign with him that he was in
low spirits. But he nodded his head, which gave me the
courage to continue.
Why dont you get a better chair to stand on?
You dont like my chair?
Its all broken.
This chair is an antique. That means its supposed to be
broken.
Not that broken.
But Marius was squinting across the street at the Zebra
Room.
Let me ask you something, little Cleo.
What?
How come theres always at least three big fat officers of
the so-called peace sitting at the counter of your dads
place?
He gives them free coffee.
And why do you think he does that?
I dont know.
You dont know? Okay, Ill tell you. Hes paying protection
money. Your old man likes to keep the fuzz around because
hes scared of us black folks.
He is not, I said, suddenly defensive.
You dont think so?
No.
Okay, then, Queenie. You know best.
But Mariuss accusation bothered me. After that, I began to
watch my father more closely. I noticed how he always
locked the car doors when we drove through the black
neighborhood. I heard him in the living room on Sundays:
They dont take care of their properties. They let everything
go to hell. The next week, when Lefty took me to the diner, I
was more aware than ever of the broad backs of policemen
at the counter. I heard them joking with my father. Hey, Milt,
you better start putting some soul food on the menu.
Think so?my father, joviallyMaybe a little collard
greens?
I snuck out, going to look for Marius. He was in his usual
spot but sitting, not standing, and reading a book.
Test tomorrow, he told me. Gotta study.
Im in second grade, I said.
Only second! I had you down for high school at least.
I gave him my most winning smile.
Must be that Ptolemy blood. Just stay away from the
Roman men, okay?
What?
Nothing, Little Queen. Just playing with you. He was
laughing now, which he didnt do that often. His face
opened up, bright.
And suddenly my father was shouting my name. Callie!
What?
Get over here right now!
Marius stood up awkwardly from his chair. We were just
talking, he said. Smart little girl you got here.
You stay away from her, you hear me?
Daddy! I protested, appalled, embarrassed for my friend.
But Mariuss voice was soft. Its cool, little Cleo. Got this
test and all. Go on back to your dad.
For the rest of that day Milton kept after me. You are never,
ever, to talk to strangers like that. Whats the matter with
you?
Hes not a stranger. His name is Marius Wyxzewixard
Challouehliczilczese Grimes.
You hear me? You stay away from people like that.
Afterward, Milton told my grandfather to stop bringing me
down to the diner for lunch. But I would come again, in just a
few months, under my own power.
OPA!
They always think its the old-school, gentlemanly routine.
The slowness of my advances. The leisurely pace of my
incursions. (Ive learned to make the first move by now, but
not the second.)
I invited Julie Kikuchi to go away for the weekend. To
Pomerania. The idea was to drive to Usedom, an island in
the Baltic, and stay in an old resort once favored by
Wilhelm II. I made a point to emphasize that we would have
separate rooms.
Since it was the weekend, I tried to dress down. It isnt easy
for me. I wore a camel-hair turtleneck, tweed blazer, and
jeans. And a pair of handmade cordovans by Edward
Green. This particular style is called the Dundee. They look
dressy until you notice the Vibram soles. The leather is of a
double thickness. The Dundee is a shoe designed for
touring the landed estates, for tromping through mud while
wearing a tie, with your spaniels trailing behind. I had to
wait four months for these shoes. On the shoebox it says:
Edward Green: Master Shoemakers to the Few. Thats
me exactly. The few.
I picked Julie up in a rented Mercedes, an unquiet diesel.
She had made a bunch of tapes for the ride and had
brought reading material:The Guardian , the last two
issues ofParkett . We drove out the narrow, tree-lined
roads to the northeast. We passed villages of thatch-roofed
houses. The land grew marshier, inlets appeared, and soon
we traveled over the bridge to the island.
Shall I get right to it? No, slowly, leisurely, thats the way. Let
me first mention that it is October here in Germany. Though
the weather was cool, the beach at Herringsdorf was dotted
with quite a few diehard nudists. Primarily men, they lay
walrus-like on towels or boisterously congregated in the
stripedStrandkörbe , the little beach huts.
From the elegant boardwalk surrounded by pine and birch
trees, I looked out at these naturists and wondered what I
always wonder: What is it like to feel free like that? I mean,
my body is so much better than theirs. Im the one with the
well-defined biceps, the bulging pectorals, the burnished
glutes. But I could never saunter around in public like that.
Not exactly the cover ofSunshine and Health , said Julie.
After a certain age, people should keep their clothes on, I
said, or something like that. When in doubt I resort to mildly
conservative or British-sounding pronouncements. I wasnt
thinking about what I was saying. I had suddenly forgotten
all about the nudists. Because I was looking at Julie now.
She had pushed her silver DDR-era eyeglasses onto the
top of her head so that she could take pictures of the
distant sunbathers. The wind off the Baltic was making her
hair fly around. Your eyebrows are like little black
caterpillars, I said. Flatterer, said Julie, still shooting. I
said nothing else. As one does the return of sun after
winter, I stood still and accepted the warm glow of
possibility, of feeling right in the company of this small,
oddly fierce person with the inky hair and the lovely,
unemphasized body.
Still, that night, and the night after, we slept in separate
rooms.
My father forbade me to talk to Marius Grimes in April, a
damp, cool-headed month in Michigan. By May the weather
grew warm; June was hot and July hotter still. In the
backyard of our house on Seminole, I jumped through the
sprinkler in my bathing suit, a two-piece number, while
Chapter Eleven picked dandelions to make dandelion
wine.
During that summer, as the temperature climbed, Milton
tried to come to grips with the predicament he found
himself in. His vision had been to open not one restaurant
but a chain. Now he realized that the first link in that chain,
the Zebra Room, was a weak one, and he was thrown into
doubt and confusion. For the first time in his life Milton
Stephanides came up against a possibility hed never
entertained: failure. What was he going to do with the
restaurant? Should he sell it for peanuts? What then? (For
the time being, he decided to close the diner on Mondays
and Tuesdays to cut payroll expenses.)
My father and mother didnt discuss the situation in front of
us and slipped into Greek when discussing it with our
grandparents. Chapter Eleven and I were left to figure out
what was going on by the tone of a conversation that made
no sense to us, and to be honest, we didnt pay much
attention. We only knew that Milton was suddenly around
the house during the day. Milton, whom we had rarely seen
in sunlight before, was suddenly out in the backyard,
reading the newspaper. We discovered what our fathers
legs looked like in short pants. We discovered what he
looked like when he didnt shave. The first two days his
face got sandpapery the way it always did on weekends.
But now, instead of seizing my hand and rubbing it against
his whiskers until I screamed, Milton no longer had the high
spirits to torment me. He just sat on the patio as the beard,
like a stain, like a fungus, spread.
Unconsciously Milton was adhering to the Greek custom of
not shaving after a death in the family. Only in this case
what had ended wasnt a life but a livelihood. The beard
fattened up his already plump face. He didnt keep it
trimmed or very clean. And because he didnt utter a word
about his troubles, his beard began to express silently all
the things he wouldnt allow himself to say. Its knots and
whorls indicated his increasingly tangled thoughts. Its bitter
odor released the ketones of stress. As summer
progressed, the beard grew shaggy,unmown , and it was
obvious that Milton was thinking about Pingree Street; he
was going to seed the way Pingree Street was.
Lefty tried to comfort his son. Be strong, he wrote. With a
smile he copied out the warrior epitaph at Thermopylae:
Go tell the Spartans, stranger passing by/that here
obedient to their laws we lie. But Milton barely read the
quote. His fathers stroke had convinced him that Lefty was
no longer at the top of his game. Mute, carrying his pitiful
chalkboard around, lost in his restoration of Sappho, Lefty
had begun to seem old to his son. Milton found himself
getting impatient or not paying attention.Intimations of
mortality brought on by aging family members , thats
what Milton felt, seeing his father sunk in desk light, jutting
out a moist underlip, scanning a dead language.
Despite the Cold War secrecy, bits of information leaked
out to us kids. The deepening threat to our finances made
itself known in the form of a jagged wrinkle, like a lightning
bolt, that flashed above the bridge of my mothers nose
whenever I asked for something expensive in a toy store.
Meat began appearing less often on our dinner table.
Milton rationed electricity. If Chapter Eleven left a light on
for more than a minute, he returned to total darkness. And
to a voice in the darkness: What did I tell you about
kilowatts! For a while we lived with a single lightbulb, which
Milton carried from room to room. This way I can keep
track of how much power were using, he said, screwing
the bulb into the dining room fixture so that we could sit
down to dinner. I cant see my food, Tessie complained.
What do you mean? said Milton. This is what they
callambiance . After dessert, Milton took a handkerchief
out of his back pocket, unscrewed the hot lightbulb, and,
tossing it like an unambitious juggler, conveyed it into the
living room. We waited in darkness as he fumbled through
the house, knocking into furniture. Finally there was a
brownout in the distance and Milton cheerily called out,
Ready!
He kept up a brave front. He hosed down the sidewalk
outside the diner and kept the windows spotless. He
continued to greet customers with a hearty Hows
everything? or a Yahsou, patriote! But the Zebra Rooms
swing music and old-time baseball players couldnt stop
time. It was no longer 1940 but 1967. Specifically, the night
of Sunday, July 23, 1967. And there was something lumpy
under my fathers pillow.
Behold my parents bedroom: furnished entirely in Early
American reproductions, it offers them connection (at
discount prices) with the countrys founding myths. Notice,
for instance, the veneer headboard of the bed, made from
pure cherrywood, as Milton likes to say, just like the little
tree George Washington chopped down. Direct your
attention to the wallpaper with its Revolutionary War motif.
A repeating pattern showing the famous trio of drummer
boy, fife player, and lame old man. Throughout my earliest
years on earth those bloodied figures marched around my
parents bedroom, here disappearing behind a Monticello
dresser, there emerging from behind a Mount Vernon
mirror, or sometimes having no place to go at all and being
cut in half by a closet.
Forty-three years old now, my parents, on this historic night,
lie sound asleep. Miltons snores make the bed rattle; also,
the wall connecting to my room, where Im asleep myself in
a grownup bed. And something else is rattling beneath
Miltons pillow, a potentially dangerous situation
considering what the object is. Under my fathers pillow is
the .45 automatic he brought back from the war.
Chekhovs first rule of playwriting goes something like this:
If theres a gun on the wall in act one, scene one, you must
fire the gun by act three, scene two. I cant help thinking
about that storytelling precept as I contemplate the gun
beneath my fathers pillow. There it is. I cant take it away
now that Ive mentioned it. (It really was there that night.)
And there are bullets in the gun and the safety is off . . .
Detroit, in the stifling summer of 1967, is bracing for race
riots. Watts had exploded two summers earlier. Riots had
broken out in Newark recently. In response to the national
turmoil, the all-white Detroit police force has been raiding
after-hours bars in the citys black neighborhoods. The idea
is to make preemptive strikes against possible flashpoints.
Usually, the police park their paddy wagons in back alleys
and herd the patrons into the vehicles without anyone
seeing. But tonight, for reasons that will never be explained,
three police vehicles arrive at the Economy Printing Co. at
9125 Twelfth Streetthree blocks from Pingreeand park
at the curb. You might think this wouldnt matter at five in the
morning, but you would be wrong. Because in 1967,
Detroits Twelfth Street is open all night.
For instance, as the police arrive, there are girls lined along
the street, girls in miniskirts, thigh-highs, and halter tops.
(The sea wrack Milton hoses from the sidewalk every
morning includes the dead jellyfish of prophylactics and the
occasional hermit crab of a lost high heel.) The girls stand
at the curbs as cars cruise by. Keylime Cadillacs, fire-red
Toronados, wide-mouthed, trolling Lincolns, all in perfect
shape. Chrome glints. Hubcaps shine. Not a single rust
spot anywhere. (Which is something that always amazes
Milton about black people, the contradiction between the
perfection of their automobiles and the disrepair of their
houses.) . . . But now the gleaming cars are slowing.
Windows are rolling down and girls are bending to chat with
the drivers. There are calls back and forth, the lifting of
already minuscule skirts, and sometimes a flash of breast
or an obscene gesture, the girls working it, laughing, high
enough by 5A.M. to be numb to the rawness between their
legs and the residues of men no amount of perfume can get
rid of. It isnt easy to keep yourself clean on the street, and
by this hour each of those young women smells in the
places that count like a very ripe, soft French cheese . . .
Theyre numb, too, to thoughts of babies left at home, sixmonth-
olds with bad colds lying in used cribs, sucking on
pacifiers, and having a hard time breathing . . . numb to the
lingering taste of semen in their mouths along with
peppermint gum, most of these girls no more than
eighteen, this curb on Twelfth Street their first real place of
employment, the most the country has to offer in the way of
a vocation. Where are they going to go from here? Theyre
numb to that, too, except for a couple who have dreams of
singing backup or opening up a hair shop . . . But this is all
part of what happened that night, whats about to happen
(the police are getting out of their cars now, they are
breaking in the door of the blind pig) . . . as a window
opens and someone yells, Its the fuzz! Out the back way!
At the curb the girls recognize the cops because they have
to do them for free. But something is different tonight,
something is happening . . . the girls dont disappear as
usual when the cops show up. They stand and watch as the
clients of the blind pig are led out in handcuffs, and a few
girls even begin to grumble . . . and now other doors are
opening and cars are stopping and suddenly everyone is
out on the street . . . people stream out of other blind pigs
and from houses and from street corners and you can feel it
in the air, the way the air has somehow been keeping
score, and how at this moment in July of 1967 the tally of
abuses has reached a point so that the imperative flies out
from Watts and Newark to Twelfth Street in Detroit, as one
girl shouts, Get yo hands offa them, motherfucking
pigs! . . . and then there are other shouts, and pushing, and
a bottle just misses a policeman and shatters a squad car
window behind . . . and back on Seminole my father is
sleeping on a gun that has just been recommissioned,
because the riots have begun . . .
At 6:23A.M. , the Princess telephone in my bedroom rang
and I picked it up. It was Jimmy Fioretos, who in his panic
mistook my voice for my mothers. Tessie, tell Milt to get
down to the restaurant. The coloreds are rioting!
Stephanides residence, I continued politely, as Id been
taught. Callie speaking.
Callie? Jesus. Honey, let me speak to your father?
Just one minute please. I put down the pink phone, walked
into my parents bedroom, and shook my father awake.
Its Mr. Fioretos.
Jimmy? Christ, what does he want? He lifted his cheek, in
which could be discerned the imprint of a gun barrel.
He says somebodys rioting.
At which point, my father jumped out of bed. As though he
still weighed one hundred and forty pounds instead of one
ninety, Milton flipped gymnastically into the air and landed
on his feet, completely unaware of both his nakedness and
his dream-filled morning erection. (So it was that the Detroit
riots will always be connected in my mind with my first sight
of the aroused male genitalia. Even worse, they were my
fathers, and worst of all, he was reaching for a gun.
Sometimes a cigar is not a cigar.) Tessie was up now, too,
shouting at Milton not to go, and Milton was hopping on one
foot, trying to put on his pants; and before long everybody
was into it.
I tell you this what happen! Desdemona screamed at
Milton as he ran down the stairs. Do you fix the church for
St. Christopher? No!
Leave it to the police, Milt, Tessie pleaded.
And Chapter Eleven: When are you going to be back,
Dad? You promised to take me to Radio Shack today.
And me, still squeezing my eyes shut to erase what Id
seen: I think Ill go back to bed now.
The only person who didnt say something was Lefty,
because in all the confusion he couldnt find his chalkboard.
Half-dressed, in shoes but no socks, in pants but no
underpants, Milton Stephanides raced his Delta 88 through
the early morning streets. All the way to Woodward nothing
seemed amiss. The roads were clear. Everyone was still
asleep. As he turned onto West Grand Boulevard, however,
he saw a pillar of smoke rising into the air. Unlike all the
other pillars of smoke issuing from the citys smokestacks,
this pillar didnt disperse into the general smog. It hung low
to the ground like a vengeful tornado. It churned and kept its
fearsome shape, fed by what it consumed. The Oldsmobile
was heading straight for it. Suddenly people appeared.
People running. People carrying things. People laughing
and looking over their shoulders while other people waved
their hands, appealing for them to stop. Sirens wailed. A
police car raced past. The officer at the wheel signaled
Milton to turn back, but Milton did not obey.
And it was funny, because these were his streets. Milton
had known them his whole life. Over there on Lincoln there
used to be a fruit stand. Lefty used to stop there with Milton
to buy cantaloupes, teaching Milton how to pick a sweet
one by looking for tiny punctures left by bees. Over on
Trumbull was where Mrs. Tsatsarakis lived.Used to always
ask me to bring up Vernors from the basement , Milton
thought to himself.Couldnt climb stairs anymore. On the
corner of Sterling and Commonwealth was the old Masonic
Temple, where one Saturday afternoon thirty-five years
before, Milton had been runner-up in a spelling bee. A
spelling bee! Two dozen kids in their best clothes
concentrating as hard as they could to piece out
prestidigitation one letter at a time. Thats what used to
happen in this neighborhood. Spelling bees! Now ten-yearolds
were running in the streets, carrying bricks. They were
throwing bricks through store windows, laughing and
jumping, thinking it was some kind of game, some kind of
holiday.
Milton looked away from the dancing children and saw the
pillar of smoke right in front of him, blocking the street.
There was a second or two when he could have turned
back. But he didnt. He hit it dead on. The Oldsmobiles
hood ornament disappeared first, then the front fenders and
the roof. The taillights gleamed redly for a moment and then
winked out.
In every chase scene wed ever watched, the hero always
climbed up to the roof. Strict realists in my family, we
always objected: Why do they always go up? Watch.
Hes going to climb the tower. See? I told you. But
Hollywood knew more about human nature than we
realized. Because, faced with this emergency, Tessie took
Chapter Eleven and me up to the attic. Maybe it was a
vestige of our arboreal past; we wanted to climb up and out
of danger. Or maybe my mother felt safer there because of
the door that blended in with the wallpaper. Whatever the
reason, we took a suitcase full of food up to the attic and
stayed there for three days, watching the city burn on my
grandparents small black-and-white. In housedress and
sandals, Desdemona held her cardboard fan to her chest,
shielding herself against the spectacle of life repeating
itself. Oh my God! Is like Smyrna! Look at themavros !
Like the Turks they are burning everything!
It was hard to argue with the comparison. In Smyrna people
had taken their furniture down to the waterfront; and on
television now people were carrying furniture, too. Men
were lugging brand-new sofas out of stores. Refrigerators
were sailing along the avenues, as were stoves and
dishwashers. And just like in Smyrna everyone seemed to
have packed all their clothes. Women were wearing minks
despite the July heat. Men were trying on new suits and
running at the same time. Smyrna! Smyrna! Smyrna!
Desdemona kept wailing, and Id already heard so much
about Smyrna in my seven years that I watched the screen
closely to see what it had been like. But I didnt understand.
Sure, buildings were burning, bodies were lying in the
street, but the mood wasnt one of desperation. Id never
seen people so happy in my entire life. Men were playing
instruments taken from a music store. Other men were
handing whiskey bottles through a shattered window and
passing them around. It looked more like a block party than
it did a riot.
Up until that night, our neighborhoods basic feeling about
our fellow Negro citizens could be summed up in something
Tessie said after watching Sidney Poitiers performance
inTo Sir with Love , which opened a month before the riots.
She said, You see, they can speak perfectly normal if they
want. That was how we felt. (Even me back then, I wont
deny it, because were all the children of our parents.) We
were ready to accept the Negroes. We werent prejudiced
against them. We wanted to include them in our societyif
they would only act normal !
In their support for Johnsons Great Society, in their
applause afterTo Sir with Love , our neighbors and
relatives made clear their well-intentioned belief that the
Negroes were fully capable of being just like white people
but then what was this? they asked themselves as they
saw the pictures on television. What were those young men
doing carrying a sofa down the street? Would Sidney
Poitier ever take a sofa or a large kitchen appliance from a
store without paying? Would he dance like that in front of a
burning building? No respect for private property
whatsoever, cried Mr. Benz, who lived next door. And his
wife Phyllis: Where are they going to live if they burn down
their own neighborhood? Only Aunt Zo seemed to
sympathize: I dont know. If I was walking down the street
and there was a mink coat just sitting there, I might take it.
Zoë! Father Mike was shocked. Thats stealing! Oh,
what isnt, when you come right down to it. This whole
countrys stolen.
For three days and two nights we waited in the attic to hear
from Milton. The fires had knocked out phone service, and
when my mother called the restaurant, all she got was a
recorded message with an operators voice.
For three days no one left the attic except Tessie, who
hurried downstairs to get food from our emptying
cupboards. We watched the death toll rise.
Day 1: Deaths15. Injuries500. Stores looted
1,000. Fires800.
Day 2: Deaths27. Injuries700. Stores looted
1,500. Fires1,000.
Day 3: Deaths36. Injuries1,000. Stores looted
1,700. Fires1,163.
For three days we studied the photographs of the victims
as they appeared on TV. Mrs. Sharon Stone, struck by a
snipers bullet as her car was stopped at a traffic light. Carl
E. Smith, a fireman, killed by a sniper as he battled a blaze.
For three days we watched the politicians hesitate and
argue: the Republican governor, George Romney, asking
President Johnson to send in federal troops; and Johnson,
a Democrat, saying he had an inability to do such a thing.
(There was an election coming up in the fall. The worse the
riots got, the worse Romney was going to do. And so
before he sent in the paratroopers, President Johnson sent
in Cyrus Vance to assess the situation. Nearly twenty-four
in Cyrus Vance to assess the situation. Nearly twenty-four
hours passed before federal troops arrived. In the
meantime the inexperienced National Guard was shooting
up the town.)
For three days we didnt bathe or brush our teeth. For three
days all the normal rituals of our life were suspended, while
half-forgotten rituals, like praying, were renewed.
Desdemona said the prayers in Greek as we gathered
around her bed, and Tessie tried as usual to dispel her
doubts and truly believe. The vigil light no longer contained
oil but was an electric bulb.
For three days we received no word from Milton. When
Tessie returned from her trips downstairs I began to detect,
in addition to the traces of tears on her face, faint streaks of
guilt. Death always makes people practical. So while
Tessie had been on the first floor, foraging for food, she
had also been searching in Miltons desk. She had read the
terms of his life insurance policy. She had checked the
balance in their retirement account. In the bathroom mirror
she appraised her looks, wondering if she could attract
another husband at her age. I had you kids to think of, she
confessed to me years later. I was wondering what wed
do if your father didnt come back.
To live in America, until recently, meant to be far from war.
Wars happened in Southeast Asian jungles. They
happened in Middle Eastern deserts. They happened, as
the old song has it,over there . But then why, peeking out
the dormer window, did I see, on the morning after our
second night in the attic, a tank rolling by our front lawn? A
green army tank, all alone in the long shadows of morning,
its enormous treads clanking against the asphalt. An
armor-plated military vehicle encountering no greater
obstacle than a lost roller skate. The tank rolled past the
affluent homes, the gables and turrets, the porte cocheres.
It stopped briefly at the stop sign. The gun turret looked
both ways, like a drivers ed student, and then the tank went
on its way.
What had happened: late Monday night, President
Johnson, finally giving in to Governor Romneys request,
had ordered in federal troops. General John L.
Throckmorton set up the headquarters of the 101st
Airborne at Southeastern High, where my parents had gone
to school. Though the fiercest rioting was on the West Side,
General Throckmorton chose to deploy his paratroopers on
the East Side, calling this decision an operational
convenience. By early Tuesday morning the paratroopers
were moving in to quell the disturbance.
No one else was awake to see the tank rumble by. My
grandparents were dozing in bed. Tessie and Chapter
Eleven were curled on air mattresses on the floor. Even the
parakeets were quiet. I remember looking at my brothers
face peeking out of his sleeping bag. On the flannel lining,
hunters shot at ducks. This masculine background served
only to emphasize Chapter Elevens lack of heroic
qualities. Who was going to come to my fathers aid? Who
could my father rely on? Chapter Eleven with his Cokebottle
glasses? Lefty with his chalkboard and sixty-plus
years? What I did next had no connection, I believe, with my
chromosomal status. It did not result from the hightestosterone
plasma levels in my blood. I did what any
loving, loyal daughter would have done who had been
raised on a diet of Hercules movies. In that instant, I
decided to find my father, to save him, if necessary, or at
least to tell him to come home.
Crossing myself in the Orthodox fashion, I stole down the
attic stairs, closing the door behind me. In my bedroom I put
on sneakers and my Amelia Earhart aviators cap. Without
waking anyone I let myself out the front door, ran to my
bicycle parked at the side of the house, and pedaled away.
After two blocks, I caught sight of the tank: it had stopped at
a red light. The soldiers inside were busy looking at maps,
trying to find the best route to the riots. They didnt notice
the little girl in the aviators cap stealing up on a banana
bike. It was still dark out. The birds were beginning to sing.
Summer smells of lawn and mulch filled the air, and
suddenly I lost my nerve. The closer I got to the tank, the
bigger it looked. I was frightened and wanted to run back
home. But the light changed and the tank lurched forward.
Standing up on my pedals, I sped after it.
Across town, in the lightless Zebra Room, my father was
trying to stay awake. Barricaded behind the cash register,
holding the revolver in one hand and a ham sandwich in the
other, Milton looked out the front window to see what was
happening in the street. Over the last two sleepless nights
the circles under Miltons eyes had darkened steadily with
each cup of coffee he drank. His eyelids hung at half mast,
but his brow was damp with the perspiration of anxiety and
vigilance. His stomach hurt. He needed to go to the
bathroom in the worst way but didnt dare.
Outside, they were at it again: the snipers. It was almost
5A.M. Each night, the sinking sun, like a ring on a window
shade, pulled night down over the neighborhood. From
wherever the snipers disappeared to during the hot day,
they returned. They took up their positions. From the
windows of condemned hotels, from fire escapes and
balconies, from behind cars jacked up in front yards, they
extended the barrels of their assorted guns. If you looked
closely, if you were brave or reckless enough to stick your
head out the window this time of night, you could see by the
moonthat other pull ring, going uphundreds of glinting
guns, pointed down into the street, through which the
soldiers were now advancing.
The only light inside the diner came from the red glow of the
jukebox. It stood to one side of the front door, a Disco-
Matic made of chrome, plastic, and colored glass. There
was a small window through which you could watch the
robotic changing of records. Through a circulatory system
along the jukeboxs edges trails of dark blue bubbles rose.
Bubbles representing the effervescence of American life, of
our postwar optimism, of our fizzy, imperial, carbonated
drinks. Bubbles full of the hot air of American democracy,
boiling up from the stacked vinyl platters inside. Mama
Dont Allow It by Bunny Berigan maybe, or Stardust by
Tommy Dorsey and his orchestra. But not tonight. Tonight
Milton had the jukebox off so that he could hear if anyone
was trying to break in.
The cluttered walls of the restaurant took no notice of the
rioting outside. Al Kaline still beamed from his frame. Paul
Bunyan and Babe the Blue Ox continued on their trek below
the daily special. The menu board itself still offered eggs,
hash browns, seven kinds of pie. So far nothing had
happened. Somewhat miraculously. Squatting at the front
window yesterday, Milton had seen looters break into every
store down the block. They looted the Jewish market,
taking everything but the matzoh and the yahrzeit candles.
With a sharp sense of style, they stripped Joel Moskowitzs
shoe store of its higher-priced and more fashionable
models, leaving only some orthopedic offerings and a few
Florsheims. All that was left in Dyers Appliance, as far as
Milton could tell, was a rack of vacuum bags. What would
they loot if they looted the diner? Would they take the
stained glass window, which Milton himself had taken?
Would they show interest in the photo of Ty Cobb snarling
as he slid, spikes first, into second base? Maybe theyd rip
the zebra skins off the barstools. They liked anything
African, didnt they? Wasnt that the new vogue, or the old
vogue that was new again? Hell, they could have the
goddamned zebra skins. Hed put them out front as a
peace offering.
But now Milton heard something. The doorknob, was it? He
listened. For the last few hours hed been hearing things.
His eyes had been playing tricks on him, too. He crouched
behind the counter, squinting into the darkness. His ears
echoed the way seashells do. He heard the distant gunfire
and the squawking sirens. He heard the hum of the
refrigerator and the ticking of the clock. To all this was
added the rush of his blood, roaring through the channels in
his head. But no sound came from the doorway.
Milton relaxed. He took another bite of the sandwich.
Gently, experimentally, he lowered his head onto the
counter.Just for a minute . When he closed his eyes, the
pleasure was immediate. Then the doorknob rattled again,
and Milton jumped. He shook his head, trying to wake
himself up. He put down the sandwich and tiptoed out from
behind the counter, holding the gun.
He didnt intend to use it. The idea was to scare the looter
off. If that didnt work, Milton was prepared to leave. The
Oldsmobile was parked out back. He could be home in ten
minutes. The knob rattled again. And without thinking Milton
stepped toward the glass door and shouted, Ive got a
gun!
Except it wasnt the gun. It was the ham sandwich! Milton
was threatening the looter with two pieces of toasted
bread, a slice of meat, and some hot mustard.
Nevertheless, because it was dark out, this worked. The
looter outside the door held up his hands.
It was Morrison from across the street.
Milton stared at Morrison. Morrison stared back. And then
my father saidthis is what white people say in a situation
like this, Can I help you?
Morrison squinted, disbelieving. What you doing here,
man? You crazy? Aint safe for no white people down here.
A shot rang out. Morrison flattened himself against the
glass. Aint safe for nobody.
Ive gotta protect my property.
You life aint you property? Morrison raised his eyebrows
to indicate the unimpeachable logic of this statement. Then
he dropped the superior expression altogether and
coughed. Listen, chief, long as you here, maybe you can
help me out. He held up small change. Came over for
some cigarettes.
Miltons chin dipped, fattening his neck, and his eyebrows
slanted in disbelief. In a dry voice he said, Nowd be a
good time to kick the habit.
Another shot rang out, this time closer. Morrison jumped,
then smiled. It sureis bad for my health. And gettin more
dangerous all the time. Then he smiled broadly. Thisll be
my last pack, he said, swear to God. He dropped the
change through the mail slot. Parliaments. Milton looked
down at the coins for a moment and then went and got the
cigarettes.
Got any matches? Morrison said.
Milton slipped these through, too. As he did, the riots, his
frayed nerves, the smell of fire in the air, and the audacity of
this man Morrison dodging sniper fire for a pack of
cigarettes all became too much for Milton. Suddenly he was
waving his arms, indicating everything, and shouting
through the door, Whats the matter with you people?
Morrison took only a moment. The matter with us, he said,
is you. And then he was gone.
The matter with us is you. How many times did I hear that
growing up? Delivered by Milton in his so-called black
accent, delivered whenever any liberal pundit talked about
the culturally deprived or the underclass or
empowerment zones, spoken out of the belief that this
one statement, having been delivered to him while the
blacks themselves burned down a significant portion of our
beloved city, proved its own absurdity. As the years went
on, Milton used it as a shield against any opinions to the
contrary, and finally it grew into a kind of mantra, the
explanation for why the world was going to hell, applicable
not only to African Americans but to feminists and
homosexuals; and then of course he liked to use it on us,
whenever we were late for dinner or wore clothes Tessie
didnt approve of.
The matter with us is you! Morrisons words echoed in the
street, but Milton didnt have time to concentrate on them.
Because right then, like a creaky Godzilla in a Japanese
movie, the first military tank lumbered into view. Soldiers
stood on both sides, not cops now but National
Guardsmen, camouflaged, helmeted, nervously holding
rifles with bayonets. Pointing those rifles up at all the other
rifles pointing down. There was a moment of relative
silence, enough for Milton to hear the slamming of
Morrisons screen door across the street. Then there was a
pop, a sound like a toy gun, and suddenly the street lit up
with a thousand bursts of fire . . .
I heard them, too, from a quarter mile away. Following the
slow tank at a discreet distance, I had ridden my bike from
Indian Village on the East Side all the way to the West. I
tried to keep my bearings as best I could, but I was only
seven and a half, and didnt know many street names.
While passing through downtown, I recognizedThe Spirit of
Detroit , the Marshall Fredericks statue that stood in front of
the City-County Building. A few years earlier, a prankster
had painted a trail of red footprints in the statues size,
leading across Woodward to rendezvous with a statue of a
naked woman in front of the National Bank of Detroit. The
footprints were still faintly visible as I pedaled past. The
tank turned up Bush Street, and I followed it past Monroe
and the lights of Greektown. On a normal day, the old
Greek men of my grandfathers generation would have
been arriving at the coffee houses to spend the day playing
backgammon, but on the morning of July 25, 1967, the
street was empty. At some point my tank had found others;
in a line they now headed northwest. Soon downtown
vanished and I didnt know where I was. Ducking
aerodynamically over my handlebars, I pedaled furiously
into the thick, oily exhaust of the moving column . . .
. . . while, back on Pingree Street, Milton is crouching
behind the crenellated olive oil tins. Bullets fly from every
darkened window along the block, from Franks Pool Hall
and the Crow Bar, from the bell tower of the African
Episcopal Church, so many bullets they blur the air like rain,
making the one working streetlamp look as if its flickering
out. Bullets pounding on armor and ricocheting off
brickwork and tattooing the parked cars. Bullets ripping the
legs right out from under a U.S. Postal Service mailbox, so
that it falls over on its side like a drunk. Bullets obliterating
the window of the veterinarian office and continuing on
through the walls to reach the cages of the animals in back.
The German shepherd that has been barking nonstop for
three days and two nights finally shuts up. A cat twists in the
air, letting out a scream, its blazing green eyes going out
like a light. A real battle is under way now, a firefight, a little
bit of Vietnam brought back home. But in this case the
Vietcong are lying on Beautyrest mattresses. They are
sitting in camping chairs and drinking malt liquor, a
volunteer army facing off against the enlistees in the
streets.
Its impossible to know who all these snipers were. But its
easy to understand why the police called them snipers. Its
easy to understand why Mayor Jerome Cavanaugh called
them snipers, and Govenor George Romney, too. A sniper,
by definition, acts alone. A sniper is cowardly, sneaky; he
kills from a distance, unseen. It was convenient to call them
snipers, because if they werent snipers, then what were
they? The governor didnt say it; the newspapers didnt say
it; the history books still do not say it, but I, who watched the
entire thing on my bike, saw it clearly: in Detroit, in July of
1967, what happened was nothing less than a guerrilla
uprising.
The Second American Revolution.
And now the guardsmen are fighting back. When the riot
first broke, the police, on the whole, acted with restraint.
They moved off, trying to contain the disturbance. Likewise,
the federal troops, the paratroopers of the 82nd Airborne
and 101st, are battle-hardened veterans who know to use
appropriate force. But the National Guard is a different
story. Weekend warriors, they have been called from their
homes into sudden battle. They are inexperienced, scared.
They move through the streets, blasting away at anything
they see. Sometimes they drive tanks right up onto front
lawns. They drive onto peoples porches and crash through
the walls. The tank in front of the Zebra Room has stopped
momentarily. Ten or so troops surround it, taking aim at a
sniper on the fourth floor of the Beaumont Hotel. The sniper
fires; the National Guardsmen fire back, and the man
drops, his legs tangling on the fire escape. Directly
thereafter, another light flashes across the street. Milton
looks up to see Morrison in his living room, lighting a
cigarette. Lighting a Parliament with the zebra-striped
matches. No! Milton shouts. No! . . . And Morrison, if he
hears, just thinks its another diatribe against smoking, but
lets face it, he doesnt hear. He only lights his cigarette
and, two seconds later, a bullet rips through the front of his
skull and he crumples in a heap. And then the soldiers
move on.
The street is empty again, silent. The machine guns and
tanks begin ripping up the next block, or the block after that.
Milton stands at the front door, looking across at the empty
window where Morrison had stood. And the realization
comes over him that the restaurant is safe. The soldiers
have come and gone. The riot is over . . .
. . . Except that now someone else is advancing along the
street. As the tanks disappear down Pingree, a new figure
is approaching from the other direction. Somebody who
lives in the neighborhood is rounding the corner and
heading for the Zebra Room . . .
. . . following the line of tanks, I am no longer thinking about
showing up my brother. The outbreak of so much shooting
has taken me completely by surprise. I have looked through
my fathers World War II scrapbook many times; I have
seen Vietnam on television; I have ingested countless
movies about Ancient Rome or the battles of the Middle
Ages. But none of it has prepared me for warfare in my own
hometown. The street we are moving down is lined with
leafy elms. Cars are parked at the curb. We pass lawns
and porch furniture, bird feeders and birdbaths. As I look up
at the canopy of elms, the sky is just beginning to grow light.
Birds move among the branches, and squirrels, too. A kite
is stuck up in one tree. Over a limb of another, someones
tennis shoes dangle with the laces knotted. Directly below
these sneakers, I see a street sign. It is full of bullet holes,
but I manage to read it: Pingree. All of a sudden I recognize
where I am. There is Value Meats! And New Yorker
Clothes. I am so happy to see them that for a moment I
dont register that both places are on fire. Letting the tanks
get away, I ride up a driveway and stop behind a tree. I get
off my bike and peek across the street at the diner. The
zebra head sign is still intact. The restaurant is not burning.
At that moment, however, the figure that has been
approaching the Zebra Room enters my field of vision.
From thirty yards away I see him lift a bottle in his hand. He
lights the rag hanging from the bottles mouth and with a not
terribly good arm flings the Molotov cocktail through the
front window of the Zebra Room. And as flames erupt within
the diner, the arsonist shouts in an ecstatic voice:
Opa, motherfucker!
I saw him only from the back. It was not yet fully light. Smoke
rose from the adjacent burning buildings. Still, in the
firelight, I thought I recognized the black beret of my friend
Marius Wyxze-wixard Challouehliczilczese Grimes before
the figure ran off.
Opa! Inside the diner, my father heard the well-known cry
of Greek waiters, and before he knew what was happening
the place was going up like a flaming appetizer. The Zebra
Room had become asaganaki ! As the booths caught fire,
Milton raced behind the counter to grab the fire
extinguisher. Coming out again, he held the hose, like a
lemon wedge wrapped in cheesecloth, over the flames, and
prepared to squeeze . . .
. . . when suddenly he stopped. And now I recognize a
familiar expression on my fathers face, the expression he
wore so often at the dinner table, the faraway look of a man
who could never stop thinking about business. Success
depends on adapting to new situations. And what situation
was newer than this? Flames were climbing the walls; the
photo of Jimmy Dorsey was curling up. And Milton was
asking himself a few, pertinent questions. For instance:
How would he ever run a restaurant in this neighborhood
again? And: What do you suppose the already depressed
real estate prices would be tomorrow morning? Most
important of all: How was it a crime? Didhe start the riot?
Did he throw the Molotov cocktail? Like Tessie, Miltons
mind was searching the bottom drawer of his desk, in
particular a fat envelope containing the three fire insurance
policies from separate companies. He saw them in his
minds eye; he read the fire indemnity coverage, and
added them up. The final sum, $500,000, blinded him to
everything else. Half a million bucks! Milton looked around
with wild, eager eyes. The French toast sign was in flames.
The zebra-skin barstools were like a row of torches. And
madly, he turned and hurried outside to the Oldsmobile . . .
Where he encountered me.
Callie! What the hell are you doing here?
I came to help.
Whats the matter with you! Milton shouted. But despite
the anger in his voice he was down on his knees, hugging
me. I wrapped my arms around his neck.
The restaurants burning down, Daddy.
I know it is.
I began to cry.
Its okay, my father told me, carrying me to the car. Lets
go home now. Its all over.
So was it a riot or a guerrilla uprising? Let me answer that
question with other questions. After the riot was over, were,
or were there not, caches of weapons found all over the
neighborhood? And were these weapons, or were they not,
AK-47s and machine guns? And why had General
Throckmorton deployed his tanks on the East Side, miles
from the rioting? Was that the kind of thing you did to
subdue an unorganized gang of snipers? Or was it more in
keeping with military strategy? Was it like establishing a
front line in a war? Believe whatever you want. I was seven
years old and followed a tank into battle and saw what I
saw. It turned out that when it finally happened, the
revolution wasnt televised. On TV they called it only a riot.
The following morning, as the smoke cleared, the citys flag
could once again be seen. Remember the symbol on it? A
phoenix rising from its ashes. And the words
beneath?Speramus meliora; resurget cineribus . We
hope for better things; it will rise from the ashes.
MIDDLESEX
Shameful as it is to say, the riots were the best thing that
ever happened to us. Overnight we went from being a
family desperately trying to stay in the middle class to one
with hopes of sneaking into the upper, or at least the uppermiddle.
The insurance money didnt amount to quite as
much as Milton had anticipated. Two of the companies
refused to pay the full amount, citing double indemnity
clauses. They paid only a quarter of their policies value.
Still, taken all together, the money was much more than the
Zebra Room had been worth, and it allowed my parents to
make some changes in our lives.
Of all my childhood memories, none has the magic, the
pure dreaminess, of the night we heard a honk outside our
house and looked out the window to see that a spaceship
had landed in our driveway.
It had set down noiselessly next to my mothers station
wagon. The front lights flashed. The back end gave off a
red glow. For thirty seconds nothing more happened. But
then finally the window of the spaceship slowly retracted to
reveal, instead of a Martian inside, Milton. He had shaved
off his beard.
Get your mother, he called, smiling. Were going for a
little ride.
Not a spaceship then, but close: a 1967 Cadillac
Fleetwood, as intergalactic a car as Detroit ever produced.
(The moon shot was only a year away.) It was as black as
space itself and shaped like a rocket lying on its side. The
long front end came to a point, like a nose cone, and from
there the craft stretched back along the driveway in a long,
beautiful, ominously perfect shape. There was a silver multichambered
grille, as though to filter stardust. Chrome
piping, like the housing for circuitry, led from conical yellow
turn signals along the rounded sides of the car, all the way
to the rear, where the vehicle flared propulsively into jet fins
and rocket boosters.
Inside, the Cadillac was as plushly carpeted and softly lit as
the bar at the Ritz. The armrests were equipped with
ashtrays and cigarette lighters. The interior itself was black
leather and gave off a strong new smell. It was like climbing
into somebodys wallet.
We didnt move right away. We remained parked, as if it
were enough just to sit in the car, as if now that we owned it,
we could forget about our living room and stay in the
driveway every night. Milton started the engine. Keeping the
transmission in park, he showed us the marvels. He
transmission in park, he showed us the marvels. He
opened and closed the windows by pressing a button. He
locked the doors by pressing another. He buzzed the front
seat forward, then tilted it back until I could see the dandruff
on his shoulders. By the time he put the car into gear we
were all slightly giddy. We drove away down Seminole,
past our neighbors houses, already saying farewell to
Indian Village. At the corner, Milton put the blinker on and it
ticked, counting the seconds down to our eventual
departure.
The 67 Fleetwood was my fathers first Cadillac, but there
were many more to come. Over the next seven years,
Milton traded up almost every year, so its possible for me
to chart my life in relation to the styling features of his long
line of Cadillacs. When tail fins disappeared, I was nine;
when power antennas arrived, eleven. My emotional life
accords with the designs, too. In the sixties, when Cadillacs
were futuristically self-assured, I was also self-confident and
forward-looking. In the gas-short seventies, however, when
the manufacturer came out with the unfortunate Sevillea
car that looked as though it had been rear-endedI also
felt misshapen. Pick a year and Ill tell you what car we had.
1970: the cola-colored Eldorado. 1971: the red sedan
DeVille. 1972: the golden Fleetwood with the passenger
sun visor that opened up into a starlets dressing room
mirror (in which Tessie checked her makeup and I my first
blemishes). 1973: the long, black, dome-roofed Fleetwood
that made other cars stop, thinking a funeral was passing.
1974: the canary-yellow, two-door Florida Special with
white vinyl top, sunroof, and tan leather seats that my
mother is still driving today, almost thirty years later.
But in 1967 it was the space-age Fleetwood. Once we got
going the required speed, Milton said, Okay. Now get a
load of this. He flipped a switch under the dash. There was
a hissing sound, like balloons inflating. Slowly, as if lifted on
a magic carpet, the four of us rose to the upper reaches of
the cars interior.
Thats what they call the Air-Ride. Brand-new feature.
Smooth, huh?
Is it some kind of hydraulic suspension system? Chapter
Eleven wanted to know.
I think so.
Maybe I wont have to use my pillow when I drive, said
Tessie.
For a moment after that, none of us spoke. We were
headed east, out of Detroit, literally floating on air.
Which brings me to the second part of our upward mobility.
Shortly after the riots, like many other white Detroiters, my
parents began looking for a house in the suburbs. The
suburb they had their sights on was the affluent lakefront
district of the auto magnates: Grosse Pointe.
It was much harder than they ever expected. In the Cadillac,
scouting the five Grosse Pointes (the Park, the City, the
Farms, the Woods, the Shores), my parents saw for sale
signs on many lawns. But when they stopped in at the realty
offices and filled out applications, they found that the
houses suddenly went off the market, or were sold, or
doubled in price.
After two months of searching, Milton was down to his last
real estate agent, a Miss Jane Marsh of Great Lakes
Realty. He had herand some growing suspicions.
This property is rather eccentric, Miss Marsh is telling
Milton one September afternoon as she leads him up the
driveway. It takes a buyer with a little vision. She opens
the front door and leads him inside. But it does have quite
a pedigree. It was designed by Hudson Clark. She waits
for recognition. Of the Prairie School?
Milton nods, dubiously. He swivels his head, looking over
the place. He hadnt much cared for the picture Miss Marsh
had shown him over at the office. Too boxy-looking. Too
modern.
Im not sure my wife would go for this kind of thing, Miss
Marsh.
Im afraid we dont have anything moretraditional to show
at the moment.
She leads him along a spare white hallway and down a
small flight of open stairs. And now, as they step into the
sunken living room, Miss Marshs head begins to swivel,
too. Smiling a polite smile that reveals a rabbity expanse of
upper gum, she examines Miltons complexion, his hair, his
shoes. She glances at his real estate application again.
Stephanides. What kind of name is that?
Its Greek.
Greek. How interesting.
More upper gum flashes as Miss Marsh makes a notation
on her pad. Then she resumes the tour: Sunken living
room. Greenhouse adjoining the dining area. And, as you
can see, the house is well supplied with windows.
It pretty muchis a window, Miss Marsh. Milton moves
closer to the glass and examines the backyard. Meanwhile,
a few feet behind, Miss Marsh examines Milton.
May I ask what business youre in, Mr. Stephanides?
The restaurant business.
Another mark of pen on pad. Can I tell you what churches
we have in the area? What denomination are you?
I dont go in for that sort of thing. My wife takes the kids to
the Greek church.
Shes a Grecian, too?
Shes a Detroiter. Were both East Siders.
And you need space for your two children, is that right?
Yes, maam. Plus we have my folks living with us, too.
Oh, I see. And now pink gums disappear as Miss Marsh
begins to add it all up.Lets see. Southern Mediterranean.
One point. Not in one of the professions. One point.
Religion? Greek church. Thats some kind of Catholic,
isnt it? So theres another point there. And he has his
parents living with him! Two more points! Which makes
five! Oh, that wont do. That wont do at all.
To explain Miss Marshs arithmetic: back in those days, the
real estate agents in Grosse Pointe evaluated prospective
buyers by something called the Point System. (Milton
wasnt the only one who worried about the neighborhood
going to hell.) No one spoke of it openly. Realtors only
mentioned community standards and selling to the right
sort of people. Now that white flight had begun, the Point
System was more important than ever. You didnt want what
was happening in Detroit to happen out here.
Discreetly, Miss Marsh now draws a tiny 5 next to
Stephanides and circles it. As she does so, however, she
feels something. A kind of regret. The Point System isnt
her idea, after all. It was in place long before she came to
Grosse Pointe from Wichita, where her father works as a
butcher. But there is nothing she can do. Yes, Miss Marsh
feels sorry.I mean, really. Look at this house! Whos going
to buy it if not an Italian or a Greek. Ill never be able to
sell it. Never!
Her client is still standing at the window, looking out.
I do understand your preference for something more Old
World, Mr. Stephanides. We do get them from time to
time. You just have to be patient. Ive got your telephone
number. Ill let you know if anything comes on the market.
Milton doesnt hear her. He is absorbed in the view. The
house has a roof deck, plus a patio out back. And there are
two other, smaller buildings beyond that.
Tell me more about this Hudson Clark fella, he now asks.
Clark? Well, to be honest, hes a minor figure.
Prairie School, eh?
Hudson Clark was no Frank Lloyd Wright, if thats what you
mean.
What are these outbuildings I see here?
I wouldnt call them outbuildings, Mr. Stephanides. Thats
making it a bit grand. Ones a bathhouse. Rather decrepit,
Im afraid. Im not sure it even works. Behind that is the
guest house. Which also needs a lot of work.
Bathhouse? Thats different. Milton turns away from the
glass. He begins walking around the house, looking it over
in a new light: the Stonehenge walls, the Klimt tilework, the
open rooms. Everything is geometric and grid-like. Sunlight
falls in beams through the many skylights. Now that Im in
here, Milton says, I sort of get the idea behind this place.
The photo you showed me doesnt do it justice.
Really, Mr. Stephanides, for a family such as yours, with
young children, Im not sure this is quite the best
Before she can finish, however, Milton holds up his hands in
surrender. You dont have to show me any more. Decrepit
outbuildings or not, Ill take it.
There is a pause. Miss Marsh smiles with her doubledecker
gums. Thats wonderful, Mr. Stephanides, she
says without enthusiasm. Of course, its all contingent on
the approval of the loan.
But now it is Miltons turn to smile. For all the disavowals of
its existence, the Point System is no secret. Harry Karras
tried unsuccessfully to buy a house in Grosse Pointe the
year before. Same thing happened to Pete Savidis. But no
one is going to tell Milton Stephanides where to live. Not
Miss Marsh and not a bunch of country club real estate
guys, either.
You dont have to bother with that, my father said, relishing
the moment. Ill pay cash.
Over the barrier of the Point System, my father managed to
get us a house in Grosse Pointe. It was the only time in his
life he paid for anything up front. But what about the other
barriers? What about the fact that real estate agents had
shown him only the least-desirable houses, in the areas
closest to Detroit? Houses no one else wanted? And what
about his inability to see anything except the grand gesture,
and the fact that he bought the house without first consulting
my mother? Well, for those problems there was no remedy.
On moving day we set off in two cars. Tessie, fighting tears,
took Lefty and Desdemona in the family station wagon.
Milton drove Chapter Eleven and me in the new Fleetwood.
Along Jefferson, signs of the riots still remained, as did my
unanswered questions. What about the Boston Tea
Party? I challenged my father from the backseat. The
colonists stole all that tea and dumped it into the harbor.
That was the same thing as a riot.
That wasnt the same at all, Milton answered back. What
the hell are they teaching you in that school of yours? With
the Boston Tea Party the Americans were revolting against
another country that was oppressing them.
But it wasnt another country, Daddy. It was the same
country. There wasnt even such a thing as the United
States then.
Let me ask you something. Where was King George when
they dumped all that tea into the drink? Was he in Boston?
Was he in America even? No. He was way the hell over
there in England, eating crumpets.
The implacable black Cadillac powered along, bearing my
father, brother, and me out of the war-torn city. We crossed
over a thin canal which, like a moat, separated Detroit from
Grosse Pointe. And then, before we had time to register
the changes, we were at the house on Middlesex
Boulevard.
The trees were what I noticed first. Two enormous weeping
willows, like woolly mammoths, on either side of the
property. Their vines hung over the driveway like streamers
of sponge at a car wash. Above was the autumn sun.
Passing through the willows leaves, it turned them a
phosphorescent green. It was as though, in the middle of
the blocks cool shade, a beacon had been switched on;
and this impression was only strengthened by the house
wed now stopped in front of.
Middlesex! Did anybody ever live in a house as strange?
As sci-fi? As futuristic and outdated at the same time? A
house that was more like communism, better in theory than
reality? The walls were pale yellow, made of octagonal
reality? The walls were pale yellow, made of octagonal
stone blocks framed by redwood siding along the roofline.
Plate glass windows ran along the front. Hudson Clark
(whose name Milton would drop for years to come, despite
the fact that no one ever recognized it) had designed
Middlesex to harmonize with the natural surroundings. In
this case, that meant the two weeping willow trees and the
mulberry growing against the front of the house. Forgetting
where he was (a conservative suburb) and what was on the
other side of those trees (the Turnbulls and the Picketts),
Clark followed the principles of Frank Lloyd Wright,
banishing the Victorian vertical in favor of a midwestern
horizontal, opening up the interior spaces, and bringing in a
Japanese influence. Middlesex was a testament to theory
uncompromised by practicality. For instance: Hudson Clark
hadnt believed in doors. The concept of the door, of this
thing that swung one way or the other, was outmoded. So
on Middlesex we didnt have doors. Instead we had long,
accordion-like barriers, made from sisal, that worked by a
pneumatic pump located down in the basement. The
concept of stairs in the traditional sense was also
something the world no longer needed. Stairs represented
a teleological view of the universe, of one thing leading to
another, whereas now everyone knew that one thing didnt
lead to another but often nowhere at all. So neither did our
stairs. Oh, they went up, eventually. They took the persistent
climber to the second floor, but on the way they took him
lots of other places as well. There was a landing, for
instance, overhung with a mobile. The stairway walls had
peepholes and shelves cut into them. As you climbed, you
could see the legs of someone passing along the hallway
above. You could spy on someone down in the living room.
Where are the closets? Tessie asked as soon as we got
inside.
Closets?
The kitchens a million miles away from the family room,
Milt. Every time you want a snack you have to traipse all the
way across the house.
Itll give us some exercise.
And how am I supposed to find curtains for those
windows? They dont make curtains that big. Everyone can
see right in!
Think of it this way. We can see right out.
But then there was a scream at the other end of the house:
Mana!
Against her better judgment, Desdemona had pressed a
button on the wall. What kind door this is? she was
shouting as we all came running. It move by itself!
Hey, cool, said Chapter Eleven. Try it, Cal. Put your head
in the doorway. Yeah, like that . . .
Dont fool with that door, kids.
Im just testing the pressure.
Ow!
What did I tell you? Birdbrain. Now get your sister out of
the door.
Im trying. The button doesnt work.
What do you mean it doesnt work?
Oh, this is wonderful, Milt. No closets, and now we have to
call the fire department to get Callie out of the door.
Its not designed to have someones neck in it.
Mana!
Can you breathe, honey?
Yeah, but it hurts.
Its like that guy at Carlsbad Caverns, said Chapter
Eleven. He got stuck and they had to feed him for forty
days and then he finally died.
Stop wriggling, Callie. Youre making it
Imnot wriggling
I can see Callies underwear! I can see Callies
underwear!
Stop that right now.
Here, Tessie, take Callies leg. Okay, on three. A-one and
a-two and a-three!
We settled in, with our various misgivings. After the incident
with the pneumatic door, Desdemona had a premonition
that this house of modern conveniences (which was in fact
nearly as old as she was) would be the last she would ever
live in. She moved what remained of her and my
grandfathers belongings into the guest housethe brass
coffee table, the silkworm box, the portrait of Patriarch
Athenagorasbut she could never get used to the skylight,
which was like a hole in the roof, or the push-pedal faucet in
the bathroom, or the box that spoke on the wall. (Every
room on Middlesex was equipped with an intercom. Back
when they had been installed in the 1940sover thirty
years after the house itself had been built in 1909the
intercoms had probably all worked. But by 1967 you might
speak into the kitchen intercom only to have your voice
come out in the master bedroom. The speakers distorted
our voices, so that we had to listen very closely to
understand what was being said, like deciphering a childs
first, garbled speech.)
Chapter Eleven tapped into the pneumatic system in the
Chapter Eleven tapped into the pneumatic system in the
basement and spent hours sending a Ping-Pong ball
around the house through a network of vacuum cleaner
hoses. Tessie never stopped complaining about the lack of
closet space and the impractical layout, but gradually,
thanks to a touch of claustrophobia, she grew to appreciate
Middlesexs glass walls.
Lefty cleaned them. Making himself useful as always, he
took upon himself the Sisyphean task of keeping all those
Modernist surfaces sparkling. With the same concentration
he trained on the aorist tense of ancient Greek verbsa
tense so full of weariness it specified actions that might
never be completedLefty now cleaned the huge picture
windows, the fogged glass of the greenhouse, the sliding
doors that led to the courtyard, and even the skylights. As
he was Windexing the new house, however, Chapter
Eleven and I were exploring it. Or, I should say, them. The
meditative, pastel yellow cube that faced the street
contained the main living quarters. Behind that lay a
courtyard with a dry pool and a fragile dogwood leaning
over in vain to see its reflection. Along the western edge of
this courtyard, extending from the back of the kitchen, ran a
white, translucent tunnel, something like the tubes that
conduct football teams onto the field. This tunnel led to a
small domed outbuildinga sort of huge igloo
surrounded by a covered porch. Inside was a bathing pool
(just warming up now, getting ready to play its part in my
life). Behind the bathhouse was yet another courtyard,
floored with smooth black stones. Along the eastern edge
of this, to balance the tunnel, ran a portico lined with thin
brown iron beams. The portico led up to the guest house,
where no guests ever stayed: only Desdemona, for a short
time with her husband and a long time alone.
But more important to a kid: Middlesex had lots of sneakersized
ledges to walk along. It had deep, concrete window
wells perfect for making into forts. It had sun decks and
catwalks. Chapter Eleven and I climbed all over Middlesex.
Lefty would wash the windows and, five minutes later, my
brother and I would come along, leaning on the glass and
leaving fingerprints. And seeing them, our tall, mute
grandfather, who in another life might have been a
professor but in this one was holding a wet rag and bucket,
only smiled and washed the windows all over again.
Although he never said a word to me, I loved my
Chaplinesquepapou . His speechlessness seemed to be
an act of refinement. It went with his elegant clothes, his
shoes with woven vamps, the glaze of his hair. And yet he
was not stiff at all but playful, even comedic. When he took
me for rides in the car Lefty often pretended to fall asleep at
the wheel. Suddenly his eyes would close and he would
slump to one side. The car would continue on, unpiloted,
drifting toward the curb. I laughed, screamed, pulled my hair
and kicked my legs. At the last possible second, Lefty
would spring awake, taking the wheel and averting
disaster.
We didnt need to speak to each other. We understood
each other without speaking. But then a terrible thing
happened.
It is a Saturday morning a few weeks after our move to
Middlesex. Lefty is taking me for a walk around the new
neighborhood. The plan is to go down to the lake. Hand in
hand we stroll across our new front lawn. Change is clinking
in his trouser pocket, just below the level of my shoulders. I
run my fingers over his thumb, fascinated by the missing
nail, which Lefty has always told me a monkey bit off at the
zoo.
Now we reach the sidewalk. The man who makes the
sidewalks in Grosse Pointe has left his name in the
cement: J. P. Steiger. There is also a crack, where ants are
having a war. Now we are crossing the grass between the
sidewalk and the street. And now we are at the curb.
I step down. Lefty doesnt. Instead, he drops, cleanly, six
inches into the street. Still holding his hand, I laugh at him
for being so clumsy. Lefty laughs, too. But he doesnt look
at me. He keeps staring straight ahead into space. And,
gazing up, I suddenly can see things about my grandfather I
should be too young to see. I see fear in his eyes, and
bewilderment, and, most astonishing of all, the fact that
some adult worry is taking precedence over our walk
together. The sun is in his eyes. His pupils contract. We
remain at the curb, in its dust and leaf matter. Five
seconds. Ten seconds. Long enough for Lefty to come
face-to-face with the evidence of his own diminished
faculties and for me to feel the onrush of my own growing
ones.
What nobody knew: Lefty had had another stroke the week
before. Already speechless, he now began to suffer spatial
disorientation. Furniture advanced and retreated in the
mechanical manner of a fun house. Like practical jokers,
chairs offered themselves and then pulled away at the last
moment. The diamonds of the backgammon board
undulated like player piano keys. Lefty told no one.
Because he no longer trusted himself to drive, Lefty started
taking me on walks instead. (That was how wed arrived at
that curb, the curb he couldnt wake up and turn away from
in time.) We went along Middlesex, the silent, old, foreign
gentleman and his skinny granddaughter, a girl who talked
enough for two, who babbled so fluently that her father the
ex-clarinet man liked to joke she knew circular breathing. I
was getting used to Grosse Pointe, to the genteel mothers
in chiffon headscarves and to the dark, cypress-shrouded
house where the one Jewish family lived (having also paid
cash). Whereas my grandfather was getting used to a much
more terrifying reality. Holding my hand to keep his
balance, as trees and bushes made strange, sliding
movements in his peripheral vision, Lefty was confronting
the possibility that consciousness was a biological
accident. Though hed never been religious, he realized
now that hed always believed in the soul, in a force of
personality that survived death. But as his mind continued
to waver, to short-circuit, he finally arrived at the cold-eyed
conclusion, so at odds with his youthful cheerfulness, that
the brain was just an organ like any other and that when it
failed he would be no more.
A seven-year-old girl can take only so many walks with her
grandfather. I was the new kid on the block and wanted to
make friends. From our roof deck I sometimes glimpsed a
girl about my age who lived in the house behind us. She
came out onto a small balcony in the evenings and tugged
petals off flowers in the window box. In friskier moods, she
performed lazy pirouettes, as though to the accompaniment
of my own music box, which I always brought to the roof to
keep me company. She had long, white-blond hair cut in
bangs, and since I never saw her in the daytime, I decided
she was an albino.
But I was wrong: because there she was one afternoon in
sunshine, getting a ball that had flown onto our property.
Her name was Clementine Stark. She wasnt an albino, just
very pale, and allergic to hard-to-avoid items (grass, house
dust). Her father was about to have a heart attack, and my
memories of her now are tinged with a blue wash of
misfortune that hadnt quite befallen her at the time. She
was standing bare-legged in the jungly weeds that grew up
between our houses. Her skin was already beginning to
react to the grass cuttings stuck to the ball, whose
sogginess was suddenly explained by the overweight
Labrador who now limped into view.
Clementine Stark had a canopy bed moored like an
imperial barge at one end of her sea-blue bedroom carpet.
She had a collection of mounted poisonous-looking
insects. She was a year older than me, hence worldly, and
had been to Krakow once, which was in Poland. Because
of her allergies, Clementine was kept indoors a lot. This led
to our being inside together most of the time and to
Clementines teaching me how to kiss.
When I told my life story to Dr. Luce, the place where he
invariably got interested was when I came to Clementine
Stark. Luce didnt care about criminally smitten
grandparents or silkworm boxes or serenading clarinets.
To a certain extent, I understand. I even agree.
Clementine Stark invited me over to her house. Without
even comparing it to Middlesex, it was an overwhelmingly
medieval-looking place, a fortress of gray stone, unlovely
except for the one extravagancea concession to the
princessof a single, pointed tower flying a lavender
pennant. Inside there were tapestries on the walls, a suit of
armor with French script over the visor, and, in black
leotards, Clementines slender mother. She was doing leg
lifts.
This is Callie, Clementine said. Shes coming over to
play.
play.
I beamed. I attempted a kind of curtsy. (This was my
introduction to polite society, after all.) But Clementines
mother didnt so much as turn her head.
We just moved in, I said. We live in the house behind
yours.
Now she frowned. I thought Id said something wrongmy
first etiquette mistake in Grosse Pointe. Mrs. Stark said,
Why dont you girls go upstairs?
We did. In her bedroom Clementine mounted a rocking
horse. For the next three minutes she rode it without saying
another word. Then she abruptly got off. I used to have a
turtle but he escaped.
He did?
My mom says he could survive if he made it outside.
Hes probably dead, I said.
Clementine accepted this bravely. She came over and held
her arm next to mine. Look, Ive got freckles like the Big
Dipper, she announced. We stood side to side before the
full-length mirror, making faces. The rims of Clementines
eyes were inflamed. She yawned. She rubbed her nose
with the heel of her hand. And then she asked, Do you
want to practice kissing?
I didnt know what to answer. I already knew how to kiss,
didnt I? Was there something more to learn? But while
these questions were going through my head, Clementine
was going ahead with the lesson. She came around to face
me. With a grave expression she put her arms around my
neck.
The necessary special effects are not in my possession,
but what Id like for you to imagine is Clementines white
face coming close to mine, her sleepy eyes closing, her
medicine-sweet lips puckering up, and all the other sounds
of the world going silentthe rustling of our dresses, her
mother counting leg lifts downstairs, the airplane outside
making an exclamation mark in the skyall silent, as
Clementines highly educated, eight-year-old lips met mine.
And then, somewhere below this, my heart reacting.
Not a thump exactly. Not even a leap. But a kind of swish,
like a frog kicking off from a muddy bank. My heart, that
amphibian, moving that moment between two elements:
one, excitement; the other, fear. I tried to pay attention. I
tried to hold up my end of things. But Clementine was way
ahead of me. She swiveled her head back and forth the
way actresses did in the movies. I started doing the same,
but out of the corner of her mouth she scolded, Youre the
man. So I stopped. I stood stiffly with arms at my sides.
Finally Clementine broke off the kiss. She looked at me
blankly a moment, and then responded, Not bad for your
first time.
Mo-om! I shouted, coming home that evening. I made a
friend! I told Tessie about Clementine, the old rugs on the
walls, the pretty mother doing exercises, omitting only the
kissing lessons. From the beginning I was aware that there
was something improper about the way I felt about
Clementine Stark, something I shouldnt tell my mother, but I
wouldnt have been able to articulate it. I didnt connect this
feeling to sex. I didnt know sex existed. Can I invite her
over?
Sure, said Tessie, relieved that my loneliness in the
neighborhood was now over.
I bet shes never seen a house like ours.
And now it is a cool, gray October day a week or so later.
From the back of a yellow house, two girls emerge, playing
geisha. We have coiled up our hair and crossed take-out
chopsticks in it. We wear sandals and silk shawls. We carry
umbrellas, pretending theyre parasols. I know bits ofThe
Flower Drum Song , which I sing as we traverse the
courtyard and mount the steps to the bathhouse. We come
in the door, failing to notice a dark shape in the corner.
Inside, the bath is a bright, bubbling turquoise. Silk robes
fall to floor. Two giggling flamingos, one fair-skinned, the
other light olive, test the water with one toe each. Its too
hot. Its supposed to be that way. You first. No, you.
Okay. And then: in. Both of us. The smell of redwood and
eucalyptus. The smell of sandalwood soap. Clementines
hair plastered to her skull. Her foot appearing now and then
above the water like a shark fin. We laugh, float, waste my
mothers bath beads. Steam rises from the surface so thick
it obscures the walls, the ceiling, the dark shape in the
corner. Im examining the arches of my feet, trying to
understand what it means that they have fallen, when I see
Clementine breasting through the water to me. Her face
appears out of the steam. I think were going to kiss again,
but instead she wraps her legs around my waist. Shes
laughing hysterically, covering her mouth. Her eyes widen
and she says into my ear, Get some comfort. She hoots
like a monkey and pulls me back onto a shelf in the tub. I fall
between her legs, I fall on top of her, we sink . . . and then
were twirling, spinning in the water, me on top, then her,
then me, and giggling, and making bird cries. Steam
envelops us, cloaks us; light sparkles on the agitated water;
and we keep spinning, so that at some point Im not sure
which hands are mine, which legs. We arent kissing. This
game is far less serious, more playful, free-style, but were
gripping each other, trying not to let the others slippery
body go, and our knees bump, our tummies slap, our hips
slide back and forth. Various submerged softnesses on
Clementines body are delivering crucial information to
mine, information I store away but wont understand until
years later. How long do we spin? I have no idea. But at
some point we get tired. Clementine beaches on the shelf,
with me on top. I rise on my knees to get my bearingsand
then freeze, hot water or not. For right there, sitting in the
corner of the roomis my grandfather! I see him for a
second, leaning over sidewaysis he laughing? angry?
and then the steam rises again and blots him out.
I am too stunned to move or speak. How long has he been
there? What did he see? We were just doing water ballet,
Clementine says lamely. The steam parts again. Lefty
hasnt moved. Hes sitting exactly as before, head tilted to
one side. He looks as pale as Clementine. For one crazy
second I think hes playing our driving game, pretending to
asleep, but then I understand that he will never play anything
ever again . . .
And next all the intercoms in the house are wailing. I shout
to Tessie in the kitchen, who shouts to Milton in the den,
who shouts to Desdemona in the guest house. Come
quick! Somethings wrong withpapou ! And then more
screaming and an ambulance flashing its lights and my
mother telling Clementine its time for her to go home now.
Later that night: the spotlight rises on two rooms in our new
house on Middlesex. In one pool of light, an old woman
crosses herself and prays, while in the other a seven-yearold
girl is also praying, praying for forgiveness, because it
was clear to me that I was responsible. It was what I did . . .
what Lefty saw . . . And I am promising never to do anything
like that again and askingPlease dont let papoudie and
swearingIt was Clementines fault. She made me do it.
(And now its time for Mr. Starks heart to have its moment.
Its arteries coated with what looks like foie gras, it seizes
up one day. Clementines father crumples forward in the
shower. Down on the first floor, sensing something, Mrs.
Stark stops doing leg lifts; and three weeks later she sells
the house and moves her daughter away. I never saw
Clementine again . . .)
Lefty did recover and came home from the hospital. But this
was only a pause in the slow but inevitable dissolution of
his mind. Over the next three years, the hard disk of his
memory slowly began to be erased, beginning with the
most recent information and proceeding backward. At first
Lefty forgot short-term things like whered he put down his
fountain pen or his glasses, and then he forgot what day it
was, what month, and finally what year. Chunks of his life fell
away, so that while we were moving ahead in time, he was
moving back. In 1969 it became clear to us that he was
living in 1968, because he kept shaking his head over the
assassinations of Martin Luther King, Jr., and Robert
Kennedy. By the time we crossed over into the valley of the
seventies, Lefty was back in the fifties. Once again he was
excited about the completion of the St. Lawrence Seaway,
and he stopped referring to me altogether because I hadnt
been born. He reexperienced his gambling mania and his
feelings of uselessness after retiring, but this soon passed
because it was the 1940s and he was running the bar and
grill again. Every morning he got up as though he were
going to work. Desdemona had to devise elaborate ruses
going to work. Desdemona had to devise elaborate ruses
to satisfy him, telling him that our kitchen was the Zebra
Room, only redecorated, and lamenting at how bad
business was. Sometimes she invited ladies from church
over who played along, ordering coffee and leaving money
on the kitchen counter.
In his mind Lefty Stephanides grew younger and younger
while in actuality he continued to age, so that he often tried
to lift things he couldnt or to tackle stairs his legs couldnt
climb. Falls ensued. Things shattered. At these moments,
bending to help him up, Desdemona would see a
momentary clarity in her husbands eyes, as if he were
playing along too, pretending to relive his life in the past so
as not to face the present. Then he would begin to cry and
Desdemona would lie down next to him, holding him until
the fit ended.
But soon he was back in the thirties and was searching the
radio, listening for speeches from FDR. He mistook our
black milkman for Jimmy Zizmo and sometimes climbed up
into his truck, thinking they were going rum-running. Using
his chalkboard, he engaged the milkman in conversations
about bootleg whiskey, and even if this had made sense,
the milkman wouldnt have been able to understand,
because right about this time Leftys English began to
deteriorate. He made spelling and grammatical mistakes
hed long mastered and soon he was writing broken
English and then no English at all. He made written
allusions to Bursa, and now Desdemona began to worry.
She knew that the backward progression of her husbands
mind could lead to only one place, back to the days when
he wasnt her husband but her brother, and she lay in bed at
night awaiting the moment with trepidation. In a sense she
began to live in reverse, too, because she suffered the
heart palpitations of her youth.O God, she prayed,Let me
die now. Before Lefty gets back to the boat . And then one
morning when she got up, Lefty was sitting at the breakfast
table. His hair was pomaded à la Valentino with some
Vaseline hed found in the medicine chest. A dishrag was
wrapped around his neck like a scarf. And on the table was
the chalkboard, on which was written, in Greek, Good
morning, sis.
For three days he teased her as he used to do, and pulled
her hair, and performed dirty Karaghiozis puppet shows.
Desdemona hid his chalkboard, but it was no use. During
Sunday dinner he took a fountain pen from Uncle Petes
shirt pocket and wrote on the tablecloth, Tell my sister
shes getting fat. Desdemona blanched. She put her hands
to her face and waited for the blow shed always feared to
descend. But Peter Tatakis only took the pen from Lefty
and said, It appears that Lefty is now under the delusion
that you are his sister. Everyone laughed. What else could
they do?Hey there, sis, everyone kept saying to
Desdemona all afternoon, and each time she jumped; each
time she thought her heart would stop.
But this stage didnt last long. My grandfathers mind,
locked in its graveyard spiral, accelerated as it hurtled
toward its destruction, and three days later he started
cooing like a baby and the next he started soiling himself.
At that point, when there was almost nothing left of him,
God allowed Lefty Stephanides to remain another three
months, until the winter of 1970. In the end he became as
fragmentary as the poems of Sappho he never succeeded
in restoring, and finally one morning he looked up into the
face of the woman whod been the greatest love of his life
and failed to recognize her. And then there was another
kind of blow inside his head; blood pooled in his brain for
the last time, washing even the last fragments of his self
away.
From the beginning there existed a strange balance
between my grandfather and me. As I cried my first cry,
Lefty was silenced; and as he gradually lost the ability to
see, to taste, to hear, to think or even remember, I began to
see, taste, and remember everything, even stuff I hadnt
seen, eaten, or done. Already latent inside me, like the
future 120 mph serve of a tennis prodigy, was the ability to
communicate between the genders, to see not with the
monovision of one sex but in the stereoscope of both. So
that at themakaria after the funeral, I looked around the
table at the Grecian Gardens and knew what everyone was
feeling. Milton was beset by a storm of emotion he refused
to acknowledge. He worried that if he spoke he might start
to cry, and so said nothing throughout the meal, and
plugged his mouth with bread. Tessie was seized with a
desperate love for Chapter Eleven and me and kept
hugging us and smoothing our hair, because children were
the only balm against death. Sourmelina was remembering
the day at Grand Trunk when shed told Lefty that she would
know his nose anywhere. Peter Tatakis was lamenting the
fact that he would never have a widow to mourn his death.
Father Mike was favorably reviewing the eulogy hed given
earlier that morning, while Aunt Zo was wishing she had
married someone like her father.
The only one whose emotions I couldnt plumb was
Desdemona. Silently, in the widows position of honor at
the head of the table, she picked at her whitefish and drank
her glass of Mavrodaphne, but her thoughts were as
obscured to me as her face behind her black veil.
Lacking any clairvoyance into my grandmothers state of
mind that day, Ill just tell you what happened next. After
themakaria , my parents, grandmother, brother, and I got
into my fathers Fleetwood. With a purple funeral pennant
flying from the antenna, we left Greektown and headed
down Jefferson. The Cadillac was three years old now, the
oldest one Milton ever had. As we were passing the old
Medusa Cement factory, I heard a long hiss and thought
that myyia yia , sitting next to me, was sighing over her
misfortunes. But then I noticed that the seat was tilting.
Desdemona was sinking down. She who had always
feared automobiles was being swallowed by the backseat.
It was the Air-Ride. You werent supposed to turn it on
unless you were going at least thirty miles per hour.
Distracted by grief, Milton had been going only twenty-five.
The hydraulic system ruptured. The passenger side of the
car sloped down and stayed like that from then on. (And my
father began trading in his cars in every year.)
Limping, dragging, we returned home. My mother helped
Desdemona out of the car and led her to the guest house
out back. It took some time. Desdemona kept leaning on
her cane to rest. Finally, outside her door, she announced,
Tessie, I am going to bed now.
Okay,yia yia , my mother said. You take a rest.
I am going to bed, Desdemona said again. She turned
and went inside. Beside the bed, her silkworm box was still
open. That morning, she had taken out Leftys wedding
crown, cutting it away from her own so he could be buried
with it. She looked into the box for a moment now before
closing it. Then she undressed. She took off her black
dress and hung it in the garment bag full of mothballs. She
returned her shoes to the box from Penneys. After putting
on her nightgown, she rinsed out her panty hose in the
bathroom and hung them over the shower rod. And then,
even though it was only three in the afternoon, she got into
bed.
For the next ten years, except for a bath every Friday, she
never got out again.
THE MEDITERRANEAN DIET
She didnt like being left on earth. She didnt like being left
in America. She was tired of living. She was having a
harder and harder time climbing stairs. A womans life was
over once her husband died. Somebody had given her the
evil eye.
Such were the answers Father Mike brought back to us the
third day after Desdemona refused to get out of bed. My
mother asked him to talk to her and he returned from the
guest house with his Fra Angelico eyebrows lifted in tender
exasperation. Dont worry, itll pass, he said. I see this
kind of thing with widows all the time.
We believed him. But as the weeks went by, Desdemona
only became more depressed and withdrawn. A habitual
early riser, she began to sleep late. When my mother
brought in a breakfast tray, Desdemona opened one eye
and gestured for her to leave it. Eggs got cold. Coffee
filmed over. The only thing that roused her was her daily
lineup of soap operas. She watched the cheating husbands
and scheming wives as faithfully as ever, but she didnt
reprimand them anymore, as if shed given up correcting
the errors of the world. Propped up against the headboard,
her hairnet cinched on her forehead like a diadem,
Desdemona looked as ancient and indomitable as the
elderly Queen Victoria. A queen of a sceptered isle that
consisted only of a bird-filled bedroom. A queen in exile,
with only two attendants remaining, Tessie and me.
Pray for me to die, she instructed me. Pray foryia yia to
die and go be withpapou .
. . . But before I go on with Desdemonas story, I want to
update you on developments with Julie Kikuchi. With
regard to the main point: there have been no
developments. On our last day in Pomerania, we got very
cozy, Julie and I. Pomerania belonged to East Germany.
The seaside villas of Herringsdorf had been allowed to fall
apart for fifty years. Now, after reunification, there is a real
estate boom. Being Americans, Julie and I could not fail but
be alert to this. As we strolled the wide boardwalk, holding
hands, we speculated about buying this or that old,
crumbling villa and fixing it up. We could get used to the
nudists, Julie said. We could get a Pomeranian, I said. I
dont know what came over us. That we. We were
prodigal in its usage, we were reckless with its
implications. Artists have good instinct for real estate. And
Herringsdorf energized Julie. We inquired about a few coops,
a new thing here. We toured two or three mansions. It
was all very marital. Under the influence of that old,
aristocratic, nineteenth-century summer resort, Julie and I
were acting old-fashioned, too. We discussed setting up
house without even having slept together. But of course we
never mentioned love or marriage. Only down payments.
But on the way back to Berlin a familiar fear descended on
me. Humming over the road, I began to look ahead. I
thought of the next step and what would be required of me.
The preparations, the explanations, the very real possibility
of shock, horror, withdrawal, rebuff. The usual reactions.
Whats the matter? Julie asked me.
Nothing.
You seem quiet.
Just tired.
In Berlin, I dropped her off. My hug was cold, peremptory. I
havent called her since. She left a message on my
machine. I didnt respond. And now she has stopped
calling, too. So its all over with Julie. Over before it began.
And instead of sharing a future with someone, I am back
again with the past, with Desdemona who wanted no future
at all . . .
I brought her dinner, sometimes lunch. I carried trays along
the portico of brown metal posts. Above was the sun deck,
underutilized, the redwood rotting. To my right was the
bathhouse, smooth and poured. The guest house repeated
the clean, rectilinear lines of the main house. The
architecture of Middlesex was an attempt to rediscover
pure origins. At the time, I didnt know about all that. But as I
pushed through the door into the skylit guest house I was
aware of the disparities. The boxlike room, stripped of all
embellishment or parlor fussiness, a room that wished to
be timeless or ahistorical, and there, in the middle of it, my
deeply historical, timeworn grandmother. Everything about
Middlesex spoke of forgetting and everything about
Desdemona made plain the inescapability of
remembering. Against her heap of pillows she lay, exuding
woe vapors, but in a kindly way. That was the signature of
my grandmother and the Greek ladies of her generation:
the kindliness of their despair. How they moaned while
offering you sweets! How they complained of physical
ailments while patting your knee! My visits always cheered
Desdemona up. Hello, dollymou , she said, smiling. I sat
on the bed as she stroked my hair, cooing endearments in
Greek. With my brother Desdemona kept a happy face the
entire time he was there. But with me, after ten minutes, her
buoyant eyes subsided, and she told me the truth about
how she felt. I am too old now. Too old, honey.
Her lifelong hypochondria had never had a better field in
which to flower. When she first sentenced herself to the
mahogany limbo of her four-poster bed, Desdemona
complained only of her usual heart palpitations. But a week
later she began to suffer fatigue, dizziness, and circulation
problems. I am having in my legs pain. The blood it doesnt
move.
Shes fine, Dr. Philobosian told my parents, after a halfhour
examination. Not young anymore, but I see nothing
serious.
I no can breathe! Desdemona argued with him.
Your lungs sound fine.
My leg it is like needles.
Try rubbing it. To stimulate the circulation.
Hes too old now too, Desdemona said after Dr. Phil had
left. Get me a new doctor who he isnt already dead
himself.
My parents complied. Violating our family loyalty to Dr. Phil,
they went behind his back and called in new physicians. A
Dr. Tuttlesworth. A Dr. Katz. The unfortunately named Dr.
Cold. Every single one gave Desdemona the same dire
diagnosis that there was nothing wrong with her. They
looked into the wrinkled prunes of her eyes; they peered
into the dried apricots of her ears; they listened to the
indestructible pump of her heart, and pronounced her well.
We tried to cajole her out of bed. We invited her to
watchNever on Sunday on the big television. We called
Aunt Lina in New Mexico and put the phone up to the
intercom. Listen, Des, why dont you visit me down here?
Its so hot youll think youre back in thehoreo .
I no can hear you, Lina! Desdemona shouted, despite her
lung problems. It is working no good the machine!
Finally, appealing to Desdemonas fear of God, Tessie told
her that it was a sin to miss church when you were
physically able to go. But Desdemona patted the mattress.
The next time I go to the church is in a coffin.
She began to make final preparations. From her bed she
directed my mother to clean out the closets. Papous
clothes you can give to the Goodwill. My nice dresses, too.
Now I only need something for to bury me. The necessity of
caring for her husband during his final years had made
Desdemona a bundle of activity. Only a few months before,
shed been peeling and stewing the soft food he ate,
changing his diapers, cleaning his bedding and pajamas,
and harrying his body with moistened towels and Q-tips.
But now, at seventy, the strain of having no one to care for
but herself aged her overnight. Her salt-and-pepper hair
turned completely gray and her robust figure sprang a slow
leak, so that she seemed to be deflating day by day. She
grew paler. Veins showed. Tiny red sunspots burst on her
chest. She stopped checking her face in the mirror.
Because of her poor dentures, Desdemona hadnt really
had lips for years. But now she stopped putting lipstick
even in the place where her lips used to be.
Miltie, she asked my father one day, you bought for me
the place next topapou ?
Dont worry, Ma. Its a double plot.
Nobody they are going take it?
Its got your name on it, Ma.
Itno have my name, Miltie! That why I worry. It havepapou
s name one side. Other side is grass only. I want you go
put sign it says, this place is foryia yia . Some other lady
maybe she die and try to get next to my husband.
But her funeral preparations didnt end there. Not only did
Desdemona pick out her burial plot. She also picked out
her mortician. Georgie Pappas, Sophie Sassoons brother
who worked at the T. J. Thomas Funeral Home, arrived at
Middlesex in April (when a bout of pneumonia was looking
promising). He carried his sample cases of caskets,
crematory urns, and flower arrangements out to the guest
house and sat by Desdemonas bed while she looked the
photographs over with the excitement of someone
browsing travel brochures. She asked Milton what he could
afford.
I dont want to talk about it, Ma. Youre not dying.
I am no asking for the Imperial. Georgie says Imperial is
top of line. But foryia yia Presidential is okay.
When the time comes, you can have whatever you want.
But
And satin inside. Please. And a pillow. Like here. Page
eight. Number five. Pay attention! And tell Georgie leave
my glasses.
As far as Desdemona was concerned, death was only
another kind of emigration. Instead of sailing from Turkey to
America, this time she would be traveling from earth to
heaven, where Lefty had already gotten his citizenship and
had a place waiting.
Gradually we became accustomed to Desdemonas retreat
from the family sphere. By this time, the spring of 1971,
Milton was busy with a new business venture. After the
disaster on Pingree Street, Milton vowed never to make the
same mistake again. How do you escape the real estate
rule of location, location, location? Simple: be everywhere
at once.
Hot dog stands, Milton announced at dinner one night.
Start with three or four and add on as you go.
With the remaining insurance money Milton rented space in
three malls in the Detroit metropolitan area. On a pad of
yellow paper, he came up with the design for the stands.
McDonalds has Golden Arches? he said. Weve got the
Pillars of Hercules.
If you ever drove along the blue highways anywhere from
Michigan to Florida, anytime from 1971 to 1978, you may
have seen the bright white neon pillars that flanked my
fathers chain of hot dog restaurants. The pillars combined
his Greek heritage with the colonial architecture of his
beloved native land. Miltons pillars were the Parthenon and
the Supreme Court Building; they were the Herakles of
myth as well as the Hercules of Hollywood movies. They
also got peoples attention.
Milton started out with three Hercules Hot Dogs but
quickly added franchises as profits allowed. He began in
Michigan but soon spilled over into Ohio, and from there
went on down the Interstate to the deep South. The format
was more like Dairy Queen than McDonalds. Seating was
minimal or nonexistent (at most a couple of picnic tables).
There were no play areas, no sweepstakes or Happy
Meals, no giveaways or promotions. What there was was
hot dogs, Coney Island style, as that term was used in
Detroit, meaning they were served with chili sauce and
onions. Hercules Hot Dogs were side-of-the-road places,
and usually not the nicest roads. By bowling alleys, by train
stations, in small towns on the way to bigger ones,
anywhere where real estate was cheap and a lot of cars or
people passed through.
I didnt like the stands. To me they were a steep comedown
from the romantic days of the Zebra Room. Where
were the knickknacks, the jukebox, the glowing shelf of
pies, the deep maroon booths? Where were the regulars? I
couldnt understand how these hot dog stands could make
so much more money than the diner ever had. But make
money they did. After the first, touch-and-go year, my
fathers chain of hot dog restaurants began to make him a
comfortably wealthy man. Aside from securing good
locations, there was another element to my fathers
success. A gimmick or, in todays parlance, a branding.
Ball Park franks plumped when you cooked them, but
Hercules Hot Dogs did something better. They came out of
the package looking like normal, udder-pink wieners, but
as they got hot, an amazing transformation took place.
Sizzling on the grill, the hot dogs bulged in the middle, grew
fatter, and, yes,flexed .
This was Chapter Elevens contribution. One night, my then
seventeen-year-old brother had gone down into the kitchen
to make himself a late-night snack. He found some hot
dogs in the refrigerator. Not wanting to wait for water to
boil, he got out a frying pan. Next he decided to cut the hot
dogs in half. I wanted to increase the surface area, he
explained to me later. Rather than slicing the hot dogs
lengthwise, Chapter Eleven tried various combinations to
amuse himself. He made notches here and slits there and
then he put all the hot dogs in a pan and watched what
happened.
Not much, that first night. But a few of my brothers incisions
resulted in the hot dogs assuming funny shapes. After that,
it became a kind of game with him. He grew adept at
manipulating the shapes of cooking hot dogs and, for fun,
developed an entire line of gag frankfurters. There was the
hot dog that stood on end when heated, resembling the
Tower of Pisa. In honor of the moon landing, there was the
Apollo 11, whose skin gradually stretched until, bursting, the
wiener appeared to blast off into the air. Chapter Eleven
made hot dogs that danced to Sammy Daviss rendition of
Bojangles and others that formed letters,L andS , though
he never accomplished a decentZ . (For his friends he had
hot dogs do other things. Laughter emanated from the
kitchen late at night. You heard Chapter Eleven: I call this
the Harry Reems, and then the other boys shouting: No
way, Stephanides! And while were on the subject, was I
the only one who was shocked by those old Ball Park ads
with their shots of red franks swelling and lengthening?
Where were the censors? Did anyone notice the
expressions on mothers faces when those ads played, or
the way, right afterward, they often discussed what kind of
buns they preferred? I certainly noticed, because I was a
girl at the time and those ads were designed to get my
attention.)
Once you ate a Hercules hot dog you never forgot it. Very
quickly they had wide name recognition. A large food
processing company offered to buy the rights and sell the
hot dogs in stores, but Milton, mistakenly thinking that
popularity is eternal, rejected it.
Aside from inventing the Herculean frankfurters, my brother
had little interest in the family business. Im an inventor, he
said. Not a hot dog man. In Grosse Pointe he fell into a
group of boys whose main bond was their unpopularity. A
hot Saturday night for them consisted of sitting in my
brothers room, staring at Escher prints. For hours they
followed figures up staircases that were also going down,
or watched geese turn into fish and then into geese again.
They ate peanut butter crackers, getting gunk all over their
teeth while quizzing each other on the periodic table. Steve
Munger, Chapter Elevens best friend, used to infuriate my
father with philosophical arguments. (But how can
youprove you exist, Mr. Stephanides?) Whenever we
picked my brother up at school I saw him through a
strangers eyes. Chapter Eleven was geeky, nerdy. His
body was a stalk supporting the tulip of his brain. As he
walked to the car, his head was often tilted back, alert to
phenomena in the trees. He didnt pick up on styles or
trends. Tessie still bought his clothes for him. Because he
was my older brother, I admired him; but because I was his
sister, I felt superior. In doling out our respective gifts God
had given me all the important ones. Mathematical
aptitude: to Chapter Eleven. Verbal aptitude: to me. Fix-it
handiness: to Chapter Eleven. Imagination: to me. Musical
talent: to Chapter Eleven. Looks: to me.
The beauty I possessed as a baby only increased as I grew
into a girl. It was no surprise why Clementine Stark had
wanted to practice kissing with me. Everyone wanted to.
Elderly waitresses bent close to take my order. Red-faced
boys appeared at my desk, stammering, Y-y-you dropped
your eraser. Even Tessie, angry about something, would
look down at meat my Cleopatra eyesand forget what
she was mad about. Wasnt there the slightest rumble in the
air whenever I brought in drinks to the Sunday debaters?
Uncle Pete, Jimmy Fioretos, Gus Panos, men fifty, sixty,
seventy years old looking up over expansive bellies and
having thoughts they didnt admit? Back in Bithynios, where
sustained respiration rendered a bachelor eligible, men of
equivalent age had successfully asked for the hand of a girl
like me. Were they remembering those days, lounging on
our love seats? Were they thinking, If this wasnt America, I
just might . . .? I cant say. Looking back now, I can only
remember a time when the world seemed to have a million
eyes, silently opening wherever I went. Most of the time they
were camouflaged, like the closed eyes of green lizards in
green trees. But then they snapped openon the bus, in
the pharmacyand I felt the intensity of all that looking, the
desire and the desperation.
For hours at a time I would admire my looks myself, turning
this way and that before the mirror, or assuming a relaxed
pose to see what I looked like in real life. By holding a hand
mirror I could see my profile, still harmonious at the time. I
combed my long hair and sometimes stole my mothers
mascara to do my eyes. But increasingly my narcissistic
pleasure was tempered by the unlovely condition of the
pool into which I gazed.
Hes popping his zits again! I complained to my mother.
Dont be so squeamish, Callie. Its just a little . . . here, Ill
wipe it off.
Gross!
Waitll you get pimples! Chapter Eleven shouted,
ashamed and furious, from the hallway.
Im not going to.
You will, too! Everybodys sebaceous glands overproduce
when they go through puberty!
Quiet, both of you, said Tessie, but she didnt need to. Id
already gotten quiet on my own. It was that word:puberty .
The source of a great amount of anxious speculation on my
part at the time. A word that lay in wait for me, jumping out
now and then, scaring me because I didnt know exactly
what it meant. But now at least I knew one thing: Chapter
Eleven was involved in it somehow. Maybe that explained
not only the pimples but the other thing about my brother Id
been noticing lately.
Not long after Desdemona took to her bed, Id begun to
notice, in the vague creepy way of a sister with a brother, a
new, solitary pastime of Chapter Elevens. It was a matter
of a perceptible activity behind the locked bathroom door.
Of a certain strain to the reply, Just a minute, when I
knocked. Still, I was younger than he was and ignorant of
the pressing needs of adolescent boys.
But let me backtrack a minute. Three years earlier, when
Chapter Eleven was fourteen and I was eight, my brother
had played a trick on me. It happened on a night when our
parents had gone out to dinner. It was raining and
thundering. I was watching television when Chapter Eleven
suddenly appeared. He was holding out a lemon cake.
Look what I have! he sang.
Magnanimously he cut me a slice. He watched me eat it.
Then he said, Im telling! That cake was for Sunday.
No fair!
I ran at him. I tried to hit him, but he caught my arms. We
wrestled standing up, until finally Chapter Eleven offered a
deal.
As I said: in those days, the world was always growing
eyes. Here were two more. They belonged to my brother,
who, in the guest bathroom, amid the fancy hand towels,
stood watching as I pulled down my underpants and lifted
my skirt. (If I showed him, he wouldnt tell.) Fascinated as he
was, he stayed at a distance. His Adams apple rose and
fell. He looked amazed and frightened. He didnt have
much to compare me to, but what he saw didnt misinform
him either: pink folds, a cleft. For ten seconds Chapter
Eleven studied my documents, detecting no forgery, as the
clouds burst overhead, and I made him get me one more
piece of cake.
Apparently, Chapter Elevens curiosity hadnt been
satisfied by looking at his eight-year-old sister. Now, I
suspected, he was looking at pictures of the real thing.
In 1971, all the men in our lives were gone, Lefty to death,
Milton to Hercules Hot Dogs, and Chapter Eleven to
bathroom solitaire. Leaving Tessie and me to deal with
Desdemona.
We had to cut her toenails. We had to hunt down flies that
found their way into her room. We had to move her
birdcages around according to the light. We had to turn on
the television for the days soap operas and we had to turn
it off before the murders on the evening news. Desdemona
didnt want to lose her dignity, however. When nature
called, she called us on the intercom, and we helped her
out of bed and into the bathroom.
The simplest way to say it is: years passed. As the
seasons changed outside the windows, as the weeping
willows shed their million leaves, as snow fell on the flat roof
and the angle of sunlight declined, Desdemona remained
in bed. She was still there when the snow melted and the
in bed. She was still there when the snow melted and the
willows budded again. She was there when the sun,
climbing higher, dropped a sunbeam straight though the
skylight, like a ladder to heaven she was more than eager
to climb.
What happened while Desdemona was in bed:
Aunt Linas friend Mrs. Watson died, and with the poor
judgment grief always brings, Sourmelina decided to sell
their adobe house and move back north to be close to her
family. She arrived in Detroit in February of 1972. The
winter weather felt colder than she ever remembered.
Worse, her time in the Southwest had changed her.
Somehow in the course of her life Sourmelina had become
an American. Almost nothing of the village remained in her.
Her self-entombed cousin, on the other hand, had never left
it. They were both in their seventies, but Desdemona was
an old, gray-haired widow waiting to die while Lina, another
kind of widow entirely, was a bottle redhead who drove a
Firebird and wore belted denim skirts with turquoise belt
buckles. After her life in the sexual counterculture, Lina
found my parents heterosexuality as quaint as a sampler.
Chapter Elevens acne alarmed her. She disliked sharing a
shower with him. A strained atmosphere existed in our
house while Sourmelina stayed with us. She was as garish
and out of place in our living room as a retired Vegas
showgirl, and because we watched her so closely out of the
corners of our eyes, everything she did made too much
noise, her cigarette smoke got into everything, she drank
too much wine at dinner.
We got to know our new neighbors. There were the
Picketts, Nelson, whod played tackle for Georgia Tech and
now worked for Parke-Davis, the pharmaceutical company,
and his wife, Bonnie, who was always reading the
miraculous tales inGuideposts . Across the street was
Stew Bright Eyes Fiddler, an industrial parts salesman
with a taste for bourbon and barmaids, and his wife, Mizzi,
whose hair changed color like a mood ring. At the end of
the block were Sam and Hettie Grossinger, the first
Orthodox Jews wed ever met, and their only child, Maxine,
a shy violin prodigy. Sam, however, was funny, and Hettie
was loud, and they talked about money without thinking it
was impolite, and so we felt comfortable around them. Milt
and Tessie often had the Grossingers over to dinner,
though their dietary restrictions continually baffled us. My
mother would drive all the way across town to buy kosher
meat, for instance, only to serve it with a cream sauce. Or
she would skip the meat and cream altogether and serve
crab cakes. Though faithful to their religion, the Grossingers
were midwestern Jews, low-key and assimilationist. They
hid behind their wall of cypresses and at Christmas put up
a Santa Claus along with lights.
In 1971: Judge Stephen J. Roth of the U.S. District Court
ruled thatde jure segregation existed in the Detroit school
system. He immediately ordered the schools to be
desegregated. There was only one problem. By 1971 the
Detroit student population was 80 percent black. That
busing judge can bus all he wants, Milton crowed, reading
about the decision in the paper. Doesnt make any
difference now. You see, Tessie? You understand why your
dear old husband wanted to get the kids out of that school
system? Because if I didnt, that goddamn Roth would be
busing them to school in downtown Nairobi, thats why.
In 1972: Five-foot five-inch S. Miyamoto, rejected by the
Detroit police force for failing to meet the five-foot seveninch
requirement (he had tried elevator heels, etc.),
appeared onThe Tonight Show to plead his case. I wrote a
letter to the police commissioner myself in support of
Miyamoto, but I never received a reply, and Miyamoto was
rejected. A few months later, Police Commissioner Nichols
was thrown from his horse during a parade. Thats what
you get! I said.
In 1972: H. D. Jackson and L. D. Moore, who had brought a
police brutality case for four million dollars, hijacked a
Southern Airways jet to Cuba, outraged at being awarded
damages in the amount of twenty-five dollars.
In 1972: Mayor Roman Gribbs claimed that Detroit had
turned around. The city had overcome the trauma of the 67
riots. Therefore, he wasnt planning on running for another
term. A new candidate appeared, the man who would
become the citys first African American mayor, Coleman
A. Young.
And I turned twelve.
A few months earlier, on the first day of sixth grade, Carol
Horning came into class wearing a slight but unmistakably
self-satisfied smile. Below this smile, as if displayed on a
trophy shelf, were the new breasts she had gotten over the
summer. She wasnt the only one. During the growing
months, quite a few of my schoolmates hadas adults
liked to saydeveloped.
I wasnt entirely unprepared for this. Id spent a month the
previous summer at Camp Ponshewaing, near Port Huron.
During the slow march of summer days I was aware, as one
is aware of a drum steadily beating across a lake, of
something unspooling itself in the bodies of my
campmates. Girls were growing modest. They turned their
backs to dress. Some had surnames stitched onto not only
shorts and socks but training bras, too. Mostly, it was a
personal matter that no one spoke about. But now and then
there were dramatic manifestations. One afternoon during
swimming hour, the tin door of the changing room clanged
open and shut. The sound caromed off the trunks of pine
trees, carrying past the meager beach out over the water,
where I floated on an inner tube, readingLove Story .
(Swimming hour was the only time I could get any reading
done, and though the camp counselors tried to motivate me
to practice my freestyle, I persevered every day in reading
the new bestseller Id found on my mothers night table.)
Now I looked up. Along a dusty brown path in the pine
needles, Jenny Simonson was advancing in a red, white,
and blue swimsuit. All nature grew hushed at the sight.
Birds fell silent. Lake swans unfurled tremendous necks to
get a glimpse. Even a chainsaw in the distance cut its
engine. I beheld the magnificence of Jenny S. The golden,
late afternoon light intensified around her. Her patriotic
swimsuit swelled in ways no one elses did. Muscles flexed
in her long thighs. She ran to the end of the dock and
plunged into the lake, where a throng of naiads (her friends
from Cedar Rapids) swam over to meet her.
Lowering my book, I looked down at my own body. There it
was, as usual: the flat chest, the nothing hips, the forked,
mosquito-bitten legs. Lake water and sun were making my
skin peel. My fingers had gotten all wrinkly.
Thanks to Dr. Phils decrepitude and Tessies prudishness,
I arrived at puberty not knowing much about what to expect.
Dr. Philobosian still had an office near Womens Hospital,
though the hospital itself had been closed down by then.
His practice had changed considerably. There were a few
remaining elderly patients who, having survived so long
under his care, were afraid to change doctors. The rest
were welfare families. Nurse Rosalee ran the office. She
and Dr. Phil had been married a year after they met
delivering me. Now she did the scheduling and
administered shots. Her Appalachian childhood had
acquainted her with government assistance, and she was a
whiz with the Medicaid forms.
In his eighties, Dr. Phil had taken up painting. His office
walls were covered salon-style with thick, swirling oils. He
didnt use a brush much, mainly a palette knife. And what
did he paint? Smyrna? The quay at dawn? The terrible fire?
No. Like many amateurs, Dr. Phil assumed that the only
proper subject for art was a picturesque landscape that had
nothing to do with his experience. He painted sea vistas
hed never seen and forest hamlets hed never visited,
complete with a pipe-smoking figure resting on a log. Dr.
Philobosian never talked about Smyrna and left the room if
anyone did. He never mentioned his first wife, or his
murdered sons and daughters. Maybe this was the reason
for his survival.
Nevertheless, Dr. Phil was becoming a fossil. For my
annual physical in 1972 he used diagnostic methods
popular back in medical school in 1910. There was a trick
where he pretended to slap me in the face to check my
reflexes. There was an auscultation accomplished with a
wineglass. When he bent his head to listen to my heart I
was treated to an aerial view of the Galápagos of scabs on
his bald pate. (The archipelago changed position from year
to year, continentally drifting across the globe of his skull
but never healing.) Dr. Philobosian smelled like an old
couch, of hair oil and spilled soup, of unscheduled naps.
His medical diploma looked as if it were written on
parchment. I wouldnt have been surprised if, to cure fever,
Dr. Phil had written out a prescription for leeches. He was
correct with me, never friendly, and directed most of his
conversation to Tessie, who sat in a chair in the corner.
What memories, I wonder, was Dr. Phil avoiding in not
looking at me? Did the ghosts of Levantine girls haunt
those cursory checkups, suggested by the fragility of my
collarbone, or the birdcall of my small, congested lungs?
Was he trying not to think of water palaces and loosened
robes, or was he just tired, old, half-blind, and too proud to
admit it?
Whatever the answer, year after year, Tessie faithfully took
me to him, in repayment for an act of charity during a
catastrophe he would no longer acknowledge. In his waiting
room I encountered the same tatteredHighlights magazine
every visit. Can you find these? the puzzle asked inside.
And there in the spreading chestnut tree were the knife, the
dog, the fish, the old woman, the candlestickall circled by
my own hand, shaky with earache, years and years before.
My mother avoided bodily matters, too. She never spoke
openly about sex. She never undressed in front of me. She
disliked dirty jokes or nudity in movies. For his own part,
Milton was unable to discuss the birds and the bees with
his young daughter, and so I was left, in those years, to
figure things out for myself.
From hints Aunt Zo let slip in the kitchen I was aware that
something happened to women every so often, something
they didnt like, something men didnt have to put up with
(like everything else). Whatever it was, it seemed safely far
off, like getting married or giving birth. And then one day at
Camp Ponshewaing, Rebecca Urbanus climbed up on a
chair. Rebecca was from South Carolina. She had slaveowning
ancestors and a trained voice. During dances with
the boys from the neighboring camp, she waved a hand in
front of her face as though holding a fan. Why was she up
on a chair? We were having a talent show. Rebecca
Urbanus was maybe singing or reciting the poetry of Walter
de la Mare. The sun was still high and her shorts were
white. And then suddenly, as she sang (or recited), the
back of her white shorts darkened. At first it appeared to be
only a shadow of the surrounding trees. Some kids waving
hand. But no: while our band of twelve-year-olds sat
watching, each of us in camp T-shirt and Indian headband,
we saw what Rebecca Urbanus didnt. While her upper half
performed, her bottom half upstaged her. The stain grew,
and it was red. Camp counselors were unsure how to react.
Rebecca sang, arms outflung. She revolved on her chair
before her theater-in-the-round: us, staring, perplexed and
horrified. Certain advanced girls understood. Others, like
me, thought: knife wound, bear attack. Right then Rebecca
Urbanus saw us looking. She looked down herself. And
screamed. And fled the stage.
I returned from camp browner and leaner, pinned with a
single badge (ironically, for orienteering). But that other
badge, which Carol Horning displayed so proudly the first
day of school, I was still without. I felt ambivalent about this.
On the one hand, if Rebecca Urbanuss mishap was any
indication, it might be safer to stay the way I was. What if
something similar happened to me? I went through my
closet and threw out anything white. I stopped singing
altogether. You couldnt control it. You never knew. It could
happen anytime.
Except, with me, it didnt. Gradually, as most of the other
girls in my grade began to undergo their own
transformations, I began to worry less about possible
accidents and more about being left behind, left out.
I am in math class, sometime during the winter of sixth
grade. Miss Grotowski, our youngish teacher, is writing an
equation on the blackboard. Behind her, at wooden-topped
desks, students follow her calculations, or doze, or kick
each other from behind. A gray winter Michigan day. The
grass outside resembles pewter. Overhead, fluorescent
lights attempt to dispel the seasons dimness. A picture of
the great mathematician Ramanujan (whom we girls at first
took to be Miss Grotowskis foreign boyfriend) hangs on
the wall. The air is stuffy in the way only air at school can be
stuffy.
And behind our teachers back, in our desks, we are flying
through time. Thirty kids, in six neat rows, being borne
along at a speed we cant perceive. As Miss Grotowski
sketches equations on the board, my classmates all around
me begin to change. Jane Blunts thighs, for instance,
seem to get a little bit longer every week. Her sweater
swells in front. Then one day Beverly Maas, who sits right
next to me, raises her hand and I see darkness up her
sleeve: a patch of light brown hair. When did it appear?
Yesterday? The day before? The equations get longer and
longer throughout the year, more complicated, and maybe
its all the numbers, or the multiplication tables; we are
learning to quantify large sums as, by new math, bodies
arrive at unexpected answers. Peter Quails voice is two
octaves lower than last month and he doesnt notice. Why
not? Hes flying too fast. Boys are getting peach fuzz on
upper lips. Foreheads and noses are breaking out. Most
spectacularly of all, girls are becoming women. Not
mentally or emotionally even, but physically. Nature is
making its preparations. Deadlines encoded in the species
are met.
Only Calliope, in the second row, is motionless, her desk
stalled somehow, so that shes the only one who takes in
the true extent of the metamorphoses around her. While
solving proofs she is aware of Tricia Lambs purse on the
floor next to her desk, of the tampon she glimpsed inside it
that morningwhich you use how, exactly?and whom
can she ask? Still pretty, Calliope soon finds herself the
shortest girl in the room. She drops her eraser. No boy
brings it back. In the Christmas pageant she is cast not as
Mary as in past years but as an elf . . . But theres still hope,
isnt there? . . . because the desks are flying, day after day;
arranged in their squadron, the students bank and roar
through time, so that Callie looks up from her ink-stained
paper one afternoon and sees it is spring, flowers budding,
forsythia in bloom, elms greening; at recess girls and boys
hold hands, kissing sometimes behind trees, and Calliope
feels gypped, cheated. Remember me? she says, to
nature. Im waiting. Im still here.
As was Desdemona. By April of 1972, her application to
join her husband in heaven was still working its way though
a vast, celestial bureaucracy. Though Desdemona was
perfectly healthy when she got into bed, the weeks, months,
and finally years of inactivity, coupled with her own
remarkable willpower to do away with herself, brought her
the reward of aPhysicians Handbook of ailments. During
her bedridden years Desdemona had fluid in her lungs;
lumbago; bursitis; a spell of eclampsia that manifested
itself a half-century later than etiologically normal and then
just as mysteriously vanished, to Desdemonas regret; a
severe case of shingles that made her ribs and back the
color and texture of ripe strawberries and stung like a cattle
prod; nineteen colds; a week of purely figurative walking
pneumonia; ulcers; psychosomatic cataracts which clouded
her vision on the anniversaries of her husbands death and
which she basically just cried away; and Dupuytrens
contracture, where inflamed fascia in her hand curled her
thumb and three fingers painfully into her palm, leaving her
middle finger raised in an obscene gesture.
One doctor enrolled Desdemona in a longevity study. He
was writing an article for a medical journal on The
Mediterranean Diet. To that end he plied Desdemona with
questions about the cuisine of her homeland. How much
yogurt had she consumed as a child? How much olive oil?
Garlic? She answered every one of his queries because
she thought his interest indicated that there was something,
at last, organically the matter with her, and because she
never missed a chance to stroll through the precincts of her
childhood. The doctors name was Müller. German by
blood, he renounced his race when it came to its cooking.
With postwar guilt, he decried bratwurst, sauerbraten, and
Königsberger Klopse as dishes verging on poison. They
were the Hitler of foods. Instead he looked to our own
Greek dietour eggplant aswim in tomato sauce, our
cucumber dressings and fish-egg spreads, ourpilafi ,
raisins, and figsas potential curatives, as life-giving,
artery-cleansing, skin-smoothing wonder drugs. And what
Dr. Müller said appeared to be true: though he was only
forty-two, his face was wrinkled, burdened with jowls. Gray
hair prickled up on the sides of his head; whereas my
father, at forty-eight, despite the coffee stains beneath his
eyes, was still the possessor of an unlined olive complexion
and a rich, glossy, black head of hair. They didnt call it
Grecian Formula for nothing. It was in our food! A veritable
fountain of youth in our dolmades and taramasalata and
even in our baklava, which didnt commit the sin of
containing refined sugar but had only honey. Dr. Müller
showed us graphs hed made, listing the names and birth
dates of Italians, Greeks, and a Bulgarian living in the
Detroit metropolitan area, and we saw our own entrant
Desdemona Stephanides, age ninety-onegoing strong in
the midst of the rest. Plotted against Poles killed off by
kielbasa, or Belgians done in by pommes frites, or Anglo-
Saxons disappeared by puddings, or Spaniards stopped
cold by chorizo, our Greek dotted line kept going where
theirs tailed off in a tangle of downward trajectories. Who
knew? As a people we hadnt had, for the past few
millennia, that much to be proud of. So it was perhaps
understandable that during Dr. Müllers house calls we
failed to mention the troubling anomaly of Leftys multiple
strokes. We didnt want to skew the graph with new data,
and so didnt mention that Desdemona was actually
seventy-one, not ninety-one, and that she always confused
sevens with nines. We didnt mention her aunts, Thalia and
Victoria, who both died of breast cancer as young women;
and we said nothing about the high blood pressure that
taxed the veins within Miltons own smooth, youthful
exterior. We couldnt. We didnt want to lose out to the
Italians or even that one Bulgarian. And Dr. Müller, lost in
his research, didnt notice the store display of mortuary
services next to Desdemonas bed, the photograph of the
dead husband next to the photograph of his grave, the
abundant paraphernalia of a widow abandoned on earth.
Not a member of a band of immortals from Mount Olympus.
Just the only member left alive.
Meanwhile, tensions between my mother and me were
rising.
Dontlaugh !
Im sorry, honey. But its just, youve got nothing to . . .
to . . .
Mom!
. . . to hold it up.
A tantrum-edged scream. Twelve-year-old feet running up
the stairs, while Tessie called out, Dont be so dramatic,
Callie. Well get you a bra if you want. Up into my
bedroom, where, after locking the door, I pulled off my shirt
before the mirror to see . . . that my mother was right.
Nothing! Nothing at all to hold up anything. And I burst into
tears of frustration and rage.
That evening, when I finally came back down to dinner, I
retaliated in the only way I could.
Whats the matter? Youre not hungry?
I want normal food.
What do you mean normal food?
American food.
I have to make whatyia yia likes.
What about whatI like?
You like spanikopita. Youve always liked spanikopita.
Well, I dont anymore.
Okay, then. Dont eat. Starve if you want. If you dont like
what we give you, you can just sit at the table until were
finished.
Faced with the mirrors evidence, laughed at by my own
mother, surrounded by developing classmates, I had come
to a dire conclusion. I had begun to believe that the
Mediterranean Diet that kept my grandmother alive against
her will was also sinisterly retarding my maturity. It only
served to reason that the olive oil Tessie drizzled over
everything had some mysterious power to stop the bodys
clock, while the mind, impervious to cooking oils, kept
going. That was why Desdemona had the despair and
fatigue of a person of ninety along with the arteries of a fiftyyear-
old. Might it be, I wondered, that the omega-3 fatty
acids and the three-vegetables-per-meal I consumed were
responsible for retarding my sexual maturity? Was yogurt
for breakfast stalling my breast development? It was
possible.
Whats the matter, Cal? asked Milton, eating while
reading the evening newspaper. Dont you want to live to
be a hundred?
Not if I have to eat this stuff the whole time.
But now Tessie was the one tearing up. Tessie who for
almost two years now had taken care of an old lady who
wouldnt get out of bed. Tessie who had a husband more in
love with hot dogs than her. Tessie who secretly monitored
her childrens bowel movements and so of course knew
exactly how greasy American foods could disrupt their
digestion. You dont do the shopping, she said, tearfully.
You dont see what I see. Whens the last time youve been
to the drugstore, Little Miss Normal Food? You know what
the shelves are full of? Laxatives! Every time I go to the
drugstore the person in front of me is buying Ex-Lax. And
not just one box. They buy it by the bushel.
Thats just old people.
Its not just old people. I see young mothers buying it. I see
teenagers buying it. You want to know the truth? This entire
country cant do number two!
Oh, now I really want to eat.
Is this about the bra, Callie? Because if it is, I told you
Mo-om!
But it was too late. What bra? Chapter Eleven asked. And
now, smiling: Does the Great Salt Lake think she needs a
bra?
Shut up.
Here. My glasses must be dirty. Let me clean them. Ah,
thats better. Now lets have a look
Shutup !
No, I wouldnt say the Great Salt Lake has undergone any
kind of geological
Well, your face has, zithead!
Still as flat as ever. Perfect for time trials.
But then Milton shouted, Goddamn it!drowning us both
out.
We thought he was tired of our bickering.
That goddamn judge!
He wasnt looking at us. He was staring at the front page
ofThe Detroit News . He was turning red and thenthat
high blood pressure we hadnt mentionedalmost purple.
That morning, at U.S. District Court, Judge Roth had
devised a clever way to desegregate the schools. If there
werent enough white students left in Detroit to go around,
he would get them from somewhere else. Judge Roth had
claimed jurisdiction over the entire metropolitan area.
Jurisdiction over the city of Detroit and the surrounding fiftythree
suburbs. Including Grosse Pointe.
Just when we get you kids out of that hellhole, Milton was
shouting, that goddamn Roth wants to send you back!
THE WOLVERETTE
If youve just tuned in, we have one humdinger of a field
hockey game on our hands! Final seconds of the last game
of the season between those two archrivals, the BCDS
Hornets and the B&I Wolverettes. Score tied 4 to 4. Face
off at midfield and . . . the Hornets have it! Chamberlain
stick-handling, passes to ORourke on the wing. ORourke
faking left, going right . . . shes by one Wolverette, by
another . . . and now she passes crossfield to Amigliato!
Here comes Becky Amigliato down the sideline! Ten
seconds left, nine seconds! In goal for the Wolverettes its
Stephanides andoh my, my, she doesnt see Amigliato
coming! What in the devil? . . . Shes looking at a leaf, folks!
Callie Stephanides is admiring a gorgeous, fire-red autumn
leaf, but what a time to do it! Here comes Amigliato. Five
seconds! Four seconds! This is it, folks, the championship
of the Middle School Junior Varsity season is on the line
but hold on . . . Stephanides hears footsteps. Now she
looks up . . . and Amigliato takes a slap shot! Ooowhee, its
a bullet! You can feel that one all the way up here in the
booth. The balls heading straight for Stephanides head!
She drops the leaf! Shes watching it . . . watching it . . .
gosh, you hate to see this, folks . . .
Is it true that right before death (by field hockey ball or
otherwise) your life flashes before your eyes? Maybe not
your whole life, but parts of it. As Becky Amigliatos slap
shot made for my face that fall day, the events of the last
half year flickered in my possibly-soon-to-be-extinguished
consciousness.
First of all, our Cadillacby then the golden Fleetwood
wending its way the previous summer up the long driveway
of the Baker & Inglis School for Girls. In the backseat, one
very unhappy twelve-year-old, me, arriving under duress for
an interview. I dont want to go to a girls school, Im
complaining. Id rather be bused.
And next another car picking me up, the following
September, for my first day of seventh grade. Previously, Id
always walked to Trombley Elementary; but prep school
has brought with it a host of changes: my new school
uniform, for instance, crested and tartaned. Also: this
carpool itself, a light green station wagon driven by a lady
named Mrs. Drexel. Her hair is greasy, thinning. Above her
upper lip, in an example of the foreshadowing I will learn to
identify in the coming years English class, is a mustache.
And now the station wagon is driving along a few weeks
later. Im looking out the window while Mrs. Drexels
cigarette uncoils a rope of smoke. We head into the heart
of Grosse Pointe. We pass long, gated driveways, the kind
of Grosse Pointe. We pass long, gated driveways, the kind
that always fill my family with wonder and awe. But now Mrs.
Drexel is turning up these drives. (It is my new classmates
who live at the end of them.) We rumble past privet hedges
and under topiary arches to arrive at secluded lakefront
homes where girls wait with satchels, standing very straight.
They wear the same uniform I do, but somehow it looks
different on them, neater, more stylish. Occasionally there is
also a well-coifed mother in the picture, clipping a rose
from the garden.
And next it is two months later, near the end of the fall term,
and the station wagon is climbing the hill to my no-longerbrand-
new school. The car is full of girls. Mrs. Drexel is
lighting another cigarette. Shes pulling up to the curb and
getting ready to lay a curse on us. Shaking her head at the
viewof the hilly, green campus, the lake in the distance
she says, Youse girls better enjoy it now. Best time of life
is when youre young. (At twelve, I hated her for saying that.
I couldnt imagine a worse thing to tell a kid. But maybe
also, due to certain other changes that began that year, I
suspected that the happy period of my childhood was
coming to an end.)
What else came back to me, as the hockey ball zeroed in?
Just about everything a field hockey ball could symbolize.
Field hockey, that New England game, handed down
fromold England, just like everything else in our school. The
building with its long echoing hallways and churchy smell,
its leaded windows, its Gothic gloom. The Latin primers the
color of gruel. The afternoon teas. The curtsying of our
tennis team. The tweediness of our faculty, and the
curriculum itself, which began, Hellenically, Byronically, with
Homer, and then skipped straight to Chaucer, moving on to
Shakespeare, Donne, Swift, Wordsworth, Dickens,
Tennyson, and E. M. Forster. Only connect.
Miss Baker and Miss Inglis had founded the school back in
1911, in the words of the charter, to educate girls in the
humanities and sciences and to cultivate in them a love of
learning, a modest comportment, an amiable grace, and an
interest in civic duty above all. The two women had lived
together on the far side of the campus in The Cottage, a
shingled bower that occupied a place in school mythology
akin to Lincolns log cabin in national legend. Fifth graders
were given a tour every spring. They filed by the two single
bedrooms (which fooled them maybe), the founders writing
desks still laid with fountain pens and licorice drops, and
the gramophone on which theyd listened to Sousa
marches. Miss Bakers and Miss Ingliss ghosts haunted
the school, along with actual busts and portraits. A statue in
the courtyard showed the bespectacled educators in a
fanciful, springtime mood, Miss Baker gesturing, Pope-like,
to bless the air, while Miss Inglis (forever the bottom) turned
to see what her colleague was bringing to her attention.
Miss Ingliss floppy hat obscured her plain features. In the
works only avant-garde touch, a thick wire extended from
Miss Bakers head, at the top of which hovered the object
of wonder: a hummingbird.
. . . All this was suggested by the spinning hockey ball. But
there was something else, something more personal, that
explained why I was its target. What was Calliope doing
playing goalie? Why was she encumbered by mask and
pads? Why was Coach Stork hollering at her to make the
save?
To answer simply: I wasnt very good at sports. Softball,
basketball, tennis: I was hopeless in every one. Field
hockey was even worse. I couldnt get used to the funny little
sticks or the nebulous, European strategies. Short on
players, Coach Stork put me in goal and hoped for the
best. It rarely happened. With a lack of team spirit, some
Wolverettes maintained that I possessed no coordination
whatsoever. Did this charge have merit? Is there any
connection between my present desk job and a lack of
physical grace? Im not going to answer that. But in my
defense I will say that none of my more athletic teammates
ever inhabited such a problematic body. They didnt have,
as I did, two testicles squatting illegally in their inguinal
canals. Unknown to me, those anarchists had taken up
residence in my abdomen, and were even hooked up to the
utilities. If I crossed my leg the wrong way or moved too
quickly, a spasm shot across my groin. On the hockey field I
often doubled over, my eyes tearing up, while Coach Stork
swatted me on the rump. Its just acramp , Stephanides.
Run it off. (And now, as I moved to block the slap shot, just
such a pain hit me. My insides twisted, erupting with a lava
flow of pain. I bent forward, tripping on my goalie stick. And
flow of pain. I bent forward, tripping on my goalie stick. And
then I was tumbling, falling . . .)
But theres still time to record a few other physical changes.
At the beginning of seventh grade I got braces, a full set.
Rubber bands now hooked my upper and lower palates
together. My jaw felt springy, like a ventriloquist dummys.
Every night before going to sleep I dutifully fit my medieval
headgear on. But in the darkness, while my teeth were
slowly coerced into straightness, the rest of my face had
begun to give in to a stronger, genetic predisposition
toward crookedness. To paraphrase Nietzsche, there are
two types of Greek: the Apollonian and the Dionysian. Id
been born Apollonian, a sun-kissed girl with a face ringed
with curls. But as I approached thirteen a Dionysian
element stole over my features. My nose, at first delicately,
then not so delicately, began to arch. My eyebrows,
growing shaggier, arched, too. Something sinister, wily,
literally satyrical entered my expression.
And so the last thing the hockey ball (coming closer now,
unwilling to endure any more exposition)the last thing the
hockey ball symbolized was Time itself, the unstoppability
of it, the way were chained to our bodies, which are
chained to Time.
The hockey ball rocketed forward. It hit the side of my
mask, which deflected it into the center of the net. We lost.
The Hornets celebrated.
In disgrace, as usual, I returned to the gymnasium. Carrying
my mask, I climbed out of the green bowl of the hockey
field, which was like an outdoor theater. Taking small steps,
I walked along the gravel path back to the school. In the
distance, down the hill and across the road, lay Lake St.
Clair, where my grandfather Jimmy Zizmo had faked his
death. The lake still froze in winter, but bootleggers didnt
drive over it anymore. Lake St. Clair had lost its sinister
glamour and, like everything else, had become suburban.
Freighters still plied the shipping channel, but now you
mostly saw pleasure boats, Chris-Crafts, Santanas, Flying
Dutchmen, 470s. On sunny days the lake still managed to
look blue. Most of the time, however, it was the color of cold
pea soup.
But I wasnt thinking about any of that. I was measuring my
steps, trying to go as slowly as possible. I was looking at
the gymnasium doors with an expression of wariness and
anxiety.
It was now, when the game was over for everyone else, that
it began for me. While my teammates were catching their
breath, I was psyching myself up. I had to act with grace,
with swift, athletic timing. I had to shout from the sidelines of
my being, Heads up, Stephanides! I had to be coach, star
player, and cheerleader all in one.
For despite the Dionysian revelry that had broken out in my
body (in my throbbing teeth, in the wild abandon of my
nose), not everything about me had changed. A year and a
half after Carol Horning came to school with brand-new
breasts, I was still without any. The brassiere Id finally
wheedled out of Tessie was still, like the higher physics, of
only theoretical use. No breasts. No period, either. All
through sixth grade Id waited and then through the summer
afterward. Now I was in seventh grade and still I was
waiting. There were hopeful signs. From time to time my
nipples became sore. Gingerly touching them, I felt a
pebble beneath the pink, tender flesh. I always thought that
this was the start of something. I thought I was budding. But
time after time the swelling and soreness went away, and
nothing came of it.
Of all the things I had to get used to at my new school, the
most difficult, therefore, was the locker room. Even now
with the season over, Coach Stork was standing by the
door, barking. Okay, ladies, hit the showers! Come on.
Hustle up! She saw me coming and managed to smile.
Good effort, she said, handing me a towel.
Hierarchies exist everywhere, but especially in locker
rooms. The swampiness, the nudity bring back original
conditions. Let me perform a quick taxonomy of our locker
room. Nearest the showers were the Charm Bracelets. As I
passed by, I glanced down the steamy corridor to see them
performing their serious, womanly movements. One Charm
Bracelet was bending forward, wrapping a towel around
her wet hair. She snapped upright, twisting it into a turban.
Next to her another Bracelet was staring into space with
empty blue eyes as she anointed herself with moisturizer.
Still another Bracelet lifted a water bottle to her lips,
exposing the long column of her neck. Not wanting to stare,
I looked away, but I could still hear the sound they made
getting dressed. Above the hiss of shower heads and the
slap of feet on tiles, a high, thin tinkling reached my ears, a
sound almost like the tapping of champagne flutes before a
toast. What was it? Cant you guess? From the slender
wrists of these girls, tiny silver charms were chiming
together. It was the ringing of tiny tennis rackets against tiny
snow skis, of miniature Eiffel Towers against half-inch
ballerinas on point. It was the sound of Tiffany frogs and
whales chiming together; of puppies tinkling against cats,
of seals with balls on their noses hitting monkeys with hand
organs, of wedges of cheese ringing against clowns faces,
of strawberries singing with inkwells, of valentine hearts
striking the bells around the necks of Swiss cows. In the
midst of all this soft chiming, one girl held out her wrist to
her friends, like a lady recommending a perfume. Her father
had just returned from a business trip, bringing her back
this latest present.
The Charm Bracelets: they were the rulers of my new
school. Theyd been going to Baker & Inglis since
kindergarten. Since pre-kindergarten! They lived near the
water and had grown up, like all Grosse Pointers,
pretending that our shallow lake was no lake at all but
actually the ocean. The Atlantic Ocean. Yes, that was the
secret wish of the Charm Bracelets and their parents, to be
not Midwesterners but Easterners, to affect their dress and
lockjaw speech, to summer in Marthas Vineyard, to say
back East instead of out East, as though their time in
Michigan represented only a brief sojourn away from home.
What can I say about my well-bred, small-nosed, trustfunded
schoolmates? Descended from hardworking, thrifty
industrialists (there were two girls in my class who had the
same last names as American car makers), did they show
aptitudes for math or science? Did they display mechanical
ingenuity? Or a commitment to the Protestant work ethic? In
a word: no. There is no evidence against genetic
determinism more persuasive than the children of the rich.
The Charm Bracelets didnt study. They never raised their
hands in class. They sat in the back, slumping, and went
home each day carrying the prop of a notebook. (But
maybe the Charm Bracelets understood more about life
than I did. From an early age they knew what little value the
world placed in books, and so didnt waste their time with
them. Whereas I, even now, persist in believing that these
black marks on white paper bear the greatest significance,
that if I keep writing I might be able to catch the rainbow of
consciousness in a jar. The only trust fund I have is this
story, and unlike a prudent Wasp, Im dipping into principal,
spending it all . . .)
Passing by their lockers in seventh grade, I wasnt aware of
all this yet. I look back now (as Dr. Luce urged me to do) to
see exactly what twelve-year-old Calliope was feeling,
watching the Charm Bracelets undress in steamy light. Was
there a shiver of arousal in her? Did flesh respond beneath
goalie pads? I try to remember, but what comes back is
only a bundle of emotions: envy, certainly, but also disdain.
Inferiority and superiority at once. Above all, there was
panic.
In front of me girls were entering and exiting the showers.
The flashes of nakedness were like shouts going off. A year
or so earlier these same girls had been porcelain figurines,
gingerly dipping their toes into the disinfectant basin at the
public pool. Now they were magnificent creatures. Moving
through the humid air, I felt like a snorkeler. On I came,
kicking my heavy, padded legs and gaping through the
goalie mask at the fantastic underwater life all around me.
Sea anemones sprouted from between my classmates
legs. They came in all colors, black, brown, electric yellow,
vivid red. Higher up, their breasts bobbed like jellyfish,
softly pulsing, tipped with stinging pink. Everything was
waving in the current, feeding on microscopic plankton,
growing bigger by the minute. The shy, plump girls were
like sea lions, lurking in the depths.
The surface of the sea is a mirror, reflecting divergent
evolutionary paths. Up above, the creatures of air; down
below, those of water. One planet, containing two worlds.
My classmates were as unastonished by their extravagant
traits as a blowfish is by its quills. They seemed to be a
different species. It was as if they had scent glands or
marsupial pouches, adaptations for fecundity, for
procreating in the wild, which had nothing to do with skinny,
hairless, domesticated me. I hurried by, desolate, my ears
ringing with the noise of the place.
Beyond the Charm Bracelets I passed next into the area of
the Kilt Pins. The most populous phylum in our locker room,
the Kilt Pins took up three rows of lockers. There they were,
fat and skinny, pale and freckled, clumsily putting on socks
or pulling up unbecoming underwear. They were like the
devices that held our tartans together, unremarkable, dull,
but necessary in their way. I dont remember any of their
names.
Past the Charm Bracelets, through the Kilt Pins, deeper
into the locker room, Calliope limped. Back to where the
tiles were cracked and the plaster yellowing, under the
flickering light fixtures, by the drinking fountain with the
prehistoric piece of gum in the drain, I hurried to where I
belonged, to my niche of the local habitat.
I wasnt alone that year in having my circumstances altered.
The specter of busing had started other parents looking
into private schools. Baker & Inglis, with an impressive
physical plant but a small endowment, wasnt averse to
increasing enrollment. And so, in the autumn of 1972, we
had arrived (the steam thins out this far from the showers
and I can see my old friends clearly): Reetika Churaswami,
with her enormous yellow eyes and sparrows waist; and
Joanne Maria Barbara Peracchio, with her corrected
clubfoot and (it must be admitted) John Birch Society
affiliation; Norma Abdow, whose father had gone away on
the Haj and never come back; Tina Kubek, who was Czech
by blood; and Linda Ramirez, half Spanish, half Filipina,
who was standing still, waiting for her glasses to unfog.
Ethnic girls we were called, but then who wasnt, when you
got right down to it? Werent the Charm Bracelets every bit
as ethnic? Werent they as full of strange rituals and food?
Of tribal speech? They said bogue for repulsive and
queer for weird. They ate tiny, crustless sandwiches on
white breadcucumber sandwiches, mayonnaise, and
something called watercress. Until we came to Baker &
Inglis my friends and I had always felt completely American.
But now the Bracelets upturned noses suggested that
there was another America to which we could never gain
admittance. All of a sudden America wasnt about
hamburgers and hot rods anymore. It was about
theMayflower and Plymouth Rock. It was about something
that had happened for two minutes four hundred years ago,
instead of everything that had happened since. Instead of
everything that was happening now!
Suffice it to say that, in seventh grade, Calliope found
herself aligned with, taken in by, nurtured and befriended by
the years newcomers. As I opened my locker, my friends
said nothing about my porous goaltending. Instead Reetika
kindly turned the subject to an upcoming math test. Joanne
Maria Barbara Peracchio slowly peeled off a knee sock.
Correctional surgery had left her right ankle as thin as a
broomstick. The sight of it always made me feel better
about myself. Norma Abdow opened her locker, looked in,
and shouted, Gross! I stalled, unlacing my pads. On either
side, my friends, with quick, shivery movements, stripped
off their clothes. They wrapped themselves in towels. You
guys? Linda Ramirez asked. Can I borrow some
shampoo? Only if youre my lunch peon tomorrow. No
way! Then no shampoo. Okay, okay. Okay, what?
Okay, Your Highness.
I waited until they left before I undressed. First I took off my
knee socks. I reached under my athletic tunic and pulled
down my shorts. After tying a bath towel around my waist, I
unbuttoned the shoulder straps of my tunic and pulled it
over my head. This left me with the towel and my jersey on.
Now came the tricky part. The brassiere I had was size 30
AA. It had a tiny rosette between the cups and a label that
read Young Miss by Olga. (Tessie had urged me to get an
old-fashioned training bra, but I wanted something that
looked like what my friends had, and preferably padded.) I
now fastened this item around my waist, clasps in front, and
then rotated it into position. At that point, one sleeve at a
time, I pulled my arms inside my jersey so that it sat on my
shoulders like a cloak. Working inside it, I slid the bra up
my torso until I could slip my arms through the armholes.
When that was accomplished, I put my kilt on under my
towel, removed my jersey, put on my blouse, and tossed the
towel away. I wasnt naked for a second.
The only witness to my cunning was our school mascot. On
the wall behind me a faded felt banner proclaimed: 1955
State Field Hockey Champions. Below this, striking her
customary insouciant pose, was the B&I Wolverette. With
her beady eyes, sharp teeth, and tapering snout, she stood
leaning on her hockey stick, right foot crossed over left
ankle. She wore a blue tunic with a red sash. A red ribbon
sat between her furry ears. It was difficult to tell if she was
smiling or snarling. There was something of the Yale
bulldogs tenacity in our Wolverette, but there was
elegance, too. The Wolverette didnt just play to win. She
played to keep her figure.
At the nearby drinking fountain, I pressed one finger over
the hole, making the water squirt high in the air. I put my
head into this stream. Coach Stork always touched our hair
before letting us leave, making sure it was wet.
The year I was packed off to private school, Chapter Eleven
went off to college. Although he was safe from the long arm
of Judge Roth, other arms had been reaching for him. One
hot day the previous July, as I was passing down our
upstairs hall, I heard a strange voice emanating from
Chapter Elevens bedroom. The voice was a mans and he
was reading numbers and dates. February fourth, the
voice said, thirty-two. February fifththree hundred and
twenty-one. February sixth . . . The accordion door wasnt
latched, so I peeked in.
My brother was lying on his bed, wrapped in an old afghan
Tessie had crocheted for him. His head extended from one
endeyes glazedand his white legs from the other.
Across the room his stereo amplifier was on, the radio
needle jumping.
That spring, Chapter Eleven had received two letters, one
from the University of Michigan informing him of his
acceptance and the other from the U.S. government
informing him of his eligibility for the draft. Since then my
apolitical brother had been taking an unusual interest in
current events. Every night, he watched the news with
Milton, tracking military developments and paying close
attention to the guarded statements of Henry Kissinger at
the Paris peace talks. Power is the greatest aphrodisiac,
Kissinger famously said, and it must have been true:
because Chapter Eleven was glued to the set night after
night, following the machinations of diplomacy. At the same
time, Milton was pricked by the strange desire of parents,
and especially of fathers, to see their children repeat their
own sufferings. Might do you some good being in the
service, he said. To which Chapter Eleven replied, Ill go
to Canada. You will not. If they call you up, youll serve your
country just like I did. And then Tessie: Dont worry. The
whole thingll be over before they can get you.
In the summer of 72, however, as I watched my numberstunned
brother, the war was still officially on. Nixons
Christmas bombings were still awaiting their holiday
season. Kissinger was still shuttling between Paris and
Washington to maintain his sex appeal. In actuality, the
Paris Peace Accords would be signed the following
January and the last American troops would pull out of
Vietnam in March. But as I peeked in at my brothers inert
body, no one knew that yet. I was aware only of what a
strange thing it was to be male. Society discriminated
against women, no question. But what about the
discrimination of being sent to war? Which sex was really
thought to be expendable? I felt a sympathy and
protectiveness for my brother Id never felt before. I thought
of Chapter Eleven in an army uniform, squatting in the
jungle. I imagined him wounded on a stretcher, and I started
to cry. The voice on the radio droned on: February twentyfirst
one hundred and forty-one. February twenty-second
seventy-four. February twenty-thirdtwo hundred and
six.
I waited until March 20, Chapter Elevens birthday. When
the voice announced his draft numberit was two hundred
and ninety, he would never go to warI burst into his room.
Chapter Eleven leapt out of bed. We looked at each other
andalmost unheard of between uswe hugged.
The next fall, my brother left not for Canada but for Ann
Arbor. Once again, as when Chapter Elevens egg had
dropped, I was left alone. Alone at home to note my fathers
growing anger at the nightly news, his frustration at the halfassed
way the Americans were waging the war (napalm
notwithstanding) and his increasing sympathy for President
Nixon. Alone, also, to detect a feeling of uselessness that
began to plague my mother. With Chapter Eleven out of the
house and me growing up, Tessie found herself with too
much time on her hands. She began to fill her days with
classes at the War Memorial Community Center. She
learned decoupage. She wove plant hangers. Our house
began to fill up with her craft projects. There were painted
baskets and beaded curtains, paperweights with various
objects suspended in them, dried flowers, colored grains
and beans. She went antiquing and hung an old washboard
on the wall. She took yoga, too.
It was the combination of Miltons disgust at the antiwar
movement and Tessies sense of uselessness that led
them to begin reading the entire one-hundred-and-fifteenvolume
set of the Great Books series. Uncle Pete had been
touting these books for a long time, not to mention quoting
from them liberally to score points in Sunday debates. And
now, with so much learning in the airChapter Eleven
majoring in engineering, I myself taking first-year Latin with
Miss Silber, who wore sunglasses in classMilton and
Tessie decided it was time to round out their education.
The Great Books arrived in ten boxes stamped with their
contents. Aristotle, Plato, and Socrates in one; Cicero,
Marcus Aurelius, and Virgil in another. As we shelved the
books in the built-in stacks on Middlesex, we read the
names, many familiar (Shakespeare), others not
(Boethius). Canon-bashing wasnt in vogue yet, and
besides, the Great Books began with names not unlike our
own (Thucydides), so we felt included. Heres a good one,
said Milton, holding up Milton. The only thing that
disappointed him was that the series didnt contain a book
by Ayn Rand. Nevertheless, that evening after dinner, Milton
began reading aloud to Tessie.
They went chronologically, starting with volume one and
working their way toward one hundred and fifteen. While I
did my homework in the kitchen I heard Miltons resonant,
drill-like voice saying, Socrates: There seem to be two
causes of the deterioration of the arts. Adeimantus: What
are they? Socrates: Wealth, I said, and poverty. When
the Plato got to be hard going, Milton suggested skipping
ahead to Machiavelli. After a few days of that, Tessie
asked for Thomas Hardy, but an hour later Milton put the
book down, unimpressed. Too many heaths, he
complained. Heath this and heath that. Then they readThe
Old Man and the Sea by Ernest Hemingway, which they
enjoyed, and then they gave the project up.
I bring up my parents failed assault on the Great Books for
a reason. Throughout my formative years, the set remained
on our library shelves, weighty and regal-looking with its
gold spines. Even back then the Great Books were working
on me, silently urging me to pursue the most futile human
dream of all, the dream of writing a book worthy of joining
their number, a one hundred and sixteenth Great Book with
another long Greek name on the cover: Stephanides. That
was when I was young and full of grand dreams. Now Ive
given up any hope of lasting fame or literary perfection. I
dont care if I write a great book anymore, but just one
which, whatever its flaws, will leave a record of my
impossible life.
The life which, as I shelved books, was finally revealing
itself. Because here is Calliope, opening another carton.
Here she is taking out number forty-five (Locke, Rousseau).
Here she is reaching up, without resorting to tiptoes, to put
it on the top shelf. And here is Tessie, looking up and
saying, I think youre growing, Cal.
It turned out to be an understatement. Beginning in January
of seventh grade and continuing into the following August,
my previously frozen body underwent a growth spurt of
uncommon proportions and unforeseeable consequences.
Though at home I was still kept on the Mediterranean Diet,
the food at my new schoolchicken pot pies, Tater Tots,
cubed Jell-Ocanceled out its fountain-of-youth effects
and, in all ways but one, I began to grow up. I sprouted with
the velocity of the mung beans we studied in Earth Science.
Learning about photosynthesis, we kept one tray in the dark
and one in the light, and measured them every day with
metric rulers. Like a mung bean my body stretched up
toward the great grow lamp in the sky, and my case was
even more significant because I continued to grow in the
dark. At night, my joints ached. I had trouble sleeping. I
wrapped my legs in heating pads, smiling through the pain.
Because along with my new height, something else was
finally happening. Hair was beginning to appear in the
required places. Every night, after locking my bedroom
door, I angled my desk lamp just so and began to count the
hairs. One week there were three; the next, six; two weeks
later, seventeen. In a grand mood one day I ran a comb
through them. About time, I said, and even that was
different: my voice was beginning to change.
It didnt do so overnight. I dont remember any cracking.
Instead my voice began a slow descent that continued for
the next couple of years. The earsplitting quality it had had
which I used as a weapon against my brother
disappeared. Hitting the free in the national anthem was a
thing of the past. My mother kept thinking that I had a cold.
Sales ladies looked past me for the woman who had asked
for help. It was a not unbewitching sound, a mix of flute and
bassoon, my consonants slightly slurred, a rush and
breathiness to most of my pronouncements. And there
were the signs only a linguist could pick up, middle-class
elisions, grace notes passed down from Greek into
midwestern twang, the heritage from my grandparents and
parents that lived on in me like everything else.
I grew tall. My voice matured. But nothing seemed
unnatural. My slight build, my thin waist, the smallness of my
head, hands, and feet raised no questions in anybodys
mind. Many genetic males raised as girls dont blend in so
easily. From an early age they look different, move
differently, they cant find shoes or gloves that fit. Other kids
call them tomboys or worse: ape-women, gorillas. My
skinniness disguised me. The early seventies were a good
time to be flat-chested. Androgyny was in. My rickety height
and foals legs gave me the posture of a fashion model. My
clothes werent right, my face wasnt right, but my angularity
was. I had that saluki look. Plus, for whatever reasonmy
dreamy temperament, my bookishnessI fit right in.
Still, it wasnt uncommon for certain innocent, excitable girls
to respond to my presence in ways they werent aware of.
Im thinking of Lily Parker, who used to lie down on the
lobby couches and rest her head in my lap, looking up and
saying, You have the most perfect chin. Or of June James,
who used to pull my hair over her own head, so that we
could share it like a tent. My body might have released
pheromones that affected my schoolmates. How else to
explain the way my friends tugged on me, leaned on me?
At this early stage, before my male secondary
characteristics had manifested themselves, before there
were whispers about me in the halls and girls thought twice
about laying their heads in my lapin seventh grade, when
my hair was glossy instead of frizzy, my cheeks still smooth,
my muscles undeveloped, and yet, invisibly but
unmistakably, I began to exude some kind of masculinity, in
the way I tossed up and caught my eraser, for instance, or
in the way I dive-bombed peoples desserts with my spoon,
in the intensity of my knit brow or my eagerness to debate
anyone on anything in class; when I was a changeling,
before I changed, I was quite popular at my new school.
But this stage was brief. Soon my headgear lost its
nighttime war against the forces of crookedness. Apollo
gave in to Dionysius. Beauty may always be a little bit
freakish, but the year I turned thirteen I was becoming
freakier than ever.
Consider the yearbook. In the field hockey team photo,
taken in the fall, I am on one knee in the front row. With my
homeroom in the spring, I am stooping in the back. My face
is shadowed with self-consciousness. (Over the years my
perpetually perplexed expression would drive
photographers to distraction. It ruined class photos and
Christmas cards until, in the most widely published pictures
of me, the problem was finally solved by blocking out my
face altogether.)
If Milton missed having a beautiful daughter, I never knew it.
At weddings he still asked me to dance, regardless of how
ridiculous we looked together. Come on,kukla , hed say,
lets cut the rug, and wed be off, the squat, plump father
leading with confident, old-fashioned, fox-trot steps, and the
awkward praying mantis of a daughter trying to follow
along. My parents love for me didnt diminish with my
looks. I think its fair to say, however, that as my
appearance changed in those years a species of sadness
infiltrated my parents love. They worried that I wouldnt
attract boys, that I would be a wallflower, like Aunt Zo.
Sometimes when we were dancing, Milton squared his
shoulders and looked around the floor, as if daring anyone
to make a crack.
My response to all this growing was to grow my hair. Unlike
the rest of me, which seemed bent on doing whatever it
wanted, my hair remained under my control. And so like
Desdemona after her disastrous YWCA makeover, I
refused to let anyone cut it. All through seventh grade and
into eighth I pursued my goal. While college students
marched against the war, Calliope protested against hair
clippers. While bombs were secretly dropped on
Cambodia, Callie did what she could to keep her own
secrets. By the spring of 1973, the war was officially over.
President Nixon would be out of office in August of the next
year. Rock music was giving way to disco. Across the
nation, hairstyles were changing. But Calliopes head, like
a midwesterner who always got the fashions late, still
thought it was the sixties.
My hair! My unbelievably abundant, thirteen-year-old hair!
Has there ever existed a head of hair like mine at thirteen?
Did any girl ever summon as many Roto-Rooter men out of
their trucks? Monthly, weekly, semiweekly, the drains in our
house clogged. Jesus Christ, Milton complained, writing
out yet another check, youre worse than those goddamn
tree roots. Hair like a ball of tumbleweed, blowing through
the rooms of Middlesex. Hair like a black tornado wheeling
across an amateur newsreel. Hair so vast it seemed to
possess its own weather systems, because my dry split
ends crackled with static electricity whereas closer in, near
my scalp, the atmosphere grew warm and moist like a rain
forest. Desdemonas hair was long and silky, but Id gotten
Jimmy Zizmos spikier variety. Pomade would never
subdue it. First ladies would never buy it. It was hair that
could turn the Medusa to stone, hair snakier than all the
snake pits in a minotaur movie.
My family suffered. My hair turned up in every corner, every
drawer, everymeal . Even in the rice puddings Tessie
made, covering each little bowl with wax paper before
putting it away in the fridgeeven into these
prophylactically secure desserts my hair found its way! Jet
black hairs wound themselves around bars of soap. They
lay pressed like flower stems between the pages of books.
They turned up in eyeglass cases, birthday cards, onceI
swearinside an egg Tessie had just cracked. The nextdoor
neighbors cat coughed up a hairball one day and the
hair was not the cats. Thats so gross! Becky Turnbull
shouted. Im calling the SPCA! In vain Milton tried to get
me to wear one of the paper hats his employees had to
wear by law. Tessie, as though I were still six, took a
hairbrush to me.
IdontseewhyyouwontletSophiedo
somethingwithyour hair.
Because I see what she does to her hair.
Sophie has a perfectly nice hairstyle.
Ow!
Well, what do you expect? Its a rats nest.
Just leave it.
Be still. More brushing, tugging. My head jerking with
every stroke. Short hairs the style now anyway, Callie.
Are you finished?
A few final, frustrated strokes. Then, plaintively: At least tie
it back. Keep it out of your face.
What could I tell her? That that was the whole point of
having long hair? To keep itin my face? Maybe I didnt look
like Dorothy Hamill. Maybe I was even starting to bear a
strong resemblance to our weeping willow trees. But there
were virtues to my hair. It covered tinsel teeth. It covered
satyrical nose. It hid blemishes and, best of all, it hid me.
Cut my hair? Never! I was still growing it out. My dream was
to someday live inside it.
Imagine me then at unlucky thirteen as I entered the eighth
grade. Five feet ten inches tall, weighing one hundred and
thirty-one pounds. Black hair hanging like drapes on either
side of my nose. People knocking on the air in front of my
face and calling out, Anybody in there?
I was in there all right. Where else could I go?
WAXING LYRICAL
Iam back to my old ways. To my solitary walks through
Victoria park. To my Romeo y Julietas, my Davidoff Grand
Crus. To my embassy receptions, my Philharmonie
concerts, my nightly rounds at the Felsenkeller. Its my
favorite time of year, fall. The slight chill to the air,
quickening the brain, and all the schoolkid, school-year
memories attached to autumn. You dont get the bright
leaves here in Europe the way you do in New England. The
leaves smolder but never catch flame. Its still warm enough
to bicycle. Last night I rode from Schöneberg to
Orianenburgstrasse in Mitte. I met a friend for a drink.
Leaving, riding through the streets, I was hailed by the
intergalactic streetwalkers. In their Manga suits, their moon
boots, they tossed their teased dolls hair and called, Hallo
hallo. Maybe they would be just the thing for me.
Remunerated to tolerate most anything. Shocked by
nothing. And yet, as I pedaled past their lineup, theirStrich ,
my feelings toward them were not a mans. I was aware of
a good girls reproachfulness and disdain, along with a
perceptible, physical empathy. As they shifted their hips,
hooking me with their darkly painted eyes, my mind filled
not with images of what I might do with them, but with what
it must be like for them, night after night, hour after hour, to
have to do it. TheHuren themselves didnt look too closely
at me. They saw my silk scarf, my Zegna pants, my
gleaming shoes. They saw the money in my wallet. Hallo,
they called. Hallo. Hallo.
It was fall then, too, the fall of 1973. I was only a few months
from turning fourteen. And one Sunday after church Sophie
Sassoon whispered in my ear, Hon? Youre getting just the
tiniest bit of a mustache. Have your mother bring you by the
shop. Ill take care of it for you.
A mustache? Was it true? Like Mrs. Drexel? I hurried to the
bathroom to see. Mrs. Tsilouras was reapplying lipstick, but
as soon as she left I put my face up to the mirror. Not a fullfledged
mustache: only a few darkish hairs above my upper
lip. This wasnt as surprising as it may seem. In fact, Id
been expecting it.
Like the Sun Belt or the Bible Belt, there exists, on this
multifarious earth of ours, a Hair Belt. It begins in southern
Spain, congruent with Moorish influence. It extends over the
dark-eyed regions of Italy, almost all of Greece, and
absolutely all of Turkey. It dips south to include Morocco,
Tunisia, Algeria, and Egypt. Continuing on (and darkening
in color as maps do to indicate ocean depth) it blankets
Syria, Iran, and Afghanistan, before lightening gradually in
India. After that, except for a single dot representing the
Ainu in Japan, the Hair Belt ends.
Sing, Muse, of Greek ladies and their battle against
unsightly hair! Sing of depilatory creams and tweezers! Of
bleach and beeswax! Sing how the unsightly black fuzz, like
the Persian legions of Darius, sweeps over the Achaean
mainland of girls barely into their teens! No, Calliope was
not surprised by the appearance of a shadow above her
upper lip. My Aunt Zo, my mother, Sourmelina, and even my
cousin Cleo all suffered from hair growing where they didnt
want it to. When I close my eyes and summon the fond
smells of childhood, do I smell gingerbread baking or the
pine-fresh scent of Christmas trees? Not primarily. The
aroma that fills, as it were, the nostrils of my memory is the
sulfurous, protein-dissolving fetor of Nair.
I see my mother, with her feet in the tub, waiting for the
bubbling, stinging foam to work. I see Sourmelina, heating
up a tin of wax on the stove. The pains they took to make
themselves smooth! The rashes the creams left! The futility
of it all! The enemy, hair, was invincible. It was life itself.
I told my mother to make an appointment for me at Sophie
Sassoons beauty parlor at the Eastland Mall.
Wedged between a movie theater and a submarine
sandwich shop, the Golden Fleece did what it could to
distance itself socially from its neighbors. A tasteful awning
distance itself socially from its neighbors. A tasteful awning
hung over the entrance, bearing the silhouette of a
Parisiangrande dame . Inside, flowers sat on the front
desk. Just as colorful as the flowers was Sophie Sassoon
herself. In a purple muumuu, braceleted and begemmed,
she glided from chair to chair. How we doing here? Oh,
you look gorgeous. That color takes ten years off. Then to
the next customer: Dont look so worried. Trust me. This is
how theyre wearing their hair now. Reinaldo, tell her. And
Reinaldo in his hip-huggers: Like Mia Farrow
inRosemarys Baby . Sick flick, but she looked great. By
then Sophie had moved on to the next person. Hon, let me
give you some advice. Dont blow-dry your hair. Let it dry
wet. Also Ive got a conditioner for you you wont believe.
Im an authorized dealer. It was Sophie Sassoons
personal attention the women came for, the feeling of safety
the salon gave them, the assurance that in here they could
expose their flaws without embarrassment and Sophie
would take care of them. It must have been the love they
came for. Otherwise the customers would have noticed that
Sophie Sassoon was herself in need of beauty advice.
They would have seen that her eyebrows were drawn on as
though by Magic Marker, and that her face, owing to the
Princess Borghese makeup she sold on commission, was
the color of a brick. But did I see it that day myself, or in the
weeks that followed? Like everyone else, instead of judging
the final effect of Sophie Sasoons makeup job, I was
impressed by the complexity of it. I knew, as did my mother
and the other ladies, that to put on her face every morning
it took Sophie Sassoon no less than one hour and forty-five
minutes. She had to apply eye creams and under-eye
creams. She had to lay down various layers, like
shellacking a Stradivarius. In addition to the brick-colored
final coat there were others: dabs of green to control
redness, pinks to add blush, blues above the eyes. She
used dry eyeliner, liquid eyeliner, lip liner, lip conditioner, a
frosted highlighter, and a pore minimizer. Sophie Sasoons
face: it was created with the rigor of a sand painting blown
grain by grain by Tibetan monks. It lasted only a day and
then it was gone.
This face now said to us, Right this way, ladies. Sophie
was warm, as always, loving as always. Her hands, treated
every night with vanishing cream, fluttered around us,
stroking, rubbing. Her earrings looked like something
Schliemann had dug up at Troy. She led us past a line of
women having their hair set, across a stifling ghetto of hair
dryers, and through a blue curtain. In the front of the Golden
Fleece, Sophie fixed peoples hair; in the back she
removed it. Behind the blue curtain half-naked women
presented portions of themselves to wax. One large woman
was on her back, her blouse pulled up to expose her navel.
Another was lying on her stomach, reading a magazine
while wax dried on the back of her thighs. There was a
woman sitting in a chair, her sideburns and chin smeared
with dark golden wax, and there were two beautiful young
women lying naked from the waist down, having their bikini
lines done. The smell of the beeswax was strong, pleasant.
The atmosphere was like a Turkish bath without the heat, a
lazy, draped feeling to everything, steam curling off pots of
wax.
Im only having my face done, I told Sophie.
She sounds like shes paying, Sophie joked to my mother.
My mother laughed, and the other women joined in.
Everyone was looking our way, smiling. Id come from
school and was still in my uniform.
Be glad its just your face, said one of the bikini-liners.
Few years from now, said the other, you might be
heading south.
Laughter. Winks. Even, to my astonishment, a sly smile
spreading over my mothers face. As if behind the blue
curtain Tessie was another person. As if, now that we were
getting waxed together, she could treat me like an adult.
Sophie, maybe you can convince Callie to get her hair cut,
Tessie said.
Its a little bushy, hon, Sophie leveled with me. For your
face shape.
Just a wax, please, I said.
She wont listen, said Tessie.
A Hungarian woman (from the outskirts of the Hair Belt) did
the honors. With the short-order efficiency of Jimmy
Papanikolas, she positioned us around the room like food
on a grill: in one corner the large woman as pink as a slab
of Canadian bacon; down at the bottom Tessie and me,
lumped together like home fries; over on the left the bikiniliners,
lying sunny side up. Helga kept us all sizzling.
Holding her aluminum tray, she moved from body to body,
spreading maple-syrup-colored wax where it was needed
with a flat wooden spoon, and pressing in strips of gauze
before it hardened. When the large woman was done on
one side, Helga flipped her over. Tessie and I lay in our
chairs, listening to wax being violently removed. Oh my!
cried the large lady. Is nothing, belittled Helga. I do it
perfect. Oweee! yelped a bikini-liner. And Helga, taking
an oddly feminist stance: See what you do for the mens?
You suffer. Is not worth it.
Now Helga came over to me. She took hold of my chin and
moved my head from side to side, examining. She spread
wax above my upper lip. She moved to my mother and did
the same. Thirty seconds later the wax had hardened.
I have a surprise for you, Tessie said.
What? I asked, as Helga ripped. I was certain my fledgling
mustache was gone. Also, my upper lip.
Your brothers coming home for Christmas.
My eyes were tearing. I blinked and said nothing,
momentarily dumbfounded. Helga turned to my mother.
Some surprise, I said.
Hes bringing a girlfriend.
Hes got a girlfriend? Who would go out with him?
Her name is . . . Helga ripped. After a moment my mother
resumed, Meg.
From then on, Sophie Sassoon took care of my facial hair. I
went in about twice a month, adding depilation to an evergrowing
list of upkeep requirements. I started shaving my
legs and underarms. I plucked my eyebrows. The dress
code at my school forbade cosmetics. But on weekends I
got to experiment, within limits. Reetika and I painted our
faces in her bedroom, passing a hand mirror back and
forth. I was particularly given to dramatic eyeliner. My model
here was Maria Callas, or possibly Barbra Streisand
inFunny Girl . The triumphant, long-nosed divas. At home I
snooped in Tessies bathroom. I loved the amulet-like vials,
the sweet-smelling, seemingly edible creams. I tried out her
facial steamer, too. You put your face to the plastic cone
and were blasted by heat. I stayed away from greasy
moisturizers, worried they would make me break out.
With Chapter Eleven off at collegehe was a sophomore
nowI had the bathroom to myself. This was evident from
the medicine cabinet. Two pink Daisy razors stood upright
in a small drinking cup, next to a spray can of Psssssst
instant shampoo. A tube of Dr Pepper Lip Smacker, which
tasted like the soft drink, kissed a bottle of Gee, Your Hair
Smells Terrific. My Breck Creme Rinse with Body
promised to make me the girl with the hair (but wasnt I
already?). From there we move on to the facial products:
my Epi*Clear Acne Kit; my Crazy Curl hair iron; a bottle of
FemIron pills which I was hoping to someday need; and a
shaker of Loves Baby Soft body powder. Then there was
my aerosol can of Soft & Dri non-sting antiperspirant and
my two bottles of perfume: Woodhue, a mildly disturbing
Christmas present from my brother, which I consequently
never wore; and LAir du Temps by Nina Ricci (Only the
romantic need apply). I also had a tub of Jolén Creme
Bleach, for between appointments at the Golden Fleece.
Interspersed amid these totemic items were stray Q-tips
and cotton balls, lip liners, Max Factor eye makeup,
mascara, blush, and everything else I used in a losing battle
to make myself beautiful. Finally, hidden in the back of the
cabinet, was the box of Kotex pads, which my mother had
given me one day. We better just keep these on hand,
shed said, astonishing me completely. No further
explanation than that.
The hug I had given Chapter Eleven in the summer of 72
turned out to be a kind of farewell, because when he
returned home from college after his freshman year my
brother had become another person. Hed grown his hair
out (not as long as mine, but still). Hed started learning the
guitar. Perched on his nose was a pair of granny glasses
and instead of straight-legs he now wore faded bell-bottom
jeans. The members of my family have always had a knack
for self-transformation. While I finished my first year at
Baker & Inglis and began my second, while I went from
being a short seventh grader to an alarmingly tall eighth
grader, Chapter Eleven, up at college, went from science
geek to John Lennon look-alike.
He bought a motorcycle. He started meditating. He claimed
to understand2001: A Space Odyssey , even the ending.
But it wasnt until Chapter Eleven descended into the
basement to play Ping-Pong with Milton that I understood
what was behind all this. Wed had a Ping-Pong table for
years, but so far, no matter how much my brother or I
practiced, we had never come close to beating Milton.
Neither my new long reach nor Chapter Elevens beetlebrowed
concentration was sufficient to counter Miltons
wicked spin or his killer shot which left red marks on our
chests,through our clothes . But that summer, something
was different. When Milton used his extra-fast serve,
Chapter Eleven returned it with a minimum of effort. When
Milton employed the English hed learned in the Navy,
Chapter Eleven counter-spun. Even when Milton smashed
a winner across the table, Chapter Eleven, with stupendous
reflexes, sent it back where it came from. Milton began to
sweat. His face turned red. Chapter Eleven remained cool.
He had a strange, distracted look on his face. His pupils
were dilated. Go! I cheered him on. Beat Dad! 1212.
1214. 1415. 1718. 1821! Chapter Eleven had done it!
Hed beaten Milton!
Im on acid, he explained later.
What?
Windowpane. Three hits.
The drug had made everything seem as if it were
happening in slow motion. Miltons fastest serves, his most
arching spin shots and smashes, seemed to float in the air.
LSD? Three hits? Chapter Eleven had been tripping the
whole time! He had been tripping during dinner! That was
the hardest part, he said. I was watching dad carve the
chicken and then it flapped its wings and flew away!
Whats the matter with that kid? I heard my father ask my
mother through the wall separating our rooms. Now hes
talking about dropping out of engineering. Says its too
boring.
Its just a stage. Itll pass.
It better.
Shortly thereafter, Chapter Eleven had returned to college.
He hadnt come back for Thanksgiving. And so, as
Christmas of 73 approached, we all wondered what he
would be like when we saw him again.
We quickly found out. As my father had feared, Chapter
Eleven had scuttled his plans to become an engineer. Now,
he informed us, he was majoring in anthropology.
As part of an assignment for one of his courses, Chapter
Eleven conducted what he called fieldwork during most of
that vacation. He carried a tape recorder around with him,
recording everything we said. He took notes on our
ideation systems and rituals of kin bonding. He said
almost nothing himself, claiming that he didnt want to
influence the findings. Every now and then, however, while
observing our extended family eat and joke and argue,
Chapter Eleven would let out a laugh, a private Eureka that
made him fall back in his chair and lift his Earth shoes off
the floor. Then he would lean forward and begin writing
madly in his notebook.
As Ive mentioned, my brother didnt pay much attention to
me while we were growing up. That weekend, however,
spurred on by his new mania for observation, Chapter
Eleven took a new interest in me. On Friday afternoon while
I was diligently doing some advance homework at the
kitchen table, he came and sat down. He stared at me
thoughtfully for a long time.
Latin, huh? That what theyre teaching you in that school?
I like it.
You a necrophiliac?
A what?
Thats someone who gets off on dead people. Latins
dead, isnt it?
I dont know.
I know some Latin.
You do?
Cunnilingus.
Dont be gross.
Fellatio.
Ha ha.
Mons veneris.
Im dying of laughter. Youre killing me. Look, Im dead.
Chapter Eleven was quiet for a while. I tried to go on
studying but felt him staring at me. Finally, exasperated, I
closed my book. What are you looking at? I said.
There was a pause characteristic of my brother. Behind his
granny glasses his eyes looked bland, but the mind behind
them was working things out.
Im looking at my little sister, he said.
Okay. You saw her. Now go.
Im looking at my little sister and thinking she doesnt look
like my little sister anymore.
Whats that supposed to mean? I asked.
Again the pause. I dont know, said my brother. Im trying
to figure it out.
Well, when you figure it out, let me know. Right now Ive got
stuff to do.
On Saturday morning, Chapter Elevens girlfriend arrived.
Meg Zemka was as small as my mother and as flat-chested
as me. Her hair was a mousy brown, her teeth, owing to an
impoverished childhood, not well cared for. She was a waif,
an orphan, a runt, and six times as powerful as my brother.
What are you studying up at college, Meg? my father
asked at dinner.
Poli. sci.
That sounds interesting.
I doubt youd like my emphasis. Im a Marxist.
Oh, you are, are you?
You run a bunch of restaurants, right?
Thats right. Hercules Hot Dogs. Havent you ever had
one? Well have to take you down to one of our stands.
Meg doesnt eat meat, my mother reminded.
Oh yeah, I forgot, said Milton. Well, you can have some
french fries. Weve got french fries.
What do you pay your workers? Meg asked.
The ones behind the counter? They get minimum wage.
And you live out here in this big house in Grosse Pointe.
Thats because I handle the entire business and accept the
risk.
Sounds like exploitation to me.
It does, does it? Milton smiled. Well, if giving somebody
a job is exploiting them, then I guess Im an exploiter. Those
jobs didnt exist before I started the business.
Thats like saying that the slaves didnt have jobs until they
built the plantations.
You got a real live wire here, Milton said, turning to my
brother. Where did you find her?
I found him, said Meg. On top of an elevator.
That was when we learned how Chapter Eleven was
spending his time at college. His favorite pastime was to
unscrew the ceiling panel on the dorm elevator and climb
up on top. He sat there for hours, riding up and down in the
darkness.
The first time I did it, Chapter Eleven now confessed, the
car started going up to the top. I thought I might get
crushed. But they leave some air space.
This is what were paying your tuition for? Milton asked.
Thats what youre exploiting your workers for, said Meg.
Tessie made Chapter Eleven and Meg sleep in separate
bedrooms, but in the middle of the night there was a lot of
tiptoeing and giggling in the dark. Trying to be the big sister
I never had, Meg gave me a copy ofOur Bodies, Ourselves
.
Chapter Eleven, swept up in the sexual revolution, tried to
educate me, too.
You ever masturbate, Cal?
What!
You dont have to be embarrassed. Its natural. This friend
of mine told me you could do it with your hand. So I went
into the bathroom
I dont want to hear about
and tried it out. All of sudden, all the muscles in my penis
started contracting
In our bathroom?
And then I ejaculated. It felt really amazing. You should
try it, Cal, if you havent already. Girls are a little different,
but physiologically its pretty much the same. I mean, the
penis and the clitoris are analogous structures. You gotta
experiment to see what works.
I put my fingers in my ears and started humming.
You dont have to have any hang-ups with me, Chapter
Eleven said loudly. Im your brother.
The rock music, the reverence for Maharishi Mahesh Yogi,
the avocado pits sprouting on the windowsill, the rainbowcolored
rolling papers. What else? Oh yeah: my brother had
stopped using deodorant.
You stink! I objected one day, sitting next to him in the TV
room.
Chapter Eleven gave the tiniest of shrugs. Im a human, he
said. This is what humans smell like.
Then humans stink.
Do you think I stink, Meg?
No way, nuzzling up to his armpit. It turns meon .
Will you guys get out of here! Im trying to watch this show.
Hey, baby, my little sister wants us to split. What do you
say to a little nookie?
Groovy.
See you, sis. Well be upstairsin flagrante delicto .
Where could all this lead? Only to family dissension,
shouting matches, and heartbreak. On New Years Eve, as
Milton and Tessie toasted the new year with glasses of
Cold Duck, Chapter Eleven and Meg swigged on bottles of
Elephant Malt Liquor, going outside every so often to
secretly smoke a joint. Milton said, You know, Ive been
thinking about finally making that trip to the old country. We
could go back and seepapou andyia yia s village.
And fix that church, like you promised, said Tessie.
What do you think? Milton asked Chapter Eleven. Maybe
we could take a family vacation this summer.
Not me, said Chapter Eleven.
Why not?
Tourism is just another form of colonialism.
And so on and so forth. Before long, Chapter Eleven
declared that he didnt share Milton and Tessies values.
Milton asked what was wrong with their values. Chapter
Eleven said he was against materialism. All you care
about is money, he told Milton. I dont want to live like this.
He gestured toward the room. Chapter Eleven was against
our living room, everything we had, everything Milton had
worked for. He was against Middlesex! Then shouting; and
Chapter Eleven uttering two words to Milton, one beginning
withf , the other withy ; and more shouting, and Chapter
Elevens motorcycle roaring away, with Meg on the back.
What had happened to Chapter Eleven? Why had he
changed so much? It was being away from home, Tessie
said. It was the times. It was all this trouble with the war. I,
however, have a different answer. I suspect that Chapter
Elevens transformation was caused in no small part by that
day on his bed when his life was decided by lottery. Am I
projecting? Saddling my brother with my own obsessions
with chance and fate? Maybe. But as we planned a tripa
trip that had been promised when Milton was saved from
another warit appeared that Chapter Eleven, taking
chemical trips of his own, was trying to escape what he had
dimly perceived while wrapped in an afghan: the possibility
that not only his draft number was decided by lottery, but
that everything was. Chapter Eleven was hiding from this
discovery, hiding behind windowpane, hiding on the top of
elevators, hiding in the bed of Meg Zemka with her multiple
Os and bad teeth, Meg Zemka who hissed in his ear while
they made love,Forget your family, man! Theyre
bourgeois pigs! Your dads an exploiter, man! Forget em.
Theyre dead, man. Dead. This is whats real. Right here.
Come and get it, baby!
THE OBSCURE OBJECT
It occurred to me today that Im not as far along as I
thought. Writing my story isnt the courageous act of
liberation I had hoped it would be. Writing is solitary, furtive,
and I know all about those things. Im an expert in the
underground life. Is it really my apolitical temperament that
makes me keep my distance from the intersexual rights
movement? Couldnt it also be fear? Of standing up. Of
becoming one ofthem .
Still, you can only do what youre able. If this story is written
only for myself, then so be it. But it doesnt feel that way. I
feel you out there, reader. This is the only kind of intimacy
Im comfortable with. Just the two of us, here in the dark.
Things werent always like this. In college, I had a girlfriend.
Her name was Olivia. We were drawn together by our
common woundedness. Olivia had been savagely attacked
when she was only thirteen, nearly raped. The police had
caught the guy who did it and Olivia had testified in court
numerous times. The ordeal had arrested her development.
Instead of doing the normal things a high school girl did,
she had had to remain that thirteen-year-old girl on the
witness stand. While Olivia and I were both intellectually
capable of handling the college curriculum, of excelling in it
even, we remained in key ways emotionally adolescent. We
cried a lot in bed. I remember the first time we took off our
clothes in front of each other. It was like unwinding
bandages. I was as much of a man as Olivia could bear at
that point. I was her starter kit.
After college, I took a trip around the world. I tried to forget
my body by keeping it in motion. Nine months later, back
home, I took the Foreign Service exam and, a year after
that, started working for the State Department. A perfect
job for me. Three years in one place, two in another. Never
long enough to form a solid attachment to anyone. In
Brussels, I fell in love with a bartender who claimed not to
care about the uncommon way I was made. I was so
grateful that I asked her to marry me, though I found her dull
company, ambitionless, too much of a shouter, a hitter.
Fortunately, she refused my proposal and ran off with
someone else. Who has there been since? A few here and
there, never long-lasting. And so, without permanence, I
have fallen into the routine of my incomplete seductions.
The chatting up Im good at. The dinners and drinks. The
clinches in doorways. But then Im off. Ive got a meeting
with the ambassador in the morning, I say. And they
believe me. They believe the ambassador wants to be
briefed on the upcoming Aaron Copland tribute.
Its getting harder all the time. With Olivia and every woman
who came after her there has been this knowledge to deal
with: the great fact of my condition. The Obscure Object
and I met unawares, however, in blissful ignorance.
After all the screaming in our house, there reigned, that
winter on Middlesex, only silence. A silence so profound
that, like the left foot of the Presidents secretary, it erased
portions of the official record. A soggy, evasive season
during which Milton, unable to admit that Chapter Elevens
attack had broken his heart, began visibly to swell with
rage, so that almost anything set him off, a long red light,
ice milk for dessert instead of ice cream. (His was a loud
silence but a silence nonetheless.) A winter during which
Tessies worries about her children immobilized her, so
that she failed to return Christmas presents that didnt fit,
and merely put them in the closet, without getting a refund.
At the end of this wounded, dishonest season, as the first
crocuses appeared, returning from their winter in the
underworld, Calliope Stephanides, who also felt something
stirring in the soil of her being, found herself reading the
classics.
Spring semester of eighth grade brought me into Mr. da
Silvas English class. A group of only five students, we met
in the greenhouse on the second floor. Spider plants let
down vines from the glass roof. Closer to our heads
geraniums crowded in, giving off a smell somewhere
between licorice and aluminum. In addition to me, there
was Reetika, Tina, Joanne, and Maxine Grossinger.
Though our parents were friends, I hardly knew Maxine. She
didnt mix with the other kids on Middlesex. She was
always practicing her violin. She was the only Jewish kid at
school. She ate lunch alone, spooning kosher food from
Tupperware. I assumed her pallor was the result of being
indoors all the time and that the blue vein that beat wildly at
her temple was a kind of inner metronome.
Mr. da Silva had been born in Brazil. This was hard to
notice. He wasnt exactly the Carnival type. The Latin
details of his childhood (the hammock, the outdoor tub) had
been erased by a North American education and a love of
the European novel. Now he was a liberal Democrat and
wore black armbands in support of radical causes. He
taught Sunday school at a local Episcopal church. He had a
pink, cultivated face and dark blond hair that fell into his
eyes when he recited poetry. Sometimes he picked thistles
or wildflowers from the green and wore them in the lapel of
his jacket. He had a short, compact body, and often did
isometric exercises between class periods. He played the
recorder, too. A music stand in his classroom held sheet
music, early Baroque pieces, mostly.
He was a great teacher, Mr. da Silva. He treated us with
complete seriousness, as if we eighth graders, during fifth
period, might settle something scholars had been arguing
about for centuries. He listened to our chirping, his hairline
pressing down on his eyes. When he spoke himself, it was
in complete paragraphs. If you listened closely it was
possible to hear the dashes and commas in his speech,
even the colons and semicolons. Mr. da Silva had a
relevant quotation for everything that happened to him and
in this way evaded real life. Instead of eating his lunch, he
told you what Oblonsky and Levin had for lunch inAnna
Karenina . Or, describing a sunset fromDaniel Deronda ,
he failed to notice the one that was presently falling over
Michigan.
Mr. da Silva had spent a summer in Greece six years
before. He was still keyed up about it. When he described
visiting the Mani, his voice became even mellower than
usual, and his eyes glistened. Unable to find a hotel one
night, he had slept on the ground, awaking the next morning
to find himself beneath an olive tree. Mr. da Silva had never
forgotten that tree. They had had a meaningful exchange,
the two of them. Olive trees are intimate creatures, eloquent
in their twistedness. Its easy to understand why the
ancients believed human spirits could be trapped inside
them. Mr. da Silva had felt this, waking up in his sleeping
bag.
I was curious about Greece myself, of course. I was eager
to visit. Mr. da Silva encouraged me in feeling Greek.
Miss Stephanides, he called on me one day. Since you
hail from Homers own land, would you be so kind as to
read aloud? He cleared his throat. Page eighty-nine.
That semester, our less academically inclined sisters were
readingThe Light in the Forest . But in the greenhouse we
were making our way throughThe Iliad . It was a paperback
prose translation, abridged, set loose from its numbers,
robbed of the music of the ancient Greek butas far as I
was concernedstill a terrific read. God, I loved that book!
From the pouting of Achilles in his tent (which reminded me
of the Presidents refusal to hand over the tapes) to
Hectors being dragged around the city by his feet (which
made me cry), I was riveted. ForgetLove Story . Harvard
couldnt match Troy as a setting, and in Segals whole novel
only one person died. (Maybe this was another sign of the
hormones manifesting themselves silently inside me. For
while my classmates foundThe Iliad too bloody for their
taste, an endless catalogue of men butchering one another
after formally introducing themselves, I thrilled to the
stabbings and beheadings, the gouging out of eyes, the
juicy eviscerations.)
I opened my paperback and lowered my head. My hair fell
forward, cutting off everythingMaxine, Mr. da Silva, the
greenhouses geraniumsexcept the book. From behind
the velvet curtain, my lounge singers voice began to purr.
Aphrodite put off her famous belt, in which all the charms of
love are woven, potency, desire, lovely whispers, and the
force of seduction, which takes away foresight and
judgment even from the most reasonable people.
It was one oclock. An after-lunch lethargy lay over the room.
Outside, rain threatened. There was a knock at the door.
Excuse me, Callie. Could you stop for a moment, please?
Mr. da Silva turned toward the door. Come in.
Along with everyone else, I looked up. Standing in the
doorway was a redheaded girl. Two clouds bumped up
above, skidding past each other, and let down a beam of
light. This beam struck the glass roof of the greenhouse.
Passing through the hanging geraniums, it picked up the
rosy light which now, in a kind of membrane, enveloped the
girl. It was also possible that the sun wasnt doing this at all,
but a certain intensity, a soul ray, from my eyes.
Were in the middle of class, dear.
Im supposed to be in this class, said the girl, unhappily.
She held out a slip of paper.
Mr. da Silva examined it. Are you sure Miss Durrell wants
you transferred intothis class? he said.
Mrs. Lampe doesnt want me in her class anymore,
replied the girl.
Take a seat. Youll have to share with someone. Miss
Stephanides has been reading from Book Three ofThe
Iliad for us.
I started reading again. That is, my eyes kept tracing over
the sentences and my mouth kept forming the words. But
my mind had stopped paying attention to their meaning.
When I finished I didnt toss my hair back. I let it stay
hanging over my face. Through a keyhole in it I peeked out.
The girl had taken a seat across from me. She was leaning
toward Reetika as though to look on with her, but her eyes
were taking in the plants. Her nose wrinkled up at the
mulchy smell.
Part of my interest was scientific, zoological. Id never seen
a creature with so many freckles before. A Big Bang had
occurred, originating at the bridge of her nose, and the
force of this explosion had sent galaxies of freckles hurtling
and drifting to every end of her curved, warm-blooded
universe. There were clusters of freckles on her forearms
and wrists, an entire Milky Way spreading across her
forehead, even a few sputtering quasars flung into the
wormholes of her ears.
Since were in English class, let me quote a poem. Gerard
Manley Hopkinss Pied Beauty, which begins, Glory be to
God for dappled things. When I think back about my
immediate reaction to that redheaded girl, it seems to
spring from an appreciation of natural beauty. I mean the
heart pleasure you get from looking at speckled leaves or
the palimpsested bark of plane trees in Provence. There
was something richly appealing in her color combination,
the ginger snaps floating in the milk-white skin, the gold
highlights in the strawberry hair. It was like autumn, looking
at her. It was like driving up north to see the colors.
Meanwhile she remained slumped sideways in her desk,
her legs with the blue knee socks shoved out, revealing the
worn heels of her shoes. Because she hadnt done the
reading she was exempt from being called on, but Mr. da
Silva sent concerned looks her way. The new girl didnt
notice. She sprawled in her orange light and sleepily
opened and closed her eyes. At one point she yawned and,
halfway through, cut the yawn off, as though it hadnt gone
right. She swallowed something back and pounded a fist
against her breastbone. She burped quietly and whispered
to herself,Ay, caramba. As soon as class was over she
was gone.
Who was she? Where had she come from? Why had I
never noticed her in school before? She was obviously not
new at Baker & Inglis. Her oxfords were stamped down at
the heels so that she could slip into them like clogs. This
was something the Charm Bracelets did. Also, she had an
antique ring on her finger, with real rubies in it. Her lips
were thin, austere, Protestant. Her nose was not really a
nose at all. It was only a beginning.
She came to class every day wearing the same distant,
bored expression. She shuffled in her oxford-clogs, with a
gliding or skating motion, her knees bent and her weight
thrust forward. It added to the overall desultory impression. I
would be watering Mr. da Silvas plants when she entered.
He asked me to do this before class. So every day began
like that, me at one end of the crystal room, engulfed by
geranium blooms, and this answering burst of red coming
through the door.
The way she dragged her feet made it clear how she felt
about the weird, old, dead poem we were reading. She
wasnt interested. She never did the homework. She tried
to bluff her way through class. She hacked up the quizzes
and tests. If shed had a fellow Charm Bracelet with her,
they could have formed a faction of uninterested notepassers.
Alone, she could only mope. Mr. da Silva gave up
trying to teach her anything and called on her as little as
possible.
I watched her in class and I watched her outside it, too. As
soon as I arrived at school I was on the lookout. I sat in one
of the lobbys yellow wing chairs, pretending to do
homework, and waited for her to pass. Her brief
appearances always knocked me out. I was like somebody
in a cartoon, with stars vibrating around the head. She
would come around the corner, chewing on a Flair pen and
shuffling, as if wearing slippers. There was always a rush to
her walk. If she didnt keep her feet digging forward her
crushed-down shoes would fly off. This brought out the
muscles in her calves. She was freckled down there, too. It
was almost a kind of suntan. Sliding, she charged by,
talking to some other Charm Bracelet, both of them moving
with that lazy, confident hauteur they all had. Sometimes
she looked at me but showed no recognition. A nictitating
membrane lowered itself over her eyes.
Allow me an anachronism. Luis BuñuelsThat Obscure
Object of Desire didnt come out until 1977. By that time
the redheaded girl and I were no longer in touch. I doubt
she ever saw the movie. Nevertheless,That Obscure
Object of Desire is what I think about when I think about her.
I saw it on television, in a Spanish bar, when I was
stationed in Madrid. I didnt catch most of the dialogue. The
plot was clear enough, though. An older gentleman played
by Fernando Rey is smitten with a young and beautiful girl
played by Carole Bouquet and Angela Molina. I didnt care
about any of that. It was the surrealist touch that got me. In
many scenes Fernando Rey is shown holding a heavy sack
over his shoulder. The reason for this sack is never
mentioned. (Or if it is, I missed that, too.) He just goes
around lugging this sack, into restaurants and through city
parks. That was exactly how I felt, following my own
Obscure Object. As though I were carrying around a
mysterious, unexplained burden or weight. Im going to call
her that, if you dont mind. Im going to call her the Obscure
Object. For sentimental reasons. (I also have to protect her
identity.)
There she was in gym class, malingering. There she was at
lunch, having a laugh attack. Doubled over the table, she
tried to hit the joker responsible. Her mouth bubbled milk.
Her nose leaked a few drops, which started everyone
laughing harder. Next I saw her after school, riding double
with an unknown boy. She climbed up on the bicycle seat
while he stood on the pedals. She didnt put her arms
around his waist. She managed the thing by balance alone.
This gave me hope.
One day in class Mr. da Silva asked the Object to read
aloud.
She was lounging in her desk as usual. At a girls school
you didnt have to be so vigilant about keeping your knees
together or your skirt tugged down. The Objects knees
were spread apart and her legs, which were somewhat
heavy in the thigh, were bare high up. Without moving, she
said, I forgot my book.
Mr. da Silva compressed his lips.
You can look on with Callie.
The only sign of agreement she gave was to sweep her hair
off her face. She placed a hand to her forehead and ran it
back like a plow though her hair, her fingers leaving
furrows. At the end of the stroke came a little flick of the
head, a flourish. There was her cheek, permitting approach.
I scooted over. I slid my book onto the crack between our
desks. The Object leaned over it.
From where?
Top of page one hundred and twelve. The description of
the shield of Achilles.
Id never been this close to the Obscure Object before. It
was hard on my organism. My nervous system launched
into Flight of the Bumblebee. The violins were sawing
away in my spine. The timpani were banging in my chest.
At the same time, trying to conceal all this, I didnt move a
muscle. I hardly breathed. That was the deal basically:
catatonia without; frenzy within.
I could smell her cinnamon gum. It was still in the back of
her mouth somewhere. I didnt look directly at her. I kept my
eyes on the book. A strand of her red-gold hair fell onto the
desk between us. Where the sun hit the hair, there was a
prismatic effect. But while I was witnessing the half-inch
rainbow she began to read.
I expected a nasal monotone, riddled with
mispronunciations. I expected bumps, swerves, screeching
brakes, head-on collisions. But the Obscure Object had a
good reading voice. It was clear, strong, supple in its
rhythms. It was a voice shed picked up at home, from
poetry-reciting uncles who drank too much. Her expression
changed, too. A concentrated dignity, previously absent,
marked her features. Her head rose on a proud neck. Her
chin was lifted. She sounded twenty-four instead of
fourteen. I wonder which was stranger, the Eartha Kitt voice
that came out of my mouth or the Katharine Hepburn that
came out of hers.
When she was finished there was silence. Thank you,
said Mr. da Silva, as surprised as the rest of us. That was
very nicely done.
The bell rang. Immediately the Object leaned away from
me. She ran a hand through her hair again, as though
rinsing it in the shower. She slipped out of the desk and left
the room.
On certain days, when the greenhouse was lit just so and
the Obscure Objects blouse unbuttoned two buttons, when
the light illuminated the scapulars dangling between the
cups of her brassiere, did Calliope feel any inkling of her
true biological nature? Did she ever, while the Obscure
Object passed in the hall, think that what she was feeling
was wrong? Yes and no. Let me remind you where all this
was happening.
It was perfectly acceptable at Baker & Inglis to get a crush
on a fellow classmate. At a girls school a certain amount of
emotional energy, normally expended on boys, gets
redirected into friendships. Girls walked arm in arm at B&I,
the way French schoolgirls do. They competed for affection.
Jealousies arose. Betrayals occurred. It was common to
come into the bathroom and hear somebody sobbing in
one of the stalls. Girls cried because so-and-so wouldnt sit
by them at lunch, or because their best friend had a new
boyfriend who monopolized her time. On top of this, school
rituals reinforced an intimate atmosphere. There was Ring
Day, where Big Sisters initiated Little Sisters into maturity
by giving them flowers and gold bands. There was the
Distaff Dance, a maypole without men, held in the spring.
There were the bimonthly Heart-to-Hearts, confessional
meetings run by the school chaplain, which invariably
ended in paroxysms of hugging and weeping.
Nevertheless, the ethos of the school remained militantly
heterosexual. My classmates might act cozy during the day,
but boys were the number one after-school activity. Any girl
suspected of being attracted to girls was gossiped about,
victimized, and shunned. I was aware of all this. It scared
me.
I didnt know if the way I felt about the Obscure Object was
normal or not. My friends tended to get envious crushes on
other girls. Reetika swooned over the way Alwyn Brier
playedFinlandia on the piano. Linda Ramirez was smitten
with Sofia Cracchiolo because she was taking three
languages at once. Was that it? Was the crush I had on the
Object a result of her elocutionary talent? I doubted it. It felt
physical, my crush. It wasnt a judgment but a tumult in my
veins. For that reason I kept quiet about it. I hid out in the
basement bathroom to think the matter through. Every day,
whenever I could, I took the back stairs down to the
deserted washroom and shut myself up for at least half an
hour.
Is there anyplace as comforting as an old, institutional,
prewar bathroom? The kind of bathroom they used to build
in America when the country was on the rise. The basement
bathroom at Baker & Inglis was done up like a box at the
opera. Edwardian lighting fixtures gleamed overhead. The
sinks were deep white bowls set in blue slate. When you
bent to wash your face you saw tiny cracks in the porcelain,
as in a Ming vase. Gold chains held the drain-stoppers in
place. Beneath the taps, dripping had worn the porcelain
thin in green stripes.
Above each sink hung an oval mirror. I wanted nothing to do
with any of them. (The hatred of mirrors that begins in
middle age started early for me.) Avoiding my reflection, I
headed straight for the toilet stalls. There were three, and I
chose the middle. Like the others, it was marble. Gray New
England marble, two inches thick, quarried in the nineteenth
century and studded with fossils millions of years old. I
closed the door and latched it. I took a Safe-T-Guard from
the dispenser and laid it over the toilet seat. Germprotected,
I lowered my underpants, lifted my kilt, and sat.
Right away I could feel my body relaxing, my stoop
unkinking itself. I brushed my hair out of my face so that I
could see. There were little fern-shaped fossils, and fossils
that looked like scorpions stinging themselves to death.
Down beneath my legs the toilet bowl had a rust stain,
ancient, too.
The basement bathroom was the opposite of our locker
room. The stalls were seven feet high and extended all the
way to the floor. Fossilized marble concealed me even
better than my hair. In the basement bathroom was a time
frame I felt much more comfortable with, not the rat race of
the school upstairs but the slow, evolutionary progress of
the earth, of its plant and animal life forming out of the
generative, primeval mud. The faucets dripped with the
slow, inexorable movement of time and I was alone down
there, and safe. Safe from my confused feelings about the
Obscure Object; and safe, too, from the bits of conversation
Id been overhearing from my parents bedroom. Just the
night before, Miltons exasperated voice had reached my
ears: You still got a headache? Christ, take some aspirin.
I took some already, my mother replied. Nothing helps.
Then my brothers name, and my father grumbling
something I couldnt make out. Then Tessie: Im worried
about Callie, too. She still hasnt gotten her period. Hell,
shes only thirteen. Shesfourteen . And look how tall she
is. I think somethings wrong. Silence a moment, after
which my father asked, What does Dr. Phil say? Dr. Phil!
He doesnt say anything. I want to take her to someone
else.
The humming of my parents voices from behind my
bedroom wall, which throughout my childhood had filled me
with a sense of security, had now become a source of
anxiety and panic. So I exchanged it for walls of marble,
which echoed only with the sound of dripping water, of the
flushing of my toilet, or of my voice softly readingThe Iliad
aloud.
And when I got tired of Homer, I started reading the walls.
That was another selling point of the basement bathroom. It
was covered with graffiti. Upstairs, class photos showed
rows and rows of student faces. Down here it was mostly
bodies. Sketched in blue ink were little men with gigantic
sexual parts. And women with enormous breasts. Also
various permutations: men with dinky penises; and women
with penises, too. It was an education both in what was and
what might be. Over the gray marble this new, jagged
etching of bodies doing things, growing parts, fitting
together, changing shape. Plus also jokes, words to the
wise, confessions. In one spot: I love sex. In another,
Patty C. is a slut. Where else would a girl like me, hiding
from the world a knowledge she didnt quite understand
herselfwhere else would she feel more comfortable than
in this subterranean realm where people wrote down what
they couldnt say, where they gave voice to their most
shameful longings and knowledge?
For that spring, while the crocuses bloomed, while the
headmistress checked on the daffodil bulbs in the flower
beds, Calliope, too, felt something budding. An obscure
object all her own, which in addition to the need for privacy
was responsible for bringing her down to the basement
bathroom. A kind of crocus itself, just before flowering. A
pink stem pushing up through dark new moss. But a
strange kind of flower indeed, because it seemed to go
through a number of seasons in a single day. It had its
dormant winter when it slept underground. Five minutes
later, it stirred in a private springtime. Sitting in class with a
book in my lap, or riding home in car pool, Id feel a thaw
between my legs, the soil growing moist, a rich, peaty
aroma rising, and thenwhile I pretended to memorize
Latin verbsthe sudden, squirming life in the warm earth
beneath my skirt. To the touch, the crocus sometimes felt
soft and slippery, like the flesh of a worm. At other times it
was as hard as a root.
How did Calliope feel about her crocus? This is at once the
easiest and the hardest thing to explain. On the one hand
she liked it. If she pressed the corner of a textbook against
it, the sensation was pleasurable. This wasnt new. It had
always felt nice to apply pressure there. The crocus was
part of her body, after all. There was no reason to ask
questions.
But there were times when I felt that something was
different about the way I was made. At Camp Ponshewaing
Id learned, on certain humid bunkhouse nights, of the
bicycle seats and fence posts that had seduced my
campmates at tender ages. Lizzie Barton, roasting a
marshmallow on a stick, told us how she had become fond
of the post of a leather saddle. Margaret Thompson was
the first girl in town whose parents owned a massaging
shower head. I added my own sense data to these clinical
histories (that was the year I fell in love with gym ropes), but
there remained a vague, indefinable gap between the
stirrings my friends reported and the clutching ecstasy of
my own dry spasms. Sometimes, hanging down from my
top bunk into the beam of someones flashlight, I would
finish my little self-revelation with You know? And in the
dimness three or four stringy-haired girls would nod, once,
and bite the corner of their lips, and shift their eyes away.
They didnt know.
I worried at times that my crocus was too elaborate a
bloom, not a common perennial but a hothouse flower, a
hybrid named by its originator like a rose. Iridescent
Hellene. Pale Olympus. Greek Fire. But nothat wasnt
right. My crocus wasnt for show. It was in a state of
becoming and might turn out fine if I waited patiently.
Maybe it happened like this to everybody. In the meantime,
it was best to keep everything under wraps. Which was
what I was doing down in the basement.
Another tradition at Baker & Inglis: every year the eighth
graders put on a classical Greek play. Originally, these
plays had been performed in the Middle School auditorium.
But after Mr. da Silva took his trip to Greece, he got the
idea of converting the hockey field into a theater. With its
bleachers set into the slope and its natural acoustics, it was
a perfect mini-Epidaurus. The custodial staff brought risers
out and set up a stage on the grass.
The year of my infatuation with the Obscure Object, the play
Mr. da Silva selected wasAntigone . There were no
auditions. Mr. da Silva filled the major roles with his pets
from Advanced English. Everyone else he stuck in the
chorus. So the cast list read like this: Joanne Maria
Barbara Peracchio as Creon; Tina Kubek as Eurydice;
Maxine Grossinger as Ismene. In the role of Antigone
herselfthe only real possibility from even a physical
standpointwas the Obscure Object. Her midterm grade
had been only a C minus. Still, Mr. da Silva knew a star
when he saw one.
We have to learn all these lines? asked Joanne Maria
Barbara Peracchio at our first rehearsal. In two weeks?
Learn what you can, said Mr. da Silva. Everyones going
to be wearing a robe. You can keep your script underneath.
Miss Fagles will also be our prompter. Shell be in the
orchestra pit.
Were going to have an orchestra? Maxine Grossinger
wanted to know.
The orchestra, Mr. da Silva said, pointing to his recorder,
is I.
I hope it doesnt rain, said the Object.
Will it rain the Friday after next? said Mr. da Silva. Why
dont we ask our Tiresias? And then he turned to me.
You expected someone else? No, if the Obscure Object
was perfect to play the avenging sister, I was a shoo-in to
play the old, blind prophet. My wild hair suggested
clairvoyance. My stoop made me appear brittle with age.
My half-changed voice had a disembodied, inspired
quality. Tiresias had also been a woman, of course. But I
didnt know that then. And it wasnt mentioned in the script.
I didnt care what part I played. All that mattered, all I could
think about, was that now I would be near the Obscure
Object. Not near her as I was during class, when it was
impossible to speak. Not near her as I was in the
lunchroom, when she was spitting milk at another table. But
near her in rehearsals for a school play, with all the waiting
around that implied, all the backstage intimacy, all the
intense, fraught, giddy, emotional abandon brought on by
assuming identities not your own.
I dont think we should use scripts, the Obscure Object
now declared. She had arrived for rehearsal looking
professional, all her lines highlighted in yellow. Her sweater
was tied around her shoulders like a cloak. I think we
should all memorize our lines. She looked from face to
face. Otherwise itll be too fakey.
Mr. da Silva was smiling. Learning lines would require effort
on the Objects part. A novel undertaking. Antigone has far
and away the most lines, he said. So if Antigone wants to
be off book, then I think the rest of you should be off book,
too.
The other girls groaned. But Tiresias, already having a
vision of the future, turned toward the Object. Ill go over
your lines with you. If you want.
The future. It was already happening. The Object was
looking at me. The nictitating membranes were lifting.
Okay, she said, distantly.
We agreed to meet the next day, a Tuesday evening. The
Obscure Object wrote out her address and Tessie dropped
me at the house. She was sitting on a green velvet sofa
when I was shown into the library. Her oxfords were off but
she still had her uniform on. Her long red hair was tied
back, the better to do what she was doing, which was to
light her cigarette. Sitting Indian style, the Object leaned
forward, holding the cigarette in her mouth over a green
ceramic lighter shaped like an artichoke. The lighter was
low on fluid. She shook it and flicked the button with her
thumb until at last a small flame shot out.
Your parents let you smoke? I said.
She looked up, surprised, then returned to the work at
hand. She got the cigarette going, inhaled deeply, and let it
out, slowly, satisfyingly. Theysmoke, she said. Theyd be
pretty big hypocrites if they didnt let me smoke.
But theyre adults.
Mummy and Daddy know Im going to smoke if I want to. If
they dont let me do it, Ill just sneak it.
By the looks of it, this dispensation had been in effect for
some time. The Object was not new to smoking. She was
already a professional. As she sized me up, her eyes
narrowing, the cigarette hung aslant from her mouth.
Smoke drifted close to her face. It was a strange
opposition: the hard-bitten private-eye expression on the
face of a girl wearing a uniform for private school. Finally
she reached up and took the cigarette out of her mouth.
Without looking for the ashtray, she flicked her ash. It fell in.
I doubt a kid like you smokes, she said.
That would be a good guess.
You interested in starting? She held out her pack of
Tareytons.
I dont want to get cancer.
She tossed the pack down, shrugging. I figure theyll be
able to cure it by the time I get it.
I hope so. For your sake.
She inhaled again, even more deeply. She held the smoke
in and then turned in cinematic profile and let it out.
You dont have any bad habits, I bet, she said.
Ive got tons of bad habits.
Like what?
Like I chew my hair.
I bite my nails, she said competitively. She lifted one hand
to show me. Mummy got me this stuff to put on them. It
tastes like shit. Its supposed to help you quit.
Does it work?
At first it did. But now I sort of like the taste. She smiled. I
smiled. Then, briefly, trying it out, we laughed together.
Thats not as bad as chewing your hair, I resumed.
Why not?
Because when you chew your hair it starts smelling like
what you had for lunch.
She made a face and said, Bogue.
At school we would have felt funny talking together, but here
no one could see us. In the bigger scheme of things, out in
no one could see us. In the bigger scheme of things, out in
the world, we were more alike than different. We were both
teenagers. We were both from the suburbs. I set down my
bag and came over to the sofa. The Object put her Tareyton
in her mouth. Planting her palms on either side of her
crossed legs, she lifted herself up, like a yogi levitating, and
scooted over to make room for me.
Ive got a history test tomorrow, she said.
Who do you have for history?
Miss Schuyler.
Miss Schuyler has a vibrator in her desk.
A what!
A vibrator. Liz Clark saw it. Its in her bottom drawer.
I cant believe it! The Object was shocked, amused. But
then she squinted, thinking. In a confidential voice she
asked, What are those for, anyway?
Vibrators?
Yeah. She knew she was supposed to know. But she
trusted I wouldnt make fun of her. This was the form of the
pact we made that day: I would handle the deep intellectual
matters, like vibrators; she would handle the social sphere.
Most women cant have orgasms by regular intercourse, I
said, quoting from the copy ofOur Bodies, Ourselves Meg
Zemka had given me. They need clitoral stimulation.
Behind her freckles, a blush rose to the Objects face. She
was, of course, transfixed by such information. I was
speaking into her left ear. The blush spread across her face
from that side, as if my words left a visible trace.
I cant believe you know all this stuff.
Ill tell you who knows about it. Miss Schuyler, thats who.
The laugh, the hoot, shot out of her mouth like a geyser, and
then the Object was falling back on the couch. She
screamed, with delight, with revulsion. She kicked her legs,
knocking her cigarettes off the table. She was fourteen
again, instead of twenty-four, and against all odds we were
becoming friends.
Unwept, unfriended, without marriage song, I am led forth
in my horror
sorrow
in my sorrow on this journey that can be delayed no
more. No longer . . .
. . . hapless one . . .
Hapless one! I hate that! No longer, hapless one, may I
behold yon day-stars sacred eye; but for my fate no tear is
shed, no . . . no . . .
No friend makes moan.
No friend makes moan.
We were at the Objects house again, going over our lines.
We were in the sun room, sprawled on the Caribbean
sofas. Parrots flocked behind the Objects head as she
squeezed her eyes shut, reciting. Wed been at it for two
hours. The Object had gone through almost a full pack.
Beulah, the maid, brought us sandwiches on a tray along
with two sixty-four-ounce bottles of Tab. The sandwiches
were white, crustless, but not cucumber or watercress. A
salmon-colored spread caked the spongy bread.
We took frequent breaks. The Object required constant
refreshment. I still wasnt comfortable in the house. I couldnt
get used to being waited on. I kept jumping up to serve
myself. Beulah was black, too, which didnt make it any
easier.
Im really glad were in this play together, the Object said,
munching. I wouldve never talked to a kid like you. She
paused, realizing how this sounded. I mean, I never knew
you were such a cool kid.
Cool? Calliope cool? I had never dreamed of such a thing.
But I was ready to accept the Objects judgment.
Can I tell you something, though? she asked. About your
part?
Sure.
You know how youre supposed to be blind and
everything? Well, where we go in Bermuda theres this man
who runs a hotel. And hes blind. And the thing about him is,
its like his ears are his eyes. Like if someone comes into
the room, he turns one ear that way. The wayyou do it
She stopped suddenly and seized my hand. Youre not
getting mad at me, are you?
No.
Youve got the worst expression on your face, Callie!
I do?
She had my hand. She wasnt letting go. You sure youre
not mad?
Im not mad.
Well, the way you pretend to be blind is you just, sort of,
stumble around a lot. But the thing is, this blind man down in
Bermuda, he never stumbles. He stands up really straight
and he knows where everything is. And his ears are always
focusing in on stuff.
I turned my face away.
See, youre mad!
Im not.
Youare .
Im being blind, I said. Im looking at you with my ear.
Oh. Thats good. Yeah, like that. Thats really good.
Without letting go of my hand, she leaned closer and I
heard, felt, very softly, her hot breath in my ear. Hi,
Tiresias, she said, giggling. Its me. Antigone.
The day of the play arrived (opening night we called it,
though there would be no others). In an improvised
dressing room behind the stage we lead actors sat on
folding chairs. The rest of the eighth graders were already
onstage, standing in a big semicircle. The play was set to
begin at seven oclock and finish before sunset. It was 6:55.
Beyond the flats we could hear the hockey field filling up.
The low rumble got steadily loudervoices, footsteps, the
creaking of bleachers, and the slamming of car doors up in
the parking lot. We were each dressed in a floor-length
robe, tie-dyed black, gray, and white. The Obscure Object,
however, was wearing a white robe. Mr. da Silvas concept
was minimal: no makeup, no masks.
How many people are out there? Tina Kubek asked.
Maxine Grossinger peeked out. Tons.
You must be used to this, Maxine, I said. From all your
recitals.
I dont get nervous when Im playing the violin. This is way
worse.
I am sooo nervous, the Object said.
In her lap she had a jar of Rolaids, which she was eating
like candy. I understood now why she had pounded her
chest the first day of class. The Obscure Object suffered
from a more or less constant case of heartburn. It was
worse during times of stress. A few minutes earlier, she
had wandered off to smoke her last cigarette before
showtime. Now she was chewing on the antacid tablets.
Part of coming from old money, apparently, was having oldperson
habits, those gross, adult needs and desperate
palliatives. The Object was still too young for the effects to
tell on her. She didnt have eye bags yet or stained
fingernails. But the appetite for sophisticated ruin was
already there. She smelled like smoke, if you got close. Her
stomach was a mess. But her face continued to give off its
autumnal display. The cat eyes above the snub nose were
alert, blinking and resetting their attention to the growing
noise beyond the flats.
Theres my mom and dad! Maxine Grossinger shouted.
She turned back to us and broke into a big smile. Id never
seen Maxine smile before. Her teeth were jagged and
gappy, like those of a Sendak creature. She had braces,
too. Her unconcealed joy made me understand her. She
had a whole other life apart from school. Maxine was happy
in her house behind the cypresses. Meanwhile, curly hair
gushed from her fragile, musical head.
Oh, Jesus. Maxine was peeking out again. Theyre sitting
right in the front row. Theyre going to be staring right at
me.
We all peeked out, each in our turn. Only the Obscure
Object remained seated. I saw my parents arrive. Milton
stopped at the crest of the slope to look down at the hockey
field. His expression suggested that the spectacle before
him, the emerald grass, the white wooden bleachers, the
school in the distance with its blue slate roof and ivy,
pleased him. In America, England is where you go to wash
yourself of ethnicity. Milton had on a blue blazer and creamcolored
trousers. He looked like the captain of a cruise
ship. With one arm on her back, he was gently leading
Tessie down the steps to get a good seat.
We heard the audience grow quiet. Then a pan flute was
heardMr. da Silva playing his recorder.
I went over to the Object and said, Dont worry. Youll be
fine.
She had been repeating her lines silently to herself but now
stopped.
Youre a really good actress, I continued.
She turned away and lowered her head, moving her lips
again.
You wont forget your lines. We went over them a billion
times. You had them down perfect yester
Will you stop bugging me for a minute? the Object
snapped. Im trying to get psyched up. She glared at me.
Then she turned and walked off.
I stood watching her, crestfallen, hating myself. Cool? I was
anything but. Id already made the Obscure Object sick of
me. Feeling as if I might cry, I grabbed one of the black
curtains and wrapped myself up in it. I stood in the
darkness, wishing I were dead.
I hadnt just been flattering her. Shewas good. Onstage, the
Objects fidgetiness stilled itself. Her posture improved.
And of course there was the sheer physical fact of her, the
blood-tinged blade that she was, the riot of color that
caught everyones attention. The pan flute stopped and the
hockey field got silent again. People coughed, getting it out
of their systems. I peeked out from the curtains and saw the
Object waiting to go on. She was standing just inside the
middle arch, no more than ten feet from me. I had never
seen her so serious before, so concentrated. Talent is a
kind of intelligence. As she waited to go on, the Obscure
Object was coming into hers. Her lips moved as if she were
speaking Sophocles lines to Sophocles himself, as if,
contrary to all intellectual evidence, she understood the
literary reasons for their endurance. So the Object stood,
waiting to go on. Far away from her cigarettes and her
snobbishness, her cliquish friends, her atrocious spelling.
This was what she was good at: appearing before people.
Stepping out and standing there and speaking. She was
just beginning to realize it then. What I was witnessing was
a self discovering the self it could be.
On cue, our Antigone took a deep breath and walked
onstage. Her white robe was cinched around her torso with
silver braid. The robe fluttered as she stepped out in the
warm breeze.
Wilt thou aid this hand to lift the dead?
Maxine-Ismene replied, Thou wouldst bury him, when tis
forbidden to Thebes?
I will do my part, and thou wilt not, to a brother. False to him
will I never be found.
I wasnt on for a while. Tiresias wasnt that big a part. So I
closed the curtain around me again and waited. I had a
staff in my hand. It was my only prop, a plastic stick painted
to look like wood.
It was then I heard a small, choking sound. Again the Object
said, False to him will I never be found. Followed by
silence. I peeked out the curtain. Through the central arch I
could see them. The Object had her back to me. Farther
downstage Maxine Grossinger stood with a blank look on
her face. Her mouth was open, though no words were
coming out. Beyond, just above the lip of the stage, was
Miss Fagless florid face, whispering Maxines next line.
It wasnt stage fright. An aneurysm had burst in Maxine
Grossingers brain. At first, the audience took her quick
stagger and shocked expression to be part of the play.
Titters had begun at the way the girl playing Ismene was
hamming it up. But Maxines mother, knowing exactly what
pain looked like on her childs face, shot up out of her seat.
No, she cried. No! Twenty feet away, elevated under a
setting sun, Maxine Grossinger was still mute. A gurgle
escaped from her throat. With the suddenness of a lighting
cue her face went blue. Even in the back rows people could
see the oxygen leave her blood. Pinkness drained away,
down her forehead, her cheeks, her neck. Later, the
Obscure Object would swear that Maxine had been looking
at her with a kind of appeal, that she had seen the light go
out of Maxines eyes. According to the doctors, however,
this was probably not true. Wrapped in her dark robe, still
on her feet, Maxine Grossinger was already dead. She
toppled forward seconds later.
Mrs. Grossinger scrambled up onstage. She made no
sound now. No one did. In silence she reached Maxine and
tore open her robe. In silence the mother began to give the
daughter mouth-to-mouth. I froze. I let the curtains untwist
and I stepped out and gawked. Suddenly a white blur filled
the arch. The Obscure Object was fleeing the stage. For a
second I had a crazy idea. I thought Mr. da Silva had been
holding out on us. He was doing things the traditional way
after all. Because the Obscure Object was wearing a mask.
The mask for tragedy, her eyes like knife slashes, her
mouth a boomerang of woe. With this hideous face she
threw herself on me. Oh my God! she sobbed. Oh my
God, Callie, and she was shaking and needing me.
Which leads me to a terrible confession. It is this. While
Mrs. Grossinger tried to breathe life back into Maxines
body, while the sun set melodramatically over a death that
wasnt in the script, I felt a wave of pure happiness surge
through my body. Every nerve, every corpuscle, lit up. I had
the Obscure Object in my arms.
TIRESIAS IN LOVE
Imade a doctors appointment for you.
I just went to the doctor.
Not with Dr. Phil. With Dr. Bauer.
Whos Dr. Bauer?
Hes . . . a ladies doctor.
There was a hot bubbling in my chest. As if my heart were
eating Pop Rocks. But I played it cool, looking out at the
lake.
Who says Im a lady?
Very funny.
I justwent to the doctor, Mom.
That was for your physical.
Whats this for?
When girls get to be a certain age, Callie, they have to go
get checked.
Why?
To make sure everythings okay.
What do you mean, everything?
Justeverything.
We were in the car. The second-best Cadillac. When Milton
got a new car he gave Tessie his old one. The Obscure
Object had invited me to spend the day at her club and my
mother was taking me to her house.
It was summer now, two weeks since Maxine Grossinger
had collapsed onstage. School was out. On Middlesex
preparations were under way for our trip to Turkey.
Determined not to let Chapter Elevens condemnation of
tourism ruin our travel plans, Milton was making airplane
reservations and haggling with car rental agencies. Every
morning he scanned the newspaper, reporting the weather
conditions in Istanbul. Eighty-one degrees and sunny. How
does that sound, Cal? In response to which I generally
twirled an index finger. I wasnt keen on visiting the
homeland anymore. I didnt want to waste my summer
painting a church. Greece, Asia Minor, Mount Olympus,
what did they have to do with me? Id just discovered a
whole new continent only a few miles away.
In the summer of 1974 Turkey and Greece were about to
be in the news again. But I didnt pay any mind to the rising
tensions. I had troubles of my own. More than that, I was in
love. Secretly, shamefully, not entirely consciously, but for all
that quite head-over-heels in love.
Our pretty lake was trimmed in filth. The usual June scum of
fish flies. There was also a new guardrail, which gave me a
somber feeling as we drove past. Maxine Grossinger
wasnt the only girl at school who had died that year. Carol
Henkel, a junior, had died in a car accident. One Saturday
night her drunken boyfriend, a guy named Rex Reese, had
plunged his parents car into the lake. Rex had survived,
swimming back to shore. But Carol had been trapped
inside the car.
We passed Baker & Inglis, closed for vacation and
succumbing to the unreality of schools during summertime.
We turned up Kerby Road. The Object lived on Tonnacour,
in a gray stone and clapboard house with a weather vane.
Parked on the gravel was an unprepossessing Ford sedan.
I felt self-conscious in the second-best Cadillac and got out
quickly, wishing my mother gone.
When I rang the bell, Beulah answered. She led me to the
staircase and pointed up. That was all. I climbed to the
second floor. Id never been upstairs at the Objects house
second floor. Id never been upstairs at the Objects house
before. It was messier than ours, the carpeting not new. The
ceiling hadnt been painted in years. But the furniture was
impressively old, heavy, and sent out signals of
permanence and settled judgment.
I tried three rooms before I found the Objects. Her shades
were drawn. Clothes were scattered all over the shag
carpeting and I had to wade through them to reach the bed.
But there she was, sleeping, in a Lester Lanin T-shirt. I
called her name. I jiggled her. Finally she sat up against her
pillows and blinked.
I must look like shit, she said after a moment.
I didnt say whether she did or not. It strengthened my
position to keep her in doubt.
We had breakfast in the breakfast nook. Beulah served us
without elaboration, bringing and taking plates. She wore
an actual maids uniform, black, with white apron. Her
eyeglasses hailed from her other, more stylish life. In gold
script her name curled across the left lens.
Mrs. Object arrived, clacking in sensible heels: Good
morning, Beulah. Im off to the vets. Shebas getting a tooth
pulled. Ill drop her back here, but then Im off to lunch. They
say shell be woozy. Ohand the men are coming for the
drapes today. Let them in and give them the check thats on
the counter. Hello, girls! I didnt see you. You must be a
good influence, Callie. Nine-thirty and this ones up
good influence, Callie. Nine-thirty and this ones up
already? She mussed the Objects hair. Are you spending
the day at the Little Club, dear? Good. Your father and I are
going out with the Peterses tonight. Beulah will leave
something for you in the fridge. Bye, all!
All this while, Beulah rinsed glasses. Keeping to her
strategy. Giving Grosse Pointe the silent treatment.
The Object spun the lazy Susan. French jams, English
marmalades, an unclean butter dish, bottles of ketchup and
Lea & Perrins circled past, before what the Object wanted:
an economy-size jar of Rolaids. She shook out three
tablets.
What is heartburn, anyway? I said.
Youve never had heartburn? asked the Object, amazed.
The Little Club was only a nickname. Officially the club was
known as the Grosse Pointe Club. Though the property was
on the lake, there were no docks or boats in sight, only a
mansion-like clubhouse, two paddle tennis courts, and a
swimming pool. It was beside this pool that we lay every
day that June and July.
As far as swimwear went, the Obscure Object favored
bikinis. She looked good in them but by no means perfect.
Like her thighs, her hips were on the large side. She
claimed to envy my thin, long legs, but she was only being
nice. Calliope appeared poolside, that first day and every
day thereafter, in an old-fashioned one-piece with a skirt. It
had belonged to Sourmelina during the 1950s. I found it in
an old trunk. The stated intent was to look funky, but I was
grateful for the full coverage. I also hung a beach towel
around my neck or wore an alligator shirt over my suit. The
bodice of the bathing suit was a plus, too. The cups were
rubberized, pointy, and beneath a towel or a shirt gave me
the suggestion of a bust I didnt have.
Beyond us, pelican-bellied ladies in swim caps followed
kickboards back and forth across the pool. Their bathing
suits were a lot like mine. Little kids waded and splashed in
the shallow end. There is a small window of opportunity for
freckled girls to tan. The Object was in it. As we revolved on
our towels that summer, self-basting, the Objects freckles
darkened, going from butterscotch to brown. The skin
between them darkened, too, knitting her freckles together
into a speckled harlequin mask. Only the tip of her nose
remained pink. The part in her hair flamed with sunburn.
Club sandwiches, on wave-rimmed plates, sailed out to us.
If we were feeling sophisticated, we ordered the French
dip. We had milk shakes, too, ice cream, french fries. For
everything the Object signed her fathers name. She talked
about Petoskey, where her family had a summer house.
Were going up in August. Maybe you could come up.
Were going to Turkey, I said unhappily.
Oh, right. I forgot. And then: Why do you have to paint a
church?
My dad made this promise.
How come?
Behind us married couples were playing paddle tennis.
Pennants flew from the clubhouse roof. Was this the place
to mention St. Christopher? My fathers war stories? My
grandmothers superstitions?
You know what I keep thinking? I said.
What?
I keep thinking about Maxine. I cant believe shes dead.
I know. It doesnt seem like shes really dead. Its like I
dreamed it.
The only way we know its true is that we both dreamed it.
Thats what reality is. Its a dream everyone has together.
Thats deep, said the Object.
I smacked her.
Ow!
Thats what you get.
Bugs were attracted by our coconut oil. We killed them
without mercy. The Object was making a slow, scandalized
progress throughThe Lonely Lady by Harold Robbins.
Every few pages she shook her head and announced, This
book is sooo dirty. I was readingOliver Twist , one of the
assigned volumes for our summer reading list.
Suddenly the sun went in. A drop of water hit my page. But
this was nothing compared to the cascade that was being
shaken onto the Obscure Object. An older boy was leaning
over sideways, shaking his wet mop of hair.
Goddamn you, she said, cut it out!
Whats the matter? Im cooling you off.
Quit it!
Finally, he did. He straightened up. His bathing suit had
fallen down over his skinny hipbones. This exposed an ant
trail of hair running down from his navel. The ant trail was
red. But on his head the hair was jet black.
Whos the latest victim of your hospitality? the boy asked.
This is Callie, said the Object. Then to me: This is my
brother. Jerome.
The resemblance was clear. The same palette had gone
into Jeromes face (oranges and pale blues, primarily) but
there was a crudeness to the overall sketch, something
bulbous about the nose, the eyes on the squinty side,
pinpricks of light. What threw me at first was the dark,
sheenless hair, which I soon realized was dyed.
You were the one in the play, right?
Yes.
Jerome nodded. With slitty eyes glinting he said, A
thespian, eh? Just like you. Right, sis?
My brother has a lot of problems, the Object said.
Hey, since you gals are into the thee-a-tah, maybe you
want to be in my next film. He looked at me. Im making a
vampire movie. Youd make a great vampire.
I would?
Let me see your teeth.
I didnt oblige, taking my cue from the Object not to be too
friendly.
Jerome is into monster movies, she said.
Horror films, he corrected, still directing his words to me.
Not monster movies. My sister, as usual, belittles my
chosen medium. Want to know the title?
No, said the Object.
Vampires in Prep School. Its about this vampire, played
bymoi , who gets sent off to prep school because his
affluent but terribly unhappy parents are going through a
divorce. Anyway, he doesnt get along too well out there at
boarding school. He doesnt wear the right clothes. He
doesnt have the right haircut. But then one day after this
kegger he takes a walk across campus and gets attacked
by a vampire. Andheres the kickerthe vampire is
smoking a pipe. Hes wearing a Harris tweed. Its the
fucking headmaster, man! So the next morning, our hero
wakes up and goes right out and buys a blue blazer and
some Top-Siders andprestohes a total prep!
Will you move, youre blocking my sun.
Its a metaphor for the whole boarding school experience,
Jerome said. Each generation puts the bite on the next,
turning them into the living dead.
Jerome has been kicked out of two boarding schools.
And I shall have my revenge upon them! Jerome
proclaimed in a hoary voice, shaking his fist in the air. Then
without another word he ran to the pool and jumped. As he
did, he spun around so he was facing us. There Jerome
hung, skinny, sunken-chested, as white as a saltine, his
face scrunched up and one hand clutching his nuts. He held
that pose all the way down.
I was too young to ask myself what was behind our sudden
intimacy. In the days and weeks that followed, I didnt
consider the Objects own motivations, her love vacuum.
Her mother had engagements all day long. Her father left
for the office at six forty-five. Jerome was a brother and
therefore useless. The Object didnt like being alone. She
had never learned to amuse herself. And so one evening at
her house, as I was about to get on my bike and ride home,
she suggested that I sleep over.
I dont have my toothbrush.
You can use mine.
Thats gross.
Ill get you a new toothbrush. Weve got a box of them.
God, youre such a priss.
I was only feigning squeamishness. In actuality I wouldnt
have minded sharing the Objects toothbrush. I wouldnt
have mindedbeing the Objects toothbrush. I was already
well acquainted with the splendors of her mouth. Smoking
is good for that. You get a full display of the puckering and
the sucking. The tongue often makes an appearance,
licking from the lips any stickiness imparted by the filter.
Sometimes bits of paper adhere to the bottom lip and the
smoker, pulling them away, reveals the candied lower teeth
against the pulpy gums. And if the smoker is a blower of
smoke rings, you get to see all the way in to the dark velvet
of the inner cheeks.
That was how it went with the Obscure Object. A cigarette
in bed was the tombstone marking each days end and the
reed through which she breathed herself back to life each
morning. Youve heard of installation artists? Well, the
Object was anexhalation artist. She had a whole
repertoire. There was the Sidewinder, where she politely
funneled smoke away from the person she was talking to
out the corner of her mouth. There was the Geyser when
she was angry. There was the Dragon Lady, featuring a
plume from each nostril. There was the French Recycle,
where she let smoke out her mouth only to inhale it back
through her nose. And there was the Swallow. The Swallow
was reserved for crisis situations. Once, in the Science
Wing bathroom, the Object had just finished taking a long
drag when a teacher charged in. My friend had time to flick
her cigarette into the toilet bowl and flush. But what about
the smoke? Where could it go?
Whos been smoking in here? the teacher asked.
The Object shrugged, keeping her mouth closed. The
teacher leaned toward her, sniffing. And the Object
swallowed. No smoke came out. Not a wisp. Not a puff. A
little moistness in her eyes the only sign of the Chernobyl in
her lungs.
I accepted the Objects invitation to sleep over. Mrs. Object
called Tessie to see if it was all right and, by eleven oclock,
my friend and I went up to bed together. She gave me a Tshirt
to wear. It said Fessenden on the front. I put it on and
the Object snickered.
What?
Thats Jeromes T-shirt. Does it reek?
Whyd you give me his shirt? I said, going stiff, shrinking
from the cottons touch while still wearing it.
Mine are too small. You want one of Daddys? They smell
like cologne.
Your dad wears cologne?
He lived in Paris after the war. Hes got all kinds of fruity
habits. She was climbing up onto the big bed now. Plus
he slept with about a million French prostitutes.
He told you that?
Not exactly. But whenever Daddy talks about France he
acts all horny. He was in the Army there. He was like in
charge of running Paris after the war. And Mummy gets
really pissed when he talks about it. She imitated her
mother now. Thats enough Francophilia for one evening,
dear. As usual, when she did something dramatic, her IQ
suddenly soared. Then she flopped onto her stomach. He
killed people, too.
He did?
Yeah, said the Object, adding by way of explanation,
Nazis.
I climbed into the big bed. At home I had one pillow. Here
there were six.
Back rub, the Object called out cheerily.
Ill do you if you do me.
Deal.
I sat astride her, on the saddle of her hips, and started with
her shoulders. Her hair was in the way, so I moved it. We
were quiet for a while, me rubbing, and then I asked, Have
you ever been to a gynecologist?
The Object nodded into her pillow.
Whats it like?
Its torture. I hate it.
What do they do?
First they make you strip and put this little gown on. Its
made of paper and all this cold air gets in. You freeze. Then
they make you lie on this table, spread-eagled.
Spread-eagled?
Yep. You have to put your legs in these metal things. Then
the gyno gives you a pelvic exam,which kills .
What do you mean, pelvic exam?
I thought you were supposed to be the sex expert.
Come on.
A pelvic exam is, you know,inside . They shove this little
doohickey in you to spread you all open and everything.
I cant believe this.
It kills. And its freezing. Plus youve got the gyno making
lame jokes while hes nosing around in there. But the worst
is what he does with his hands.
What?
Basically he reaches in until he can tickle your tonsils.
Now I was mute. Absolutely paralyzed with shock and fear.
Who are you going to? the Object asked.
Someone named Dr. Bauer.
Dr. Bauer! Thats Renees dad. Hes a total perv!
What do you mean?
I went swimming over at Renees one time. They have a
pool. Dr. Bauer came out and stood there, watching. Then
he goes, Your legs have perfect proportions. Absolutely
perfect proportions. God, what a perv! Dr. Bauer. I pity
you.
She raised her stomach in order to free her shirt. I
massaged her lower back, reaching under the shirt to
knead her shoulder blades.
The Object got quiet after that. So did I. I kept my mind off
gynecology by losing myself in the back rub. It wasnt hard.
Her honey- or apricot-colored back tapered at the waist in
a way mine didnt. There were white spots here and there,
anti-freckles. Wherever I rubbed, her skin flushed. I was
aware of the blood underneath, coursing and draining. Her
underarms were rough like a cats tongue. Below them the
sides of her breasts swelled out, flattened against the
mattress.
Okay, I said, after a long while, my turn.
But that night was like all the others. She was asleep.
It was never my turn with the Object.
They come back to me, the scattered days of that summer
with the Object, each encased in a souvenir snow globe.
Let me shake them up again. Watch the flakes float down:
We are lying in bed together on a Saturday morning. The
Object is on her back. Im fulcrumed on one elbow, leaning
over to inspect her face.
You know what sleep is? I say.
What?
Snot.
It is not.
Itis . Its mucus. Its snot that comes out your eyes.
Thats so gross!
Youve got a little sleep in your eyes, my dear, I say in a
fake deep voice. With my finger I flick the crust from the
Objects eyelashes.
I cant believe Im letting you do this, she says. Youre
touching my snot.
We look at each other a moment.
Im touching your snot! I scream. And we writhe around,
throwing pillows and screaming some more.
On another day, the Object is taking a bath. She has her
own bathroom. Im on the bed, reading a gossip magazine.
You can tell Jane Fonda isnt really naked in that movie, I
say.
How?
Shes got a body stocking on. You can see it.
I go into the bathroom to show her. In the claw-footed tub,
under a layer of whipped cream, the Object lolls, pumicing
one heel.
She looks at the photograph and says, Youre never
naked, either.
I am frozen, speechless.
Do you have some kind of complex?
No, I dont have a complex.
What are you afraid of, then?
Im not afraid.
The Object knows this isnt true. But her intentions arent
malicious. She isnt trying to catch me out, only to put me at
ease. My modesty baffles her.
I dont know what youre so worried about, she says.
Youre my best friend.
I pretend to be engrossed in the magazine. I cant get
myself to look away. Inside, however, Im bursting with
happiness. Im erupting with joy, but I keep staring at the
magazine as though Im mad at it.
Its late. Weve stayed up watching TV. The Object is
brushing her teeth when I come into the bathroom. I pull
down my underpants and sit on the toilet. I do this
sometimes as a compensatory tactic. The T-shirt is long
enough to cover my lap. I pee while the Object brushes.
Its then I smell smoke. Looking up, I see, besides a
toothbrush in the Objects mouth, a cigarette.
You even smokewhile you brush your teeth?
She looks at me sideways. Menthol, she says.
The thing about those souvenirs, though: the glitter falls fast.
A reminder taped to our refrigerator brought me back to
reality: Dr. Bauer, July 22, 2P.M.
I was filled with dread. Dread of the perverted gynecologist
and his inquisitorial instruments. Dread of the metal things
that would spread my legs and of the doohickey that would
spread something else. And dread of what all this
spreading might reveal.
It was in this state, this emotional foxhole, that I started
going to church again. One Sunday in early July my mother
and I dressed up (Tessie in heels, me not) and drove down
to Assumption. Tessie was suffering, too. It had been six
months since Chapter Eleven had sped away from
Middlesex on his motorcycle, and since that time he hadnt
been back. Worse, in April he had broken the news that he
was dropping out of college. He was planning to move to
the Upper Peninsula with some friends and, as he put it,
live off the land. You dont think hed do something crazy
like run off and marry that Meg, do you? Tessie asked
Milton. Lets hope not, he answered. Tessie worried that
Chapter Eleven wasnt taking care of himself, either. He
wasnt going to the dentist regularly. His vegetarianism
made him pale. And he was losing his hair. At the age of
twenty. This made Tessie feel suddenly old.
United in anxiety, seeking solace for differing complaints
(Tessie wanting to get rid of her pains while I wanted mine
to begin), we entered the church. As far as I could tell, what
happened every Sunday at Assumption Greek Orthodox
Church was that the priests got together and read the Bible
out loud. They started with Genesis and kept going straight
through Numbers and Deuteronomy. Then on through
Psalms and Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, Isaiah, Jeremiah, and
Ezekiel, all the way up to the New Testament. Then they
read that. Given the length of our services, I saw no other
possibility.
They chanted as the church slowly filled up. Finally the
central chandelier flicked on and Father Mike, like a lifesize
puppet, sprang through the icon screen. The
transformation my uncle went through every Sunday always
amazed me. At church Father Mike appeared and
disappeared with the capriciousness of a divinity. One
minute he was up on the balcony, singing in his tender,
tone-deaf voice. The next minute he was back on ground
level, swinging his censer. Glittering, bejeweled, as
overdone in his vestments as a Fabergé egg, he
promenaded around the church, giving us Gods blessing.
Sometimes his censer produced so much smoke it
seemed that Father Mike had the ability to cloak himself in
a mist. When the mist dispersed, however, later that
afternoon in our living room, he was once again a short, shy
man, in black, polyester-blend clothes and a plastic collar.
Aunt Zoës authority went in the opposite direction. At
church she was meek. The round gray hat she wore looked
like the head of a screw fastening her to her pew. She was
constantly pinching her sons to keep them awake. I could
barely connect the anxious person hunched down every
week in front of us to the funny woman who, under the
inspiration of wine, launched into comedy routines in our
kitchen. You men stay out! shed shout, dancing with my
mother. Weve got knives in here.
So startling was the contrast between churchgoing Zoë and
wine-drinking Zoë that I always made a point of watching
her closely during the liturgy. On most Sundays, when my
mother tapped her on the shoulder in greeting, Aunt Zo
responded only with a weak smile. Her large nose looked
swollen with grief. Then she turned back, crossed herself,
and settled in for the duration.
And so: Assumption Church that July morning. Incense
rising with the pungency of irrational hope. Closer in (it had
been drizzling out), the smell of wet wool. The dripping of
umbrellas stashed under pews. The rivulets from these
umbrellas flowing down the uneven floor of our poorly built
church, pooling in spots. The smell of hairspray and
perfume, of cheap cigars, and the slow ticking of watches.
The grumbling of more and more stomachs. And the
yawning. The nodding off and the snoring and the being
elbowed awake.
Our liturgy, endless; my own body immune to the laws of
time. And right in front of me, Zoë Antoniou, on whom time
had also been doing a number.
The life of a priests wife had been even worse than Aunt
The life of a priests wife had been even worse than Aunt
Zo had expected. She had hated her years in the
Peloponnese. They had lived in a small, unheated stone
house. Outside, the village women spread blankets under
olive trees, beating the branches until the olives fell. Cant
they stop that damn racket! Zoë had complained. In five
years, to the incessant sound of trees being clubbed to
death, she bore four children. She sent letters to my mother
detailing her hardships: no washing machine, no car, no
television, a backyard full of boulders and goats. She
signed her letters, St. Zoë, Church martyr.
Father Mike had liked Greece better. His years there
represented the best period of his priesthood. In that tiny
Peloponnesian village the old superstitions survived.
People still believed in the evil eye. Nobody pitied him for
being a priest, whereas later on in America his
parishioners always treated him with a slight but
unmistakable condescension, like a crazy person whose
delusions had to be humored. The humiliation of being a
priest in a market economy didnt plague Father Mike while
he was in Greece. In Greece he could forget about my
mother, who had jilted him, and he could escape
comparison with my father, who made so much more
money. His wifes nagging complaints hadnt begun to
make Father Mike think about leaving the priesthood yet,
and hadnt led him to his desperate act . . .
In 1956 Father Mike was reappointed stateside to a church
in Cleveland. In 1958 he became a priest at Assumption.
Zoë was happy to be back home, but she never got used to
her position aspresvytera . She didnt like being a role
model. She found it difficult to keep her children looking
neat and well dressed. On what money? she shouted at
her husband. Maybe if they paid you halfway decent the
kids would look better. My cousinsAristotle, Socrates,
Cleopatra, and Platohad the thwarted, overbrushed look
of ministers children. The boys wore cheap, garishly
colored double-breasted suits. They had Afros. Cleo, who
was as beautiful and almond-eyed as her namesake, made
do with dresses from Montgomery Ward. She rarely spoke,
and played cats cradle with Plato during the service.
I always liked Aunt Zo. I liked her big, grandstanding voice. I
liked her sense of humor. She was louder than most men;
she could make my mother laugh like nobody else.
That Sunday, for instance, during one of the many lulls, Aunt
Zo turned around and dared to joke. Ihave to be here,
Tessie. Whats your excuse?
Callie and I just felt like coming to church, my mother
answered.
Plato, who was small like his father, sang out with mock
censure, Shame on you, Callie. What did you do? He
rubbed his right index finger repeatedly over his left.
Nothing, I said.
Hey, Soc, Plato whispered to his brother. Is cousin Callie
blushing?
She must have done something she doesnt want to tell
us.
Shush up now, you, said Aunt Zo. For Father Mike was
approaching with the censer. My cousins turned around. My
mother bowed her head to pray. I did, too. Tessie prayed
for Chapter Eleven to come to his senses. And me? Thats
easy. I prayed for my period to come. I prayed to receive
the womanly stigmata.
Summer sped on. Milton brought our suitcases up from the
basement and told my mother and me to start packing. I
tanned with the Object at the Little Club. Dr. Bauer haunted
my mind, judging the proportions of my legs. The
appointment was a week away, then half a week, then two
days . . .
And so we come to the preceding Saturday night, July 20,
1974. A night full of departures and secret plans. In the
early hours of Sunday morning (which was still Saturday
night back in Michigan), Turkish jets took off from bases on
the mainland. They headed southeast over the
Mediterranean Sea toward the island of Cyprus. In the
ancient myths, gods favoring mortals often hid them away.
Aphrodite blotted out Paris once, saving him from certain
death at the hands of Menelaus. She wrapped Aeneas in a
coat to sneak him off the battlefield. Likewise, as the
Turkish jets roared over the sea, they were also hidden.
That night, Cypriot military personnel reported a mysterious
malfunctioning of their radar screens. The screens filled
with thousands of white blips: an electromagnetic cloud.
Invisible inside this, the Turkish jets reached the island and
began dropping their bombs.
Meanwhile, back in Grosse Pointe, Fred and Phyllis
Mooney were also leaving home base, heading to
Chicago. On the front porch, waving goodbye, stood their
children, Woody and Jane, who had secret plans of their
own. Flying toward the Mooneys house at that moment
were the silver bombers of beer kegs and the tight
formations of six-packs. Cars full of teenagers were on their
way. And so were the Object and I. Powdered and glossed,
our hair hot-combed into wings, we had set off for the party
ourselves. In thin corduroy skirts and clogs we came up the
front lawn. But the Object stopped me on the porch before
we went in. She was biting her lip.
Youre my best friend, right?
Right.
Okay. Sometimes I think I have bad breath. She stopped.
The thing is, you can never tell if youhave bad breath or
not. So the thing isshe pausedI want you to check it
for me.
I didnt know what to say and so said nothing.
Is that too disgusting?
No, I said, finally.
Okay, here goes. She leaned toward me and huffed a
single breath into my face.
Its okay, I said.
Good. Now you.
I leaned down and exhaled in her face.
Its fine, she said, decisively. Okay. Now we can go to the
party.
Id never been to a party before. I felt for the parents. As we
squeezed by the throngs in the throbbing house, I cringed at
the destruction under way. Cigarette ashes were dropping
on Pierre Deux upholstery. Beer cans were spilling onto
heirloom carpets. In the den I saw two laughing boys
urinating into a tennis trophy. It was mostly older kids. A few
couples climbed the stairs, disappearing into bedrooms.
The Object was trying to act older herself. She was copying
the superior, bored expressions of the high school girls.
She crossed to the back porch ahead of me and got in the
line for the keg.
What are you doing? I asked.
Im getting a beer. What do you think?
It was fairly dark outside. As in most social situations, I let
my hair fall into my face. I was standing behind the Object,
looking like Cousin It, when someone put his hands over my
eyes.
Guess who?
Jerome.
I pulled his hands off my face and turned around.
How did you know it was me?
The curious smell.
Ouch, said a voice behind Jerome. I looked over and
received a shock. Standing with Jerome was Rex Reese,
the guy who had driven Carol Henkel to her watery death.
Rex Reese, our local Teddy Kennedy. He didnt look
particularly sober now, either. His dark hair covered his
ears and he wore a piece of blue coral on a leather thong
around his throat. I searched his face for signs of remorse
or repentance. Rex wasnt searching my face, however. He
was eyeing the Object, his hair falling into his eyes above
the curl of a smile.
Deftly, the two boys moved in between us, turning their
backs to each other. I had a final glimpse of the Obscure
Object. She had her hands in the back pockets of her
corduroy skirt. This looked casual but had the effect of
pushing out her chest. She was looking up at Rex and
smiling.
I start filming tomorrow, Jerome said.
I looked blank.
My movie. My vampire movie. You sure you dont want to
be in it?
Were going on vacation this week.
That sucks, said Jerome. Its going to be genius.
We stood silent. After a moment I said, Real geniuses
never think theyre geniuses.
Who says?
Me.
Because why?
Because genius is nine-tenths perspiration. Havent you
ever heard that? As soon as youthink youre a genius, you
slack off. You think everything you do is so great and
everything.
I just want to make scary movies, Jerome replied. With
occasional nudity.
Just dont try to be a genius and maybe youll end up being
one by accident, I said.
He was looking at me in a funny way, intense, but also
grinning.
What?
Nothing.
Why are you looking at me like that?
Looking at you like what?
In the dark, Jeromes resemblance to the Obscure Object
was even more pronounced. The tawny eyebrows, the
butterscotch complexionhere they were again, in
permissible form.
Youre a lot smarter than most of my sisters friends.
Youre a lot smarter than most of my friends brothers.
He leaned toward me. He was taller than I was. That was
the big difference between him and his sister. It was
enough to wake me from my trance. I turned away. I circled
around him back to the Object. She was still staring up
bright-faced at Rex.
Come on, I said. Weve got to go to that thing.
What thing?
You know. That thing.
Finally I managed to pull her away. She left trailing smiles
and significant looks. As soon as we got off the porch she
was frowning at me.
Where are you taking me? she said angrily.
Away from that creep.
Cant you leave me alone for a minute?
You want me to leave you alone? I said. Okay, Ill leave
you alone. I didnt move.
Cant I even talk to a boy at a party? the Object asked.
I was taking you away before it was too late.
What do you mean?
Youve got bad breath.
This checked the Object. This struck her to her core. She
wilted. I do? she asked.
Its just a little oniony, I said.
We were on the back lawn now. Kids were sitting on the
stone porch rail, their cigarette tips glowing in the darkness.
What do you think of Rex? the Object whispered.
What? Dont tell me you like him.
I didnt say I like him.
I scoped her face, seeking the answer. She noticed this
and walked farther away over the lawn. I followed. I said
earlier that most of my emotions are hybrids. But not all.
Some are pure and unadulterated. Jealousy, for instance.
Rex is okay, I said when I had caught up to her. If you like
manslaughterers.
That was an accident, said the Object.
The moon was three-quarters full. It silvered the fat leaves
of the trees. The grass was wet. We both kicked off our
clogs to stand in it. After a moment, sighing, the Object laid
her head on my shoulder.
Its good youre going away, she said.
Why?
Because this is too weird. I looked back to see if anyone
could see us. No one could. So I put my arm around her.
For the next few minutes we stood under the moonblanched
trees, listening to the music blaring from the
house. The cops would come soon. The cops always
came. That was something you could depend on in Grosse
Pointe.
The next morning, I went to church with Tessie. As usual,
Aunt Zo was down in front, setting an example. Aristotle,
Socrates, and Plato were wearing their gangster suits.
Cleo was sunk into her black mane, about to doze off.
The rear and sides of the church were dark. Icons gloomed
from the porticoes or raised stiff fingers in the glinting
chapels. Beneath the dome, light fell in a chalky beam. The
air was already thick with incense. Moving back and forth,
the priests looked like men at a hammam.
Then it was showtime. One priest flicked a switch. The
bottom tier of the enormous chandelier blazed on. From
behind the iconostasis Father Mike entered. He was
wearing a bright turquoise robe with a red heart
embroidered on his back. He crossed the solea and came
down among the parishioners. The smoke from his censer
rose and curled, fragrant with antiquity. Kyrie eleison,
Father Mike sang. Kyrie eleison. And though the words
meant nothing to me, or almost nothing, I felt their weight,
the deep groove they made in the air of time. Tessie
crossed herself, thinking about Chapter Eleven.
First Father Mike did the left side of the church. In blue
waves, incense rolled over the gathered heads. It dimmed
the circular lights of the chandelier. It aggravated the
widows lung conditions. It subdued the brightness of my
cousins suits. As it wrapped me in its dry-ice blanket, I
breathed it in and began to pray myself.Please God let Dr.
Bauer not find anything wrong with me. And let me be just
friends with the Object. And dont let her forget about me
while were in Turkey. And help my mother not to be so
worried about my brother. And make Chapter Eleven go
back to college.
Incense serves a variety of purposes in the Orthodox
church. Symbolically, its an offering to God. Like the burnt
sacrifices in pagan times, the fragrance drifts upward to
heaven. Before the days of modern embalming, incense
had a practical application. It covered the smell of corpses
during funerals. It can also, when inhaled in sufficient
amounts, create a lightheadedness that feels like religious
reverie. And if you breathe in enough of it, it can make you
sick.
Whats the matter? Tessies voice in my ear. You look
pale.
I stopped praying and opened my eyes.
I do?
Do you feel okay?
I began to answer in the affirmative. But then I stopped
myself.
You look really pale, Callie, Tessie said again. She
touched her hand to my forehead.
Sickness, reverie, devotion, deceitthey all came
together. If God doesnt help you, you have to help yourself.
Its my stomach, I said.
What have you been eating?
Or not exactly my stomach. Its lower down.
Do you feel faint?
Father Mike passed by again. He swung the censer so high
it nearly touched the tip of my nose. And I widened my
nostrils and breathed in as much smoke as possible to
make myself even paler than I already was.
Its like somebodys twisting something inside me, I
hazarded.
Which must have been more or less right. Because Tessie
was now smiling. Oh, honey, she said. Oh, thank God.
Youre happy Im sick? Thanks a lot.
Youre not sick, honey.
Then what am I? I dont feel good. Ithurts .
My mother took my hand, still beaming. Hurry, hurry, she
said. We dont want an accident.
By the time I closed myself into a church bathroom stall,
news of the Turkish invasion of Cyprus had reached the
United States. When Tessie and I arrived back home, the
living room was filled with shouting men.
Our battleships are sitting off the coast to intimidate the
Greeks, Jimmy Fioretos was yelling.
Sure theyre sitting off the coast, Milton now, what do you
expect? The Junta comes in and throws Makarios out. So
the Turks are getting anxious. Its a volatile situation.
Yeah, but to help the Turks
The U.S. isnt helping the Turks, Milton went on. They just
dont want the Junta to get out of hand.
In 1922, while Smyrna burned, American warships sat idly
by. Fifty-two years later, off the coast of Cyprus, they also
did nothing. At least ostensibly.
Dont be so naïve, Milt, Jimmy Fioretos again. Who do
you thinks jamming the radar? Its the Americans, Milt. Its
us.
How do you know? my father challenged.
And now Gus Panos through the hole in his throat: Its that
goddamnedsssssKissinger. He must havessssss
made a deal with the Turks.
Of course he did. Peter Tatakis nodded, sipping his
Pepsi. Now that the Vietnam crisis is over, Herr Doktor
Kissinger can get back to playing Bismarck. He would like
to see NATO bases in Turkey? This is his way to get them.
Were these accusations true? I cant say for sure. All I know
is this: on that morning, somebody jammed the Cypriot
radar, guaranteeing the success of the Turkish invasion.
Did the Turks possess such technology? No. Did the U.S.
warships? Yes. But this isnt something you can prove . . .
Plus, it didnt matter to me, anyway. The men cursed, and
shook their fingers at the television and pounded the radio,
until Aunt Zo unplugged them. Unfortunately, she couldnt
unplug the men. All through dinner the men shouted at each
other. Knives and forks waved in the air. The argument over
Cyprus lasted for weeks and would finally put an end to
those Sunday dinners once and for all. But as for myself,
the invasion had only one meaning.
As soon as I could, I excused myself and ran off to call the
Object. Guess what? I cried out with excitement. Were
not going on vacation. Theres a war!
Then I told her I had cramps and that Id be right over.
FLESH AND BLOOD
Im quickly approaching the moment of discovery: of myself
by myself, which was something I knew all along and yet
didnt know; and the discovery by poor, half-blind Dr.
Philobosian of what hed failed to notice at my birth and
continued to miss during every annual physical thereafter;
and the discovery by my parents of what kind of child theyd
given birth to (answer: the same child, only different); and
finally, the discovery of the mutated gene that had lain
buried in our bloodline for two hundred and fifty years,
biding its time, waiting for Atatürk to attack, for Hajienestis
to turn into glass, for a clarinet to play seductively out a
back window, until, coming together with its recessive twin,
it started the chain of events that led up to me, here, writing
in Berlin.
That summerwhile the Presidents lies were also getting
more elaborateI started faking my period. With Nixonian
cunning, Calliope unwrapped and flushed away a flotilla of
unused Tampax. I feigned symptoms from headache to
fatigue. I did cramps the way Meryl Streep did accents.
There was the twinge, the dull ache, the sucker punch that
made me curl up on my bed. My cycle, though imaginary,
was rigorously charted on my desk calendar. I used the
catacomb fish symbol to mark the days. I scheduled my
periods right through December, by which time I was
certain my real menarche would have finally arrived.
My deception worked. It calmed my mothers anxieties and
somehow even my own. I felt Id taken charge of things. I
wasnt at the mercy of nature anymore. Even better, with our
trip to Bursa canceledas well as my appointment with Dr.
BauerI was free to accept the Objects invitation to visit
her familys summer house. In preparation I bought a sun
hat, sandals, and a pair of rustic overalls.
I wasnt particularly tuned in to the political events unfolding
in the nation that summer. But it was impossible to miss
what was going on. My fathers identification with Nixon only
grew stronger as the Presidents troubles mounted. In the
long-haired war protesters Milton saw his own shaggy,
condemnatory son. Now, in the Watergate scandal, my
father recognized his own dubious behavior during the
riots. He thought the break-in was a mistake, but also
believed that it was no big deal. You dont think the
Democrats arent doing the same thing? Milton asked the
Sunday debaters. The liberals just want to stick it to him.
So theyre playing pious. Watching the evening news,
Milton delivered a running commentary to the screen. Oh
yeah? hed say. Bullshit. Or: This guy Proxmires a total
zero. Or: What these pointy-headed intellectuals should
be worrying about is foreign policy. What to do about the
goddamn Russians and the Red Chinese. Not pissing and
moaning about a robbery at a lousy campaign office.
Hunkered down behind his TV tray, Milton scowled at the
left-wing press, and his growing resemblance to the
President couldnt be ignored.
On weeknights he argued with the television, but on
Sundays he faced a live audience. Uncle Pete, who was
usually as dormant as a snake while digesting, was now
animated and jovial. Even from a chiropractic standpoint,
Nixon is a questionable character. He has the skeleton of a
chimpanzee.
Father Mike joined the needling. So what do you think
about your friend Tricky Dicky now, Milt?
I think its a lot of hoo-ha.
Things got worse when the conversation turned to Cyprus.
In domestic affairs Milton had Jimmy Fioretos on his side.
But when it came to the Cyprus situation they parted
company. A month after the invasion, just as the UN was
about to conclude a peace negotiation, the Turkish Army
had launched another attack. This time the Turks claimed a
large portion of the island. Now barbed wire was going up.
Guard towers were being erected. Cyprus was being cut in
half like Berlin, like Korea, like all the other places in the
world that were no longer one thing or the other.
Now theyre showing their true stripes, Jimmy Fioretos
said. The Turks wanted to invade all along. That malarkey
about protecting the Constitution was just a pretext.
They hit us . . . sssss . . . while our backs were turned,
croaked Gus Panos.
Milton snorted. What do you mean us? Where were you
born, Gus, Cyprus?
You know . . . sssss . . . what I mean.
America betrayed the Greeks! Jimmy Fioretos jabbed a
finger in the air. Its that two-faced son of a bitch Kissinger.
Shakes your hand while he pisses in your pocket!
Milton shook his head. He lowered his chin aggressively
and made a little sound, a bark of disapproval, deep in his
throat. We have to do whatevers in our national interest.
And then Milton lifted his chin and said it: To hell with the
Greeks.
In 1974, instead of reclaiming his roots by visiting Bursa,
my father renounced them. Forced to choose between his
native land and his ancestral one, he didnt hesitate.
Meanwhile, we could hear it all the way from the kitchen:
shouting; and a coffee cup breaking; swear words in both
English and Greek; feet stomping out of the house.
Get your coat, Phyllis, were leaving, Jimmy Fioretos said.
Its summer, said Phyllis. I dont have a coat.
Then get whatever the hell it is you have to get.
Were going, too . . . sssss . . . Ive lost my . . . sssss . . .
appetite.
Even Uncle Pete, the self-educated opera buff, drew the
line. Maybe Gus didnt grow up in Greece, he said, but
Im sure you remember that I did. You are talking about my
native land, Milton. And your parents own true home.
The guests left. They didnt come back. Jimmy and Phyllis
Fioretos. Gus and Helen Panos. Peter Tatakis. The Buicks
pulled away from Middlesex, leaving behind a negative
space in our living room. After that, there were no more
Sunday dinners. No more large-nosed men blowing their
noses like muted trumpets. No more cheek-pinching
women who resembled Melina Mercouri in her later years.
Most of all, no more living room debates. No more arguing
and citing examples and quoting the famous dead and
castigating the infamous living. No more running the
government from our love seats. No more revamping of the
tax code or philosophical fights about the role of
government, the welfare state, the Swedish health system
(designed by a Dr. Fioretos, no relation). The end of an era.
Never again. Never on Sunday.
The only people who stayed were Aunt Zo, Father Mike,
and our cousins, because they were related to us. Tessie
was angry with Milton for causing a fight. She told him so,
he exploded at her, and she gave him the silent treatment
for the rest of the day. Father Mike took advantage of this to
lead Tessie up to the sun deck. Milton got in his car and
drove off. I was with Aunt Zo when we later brought
refreshments up to the deck. I had just stepped out onto the
gravel between the thick redwood railings when I saw
Tessie and Father Mike sitting on the black iron patio
furniture. Father Mike was holding my mothers hand,
leaning his bearded face close to her and looking into her
eyes as he spoke softly. My mother had been crying,
apparently. She had a tissue balled in one hand. Callies
got iced tea, Aunt Zo announced as she came out, and
Ive got the booze. But then she saw how Father Mike was
looking at my mother and she went silent. My mother stood
up, blushing. Ill take the booze, Zo. Everyone laughed
nervously. Aunt Zo poured the glasses. Dont look, Mike,
she said. Thepresvytera s getting drunk on Sunday.
The following Friday I drove up with the Objects father to
their summer house near Petoskey. It was a grand
Victorian, covered with gingerbread, and painted the color
of pistachio saltwater taffy. I was dazzled by the sight of the
house as we drove up. It sat on a rise above Little Traverse
Bay, guarded by tall pines, all its windows blazing.
I was good with parents. Parents were my specialty. In the
car on the way up I had carried on a lively and wide-ranging
conversation with the Objects father. It was from him that
she had gotten her coloring. Mr. Object had the Celtic tints.
He was in his late fifties, however, and his reddish hair had
been bleached almost colorless now, like a dandelion gone
to seed. His freckled skin looked blown out, too. He wore a
khaki poplin suit and bow tie. After he picked me up, we
stopped at a party store near the highway, where Mr.
Object bought a six-pack of Smirnoff cocktails.
Martinis in a can, Callie. We live in an age of wonders.
Five hours later, not at all sober, he turned up the unpaved
road that led to the summer house. It was ten oclock by this
time. In moonlight we carried our bags up to the back
porch. Mushrooms dotted the pine-needled path between
the thin gray pines. Next to the house an artesian well
chimed among mossy rocks.
When we came in the kitchen door, we found Jerome. He
was sitting at the table, reading theWeekly World News .
The pallor of his face suggested that he had been there
pretty much all month. His lusterless black hair looked
particularly inert. He had on a Frankenstein T-shirt,
seersucker shorts, white canvas Top-Siders without socks.
I present to you Miss Stephanides, Mr. Object said.
Welcome to the hinterland. Jerome stood up and shook
his fathers hand. They attempted a hug.
Wheres your mother?
Shes upstairs getting dressed for the party youre
incredibly late for. Her mood reflects that.
Why dont you take Callie up to her room? Show her
around.
Check, said Jerome.
We went up the back stairs off the kitchen. The guest
rooms being painted, Jerome told me. So youre staying
in my sisters room.
Where is she?
Shes out on the back porch with Rex.
My blood stopped. RexReese ?
His rents have a place up here, too.
Jerome then showed me the essentials, guest towels,
bathroom location, how to work the lights. But his manners
were lost on me. I was wondering why the Object hadnt
mentioned anything about Rex on the phone. She had been
up here three weeks and said nothing.
We came back into her bedroom. Her rumpled clothes lay
on the unmade bed. There was a dirty ashtray on one
on the unmade bed. There was a dirty ashtray on one
pillow.
My little sister is a creature of slovenly habits, Jerome
said, looking around. Are you neat?
I nodded.
Me too. Only way to be. Hey. He came around to face me
now. What happened to your trip to Turkey?
It got canceled.
Excellent. Now you can be in my film. Im shooting it up
here. Are you up for that?
I thought it took place in a boarding school.
I decided to make it a boarding school in the boonies.
Jerome was standing somewhat close to me. His hands
flopped around in his pockets as he squinted at me and
rocked on his heels.
Should we go downstairs? I finally asked.
What? Oh, right. Yeah. Lets go. Jerome turned and
bolted. I followed him back down and through the kitchen.
As we were crossing the living room I heard voices out on
the porch.
So Selfridge, that lightweight,pukes , Rex Reese was
saying. Doesnt even make it to the bathroom. Pukes right
on the bar.
I cant believe it! Selfridge! It was the Object now, crying
out with amusement.
He blew chunks. Right into his stinger. I couldnt believe it.
It was like the Niagara Falls of puke. Selfridge woofs on the
bar and everybody jumps off their stools, right? Selfridge is
facedown in his own puke. For a minute theres total
silence. Then this one girl starts gagging . . . and its like a
chain reaction. The whole place starts gagging, pukes
dripping everywhere, and the bartender ispissed. Hes
huge, too. Hes fuckinghuge . He comes over and looks
down at Selfridge. Im going like I dont know this guy.
Never saw him before. And then guess what?
What?
The bartender reaches out and grabs hold of Selfridge.
Hes got him by the collar and the belt, right? And he lifts
Selfridge like a foot up in the airand Zambonis the bar
with him!
No way!
Im not kidding. Zambonied the Fridge right in his own
barf!
At that point we stepped out onto the porch. The Object and
Rex Reese were sitting together on a white wicker couch. It
was dark out, coolish, but the Object was still in her
swimsuit, a shamrock bikini. She had a beach towel
wrapped around her legs.
Hi, I called out.
The Object turned. She looked at me blankly. Hey, she
said.
Shes here, said Jerome. Safe and sound. Dad didnt run
off the road.
Daddys not that bad a driver, said the Object.
When hes not drinking hes not. But tonight Id wager he
had the old martini thermos on the front seat.
Your old man likes to party! Rex called out hoarsely.
Did my dad have occasion to quench his thirst on the drive
up? Jerome asked.
More than one occasion, I said.
Now Jerome laughed, going loose in the body and slapping
his hands together.
Meanwhile Rex was saying to the Object, Okay. Shes
here. So lets party.
Where should we go? the Object said.
Hey, Jeroman, didnt you say there was some old hunting
lodge out in the woods?
Yeah. Its about half a mile in.
Think you could find it in the dark?
With a flashlight maybe.
Lets go. Rex stood up. Lets take some beers and hike
on in there.
The Object got up, too. Let me put on some pants. She
crossed the porch in her swimsuit. Rex watched. Come on,
Callie, she said. Youre staying in my room.
I followed the Object inside. She went quickly, almost
running, and didnt look back at me. As she climbed the
stairs ahead of me, I whacked her from behind.
I hate you, I said.
What?
Youre so tan!
She flashed a smile over her shoulder.
As the Object dressed, I snooped around the bedroom. The
furniture was white wicker up here, too. There were
amateur sailing prints on the walls and on the shelves
Petoskey stones, pinecones, musty paperbacks.
What are we going to do in the woods? I said, with a note
of complaint.
The Object didnt answer.
What are we going to do in the woods? I repeated.
Were going for a walk, she said.
You just want Rex to molest you.
You have such a dirty mind, Callie.
Dont deny it.
She turned around and smiled. I know who wants to
molestyou , she said.
For a second, an irrepressible happiness flooded me.
Jerome, she finished.
I dont want to go out in the woods, I said. Theres bugs
and stuff.
Dont be a such a wuss, she said. I had never heard her
say wuss before. It was a word boys used; boys like Rex.
Finished dressing, the Object stood before the mirror,
picking at some dry skin on her cheek. She ran a brush
through her hair and put on lip gloss. Then she came over
to me. She came up very close. She opened her mouth and
blew her breath into my face.
Its fine, I said, and moved away.
Dont you want me to check yours?
No biggie, I said.
I decided that if the Object was going to ignore me and flirt
with Rex, I would ignore her and flirt with Jerome. After she
left, I combed my hair. From the collection of atomizers on
the dresser, I chose one and squeezed the bulb, but no
perfume came out. I went into the bathroom and undid the
straps of my overalls. Lifting my shirt, I stuffed a few tissues
in my brassiere. Then I shook my hair back, hitched up my
overalls, and hurried outside for our walk in the woods.
They were waiting for me under a yellow bug light on the
porch. Jerome held a silver flashlight. Slung over Rexs
shoulder was an army surplus backpack, filled with Strohs.
We came down the steps onto the lawn. The ground was
uneven, treacherous with roots, but the pine needles were
soft underfoot. For a moment, despite my foul mood, I felt it:
the crisp northern Michigan delight. A slight chill to the air,
even in August, something almost Russian. The indigo sky
above the black bay. The smell of cedar and pine.
At the edge of the woods the Object stopped. Is it going to
be wet? she said. I only have my Tretorns on.
Come on, said Rex Reese, pulling her by the hand. Get
wet.
She screamed, theatrically. Leaning back like someone on
a rope tow, she was pulled unsteadily into the trees. I
paused, too, peering in, waiting for Jerome to do the same.
He didnt, though. Instead he stepped straight into the
swamp and then slowly melted below the knees.
Quicksand! he cried. Help me! Im sinking! Please
somebody help . . . glub glub glub glub glub. Up ahead,
already invisible, Rex and the Object were laughing.
The cedar swamp was an ancient place. No logging had
ever been done here. The ground wasnt suitable for
houses. The trees had been alive for hundreds of years and
when they fell over they fell over for good. Here in the cedar
swamp verticality wasnt an essential property of trees.
Many cedars were standing straight up but many were
leaning over. Still others had fallen against nearby trees, or
crashed to the ground, popping up root systems. There was
a graveyard feeling: everywhere the gray skeletons of trees.
The moonlight filtering in lit up silver puddles and sprays of
cobweb. It glanced off the Objects red hair as she moved
and darted ahead of me.
We made a clumsy, yahoo progress through the swamp.
Rex imitated animal sounds that sounded like no animal.
Beer cans dinged in his backpack. Our deracinated feet
stomped along in the mud.
After twenty minutes we found it: a one-room shack made
of unpainted boards. The roof wasnt much taller than I was.
The circular flashlight beam showed tar paper covering the
narrow door.
Its locked. Fuck, said Rex.
Lets try the window, Jerome suggested. They
disappeared, leaving the Object and me alone. I looked at
her. For the first time since Id arrived she really looked at
me. There was just enough moonlight to accomplish this
silent exchange between our eyes.
Its dark out here, I said.
I know it, said the Object.
There was a crash behind the shack, followed by laughter.
The Object took a step closer to me. What are they doing
in there?
I dont know.
Suddenly the small window of the shack lit up. The boys
had lit a Coleman lantern inside. Next the front door opened
and Rex stepped out. He was smiling like a salesman. Got
a guy here wants to meet you. At which point he held up a
mousetrap dangling the jellied mouse.
The Object screamed. Rex! She jumped back and held on
to me. Take it away!
Rex dangled it some more, laughing, and then tossed it into
the woods. Okay, okay. Dont have a shit fit. He went back
inside.
The Object was still clinging to me.
Maybe we should go back, I ventured.
Do you think you know the way? Im totally lost.
I can find it.
She turned and looked into the black woods. She was
thinking about it. But then Rex reappeared in the doorway.
Come on in, he said. Check it out.
And now it was too late. The Object let go of me. Throwing
the red scarf of her hair over her shoulder, she ducked
through the low threshold into the hunting shack.
Inside were two cots with Hudsons Bay blankets. They
stood at either end of the small space separated by a
crude kitchen with a camp stove. Empty bourbon bottles
lined the windowsill. The walls were covered with yellowed
clippings from the local paper, angling competitions, soap
box derbies. There was also a taxidermied pike, jaws
agape. Low on kerosene, the lantern sputtered. The light
was butter-colored, the ripple of smoke greasing the air. It
was opium den light, which was appropriate, because
already Rex had plucked a joint from his pocket and was
lighting it with a safety match.
Rex was on one cot, Jerome on the other. Casually the
Object sat down next to Rex. I stood in the middle of the
floor, hunching. I could feel Jerome watching me. I
pretended to examine the shack but then turned, expecting
to meet his gaze. This didnt happen, however. Jeromes
eyes were focused on my chest. On my falsies. He liked me
already. Now here was an added attraction, like a bonus for
good intentions.
Maybe I should have been pleased by the trance he was in.
But my revenge fantasy had already gone bust. My heart
wasnt in it. Still, having no alternative, I went ahead and sat
beside Jerome. Across the shack Rex Reese had the joint
in his mouth.
Rex was wearing shorts and a monogrammed shirt, ripped
at the shoulder, showing tanned skin. There was a red mark
on his flamenco dancers neck: a bug bite, a fading hickey.
He closed his eyes to inhale deeply, his long eyelashes
coming together. The hair on his head was as thick and
oiled as an otters pelt. Finally he opened his eyes and
passed the joint to the Object.
To my surprise she took it. As though it were one of her
beloved Tareytons, she put it between her lips and inhaled.
Wont that make you paranoid? I said.
No.
I thought you told me pot always makes you paranoid.
Not when Im out in nature, said the Object. She gave me
a hard look. Then she took another toke.
Dont bogart it, said Jerome. He got up to take the joint
from her. He smoked half-standing, and then turned and
held it out to me. I looked at the joint. One end burned; the
other was mashed and wet. I had an idea that this was all
part of the boys plan, the woods, the shack, the cots, the
drugs, the sharing of saliva. Heres a question I still cant
answer: Did I see through the male tricks because I was
destined to scheme that way myself? Or do girls see
through the tricks, too, and just pretend not to notice?
For one second I thought of Chapter Eleven. He was living
in a shack in the woods like this. I asked myself if I missed
my brother. I couldnt tell if I did or not. I never know what I
feel until its too late. Chapter Eleven had smoked his first
joint at college. I was four years ahead of him.
Hold it in, Rex coached me.
You have to let the THC build up in your bloodstream, said
Jerome.
There was a sound out in the woods, twigs snapping. The
Object grabbed Rexs arm. What was that?
Maybe a bear, Jerome said.
Neither of you girls are on the rag, I hope, said Rex.
Rex! the Object protested.
Hey, Im serious. Bears can smell it. I was out camping in
Yellowstone one time and there was this woman out there
who got killed. Grizzly could smell the blood.
That is not true!
I swear. This guy I know told me. He was an Outward
Bound guide.
Well, I dont know about Callie, but Im not, said the
Object.
They all looked at me. Im not either, I said.
I guess were safe, then, Roman, said Rex, and laughed.
The Object was still holding on to him for protection. You
want to do a shotgun? he asked her.
Whats that?
Here. He turned to face her. What you do is one person
opens their mouth and the other person blows the smoke
into it. You get totally fucked up. Its excellent.
Rex put the lit end of the joint in his mouth. He leaned
toward the Object. She leaned forward too. She opened
her mouth. And Rex began to blow. The Obscure Objects
lips were a perfect ripe oval and into that target, that bullseye,
Rex Reese directed the stream of musky smoke. I
could see the column rush into the Objects mouth. It
disappeared down her throat like whitewater over falls.
Finally she coughed and he stopped.
Good hit. Now do me.
The Objects green eyes were watering. But she took the
joint and inserted it between her lips. She leaned toward
Rex Reese, who opened his own mouth wide.
When they were finished, Jerome took the joint from his
sister. Let me see if I can master the technical difficulties
here, he said. The next thing I knew, his face was close to
mine. So finally I did it, too. Leaned forward, closed my
eyes, parted my lips, and let Jerome shotgun into my mouth
a long, dirty plume of smoke.
Smoke filled my lungs, which began to burn. I coughed and
let it out. When I opened my eyes again, Rex had his arm
around the Objects shoulder. She was trying to act casual
about it. Rex finished his beer. He opened two more, one
for him and one for her. He turned toward the Object. He
smiled. He said something I couldnt hear. And then while I
was still blinking he covered the Objects lips with his sour,
handsome, pot-smoking mouth.
Across the flickering shack Jerome and I were left
pretending not to notice. The joint was ours now to bogart
as we wished. We passed it back and forth in silence and
sipped our beers.
Im having this weird thing where my feet look extremely far
away, Jerome said after a while. Do your feet look
extremely far away to you?
I cant see my feet, I said. Its dark in here.
He passed me the joint again and I took it. I inhaled and
held the smoke in. I let it keep burning my lungs because I
wanted to distract myself from the pain in my heart. Rex and
the Object were still kissing. I looked away, out the dark,
grimy window.
Everything looks really blue, I said. Did you notice that?
Oh yeah, said Jerome. All kinds of strange
epiphenomena.
The Oracle of Delphi had been a girl about my same age.
All day long she sat over a hole in the ground, theomphalos
, the navel of the earth, breathing petrochemical fumes
escaping from underneath. A teenage virgin, the Oracle
told the future, speaking the first metered verse in history.
Why do I bring this up? Because Calliope was also a virgin
that night (for a little while longer at least). And she, too, had
been inhaling hallucinogens. Ethylene was escaping from
the cedar swamp outside the shack. Dressed not in a
diaphanous robe but a pair of overalls, Calliope began to
feel very funny indeed.
Want another beer? Jerome asked.
Okay.
He handed me a golden can of Strohs. I put the sweating
can to my lips and drank. Then I drank some more. Jerome
and I both felt the weight of the obligation. We smiled at
each other nervously. I looked down and rubbed my knee
through my overalls. And when I looked up again Jeromes
face was close. His eyes were shut, like the eyes of a boy
jumping feet first off the high dive. Before I knew what was
happening he was kissing me. Kissing the girl who had
never been kissed. (Not since Clementine Stark, anyway.) I
didnt stop him. I remained completely still while he did his
thing. Despite my lightheadedness, I could feel everything.
The shocking wetness of his mouth. The whiskery feel of his
lips. His barging tongue. Certain flavors, too, the beer, the
dope, a lingering breath mint, and beneath all that the
actual, animal taste of a boys mouth. I could taste the gamy
tang of Jeromes hormones and the metal of his fillings. I
opened one eye. Here was the fine hair Id spent so much
time admiring on another head. Here were the freckles on
the forehead, on the bridge of the nose, along the ears. But
it wasnt the right face; they werent the right freckles, and
the hair was dyed black. Behind my impassive face my soul
curled up into a ball, waiting until the unpleasantness was
over.
Jerome and I were still sitting up. He was pressing his face
against mine. By maneuvering a little, I could see across
the room to where Rex and the Object were. They were
lying down now. The tails of Rexs blue shirt seemed to flap
in the wavering light. Beneath him one of the Objects legs
dangled off the bed, the cuff of her pants muddy. I heard
them whispering and laughing, then silence again. I
watched the Objects mud-stained leg dancing. I
concentrated on that leg, so that I hardly noticed when
Jerome began to pull me down on our cot. I let him; I gave
in to our slow collapse, all the while watching Rex Reese
and the Object out of one eye. Rexs hands were moving
over the Objects body now. They were pulling up her shirt,
moving under it. Then their bodies shifted so that I saw their
faces in profile. The Objects face, as still as a death mask,
waited with eyes closed. Rexs profile was rampant,
flushed. Meanwhile Jeromes hands were moving over me.
He was rubbing my overalls, but I was no longer in them
exactly. My focus on the Object was too intense.
Ecstasy. From the GreekEkstasis . Meaning not what you
think. Meaning not euphoria or sexual climax or even
happiness. Meaning, literally: a state of displacement, of
being driven out of ones senses. Three thousand years
ago in Delphi the Oracle became ecstatic every single
working hour. That night in a hunting cabin in northern
Michigan, so did Calliope. High for my first time, drunk for
my first time, I felt myself dissolving, turning to vapor. Like
the incense at church my soul rose toward the dome of my
skulland then broke through. I drifted over the plank floor. I
floated above the little camp stove. Passing by the bourbon
bottles, I hovered over the other cot, looking down at the
Object. And then, because I suddenly knew that I could, I
slipped into the body of Rex Reese. I entered him like a
god so that it was me, and not Rex, who kissed her.
An owl hooted in a tree somewhere. Bugs assailed the
windows, attracted by the light. In my Delphic state I was
simultaneously aware of both make-out sessions. By way of
Rexs body I was hugging the Obscure Object, nuzzling her
ear . . . while at the same time I was also aware of
Jeromes hands ranging over my body, the one Id left on
the other cot. He was on top of me, crushing one of my
legs, so I moved it, spread my legs apart, and he fell
between them. He made little sounds. I put my arms around
him, appalled and moved by his thinness. He was even
skinnier than I was. Now Jerome was kissing my neck.
Now, advised by some magazine column, he was paying
attention to my earlobe. His hands moved up. They were
heading for my chest. Dont, I said, scared hed find my
tissues. And Jerome obeyed . . .
. . . while on the other cot Rex was meeting with no such
resistance. With consummate skill he had undone the
Objects brassiere with one hand. Because he was more
experienced than me I let him deal with the shirt buttons, but
it was my hands that took hold of her bra and, as if
snapping up a windowshade, let into the room the pale light
of the Objects breasts. I saw them; I touched them; and
since it wasnt me who did this but Rex Reese I didnt have
to feel guilty, didnt have to ask myself if I was having
unnatural desires. How could I be when I was on the other
cot fooling around with Jerome? . . . and so, just to be safe,
I returned my attention to him. He was now in some kind of
agony. He was rubbing against me and then he stopped
and reached down to adjust himself. There was the sound
of a zipper. I peeked at him through the corner of my eyes. I
saw him thinking, concentrating on the puzzle of the
overalls.
He didnt seem to be getting anywhere, so once again I
floated back across the room and entered the body of Rex
Reese. For a minute I could feel the Object responding to
my touch, the startled, eager wakefulness in her skin and
muscles. And now I felt something else, Rex, or me,
lengthening, expanding. I felt that for only a second and then
something was pulling me back . . .
Jerome had his hand on my bare stomach. While Id been
off inhabiting Rexs body Jerome had taken the opportunity
to undo my shoulder straps. He had flicked open the silver
buttons at my waist. Now he was pulling down my overalls
and I was trying to wake up. Now he was tugging on my
underpants and I was realizing how drunk I was. Now he
was inside my underpants and now he was . . .inside me !
And then: pain. Pain like a knife, pain like fire. It ripped into
me. It spread up my belly all the way to my nipples. I
gasped; I opened my eyes; I looked up and saw Jerome
looking down at me. We gaped at each other and I knew he
knew. Jerome knew what I was, as suddenly I did, too, for
the first time clearly understood that I wasnt a girl but
something in between. I knew this from how natural it had
felt to enter Rex Reeses body,how right it felt , and I knew
this from the shocked expression on Jeromes face. All this
was conveyed in an instant. Then I pushed Jerome away.
He pulled back, pulled out, and slid off the bed onto the
floor.
Silence. Only the two of us, catching our breath. I lay on my
back on the camp bed. Beneath the newspaper clippings.
With only a mounted pike as witness. I pulled up my overalls
and felt very sober indeed.
It was all over now. There was nothing I could do. Jerome
would tell Rex. Rex would tell the Object. She would stop
being my friend. By the time school started, everyone at
Baker & Inglis would know that Calliope Stephanides was a
freak. I was waiting for Jerome to jump up and run. I felt
panicked and, at the same time, strangely calm. I was
putting things together in my head. Clementine Stark and
kissing lessons; and spinning together in a hot tub; an
amphibian heart and a crocus blooming; blood and breasts
that didnt come; and a crush on the Object that did, thathad
, that looked as if it was here to stay.
A few moments of clarity and then panic again whined in
my ears. I wanted to run myself. Before Jerome had a
chance to say anything. Before anyone found out. I could
leave tonight. I could find my way back through the cedar
swamp to the house. I could steal the Objects parents car.
I could drive north, through the Upper Peninsula to Canada,
where Chapter Eleven had once thought of going to escape
the draft. As I contemplated my life on the run I peeked over
the edge of the cot to see what Jerome was doing.
He was flat on his back, eyes closed. And he was smiling
to himself.
Smiling? Smiling how? In ridicule? No. In shock? Wrong
again. How then?In contentment . Jerome had the smile of
a boy who, on a summer night, had gone all the way. He
had the smile of a guy who couldnt wait to tell his friends.
Reader, believe this if you can: he hadnt noticed a thing.
THE GUN ON THE WALL
Iwoke up back at the house. I had a vague memory of how I
got there, of trudging back through the bog. My overalls
were still on. My crotch felt hot and spongy. The Object was
already out of bed or had slept somewhere else. I reached
down and unstuck my underpants from my skin. Something
about this act, the little puff of air, the rising aroma,
reiterated the brand-new fact about myself. But it wasnt a
fact exactly. It was nothing as solid as a fact right then. It
was just an intuition Id had about myself, to which the
coming of morning brought no clarity. It was just an idea that
was already beginning to fade, to become part of the
drunkenness in the woods of the night before.
When the Oracle awoke after one of her wild, prophesying
nights, she probably had no memory of the things shed
said. Whatever truths shed hit on were secondary to the
immediate sensations: the headache, the singed throat. It
was the same for Calliope. I had a sense of having been
dirtied and initiated. I felt all grown up. But mostly I felt sick
and didnt want to think about what had happened at all.
In the shower I tried to rinse the experience away,
scrubbing methodically, lifting my face to the slanting water.
Steam filled the air. The mirrors and the windows dripped.
The towels grew damp. I used every kind of soap within
reach, Lifebuoy, Ivory, plus a local, rustic brand that felt like
sandpaper. I got dressed and came down the stairs quietly.
As I crossed the living room I noticed an old hunting rifle
over the mantel. Another gun on the wall. I tiptoed by it. In
the kitchen, the Object was eating cereal and reading a
magazine. She didnt look up when I entered. I got a bowl
myself and sat down across from her. Maybe I grimaced in
doing so.
Whats the matter? sneered the Object. Sore? Her
sarcastic face rested on one palm. She didnt look so hot
herself. She was puffy under the eyes. There were times
when her freckles were not sunny but like corrosion or rust.
Youre the one that should be sore, I replied.
Im not sore at all, said the Object, if you want to know.
I forgot, I said; youre used to it.
Suddenly her face was full of anger, shaking. Cords
stretched and pulled beneath her skin, making lines. You
were a total slut last night, she charged.
Me? What about you? You were throwing yourself at Rex
the whole time.
I was not. We didnt even do that much.
You could have fooled me.
At least hes not yourbrother . She got to her feet, glaring.
She looked like she might cry. She hadnt wiped her mouth.
There was jam on it, crumbs. I was struck dumb by the sight
of this beloved face working itself up into what looked like
hatred. My own face must have been reacting, too. I could
feel my eyes going wide and scared. The Object was
waiting for me to say something but nothing came to mind.
So finally she shoved her chair away and said, Jeromes
upstairs. Why dont you go climb in bed with him. And she
stormed off.
A low moment followed. Regret, already sogging me down,
burst its dam. It seeped into my legs, it pooled in my heart.
On top of panic that Id lost my friend, I was suddenly beset
by worries about my reputation. Was I really a slut? I hadnt
even liked it. But I had done it, hadnt I? I had let him do it.
Fear of retribution came next. What if I got pregnant? What
then? My face at the breakfast table was the face of all
mathematical girls, counting days, measuring liquids. It was
at least a minute before I remembered that I couldnt be
pregnant. That was one good thing about being a late
bloomer. Still, I was upset. I was certain that the Object
would never talk to me again.
I climbed the stairs and got back into bed, pulling a pillow
over my face to block out the summer light. But there was
no hiding from reality that morning. No more than five
minutes later the bedsprings sagged under new weight.
Peeking out, I saw that Jerome had come to visit.
He was lying on his back, looking cozy, already installed.
Instead of a robe he had on a duck hunting coat. The ends
of his frayed boxer shorts were visible below. He had a
mug of coffee in one hand and I noticed that his fingernails
were painted black. The morning light coming from the side
window showed stubble on his chin and above his upper
lip. Against the flat, wasted, dyed hair these orange shoots
were like life returning to a scorched landscape.
Good morning, dahling, he said.
Hi.
Feeling a little under the weather, are we?
Yeah, I said. I was pretty drunk last night.
You didnt seem that drunk to me, dahling.
Well, I was.
Jerome now dropped the bit. He flopped back into the
pillows and sipped his coffee and sighed. With one finger
he tapped his forehead for a while. Then he spoke. Just in
case you were having any of the hackneyed worries, you
should know that I still respect you and all that shit.
I didnt respond. Responding would only confirm the facts of
what had happened, whereas I wanted to cast them in
doubt. After a while Jerome set the coffee mug down and
turned onto his side. He wriggled over toward me and
rested his head against my shoulder. He lay there
breathing. Then, with closed eyes, he moved his head and
tunneled under the pillow with me. He started to nuzzle me.
He brought his hair across the skin of my neck and after
that came the sensitive organs. His eyelashes made
butterfly kisses on my chin. His nose snuffled in the hollow
of my throat. And then his lips arrived, avid, clumsy. I
wanted him off me. At the same time I asked myself if I had
brushed my teeth. Jerome was sliding and climbing on top
of me and it felt like it had the night before, like a crushing
weight. So do boys and men announce their intentions.
They cover you like a sarcophagus lid. And call it love.
For a minute it was tolerable. But soon the duck coat rode
up and Jeromes urgency was pressing itself upon me. He
was trying to reach up under my shirt again. I didnt have a
bra on. After my shower I had gone without it, flushing away
the Kleenex. I was done with them. Jeromes hands moved
higher. I didnt care. I let him feel me up. For what it was
worth. But if I was hoping to disappoint him, it didnt work.
He stroked and squeezed while his lower half swished like
a crocodiles tail. And then he said an unironic thing.
Fervently he whispered, Im really into you.
His lips closed, seeking mine. His tongue entered. The first
penetration that augured the next. But not now, not this time.
Stop, I said.
What?
Stop.
Why stop?
Because.
Because why?
Because I dont like you like that.
He sat up. Like the guy in the old vaudeville skit, the guy in
the folding cot that wont stay folded, Jerome flipped
straight up, wide awake. Then he jumped off the bed.
Dont be mad at me, I said.
Who says Im mad? said Jerome, and left.
The rest of the day went slowly. I stayed in my room until I
saw Jerome leave the house, carrying his movie camera. I
guessed that I was no longer in the cast. The Objects
parents returned from their morning tennis foursome. Mrs.
Object came up the stairs to the master bathroom. From
my window I saw Mr. Object climb into the backyard
hammock with a book. I waited for the shower to turn on
and then came down the back stairs and out the kitchen
door. I walked down to the bay, feeling melancholy.
The cedar swamp lay on one side of the house. On the
other was a dirt and gravel road that led through an open
field, treeless, with high yellow grass. The absence of trees
was noticeable, and poking around out there I came upon a
historical marker, nearly overgrown. It marked the site of a
fort or a massacre, I dont remember which. Moss
encroached upon the raised letters and I didnt read the
whole plaque. I stood there for a while thinking about the
first settlers and how they had killed one another over
beaver and fox pelts. I put my foot on the plaque, kicking off
the moss with my sneaker, until I got tired of that. It was
almost noon by now. The bay was bright blue. Over the rise
I could sense the city of Petoskey, the smoke of stoves and
chimneys down there. The grass got marshy near the water.
I climbed up on the breakwall and walked back and forth,
keeping my balance. I held my arms out and pranced, Olga
Korbut style. But my heart wasnt in it. And I was way too tall
to be Olga Korbut. Sometime later the whir of an outboard
engine reached me. I shaded my eyes with my hand to look
out over the shimmering water. A speedboat was shooting
past. At the wheel was Rex Reese. Bare-chested, drinking
a beer and wearing sunglasses, he gunned the throttle,
towing a water-skier. It was the Object, of course, in her
shamrock bikini. She looked almost naked against the
expanse of water, only those two little strips, one above,
one below, separating her from Eden. Her red hair flapped
like a gale warning. She wasnt a beautiful skier. She
leaned too far forward, bowlegged on the pontoons. But
she didnt fall. Rex kept turning around to check on her
while he sipped his beer. Finally the boat made a sharp
turn and the Object crossed her wake, whipping along past
the shore.
A terrible thing happens when you water-ski. After you
release the rope, you keep skimming over the water for a
while, free. But there comes an inevitable moment when
your speed fails to sustain your forward progress. The
surface of the water breaks like glass. The depths open up
to claim you. That was how I felt on land, watching the
Object ski past. That same plunging, hopeless feeling, that
emotional physics.
When I got back at dinnertime the Object was still not there.
Her mother was angry, thinking it rude of the Object to leave
me alone. Jerome, too, was out with friends. So I ate dinner
with the Objects parents. I felt too desolate to charm the
grownups that night. I ate in silence and afterward sat in the
living room pretending to read. The clock ticked on. The
night labored and creaked. When I felt I might fall apart I
went into the bathroom and threw water on my face. I held a
warm washcloth over my eyes and pressed my hands
against my temples. I wondered what the Object and Rex
were doing. I pictured her socks in the air, her little tennis
socks with the balls at the heels, those ensanguined balls,
bouncing.
It was obvious that Mr. and Mrs. Object were staying up just
to keep me company. So finally I said good night and went
up to bed myself. I got in and immediately started crying. I
cried for a long time, trying not to make any noise. While I
sobbed I said things in an aggrieved whisper. I cried, Why
dont you like me? and Im sorry, Im sorry! I didnt care
what I sounded like. There was a poison in my system and I
needed to purge it. While I was carrying on like that, I heard
the screen door bang shut downstairs. I wiped my nose on
the sheets and tried to settle down and listen. Footsteps
climbed the stairs, and in another moment the door of the
bedroom opened and closed. The Object entered and
stood there in darkness. She might have been waiting for
her eyes to adjust. I lay on my side, pretending to be
asleep. The floorboards creaked as she came over to my
side of the bed. I felt her standing over me, looking down.
Then she went to the other side of the bed, took off her
shoes and shorts, put on a T-shirt, and got in.
The Object slept on her back. She told me once that backsleepers
were the leaders in life, born performers or
exhibitionists. Stomach-sleepers like me were in retreat
from reality, given to dark perception and the meditative
arts. This theory applied in our case. I lay prone, my nose
and eyes sore from crying. The Object, supine, yawned and
(like a born performer, perhaps) soon fell asleep.
I waited ten or so minutes, just to be safe. Then, as though
tossing in my sleep, I rolled over so that I was looking at the
Object. The moon was gibbous and filled the room with
blue light. There upon the wicker bed the Obscure Object
slept. The top of her Groton T-shirt was visible. It was an old
one of her fathers, with a few holes. She had one arm
crossed over her face, like a slash on a sign that meant No
Touching. So I looked instead. Over the pillow her hair was
spread out. Her lips were parted. Something glinted inside
her ear, grains of sand from the beach maybe. Beyond, the
atomizers glowed on the dresser. The ceiling was up above
somewhere. I could feel the spiders working in the corners.
The sheets were cool. The fat duvet rolled up at our feet
was leaking feathers. Id grown up around the smell of new
carpeting, of polyester shirts hot from the dryer. Here the
Egyptian sheets smelled like hedges, the pillows like water
fowl. Thirteen inches away, the Object was part of all this.
Her colors seemed to agree with the American landscape,
her pumpkin hair, her apple cider skin. She made a sound
and went still again.
Gently, I pulled the covers off her. In the dimness her outline
appeared, the rise of her breasts beneath the T-shirt, the
soft hill of her belly, and then the brightness of her
underpants, converging in their V shape. She didnt stir at
all. Her chest rose and fell with her breath. Slowly, trying not
to make a sound, I moved closer to her. Tiny muscles in my
flank, muscles I hadnt known I possessed, suddenly made
themselves available. They propelled me millimeter by
millimeter across the sheets. The old bedsprings gave me
trouble. As I tried nonchalantly to advance, they called out
ribald encouragement. They cheered, they sang. I kept
stopping and starting. It was hard work. I breathed through
my mouth, quieter that way.
Over the course of ten minutes I slid nearer and nearer to
her. Finally I felt the heat of her body along my entire length.
We were still not touching, only radiating against each
other. She was breathing deeply. So was I. We breathed
together. Finally, gathering courage, I flung my arm across
her waist.
Then nothing more for a long while. Having achieved this
much, I was scared to go further. So I remained frozen, half
hugging her. My arm grew stiff. It began to throb and finally
went numb. The Object might have been drugged or
comatose. Still, I sensed an alertness in her skin, in her
muscles. After another long while I plunged ahead. I took
hold of her T-shirt and lifted it up. I gazed at her naked belly
for a long while and, finally, with a kind of woefulness,
bowed my head. I bowed my head to the god of desperate
longing. I kissed the Objects belly and then slowly,
gathering confidence, worked my way up.
Do you remember my frog heart? In Clementine Starks
bedroom it had kicked off from a muddy bank, moving
between two elements. Now it did something even more
amazingit crept up onto land. Squeezing millennia into
thirty seconds, it developed consciousness. While kissing
the Objects belly, I wasnt just reacting to pleasurable
stimuli, as I had been with Clementine. I didnt vacate my
body, as I had with Jerome. Now I was aware of what was
happening. I was thinking about it.
I was thinking that this was what Id always wanted. I was
realizing that I wasnt the only faker around. I was wondering
what would happen if someone discovered what we were
doing. I was thinking that it was all very complicated and
would only get more so.
I reached down and touched her hips. I hooked my fingers
in the waistband of her underpants. I began to slip them off.
Just then, the Object lifted her hips, very slightly, to make it
easier for me. This was her only contribution.
The next day we didnt mention it. When I got up, the Object
was already out of bed. She was in the kitchen, observing
her fathers preparation of scrapple. Making scrapple was
Mr. Objects Sunday morning ritual. He presided over the
bubbling fat and grease while the Object periodically
looked into the frying pan and said, That is so disgusting.
Soon she was working on a plate of it, and made me have
one, too. Im going to have the worst heartburn, she said.
I understood the unspoken message immediately. The
Object wanted no dramatics, no guilt. No show of romance,
either. She was going on about the scrapple to separate
night from day, to make it clear that what happened at night,
what we did at night, had nothing to do with daylight hours.
She was a good actress, too, and at times I wondered if
maybe she really had been sleeping through the whole
thing. Or maybe I had only been dreaming it.
She gave only two signs during the day that anything had
changed between us. In the afternoon Jeromes film crew
arrived. This consisted of two friends of his, carrying boxes
and cables and a long, fuzzy microphone like a dirty, rolledup
bathmat. Jerome was by this time pointedly not
speaking to me. They set up in a small equipment shed on
the property. The Object and I decided to see what they
were doing. Jerome had told us to stay away, so we
couldnt resist. We crept up, moving from tree to tree. We
had to stop often to fight off laugh attacks, slapping at each
other, avoiding each others eyes until we could control
ourselves. At the back window of the equipment shed we
peeked in. Not much was happening. One of Jeromes
friends was taping a light to the wall. It was hard for us both
to see through the small window at once, so the Object got
in front of me. She placed my hands on her belly and held
my wrists. Still, her attention was officially given over to
what was going on inside the shed.
Jerome appeared, dressed as the preppy vampire. Inside
the traditional Dracula waistcoat, he wore a pink Lacoste
shirt. Instead of a bow tie he had an ascot. His black hair
was slicked back, his face whitened with a cosmetic, and
he carried a cocktail shaker. One of his friends held a
broomstick dangling a rubber bat. Another operated the
camera. Action, said Jerome. He lifted the cocktail
shaker. He shook it with both hands. Meanwhile the bat
swooped and fluttered above his head. Jerome removed
the lid and poured the blood into the martini glasses. He
held one up for his friend the bat, who promptly plopped
into it. Jerome sipped his blood cocktail. Just how you like
it, Muffie, he said to the bat. Verydry.
Under my hands the Objects stomach jiggled as she
laughed. She leaned back into me and her flesh captured in
my arms shook and yielded. I pressed my pelvis against
her. All this went on secretly behind the shed, like a game
of footsie. But then the cameraman lowered his camera. He
pointed at us and Jerome turned around. His eyes fixed on
my hands and then rose to my eyes. He bared his fangs,
burning me with a look. And then shouted in his regular
voice, Get the hell out of here, you fuckers! Were
shooting. He came up to the window and struck it, but we
were already running away.
Later, around evening, the phone rang. The Objects mother
answered it. Its Rex, she said. The Object got up from the
sofa where we were playing backgammon. I restacked my
chips to have something to do. I tidied them up, over and
over, while the Object talked to Rex. She had her back to
me. She moved around as she talked, playing with the
cord. I kept looking down at the chips, moving them.
Meanwhile I paid close attention to the conversation.
Nothing much, just playing backgammon . . . with Callie . . .
Hes making his stupid film . . . I cant, were supposed to
have dinner soon . . . I dont know, maybe later . . . Im sort
of tired, actually. Suddenly she wheeled around to face me.
With effort I looked up. The Object pointed at the phone and
then, opening her mouth wide, stuck her finger down her
throat. My heart brimmed.
Night came again. In bed we went through the
preliminaries, plumping our pillows, yawning. We tossed
around to get comfortable. And then after an appropriate
time of silence the Object made a noise. It was a murmur, a
cry caught in the throat, as if she were talking in her sleep.
After this, her breathing became deeper. And taking this as
the okay, Calliope began the long trek across the bed.
So that was our love affair. Wordless, blinkered, a nighttime
thing, a dream thing. There were reasons on my side for
this as well. Whatever it was that I was was best revealed
slowly, in flattering light. Which meant not much light at all.
Besides, thats the way it goes in adolescence. You try
things out in the dark. You get drunk or stoned and
extemporize. Think back to your backseats, your pup tents,
your beach bonfire parties. Did you ever find yourself,
without admitting it, tangled up with your best friend? Or in a
dorm room bed with two people instead of one, while Bach
played on the chintzy stereo, orchestrating the fugue? Its a
kind of fugue state, anyway, early sex. Before the routine
sets in, or the love. Back when the groping is largely
anonymous. Sandbox sex. It starts in the teens and lasts
until twenty or twenty-one. Its all about learning to share. Its
about sharing your toys.
Sometimes when I climbed on top of the Object she would
almost wake up. She would move to accommodate me,
spreading her legs or throwing an arm around my back.
She swam up to the surface of consciousness before
diving again. Her eyelids fluttered. A responsiveness
entered her body, a flex of abdomen in rhythm with mine,
her head thrown back to offer up her throat. I waited for
more. I wanted her to acknowledge what we were doing,
but I was scared, too. So the sleek dolphin rose, leapt
through the ring of my legs, and disappeared again, leaving
me bobbing, trying to keep my balance. Everything was wet
down there. From me or her I didnt know. I laid my head on
her chest beneath the bunched-up T-shirt. Her underarms
smelled like overripe fruit. The hair there was very sparse.
You luck, I would have said, back in our daytime life. You
dont even have to shave. But the nighttime Calliope only
stroked the hair, or tasted it. One night, as I was doing this
and other things, I noticed a shadow on the wall. I thought it
was a moth. But, looking closer, I saw that it was the
Objects hand, raised behind my head. Her hand was
completely awake. It clenched and unclenched, siphoning
all the ecstasy from her body into its secret flowerings.
What the Object and I did together was played out under
these loose rules. We werent too scrupulous about the
details. What pressed on our attention was that it was
happening, sex was happening. That was the great fact.
How it happened exactly, what went where, was secondary.
Plus, we didnt have much to compare it to. Nothing but our
night in the shack with Rex and Jerome.
As far as the crocus was concerned, it wasnt so much a
piece of me as something we discovered and enjoyed
together. Dr. Luce will tell you that female monkeys exhibit
mounting behavior when administered male hormones.
They seize, they thrust. Not me. Or at least not at first. The
blooming of the crocus was an impersonal phenomenon. It
was a kind of hook that fastened us together, more a
stimulant to the Objects outer parts than a penetration of
her inner. But, apparently, effective enough. Because after
the first few nights, she was eager for it. Eager, that is,
while ostensibly remaining unconscious. As I hugged her,
as we languorously shifted and knotted, the Objects
attitudes of insensibility included favorable positioning.
Nothing was made ready or caressed. Nothing was aimed.
But practice brought about a fluid gymnastics to our sleep
couplings. The Objects eyes remained closed throughout;
her head was often turned slightly away. She moved under
me as a sleeping girl might while being ravished by an
incubus. She was like somebody having a dirty dream,
confusing her pillow for a lover.
Sometimes, before or afterward, I switched on the bedside
lamp. I pulled her T-shirt up as far as it would go and slid
her underpants down below her knees. And then I lay there,
letting my eyes have their fill. What else compares? Gold
filings shifted around the magnet of her navel. Her ribs were
as thin as candy canes. The spread of her hips, so different
from mine, looked like a bowl offering up red fruit. And then
there was my favorite spot, the place where her ribcage
softened into breast, the smooth, white dune there.
I turned the light off. I pressed against the Object. I took the
backs of her thighs in my hands, adjusting her legs around
my waist. I reached under her. I brought her up to me. And
then my body, like a cathedral, broke out into ringing. The
hunchback in the belfry had jumped and was swinging
madly on the rope.
Through all this I made no lasting conclusions about myself.
I know its hard to believe, but thats the way it works. The
mind self-edits. The mind airbrushes. Its a different thing to
be inside a body than outside. From outside, you can look,
inspect, compare. From inside there is no comparison. In
the past year the crocus had lengthened considerably. At
its most demonstrative it was now about two inches long.
Most of this length, however, was concealed by the flaps of
skin from which it issued. Then there was the hair. In its
quiet state, the crocus was barely noticeable. What I saw
looking down at myself was only the dark triangular badge
of puberty. When I touched the crocus it expanded, swelling
until with a kind of pop it slid free of the pouch it was in. It
poked its head up into the air. Not too far, though. No more
than an inch past the tree line. What did this mean? I knew
from personal experience that the Object had a crocus of
her own. It swelled, too, when touched. Mine was just
bigger, more effusive in its feelings. My crocus wore its
heart on its sleeve.
The crucial feature was this: the crocus didnt have a hole at
the tip. This was certainly not what a boy had. Put yourself
in my shoes, reader, and ask yourself what conclusion you
would have come to about your sex, if you had what I had, if
you looked the way I looked. To pee I had to sit. The stream
issued from underneath. I had an interior like a girl. It was
tender inside, almost painful if I inserted my finger. True, my
chest was completely flat. But there were other ironing
boards at my school. And Tessie insisted I took after her in
that department. Muscles? Not much to speak of. No hips
either, no waist. A dinner plate of a girl. The low-Cal
special.
Why should I have thought I was anything other than a girl?
Because I wasattracted to a girl? That happened all the
time. It was happening more than ever in 1974. It was
becoming a national pastime. My ecstatic intuition about
myself was now deeply suppressed. How long I would have
managed to keep it down is anybodys guess. But in the
end it wasnt up to me. The big things never are. Birth, I
mean, and death. And love. And what love bequeaths to us
before were born.
The following Thursday morning was hot. It was one of
those humid days when the atmosphere gets confused.
Sitting on the porch, you could feel it: the air wishing it was
water. The Object was draggy in any kind of heat. She
claimed her ankles swelled. All morning shed been a trying
companion, demanding, sullen. While I was dressing shed
come back from the bathroom to accuse me from the
doorway, What did you do with the shampoo?
I didnt do anything with it.
I left it right on the windowsill. Youre the only other person
who uses it.
I squeezed past her and went down the hall. Its right here
in the tub, I said.
The Object took it from me. I feel totally gross and sticky!
she said, by way of apology. Then she got into the shower
while I brushed my teeth. After a minute her oval face
appeared, the shower curtain snug around it. She looked
bald and big-eyed like an alien. Sorry Im such a bitch
today, she said.
I kept brushing, wanting her to suffer a little.
The Objects forehead wrinkled and her eyes grew soft in
appeal. Do you hate me?
Im still deciding.
Youre so mean! she said, comically frowning, and
snapped the curtain shut.
After breakfast, we were on the porch swing, drinking
lemonade and gliding back and forth to create a breeze. I
had my feet up on the railing, pushing off from it. The Object
was lying sideways, her legs spread over my lap, her head
resting against the arm of the swing. She had on cutoffs,
short enough to reveal the white lining of the pockets, and
her bikini top. I was wearing khaki shorts and a white
alligator shirt.
Out in front of us, the bay flashed silver. The bay had
scales, like the fish beneath.
Sometimes I get really sick of having a body, the Object
said.
Me too.
You too?
Especially when its hot like this. Its like torture just moving
around.
Plus I hate sweating.
I cant stand to sweat, I said. Id rather pant like a dog.
The Object laughed. She was smiling at me, marveling.
You understand everything I say, she said. She shook her
head. Why cant you be a guy?
I shrugged, indicating that I had no answer. I was aware of
no irony in this. Neither was the Object.
She was looking at me, low-lidded. Her eyes in the
brightness of day with heat currents rising over the baking
grass looked very green, even if they were only slits,
crescents. Her head was bent forward against the arm of
the swing; she had to look up to see me. This gave her a
vixenish attitude. Without taking her eyes off mine, she
adjusted her legs, spreading them slightly.
You have the most amazing eyes, she said.
Your eyes are really green. They almost look fake.
They are fake.
Youve got glass eyes?
Yeah, Im blind.Im Tiresias.
This was a new way to do it. Wed just discovered it.
Staring into each others eyes was another way of keeping
them closed, or off the details at hand, anyway. We locked
onto each other. Meanwhile the Object was very subtly
flexing her legs. I was aware of the mound beneath her
cutoffs rising toward me, just a little, rising and suggesting
itself. I put my hand on the Objects thigh, palm down. And
as we continued to swing, looking at each other while
crickets played their fiddles in the grass, I slid my hand
sideways up toward the place where the Objects legs
joined. My thumb went under her cutoffs. Her face showed
no reaction. Her green eyes under the heavy lids remained
fastened on mine. I felt the fluffiness of her underpants and
pressed down, sliding under the elastic. And then with our
eyes wide open but confined in that way my thumb slipped
inside her. She blinked, her eyes closed, her hips rose
higher, and I did it again. And again after that. The boats in
the bay were part of it, and the string section of crickets in
the baking grass, and the ice melting in our lemonade
glasses. The swing moved back and forth, creaking on its
rusted chain, and it was like that old nursery rhyme, Little
Jack Horner sat in the corner eating his Christmas pie. He
stuck in his thumb and pulled out a plum . . . After the first
roll of her eyes the Object resettled her gaze on mine, and
then what she was feeling showed only there, in the green
depths her eyes revealed. Otherwise she was motionless.
Only my hand moved, and my feet on the rail, pushing the
swing. This went on for three minutes, or five, or fifteen. I
have no idea. Time disappeared. Somehow we were still
not quite conscious of what we were doing. Sensation
dissolved straight into forgetting.
When the floor of the porch creaked behind us, I jumped. I
withdrew my thumb from the Objects pants and sat up
straight. I saw something in the corner of my eyes and
turned. Perched on the railing to our right was Jerome. He
was in his vampire costume, despite the heat. The powder
on his face was burning off in spots but he still looked very
pale. He was gazing down on us with his best haunted
expression. HisTurn of the Screw expression. The young
master led astray by the gardener. The boy in the frock coat
whod drowned in the well. Everything was dead except the
eyes. His eyes fixed on uson the Objects bare legs lying
in my lapwhile his face remained embalmed.
Then the apparition spoke:
Carpet munchers.
Just ignore him, the Object said.
Carrrrpet muncherrrrs, Jerome repeated. It came out in a
croak.
Shutup !
Jerome remained still and ghoul-like on the rail. His hair
wasnt slicked back but fell limp on either side of his face.
He was very controlled and intent about what he was doing,
as if following a time-honored procedure. Carpet
muncher, he said again. Carpet muncher, carpet
muncher. Singular now. This was between him and his
sister.
I said quit it, Jerome. The Object now tried to rise. She
swung her legs off my lap and started to roll out of the
swing. But Jerome moved first. He spread his jacket like
wings and jumped off the railing. He swooped down on the
Object. Still his face was completely impassive. No
muscles moved except those of his mouth. Into the Objects
face, into her ears he kept hissing and croaking. Carpet
muncher, carpet muncher, carpet muncher, carpet
muncher.
Stop it!
She tried to hit him but he caught her arms. He held both of
her wrists in one hand. With his other hand Jerome made a
V with his fingers. He pressed this V to his mouth and
between this suggestive triangle flicked his tongue back
and forth. At the crudity of this gesture the Objects calm
began to crack. A sob rose in her. Jerome sensed its
arrival. He had reduced his sister to tears for over a
decade; he knew how to do it; he was like a kid burning an
ant with a magnifying glass, focusing the beam in hotter
and hotter.
Carpet muncher, carpet muncher, carpet muncher . . .
And then it happened. The Object broke down. She began
to bawl like a little girl. Her face turned red and she swung
her fists wildly before finally running away into the house.
At that point Jeromes fierce activity ceased. He adjusted
his jacket. He smoothed his hair and, leaning against the
porch rail, stared peacefully out at the water.
Dont worry, he said to me. I wont tell anyone.
Tell anyone what?
Youre lucky Im such a liberal and freethinking type of guy,
he continued. Most guys wouldnt be so happy to find out
that theyd been two-timed by a lesbian with their own
sister. Its sort of embarrassing, dont you think? But Im
such a freethinker that Im willing to overlook your
proclivities.
Why dont you shut up, Jerome?
Ill shut up when I want to, he said. Then he turned his head
and looked at me. You know where you are now?
Splitsville, Stephanides. Get out of here and dont come
back. And keep your hands off my sister.
I was already jumping up. My blood rocketed. It shot up my
spine and rang a bell in my head, and I charged Jerome in
a blaze of fury. He was bigger than me but unprepared. I hit
him in the face. He tried to move away but I crashed into
him, my momentum knocking him to the floor. I climbed on
his chest, pinning his arms with my legs. Finally Jerome
stopped resisting. He lay on his back and tried to look
amused.
Any time youre finished, he said.
It was an exhilarating feeling to be on top of him. Chapter
Eleven had pinned me all my life. This was the first time Id
done it to somebody else, especially a boy older than me.
My long hair was falling into Jeromes face. I swept it back
and forth, tormenting him. Then I remembered something
else my brother used to do.
No, Jerome cried. Come on.Dont !
I let it fall. Like a raindrop. Like a tear. But neither of those
things. The spit plopped right between Jeromes eyes. And
then the earth opened up beneath us. With a roar Jerome
rose up, sending me backward. My supremacy had been
brief. Now it was time to run.
I took off across the porch. I jumped down the steps and
tore across the back lawn, barefoot. Jerome came after me
in his Dracula getup. He stopped to fling off the coat and I
increased the distance between us. Through the backyards
of the neighboring houses I ran, ducking under pine
branches. I dodged bushes and barbecues. The pine
needles gave good traction under my feet. Finally I reached
the open field beyond and fled into it. When I looked back
Jerome was gaining on me.
Through the high, yellow grass along the bayshore we flew. I
jumped over the historical marker, grazing my foot, then
hopped in pain and continued on. Jerome cleared it without
a hitch. On the other side of the field was the road that led
back to the house. If I could get over the rise, I could double
back without Jerome seeing me. The Object and I could
barricade ourselves in our room. I reached the hill and
started up. Jerome came after me, scowling, still gaining.
We were like runners in a frieze. In profile, with pumping
thighs and knifing arms, we cut through the shin-whipping
grass. By the time I reached the bottom of the hill Jerome
seemed to be slowing down. He was waving his hand in
defeat. He was waving it and shouting something I couldnt
hear . . .
The tractor had just made a turn onto the road. High in his
seat, the farmer didnt see me. I was looking back to check
on Jerome. When I finally turned forward it was too late.
Right in front of me was the tractor tire. I hit it dead on. In the
terracotta dust I was spun upward into the air. At the apex
of my arc I saw the raised plow blades behind, the
corkscrewing metal covered with mud, and then the race
was over.
I awoke later, in the backseat of a strange automobile. A
rattletrap, with blankets covering the seats. A decal of a
hooked, flapping trout was pasted to the rear window. The
driver wore a red cap. The little space above the caps
adjustable headband showed the buzzed hairline of his
seamed neck.
My head felt soft, as if covered in gauze. I was wrapped in
an old blanket, stiff and spoked with hay. I turned my head
and looked up and saw a beautiful sight. I saw the Objects
face from below. My head was in her lap. My right cheek
was flush against the warm upholstery of her tummy. She
was still in her bikini top and cutoffs. Her knees were
spread and her red hair fell over me, darkening things. I
gazed up through this maroon or oxblood space and saw
what I could of her, the dark band of her swimsuit top, her
clavicles set forward. She was chewing one cuticle. It was
going to bleed if she kept it up. Hurry, she was saying,
from the other side of the falling hair. Hurry up, Mr. Burt.
It was the farmer who was driving. The farmer whose tractor
Id run into. I hoped he wasnt listening. I didnt want him to
hurry. I wanted this ride to go on for as long as possible.
The Object was stroking my head. Shed never done this in
daylight before.
I beat up your brother, I said out of the blue.
With one hand the Object swept her hair away. The light
knifed in.
Callie! Are you okay?
I smiled up at her. I got him good.
Oh God, she said. I was so scared. I thought you were
dead. You were just lylyher voice brokelyingthere
in the road!
The tears came on, tears of gratitude now, not anger like
before. The Object sobbed. With awe I beheld the storm of
emotion racking her. She dipped her head. She pressed
her snuffling, wet face against mine and, for the first and
last time, we kissed. We were hidden by the backseat, by
the wall of hair, and who was the farmer to tell anyway? The
Objects anguished lips met mine, and there was a sweet
taste and a taste of salt.
Im all snotty, she said, lifting her face up again. She
managed to laugh.
But already the car was stopping. The farmer was jumping
out, shouting things. He swung open the back door. Two
orderlies appeared and lifted me onto a stretcher. They
wheeled me across the sidewalk into the hospital doors.
The Object remained at my side. She took my hand. For a
moment she seemed to register her near nakedness. She
looked down at herself when her bare feet hit the cold
linoleum. But she shrugged this off. All the way down the
hall, until the orderlies told her to stop, she held on to my
hand. As though it were a string of Piraeus yarn. You cant
come in, miss, the orderlies said. You have to wait here.
And so she did. But still she didnt let go of my hand. Not for
a while longer yet. The stretcher was wheeled down the
corridor and my arm stretched out toward the Object. I had
already left on my voyage. I was sailing across the sea to
another country. Now my arm was twenty feet long, thirty,
forty, fifty. I lifted my head from the stretcher to gaze at the
Object. To gaze at the Obscure Object. For once more she
was becoming a mystery to me. What ever happened to
her? Where is she now? She stood at the end of the hall,
holding my unraveling arm. She looked cold, skinny, out of
place, lost. It was almost as if she knew we would never
see each other again. The stretcher was picking up speed.
My arm was only a thin ribbon now, curling through the air.
Finally the inevitable moment came. The Object let go. My
hand flew up, free, empty.
Lights overhead, bright and round, as at my birth. The same
squeaking of white shoes. But Dr. Philobosian was
nowhere to be found. The doctor who smiled down at me
was young and sandy-haired. He had a country accent. Im
gonna ask you a few questions, okay?
Okay.
Start off with your name.
Callie.
How old are you, Callie?
Fourteen.
How many fingers am I holding out?
Two.
I want you to count backward for me. Start from ten.
Ten, nine, eight . . .
And all the while, he was pressing me, feeling for breaks.
Does this hurt?
No.
This?
Uh-uh.
How about here?
Suddenly it did hurt. A bolt, a cobra bite, beneath my navel.
The cry I let out was answer enough.
Okay, okay, were gonna go easy here. I just need to take
a look. Lie still now.
The doctor signaled the intern with his eyes. From either
side they began to undress me. The intern pulled my shirt
over my head. There was my chest, green and bleak. They
paid no notice. Neither did I. Meanwhile the doctor had
unfastened my belt. He was undoing the clasp of my khakis:
I let him. Down came the pants. I watched as if from far
away. I was thinking about something else. I was
remembering how the Object would lift her hips to help me
get her underpants off. That little signal of compliance, of
desire. I was thinking how much I loved it when she did that.
Now the intern was reaching under me. And so I lifted my
hips.
They took hold of my underpants. They tugged them down.
The elastic caught on my skin, then gave.
The doctor bent closer, mumbling to himself. The intern,
rather unprofessionally, raised one hand to her throat and
then pretended to fix her collar.
Chekhov was right. If theres a gun on the wall, its got to go
off. In real life, however, you never know where the gun is
hanging. The gun my father kept under his pillow never fired
a shot. The rifle over the Objects mantel never did either.
But in the emergency room things were different. There was
no smoke, no gunpowder smell, absolutely no sound at all.
Only the way the doctor and nurse reacted made it clear
that my body had lived up to the narrative requirements.
One scene remains to be described in this portion of my
life. It took place a week later, back on Middlesex, and
featured me, a suitcase, and a tree. I was in my bedroom,
sitting on the window seat. It was just before noon. I was
dressed in traveling clothes, a gray pantsuit with a white
blouse. I was reaching out my window, picking berries off
the mulberry tree that grew outside. For the last hour Id
been eating the berries to distract myself from the sound
coming from my parents bedroom.
The mulberries had ripened in the last week. They were fat
and juicy. The berries stained my hands. Outside, the
sidewalk was splotched purple, as was the grass itself, and
the rocks in the flower beds. The sound in my parents
bedroom was my mother weeping.
I got up. I went over to the open suitcase and checked
again to see if Id packed everything. My parents and I were
leaving in an hour. We were going to New York City to see
a famous doctor. I didnt know how long wed be gone or
what was wrong with me. I didnt pay much attention to the
details. I only knew I was no longer a girl like other girls.
Orthodox monks smuggled silk out of China in the sixth
century. They brought it to Asia Minor. From there it spread
to Europe, and finally traveled across the sea to North
America. Benjamin Franklin fostered the silk industry in
Pennsylvania before the American Revolution. Mulberry
trees were planted all over the United States. As I picked
those berries out my bedroom window, however, I had no
idea that our mulberry tree had anything to do with the silk
trade, or that my grandmother had had trees just like it
behind her house in Turkey. That mulberry tree had stood
outside my bedroom on Middlesex, never divulging its
significance to me. But now things are different. Now all the
mute objects of my life seem to tell my story, to stretch back
in time, if I look closely enough. So I cant possibly finish up
this section of my life without mentioning the following fact:
The most widely raised type of silkworm, the larva of
theBombyx mori , no longer exists anywhere in a natural
state. As my encyclopedia poignantly puts it: The legs of
the larvae have degenerated, and the adults do not fly.
BOOK FOUR
THE ORACULAR VULVA
From my birth when they went undetected, to my baptism
where they upstaged the priest, to my troubled
adolescence when they didnt do much of anything and then
did everything at once, my genitals have been the most
significant thing that ever happened to me. Some people
inherit houses; others paintings or highly insured violin
bows. Still others get a Japanese tansu or a famous name.
I got a recessive gene on my fifth chromosome and some
very rare family jewels indeed.
My parents had at first refused to believe the emergency
room doctors wild claim about my anatomy. The diagnosis,
delivered over the phone to a largely uncomprehending
Milton and then bowdlerized by him for Tessies benefit,
amounted to a vague concern about the formation of my
urinary tract along with a possible hormonal deficiency. The
doctor in Petoskey hadnt performed a karyotype. His job
was to treat my concussion and contusions, and when he
was done with that, he let me go.
My parents wanted a second opinion. At Miltons insistence
I had been taken one last time to see Dr. Phil.
In 1974, Dr. Nishan Philobosian was eighty-eight years old.
He still wore a bow tie, but his neck no longer filled out the
collar of his shirt. He was reduced in all his parts, freezedried.
Nevertheless, green golf slacks extended from the
hem of his white coat and a pair of tinted aviator-style
glasses gripped his hairless head.
Hello, Callie, how are you?
Fine, Dr. Phil.
Starting school again? What grade are you in now?
Ill be in ninth this year. High school.
High school? Already? I must be getting old.
His courtly manner was no different than it had ever been.
The foreign sounds he still made, the evidence of the Old
World in his teeth, put me somewhat at ease. All my life
dignified foreigners had petted and pampered me. I was a
sucker for the soft-handed Levantine affections. As a little
girl I had sat on Dr. Philobosians knee while his fingers
climbed my spinal column, counting off the vertebrae. Now I
was taller than he was, gangly, freak-haired, a Tiny Tim of a
girl, sitting in gown, bra, and underpants on the edge of an
old-fashioned medical table with step-drawers of
vulcanized rubber. He listened to my heart and lungs, his
bald head dipping on the long neck like that of a
brontosaurus, sampling leaves.
Hows your father, Callie?
Fine.
Hows the hot dog business?
Good.
How many hot dog places your dad has now?
Like fifty or something.
Theres one not too far from where Nurse Rosalee and I go
in the winter. Pompano Beach.
He examined my eyes and ears and then politely asked me
to stand and lower my underpants. Fifty years earlier, Dr.
Philobosian had made his living treating Ottoman ladies in
Smyrna. Propriety was an old habit with him.
My mind was not fuzzy, as it had been up in Petoskey. I was
fully aware of what was happening and where the focus of
medical scrutiny lay. After I had pulled my panties down to
my knees, a hot wave of embarrassment swept through me
and by reflex I covered myself with my hand. Dr.
Philobosian, not entirely gently, moved this aside. There
was something of the impatience of the old in this. He
forgot himself momentarily, and behind his aviator lenses
his eyes glared. Still, he didnt look down at me. He gazed
gallantly off at the far wall while feeling for information with
his hands. We were as close as dancing. Dr. Phils
breathing was noisy; his hands shook. I glanced down
myself only once. My embarrassment had retracted me.
From my angle I was a girl again, white belly, dark triangle,
foreshortened legs shaved smooth. My brassiere was
bandoliered across my chest.
It took only a minute. The old Armenian, crouching, lizardbacked,
ran his yellowed fingers over my parts. It was no
surprise that Dr. Philobosian had never noticed anything.
Even now, alerted to the possibility, he didnt seem to want
to know.
You can get dressed now, was all he said. He turned and
walked very carefully to the sink. He turned on the water and
thrust his hands into the stream. They seemed to be
trembling more than ever. Liberally he squirted out the
antibacterial soap. Say hello to your dad, he said before I
left the room.
Dr. Phil referred me to an endocrinologist at Henry Ford
Hospital. The endocrinologist tapped a vein in my arm,
filling an alarming number of vials with my blood. Why all
this blood was needed he didnt say. I was too frightened to
ask. That night, however, I put my ear to my bedroom wall in
hopes of finding out what was going on. So what did the
doctor say? Milton was asking. He said Dr. Phil should
have noticed when Callie was born, Tessie answered.
This whole thing could have been fixed back then. And
then Milton again: I cant believe hed miss something like
that. (Like what? I silently asked the wall, but it didnt
specify.)
Three days later we arrived in New York.
Milton had booked us into a hotel called the Lochmoor in
the East Thirties. He had stayed there twenty-three years
earlier as a navy ensign. Always a thrifty traveler, Milton
was also encouraged by the room rates. Our stay in New
York was open-ended. The doctor Milton had spoken to
the specialistrefused to discuss details before hed had
a chance to examine me. Youll like it, Milton assured us.
Its pretty swank, as I remember.
It was not. We arrived from La Guardia in a taxi to find the
Lochmoor fallen from its former glory. The desk clerk and
cashier worked behind bulletproof glass. The Viennese
carpeting was wet beneath the dripping radiators and the
mirrors had been removed, leaving ghostly rectangles of
plaster and ornamental screws. The elevator was prewar,
with gilded, curving bars like a birdcage. Once upon a time,
there had been an operator; no longer. We crammed our
suitcases into the small space and I slid the gate closed. It
kept coming off its track. I had to do it three times before
the electrical current would flow. Finally the contraption rose
and through the spray-painted bars we watched the floors
pass by, each dim and identical except for the variation of a
maid in uniform, or a room service tray outside a door, or a
pair of shoes. Still, there was a feeling of ascension in that
old box, of rising up out of a pit, and it was a letdown to get
to our floor, number eight, and find it just as drab as the
lobby.
Our room had been carved out of a once-bigger suite. Now
the angles of the walls were skewed. Even Tessie, pintsized,
felt constricted. For some reason the bathroom was
nearly as large as the bedroom. The toilet stood stranded
on loose tiles and ran continuously. The tub had a skid
mark where the water drained out.
There was a queen-size bed for my parents and, in the
corner, a cot set up for me. I hauled my suitcase up onto it.
My suitcase was a bone of contention between Tessie and
me. She had picked it out for me before our trip to Turkey. It
had a floral pattern of turquoise and green blossoms which I
found hideous. Since going off to private schooland
hanging around the Objectmy tastes had been changing,
becoming refined, I thought. Poor Tessie no longer knew
what to buy me. Anything she chose was greeted by wails
of horror. I was adamantly opposed to anything synthetic or
with visible stitching. My parents found my new urge for
purity amusing. Often my father would rub my shirt between
his thumb and fingers and ask, Is this preppy?
With the suitcase Tessie had had no time to consult me,
and so there it was, bearing a design like a place mats.
Unzipping the suitcase and flipping it open, I felt better.
Inside were all the clothes Id chosen myself: the crew neck
sweaters in primary colors, the Lacoste shirts, the widewale
corduroys. My coat was from Papagallo, lime green
with horn-shaped buttons made from bone.
Do we have to unpack or can we leave everything in our
suitcases? I asked.
We better unpack and put our suitcases in the closet,
Milton answered. Give us a little more room in here.
I put my sweaters neatly in the dresser drawers, my socks
and underpants, too, and hung my pants up. I took my
toiletry case into the bathroom and put it on the shelf. I had
brought lip gloss and perfume with me. I wasnt certain that
they were obsolete.
I closed the bathroom door, locked it, and bent close to the
mirror to examine my face. Two dark hairs, still short, were
visible above my upper lip. I got tweezers out of my case
and plucked them. This made my eyes water. My clothes
felt tight. The sleeves of my sweater were too short. I
combed my hair and, optimistically, desperately, smiled at
myself.
I knew that my situation, whatever it was, was a crisis of
some kind. I could tell that from my parents false, cheery
behavior and from our speedy exit from home. Still, no one
had said a word to me yet. Milton and Tessie were treating
me exactly as they always hadas their daughter, in other
words. They acted as though my problem was medical and
therefore fixable. So I began to hope so, too. Like a person
with a terminal illness, I was eager to ignore the immediate
symptoms, hoping for a last-minute cure. I veered back and
forth between hope and its opposite, a growing certainty
that something terrible was wrong with me. But nothing
made me more desperate than looking in the mirror.
I opened the door and stepped back into the room. I hate
this hotel, I said. Its gross.
Its not too nice, Tessie agreed.
It used to be nicer, said Milton. I dont understand what
happened.
The carpet smells.
Lets open a window.
Maybe we wont have to be here that long, Tessie said,
hopefully, wearily.
In the evening we ventured outside, looking for something
to eat, and then returned to the room to watch TV. Later,
after we switched off the lights, I asked from my cot, What
are we doing tomorrow?
We have to go the doctors in the morning, said Tessie.
After that we have to see about some Broadway tickets,
said Milton. What do you want to see, Cal?
I dont care, I said gloomily.
I think we should see a musical, said Tessie.
I saw Ethel Merman inMame once, Milton recalled. She
came down this big, long staircase, singing. When she
finished, the place went wild. She stopped the show. So
she just went right back up the staircase and sang the song
over again.
Would you like to see a musical, Callie?
Whatever.
Damnedest thing I ever saw, said Milton. That Ethel
Merman can really belt it out.
No one spoke after that. We lay in the dark, in our strange
beds, until we fell asleep.
The next morning after breakfast we set off to see the
specialist. My parents tried to seem excited as we left the
hotel, pointing out sights from the taxi window. Milton
exuded the boisterousness he reserved for all difficult
situations. This is some place, he said as we drove up to
situations. This is some place, he said as we drove up to
New York Hospital. River view! I might just check myself
in.
Like any teenager, I was largely oblivious to the clumsy
figure I cut. My stork movements, my flapping arms, my long
legs kicking out my undersized feet in their fawn-colored
Wallabeesall that machinery clanked beneath the
observation tower of my head, and I was too close to see it.
My parents did. It pained them to watch me advance across
the sidewalk toward the hospital entrance. It was terrifying
to see your child in the grip of unknown forces. For a year
now they had been denying how I was changing, putting it
down to the awkward age. Shell grow out of it, Milton was
always telling my mother. But now they were seized with a
fear that I was growing out of control.
We found the elevator and rode up to the fourth floor, then
followed the arrows to something called the
Psychohormonal Unit. Milton had the office number written
out on a card. Finally we found the right room. The gray
door was unmarked except for an extremely small,
unobtrusive sign halfway down that read:
Sexual Disorders and Gender Identity Clinic
If my parents saw the sign, they pretended not to. Milton
lowered his head, bull-like, and pushed the door open.
The receptionist welcomed us and told us to have a seat.
The waiting room was unexceptional. Chairs lined the walls,
divided evenly by magazine tables, and there was the usual
rubber tree expiring in the corner. The carpeting was
institutional, with a hectic, stain-camouflaging pattern.
There was even a reassuringly medicinal smell in the air.
After my mother filled out the insurance forms, we were
shown into the doctors office. This, too, inspired
confidence. An Eames chair stood behind the desk. By the
window was a Le Corbusier chaise, made of chrome and
cowhide. The bookshelves were filled with medical books
and journals and the walls tastefully hung with art. Big-city
sophistication attuned to a European sensibility. The
surround of a triumphant psychoanalytic world-view. Not to
mention the East River view out the windows. We were a
long way from Dr. Phils office with its amateur oils and
Medicaid cases.
It was two or three minutes before we noticed anything out
of the ordinary. At first the curios and etchings had blended
in with the scholarly clutter of the office. But as we sat
waiting for the doctor, we became aware of a silent
commotion all around us. It was like staring at the ground
and realizing, suddenly, that it is swarming with ants. The
restful doctors office was churning with activity. The
paperweight on his desk, for instance, was not a simple,
inert rock but a tiny priapus carved from stone. The
miniatures on the walls revealed their subject matter under
closer observation. Beneath yellow silk tents, on paisley
pillows, Mughal princes acrobatically copulated with
multiple partners, keeping their turbans in place. Tessie
blushed, looking; while Milton squinted; and I hid inside my
hair as usual. We tried to look someplace else and so
looked at the bookshelves. But here it wasnt safe either.
Amid a dulling surround of issues ofJAMA andThe New
England Journal of Medicine were some eye-popping
titles. One, with entwining snakes on the spine, was
calledErotosexual Pair Bonding. There was a purple,
pamphlety thing entitledRitualized Homosexuality: Three
Field Studies. On the desk itself, with a bookmark in it, was
a manual calledHap-Penis: Surgical Techniques in
Female-to-Male Sex Reassignment. If the sign on the front
door hadnt already, Luces office made it clear just what
kind of specialist my parents had brought me to see. (And,
worse, to see me.) There were sculptures, too.
Reproductions from the temple at Kujaraho occupied
corners of the room along with huge jade plants. Against
the waxy green foliage, melon-breasted Hindu women bent
over double, offering up orifices like prayers to the wellendowed
men who answered them. An overloaded
switchboard, a dirty game of Twister everywhere you
turned.
Will you look at this place? Tessie whispered.
Sort of unusual decor, said Milton.
And I: What are we doing here?
It was right then that the door opened and Dr. Luce
presented himself.
At that stage, I didnt know about his glamour status in the
field. I had no idea of the frequency with which Luces name
appeared in the relevant journals and papers. But I saw
right away that Luce wasnt your normal-looking doctor.
Instead of a medical coat he wore a suede vest with fringe.
Silver hair touched the collar of his beige turtleneck. His
pants were flared and on his feet were a pair of ankle boots
with zippers on the sides. He had eyeglasses, too, silver
wire-rims, and a gray mustache.
Welcome to New York, he said. Im Dr. Luce. He shook
my fathers hand, then my mothers, and finally came to me.
You must be Calliope. He was smiling, relaxed. Lets see
if I can remember my mythology. Calliope was one of the
Muses, right?
Right.
In charge of what?
Epic poetry.
You cant beat that, said Luce. He was trying to act
casual, but I could see he was excited. I was an
extraordinary case, after all. He was taking his time,
savoring me. To a scientist like Luce I was nothing less
than a sexual or genetic Kaspar Hauser. There he was, a
famous sexologist, a guest onDick Cavett , a regular
contributor toPlayboy , and suddenly on his doorstep,
arriving out of the woods of Detroit like the Wild Boy of
Aveyron, was me, Calliope Stephanides, age fourteen. I
was a living experiment dressed in white corduroys and a
Fair Isle sweater. This sweater, pale yellow, with a floral
wreath at the neck, told Luce that I refuted nature in just the
way his theory predicted. He must have hardly been able to
contain himself, meeting me. He was a brilliant, charming,
work-obsessed man, and watched me from behind his
desk with keen eyes. While he chatted, speaking primarily
to my parents, gaining their confidence, Luce was
nevertheless making mental notes. He registered my tenor
voice. He noted that I sat with one leg tucked under me. He
watched how I examined my nails, curling my fingers into
my palm. He paid attention to the way I coughed, laughed,
scratched my head, spoke; in sum, all the external
manifestations of what he called my gender identity.
He kept up the calm manner, as if I had come to the Clinic
with nothing more than a sprained ankle. The first thing Id
like to do is give Calliope a short examination. If youd care
to wait here in my office, Mr. and Mrs. Stephanides. He
stood up. Would you come with me please, Calliope?
I got up from my chair. Luce watched as the various
segments, like those of a collapsible ruler, unfolded
themselves, and I attained my full height, an inch taller than
he was himself.
Well be right here, honey, Tessie said.
Were not going anywhere, said Milton.
Peter Luce was considered the worlds leading authority on
human hermaphroditism. The Sexual Disorders and
Gender Identity Clinic, which he founded in 1968, had
become the foremost facility in the world for the study and
treatment of conditions of ambiguous gender. He was the
author of a major sexological work,The Oracular Vulva,
which was standard in a variety of disciplines ranging from
genetics and pediatrics to psychology. He had written a
column by the same name forPlayboy from August 1972 to
December 1973 in which the conceit was that a personified
and all-knowing female pudendum answered the queries of
male readers with witty and sometimes sibylline responses.
Hugh Hefner had come across Peter Luces name in the
papers in connection with a demonstration for sexual
freedom. Six Columbia students had staged an orgy in a
tent on the main green, which the cops broke up, and when
asked what he thought about such activity on campus, Prof.
Peter Luce, 46, had been quoted as saying, Im in favor of
orgies wherever they happen. That caught Hefs eye. Not
wanting to replicate Xaviera Hollanders Call Me Madam
column inPenthouse , Hefner saw Luces contribution as
being devoted to the scientific and historical side of sex.
Thus, in her first three issues, the Oracular Vulva delivered
disquisitions on the erotic art of the Japanese painter
Hiroshi Yamamoto, the epidemiology of syphilis, and the
sex life of St. Augustine. The column proved popular,
though intelligent queries were always hard to come by, the
readership being more interested in the Playboy Advisor
s cunnilingus tips or remedies for premature ejaculation.
Finally, Hefner told Luce to write his own questions, which
he was only too glad to do.
Peter Luce had appeared onPhil Donahue along with two
hermaphrodites and a transsexual to discuss both the
medical and psychological aspects of these conditions. On
that program, Phil Donahue said, Lynn Harris was born
and raised a girl. You won the Miss Newport Beach
Contest in 1964 in good old Orange County, California?
Boy, wait till they hear this. You lived as a woman to the age
of twenty-nine and then you switched to living as a man. He
has the anatomical characteristics of both a man and a
woman. If Im lyin, Im dyin.
He also said, Heres whats not so funny. These live,
irreplaceable sons and daughters of God, human beings
all, want you to know, among other things, that thats exactly
what they are, human beings.
Because of certain genetic and hormonal conditions, it was
sometimes very difficult to determine the sex of a newborn
baby. Confronted with such a child, the Spartans had left
the infant on a rocky hillside to die. Luces own forebears,
the English, didnt even like to mention the subject, and
might never have done so had the nuisance of mysterious
genitalia not thrown a wrench into the smooth workings of
inheritance law. Lord Coke, the great British jurist of the
seventeenth century, tried to clear up the matter of who
would get the landed estates by declaring that a person
should be either male or female, and it shall succeed
according to the kind of sex which doth prevail. Of course,
he didnt specify any precise method for determining which
sexdid prevail. For most of the twentieth century, medicine
had been using the same primitive diagnostic criterion of
sex formulated by Klebs way back in 1876. Klebs had
maintained that a persons gonads determined sex. In
cases of ambiguous gender, you looked at the gonadal
tissue under the microscope. If it was testicular, the person
was male; if ovarian, female. The hunch here was that a
persons gonads would orchestrate sexual development,
especially at puberty. But it turned out to be more
complicated than that. Klebs had begun the task, but the
world had to wait another hundred years for Peter Luce to
come along and finish it.
In 1955, Luce published an article called Many Roads
Lead to Rome: Sexual Concepts of Human
Hermaphroditism. In twenty-five pages of forthright, hightoned
prose, Luce argued that gender is determined by a
variety of influences: chromosomal sex; gonadal sex;
hormones; internal genital structures; external genitals; and,
most important, the sex of rearing. Drawing on studies of
patients at the pediatric endocrine clinic at New York
Hospital, Luce was able to compile charts demonstrating
how these various factors came into play, and showing that
a patients gonadal sex often didnt determine his or her
gender identity. The article made a big splash. Within
months, pretty much everyone had given up Klebss
criterion for Luces criteria.
On the strength of this success, Luce was given the
opportunity to open the Psychohormonal Unit at New York
Hospital. In those days he saw mostly kids with
adrenogenital syndrome, the most common form of female
hermaphroditism. The hormone cortisol, recently
synthesized in the lab, had been found to arrest the
virilization these girls normally underwent, allowing them to
develop as normal females. The endocrinologists
administered the cortisol and Luce oversaw the girls
psychosexual development. He learned a lot. In a decade
of solid, original research, Luce made his second great
discovery: that gender identity is established very early on
in life, about the age of two. Gender was like a native
tongue; it didnt exist before birth but was imprinted in the
brain during childhood, never disappearing. Children learn
to speak Male or Female the way they learn to speak
English or French.
He published this theory in 1967, in an article in theThe
New England Journal of Medicine entitled Early
Establishment of Gender Identity: The Terminal Twos. After
that, his reputation reached the stratosphere. The funding
flowed in, from the Rockefeller Foundation, the Ford
Foundation, and the N.I.S. It was a great time to be a
sexologist. The Sexual Revolution provided new
opportunities for the enterprising sex researcher. It was a
matter of national interest, for a few years there, to examine
the mechanics of the female orgasm. Or to plumb the
psychological reasons why certain men exhibited
themselves on the street. In 1968, Dr. Luce opened the
Sexual Disorders and Gender Identity Clinic. Luce treated
everybody: the webbed-necked girl teens with Turners
syndrome, who had only one sex chromosome, a lonely X;
the leggy beauties with Androgen Insensitivity; or the XYY
boys, who tended to be dreamers and loners. When babies
with ambiguous genitalia were born at the hospital, Dr.
Luce was called in to discuss the matter with the
bewildered parents. Luce got the transsexuals, too.
Everyone came to the Clinic, with the result that Luce had at
his disposal a body of research materialof living,
breathing specimensno scientist had ever had before.
And now Luce had me. In the examination room, he told me
to get undressed and put on a paper gown. After taking
some blood (only one vial, thankfully), he had me lie down
on a table with my legs up in stirrups. There was a pale
green curtain, the same color as my gown, that could be
pulled across the table, dividing my upper and lower halves.
Luce didnt close it that first day. Only later, when there was
an audience.
This shouldnt hurt but it might feel a little funny.
I stared up at the ring light on the ceiling. Luce had another
light on a stand, which he angled to suit his purposes. I
could feel its heat between my legs as he pressed and
prodded me.
For the first few minutes I concentrated on the circular light,
but finally, drawing in my chin, I looked down to see that
Luce was holding the crocus between his thumb and
forefinger. He was stretching it out with one hand while
measuring it with the other. Then he let go of the ruler and
made notes. He didnt look shocked or appalled. In fact he
examined me with great curiosity, almost connoisseurship.
There was an element of awe or appreciation in his face.
He took notes as he proceeded but made no small talk. His
concentration was intense.
After a while, still crouching between my legs, Luce turned
his head to search for another instrument. Between the
sight lines of my raised knees his ear appeared, an
amazing organ all its own, whorled and flanged, translucent
in the bright lights. His ear was very close to me. It seemed
for a moment as though Luce were listening at my source.
As though some riddle were being imparted to him from
between my legs. But then he found what he had been
looking for and turned back.
looking for and turned back.
He began to probe inside.
Relax, he said.
He applied a lubricant, huddled in closer.
Relax.
There was a hint of annoyance, of command in his voice. I
took a deep breath and did the best I could. Luce poked
inside. For a moment it felt merely strange, as hed
suggested. But then a sharp pain shot through me. I jerked
back, crying out.
Sorry.
Nevertheless, he kept on. He placed one hand on my pelvis
to steady me. He probed in farther, though he avoided the
painful area. My eyes were welling with tears.
Almost finished, he said.
But he was only getting started.
The chief imperative in cases like mine was to show no
doubt as to the gender of the child in question. You did not
tell the parents of a newborn, Your baby is a
hermaphrodite. Instead, you said, Your daughter was born
with a clitoris that is a little larger than a normal girls. Well
need to do surgery to make it the right size. Luce felt that
parents werent able to cope with an ambiguous gender
assignment. You had to tell them if they had a boy or a girl.
Which meant that, before you said anything, you had to be
sure what the prevailing gender was.
Luce could not do this with me yet. He had received the
results of the endocrinological tests performed at Henry
Ford Hospital, and so knew of my XY karyotype, my high
plasma testosterone levels, and the absence in my blood of
dihydrotestosterone. In other words, before even seeing
me, Luce was able to make an educated guess that I was a
male pseudohermaphroditegenetically male but
appearing otherwise, with 5-alpha-reductase deficiency
syndrome. But that, according to Luces thinking, did not
mean that I had a male gender identity.
My being a teenager complicated things. In addition to
chromosomal and hormonal factors, Luce had to consider
my sex of rearing, which had beenfemale . He suspected
that the tissue mass he had palpated inside me was
testicular. Still, he couldnt be sure until he had looked at a
sample under a microscope.
All this must have been going through Luces mind as he
brought me back to the waiting room. He told me he
wanted to speak to my parents and that he would send
them out when he was finished. His intensity had lessened
and he was friendly again, smiling and patting me on the
back.
In his office Luce sat down in his Eames chair, looked up at
Milton and Tessie, and adjusted his glasses.
Mr. Stephanides, Mrs. Stephanides, Ill be frank. This is a
complicated case. By complicated I dont mean
irremediable. We have a range of effective treatments for
cases of this kind. But before Im ready to begin treatment
there are a number of questions I have to answer.
My mother and father were sitting only a foot apart during
this speech, but each heard something different. Milton
heard the words that were there. He heard treatment and
effective. Tessie, on the other hand, heard the words that
werent there. The doctor hadnt said my name, for
instance. He hadnt said Calliope or Callie. He hadnt
said daughter, either. He didnt use any pronouns at all.
Ill need to run further tests, Luce was continuing. Ill need
to perform a complete psychological assessment. Once I
have the necessary information, then we can discuss in
detail the proper course of treatment.
Milton was already nodding. What kind of time line are we
talking about, Doctor?
Luce jutted out a thoughtful lower lip. I want to redo the lab
tests, just to be sure. Those results will be back tomorrow.
The psychological evaluation will take longer. Ill need to
see your child every day for at least a week, maybe two.
Also it would be helpful if you could give me any childhood
photographs or family movies you might have.
Milton turned to Tessie. When does Callie start school?
Tessie didnt hear him. She was distracted by Luces
phrase: your child.
What kind of information are you trying to get, Doctor?
Tessie asked.
The blood tests will tell us hormone levels. The
psychological assessment is routine in cases like this.
You think its some kind of hormone thing? Milton asked.
A hormone imbalance?
Well know after Ive had time to do what I need to do, said
Luce.
Milton stood up and shook hands with the doctor. The
consultation was over.
Keep in mind: neither Milton nor Tessie had seen me
undressed for years. How were they to know? And not
knowing, how could they imagine? The information
available to them was all secondary stuffmy husky voice,
my flat chestbut these things were far from persuasive. A
hormonal thing. It could have been no more serious than
that. So my father believed, or wanted to believe, and so he
tried to convince Tessie.
I had my own resistance. Why does he have to do a
psychological evaluation? I asked. Its not like Im crazy.
The doctor said it was routine.
But why?
With this question I had hit upon the crux of the matter. My
mother has since told me that she intuited the real reason
for the psychological assessment, but chose not to dwell on
it. Or, rather, didnt choose. Let Milton choose for her.
Milton preferred to treat the problem pragmatically. There
was no sense in worrying about a psychological
assessment that could only confirm what was obvious: that I
was a normal, well-adjusted girl. He probably bills the
insurance extra for the psychological stuff, Milton said.
Sorry, Cal, but youll have to put up with it. Maybe he can
cure your neuroses. Got any neuroses? Nows your time to
let em out. He put his arms around me, squeezed hard,
and roughly kissed the side of my head.
Milton was so convinced that everything was going to be
okay that on Tuesday morning he flew down to Florida on
business. No sense cooling my heels in this hotel, he told
us.
You just want to get out of this pit, I said.
Ill make it up to you. Why dont you and your mother go out
for a fancy dinner tonight. Anyplace you want. Were saving
a couple bucks on this room, so you gals can splurge. Why
dont you take Callie to Delmonicos, Tess.
Whats Delmonicos? I asked.
Its a steak joint.
I want lobster. And baked Alaska, I said.
Baked Alaska! Maybe they have that, too.
Milton left, and my mother and I tried to spend his money.
We went shopping at Bloomingdales. We had high tea at
the Plaza. We never made it to Delmonicos, preferring a
moderately priced Italian restaurant near the Lochmoor,
where we felt more comfortable. We ate there every night,
doing our best to pretend we were on a real trip, a vacation.
Tessie drank more wine than usual and got tipsy, and when
she went to the bathroom I drank her wine myself.
Normally the most expressive thing about my mothers face
was the gap between her front teeth. When she was
listening to me, Tessies tongue often pressed against that
divot, that gate. This was the signal of her attention. My
mother always paid great attention to whatever I said. And
if I told her something funny, then her tongue dropped away,
her head fell back, her mouth opened wide, and there were
her front teeth, riven and ascendant.
Every night at the Italian restaurant I tried to make this
happen.
In the mornings, Tessie took me to the Clinic for my
appointments.
What are your hobbies, Callie?
Hobbies?
Is there anything you especially like to do?
Im not really a hobby-type person.
What about sports? Do you like any sports?
Does Ping-Pong count?
Ill put it down. Luce smiled from behind his desk. I was on
the Le Corbusier daybed across the room, lounging on the
cowhide.
What about boys?
What about them?
Is there a boy at school you like?
I guess youve never been to my school, Doctor.
He checked his file. Oh, its a girls school, isnt it?
Yup.
Are you sexually attracted to girls? Luce said this quickly.
It was like a tap from a rubber hammer. But I stifled my
reflex.
He put down his pen and knit his fingers together. He
leaned forward and spoke softly. I want you to know that
this is all between us, Callie. Im not going to tell your
parents anything that you tell me here.
I was torn. Luce in his leather chair, with his longish hair and
ankle boots, was the kind of adult a kid might open up to.
He was as old as my father but in league with the younger
generation. I longed to tell him about the Object. I longed to
tell somebody, anybody. My feelings for her were still so
strong they rushed up my throat. But I held them back, wary.
I didnt believe this was all private.
Your mother says you have a close relationship with a
friend of yours, Luce began again. He said the Objects
name. Do you feel sexually attracted to her? Or have you
had sexual relations with her?
Were just friends, I insisted, a little too loudly. I tried again
in a quieter voice. Shes my best friend. In response
Luces right eyebrow rose from behind his glasses. It came
out of hiding as though it, too, wanted to get a good look at
me. And then I found a way out:
I had sex with her brother, I confessed. Hes a junior.
Again Luce showed neither surprise, disapproval, or
interest. He made a note on his pad, nodding once. And
did you enjoy it?
Here I could tell the truth. It hurt, I said. Plus I was scared
about getting pregnant.
Luce smiled to himself, jotting in his notebook. Not to
worry, he said.
That was how it went. Every day for an hour I sat in Luces
office and talked about my life, my feelings, my likes and
dislikes. Luce asked all kinds of questions. The answers I
gave were sometimes not as important as the way I
answered them. He watched my facial expressions; he
noted my style of argument. Females tend to smile at their
interlocutors more than males do. Females pause and look
for signs of agreement before continuing. Males just look
into the middle distance and hold forth. Women prefer the
anecdotal, men the deductive. It was impossible to be in
Luces line of work without falling back on such stereotypes.
He knew their limitations. But they were clinically useful.
When I wasnt being questioned about my life and feelings,
I was writing about them. Most days I sat typing up what
Luce called my Psychological Narrative. That early
autobiography didnt begin: I was born twice. Flashy,
rhetorical openings were something I had to get the hang
of. It started simply, with the words My name is Calliope
Stephanides. I am fourteen years old. Going on fifteen. I
began with the facts and followed them as long as I could.
Sing, Muse, how cunning Calliope wrote on that battered
Smith Corona! Sing how the typewriter hummed and
trembled at her psychiatric revelations! Sing of its two
cartridges, one for typing and one for correcting, that so
eloquently represented her predicament, poised between
the print of genetics and the Wite-Out of surgery. Sing of
the weird smell the typewriter gave off, like WD-40 and
salami, and of the Day-Glo flower decal the last person
whod used it had applied, and of the broken F key, which
stuck. On that newfangled but soon-to-be obsolete machine
I wrote not so much like a kid from the Midwest as a
ministers daughter from Shropshire. I still have a copy of
my psychological narrative somewhere. Luce published it in
his collected works, omitting my name. I would like to tell of
my life, it runs at one point, and of the experiences that
make myriad my joys and sorrows upon this planet we call
Earth. In describing my mother, I say, Her beauty is the
kind which seems to be thrown into relief by grief. A few
pages on there comes the subheading Calumnies Caustic
and Catty by Callie. Half the time I wrote like bad George
Eliot, the other half like bad Salinger. If theres one thing I
hate its television. Not true: I loved television! But on that
Smith Corona I quickly discovered that telling the truth
wasnt nearly as much fun as making things up. I also knew
that I was writing for an audienceDr. Luceand that if I
seemed normal enough, he might send me back home.
This explains the passages about my love of cats (feline
affection), the pie recipes, and my deep feelings for
nature.
Luce ate it all up. Its true; I have to give credit where
credits due. Luce was the first person to encourage my
writing. Every night he read through what I had typed up
during the day. He didnt know, of course, that I was making
up most of what I wrote, pretending to be the all-American
daughter my parents wanted me to be. I fictionalized early
sex play and later crushes on boys; I transferred my
feeling for the Object onto Jerome and it was amazing how
it worked: the tiniest bit of truth made credible the greatest
lies.
Luce was interested in the gender giveaways of my prose,
of course. He measured myjouissance against my linearity.
He picked up on my Victorian flourishes, my antique
diction, my girls school propriety. These all weighed
heavily in his final assessment.
There was also the diagnostic tool of pornography. One
afternoon when I arrived for my session with Dr. Luce, there
was a movie projector in his office. A screen had been set
up before the bookcase, and the blinds drawn. In syrupy
light Luce was feeding the celluloid through the sprocket
wheel.
Are you going to show me my dads movie again? From
when I was little?
Today Ive got something a little different, said Luce.
I took up my customary position on the chaise, my arms
folded behind me on the cowhide. Dr. Luce switched off the
lights and soon the movie began.
It was about a pizza delivery girl. The title was, in fact,Annie
Delivers to Your Door. In the first scene, Annie, wearing
cutoffs and a midriff-revealing, Ellie-May blouse, gets out of
her car before an oceanside house. She rings the bell. No
one is at home. Not wanting the pizza to go to waste, she
sits down next to the pool and begins to eat.
The production values were low. The pool boy, when he
arrived, was badly lit. It was hard to hear what he was
saying. But soon enough he was no longer saying anything.
Annie had begun to remove her clothes. She was down on
her knees. The pool boy was naked, too, and then they
were on the steps, in the pool, on the diving board,
pumping, writhing. I closed my eyes. I didnt like the raw
meat colors of the film. It wasnt at all beautiful like the tiny
paintings in Luces office.
In a straightforward voice Luce asked from the darkness,
Which one turns you on?
Excuse me?
Which one turns you on? The woman or the man?
The true answer was neither. But truth would not do.
Sticking to my cover story, I managed to get out, very
quietly, The boy.
The pool boy? Thats good. I dig the pizza girl myself.
Shes got a great bod. A sheltered child once, from a
reserved Presbyterian home, Luce was now liberated, free
of antisexualism. Shes got incredible tits, he said. You
like her tits? Do they turn you on?
No.
The guys cock turns you on?
I nodded, barely, wishing it would be over. But it was not
over for a while yet. Annie had other pizzas to deliver. Luce
wanted to watch each one.
Sometimes he brought other doctors to see me. A typical
unveiling went as follows. I was summoned from my writing
studio in the back of the Clinic. In Luces office two men in
business suits were waiting. They stood when I came in.
Luce made introductions. Callie, I want to you meet Dr.
Craig and Dr. Winters.
The doctors shook my hand. It was their first bit of data: my
handshake. Dr. Craig squeezed hard, Winters less so.
They were careful about not seeming too eager. Like men
meeting a fashion model, they trained their eyes away from
my body and pretended to be interested in me as a person.
Luce said, Callies been here at the Clinic for just about a
week now.
How do you like New York? asked Dr. Craig.
Ive hardly seen it.
The doctors gave me sightseeing suggestions. The
atmosphere was light, friendly. Luce put his hand on the
small of my back. Men have an annoying way of doing that.
They touch your back as though theres a handle there, and
direct you where they want you to go. Or they place their
hand on top of your head, paternally. Men and their hands.
Youve got to watch them every minute. Luces hand was
now proclaiming: Here she is. My star attraction. The
terrible thing was that I responded to it; I liked the feel of
Luces hand on my back. I liked the attention. Here were all
these people who wanted to meet me.
Pretty soon Luces hand was escorting me down the hall
into the examination room. I knew the drill. Behind the
screen I undressed while the doctors waited. The green
paper gown was folded on the chair.
The family comes from where, Peter?
Turkey. Originally.
Im only acquainted with the Papua New Guinea study,
said Craig.
Among the Sambia, right? asked Winters.
Yes, thats right, Luce answered. Theres a high
incidence of the mutation there as well. The Sambia are
interesting from a sexological point of view, too. They
practice ritualized homosexuality. Sambia males consider
contact with females highly polluting. So theyve organized
social structures to limit exposure as much as possible.
The men and boys sleep on one side of the village, the
women and girls on the other side. The men go into the
womens longhouse only to procreate. In and out. In fact, the
Sambia word for vagina translates literally as that thing
which is truly no good.
Soft chuckling came from the other side of the screen.
I came out, feeling awkward. I was taller than everyone else
in the room, though I weighed much less. The floor felt cold
against my bare feet as I crossed to the exam table and
jumped up.
I lay back. Without having to be told, I lifted my legs and fit
my heels in the gynecological stirrups. The room had gone
ominously silent. The three doctors came forward, staring
down. Their heads formed a trinity above me. Luce pulled
the curtain across the table.
They bent over me, studying my parts, while Luce led a
guided tour. I didnt know what most of the words meant but
after the third or fourth time I could recite the list by heart.
Muscular habitus . . . no gynecomastia . . . hypospadias . . .
urogenital sinus . . . blind vaginal pouch . . . These were my
claim to fame. I didnt feel famous, however. In fact, behind
the curtain, I no longer felt as if I were in the room.
How old is she? Dr. Winters asked.
Fourteen, Luce answered. Shell be fifteen in January.
So your position is that chromosomal status has been
completely overridden by rearing?
I think thats pretty clear.
As I lay there, letting Luce, in rubber gloves, do what he had
to do, I got a sense of things. Luce wanted to impress the
men with the importance of his work. He needed funding to
keep the clinic running. The surgery he performed on
transsexuals wasnt a selling point over at the March of
Dimes. To get them interested you had to pull at the
heartstrings. You had to put a face on suffering. Luce was
trying to do that with me. I was perfect, so polite, so
midwestern. No unseemliness attached itself to me, no hint
of cross-dresser bars or ads in the back of louche
magazines.
Dr. Craig wasnt convinced. Fascinating case, Peter. No
question. But my people will want to know the applications.
Its a very rare condition, Luce admitted. Exceedingly
rare. But in terms of research, its importance cant be
overstated. For the reasons I outlined in my office. Luce
remained vague for my benefit, but still persuasive enough
for theirs. He hadnt gotten where he was without certain
lobbyist gifts. Meanwhile I was there and not there, cringing
at Luces touch, sprouting goose bumps, and worrying that I
hadnt washed properly.
I remember this, too. A long narrow room on a different floor
of the hospital. A riser set up at one end before a butterfly
light. The photographer putting film in his camera.
Okay, Im ready, he said.
I dropped my robe. Almost used to it now, I climbed up on
the riser before the measuring chart.
Hold your arms out a little.
Like this?
Thats good. I dont want a shadow.
He didnt tell me to smile. The textbook publishers would
make sure to cover my face. The black box: a fig leaf in
reverse, concealing identity while leaving shame exposed.
Every night Milton called us in our room. Tessie put on a
bright voice for him. Milton tried to sound happy when I got
on the line. But I took the opportunity to whine and
complain.
Im sick of this hotel. When can we go home?
Soon as youre better, Milton said.
When it was time for sleep, we drew the window curtains
and turned off the lights.
Good night, honey. See you in the morning.
Night.
But I couldnt sleep. I kept thinking about that word: better.
What did my father mean? What were they going to do to
me? Street sounds made it up to the room, curiously
distinct, echoing off the stone building opposite. I listened
to the police sirens, the angry horns. My pillow was thin. It
smelled like a smoker. Across the strip of carpet my mother
was already asleep. Before my conception, she had
agreed to my fathers outlandish plan to determine my sex.
She had done this so that she wouldnt be alone, so that
she would have a girlfriend in the house. And I had been
that friend. I had always been close to my mother. Our
temperaments were alike. We liked nothing better than to
sit on park benches and watch the faces go by. Now the
face I was watching was Tessies in the other bed. It looked
white, blank, as if her cold cream had removed not only her
makeup but her personality. Tessies eyes were moving,
though; under the lids they skated back and forth. Callie
couldnt imagine the things Tessie was seeing in her
dreams back then. But I can. Tessie was dreaming a family
dream. A version of the nightmares Desdemona had after
listening to Fards sermons.Dreams of the germs of infants
bubbling, dividing. Of hideous creatures growing up from
pale foam. Tessie didnt allow herself to think about such
things during the day, so they came to her at night. Was it
her fault? Should she have resisted Milton when he tried to
bend nature to his will? Was there really a God after all, and
did He punish people on Earth? These Old World
superstitions had been banished from my mothers
conscious mind, but they still operated in her dreams. From
the other bed I watched the play of these dark forces on my
mothers sleeping face.
LOOKING MYSELF UP IN WEBSTERS
Itossed and turned every night, unable to sleep straight
through. I was like the princess and the pea. A pellet of
disquiet kept unsettling me. Sometimes I awoke with the
feeling that a spotlight had been trained on me while I slept.
It was as if my ether body had been conversing with angels,
somewhere up near the ceiling. When I opened my eyes
they fled. But I could hear the traces of the communication,
the fading echoes of the crystal bell. Some essential
information was rising from the depths of my being. This
information was on the tip of my tongue and yet never
surfaced. One thing was certain: it was all connected with
the Object somehow. I lay awake thinking about her,
wondering how she was, and pining, grieving.
I thought of Detroit, too, of its vacant lots of pale Osiris
grass springing up between the condemned houses and
those not yet condemned, and of the river with its iron
runoff, the dead carp floating on the surface, white bellies
flaking. I thought of fishermen standing on the concrete
freighter docks with their bait buckets and tallboys, the
baseball game on the radio. Its often said that a traumatic
experience early in life marks a person forever, pulls her out
of line, saying, Stay there. Dont move. My time at the
Clinic did that to me. I feel a direct line extending from that
girl with her knees steepled beneath the hotel blankets to
this person writing now in an Aeron chair. Hers was the duty
to live out a mythical life in the actual world, mine to tell
about it now. I didnt have the resources at fourteen, didnt
know enough, hadnt been to the Anatolian mountain the
Greeks call Olympus and the Turks Uludag, just like the soft
drink. I hadnt gotten old enough yet to realize that living
sends a person not into the future but back into the past, to
childhood and before birth, finally, to commune with the
dead. You get older, you puff on the stairs, you enter the
body of your father. From there its only a quick jump to your
grandparents, and then before you know it youre timetraveling.
In this life we grow backwards. Its always the
gray-haired tourists on Italian buses who can tell you
something about the Etruscans.
In the end, it took Luce two weeks to make his
determination about me. He scheduled an appointment
with my parents for the following Monday.
Milton had been jetting around during the two weeks,
checking on his Hercules franchises, but on the Friday
preceding the appointment he flew back to New York. We
spent the weekend spiritlessly sightseeing, assailed by
unspoken anxieties. On Monday morning my parents
dropped me off at the New York Public Library while they
went to see Dr. Luce.
My father had dressed that morning with special care.
Despite an outward show of tranquillity, Milton was beset by
an unaccustomed feeling of dread, and so armored himself
in his most commanding clothes: over his plump body, a
charcoal pinstripe suit; around his bullfrog neck, a
Countess Mara necktie; and in the buttonholes of his
shirtsleeves, his lucky Greek Drama cuff links. Like our
Acropolis nightlight, the cuff links had come from Jackie
Halass souvenir shop in Greektown. Milton wore them
whenever he met with bank loan officers or auditors from
the IRS. That Monday morning, however, he had trouble
putting the cuff links in; his hands were not steady enough.
In exasperation he asked Tessie to do it. Whats the
matter? she asked tenderly. But Milton snapped, Just put
the cuff links in, will you? He held out his arms, looking
away, embarrassed by his bodys weakness.
Silently Tessie inserted the links, tragedy in one sleeve,
comedy in the other. As we came out of the hotel that
morning they glittered in the early morning sun, and under
the influence of those two-sided accessories, what
happened next took on contrasting tones. There was
tragedy, certainly, in Miltons expression as they left me off
at the library. During Miltons time away, his image of me
had reverted to the girl Id been a year earlier. Now he
faced the real me again. He saw my ungainly movements
as I climbed the library steps, the broadness of my
shoulders inside my Papagallo coat. Watching from the
cab, Milton came face-to-face with the essence of tragedy,
which is something determined before youre born,
something you cant escape or do anything about, no
matter how hard you try. And Tessie, so used to feeling the
world through her husband, saw that my problem was
getting worse, was accelerating. Their hearts were wrung
with anguish, the anguish of having children, a vulnerability
as astonishing as the capacity for love that parenthood
brings, in a cuff link set all its own . . .
. . . But now the cab was driving away, Milton was wiping
his brow with his handkerchief; and the grinning face in his
right sleeve came into view, for there was a comic aspect
to events that day, too. There was comedy in the way
Milton, while still worrying about me, kept one eye on the
rocketing taxi meter. At the Clinic, there was comedy in the
way Tessie, idly picking up a waiting-room magazine,
found herself reading about the juvenile sexual rehearsal
play of rhesus monkeys. There was even a brand of harsh
satire in my parents quest itself, because it typified the
American belief that everything can be solved by doctors.
All this comedy, however, is retrospective. As Milton and
Tessie prepared to see Dr. Luce, a hot foam was rising in
their stomachs. Milton was thinking back to his early navy
days, to his time in the landing craft. This was just like that.
Any minute the door was going to drop away and they
would have to plunge into the churning night surf . . .
In his office Luce got straight to the point. Let me review
the facts of your daughters case, he said. Tessie noted
the change at once. Daughter. He had said daughter.
The sexologist was looking reassuringly medical that
morning. Over his cashmere turtleneck he wore an actual
white coat. In his hand he held a sketchpad. His ballpoint
pen bore the name of a pharmaceutical company. The
blinds were drawn, the light low. The couples in the Mughal
miniatures had modestly covered themselves in shadow.
Sitting in his designer chair, with tomes and journals rising
behind him, Dr. Luce appeared serious, full of expertise, as
was his speech. What Im drawing here, he began, are
the fetal genital structures. In other words, this is what a
babys genitals look like in the womb, in the first few weeks
after conception. Male or female, its all the same. These
two circles here are what we call the all-purpose gonads.
This little squiggle here is a Wolffian duct. And this other
squiggle is a Müllerian duct. Okay? The thing to keep in
mind is that everybody starts out like this. Were all born
with potential boy parts and girl parts. You, Mr.
Stephanides, Mrs. Stephanides, meeverybody. Now
he started drawing againas the fetus develops in the
womb, what happens is that hormones and enzymes are
releasedlets make them arrows. What do these
hormones and enzymes do? Well, they turn these circles
and squiggles into either boy parts or girl parts. See this
circle, the all-purpose gonad? It can become either an
ovary or a testis. And this squiggly Müllerian duct can either
wither uphe scratched it outor grow into a uterus,
fallopian tubes, and the inside of the vagina. This Wolffian
duct can either wither away or grow into a seminal vesicle,
epididymis, and vas deferens. Depending on the hormonal
and enzymatic influences. Luce looked up and smiled.
You dont have to worry about the terminology. The main
thing to remember is this: every baby has Müllerian
structures, which are potential girl parts, and Wolffian
structures, which are potential boy parts. Those are the
internal genitalia. But the same thing goes for theexternal
genitalia. A penis is just a very large clitoris. They grow
from the same root.
Dr. Luce stopped once more. He folded his hands. My
parents, leaning forward in the chairs, waited.
As I explained, any determination of gender identity must
take into account a host of factors. The most important, in
your daughters casethere it was again, confidently
proclaimedis that she has been raised for fourteen
years as a girl and indeed thinks of herself as female. Her
interests, gestures, psychosexual makeupall these are
female. Are you with me so far?
Milton and Tessie nodded.
Due to her 5-alpha-reductase deficiency, Callies body
does not respond to dihydrotestosterone. What this means
is that, in utero, she followed a primarily female line of
development. Especially in terms of the external genitalia.
That, coupled with her being brought up as a girl, resulted in
her thinking, acting, and looking like a girl. The problem
came when she started to go through puberty. At puberty,
the other androgentestosteronestarted to exert a
strong effect. The simplest way to put it is like this: Callie is
a girl who has a little too much male hormone. We want to
correct that.
Neither Milton nor Tessie said a word. They werent
following everything the doctor was saying but, as people
do with doctors, they were attentive to his manner, trying to
see how serious things were. Luce seemed optimistic,
confident, and Tessie and Milton began to be filled with
hope.
Thats the biology. Its a very rare genetic condition, by the
way. The only other populations where we know of this
mutation expressing itself are in the Dominican Republic,
Papua New Guinea, and southeastern Turkey. Not that far
from the village your parents came from. About three
hundred miles, in fact. Luce removed his silver glasses.
Do you know of any family member who may have had a
similar genital appearance to your daughters?
Not that we know of, said Milton.
When did your parents immigrate?
Nineteen twenty-two.
Do you have any relatives still living in Turkey?
Not anymore.
Luce looked disappointed. He had one arm of his glasses
in his mouth, and was chewing on it. Possibly he was
imagining what it would be like to discover a whole new
population of carriers of the 5-alpha-reductase mutation.
He had to content himself with discovering me.
He put his glasses back on. The treatment Id recommend
for your daughter is twofold. First, hormone injections.
Second, cosmetic surgery. The hormone treatments will
initiate breast development and enhance her female
secondary sex characteristics. The surgery will make Callie
look exactly like the girl she feels herself to be. In fact, she
will be that girl. Her outside and inside will conform. She will
look like a normal girl. Nobody will be able to tell a thing.
And then Callie can go on and enjoy her life.
Miltons brow was still furrowed with concentration but from
his eyes there was light appearing, rays of relief. He turned
toward Tessie and patted her leg.
But in a timid, breaking voice Tessie asked, Will she be
able to have children?
Luce paused only a second. Im afraid not, Mrs.
Stephanides. Callie will never menstruate.
But shes been menstruating for a few months now,
Tessie objected.
Im afraid thats impossible. Possibly there was some
bleeding from another source.
Tessies eyes filled with tears. She looked away.
I just got a postcard from a former patient, Luce said
consolingly. She had a condition similar to your daughters.
Shes married now. She and her husband adopted two kids
and theyre as happy as can be. She plays in the Cleveland
Orchestra. Bassoon.
There was a silence, until Milton asked, Is that it, Doctor?
You do this one surgery and we can take her home?
We may have to do additional surgery at a later date. But
the immediate answer to your question is yes. After the
procedure, she can go home.
How long will she be in the hospital?
Only overnight.
It was not a difficult decision, especially as Luce had
framed it. A single surgery and some injections would end
the nightmare and give my parents back their daughter,
their Calliope, intact. The same enticement that had led my
grandparents to do the unthinkable now offered itself to
Milton and Tessie. No one would know. No one would ever
know.
While my parents were being given a crash course in
gonadogenesis, Istill officially Calliopewas doing some
homework myself. In the Reading Room of the New York
Public Library I was looking up something in the dictionary.
Dr. Luce was correct in thinking that his conversations with
colleagues and medical students were over my head. I
didnt know what 5-alpha-reductase meant, or
gynecomastia, or inguinal canal. But Luce had
underestimated my abilities, too. He didnt take into
consideration the rigorous curriculum at my prep school. He
didnt allow for my excellent research and study skills. Most
of all, he didnt factor in the power of my Latin teachers,
Miss Barrie and Miss Silber. So now, as my Wallabees
made squishing sounds between the reading tables, as a
few men looked up from their books to see what was
coming and then looked down (the world was no longer full
of eyes), I heard Miss Barries voice in my ear. Infants,
define this word for me:hypospadias . Use your Greek or
Latin roots.
The little schoolgirl in my head wriggled in her desk, hand
raised high. Yes, Calliope? Miss Barrie called on me.
Hypo. Below or beneath. Like hypodermic.
Brilliant. Andspadias ?
Um um . . .
Can anyone come to our poor muses aid?
But, in the classroom of my brain, no one could. So that
was why I was here. Because I knew that I had something
below or beneath but I didnt know what that something
was.
I had never seen such a big dictionary before. The
Websters at the New York Public Library stood in the
same relation to other dictionaries of my acquaintance as
the Empire State Building did to other buildings. It was an
ancient, medieval-looking thing, bound in brown leather that
brought to mind a falconers gauntlet. The pages were
gilded like the Bibles.
Flipping pages through the alphabet, pastcantabile
toeryngo , pastfandango toformicate (thats with anm ),
pasthypertonia tohyposensitivity , and there it was:
hypospadiasNew Latin, from Greek, man with
hypospadias fr.hypo + prob fromspadon , eunuch,
fr.span , to tear, pluck, pull, draw.An abnormality of
the penis in which the urethra opens on its under
surface.See synonyms at eunuch.
I did as instructed and got
eunuch 1.A castrated man; especially, one of those
who were employed as harem attendants or
functionaries in certain Oriental courts.2. A man whose
testes have not developed.See synonyms at
hermaphrodite.
Following where the trail led, I finally reached
hermaphrodite 1.One having the sex organs and
many of the secondary sex characteristics of both
male and female.2. Anything comprised of a
combination of diverse or contradictory elements. See
synonyms at monster.
And that is where I stopped. And looked up, to see if
anyone was watching. The vast Reading Room thrummed
with silent energy: people thinking, writing. The painted
ceiling bellied overhead like a sail, and down below the
green desk lamps glowed, illuminating faces bent over
books. I was stooping over mine, my hair falling onto the
pages, covering up the definition of myself. My lime green
coat was hanging open. I had an appointment with Luce
later in the day and my hair was washed, my underpants
fresh. My bladder was full and I crossed my legs, putting off
a trip to the bathroom. Fear was stabbing me. I longed to
be held, caressed, and that was impossible. I laid my hand
on the dictionary and looked at it. Slender, leaf-shaped, it
had a braided rope ring on one finger, a gift from the
Object. The rope was getting dirty. I looked at my pretty
hand and then pulled it away and faced the word again.
There it was,monster , in black and white, in a battered
dictionary in a great city library. A venerable, old book, the
shape and size of a headstone, with yellowing pages that
bore marks of the multitudes who had consulted them
before me. There were pencil scrawls and ink stains, dried
blood, snack crumbs; and the leather binding itself was
secured to the lectern by a chain. Here was a book that
contained the collected knowledge of the past while giving
evidence of present social conditions. The chain suggested
that some library visitors might take it upon themselves to
see that the dictionary circulated. The dictionary contained
every word in the English language but the chain knew only
a few. It knewthief andsteal and, maybe,purloined . The
chain spoke ofpoverty andmistrust andinequality
anddecadence . Callie herself was holding on to this chain
now. She was tugging on it, winding it around her hand so
that her fingers went white, as she stared down at that
word.Monster . Still there. It had not moved. And she wasnt
reading this word on the wall of her old bathroom stall.
There was graffiti in Websters but the synonym wasnt part
of it. The synonym was official, authoritative; it was the
verdict that the culture gave on a person like her.Monster .
That was what she was. That was what Dr. Luce and his
colleagues had been saying. It explained so much, really. It
explained her mother crying in the next room. It explained
the false cheer in Miltons voice. It explained why her
parents had brought her to New York, so that the doctors
could work in secret. It explained the photographs, too.
What did people do when they came upon Bigfoot or the
Loch Ness Monster? They tried to get a picture. For a
second Callie saw herself that way. As a lumbering, shaggy
creature pausing at the edge of woods. As a humped
convolvulus rearing its dragons head from an icy lake. Her
eyes were filling now, making the print swim, and she
turned away and hurried out of the library.
But the synonym pursued her. All the way out the door and
down the steps between the stone lions, Websters
Dictionary kept calling after her,Monster, Monster! The
bright banners hanging from the tympanum proclaimed the
word. The definition inserted itself into billboards and the
ads on passing buses. On Fifth Avenue a cab was pulling
up. Her father jumped out, smiling and waving. When Callie
saw him, her heart lifted. The voice of Websters stopped
speaking in her head. Her father wouldnt be smiling like
that unless the news from the doctor had been good. Callie
laughed and sprinted down the library steps, almost
tripping. Her emotions soared for the time it took to reach
the street, maybe five or eight seconds. But coming closer
to Milton, she learned something about medical reports.
The more people smile, the worse the news. Milton grinned
at her, perspiring in pinstripes, and once again the tragedy
cuff link glinted in the sun.
They knew. Her parents knew she was a monster. And yet
here was Milton, opening the car door for her; here was
Tessie, inside, smiling as Callie climbed in. The cab took
them to a restaurant and soon the three of them were
looking over menus and ordering food.
Milton waited until the drinks were served. Then, somewhat
formally, he began. Your mother and I had a little chat with
the doctor this morning, as you are aware. The good news
is that youll be back at home this week. You wont miss
much school. Now for the bad news. Are you ready for the
bad news, Cal?
Miltons eyes were saying that the bad news was not all that
bad.
The bad news is you have to have a little operation. Very
minor. Operation isnt really the right word. I think the
doctor called it a procedure. They have to knock you out
and you have to stay overnight in the hospital. Thats it.
Therell be some pain but they can give you painkillers for
it.
With that, Milton rested. Tessie reached out and patted
Callies hand. Itll be okay, honey, she said in a thickened
voice. Her eyes were watery, red.
What kind of operation? Callie asked her father.
Just a little cosmetic procedure. Like getting a mole
removed. He reached out and playfully caught Callies
nose between his knuckles. Or getting your nose fixed.
Callie pulled her head away, angry. Dont do that!
Sorry, said Milton. He cleared his throat, blinking.
Whats wrong with me? Calliope asked, and now her
voice broke. Tears were running down her cheeks. Whats
wrong with me, Daddy?
Miltons face darkened. He swallowed hard. Callie waited
for him to say the word, to quote Websters, but he didnt.
He only looked at her across the table, his head low, his
eyes dark, warm, sad, and full of love. There was so much
love in Miltons eyes that it was impossible to look for truth.
Its a hormonal thing, what youve got, he said. I was
always under the impression that men had male hormones
and women had female hormones. But everybody has both,
apparently.
Still Callie waited.
What youve got, see, is youve got a little too much of the
male hormones and not quite enough of the female
hormones. So what the doctor wants to do is give you a
shot every now and then to get everything working right.
He didnt say the word. I didnt make him.
Its a hormonal thing, Milton repeated. In the grand
scheme of things, no big deal.
Luce believed that a patient of my age was capable of
understanding the essentials. And so, that afternoon, he did
not mince words. In his mellow, pleasing, educated voice,
looking directly into my eyes, Luce declared that I was a girl
whose clitoris was merely larger than those of other girls.
He drew the same charts for me as he had for my parents.
When I pressed him on the details of my surgery, he said
only this: Were going to do an operation to finish your
genitalia. Theyre not quite finished yet and we want to
finish them.
He never mentioned anything about hypospadias, and I
began to hope that the word didnt apply to me. Maybe I
had taken it out of context. Dr. Luce may have been
referring to another patient. Websters had said that
hypospadias was an abnormality of the penis. But Dr. Luce
was telling me that I had a clitoris. I understood that both
these things grew out of the same fetal gonad, but that
didnt matter. If I had a clitorisand a specialist was telling
me that I didwhat could I be but a girl?
The adolescent ego is a hazy thing, amorphous, cloudlike. It
wasnt difficult to pour my identity into different vessels. In a
sense, I was able to take whatever form was demanded of
me. I only wanted to know the dimensions. Luce was
providing them. My parents supported him. The prospect of
having everything solved was wildly attractive to me, too,
and while I lay on the chaise I didnt ask myself where my
feelings for the Object fit in. I only wanted it all to be over. I
wanted to go home and forget it had ever happened. So I
listened to Luce quietly and made no objections.
He explained the estrogen injections would induce my
breasts to grow. You wont be Raquel Welch, but you wont
be Twiggy either. My facial hair would diminish. My voice
would rise from tenor to alto. But when I asked if I would
finally get my period, Dr. Luce was frank. No. You wont.
Ever. You wont be able to have a baby yourself, Callie. If
you want to have a family, youll have to adopt.
I received this news calmly. Having children wasnt
something I thought much about at fourteen.
There was a knock on the door, and the receptionist stuck
her head in. Sorry, Dr. Luce. But could I bother you a
minute?
That depends on Callie. He smiled at me. You mind
taking a little break? Ill be right back.
I dont mind.
Sit there a few minutes and see if any other questions
occur to you. He left the room.
While he was gone, I didnt think of any other questions. I
sat in my chair, not thinking anything at all. My mind was
curiously blank. It was the blankness of obedience. With the
unerring instinct of children, I had surmised what my parents
wanted from me. They wanted me to stay the way I was.
And this was what Dr. Luce now promised.
I was brought out of my abstracted state by a salmoncolored
cloud passing low in the sky. I got up and went to
the window to look out at the river. I pressed my cheek
against the glass to see as far south as possible, where the
skyscrapers rose. I told myself that I would live in New York
when I grew up. This is the city for me, I said. I had begun
to cry again. I tried to stop. Dabbing at my eyes, I wandered
around the office and finally found myself in front of one of
the Mughal miniatures. In the small, ebony frame, two tiny
figures were making love. Despite the exertion implied by
their activity, their faces looked peaceful. Their expressions
showed neither strain nor ecstasy. But of course the faces
werent the focal point. The geometry of the lovers bodies,
the graceful calligraphy of their limbs led the eye straight to
the fact of their genitalia. The womans pubic hair was like
a patch of evergreen against white snow, the mans
member like a redwood sprouting from it. I looked. I looked
once again to see how other people were made. As I
looked, I didnt take sides. I understood both the urgency of
the man and the pleasure of the woman. My mind was no
longer blank. It was filling with a dark knowledge.
I swung around. I wheeled and looked at Dr. Luces desk. A
file sat open there. He had left it when he hurried off.
PRELIMINARY STUDY:
GENETIC XY (MALE) RAISED AS FEMALE
The following illustrative case indicates that
there is no preordained correspondence between
genetic and genital structure, or between
masculine or feminine behavior and chromosomal
status.
SUBJECT: Calliope Stephanides
INTERVIEWER: Peter Luce, M.D.
INTRODUCTORY DATA: The patient is fourteen years
old. She has lived as a female all her life. At
birth, somatic appearance was of a penis so
small as to appear to be a clitoris. The
subjects XY karyotype was not discovered until
puberty, when she began to virilize. The girls
parents at first refused to believe the doctor
who delivered the news and subsequently asked
for two other opinions before coming to the
Gender Identity Clinic and New York Hospital
Clinic.
During examination, undescended testes could be
palpated. The penis was slightly hypospadiac,
with the urethra opening on the underside. The
girl has always sat to urinate like other girls.
Blood tests confirmed an XY chromosomal status.
In addition, blood tests revealed that the
subject was suffering from 5-alpha-reductase
deficiency syndrome. An exploratory laparotomy
was not performed.
A family photograph (see case file) shows her at
age twelve. She appears to be a happy, healthy
girl with no visible signs of tomboyishness,
despite her XY karyotype.
FIRST IMPRESSION: The subjects facial
expression, though somewhat stern at times, is
overall pleasant and receptive, with frequent
smiling. The subject often casts her eyes
downward in a modest or coy manner. She is
feminine in her movements and gestures, and the
slight gracelessness of her walk is in keeping
with females of her generation. Though due to
her height some people may find the subjects
gender at first glance somewhat indeterminate,
any prolonged observation would result in a
decision that she was indeed a girl. Her voice,
in fact, has a soft, breathy quality. She
inclines her head to listen when another person
speaks and does not hold forth or assert her
opinions in a bullying manner characteristic of
males. She often makes humorous remarks.
FAMILY: The girls parents are fairly typical
Midwesterners of the World War II generation.
Midwesterners of the World War II generation.
The father identifies himself as a Republican.
The mother is a friendly, intelligent, and
caring person, perhaps slightly prone to
depression or neurosis. She accedes to the
subservient wifely role typical of women of her
generation. The father only came to the Clinic
twice, citing business obligations, but from
those two meetings it is apparent that he is a
dominating presence, a self-made man and
former naval officer. In addition, the subject
has been raised in the Greek Orthodox tradition,
with its strongly sex-defined roles. In general
the parents seem assimilationist and very all-
American in their outlook, but the presence of
this deeper ethnic identity should not be
overlooked.
SEXUAL FUNCTION: The subject reports engaging in
childhood sexual play with other children, in
every case of which she acted as the feminine
partner, usually pulling up her dress and
letting a boy simulate coition atop her. She
experienced pleasurable erotosexual sensations
by positioning herself by the water jets of a
neighbors swimming pool. She masturbated
frequently from a young age.
The subject has had no serious boyfriends, but
this may be due to her attending an all-girls
school or from a feeling of shame about her
body. The subject is aware of the abnormal
appearance of her genitalia and has gone to
great lengths in the locker room and other
communal dressing areas to avoid being seen
naked. Nevertheless, she reports having had
sexual intercourse, one time only, with the
brother of her best friend, an experience she
found painful but which was successful from the
point of view of teenage romantic exploration.
INTERVIEW: The subject spoke in rapid bursts,
clearly and articulately but with the occasional
breathlessness associated with anxiety. Speech
patterning and characteristics appeared to be
feminine in terms of oscillation of pitch and
direct eye contact. She expresses sexual
interest in males exclusively.
CONCLUSION: In speech, mannerisms, and dress,
the subject manifests a feminine gender identity
and role, despite a contrary chromosomal status.
It is clear by this that sex of rearing, rather
than genetic determinants, plays a greater role
in the establishment of gender identity.
As the girls gender identity was firmly
established as female at the time her condition
was discovered, a decision to implement
feminizing surgery along with corresponding
hormonal treatments seems correct. To leave the
genitals as they are today would expose her to
all manner of humiliation. Though it is possible
that the surgery may result in partial or total
loss of erotosexual sensation, sexual pleasure
is only one factor in a happy life. The ability
to marry and pass as a normal woman in society
are also important goals, both of which will not
be possible without feminizing surgery and
hormone treatment. Also, it is hoped that new
methods of surgery will minimize the effects of
erotosexual dysfunction brought about by
surgeries in the past, when feminizing surgery
was in its infancy.
That evening, when my mother and I got back to the hotel,
Milton had a surprise. Tickets to a Broadway musical. I
acted excited but later, after dinner, crawled into my
parents bed, claiming I was too tired to go.
Too tired? Milton said. What do you mean youre too
tired?
Thats okay, honey, said Tessie. You dont have to go.
Supposed to be a good show, Cal.
Is Ethel Merman in it? I asked.
No, smartass, Milton said, smiling. Ethel Merman is not in
it. Shes not on Broadway right now. So were seeing
something with Carol Channing. Shes pretty good, too.
Why dont you come along?
No thanks, I said.
Okay, then. Youre missing out.
They started to go. Bye, honey, my mother said.
Suddenly I jumped out of bed and ran to Tessie, hugging
her.
Whats this for? she asked.
My eyes brimmed with tears. Tessie took them to be tears
of relief at everything wed been through. In the narrow
entryway carved from a former suite, cockeyed, dim, the
two of us stood hugging and crying.
When they were gone, I got my suitcase from the closet.
Then, looking at the turquoise flowers, I exchanged it for my
fathers suitcase, a gray Samsonite. I left my skirts and my
Fair Isle sweater in the dresser drawers. I packed only the
darker garments, a blue crew neck, the alligator shirts, and
my corduroys. The brassiere I abandoned, too. For the time
being, I held on to my socks and panties, and I tossed in my
toiletry case entire. When I was finished, I searched in
Miltons garment bag for the cash hed hidden there. The
wad was fairly large and came to nearly three hundred
dollars.
It wasnt all Dr. Luces fault. I had lied to him about many
things. His decision was based on false data. But he had
been false in turn.
On a piece of stationery, I left a note for my parents.
Dear Mom and Dad,
I know youre only trying to do whats best for me, but I
dont think anyone knows for sure whats best. I love you
and dont want to be a problem, so Ive decided to go
away. I know youll say Im not a problem, but I know I
am. If you want to know why Im doing this, you should
ask Dr. Luce,who is a big liar ! I amnot a girl. Im aboy .
Thats what I found out today. So Im going where no one
knows me. Everyone in Grosse Pointe will talk when they
find out.
Sorry I took your money, Dad, but I promise to pay you
back someday, with interest.
Please dont worry about me. I will beALL RIGHT !
Despite its content, I signed this declaration to my parents:
Callie.
It was the last time I was ever their daughter.
GO WEST, YOUNG MAN
Once again, in Berlin, a Stephanides lives among the
Turks. I feel comfortable here in Schöneberg. The Turkish
shops along Hauptstrasse are like those my father used to
take me to. The food is the same, the dried figs, the halvah,
the stuffed grape leaves. The faces are the same, too,
seamed, dark-eyed, significantly boned. Despite family
history, I feel drawn to Turkey. Id like to work in the
embassy in Istanbul. Ive put in a request to be transferred
there. It would bring me full circle.
Until that happens, I do my part this way. I watch the bread
baker in the döner restaurant downstairs. He bakes bread
in a stone oven like those they used to have in Smyrna. He
uses a long-handled spatula to shift and retrieve the bread.
All day long he works, fourteen, sixteen hours, with
unflagging concentration, his sandals leaving prints in the
flour dust on the floor. An artist of bread baking.
Stephanides, an American, grandchild of Greeks, admires
this Turkish immigrant to Germany, thisGastarbeiter , as he
bakes bread on Hauptstrasse here in the year 2001. Were
all made up of many parts, other halves. Not just me.
The bell on the door of Eds Barbershop in the Scranton
bus station merrily rang. Ed, who had been reading the
newspaper, lowered it to greet his next customer.
There was a pause. And then Ed said, What happened?
You lose a bet?
Standing inside the door but looking as though he might
flee back out of it was a teenage kid, tall, stringy, and an
odd mix if ever Ed saw one. His hair was a hippies and
came down past his shoulders. But he was wearing a dark
suit. The jacket was baggy and the trousers were too short,
riding high above his chunky tan, square-toed shoes. Even
from across the shop Ed detected a musty, thrift-store
smell. Yet the kids suitcase was big and gray, a
businessmans.
Im just tired of the style, the kid answered.
You and me both, said Ed the barber.
He directed me to a chair. Ithe easily rechristened Cal
Stephanides, teen runawayset my suitcase down and
hung my jacket on the rack. I walked across the room,
concentrating as I did on walking like a boy. Like a stroke
victim, I was having to relearn all the simple motor skills. As
far as walking went, this wasnt too difficult. The time when
Baker & Inglis girls had balanced books on their heads was
long gone. The slight gracelessness of my walk, which Dr.
Luce had commented on, predisposed me to join the
graceless sex. My skeleton was a males, with its higher
center of gravity. It promoted a tidy, forward thrust. It was my
knees that gave me trouble. I had a tendency to walk knockkneed,
which made my hips sway and my back end twitch. I
tried to keep my pelvis steady now. To walk like a boy you
let your shoulders sway, not your hips. And you kept your
feet farther apart. All this I had learned in a day and a half
on the road.
I climbed into the chair, glad to stop moving. Ed the barber
tied a paper bib around my neck. Next he draped an apron
over me. All the while he was taking my measure and
shaking his head. I never understood what it was with you
young people and the long hair. Nearly ruined my business.
I get mostly retired fellas in here. Guys who come in my
shop for a haircut, they donthave any hair. He chuckled,
but only briefly. Okay, so nowadays the hairstyles are a
little bit shorter. I think, good, maybe I can make a living. But
no. Now everyone wants to go unisex. They want to
beshampooed . He leaned toward me, suspicious. You
dont want a shampoo, do you?
Just a haircut.
He nodded, satisfied. How do you want it?
Short, I ventured.
Short short? he asked.
Short, I said, but not too short.
Okay. Short but not too short. Good idea. See how the
other half lives.
I froze, thinking he meant something by this. But he was
only joking.
As for himself, Ed kept a neat head. What hair he had was
slicked back. He had a brutal, pugnacious face. His nostrils
were dark and fiery as he labored around me, pumping up
the chair and stropping his razor.
Your father let you keep your hair like this?
Up until now.
So the old man is finally straightening you out. Listen, you
wont regret it. Women dont want a guy looks like a girl.
Dont believe what they tell you, they want a sensitive male.
Bullshit!
The swearing, the straight razors, the shaving brushes, all
these were my welcome to the masculine world. The barber
had the football game on the TV. The calendar showed a
vodka bottle and a pretty girl in a white fur bikini. I planted
my feet on the waffle iron of the footrest while he swiveled
me back and forth before the flashing mirrors.
Holy mackerel, whens the last time you had a haircut
anyway?
Remember the moon landing?
Yeah. Thats about right.
He turned me to face the mirror. And there she was, for the
last time, in the silvered glass: Calliope. She still wasnt
gone yet. She was like a captive spirit, peeking out.
Ed the barber put a comb in my long hair. He lifted it
experimentally, making snipping sounds with his scissors.
The blades werent touching my hair. The snipping was only
a kind of mental barbering, a limbering up. This gave me
time for second thoughts. What was I doing? What if Dr.
Luce was right? What if that girl in the mirror reallywas me?
How did I think I could defect to the other side so easily?
What did I know about boys, about men? I didnt even like
them that much.
This is like taking down a tree, opined Ed. First you gotta
go in and lop off the branches. Then you chop down the
trunk.
I closed my eyes. I refused to return Calliopes gaze any
longer. I gripped the armrests and waited for the barber to
do his work. But in the next second the scissors clinked
onto the shelf. With a buzz, the electric clippers switched
on. They circled my head like bees. Again Ed the barber
lifted my hair with his comb and I heard the buzzer dive in
toward my head. Here we go, he said.
My eyes were still closed. But I knew there was no going
back now. The clippers raked across my scalp. I held firm.
Hair fell away in strips.
I should charge you extra, said Ed.
Now I did open my eyes, alarmed about the cost. How
much is it?
Dont worry. Same price. This is my patriotic deed today.
Im making the world safe for democracy.
My grandparents had fled their home because of a war.
Now, some fifty-two years later, I was fleeing myself. I felt
that I was saving myself just as definitively. I was fleeing
without much money in my pocket and under the alias of my
new gender. A ship didnt carry me across the ocean;
instead, a series of cars conveyed me across a continent. I
was becoming a new person, too, just like Lefty and
Desdemona, and I didnt know what would happen to me in
this new world to which Id come.
I was also scared. I had never been out on my own before. I
didnt know how the world operated or how much things
cost. From the Lochmoor Hotel I had taken a cab to the bus
terminal, not knowing the way. At Port Authority I wandered
past the tie shops and fast-food stalls, looking for the ticket
booths. When I found them I bought a ticket for a night bus
to Chicago, paying the fare as far as Scranton,
Pennsylvania, which was as much as I thought I could
afford. The bums and druggies occupying the scoop
benches looked me over, sometimes hissing or smacking
their lips. They scared me, too. I nearly gave up the idea of
running away. If I hurried, I could make it back to the hotel
before Milton and Tessie returned from seeing Carol
Channing. I sat in the waiting area, considering this, the
edge of the Samsonite clamped between my knees as
though any minute someone might try to snatch it away. I
played out scenes in my head where I declared my intention
of living as a boy and my parents, at first protesting but then
breaking down, accepted me. A policeman passed by.
When he was gone I went to sit next to a middle-aged
woman, hoping to be taken for her daughter. Over the
loudspeaker a voice announced that my bus was boarding.
I looked up at the other passengers, the poor traveling by
night. There was an aging cowboy carrying a duffel bag and
a souvenir Louis Armstrong statuette; there were two Sri
Lankan Catholic priests; there were no less than three
overweight mothers loaded down with children and
bedding, and a little man who turned out to be a horse
jockey, with cigarette wrinkles and brown teeth. They lined
up to board the bus while the scene in my head began to
go off on its own, to stop taking my directorial notes. Now
Milton was shaking his head no, and Dr. Luce was putting
on a surgical mask, and my schoolmates back in Grosse
Pointe were pointing at me and laughing, their faces lit with
malicious joy.
In a trance of fear, dazed yet trembling, I proceeded onto
the dark bus. For protection I took a seat next to the middleaged
lady. The other passengers, accustomed to these
night journeys, were already taking out thermoses and
unwrapping sandwiches. The smell of fried chicken began
to waft from the back seats. I was suddenly very hungry. I
wished that I were back at the hotel, ordering room service.
I would have to get new clothes soon. I needed to look older
and less like prey. I had to start dressing like a boy. The
bus pulled out of Port Authority and I watched, terrified at
what I was doing but unable to stop myself, as we made our
way out of the city and through the long yellow-lit dizzy tunnel
that led to New Jersey. Going underground, through the
rock, with the filthy river bottom above us, and fish
swimming in the black water on the other side of the curving
tiles.
At a Salvation Army outlet in Scranton, not far from the bus
station, I went looking for a suit. I pretended I was shopping
for my brother, though no one asked any questions. Male
sizes baffled me. I held the jackets discreetly against me to
see what might fit. Finally I found a suit roughly my size. It
was sturdy-looking and all-weather. The label inside said
Durenmatts Mens Clothiers, Pittsburgh. I took off my
Papagallo. Checking to see if anyone was watching, I tried
the jacket on. I didnt feel what a boy would feel. It wasnt
like putting on your fathers jacket and becoming a man. It
was like being cold and having your date give you his
jacket to wear. As it settled on my shoulders, the jacket felt
big, warm, comforting, alien. (And who was my date in this
case? The football captain? No. My steady was the World
War II vet, dead of heart disease. My guy was the Elk
Lodge member who had moved to Texas.)
The suit was only part of my new identity. It was the haircut
that mattered most. Now, in the barbershop, Ed was going
at me with a whisk brush. The bristles cast a powder in the
air and I closed my eyes. I felt myself being wheeled around
again and the barber said, Okay, thats it.
I opened my eyes. And in the mirror I didnt see myself. Not
the Mona Lisa with the enigmatic smile any longer. Not the
shy girl with the tangled black hair in her face, but instead
her fraternal twin brother. With the screen of my hair
removed, the recent changes in my face were far more
evident. My jaw looked squarer, broader, my neck thicker,
with a bulge of Adams apple in the center. It was
unquestionably a male face, but the feelings inside that boy
were still a girls. To cut off your hair after a breakup was a
feminine reaction. It was a way to start over, to renounce
vanity, to spite love. I knew that I would never see the Object
again. Despite bigger problems, greater worries, it was
heartbreak that seized me when I first saw my male face in
the mirror. I thought: its over. By cutting off my hair I was
punishing myself for loving someone so much. I was trying
to be stronger.
By the time I came out of Eds Barbershop, I was a new
creation. The other people passing through the bus station,
to the extent they noticed me at all, took me for a student at
a nearby boarding school. A prep school kid, a touch arty,
wearing an old mans suit and no doubt reading Camus or
Kerouac. There was a kind of beatnik quality to the
Durenmatts suit. The trousers had a sharkskin sheen.
Because of my height I could pass for older than I was,
seventeen, maybe eighteen. Under the suit was a crew
neck sweater, under the sweater was an alligator shirt, two
protective layers of parental money next to my skin, plus the
golden Wallabees on my feet. If anyone noticed me, they
thought I was playing dress-up, as teenagers do.
Inside these clothes my heart was still beating like mad. I
didnt know what to do next. Suddenly I had to pay attention
to things Id never paid any attention to. To bus schedules
and bus fares, to budgeting money, toworrying about
money, to scanning a menu for the absolutely cheapest
thing that would fill me up, which that day in Scranton turned
out to be chili. I ate a bowl of it, stirring in multiple packets
of crackers, and looked over the bus routes. The best thing
to do, it being fall, was to head south or west for the winter,
and because I didnt want to go south I decided to go west.
To California. Why not? I checked to see what the fare
would be. As I feared, it was too much.
Throughout the morning it had drizzled on and off, but now
the clouds were breaking up. Across the desperate eatery,
through the rain-greased windows and beyond the access
road that bounded a strip of sloping littered grass, ran the
Interstate. I watched the traffic whizzing along, feeling less
hungry now but still lonely and scared. The waitress came
over and asked if I wanted coffee. Though I had never had a
cup of coffee before, I said yes. After she served it to me, I
doctored it with two packets of creamer and four of sugar.
When it tasted roughly like coffee ice cream, I drank it.
From the terminal buses were steadily pulling out, leaving
gassy trails. Down on the highway cars sped along. I
wanted to take a shower. I wanted to lie down in clean
sheets and go to sleep. I could get a motel room for $9.95,
but I wanted to be farther away before I did that. I sat in the
booth for a long time. I couldnt see my way to the next step.
Finally, an idea occurred to me. Paying my bill, I left the bus
terminal. I crossed the access road and shuffled down the
slope. I set down my suitcase on the shoulder and, stepping
out to face the oncoming traffic, tentatively stuck out my
thumb.
My parents had always cautioned me against hitchhiking.
Sometimes Milton pointed out stories in the newspaper
detailing the gruesome ends of coeds who had made that
mistake. My thumb was not very high in the air. Half of me
was against the idea. Cars sped past. No one stopped. My
reluctant thumb was shaking.
I had miscalculated with Luce. I thought that after talking to
me he would decide that I was normal and leave me alone.
But I was beginning to understand something about
normality. Normality wasnt normal. It couldnt be. If
normality were normal, everybody could leave it alone. They
could sit back and let normality manifest itself. But people
and especially doctorshad doubts about normality.
They werent sure normality was up to the job. And so they
felt inclined to give it a boost.
As for my parents, I held them blameless. They were only
trying to save me from humiliation, lovelessness, even
death. I learned later that Dr. Luce had emphasized the
medical risk in letting my condition go untreated. The
gonadal tissue, as he referred to my undescended testes,
often became cancerous in later years. (Im forty-one now,
however, and so far nothing has happened.)
A semi appeared around the bend, blowing black smoke
from an upright exhaust pipe. In the window of the red cab
the drivers head was bouncing like the head of a doll on a
spring. His face turned in my direction, and as the huge
truck roared past, he engaged the brakes. The rear wheels
of the cab smoked a little, squealed, and then twenty yards
ahead of me the truck was waiting.
Lifting my suitcase, with a wild excitement, I ran up to the
Lifting my suitcase, with a wild excitement, I ran up to the
truck. But when I reached it I stopped. The door looked so
high up. The huge vehicle sat rumbling, shuddering. I
couldnt see the driver from my vantage point and stood
paralyzed with indecision. Then suddenly the truckers face
appeared in the window, startling me. He opened the door.
You coming up or what?
Coming, I said.
The cab was not clean. He had been traveling for some
time and there were food containers and bottles strewn
around.
Your job is to keep me awake, the trucker said.
When I didnt respond right away he looked over at me. His
eyes were red. Red, too, were the Fu Manchu mustache
and the long sideburns. Just keep talking, he said.
What do you want to talk about?
Fuck-all if I know! he shouted angrily. But just as suddenly:
Indians! You know anything about Indians?
American Indians?
Yeah. I pick up a lot of Injuns when I drive out west. Those
are some of the craziest motherfuckers I ever heard. They
got all kinds of theories and shit.
Like what?
Like some of em say they didnt come over the Bering
land bridge. Are you familiar with the Bering land bridge?
Thats up there in Alaska. Called the Bering Strait now. Its
water. Little sliver of water between Alaska and Russia.
Long time ago, though, it was land, and thats where the
Indians came over from. From like China or Mongolia.
Indians are really Orientals.
I didnt know that, I said. I was feeling less scared now
than before. The trucker was apparently taking me at face
value.
But some of these Indians I pick up, they say their people
didnt come over the land bridge. They say they come from
a lost island, like Atlantis.
Join the club.
You know what else they say?
What?
They say it was Indians wrote theConstitution . The
U.S.Constitution !
As it turned out, he did most of the talking. I said very little.
But my presence was enough to keep him awake. Talking
about Indians reminded him about meteors; there was a
meteor in Montana that the Indians considered sacred, and
soon he was telling me about the celestial sights a truckers
life acquainted a person with, the shooting stars and
comets and green rays. You ever seen a green ray? he
asked me.
No.
They say you cant take a picture of a green ray, but I got
one. I always keep a camera in the cab in case I come
across some mind-blowing shit like that. And one time I
saw this green ray and I grabbed my camera and I got it.
Ive got the picture at home.
What is a green ray?
Its the color the sun makes when it rises and sets. For two
seconds. You can see it best in the mountains.
He took me as far as Ohio and let me off in front of a motel.
I thanked him for the ride and carried my suitcase up to the
office. Here the suit also came in useful. Plus the expensive
luggage. I didnt look like a runaway. The motel clerk may
have had doubts about my age, but I laid money on the
counter right away, and the key was forthcoming.
After Ohio came Indiana, Illinois, Iowa, and Nebraska. I
rode in station wagons, sport cars, rented vans. Single
women never picked me up, only men, or men with women.
A pair of Dutch tourists stopped for me, complaining about
the frigidity of American beer, and sometimes I got rides
from couples who were fighting and tired of each other. In
every case, people took me for the teenage boy I was every
minute more conclusively becoming. Sophie Sassoon
wasnt around to wax my mustache, so it began to fill in, a
smudge above my upper lip. My voice continued to
deepen. Every jolt in the road dropped my Adams apple
another notch in my neck.
If people asked, I told them I was on my way to California
for my freshman year at college. I didnt know much about
the world, but I knew something about colleges, or at least
about homework, and so claimed that I was going to
Stanford to live in a dorm. To be honest, my drivers werent
too suspicious. They didnt care one way or another. They
had their own agendas. They were bored, or lonely, and
wanted someone to talk to.
Like a convert to a new religion, I overdid it at first.
Somewhere near Gay, Indiana, I adopted a swagger. I
rarely smiled. My expression throughout Illinois was the
Clint Eastwood squint. It was all a bluff, but so was it on
most men. We were all walking around squinting at each
other. My swagger wasnt that different from what lots of
adolescent boys put on, trying to be manly. For that reason
it was convincing. Its very falseness made it credible. Now
and then I fell out of character. Feeling something stuck to
the bottom of my shoe, I kicked up my heel and looked
back over my shoulder to see what it was, rather than
crossing my leg in front of me and twisting up my shoe. I
picked correct change from my open palm instead of my
trouser pocket. Such slips made me panic, but needlessly.
No one noticed. I was aided by that: as a rule people dont
notice much.
It would be a lie to tell you I understood everything I was
feeling. You dont, at fourteen. An instinct for selfpreservation
told me to run, and I was running. Dread
pursued me. I missed my parents. I felt guilty for making
them worry. Dr. Luces report haunted me. At night, in
various motels, I cried myself to sleep. Running away didnt
make me feel any less of a monster. I saw ahead of me
only humiliation and rejection, and I wept for my life.
But in the mornings I woke up feeling better. I left my motel
room and went out to stand in the air of the world. I was
young, and, despite dread, full of animal spirits; it was
impossible for me to take a dark view too long. Somehow I
was able to forget about myself for long stretches. I ate
doughnuts for breakfast. I kept drinking very sweet, milky
coffee. To lift my mood, I did things my parents wouldnt
have let me do, ordering two and sometimes three
desserts and never eating salads. I was free now to let my
teeth rot or to put my feet up on the backs of seats.
Sometimes while I was hitching I saw other runaways.
Under overpasses or in runoff drains they congregated,
smoking cigarettes, the hoods of their sweatshirts pulled
up. They were tougher than I was, scroungier. I steered
clear of their packs. They were from broken homes, had
been physically abused and now abused others. I wasnt
anything like them. I had brought my familys upward
mobility out onto the road. I joined no packs but went my
way alone.
And now, amid the prairie, appears the recreation vehicle
belonging to Myron and Sylvia Bresnick, of Pelham, New
York. Like a modern-day covered wagon, it rolls out of the
waving grasslands and stops. A door opens, like the door
of a house, and standing inside is a perky woman in her
late sixties.
I think weve got room for you, she says.
A moment before, I had been on Route 80 in western Iowa.
But now as I carry my suitcase onto this ship of the prairie, I
am suddenly in the Bresnicks living room. Framed
photographs of their children hang on the walls, along with
Chagall prints. The history of Winston Churchill that Myron
is working his way through at night at the hookups sits on
the coffee table.
Myron is a retired parts salesman, Sylvia a former social
worker. In profile she resembles a cute Punchinello, her
cheeks expressive, painted, and the nose carved for comic
effect. Myron works his lips around his cigar, foul and
intimate with his own juices.
While Myron drives, Sylvia gives me a tour of the beds, the
shower, the living area. What school do I go to? What do I
want to be? She peppers me with questions.
Myron turns from the wheel and booms, Stanford! Good
school!
And it is right then that it happens. At some moment on
Route 80 something clicks in my head and suddenly I feel I
am getting the hang of it. Myron and Sylvia are treating me
like a son. Under this collective delusion I become that, for
a little while at least. I become male-identified.
But something daughterly must cling to me, too. For soon
Sylvia has taken me aside to complain about her husband.
I know its tacky. This whole RV thing. You should see the
people we meet in these camps. They call it the RV
lifestyle. Oh, theyre nice enoughbut boring. I miss going
to cultural events. Myron says he spent his life traveling
around the country too busy to see it. So hes doing it over
againslowly. And guess who gets dragged along?
My heart? Myron is calling to her. Could you bring your
husband an iced tea, please? Hes parched.
They let me off in Nebraska. I counted my money and found
I had two hundred and thirty dollars left. I found a cheap
room in a kind of boardinghouse and stayed the night. I was
still too scared to hitchhike in the dark.
On the road there was time for minor adjustments. Many of
the socks Id brought were the wrong colorpink, white, or
covered with whales. Also my underpants werent the right
kind. At a Woolworths in Nebraska City I bought a threepack
of boxer shorts. As a girl, I had worn size large. As a
boy, medium. I trolled through the toiletries section, too.
Instead of row upon row of beauty products there was only
a single rack of hygienic essentials. The explosion in mens
cosmetics hadnt happened yet. There were no pampering
unguents disguised by rugged names. No Heavy-Duty Skin
Repair. No Anti-Burn Shave Gel. I selected deodorant,
disposable razors, and shaving cream. The colorful
cologne bottles attracted me, but my experience with
aftershaves was not favorable. Cologne made me think of
voice coaches, of maître ds, of old men and their unwanted
embraces. I picked out a mans wallet, too. At the register, I
couldnt look the cashier in the face, as embarrassed as if I
were buying condoms. The cashier wasnt much older than I
was, with blond, feathered hair. That heartland look.
At restaurants I began to use the mens rooms. This was
perhaps the hardest adjustment. I was scandalized by the
filth of mens rooms, the rank smells and pig sounds, the
grunting and huffing from the stalls. Urine was forever
puddled on the floors. Scraps of soiled toilet paper
adhered to the commodes. When you entered a stall, more
often than not a plumbing emergency greeted you, a brown
tide, a soup of dead frogs. To think that a toilet stall had
once been a haven for me! That was all over now. I could
see at once that mens rooms, unlike the ladies, provided
no comfort. Often there wasnt even a mirror, or any hand
soap. And while the closeted, flatulent men showed no
shame, at the urinals men acted nervous. They looked
straight ahead like horses with blinders.
I understood at those times what I was leaving behind: the
solidarity of a shared biology. Women know what it means
to have a body. They understand its difficulties and frailties,
its glories and pleasures. Men think their bodies are theirs
alone. They tend them in private, even in public.
A word on penises. What was Cals official position on
penises? Among them, surrounded by them, his feelings
were the same as they had been as a girl: by equal
measures fascinated and horrified. Penises had never
really done that much for me. My girlfriends and I had a
comical opinion of them. We hid our guilty interest by
giggling or pretending disgust. Like every schoolgirl on a
field trip, Id had my blushing moments among the Roman
antiquities. Id stolen peeks when the teachers back was
turned. Its our first art lesson as kids, isnt it? The nudes
are dressed. Theyre dressed in high-mindedness. Being
six years older, my brother had never shared a bathtub with
me. The glimpses of his genitals Id had over the years
were fleeting. Id studiously looked away. Even Jerome had
penetrated me without my seeing what went on. Anything
so long concealed couldnt fail to intrigue me. But the
glimpses those mens rooms afforded were on the whole
disappointing. The proud phallus was nowhere in evidence,
only the feed bag, the dry tuber, the snail that had lost its
shell.
And I was scared to death of being caught looking. Despite
my suit, my haircut, and my height, every time I went into a
mens room a shout rang out in my head: Youre in the
mens! But the mens was where I was supposed to be.
Nobody said a word. Nobody objected to my presence.
And so I searched for a stall that looked halfway clean. I had
to sit to urinate. Still do.
At night, on the fungal carpets of motel rooms, I did
exercises, push-ups and sit-ups. Wearing nothing but my
new boxers, I examined my physique in the mirror. Not long
ago Id fretted over my failure to develop. That worry was
gone now. I didnt have to live up to that standard anymore.
The impossible demands had been removed and I felt a
vast relief. But there were also moments of dislocation,
staring at my changing body. Sometimes it didnt feel like
my own. It was hard, white, bony. Beautiful in its own way, I
supposed, but Spartan. Not receptive or pliant at all.
Contents under pressure, rather.
It was in those motel rooms that I learned about my new
body, its specific instructions and contraindications. The
Object and I had worked in the dark. She had never really
explored my apparatus much. The Clinic had medicalized
my genitals. During my time there they were numb or
slightly tender from the constant examinations. My body had
shut down in order to get through the ordeal. But traveling
woke it up. Alone, with the door locked and the chain on, I
experimented with myself. I put pillows between my legs. I
lay on top of them. Half paying attention, while I watched
Johnny Carson, my hand prospected. The anxiety Id
always felt about how I was made had kept me from
exploring the way most kids did. So it was only now, lost to
the world and everyone I knew, that I had the courage to try
it out. I cant discount the importance of this. If I had doubts
about my decision, if I sometimes thought about turning
back, running back to my parents and the Clinic and giving
in, what stopped me was this private ecstasy between my
legs. I knew it would be taken from me. I dont want to
overestimate the sexual. But it was a powerful force for me,
especially at fourteen, with my nerves bright and jangling,
ready to launch into a symphony at the slightest
provocation. That was how Cal discovered himself, in
voluptuous, liquid, sterile culmination, couchant upon two or
three deformed pillows, with the shades drawn and the
drained swimming pool outside and the cars passing,
endlessly, all night.
Outside Nebraska City, a silver Nova hatchback pulled
over. I ran up with my suitcase and opened the passenger
door. At the wheel was a good-looking man in his early
thirties. He wore a tweed coat and yellow V-neck sweater.
His plaid shirt was open at the collar, but the wings were
crisp with starch. The formality of his clothes contrasted
with his relaxed manner. Hello deh, he said, doing a
Brooklyn accent.
Thanks for stopping.
He lit a cigarette and introduced himself, extending his
hand. Ben Scheer.
My names Cal.
He didnt ask the usual questions about my origin and
destination. Instead, as we drove off, he asked, Where did
you get that suit?
Salvation Army.
Real nice.
Really? I said. And then reconsidered. Youre teasing.
No, Im not, said Scheer. I like a suit somebody died in.
Its very existential.
Whats that?
Whats what?
Existential?
He gave me a direct look. An existentialist is someone
who lives for the moment.
No one had ever talked to me like this before. I liked it. As
we drove on through the yellow country, Scheer told me
other interesting things. I learned about Ionesco and the
Theater of the Absurd. Also about Andy Warhol and the
Velvet Underground. Its hard to express the excitement
such phrases instilled in a kid like me from the cultural
sticks. The Charm Bracelets wanted to pretend they were
from the East, and I guess I had picked up that urge, too.
Did you ever live in New York? I asked.
Used to.
I was just there. I want to live there someday.
I lived there ten years.
Why did you leave?
Again the direct look. I woke up one morning and realized,
if I didnt, Id be dead in a year.
This, too, seemed marvelous.
Scheers face was handsome, pale, with an Asiatic cast to
his gray eyes. His light brown frizzy hair was scrupulously
brushed, and parted by fiat. After a while I noticed other
niceties of his dress, the monogrammed cuff links, the
Italian loafers. I liked him immediately. Scheer was the kind
of man I thought I would like to be myself.
Suddenly, from the rear of the car there erupted a
magnificent, weary, soul-emptying sigh.
How ya doin, Franklin? Scheer called.
On hearing his name, Franklin lifted his troubled, regal
head from the recesses of the hatchback, and I saw the
black-and-white markings of an English setter. Ancient,
rheumy-eyed, he gave me the once-over and dropped back
out of sight.
Scheer was meanwhile pulling off the highway. He had a
breezy highway driving style, but when making any kind of
maneuver he snapped into military action, pummeling the
wheel with strong hands. He pulled into the parking lot of a
convenience store. Back in a minute.
Holding a cigarette at his hip like a riding crop, he walked
with clipped steps into the store. While he was gone I
looked around the car. It was immaculately clean, the floor
mats freshly vacuumed. The glove box contained orderly
maps and tapes of Mabel Mercer. Scheer reappeared with
two full shopping bags.
I think road drinks are in order, he said.
He had a twelve-pack carton of beer, two bottles of Blue
Nun, and a bottle of Lancers rosé, in a faux clay bottle. He
set all of these on the backseat.
This was part of being sophisticated, too. You drank cheap
Liebfraumilch in plastic cups, calling it cocktails, and
carved off hunks of Cheddar cheese with a Swiss Army
knife. Scheer had assembled a nice hors doeuvre platter
from meager sources. There were also olives. We headed
back out across the no-mans-land, while Scheer directed
me to open the wine and serve him snacks. I was now his
page. He had me put in the Mabel Mercer tape and then
enlightened me about her meticulous phrasing.
Suddenly he raised his voice. Cops. Keep your glass
down.
I quickly lowered my Blue Nun and we drove on, acting cool
as the state trooper passed on our left.
By now Scheer was doing the cops voice. I know city
slickers when I see em and them thars two of the slickest
of em all. Id wager theyre up to no good.
To all this I responded with laughter, happy to be in league
against the world of hypocrites and rulemongers.
When it began to grow dark, Scheer chose a steak house. I
was worried it might be too expensive, but he told me,
Dinners on me tonight.
Inside, it was busy, a popular place, the only table open a
small one near the bar.
To the waitress Scheer said, Ill have a vodka martini, very
dry,two olives, and my son here will have a beer.
The waitress looked at me.
He got any ID?
Not on me, I said.
Cant serve you, then.
I was there at his birth. I can vouch for him, said Scheer.
Sorry, no ID, no alcohol.
Okay, then, said Scheer. Changed my mind. Ill have a
vodka martini, very dry, two olives, and a beer chaser.
Through her tight lips the waitress said, You gonna let your
friend drink that beer I cant serve it to you.
Theyre both for me, Scheer assured her. He deepened
his voice a little, opened the tone a little, injecting it with an
Eastern or Ivy League authority whose influence did not
entirely dissipate even all the way out here in the steak
house on the plains. The waitress, resentful, complied.
She walked off and Scheer leaned toward me. He did his
hick voice again. Nothing wrong with that gal that a good
poke in the hay barn wouldnt fix. And youre just the stud for
the job. He didnt seem drunk, but this crudeness was new;
he was a little less precise in his movements now, his voice
louder. Yeah, said Scheer, I think shes sweet on you.
You and Mayella could be happy together. I was feeling the
wine strongly, too, my head like a mirrored ball, flashing
lights.
The waitress brought the drinks, setting them
demonstratively on Scheers side of the table. As soon as
she disappeared, he pushed the beer toward me and said,
There you go.
Thanks. I drank the beer in gulps, pushing it back across
the table whenever the waitress passed by. It was fun to be
sneaking it like this.
But I was not unobserved. A man at the bar was watching
me. Wearing a Hawaiian shirt and sunglasses, he looked
as though he disapproved. But then his face broke into a
big, knowing smile. The smile made me uncomfortable and
I looked away.
When we came out again, the sky was completely dark.
Before leaving, Scheer opened the hatch of the Nova to get
Franklin out. The old dog could no longer walk, and Scheer
had to lift him bodily out of the car. Lets go, Franks,
Scheer said, gruffly affectionate, and with a lit cigarette
between his teeth, angled up in a patrician manner not
unlike that of Franklin Roosevelt himself, in Gucci loafers
and sidevented, gold-hued tweed jacket, his strong polo
and sidevented, gold-hued tweed jacket, his strong polo
players legs braced under the weight, he carried the aged
beast into the weeds.
Before going back to the highway, he stopped at a
convenience store to get more beer.
We drove for another hour or so. Scheer consumed many
beers; I worked my way through one or two. I was not at all
sober and feeling sleepy. I leaned against my door, blearily
looking out. A long white car came alongside us. The driver
looked at me, smiling, but I was already falling asleep.
Sometime later, Scheer shook me awake. Im too wrecked
to drive. Im pulling over.
I said nothing to this.
Im going to find a motel. Ill get you a room, too. On me.
I didnt object. Soon I saw hazy motel lights. Scheer left the
car and returned with my room key. He led me to my room,
carrying my suitcase, and opened the door for me. I went to
the bed and collapsed.
My head was spinning. I managed to pull down the
bedspread and get at the pillows.
You gonna sleep in your clothes? Scheer asked as if
amused.
I felt his hand on my back, rubbing it. You shouldnt sleep in
your clothes, he said. He started to undress me, but I
roused myself. Just let me sleep, I said.
Scheer bent closer. In a thick voice he said, Your parents
kick you out, Cal? Is that it? He sounded suddenly very
drunk, as if all the days and nights drinking had finally hit
him.
Im going to sleep, I said.
Come on, whispered Scheer. Let me take care of you.
I curled up protectively, keeping my eyes closed. Scheer
nuzzled me, but when I didnt respond, he stopped. I heard
him open the door and then close it behind him.
When I awoke again, it was early in the morning. Light was
coming in the windows. And Scheer was right next to me.
He was hugging me clumsily, his eyes squeezed shut. Just
wanna sleep here, he said, slurring. Just wanna sleep.
My shirt had been unbuttoned. Scheer was wearing only his
underwear. The television was on, and there were empty
beers on it.
Scheer clutched me, pressing his face into mine, making
sounds. I tolerated this, feeling obliged for some reason.
But when his drunken attentions became more avid, more
targeted, I pushed him off me. He didnt protest. He
crumpled into a ball and quickly passed out.
I got up and went into the bathroom. For a long while I sat
on the toilet lid, hugging my knees. When I peeked out
again, Scheer was still sound asleep. There was no lock on
the door, but I was desperate for a shower. I took a quick
one, keeping the curtain open and my eyes on the door.
Then I changed into a new shirt, put my suit back on, and let
myself out of the room.
It was very early. No traffic was passing along the road. I
walked away from the motel and sat on my Samsonite,
waiting. Big open sky. A few birds in it. I was hungry again.
My head hurt. I got out my wallet and counted my dwindling
money. I contemplated calling home for the hundredth time.
I started to cry but stopped myself. Then I heard a car
coming. From the motel parking lot a white Lincoln
Continental emerged. I put out my thumb. The car stopped
alongside me and the power window slowly went down. At
the wheel was the man from the restaurant the day before.
Where you headed?
California.
That smile again. Like something bursting. Well then, this
is your lucky day. Thats where Im headed, too.
I hesitated only a moment. Then I opened the back door of
the big car and slid my suitcase in. I didnt have, at that
point, much choice in the matter.
GENDER DYSPHORIA IN SAN
FRANCISCO
His name was Bob Presto. He had soft, white, fat hands
and a plump face and wore a white guayabera shot with
gold threads. He was vain of his voice, had been a radio
announcer for many years before getting into his present
line of business. What that was he didnt specify. But its
lucrative nature was evident in the white Continental with
red leather seats and in Prestos gold watch and jeweled
rings, his newscasters hair. Despite these grown-man
touches, there was much of the mamas boy to Presto. He
had the body of a little fatty, though he was big, close to two
hundred pounds. He reminded me of the Big Boy at the
Elias Brothers chain of restaurants, only older, coarsened
and bloated by adult vices.
Our conversation began the usual way, Presto asking me
about myself and I giving the standard lies.
Where you off to in California?
College.
What school?
Stanford.
Im impressed. Ive got a brother-in-law went to Stanford.
Big muckety-muck. Where is that again?
Stanford?
Yeah, what city?
I forget.
You forget? I thought Stanford students were supposed to
be smart. How are you going to get there if you dont know
where it is?
Im meeting my friend. Hes got all the details and stuff.
Its nice to have friends, Presto said. He turned and
winked at me. I didnt know how to interpret this wink. I kept
quiet, staring forward at the road ahead.
On the buffet-like front seat between us were many
supplies, soft drink bottles and bags of chips and cookies.
Presto offered me whatever I wanted. I was too hungry to
refuse, and took a few cookies, trying not to wolf them
down.
Ill tell you, Presto said, the older I get, the younger
college kids look. If you asked me, Id say you were still in
high school. What year you in?
Freshman.
Again Prestos face broke into the candy-apple grin. I wish
I were in your shoes. College is the best time of life. I hope
youre ready for all the girls.
A chuckle accompanied this, to which I was obliged to add
one of my own. I had a lot of girlfriends in college, Cal,
Presto said. I worked for the college radio station. I used to
get all kinds of free records. And if I liked a girl, I used to
dedicate songs to her. He gave me a sample of his style,
crooning low: This one goes out to Jennifer, queen of
Anthro 101. Id love to study your culture, baby.
Prestos jowly head bowed and his eyebrows rose in
modest recognition of his vocal gifts. Let me give you a
little advice about women, Cal. Voice. Voice is a big turnon
for women. Never discount voice. Prestos was indeed
deep, dimorphically masculine. The fat of his throat
increased its resonance as he explained, Take my ex-wife,
for example. When we first met, I could say anything to her
and shed go bananas. Wed be fucking and Id say
English muffinand shed come.
When I didnt reply, Presto said, Im not offending you, am
I? Youre not one of those Mormon kids on your mission,
are you? In that suit of yours?
No.
Good. You had me worried for a minute. Lets hear your
voice again, Presto said. Come on, give me your best
shot.
What do you want me to say?
Say English muffin.
English muffin.
I dont work in radio anymore, Cal. I am not a professional
broadcaster. But my humble opinion is that you are not DJ
material. What youve got is a thin tenor. If you want to get
laid, youd better learn to sing. He laughed, grinning at me.
His eyes showed no merriment, however, but were hard,
examining me closely. He drove one-handed, eating potato
chips with the other.
Your voice has an unusual quality, actually. Its hard to
place.
It seemed best to keep quiet.
How old are you, Cal?
I just told you.
No, you didnt.
I just turned eighteen.
How old do you think I am?
I dont know. Sixty?
Okay, you can get out now. Sixty! Im fifty-two, for Christs
sake.
I was going to say fifty.
Its all this weight. He was shaking his head. I didnt look
old until I gained all this weight. Skinny kid like you wouldnt
know about that, would you? I thought you were a chick at
first, when I saw you standing by the road. I didnt register
the suit. I just saw your outline. And I thought, Jesus, whats
a young chick like that doing hitchhiking?
I was unable to meet Prestos gaze now. I was beginning to
feel scared again and very uncomfortable.
Thats when I recognized you. I saw you before. At that
steak house. You were with that queer. There was a
pause. I had him for a chicken hawk. Are you gay, Cal?
What?
You can tell me if you want. Im not gay but Ive got nothing
against it.
Id like to get out now. Could you let me out?
Presto let go of the wheel and held his palms up in the air.
Im sorry. I apologize. No more third degree. I wont say
another word.
Just let me out.
If thats what you want, okay. But it doesnt make sense.
Were going the same way, Cal. Ill take you to San
Francisco. He didnt slow down and I didnt ask him to. He
was true to his word and from then on remained mostly
quiet, humming along to the radio. Every hour he made a
pit stop to relieve himself and to buy more economy-sized
bottles of Pepsi, more chocolate chip cookies, more red
licorice and corn chips. Back on the road, he tanked up. He
tilted his head back while he chewed, wary about getting
crumbs on his shirtfront. Soft drinks glugged down his
throat. Our conversation remained general. We drove up
through the Sierra, out of Nevada and into California. We
got lunch at a drive-thru. Presto paid for the hamburgers
and milk shakes and I decided he was all right, friendly
enough, and not after anything physical from me.
Time for my pills, he said after we had eaten. Cal, can
you hand me my pill bottles? Theyre in the glove
compartment.
There were five or six different bottles. I handed them to
Presto and he tried to read their labels, slanting his eyes.
Here, he said, steer for a minute. I leaned over to take
hold of the wheel, closer to Bob Presto than I wanted to be,
while he struggled with the caps and shook out pills. My
livers all fucked up. Because of this hepatitis I picked up in
Thailand. Fucking country almost killed me. He held up a
blue pill. This is the one for the liver. Ive got a blood
thinner, too. And one for blood pressure. My bloods all
fucked up. Im not supposed to eat so much.
In this way we drove all day, reaching San Francisco in the
evening. When I saw the city, pink and white, a wedding
cake arrayed on hills, a new anxiety took hold of me. All the
way across the country I had absorbed myself in reaching
my destination. Now I was there and I didnt know what I
would do or how I would survive.
Ill drop you wherever you want, Presto said. You got an
address where youre staying, Cal? Your friends place?
Anywheres fine.
Ill take you up to the Haight. Thatll be a good place for you
to get your bearings. We drove into the city and finally Bob
Presto pulled his car over and I opened my door.
Thanks for the ride, I said.
Sure, sure, said Presto. He held out his hand. And by the
way, its Palo Alto.
What?
Stanfords in Palo Alto. You should get that straight if you
want anyone to believe youre in college. He waited for me
to speak. Then in a surprisingly tender voice, a professional
trick, too, no doubt, but not without effect, Presto asked,
Listen, guy, you got any place to stay?
Dont worry about me.
Can I ask you something, Cal? What are you, anyway?
Without answering I got out of the car and opened the back
door to get my suitcase. Presto turned around in his seat, a
difficult maneuver for him. His voice remained soft, deep,
fatherly. Come on. Im in the business. I might be able to
help you out. You a tranny?
Im going now.
Dont get offended. I know all about pre-op and post-op
and all that stuff.
I dont know what youre talking about. I pulled my suitcase
off the seat.
Hey, not so fast. Here. At least take my number. I could use
a kid like you. Whatever you are. You need some money,
dont you? You need an easy way to make some good
money, you give your old friend Bob Presto a call.
I took the number to get rid of him. Then I turned and walked
off as though I knew where I was going.
Watch out in the park at night, Presto called after me in
his booming voice. Lot of lowlifes in there.
My mother used to say that the umbilical cord attaching her
to her children had never been completely cut. As soon as
Dr. Philobosian had severed the cord of flesh, another,
spiritual connection had grown up in its place. After I went
missing, Tessie felt that this fanciful idea was truer than
ever. In the nights, while she lay in bed waiting for the
tranquilizers to take effect, she often put her hand to her
navel, like a fisherman checking his line. It seemed to
Tessie that she felt something. Faint vibrations reached
her. From these she could tell that I was still alive, though far
away, hungry, and possibly unwell. All this came in a kind of
singing along the invisible cord, a singing such as whales
do, crying out to one another in the deep.
For almost a week after I disappeared, my parents had
remained at the Lochmoor Hotel, hoping I might return.
Finally, the NYPD detective assigned to the case told them
that the best thing to do was return home. Your daughter
might call. Or turn up there. Kids usually do. If we find her,
well let you know. Believe me. The best thing to do is go
home and stay by the phone. Reluctantly, my parents took
this advice.
Before leaving, however, they had made an appointment
with Dr. Luce. A little knowledge is a dangerous thing, Dr.
Luce told them, offering an explanation for my
disappearance. Callie may have stolen a look at her file
while I was out of my office. But she didnt understand what
she was reading.
But what would make her run away? Tessie asked. Her
eyes were wide, imploring.
She misconstrued the facts, Luce answered. She
oversimplified them.
Ill be honest with you, Dr. Luce, said Milton. Our daughter
called you a liar in that note she left. Id like an explanation
why she might say something like that.
Luce smiled tolerantly. Shes fourteen. Distrustful of
adults.
Can we take a look at that file?
It wont help you to see the file. Gender identity is very
complex. Its not a matter of sheer genetics. Neither is it a
matter of purely environmental factors. Genes and
environment come together at a critical moment. Its not difactorial.
Its tri-factorial.
Let me get one thing straight, Milton interrupted. Is it, or is
it not, still your medical opinion that Callie should stay the
way she is?
From the psychological assessment I was able to make
during the brief time I treated Callie, I would say yes, my
opinion is that she has a female gender identity.
Tessies composure broke and she sounded frantic. Why
does she say shes a boy, then?
She never said that to me, said Luce. Thats a new piece
of the puzzle.
I want to see that file, demanded Milton
Im afraid thats not possible. The file is for my own private
research purposes. Youre free to see Callies blood work
and the other test results.
Milton exploded then. Shouting, swearing at Dr. Luce. I
hold you responsible. You hear me? Our daughter isnt the
kind to just run off like that. You must have done something
to her. Scared her.
Her situation scared her, Mr. Stephanides, said Luce.
And let me emphasize something to you. He rapped his
knuckles against his desk. It is of tantamount importance
that you find her as soon as possible. The repercussions
could be severe.
What are you saying?
Depression. Dysphoria. Shes in a very delicate
psychological state.
Tessie, Milton looked at his wife, you want to see the file
or should we get out of here and let this bastard go screw
himself.
I want to see the file. She was sniffling now. And watch
your language, please. Lets try to be cordial.
Finally, Luce had given in and let them see it. After they had
read the file, he offered to reevaluate my case at a future
time, and expressed hope that I would soon be found.
Id never take Callie back to him in a million years, my
mother said as they left.
I dont know what he did to upset Callie, said my father,
but he did something.
They returned to Middlesex in late September. The leaves
were falling from the elms, robbing the street of shelter. The
weather began to turn colder, and from her bed at night
Tessie listened to the wind and the rustling leaves,
wondering where I was sleeping and if I was safe. The
tranquilizers didnt subdue her panic so much as displace
it. Under their sedation Tessie withdrew into an inner core
of herself, a kind of viewing platform from which she could
observe her anxiety. The fear was a little less with her at
those times. The pills made her mouth dry. They made her
head feel as though it were wrapped in cotton, and turned
the periphery of her vision starry. She was supposed to
take only one pill at a time, but she often took two.
There was a place halfway between consciousness and
unconsciousness where Tessie did her best thinking.
During the day she busied herself with companypeople
were constantly stopping by the house with food, and she
had to set out trays and clean up after thembut in the
nights, approaching stupefaction, she had the courage to
try to come to terms with the note Id left behind.
It was impossible for my mother to think of me as anything
but her daughter. Her thoughts went in the same circle
again and again. With her eyes half-open, Tessie gazed
out across the dark bedroom glinting and sparking in the
corners, and saw before her all the items I had ever worn or
possessed. They all seemed to be heaped at the foot of
her bedthe beribboned socks, the dolls, the hair clips, the
full set of Madeline books, the party dresses, the red Mary
Janes, the jumpers, the Easy-Bake Oven, the hula hoop.
These objects were the trail that led back to me. How could
such a trail lead to a boy?
And yet now, apparently, it did. Tessie went back over the
events of the last year and a half, looking for signs she
might have missed. It wasnt so different from what any
mother would do, confronted with a shocking revelation
about her teenage daughter. If I had died of a drug
overdose or joined a cult, my mothers thinking would have
taken essentially the same form. The reappraisal was the
same but the questions were different. Was that why I was
so tall? Did it explain why I hadnt gotten my period? She
thought about our waxing appointments at the Golden
Fleece and my husky altoeverything, really: the way I
never filled out dresses right, the way womens gloves no
longer fit me. All the things Tessie had accepted as part of
the awkward age suddenly seemed ominous to her. How
could she not have known! She was my mother, she had
given birth to me, she was closer to me than I was to
myself. My pain was her pain, my joy her joy. But didnt
Callies face have a strange look sometimes? So intense,
so . . . masculine. And no fat on her, nowhere at all, all
bones, no hips. But it wasnt possible . . . and Dr. Luce had
said that Callie was a . . . and why hadnt he mentioned
anything about chromosomes . . . and how could it be true?
So ran my mothers thoughts, as her mind darkened and
the glinting stopped. And after she had thought all these
things, Tessie thought about the Object, about my close
friendship with the Object. She remembered that day when
the girl had died during the play, recalled rushing
backstage to find me hugging the Object, comforting her,
stroking her hair, and the wild look on my face, not really
sadness at all . . .
From this last thought Tessie turned back.
Milton, on the other hand, didnt waste time reevaluating the
evidence. On hotel stationery Callie had proclaimed, I
amnot a girl. But Callie was just a kid. What did she know?
Kids said all kinds of crazy things. My father didnt
understand what had made me flee my surgery. He couldnt
fathom why I wouldnt want to be fixed, cured. And he was
certain that speculating about my reasons for running away
was beside the point. First they had to find me. They had to
get me back safe and sound. They could deal with the
medical situation later.
Milton now dedicated himself to that end. He spent much of
every day on the phone, calling police departments across
the country. He pestered the detective in New York, asking
if there was any progress in my case. At the public library
he consulted telephone books, writing down the numbers
and addresses of police departments and runaway
shelters, and then he methodically went down this list,
calling every number and asking if anyone had seen
someone who fit my description. He sent my photograph to
these police stations and he sent a memo to his franchise
operators, asking them to post my picture at every Hercules
restaurant. Long before my naked body appeared in
medical textbooks, my face appeared on bulletin boards
and in windows across the nation. The police station in San
Francisco received one of the photographs, but there was
little chance of my being recognized by it now. Like a real
outlaw, I had already changed my appearance. And biology
was perfecting my disguise day by day.
Middlesex began to fill up with friends and relatives again.
Aunt Zo and our cousins came over to give my parents
moral support. Peter Tatakis closed his chiropractic office
early one day and drove in from Birmingham to have dinner
with Milt and Tessie. Jimmy and Phyllis Fioretos
broughtkoulouria and ice cream. It was as if the Cyprus
invasion had never happened. The women congregated in
the kitchen, preparing food, while the men sat in the living
room, conversing in low tones. Milton got the dusty bottles
from the liquor cabinet. He removed the bottle of Crown
Royal from its purple velvet sack and set it out for the
guests. Our old backgammon set came out from under a
stack of board games, and a few of the older women
began to count their worry beads. Everyone knew that I had
run away but no one knew why. Privately, they said to each
other, Do you think shes pregnant? And, Did Callie have
a boyfriend? And, She always seemed like a good kid.
Never would have thought shed pull something like this.
And, Always crowing about their kid with the straight As at
that hoity-toity school. Well, theyre not crowing now.
Father Mike held Tessies hand as she lay suffering on the
bed upstairs. Removing his jacket, wearing only his black
short-sleeved shirt and collar, he told her that he would pray
for my return. He advised Tessie to go to church and light a
candle for me. I ask myself now what Father Mikes face
looked like as he held my mothers hand in the master
bedroom. Was there any hint ofSchadenfreude ? Of taking
pleasure in the unhappiness of his former fiancée? Of
enjoyment at the fact that his brother-in-laws money
couldnt protect him from this misfortune? Or of relief that
for once, on the ride home, his wife, Zoë, wouldnt be able
to compare him unfavorably with Milton? I cant answer
these questions. As for my mother, she was tranquilized,
and remembers only that the pressure in her eyes made
Father Mikes face appear oddly elongated, like a priest in
a painting by El Greco.
At night Tessie slept fitfully. Panic kept waking her up. In the
morning she made the bed but, after breakfast, sometimes
went to lie on it again, leaving her tiny white Keds neatly on
the carpet and closing the shades. The sockets of her eyes
darkened and the blue veins at her temples visibly
throbbed. When the telephone rang, her head felt as if it
would explode.
Hello?
Any word? It was Aunt Zo. Tessies heart sank.
No.
Dont worry. Shell turn up.
They spoke for a minute before Tessie said she had to go.
I shouldnt tie up the line.
Every morning a great wall of fog descends upon the city of
San Francisco. It begins far out at sea. It forms over the
Farallons, covering the sea lions on their rocks, and then it
sweeps onto Ocean Beach, filling the long green bowl of
Golden Gate Park. The fog obscures the early morning
joggers and the lone practitioners of tai chi. It mists up the
windows of the Glass Pavilion. It creeps over the entire city,
over the monuments and movie theaters, over the
Panhandle dope dens and the flophouses in the Tenderloin.
The fog covers the pastel Victorian mansions in Pacific
Heights and shrouds the rainbow-colored houses in the
Haight. It walks up and down the twisting streets of
Chinatown; it boards the cable cars, making their clanging
bells sound like buoys; it climbs to the top of Coit Tower
until you cant see it anymore; it moves in on the Mission,
where the mariachi players are still asleep; and it bothers
the tourists. The fog of San Francisco, that cold, identitycleansing
mist that rolls over the city every day, explains
better than anything else why that city is what it is. After the
Second World War, San Francisco was the main point of
reentry for sailors returning from the Pacific. Out at sea,
many of these sailors had picked up amatory habits that
were frowned upon back on dry land. So these sailors
stayed in San Francisco, growing in number and attracting
others, until the city became the gay capital, the
homosexualHauptstadt . (Further evidence of lifes
unpredictability: the Castro is a direct outcome of the
military-industrial complex.) It was the fog that appealed to
those sailors because it lent the city the shifting,
anonymous feeling of the sea, and in such anonymity
personal change was that much easier. Sometimes it was
hard to tell whether the fog was rolling in over the city or
whether the city was drifting out to meet it. Back in the
1940s, the fog hid what those sailors did from their fellow
citizens. And the fog wasnt done. In the fifties it filled the
heads of the Beats like the foam in their cappuccinos. In the
sixties it clouded the minds of the hippies like the pot
smoke rising in their bongs. And in the seventies, when Cal
Stephanides arrived, the fog was hiding my new friends
and me in the park.
On my third day in the Haight, I was in a café, eating a
banana split. It was my second. The kick of my new
freedom was wearing off. Gorging on sweets didnt chase
away the blues as it had a week earlier.
Spare some change?
I looked up. Slouching beside my small marble-topped
table was a type I knew well. It was one of the underpass
kids, the scroungy runaways I kept my distance from. The
hood of his sweatshirt was up, framing a flushed face, ripe
with pimples.
Sorry, I said.
The boy bent over, his face getting closer to mine. Spare
some change? he said again.
His persistence annoyed me. So I glowered at him and
said, I should ask you the same question.
Im not the one pigging out on a sundae.
I told you I dont have any spare change.
He glanced behind me and asked more affably, How
come youre carrying that humongous suitcase around?
Thats my business.
I saw you yesterday with that thing.
I have enough money for this ice cream but thats it.
Dont you have any place to stay?
Ive got tons of places.
You buy me a burger Ill show you a good place.
I said Ive got tons.
I know a good place in the park.
I can go into the park myself.Anyone can go into the park.
Not if they dont want to get rolled they cant. You dont
know whats up, man. Theres places in the Gate that are
safe and places that arent. Me and my friends got a nice
place. Real secluded. The cops dont even know about it,
so we can just party all the time. Might let you stay there but
first I need that double cheese.
It was a hamburger a minute ago.
You snooze, you lose. Price is going up all the time. How
old are you, anyway?
Eighteen.
Yeah, right, like Ill believe that. You aint no eighteen. Im
sixteen and youre not any older than me. You from Marin?
I shook my head. It had been a while since I had spoken to
anyone my age. It felt good. It made me less lonely. But I still
had my guard up.
Youre a rich kid, though, right? Mr. Alligator?
I didnt say anything. And suddenly he was all appeal, full of
kid hungers, his knees shaking. Comeon , man. Im
hungry. Okay, forget the double cheese. Just a burger.
All right.
Cool. A burger. And fries. You said fries, right? You wont
believe this, man, but I got rich parents, too.
So began my time in Golden Gate Park. It turned out my
new friend, Matt, wasnt lying about his parents. He was
from the Main Line. His father was a divorce lawyer in
Philadelphia. Matt was the fourth child, the youngest.
Stocky, with a lugs jaw, a throaty, smoke-roughened voice,
he had left home to follow the Grateful Dead the summer
before but had never stopped. He sold tie-dyed T-shirts at
their concerts, and dope or acid when he could. Deep in
the park, where he led me, I found his cohorts.
This is Cal, Matt told them. Hes going to crash here for a
while.
Thats cool.
You an undertaker, man?
I thought it was Abe Lincoln at first.
Nah, these are just Cals traveling clothes, Matt said.
Hes got some others in that suitcase. Right?
I nodded.
You want to buy a shirt? I got some shirts.
All right.
The camp was located in a grove of mimosa trees. The
fuzzy red flowers on the branches were like pipe cleaners.
Stretching over the dunes were huge evergreen bushes that
formed natural huts. They were hollow inside, the soil dry
underneath. The bushes kept the wind out and, most of the
time, the rain. Inside, there was enough room to sit up.
Each bush contained a few sleeping bags; you chose
whichever one happened to be empty when you wanted to
sleep. Communal ethics applied. Kids were always leaving
the camp or showing up. It was equipped with all the stuff
they abandoned: a camping stove, a pasta pot,
miscellaneous silverware, jelly jar glasses, bedding, and a
glow-in-the-dark Frisbee the guys tossed around,
sometimes enlisting me to even out the sides. (Jesus,
Gator, you throw like a girl, man.) They were well stocked
with gorp, bongs, pipes, vials of amyl nitrate, but
understocked on towels, underwear, toothpaste. There was
a ditch thirty or so yards distant that we employed as a
latrine. The fountain by the aquarium was good for washing
oneself, but you had to do it at night to avoid the police.
If one of the guys had a girlfriend there would be a girl
around for a while. I stayed away from them, feeling they
might guess my secret. I was like an immigrant, putting on
airs, who runs into someone from the old country. I didnt
want to be found out, so remained tight-lipped. But I would
have been laconic in that company in any case. They were
all Deadheads, and that was what the talk was. Who saw
Jerry on which night. Who had a bootleg of which concert.
Matt had flunked out of high school but had an impressive
mind when it came to cataloguing Dead trivia. He carried
the dates and cities of their tour in his head. He knew the
lyrics of every song, when and where the Dead had played
it, how many times, and what songs they had played only
once. He lived in expectation of certain songs being
performed as the faithful await the Messiah. Someday the
Dead were going to play Cosmic Charlie and Matt Larson
wanted to be there to see creation redeemed. He had once
met Mountain Girl, Jerrys wife. She was so fucking cool,
he said. I would fucking love a woman like that. If I found a
lady as cool as Mountain Girl, Id marry her and have kids
and all that shit like that.
Get a job, too?
We could follow the tour. Keep our babies in little sacks.
Papoose style. And sell weed.
We werent the only ones living in the park. Occupying
some dunes on the other side of the field were homeless
guys, with long beards, their faces brown from sun and dirt.
They were known to ransack other peoples camps, so we
never left ours unattended. That was pretty much the only
rule we had. Someone always had to stand guard.
I hung around the Deadheads because I was scared alone.
My time on the road made me see the benefits of being in
a pack. We had left home for different reasons. They
werent kids I would ever have been friends with in normal
circumstances, but for that brief time I made do, because I
had nowhere else to go. I was never at ease around them.
But they werent especially cruel. Fights broke out when
kids had been drinking, but the ethos was nonviolent.
kids had been drinking, but the ethos was nonviolent.
Everyone was readingSiddhartha . An old paperback got
passed around the camp. I read it, too. Its one of the things
I remember most about that time: Cal, sitting on a rock,
reading Hermann Hesse and learning about the Buddha.
I heard the Buddha dropped acid, said one Head. Thats
what his enlightenment was.
They didnt have acid back then, man.
No, it was like, you know, a shroom.
I think Jerrys the Buddha, man.
Yeah!
Like when I fucking saw Jerry play that forty-five-minute
space jam on Truckin in Santa Fe, Iknew he was the
Buddha.
In all these conversations I took no part. See Cal in the far
underhang of the bushes, as all the Deadheads drift off to
sleep.
I had run away without thinking what my life would be like. I
had fled without having anywhere to run to. Now I was dirty, I
was running out of money. Sooner or later I would have to
call my parents. But for the first time in my life, I knew that
there was nothing they could do to help me. Nothing anyone
could do.
Every day I took the band to Ali Babas and bought them
veggie burgers for seventy-five cents each. I opted out on
the begging and the dope dealing. Mostly I hung around the
mimosa grove, in growing despair. A few times I walked
out to the beach to sit by the sea, but after a while I stopped
doing that, too. Nature brought no relief. Outside had
ended. There was nowhere to go that wouldnt be me.
It was the opposite for my parents. Wherever they went,
whatever they did, what greeted them was my absence.
After the third week of my vanishing, friends and relatives
stopped coming over to Middlesex in such numbers. The
house got quieter. The phone didnt ring. Milton called
Chapter Eleven, who was now living in the Upper
Peninsula, and said, Your mothers going through a rough
period. We still dont know where your sister is. Im sure
your mother would feel a little better if she could see you.
Why dont you come down for the weekend? Milton didnt
mention anything about my note. Throughout my time at the
Clinic he had kept Chapter Eleven apprised of the situation
in only the simplest terms. Chapter Eleven heard the
seriousness in Miltons voice and agreed to start coming
down on weekends and staying in his old bedroom.
Gradually, he learned the details of my condition, reacting
to them in a milder way than my parents had, which allowed
them, or at least Tessie, to begin to accept the new reality.
It was during those weekends that Milton, desperate to
cement his restored relationship with his son, urged him
once again to go into the family business. Youre not still
going with that Meg, are you?
No.
Well, you dropped out of your engineering studies. So
what are you doing now? Your mother and I dont have a
very clear idea of your life up there in Marquette.
I work in a bar.
You work in a bar? Doing what?
Short-order cook.
Milton paused only a moment. What would you rather do,
stay behind the grill or run Hercules Hot Dogs someday?
Youre the one that invented them anyway.
Chapter Eleven did not say yes. But he did not say no. He
had once been a science geek, but the sixties had
changed that. Under the imperatives of that decade,
Chapter Eleven had become a lacto-vegetarian, a
Transcendental Meditation student, a chewer of peyote
buttons. Once, long ago, he had sawed golf balls in half,
trying to find out what was inside; but at some point in his
life my brother had become fascinated with the interior of
the mind. Convinced of the essential uselessness of
formalized education, he had retreated from civilization.
Both of us had our moments of getting back to nature,
Chapter Eleven in the U.P. and me in my bush in Golden
Gate Park. By the time my father made his offer, however,
Chapter Eleven had begun to tire of the woods.
Come on, Milton said, lets go have a Hercules right
now.
I dont eat meat, Chapter Eleven said. How can I run the
place if I dont eat meat?
Ive been thinking about putting in salad bars, said Milton.
Lotta people eating a low-fat diet these days.
Good idea.
Yeah? You think so? That can be your department, then.
Milton elbowed Chapter Eleven, kidding, Well start you off
as vice president in charge of salad bars.
They drove to the Hercules downtown. It was busy when
they arrived. Milton greeted the manager, Gus Zaras.
Yahsou.
Gus looked up and, a second late, began to smile broadly.
Hey there, Milt. How you doing?
Fine, fine. I brought the future boss down to see the place.
He indicated Chapter Eleven.
Welcome to the family dynasty, Gus joked, spreading his
arms. He laughed too loudly. Seeming to realize this, he
stopped. There was an awkward silence. Then Gus asked,
So, Milt, whatll it be?
Two with everything. And what do we got thats
vegetarian?
We got bean soup.
Okay. Get my kid here a bowl of bean soup.
You got it.
Milton and Chapter Eleven chose stools and waited to be
served. After another long silence, Milton said, You know
how many of these places your old man owns right now?
How many? said Chapter Eleven.
Sixty-six. Got eight in Florida.
That was as far as the hard sell went. Milton ate his
Hercules hot dogs in silence. He knew perfectly well why
Gus was acting so overfriendly. It was because he was
thinking what everyone thinks when a girl disappears. He
was thinking the worst. There were moments when Milton
did, too. He didnt admit it to anyone. He didnt admit it to
himself. But whenever Tessie spoke about the umbilical
cord, when she claimed that she could still feel me out there
somewhere, Milton found himself wanting to believe her.
One Sunday as Tessie left for church, Milton handed her a
large bill. Light a candle for Callie. Get a bunch. He
shrugged. Couldnt hurt.
But after she was gone he shook his head. Whats the
matter with me? Lighting candles! Christ! He was furious
at himself for giving in to such superstition. He vowed again
that he would find me; he would get me back. Somehow or
other. A chance would come his way, and when it did,
Milton Stephanides wouldnt miss it.
The Dead came to Berkeley. Matt and the other kids
trooped off to the concert. I was given the job to look after
the camp.
It is midnight in the mimosa grove. I awaken, hearing
noises. Lights are moving through the bushes. Voices are
murmuring. The leaves over my head turn white and I can
see the scaffolding of branches. Light speckles the ground,
my body, my face. In the next second a flashlight comes
blazing through the opening in my lair.
The men are on me at once. One shines his flashlight in my
face as the other jumps onto my chest, pinning my arms.
Rise and shine, says the one with the flashlight.
It is two homeless guys from the dunes opposite. While the
one sits on top of me, the other begins searching the camp.
What kind of goodies you little fuckers got in here?
Look at him, says the other. Little fuckers gonna shit his
pants.
I squeeze my legs together, the girlish fears still operating
in me.
They are looking for drugs mainly. The one with the
flashlight shakes out the sleeping bags and searches my
suitcase. After a while he comes back and gets down on
one knee.
Where are all your friends, man? They go off and leave you
all alone?
He has begun to go through my pockets. Soon he finds my
wallet and empties it. As he does, my school ID falls out. He
shines the flashlight on it.
Whats this? Your girlfriend?
He stares at the photo, grinning. Your girlfriend like to suck
cock? I bet she does. He picks up the ID and holds it over
the front of his pants, thrusting his hips. Oh yeah, she
does!
Let me see that, says the one on top of me.
The guy with the flashlight tosses the ID onto my chest. The
guy pinning me lowers his face close to mine and says in a
deep voice, Dont you move, motherfucker. He lets go of
my arms and picks up the ID.
I can see his face now. Grizzled beard, bad teeth, nose
askew, showing septum. He contemplates the snapshot.
Skinny bitch. He looks from me to the ID and his
expression changes.
Its a chick!
Quick on the uptake, man. I always say that about you.
No, I meanhim . He is pointing down at me. Its her! Hes
a she. He holds up the ID for the other one to see. The
flashlight is again trained on Calliope in her blazer and
blouse.
At length the kneeling man grins. You holding out on us?
Huh? You got the goods stashed away under those pants?
Hold her, he orders. The man astride me pins my arms
again while the other one undoes my belt.
I tried to fight them off. I squirmed and kicked. But they were
too strong. They got my pants down to my knees. The one
aimed the flashlight and then sprang away.
Jesus Christ!
What?
Fuck!
What?
Its a fucking freak.
What?
Im gonna puke, man. Look!
No sooner had the other one done so than he let go of me
as though I were contaminated. He stood up, enraged. By
silent agreement, they then began to kick me. As they did,
they uttered curses. The one who had pinned me drove his
toe into my side. I grabbed his leg and hung on.
Let go of me, you fucking freak!
The other one was kicking me in the head. He did it three
or four times before I blacked out.
When I came to, everything was quiet. I had the impression
they had gone. Then somebody chuckled. Cross swords,
a voice said. The twin yellow streams, scintillant,
intersected, soaking me.
Crawl back into the hole you came out of, freak.
They left me there.
It was still dark out when I found the public fountain by the
aquarium and bathed in it. I didnt seem to be bleeding
anywhere. My right eye was swollen shut. My side hurt if I
took a deep breath. I had my dads Samsonite with me. I
had seventy-five cents to my name. I wished more than
anything that I could call home. Instead, I called Bob Presto.
He said he would be right over to pick me up.
HERMAPHRODITUS
Its no surprise that Luces theory of gender identity was
popular in the early seventies. Back then, as my first barber
put it, everybody wanted to go unisex. The consensus was
that personality was primarily determined by environment,
each child a blank slate to be written on. My own medical
story was only a reflection of what was happening
psychologically to everyone in those years. Women were
becoming more like men and men were becoming more
like women. For a little while during the seventies it seemed
that sexual difference might pass away. But then another
thing happened.
It was called evolutionary biology. Under its sway, the sexes
were separated again, men into hunters and women into
gatherers. Nurture no longer formed us; nature did.
Impulses of hominids dating from 20,000B.C. were still
controlling us. And so today on television and in magazines
you get the current simplifications. Why cant men
communicate? (Because they had to be quiet on the hunt.)
Why do women communicate so well? (Because they had
to call out to one another where the fruits and berries were.)
Why can men never find things around the house?
(Because they have a narrow field of vision, useful in
tracking prey.) Why can women find things so easily?
(Because in protecting the nest they were used to scanning
a wide field.) Why cant women parallel-park? (Because
low testosterone inhibits spatial ability.) Why wont men ask
for directions? (Because asking for directions is a sign of
weakness, and hunters never show weakness.) This is
where we are today. Men and women, tired of being the
same, want to be different again.
Therefore, its also no surprise that Dr. Luces theory had
come under attack by the 1990s. The child was no longer a
blank slate; every newborn had been inscribed by genetics
and evolution. My life exists at the center of this debate. I
am, in a sense, its solution. At first when I disappeared, Dr.
Luce was desperate, feeling that he had lost his greatest
find. But later, possibly realizing why I had run away, he
came to the conclusion that I was not evidence in support of
his theory but against it. He hoped I would stay quiet. He
published his articles about me and prayed that I would
never show up to refute them.
But its not as simple as that. I dont fit into any of these
theories. Not the evolutionary biologists and not Luces
either. My psychological makeup doesnt accord with the
essentialism popular in the intersex movement, either.
Unlike other so-called male pseudo-hermaphrodites who
have been written about in the press, I never felt out of
place being a girl. I still dont feel entirely at home among
men. Desire made me cross over to the other side, desire
and the facticity of my body. In the twentieth century,
genetics brought the Ancient Greek notion of fate into our
very cells. This new century weve just begun has found
something different. Contrary to all expectations, the code
underlying our being is woefully inadequate. Instead of the
expected 200,000 genes, we have only 30,000. Not many
more than a mouse.
And so a strange new possibility is arising. Compromised,
indefinite, sketchy, but not entirely obliterated: free will is
making a comeback. Biology gives you a brain. Life turns it
into a mind.
At any rate, in San Francisco in 1974, life was working hard
to give me one.
There it is again: the chlorine smell. Under the nasally
significant odor of the girl sitting astride his lap, distinct,
even, from the buttery popcorn smell that still pervades the
old movie seats, Mr. Go can detect the unmistakable scent
of a swimming pool. In here? In Sixty-Niners? He sniffs.
Flora, the girl on his lap, says, Do you like my perfume?
But Mr. Go does not answer. Mr. Go has a way of ignoring
the girls he pays to wiggle in his lap. What he likes best is
to have one girl frog-kicking on top of him while he watches
another girl dancing around the glittery firemens pole on
the stage. Mr. Go is multitasking. But tonight he is unable to
divide his attentions. The swimming pool smell is
distracting him. It has done so for over a week. Turning his
head, which is gently bobbing under Floras exertions, Mr.
Go looks at the line forming before the velvet rope. The fifty
or so theater seats here in the Show Room are almost
entirely empty. In the blue light only a few mens heads are
visible, some alone facing the stage, a few like Mr. Go with
a companion riding them: those peroxide equestriennes.
Behind the velvet rope rises a flight of stairs edged with
blinking lights. To climb these stairs you must pay a
separate admission of five dollars. Upon reaching the
clubs second floor (Mr. Go has been told), your only option
is to enter a booth, where it is then necessary to insert
tokens, which you must buy downstairs for a quarter each. If
you do all this, you will be afforded brief glimpses of
something Mr. Go does not quite understand. Mr. Gos
English is more than adequate. He has lived in America for
fifty-two years. But the sign advertising the attractions
upstairs doesnt make much sense to him. For that reason
he is curious. The chlorine smell only makes him more so.
Despite the increased traffic going upstairs in recent
weeks, Mr. Go has not yet gone himself. He has remained
faithful to the first floor where, for the single admission price
of ten dollars, he has a choice of activities. Mr. Go might, if
he so desires, quit the Show Room and go into the Dark
Room at the end of the hall. In the Dark Room there are
flashlights with pinpoint beams. There are huddled men,
wielding said flashlights. If you work your way in far enough,
you will find a girl, or sometimes two, lying on a riser
carpeted in foam rubber. Of course it is in some sense an
act of faith to postulate the existence of an actual girl, or
even two. You never see a complete girl in the Dark Room.
You see only pieces. You see what your flashlight
illuminates. A knee, for instance, or a nipple. Or, of
particular interest to Mr. Go and his fellows, you see the
source of life, the thing of things, purified as it were, without
the clutter of a person attached.
Mr. Go might also venture into the Ball Room. In the Ball
Room there are girls who long to slow-dance with Mr. Go.
He doesnt care for disco music, however, and at his age
tires easily. It is too much effort to press the girls up against
the padded walls of the Ball Room. Mr. Go much prefers to
sit in the Show Room, in the stained Art Deco theater seats
that originally belonged to a movie house in Oakland, now
demolished.
Mr. Go is seventy-three years old. Every morning, to retain
his virility, he drinks a tea containing rhinoceros horn. He
also eats the gall bladders of bears when he can get them
at the Chinese apothecary shop near his apartment. These
aphrodisiacs appear to work. Mr. Go comes into Sixty-
Niners nearly every night. He has a joke he likes to tell the
girls who sit on his lap. Mr. Go go for go-go. That is the
only time he laughs or smiles, when he tells them that joke.
If the club is not crowdedwhich it rarely is downstairs
anymoreFlora will sometimes give Mr. Go her company
for three or four songs. For a dollar she will ride him for one
song, but she will sit through one or two more songs for
free. This is one of Floras recommendations in Mr. Gos
mind. She is not young, Flora, but she has nice, clear skin.
Mr. Go feels she is healthy.
Tonight, however, after only two songs, Flora slides off Mr.
Go, grumbling. Im not a credit bureau, you know. She
stalks off. Mr. Go rises, adjusting his pants, and right then
the swimming pool smell hits him again and his curiosity
gets the better of him. He shuffles out of the Show Room
and gazes up the stairs at the printed sign:
And now Mr. Gos curiosity has gotten the better of him. He
buys a ticket and a handful of tokens and waits in line with
the others. When the bouncer lets him through, he climbs up
the blinking stairs. The booths on the second floor have no
numbers, only lights indicating whether they are occupied.
He finds an empty one, closes the door behind him, and
puts a token in the slot. Immediately, the screen slides
away to reveal a porthole looking onto underwater depths.
Music plays from a speaker in the roof and a deep voice
begins narrating a story:
Once upon a time in ancient Greece, there was an
enchanted pool. This pool was sacred to Salmacis, the
water nymph. And one day Hermaphroditus, a beautiful
boy, went swimming there. The voice continues, but Mr. Go
is no longer paying attention. He is looking into the pool,
which is blue and empty. He is wondering where the girls
are. He is beginning to regret buying a ticket to
Octopussys Garden. But just then the voice intones:
Ladies and Gentlemen, behold the god Hermaphroditus!
Half woman, half man!
There is a splash from above. The water in the pool goes
white, then pink. Only inches away on the other side of the
portholes glass is a body, a living body. Mr. Go looks. He
squints. He presses his face right up to the porthole. He
has never seen anything like what he is seeing now. Not in
all his years of visiting the Dark Room. He isnt sure he
likes what he sees. But the sight makes him feel strange,
light-headed, weightless, and somehow younger. Suddenly
the screen slides shut. Without hesitation Mr. Go drops
another token in the slot.
San Franciscos Sixty-Niners, Bob Prestos club: it stood in
North Beach, within view of the skyscrapers downtown. It
was a neighborhood of Italian cafés, pizza restaurants, and
topless bars. In North Beach you had the glitzy strip palaces
like Carol Dodas with her famous bust outlined on the
marquee. Barkers on the sidewalks collared passersby:
Gentlemen! Come in and see the show! Just have a look.
Doesnt cost anything to have a look. While the guy outside
the next club was shouting, Our girls are the best, right this
way through the curtain! And the next, Live erotic show,
gentlemen! Plus in our establishment you can watch the
football game! The barkers were all interesting guys, poets
manqués, most of them, and spent their time off in City
Lights Bookstore, leafing through New Directions
paperbacks. They wore striped pants, loud ties, sideburns,
goatees. They tended to resemble Tom Waits, or maybe it
was the other way around. Like Mamet characters, they
populated an America that had never existed, a kids idea
of sharpies and hucksters and underworld life.
It is said: San Francisco is where young people go to retire.
And though it would certainly add color to my story to
present a descent into a seamy underworld, I cant fail to
mention that the North Beach Strip is only a few blocks
long. The geography of San Francisco is too beautiful to
allow seaminess to get much of a foothold, and so along
with these barkers there were many tourists afoot, tourists
carrying loaves of sourdough bread and Ghirardelli
chocolates. In the daytime there were roller-skaters and
hackey sack players in the parks. But at night things got a
little seamy at last, and from 9P.M. to three in the morning the
men streamed into Sixty-Niners.
Which was where, obviously enough, I was now working.
Five nights a week, six hours a day, for the next four months
and, fortunately, never againI made my living by
exhibiting the peculiar way I am formed. The Clinic had
prepared me for it, benumbing my sense of shame, and
besides, I was desperate for money. Sixty-Niners also had
a perfect venue for me. I worked with two other girls, so
called: Carmen and Zora.
Presto was an exploiter, a porn dog, a sex pig, but I could
have done worse. Without him I might never have found
myself. After he had picked me up in the park, bruised and
battered, Presto took me back to his apartment. His
Namibian girlfriend, Wilhelmina, dressed my wounds. At
some point I passed out again and they undressed me to
put me in bed. It was then that Presto realized the extent of
his windfall.
I drifted in and out of consciousness, catching bits of what
they said to each other.
I knew it. I knew it when I saw him at the steak house.
You didnt know a thing, Bob. You thought he was a sexchange.
I knew he was a gold mine.
And later, Wilhelmina: How old is he?
Eighteen.
He doesnt look eighteen.
He says he is.
And you want to believe him, dont you, Bob? You want him
to work in the club.
He calledme . So I made him an offer.
And later still: Why dont you call his parents, Bob?
The kid ran away from home. He doesnt want to call his
parents.
Octopussys Garden predated me. Presto had come up
with the idea six months earlier. Carmen and Zora had
been working there from the beginning, as Ellie and
Melanie respectively. But Presto was always on the lookout
for ever-freakier performers and knew Id give him an edge
over his competitors on the Strip. There was nothing like
me around.
The tank itself was not that large. Not much bigger than an
above-ground swimming pool in someones backyard.
Fifteen feet in length, maybe ten feet wide. We climbed
down a ladder into the warm water. From the booths, you
looked directly into the tank; it was impossible to see
above the surface. So we could keep our heads out of the
water, if we wanted, and talk to one another while we
worked. As long as we submerged ourselves from the
waist down the customers were content. They dont come
here to see your pretty face, was how Presto put it to me.
All this made it much easier. I dont think I could have
performed in a regular peep show, face-to-face with the
voyeurs. Their gaze would have sucked my soul out of me.
But in the tank when I was underwater my eyes were
closed. I undulated in the deep-sea silence. When I
pressed myself against a portholes glass, I lifted my face
up out of the water and so was unaware of the eyes
studying my mollusk. How did I say it before? The surface
of the sea is a mirror, reflecting divergent evolutionary
paths. Up above, the creatures of air; down below, those of
water. One planet, containing two worlds. The customers
were the sea creatures; Zora, Carmen, and I remained
essentially creatures of air. In her mermaid costume, Zora
lay on the wet strip of outdoor carpeting, waiting to go on
after me. Sometimes she held a joint to my lips so that I
could smoke while I grabbed the rim of the pool. After my
ten minutes were elapsed I clambered up onto the carpet
and dried off. Over the sound system Bob Presto was
saying, Lets hear it for Hermaphroditus, ladies and
gentlemen! Only here at Octopussys Garden, where
gender is always on a bender! Im telling you, folks, we put
the glam rock in the rock lobsters, we put the AC/DC in the
mahi mahi . . .
Beached on her side, Zora with blue eyes and golden hair
asked me, Am I zipped?
I checked.
This tank is making me all congested. Im always
congested.
You want something from the bar?
Get me a Negroni, Cal. Thanks.
Ladies and Gentlemen, its time for our next attraction here
at Octopussys Garden. Yes, I see now that the boys from
Steinhardt Aquarium are just bringing her in. Put those
tokens in the boxes, ladies and gentlemen, this is
something you wont want to miss. May I have a drum roll,
please? On second thought, make that asushi roll.
Zoras music started. Her overture.
Ladies and gentlemen, since time immemorial mariners
have told stories of seeing incredible creatures, half
woman, half fish, swimming in the seas. We here at Sixty-
Niners did not give credence to such stories. But a tuna
fisherman of our acquaintance brought us an amazing
catch the other day. And now we know those stories are
true. Ladies and gentlemen, crooned Bob Presto,
does . . . anyone . . . smell . . .fish ?
At that cue, Zora in her rubber suit with the flashing green
sequin scales would tumble into the tank. The suit came up
to her waist and left her chest and shoulders bare. Into the
aquatic light Zora streamed, opening her eyes underwater
as I did not, smiling at the men and women in the booths,
her long blond hair flowing behind her like seaweed, tiny air
bubbles beading her breasts like pearls, as she kicked her
glittering emerald fish tail. She performed no lewdness.
Zoras beauty was so great that everyone was content
merely to look at her, the white skin, the beautiful breasts,
the taut belly with its winking navel, the magnificent curve of
her swaying backside where flesh merged with scales. She
swam with her arms at her sides, voluptuously fluctuating.
Her face was serene, her eyes a light Caribbean blue.
Downstairs a constant disco beat throbbed, but up here in
Octopussys Garden the music was ethereal, a kind of
melodious bubbling itself.
Viewed from a certain angle, there was a kind of artistry to
it. Sixty-Niners was a smut pavilion, but up in the Garden
the atmosphere was exotic rather than raunchy. It was the
sexual equivalent of Trader Vics. Viewers got to see
strange things, uncommon bodies, but much of the appeal
was the transport involved. Looking through their portholes,
the customers were watching real bodies do the things
bodies sometimes did in dreams. There were male
customers, married heterosexual men, who sometimes
dreamed of making love to women who possessed
penises, not male penises, but thin, tapering feminized
stalks, like the stamens of flowers, clitorises that had
elongated tremendously from abundant desire. There were
gay customers who dreamed of boys who were almost
female, smooth-skinned, hairless. There were lesbian
customers who dreamed of women with penises, not male
penises but womanly erections, possessing a sensitivity
and aliveness no dildo ever had. There is no way to tell
what percentage of the population dreams such dreams of
sexual transmogrification. But they came to our underwater
garden every night and filled the booths to watch us.
After Melanie the Mermaid came Ellie and Her Electrifying
Eel. This eel was not at first apparent. What splashed down
through the aquamarine depths appeared to be a slender
Hawaiian girl, clad in a bikini of water lilies. As she swam,
her top came off and she remained a girl. But when she
stood on her head, in graceful water ballet, pulling her bikini
bottom to her kneesah, then it was the eels moment to
shock. For there it was on the slender girls body, there it
was where it should not have been, a thin brown illtempered-
looking eel, an endangered species, and as Ellie
rubbed against the glass the eel grew longer and longer; it
stared at the customers with its cyclopean eye; and they
looked back at her breasts, her slim waist, they looked
back and forth from Ellie to eel, from eel to Ellie, and were
electrified by the wedding of opposites.
Carmen was a pre-op, male-to-female transsexual. She
was from the Bronx. Small, delicately boned, she was
fastidious about eyeliner and lipstick. She was always
dieting. She stayed away from beer, fearing a belly. I
thought she overdid the femme routine. There was entirely
too much hip swaying and hair flipping in Carmens
airspace. She had a pretty naiads face, a girl on the
surface with a boy holding his breath just beneath.
Sometimes the hormones she took made her skin break
out. Her doctor (the much-in-demand Dr. Mel of San Bruno)
had to constantly adjust her dosage. The only features that
gave Carmen away were her voice, which remained husky
despite the estrogen and progestin, and her hands. But the
men never noticed that. And they wanted Carmen to be
impure. That was the whole turn-on, really.
Her story followed the traditional lines better than mine.
From an early age Carmen had felt that she had been born
into the wrong body. In the dressing room one day, she told
me in her South Bronx voice: I was like, yo! Who put this
dick on me? I never asked for no dick. It was still there,
however, for the time being. It was what the men came to
see. Zora, given to analytical thought, felt that Carmens
admirers were motivated by latent homosexuality. But
Carmen resisted this notion. My boyfriends are all straight.
They want awoman .
Obviously not, said Zora.
Soon as I save my money Im having my bottom done.
Then well see. Ill be more of a woman than you, Z.
Fine with me, replied Zora. I dont want to be anything in
particular.
Zora had Androgen Insensitivity. Her body was immune to
male hormones. Though XY like me, she had developed
along female lines. But Zora had done it far better than I
had. Aside from being blond, she was shapely and fulllipped.
Her prominent cheekbones divided her face in
Arctic planes. When Zora spoke you were aware of the skin
stretching over these cheekbones and hollowing out
between her jaws, the tight mask it made, banshee-like,
with her blue eyes piercing through above. And then there
was her figure, the milkmaid breasts, the swim champ
stomach, the legs of a sprinter or a Martha Graham dancer.
Even unclothed, Zora appeared to be all woman. There
was no visible sign that she possessed neither womb nor
ovaries. Androgen Insensitivity Syndrome created the
perfect woman, Zora told me. A number of top fashion
models had it. How many chicks are six two, skinny, but
with big boobs? Not many. Thats normal for someone like
me.
Beautiful or not, Zora didnt want to be a woman. She
preferred to identify herself as a hermaphrodite. She was
the first one I met. The first person like me. Even back in
1974 she was using the term intersexual, which was rare
then. Stonewall was only five years in the past. The Gay
Rights Movement was under way. It was paving a path for
all the identity struggles that followed, including ours. The
Intersex Society of North America wouldnt be founded until
1993, however. So I think of Zora Khyber as an early
pioneer, a sort of John the Baptist crying in the wilderness.
Writ large, that wilderness was America, even the globe
itself, but more specifically it was the redwood bungalow
Zora lived in in Noe Valley and where I was now living, too.
After Bob Presto had satisfied himself on the details of my
manufacture, he had called Zora and arranged for me to
stay with her. Zora took in strays like me. It was part of her
calling. The fog of San Francisco provided cover for
hermaphrodites, too. Its no surprise that ISNA was founded
in San Francisco and not somewhere else. Zora was part
of all this at a very disorganized time. Before movements
emerge there are centers of energy, and Zora was one of
these. Mainly, her politics consisted of studying and writing.
And, during the months I lived with her, in educating me, in
bringing me out of what she saw as my great midwestern
darkness.
You dont have to work for Bob if you dont want, she told
me. Im going to quit soon anyway. This is just temporary.
I need the money. They stole all my money.
What about your parents?
I dont want to ask them, I said. I looked down and
admitted, I cant call them.
What happened, Cal? If you dont mind me asking. What
are you doing here?
They took me to this doctor in New York. He wanted me to
have an operation.
So you ran away.
I nodded.
Consider yourself lucky. I didnt know until I was twenty.
All this happened on my first day in Zoras house. I hadnt
started working at the club yet. My bruises had to heal first. I
wasnt surprised to be where I was. When you travel like I
did, vague about destination and with an open-ended
itinerary, a holy-seeming openness takes over your
character. Its the reason the first philosophers were
peripatetic. Christ, too. I see myself that first day, sitting
cross-legged on a batik floor pillow, drinking green tea out
of a fired raku cup, and looking up at Zora with my big,
hopeful, curious, attentive eyes. With my hair short, my eyes
looked even bigger now, more than ever the eyes of
someone in a Byzantine icon, one of those figures
ascending the ladder to heaven, upward-gazing, while his
fellows fall to the fiery demons below. After all my troubles,
wasnt it my right to expect some reward in the form of
knowledge or revelation? In Zoras rice-screen house, with
misty light coming in at the windows, I was like a blank
canvas waiting to be filled with what she told me.
There have been hermaphrodites around forever, Cal.
Forever. Plato said that the original human being was a
hermaphrodite. Did you know that? The original person
was two halves, one male, one female. Then these got
separated. Thats why everybodys always searching for
their other half. Except for us. Weve got both halves
already.
I didnt say anything about the Object.
Okay, in some cultures were considered freaks, she went
on. But in others its just the opposite. The Navajo have a
category of person they call a berdache. What a berdache
is, basically, is someone who adopts a gender other than
their biological one. Remember, Cal. Sex is biological.
Gender is cultural. The Navajo understand this. If a person
wants to switch her gender, they let her. And they dont
denigrate that personthey honor her. The berdaches are
the shamans of the tribe. Theyre the healers, the great
weavers, the artists.
I wasnt the only one! Listening to Zora, that was mainly
what hit home with me. I knew right then that I had to stay in
San Francisco for a while. Fate or luck had brought me
here and I had to take from it what I needed. It didnt matter
what I might be compelled to do to make money. I just
wanted to stay with Zora, to learn from her, and to be less
alone in the world. I was already stepping through the
charmed door of those druggy, celebratory, youthful days.
By that first afternoon the soreness in my ribs was already
lessening. Even the air seemed on fire, subtly aflame with
energy as it does when you are young, when the synapses
are firing wildly and death is far away.
Zora was writing a book. She claimed it was going to be
published by a small press in Berkeley. She showed me
the publishers catalogue. The selections were eclectic,
books on Buddhism, on the mystery cult of Mithras, even a
strange book (a hybrid itself) mixing genetics, cellular
biology, and Hindu mysticism. What Zora was working on
would certainly have fit this list. But I was never clear how
actual her publishing plans were. In the years since, Ive
looked out for Zoras book, which was calledThe Sacred
Hermaphrodite. Ive never found it. If she never finished it, it
wasnt a question of ability. I read most of the book myself.
At my age then, I wasnt much of a judge of literary or
academic quality, but Zoras learning was real. She had
gone into her subject and had much of it by heart. Her
bookshelves were full of anthropology texts and works by
French structuralists and deconstructionists. She wrote
nearly every day. She spread her papers and books out on
her desk and took notes and typed.
Ive got one question, I asked Zora one day. Why did you
ever tell anybody?
What do you mean?
Look at you. No one would ever know.
I want people to know, Cal.
How come?
Zora folded her long legs under herself. With her fairys
eyes, paisley-shaped, blue and glacial looking into mine,
she said, Because were whats next.
Once upon a time in ancient Greece, there was an
enchanted pool. This pool was sacred to Salmacis, the
water nymph. And one day Hermaphroditus, a beautiful
boy, went swimming there.
Here I lowered my feet into the pool. I lolled them back and
forth as the narration continued. Salmacis looked upon the
handsome boy and her lust was kindled. She swam nearer
to get a closer look. Now I began to lower my own body
into the water inch by inch: shin, knees, thighs. If I paced it
the way Presto had instructed me, the peepholes slid shut
at this point. Some customers left, but many dropped more
tokens into the slots. The screens lifted from the portholes.
The water nymph tried to control herself. But the boys
beauty was too much for her. Looking was not enough.
Salmacis swam nearer and nearer. And then, overpowered
by desire, she caught the boy from behind, wrapping her
arms around him. I began to kick my legs, churning up
water so that it was hard for the customers to see.
Hermaphroditus struggled to free himself from the
tenacious grip of the water nymph, ladies and gentlemen.
But Salmacis was too strong. So unbridled was her lust that
the two became one. Their bodies fused, male into female,
female into male. Behold the god Hermaphroditus! At
which point I plunged into the pool entire, all of me exposed.
And the peepholes slid shut.
No one ever left a booth at this point. Everyone extended
his or her membership to the Garden. Underwater I could
hear the tokens clinking into the change boxes. It reminded
me of being at home, submerging my head under
bathwater and hearing the pinging in the pipes. I tried to
think of things like that. It made everything seem far away. I
pretended I was in the bathtub on Middlesex. Meanwhile
faces filled the portholes, gazing with amazement, curiosity,
disgust, desire.
We were always stoned for work. That was a prerequisite.
As we got into our costumes Zora and I would fire up a joint
to start the night. Zora brought a thermos of Averna and ice,
which I drank like Kool-Aid. What you aimed for was a state
of half oblivion, a private party mood. This made the men
less real, less noticeable. If it hadnt been for Zora I dont
know what I would have done. Our little bungalow in the mist
and trees, neatly surrounded by low-lying California ground
cover, the tiny koi pond full of petstore goldfish, the outdoor
Buddhist shrine made of blue graniteit was a refuge for
me, a halfway house where I stayed, getting ready to go
back into the world. My life during those months was as
divided as my body. Nights we spent at Sixty-Niners,
waiting around the tank, bored, high, giggling, unhappy. But
you got used to that. You learned to medicate yourself
against it and put it out of your mind.
In the daytime Zora and I were always straight. She had one
hundred and eighteen pages of her book written. These
were typed on the thinnest onionskin paper I had ever seen.
The manuscript was therefore perishable. You had to be
careful in handling it. Zora made me sit at the kitchen table
while she brought it out like a librarian with a Shakespeare
folio. Otherwise, Zora didnt treat me like a kid. She let me
keep my own hours. She asked me to help with the rent.
We spent most days padding around the house in our
kimonos. Z. had a stern expression when she was working.
I sat out on the deck and read books from her shelves, Kate
Chopin, Jane Bowles, and the poetry of Gary Snyder.
Though we looked nothing alike, Zora was always emphatic
about our solidarity. We were up against the same
prejudices and misunderstandings. I was gladdened by
this, but I never felt sisterly around Zora. Not completely. I
was always aware of her figure under the robe. I went
around averting my eyes and trying not to stare. On the
street people took me for a boy. Zora turned heads. Men
whistled at her. She didnt like men, however. Only
lesbians.
She had a dark side. She drank to extremes and
sometimes acted ugly. She raged against football, male
bonding, babies, breeders, politicians, and men in general.
There was a violence in Zora at such times that set me on
edge. She had been the high school beauty. She had
submitted to caresses that had done nothing for her and to
sessions of painful lovemaking. Like many beauties, Zora
had attracted the worst guys. The varsity stooges. The
herpetic section leaders. It was no surprise that she held a
low opinion of men. Me she exempted. She thought I was
okay. Not a real man at all. Which I felt was pretty much
right.
Hermaphrodituss parents were Hermes and Aphrodite.
Ovid doesnt tell us how they felt after their child went
missing. As for my own parents, they still kept the telephone
nearby at all times, refusing to leave the house together.
But now they were scared to answer the phone, fearing bad
news. Ignorance seemed preferable to grief. Whenever the
phone rang, they paused before answering it. They waited
until the third or fourth peal.
Their agony was harmonious. During the months I was
missing, Milton and Tessie experienced the same spikes
of panic, the same mad hopes, the same sleeplessness. It
had been years since their emotional life had been so in
sync and this had the result of bringing back the times when
they first fell in love.
They began to make love with a frequency they hadnt
known for years. If Chapter Eleven was out, they didnt wait
to go upstairs but used whatever room they happened to be
in. They tried the red leather couch in the den; they spread
out on the bluebirds and red berries of the living room sofa;
and a few times they even lay down on the heavy-duty
kitchen carpeting, which had a pattern of bricks. The only
place they didnt use was the basement because there was
no telephone there. Their lovemaking was not passionate
but slow and elegiac, carried out to the magisterial rhythms
of suffering. They were not young anymore; their bodies
were no longer beautiful. Tessie sometimes wept
afterward. Milton kept his eyes squeezed shut. Their
exertions resulted in no flowering of sensation, no release,
or only seldom.
Then one day, three months after I was gone, the signals
coming over my mothers spiritual umbilical cord stopped.
Tessie was lying in bed when the faint purring or tingling in
her navel ceased. She sat up. She put her hand to her belly.
I cant feel her anymore! Tessie cried.
What?
The cords cut! Somebody cut the cord!
Milton tried to reason with Tessie, but it was no use. From
that moment, my mother became convinced that something
terrible had happened to me.
And so: into the harmony of their suffering entered discord.
While Milton fought to keep up a positive attitude, Tessie
increasingly gave in to despair. They began to quarrel.
Every now and then Miltons optimism would sway my
mother and she would become cheerful for a day or two.
She would tell herself that, after all, they didnt know
anything definite. But such moods were temporary. When
she was alone Tessie tried to feel something coming in
over the umbilical cord, but there was nothing, not even a
sign of distress.
I had been missing four months by this time. It was now
January 1975. My fifteenth birthday had passed without my
being found. On a Sunday morning while Tessie was at
church, praying for my return, the phone rang. Milton
answered.
Hello?
At first there was no response. Milton could hear music in
the background, a radio playing in another room maybe.
Then a muffled voice spoke.
I bet you miss your daughter, Milton.
Who is this?
A daughter is a special thing.
Who is this? Milton demanded again, and the line went
dead.
He didnt tell Tessie about the call. He suspected it was a
crank. Or a disgruntled employee. The economy was in
recession in 1975 and Milton had been forced to close a
few franchises. The following Sunday, however, the phone
rang again. This time Milton answered on the first ring.
Hello?
Good morning, Milton. I have a question for you this
morning. Would you like to know the question, Milton?
You tell me who this is or Im hanging up.
I doubt youll do that, Milton. Im the only chance you have
to get your daughter back.
Milton did a characteristic thing right then. He swallowed,
squared his shoulders, and with a small nod prepared
himself to meet whatever was coming.
Okay, he said, Im listening.
And the caller hung up.
Once upon a time in ancient Greece, there was an
enchanted pool . . . I could do it in my sleep now. Iwas
asleep, considering our backstage festivities, the flowing
Averna, the tranquilizing smoke. Halloween had come and
gone. Thanksgiving, too, and then Christmas. On New
Years, Bob Presto threw a big party. Zora and I drank
champagne. When it was time for my act, I plunged into the
pool. I was high, drunk, and so that night did something I
didnt normally do. I opened my eyes underwater. I saw the
faces looking back at me and I saw that they were not
appalled. I had fun in the tank that night. It was all beneficial
in some way. It wastherapeutic . Inside Hermaphroditus old
tensions were roiling, trying to work themselves out.
Traumas of the locker room were being released. Shame
over having a body unlike other bodies was passing away.
The monster feeling was fading. And along with shame and
self-loathing another hurt was healing. Hermaphroditus was
beginning to forget about the Obscure Object.
In my last weeks in San Francisco I read everything Zora
gave me, trying to educate myself. I learned what varieties
we hermaphrodites came in. I read about
hyperadrenocorticism and feminizing testes and something
called cryptorchidism, which applied to me. I read about
Kleinfelters Syndrome, where an extra X chromosome
renders a person tall, eunuchoid, and temperamentally
unpleasant. I was more interested in historical than medical
material. From Zoras manuscript I became acquainted
with the hijras of India, thekwolu-aatmwols of the Sambia in
Papua New Guinea, and theguevedoche of the Dominican
Republic. Karl Heinrich Ulrichs, writing in Germany in 1860,
spoke ofdas dritte Geschlecht, the third gender. He called
himself a Uranist and believed that he had a female soul in
a male body. Many cultures on earth operated not with two
genders but with three. And the third was always special,
exalted, endowed with mystical gifts.
One cold drizzly night I gave it a try. Zora was out. It was a
Sunday and we were off work. I sat in a half-lotus position
on the floor and closed my eyes. Concentrating, prayerful, I
waited for my soul to leave my body. I tried to fall into a
trance state or become an animal. I did my best, but
nothing happened. As far as special powers went, I didnt
seem to have any. A Tiresias I wasnt.
All of which brings me to a Friday night in late January. It
was after midnight. Carmen was in the tank, doing her
Esther Williams. Zora and I were in the dressing room,
maintaining traditions (thermos, cannabis). In the mermaid
suit, Z. was none too mobile and stretched out across the
couch, a Piscean odalisque. Her tail hung over the arm
bolsters, dripping. She wore a T-shirt over her top. It had
Emily Dickinson on it.
Sounds from the tank were piped into the dressing room.
Bob Presto was giving his spiel: Ladies and gentlemen,
are you ready for a truly electrifying experience?
Zora and I mouthed along with the next line: Are you ready
for some high voltage?
Ive had enough of this place, said Zora. I really have.
Should we quit?
We should.
What would we do instead?
Mortgage banking.
There was a splash in the tank. But where is Ellies eel
today? It seems to be hiding, ladies and gentlemen. Could
it be extinct? Maybe a fisherman caught it. Thats right,
ladies and gentleman, maybe Ellies eel is for sale out on
Fishermans Wharf.
Bob thinks hes a witty person, said Zora.
Banish such worries, ladies and gentlemen. Ellie wouldnt
let us down. Here it is, folks. Have a look at Ellies electric
eel!
A strange noise came over the speaker. A door banging.
Bob Presto shouted: Hey, what the hell? Youre not
allowed in here.
And then the sound system went dead.
Eight years earlier, policemen had raided a blind pig on
Twelfth Street in Detroit. Now, at the start of 1975, they
raided Sixty-Niners. The action provoked no riot. The
patrons quickly emptied the booths, fanning out into the
street and hurrying off. We were led downstairs and lined
up with the other girls.
Well, hello there, said the officer when he came to me.
And how old might you be?
From the police station I was allowed one call. And so I
finally broke down, gave in, and did it: I called home.
My brother answered. Its me, I said. Cal. Before
Chapter Eleven had time to respond, it all rushed out of me.
I told him where I was and what had happened. Dont tell
Mom and Dad, I said.
I cant, said Chapter Eleven. I cant tell Dad. And then in
an interrogative tone that showed he could hardly believe it
himself, my brother told me that there had been an accident
and that Milton was dead.
AIR-RIDE
In my official capacity as assistant cultural attaché, but on
an unofficial errand, I attended the Warhol opening at the
Neue Nationalgallerie. Within the famous Mies van der
Rohe building, I passed by the famous silk-screened faces
of the famous pop artist. The Neue Nationalgallerie is a
wonderful art museum except for one thing: theres nowhere
to hang the art. I didnt care much. I stared out the glass
walls at Berlin and felt stupid. Did I think there would be
artists at an art opening? There were only patrons,
journalists, critics, and socialites.
After accepting a glass of wine from a passing waiter, I sat
down in one of the leather and chrome chairs that line the
perimeter. The chairs are by Mies, too. You see knockoffs
everywhere but these are original, worn-out by now, the
black leather browning at the edges. I lit a cigar and
smoked, trying to make myself feel better.
The crowd chattered, circulating among the Maos and
Marilyns. The high ceiling made the acoustics muddy. Thin
men with shaved heads darted by. Gray-haired women
draped in natural shawls showed their yellow teeth. Out the
windows, the Staatsbibliotek was visible across the way.
The new Potsdamer Platz looked like a mall in Vancouver.
In the distance construction lights illuminated the skeletons
of cranes. Traffic surged in the street below. I took a drag
on my cigar, squinting, and caught sight of my reflection in
the glass.
I said before I look like a Musketeer. But I also tend to
resemble (especially in mirrors late at night) a faun. The
arched eyebrows, the wicked grin, the flames in the eyes.
The cigar jutting up from between my teeth didnt help.
A hand tapped me on the back. Cigar faddist, said a
womans voice.
In Miess black glass I recognized Julie Kikuchi.
Hey, this is Europe, I countered, smiling. Cigars arent a
fad here.
I was into cigars way back in college.
Oh yeah, I challenged her. Smoke one, then.
She sat down in the chair next to mine and held out her
hand. I took another cigar from my jacket and handed it to
her along with the cigar cutter and matches. Julie held the
cigar under her nose and sniffed. She rolled it between her
fingers to test its moistness. Clipping off the end, she put it
in her mouth, struck a match, and got it going, puffing
serially.
Mies van der Rohe smoked cigars, I said, by way of
promotion.
Have you ever seen a picture of Mies van der Rohe? said
Julie.
Point taken.
We sat side by side, not speaking, only smoking, facing the
interior of the museum. Julies right knee was jiggling. After
a while I swiveled around so I was facing her. She turned
her face toward me.
Nice cigar, she allowed.
I leaned toward her. Julie leaned toward me. Our faces got
closer until finally our foreheads were almost touching. We
stayed like that for ten or so seconds. Then I said, Let me
tell you why I didnt call you.
I took a long breath and began: Theres something you
should know about me.
My story began in 1922 and there were concerns about the
flow of oil. In 1975, when my story ends, dwindling oil
supplies again had people worried. Two years earlier the
Organization of Arab Oil Exporting Countries had begun an
embargo. There were brownouts in the U.S. and long lines
at the pumps. The President announced that the lights on
the White House Christmas tree would not be lit, and the
gas-tank lock was born.
Scarcity was weighing on everybodys mind in those days.
The economy was in recession. Across the nation families
were eating dinner in the dark, the way we used to do on
Seminole under one lightbulb. My father, however, took a
dim view of conservation policies. Milton had come a long
way from the days when he counted kilowatts. And so, on
the night he set out to ransom me, he remained at the
wheel of an enormous, gas-guzzling Cadillac.
My fathers last Cadillac: a 1975 Eldorado. Painted a
midnight blue that looked nearly black, the car bore a
strong resemblance to the Batmobile. Milton had all the
doors locked. It was just past 2A.M. The roads in this
downriver neighborhood were full of potholes, the curbs
choked with weeds and litter. The powerful high beams
picked up sprays of broken glass in the street, as well as
nails, shards of metal, old hubcaps, tin cans, a flattened
pair of mens underpants. Beneath an overpass a car had
been stripped, tires gone, windshield shattered, all the
chrome detailing peeled away, and the engine missing.
Milton stepped on the gas, ignoring the scarcity not only of
petroleum but of many other things as well. There was, for
instance, a scarcity of hope on Middlesex, where his wife
no longer felt any stirrings in her spiritual umbilicus. There
was a scarcity of food in the refrigerator, of snacks in the
cupboards, and of freshly ironed shirts and clean socks in
his dresser. There was a scarcity of social invitations and
phone calls, as my parents friends grew afraid to call a
house that existed in a limbo between exhilaration and
grief. Against the pressure of all this scarcity, Milton flooded
the Eldorados engine, and when that wasnt enough, he
opened the briefcase on the seat beside him and stared in
dashboard light at the twenty-five thousand dollars in cash
bundled inside.
My mother had been awake when Milton slipped out of bed
less than an hour earlier. Lying on her back, she heard him
dressing in the dark. She hadnt asked him why he was
getting up in the middle of the night. Once upon a time, she
would have, but not anymore. Since my disappearance,
daily routines had crumbled. Milton and Tessie often found
themselves in the kitchen at four in the morning, drinking
coffee. Only when Tessie heard the front door close had
she become concerned. Next Miltons car started up and
began backing down the drive. My mother listened until the
engine faded away. She thought to herself with surprising
calmness, Maybe hes leaving for good. To her list of
runaway father and runaway daughter she now added a
further possibility: runaway husband.
Milton hadnt told Tessie where he was going for a number
of reasons. First, he was afraid she would stop him. She
would tell him to call the police, and he didnt want to call
the police. The kidnapper had told him not to involve the
law. Besides, Milton had had enough of cops and their
blasé attitude. The only way to get something done was to
do it yourself. On top of all that, this whole thing might be a
wild-goose chase. If he told Tessie about it she would only
worry. She might call Zoë and then hed get an earful from
his sister. In short, Milton was doing what he always did
when it came to important decisions. Like the time he
joined the Navy, or the time he moved us all to Grosse
Pointe, Milton did whatever he wanted, confident that he
knew best.
After the last mysterious phone call, Milton had waited for
another. The following Sunday morning it came.
Hello?
Good morning, Milton.
Listen, whoever you are. I want some answers.
I didnt call to hear what you want, Milton. Whats important
is what I want.
I want my daughter. Where is she?
Shes here with me.
The music, or singing, was still perceptible in the
background. It reminded Milton of something long ago.
How do I know you have her?
Why dont you ask me a question? Shes told me a lot
about her family. Quite a lot.
The rage surging through Milton at that moment was nearly
unbearable. It was all he could do to keep from smashing
the phone against the desk. At the same time, he was
thinking, calculating.
Whats the name of the village her grandparents came
from?
Just a minute. The phone was covered. Then the voice
said, Bithynios.
Miltons knees went weak. He sat down at the desk.
Do you believe me yet, Milton?
We went to these caverns in Tennessee once. A real ripoff
tourist trap. What were they called?
Again the phone was covered. In a moment the voice
replied, The Mammothonics Caves.
At that Milton shot up out of his chair again. His face
darkened and he tugged at his collar to help himself
breathe.
Now I have a question, Milton.
What?
How much is it worth to you to get your daughter back?
How much do you want?
Is this business, now? Are we negotiating a deal?
Im ready to make a deal.
How exciting.
What do you want?
Twenty-five thousand dollars.
All right.
No, Milton, the voice corrected, you dont understand. I
want to bargain.
What?
Haggle, Milton. This is business.
Milton was perplexed. He shook his head at the oddity of
this request. But in the end he fulfilled it.
Okay. Twenty-fives too much. Ill pay thirteen thousand.
Were talking about your daughter, Milton. Not hot dogs.
I havent got that kind of cash.
I might take twenty-two thousand.
Ill give you fifteen.
Twenty is as low as I can go.
Seventeen is my final offer.
How about nineteen?
Eighteen.
Eighteen five.
Deal.
The caller laughed. Oh, that was fun, Milt. Then, in a gruff
voice: But I want twenty-five. And he hung up.
Back in 1933, a disembodied voice had spoken to my
grandmother through the heating grate. Now, forty-two
years later, a disguised voice spoke to my father over the
phone.
Good morning, Milton.
There was the music again, the faint singing.
Ive got the money, said Milton. Now I want my girl.
Tomorrow night, the kidnapper said. And then he told
Milton where to leave the money, and where to wait for me
to be released.
Across the lowland downriver plain Grand Trunk rose
before Miltons Cadillac. The train station was still in use in
1975, though just barely. The once-opulent terminal was
now only a shell. False Amtrak façades concealed the
flaking, peeling walls. Most corridors were blocked off.
Meanwhile, all around the operative core, the great old
building continued to fall into ruin, the Guastavino tiles in the
Palm Court falling, splintering on the ground, the immense
barbershop now a junk room, the skylights caved in,
heaped with filth. The office tower attached to the terminal
was now a thirteen-story pigeon coop, all five hundred of its
windows smashed, as if with diligence. At this same train
station my grandparents had arrived a half century earlier.
Lefty and Desdemona, one time only, had revealed their
secret here to Sourmelina; and now their son, who never
learned it, was pulling in behind the station, also secretly.
A scene like this, a ransom scene, calls for a noirish mood:
shadows, sinister silhouettes. But the sky wasnt
cooperating. We were having one of our pink nights. They
happened every so often, depending on temperature and
the level of chemicals in the air. When particulate matter in
the atmosphere was sufficient, light from the ground got
trapped and reflected back, and the entire Detroit sky
would become the soft pink of cotton candy. It never got
dark on pink nights, but the light was nothing like daytime.
Our pink nights glowed with the raw luminescence of the
night shift, of factories running around the clock.
Sometimes the sky would become as bright as Pepto-
Bismol, but more often it was a muted, a fabric-softener
color. Nobody thought it was strange. Nobody said anything
about it. We had all grown up with pink nights. They were
not a natural phenomenon, but they were natural to us.
Under this strange nocturnal sky Milton pulled his car as
close to the train platform as possible and stopped. He shut
off the engine. Taking the briefcase, he got out into the still,
crystalline winter air of Michigan. All the world was frozen,
the distant trees, the telephone lines, the grass in the yards
of the downriver houses, the ground itself. Out on the river a
freighter bellowed. Here there were no sounds, the station
completely deserted at night. Milton had on his tasseled
black loafers. Dressing in the dark, he had decided they
were the easiest to slip on. He was also wearing his car
coat, beige and dingy, with a muff of fur at the collar.
Against the cold he had worn a hat, a gray felt Borsalino,
with a red feather in the black band. An old-timers hat now
in 1975. With hat, briefcase, and loafers, Milton might have
been on his way to work. And certainly he was walking
quickly. He climbed the metal steps to the train platform. He
headed along it, looking for the trash can where he was
supposed to drop the briefcase. The kidnapper said it
would have anX chalked on the lid.
Milton hurried along the platform, the tassels on his loafers
bouncing, the tiny feather in his hat rippling in the cold wind.
It would not be strictly truthful to say that he was afraid.
Milton Stephanides did not admit to being afraid. The
physiological manifestations of fear, the racing heart, the
torched armpits, went on in him without official
acknowledgment. He wasnt alone among his generation in
this. There were lots of fathers who shouted when they were
afraid or scolded their children to deflect blame from
themselves. Its possible that such qualities were
indispensable in the generation that won the war. A lack of
introspection was good for bolstering your courage, but in
the last months and weeks it had done damage to Milton.
Throughout my disappearance Milton had kept up a brave
front while doubts worked invisibly inside him. He was like
a statue being chiseled away from the inside, hollowed out.
As more and more of his thoughts gave him pain, Milton
had increasingly avoided them. Instead he concentrated on
the few that made him feel better, the bromides about
everything working out. Milton, quite simply, had ceased to
think things through. What was he doing out there on the
dark train platform? Why did he go out there alone? We
would never be able to explain it adequately.
It didnt take him long to find the trash can marked with
chalk. Swiftly Milton lifted its triangular green lid and laid the
briefcase inside. But when he tried to pull his arm back out,
something wouldnt let him: it was his hand. Since Milton
had stopped thinking things through, his body was now
doing the work for him. His hand seemed to be saying
something. It was voicing reservations. What if the
kidnapper doesnt set Callie free? the hand was saying.
But Milton answered, Theres no time to think about that
now. Again he tried to pull his arm out of the trash can, but
his hand stubbornly resisted: What if the kidnapper takes
this money and then asks for more? asked the hand.
Thats the chance well have to take, Milton snapped
back, and with all his strength pulled his arm out of the trash
can. His hand lost its grip; the briefcase fell onto the refuse
inside. Milton hurried back across the platform (dragging
his hand with him) and got into the Cadillac.
He started the engine. He turned on the heat, warming the
car up for me. He leaned forward staring through the
windshield, expecting me to appear any minute. His hand
was still smarting, muttering to itself. Milton thought about
the briefcase lying out in the trash can. His mind filled with
the image of the money inside. Twenty-five grand! He saw
the individual stacks of hundred-dollar bills; the repeating
face of Benjamin Franklin in the doubled mirrors of all that
cash. Miltons throat went dry; a spasm of anxiety known to
all Depression babies gripped his body; and in the next
second he was jumping out of the car again, running back
second he was jumping out of the car again, running back
to the platform.
This guy wanted to do business? Then Milton would show
him how to do business! He wanted to negotiate? How
about this! (Milton was climbing the steps now, loafers
ringing against the metal.) Instead of leaving twenty-five
thousand bucks, why not leave twelve thousand five
hundred?This way Ill have some leverage. Half now, half
later. Why hadnt he thought of this before? What the hell
was the matter with him? He was under too much strain . . .
No sooner had he reached the platform, however, than my
father stopped cold. Less than twenty yards away, a dark
figure in a stocking cap was reaching into the trash can.
Miltons blood froze. He didnt know whether to retreat or
advance. The kidnapper tried to pull the briefcase out, but it
wouldnt fit through the swinging door. He went behind the
can and lifted up the entire metal lid. In the chemical
brightness Milton saw the patriarchal beard, the pale,
waxen cheeks, andmost tellinglythe tiny five-foot-four
frame. Father Mike.
FatherMike ? Father Mike was the kidnapper? Impossible.
Incredible! But there was no doubt. Standing on the
platform was the man who had once been engaged to my
mother and who, at my fathers hands, had had her stolen
away. Taking the ransom was the former seminarian who
had married Miltons sister, Zoë, instead, a choice that had
sentenced him to a life of invidious comparisons, of Zoë
always asking why he hadnt invested in the stock market
when Milton had, or bought gold when Milton had, or
stashed money away in the Cayman Islands as Milton had;
a choice that had condemned Father Mike to being a poor
relation, forced to endure Miltons lack of respect while
accepting his hospitality, and compelling him to carry a
dining room chair into the living room if he wanted to sit.
Yes, it was a great shock for Milton to discover his brotherin-
law on the train platform. But it also made sense. It was
clear now why the kidnapper had wanted to haggle over the
price, why he wanted to feel like a businessman for once,
and, alas, how he had known about Bithynios. Explained,
too, were why the telephone calls had come on Sundays,
whenever Tessie was at church, and the music in the
background, which Milton now identified as the priests
chanting the liturgy. Long ago, my father had stolen Fathers
Mikes fiancée and married her himself. The child of the
union, me, had poured salt in the wound by baptizing the
priest in reverse. Now Father Mike was trying to get even.
But not if Milton could help it. Hey! he shouted, putting his
hands on his hips. Just what the hell are you trying to pull,
Mike? Father Mike didnt answer. He looked up and, out of
priestly habit, smiled benignantly at Milton, his white teeth
appearing in the great bush of black beard. But already he
was backing away, stepping on crushed cups and other
litter, hugging the briefcase to his chest like a packed
parachute. Three or four steps backward, smiling that
gentle smile, before he turned and fled in earnest. He was
small but quick. Like a shot he disappeared down a set of
stairs on the other side of the platform. In pink light Milton
saw him crossing the train tracks to his car, a bright green
(Grecian green according to the catalogue), fuel-efficient
AMC Gremlin. And Milton ran back to the Cadillac to follow
him.
It wasnt like a car chase in the movies. There was no
swerving, no near collisions. It was, after all, a car chase
between a Greek Orthodox priest and a middle-aged
Republican. As they sped (relatively speaking) away from
Grand Trunk, heading in the direction of the river, Father
Mike and Milton never exceeded the limit by more than ten
miles per hour. Father Mike didnt want to attract the police.
Milton, realizing that his brother-in-law had nowhere to go,
was content to follow him to the water. So they went along
in their pokey fashion, the weirdly shaped Gremlin making
rolling stops at traffic signs and the Eldorado, a little bit
later, doing the same. Down nameless streets, past junk
houses, across a dead-end piece of land created by the
freeways and the river, Father Mike unwisely attempted to
escape. It was just like always; Aunt Zo should have been
there to holler at Father Mike, because only an idiot would
have headed toward the river instead of the highway. Every
street he could possibly take would go nowhere. I got you
now, Milton exulted. The Gremlin made a right. The
Eldorado made a right. The Gremlin made a left, and so
did the Cadillac. Miltons tank was full. He could track
Father Mike all night if he had to.
Feeling confident, Milton adjusted the heat, which was a
little too high. He turned on the radio. He let a little more
space get between the Gremlin and the Eldorado. When he
looked up again, the Gremlin was making another right.
Thirty seconds later, when Milton turned the same corner,
he saw the sweeping expanse of the Ambassador Bridge.
And his confidence crumbled. This was not just like always.
Tonight, his brother-in-law the priest, who spent his life in
the fairy tale world of the Church, dressed up like Liberace,
had figured things out for once. As soon as Milton saw the
bridge strung like a giant, glittering harp over the river,
panic seized his soul. With horror Milton understood Father
Mikes plan. As Chapter Eleven had intended when he
threatened to dodge the draft, Father Mike was heading for
Canada! Like Jimmy Zizmo the bootlegger, he was
heading for the lawless, liberal hideaway to the north! He
was planning to take the money out of the country. And he
was no longer going slow.
Yes, despite its thimble-sized engine that sounded like a
sewing machine, the Gremlin was managing to accelerate.
Leaving the no-mans-land around Grand Trunk Station, it
had now entered the bright, Customs-controlled, high-traffic
area of the United StatesCanada border. Tall, carbon-gas
streetlights irradiated the Gremlin, whose bright green color
now looked even more acid than ever. Putting distance
between itself and the Eldorado (like the Jokers car getting
away from the Batmobile), the Gremlin joined the trucks
and cars converging around the entrance to the great
suspension bridge. Milton stepped on it. The huge engine
of the Cadillac roared; white smoke spumed from the
tailpipe. At this point the two cars had become exactly what
cars are supposed to be; they were extensions of their
owners. The Gremlin was small and nimble, as Father Mike
was; it disappeared and reappeared in traffic much as he
did behind the icon screen at church. The Eldorado,
substantial and boat-likeas was Miltonproved difficult
to maneuver in the late-night bridge traffic. There were huge
semis. There were passenger cars heading for the casinos
and strip clubs in Windsor. In all this traffic Milton lost sight
of the Gremlin. He pulled into a line and waited. Suddenly,
six cars ahead, he saw Father Mike dart out of line, cutting
off another car and slipping into a toll booth. Milton rolled
down his automatic window. Sticking his head out into the
cold, exhaust-clouded air, he shouted, Stop that man! Hes
got my money! The Customs officer didnt hear him,
however. Milton could see the officer asking Father Mike a
few questions and thenNo! Stop!he was waving Father
Mike through. At that point Milton started hammering on his
horn.
The blasts erupting from beneath the Eldorados hood
might have been emanating from Miltons own chest. His
blood pressure was surging, and inside his car coat his
body began to drip with sweat. He had been confident of
bringing Father Mike to justice in the U.S. courts. But who
knew what would happen once he got to Canada? Canada
with its pacifism and its socialized medicine! Canada with
its millions of French speakers! It was like . . . like . . . like a
foreign country! Father Mike might become a fugitive over
there, living it up in Quebec. He might disappear into
Saskatchewan and roam with the moose. It wasnt only
losing the money that enraged Milton. In addition to
absconding with twenty-five thousand dollars and giving
Milton false hopes of my return, Father Mike was
abandoning his own family. Brotherly protectiveness mixed
with financial and paternal pain in Miltons heaving breast.
You dont do this to my sister, you hear me? Milton
fruitlessly shouted from the drivers seat of his huge, boxedin
car. Next he called after Father Mike, Hey, dumbass.
Havent you ever heard of commissions? Soon as you
change that money youre going to lose five percent!
Fulminating at the wheel, his progress curtailed by semis in
front and strip-clubbers behind, Milton squirmed and
hollered, his fury unbearable.
My fathers honking hadnt gone unnoticed, however.
Customs agents were used to the horn-blowing of impatient
drivers. They had a way of handling them. As soon as
Milton pulled up to the booth, the official signaled him to pull
over.
Through his open window Milton shouted, Theres a guy
who just came through. He stole some money of mine. Can
you have him stopped at the other end? Hes driving a
Gremlin.
Pull your car over there, sir.
He stole twenty-five thousand dollars!
We can talk about that as soon as you pull over and get out
of your car, sir.
Hes trying to take it out of the country! Milton explained
one last time. But the Customs agent continued to direct
him to the inspection area. Finally Milton gave up.
Withdrawing his face from the open window, he took hold of
the steering wheel and obediently began pulling over to the
empty lane. As soon as he was clear of the Customs booth,
however, he stomped a tasseled loafer down on the
accelerator and the squealing Cadillac rocketed away.
Now itwas something like a car chase. For out on the
bridge, Father Mike, too, had stepped on the gas. Snaking
between the cars and trucks, he was racing toward the
international divide, while Milton pursued, flashing his
brights to get people out of the way. The bridge rose up
over the river in a graceful parabola, its steel cables strung
with red lights. The Cadillacs tires hummed over its
striated surface. Milton had his foot to the floor, engaging
what he called the goose gear. And now the difference
between a luxury automobile and a newfangled cartoon car
began to show itself. The Cadillac engine roared with
power. Its eight cylinders fired, the carburetor sucking in
vast quantities of fuel. The pistons thumped and jumped
and the drive wheel spun like mad, as the long, superhero
car passed others as if they were standing still. Seeing the
Eldorado coming so fast, other drivers moved aside. Milton
cut straight through the traffic until he spotted the green
Gremlin up ahead. So much for your high gas mileage,
Milton cried. Sometimes you need a little power!
By this time Father Mike saw the Eldorado looming, too.
He floored the accelerator, but the Gremlins engine was
already working at capacity. The car vibrated wildly but
picked up no speed. On and on came the Cadillac. Milton
didnt take his foot off the pedal until his front bumper was
nearly touching the Gremlins rear. They were traveling now
at seventy miles per hour. Father Mike looked up to see
Miltons avenging eyes filling the rearview mirror. Milton,
gazing ahead into the Gremlins interior, saw a slice of
Father Mikes face. The priest seemed to be asking for
forgiveness, or explaining his actions. There was a strange
sadness in his eyes, a weakness, which Milton could not
interpret.
. . . And now I have to enter Father Mikes head, Im afraid. I
feel myself being sucked in and I cant resist. The front part
of his mind is a whirl of fear, greed, and desperate thoughts
of escape. All to be expected. But going deeper in, I
discover things about him I never knew. Theres no serenity,
for instance, none at all, no closeness to God. The
gentleness Father Mike had, his smiling silence at family
meals, the way he would bend down to be face-to-face with
children (not far for him, but still)all these attributes
existed apart from any communication with a transcendent
realm. They were just a passive-aggressive method of
survival, the result of having a wife with a voice as loud as
Aunt Zos. Yes, echoing inside Father Mikes head is all the
shouting Aunt Zo has done over the years, ever since she
was pregnant nonstop in Greece without a washer or dryer.
I can hear: Do you call this a life? And: If youve got the
ear of God, tell Him to send me a check for the drapes.
And: Maybe the Catholics have the right idea. Priests
shouldnt have families. At church Michael Antoniou is
called Father. He is deferred to, catered to. At church he
has the power to forgive sins and consecrate the host. But
as soon as he steps through the front door of their duplex in
Harper Woods, Father Mike suffers an immediate drop in
status. At home he is nobody. At home he is bossed
around, complained about, ignored. And so it was not so
difficult to see why Father Mike decided to flee his
marriage, and why he needed money . . .
. . . none of which, however, could Milton read in his brotherin-
laws eyes. And in the next moment those eyes changed
again. Father Mike had shifted his gaze back to the road,
where they met a terrifying sight. The red brake lights of the
car in front of him were flashing. Father Mike was going
much too fast to stop in time. He stomped on his brakes,
but it was too late: the Grecian green Gremlin slammed into
the car ahead. The Eldorado came next. Milton braced
himself for the impact. But it was then an amazing thing
happened. He heard metal crunching and glass shattering,
but this was coming from the cars ahead. As for the
Cadillac itself, it never stopped moving forward. It climbed
right up Father Mikes car. The weird, slanted back end of
the Gremlin acted as a kind of ramp, and in the next second
Milton realized he was airborne. The midnight blue
Eldorado rose above the accident on the bridge. It sailed
up over the guardrails, through the cables, plunging off the
middle span of the Ambassador Bridge.
The Eldorado fell hood first, gathering speed. Through the
tinted windshield Milton could see the Detroit River below;
but only briefly. In those last seconds, as life prepared to
leave his body, it withdrew its laws, too. Instead of falling
into the river, the Cadillac swooped upward and leveled
itself. Milton was surprised but very pleased. He didnt
remember the salesmans having mentioned anything
about a flight feature. Even better, Milton hadnt paid extra
for it. As the car floated away from the bridge he was
smiling. Now,this is what I call an Air-Ride, he said to
himself. The Eldorado was flying high above the river,
wasting who knew how much gas. The sky outside was
pink while the lights on the dashboard were green. There
were all sorts of switches and gauges. Milton had never
noticed most of them before. It looked more like an airplane
cockpit than a car, and Milton was at the controls, Milton
was flying his last Cadillac over the Detroit River. It didnt
matter what eyewitnesses saw, or that the newspapers
reported the next day that the Cadillac was part of the tencar
pileup on the bridge. Sitting back in the comfortable
leather bucket seat, Milton Stephanides could see the
downtown skyline approaching. Music was playing on the
radio, an old Artie Shaw tune, why not, and Milton watched
the red light on the Penobscot Building blinking on and off.
After a certain amount of trial and error, he learned how to
steer the flying car. It wasnt a matter of turning the wheel
but of willing it, as in a lucid dream. Milton brought the car in
over land. He passed above Cobo Hall. He circled the Top
of the Pontch, where he had once taken me to lunch. For
some reason Milton was no longer afraid of heights. He
guessed that this was because his death was imminent;
there was nothing left to fear. Without vertigo or
perspiration, he gazed down at Grand Circus Park until he
spotted what was left of the wheels of Detroit; and after that
he headed for the West Side to look for the old Zebra
Room. Back on the bridge, my fathers head had been
crushed against the steering wheel. The detective who later
informed my mother of the accident, when asked about the
condition of Miltons body, said only, It was consistent with
a crash of a vehicle going at seventy-plus miles an hour.
Milton no longer had any brain waves, so it was
understandable why, hovering in the Cadillac, he might
have forgotten that the Zebra Room had burned down long
ago. He was mystified at not being able to find it. All that
was left of the old neighborhood was empty land. It seemed
that most of the city was gone, as he gazed down. Empty
lot followed empty lot. But Milton was wrong about this, too.
Corn was sprouting up in some places, and grass was
coming back. It looked like farmland down there. Might as
well give it back to the Indians, Milton thought. Maybe the
Potowatomies would want it. They could put up a casino.
The sky had turned to cotton candy and the city had
become a plain again. But another red light was blinking
now. Not on the Penobscot Building; inside the car. It was
one of the gauges Milton had never seen before. He knew
what it indicated.
At that moment, Milton began to cry. All of a sudden his
face was wet and he touched it, sniffling and weeping. He
slumped back, and because no one was there to see, he
opened his mouth to give outlet to his overpowering grief.
He hadnt cried since he was a boy. The sound of his deep
voice crying surprised him. It was the sound of a bear,
wounded or dying. Milton bellowed in the Cadillac as the
car began, once again, to descend. He was crying not
because he was about to die but because I, Calliope, was
still gone, because he had failed to save me, because he
had done everything he could to get me back and still I was
missing.
As the car tipped its nose down, the river appeared again.
Milton Stephanides, an old navy man, prepared to meet it.
Right at the end he was no longer thinking about me. I have
to be honest and record Miltons thoughts as they occurred
to him. At the very end he wasnt thinking about me or
Tessie or any of us. There was no time. As the car plunged,
Milton only had time to be astonished by the way things had
turned out. All his life he had lectured everybody about the
right way to do things and now he had done this, the
stupidest thing ever. He could hardly believe he had loused
things up quite so badly. His last word, therefore, was
spoken softly, without anger or fear, only with bewilderment
and a measure of bravery. Birdbrain, Milton said, to
himself, in his last Cadillac. And then the water claimed
him.
A real Greek might end on this tragic note. But an
American is inclined to stay upbeat. These days, whenever
we talk about Milton, my mother and I come to the
conclusion that he got out just in time. He got out before
Chapter Eleven, taking over the family business, ran it into
the ground in less than five years. Before Chapter Eleven,
in a reprise of Desdemonas gender prognostications,
began wearing a tiny silver spoon around his neck. He got
out before the draining of bank accounts and the jacking up
of credit cards. Before Tessie was forced to sell Middlesex
and move down to Florida with Aunt Zo. And he got out
three months before Cadillac, in April 1975, introduced the
Seville, a fuel-efficient model that looked as though it had
lost its pants, after which Cadillacs were never the same.
Milton got out before many of the things that I will not include
in this story, because they are the common tragedies of
American life, and as such do not fit into this singular and
uncommon record. He got out before the Cold War ended,
before missile shields and global warming and September
11 and a second President with only one vowel in his
name.
Most important, Milton got out without ever seeing me
again. That would not have been easy. I like to think that my
fathers love for me was strong enough that he could have
accepted me. But in some ways its better that we never
had to work that out, he and I. With respect to my father I will
always remain a girl. Theres a kind of purity in that, the
purity of childhood.
THE LAST STOP
It sort of still applies, said Julie Kikuchi.
It does not, I said.
Its in the same ballpark.
What I told you about myself has nothing whatsoever to do
with being gay or closeted. Ive always liked girls. I liked
girls when Iwas a girl.
I wouldnt be some kind of last stop for you?
More like a first stop.
Julie laughed. She still had not made a decision. I waited.
Then at last she said, All right.
All right? I asked.
She nodded.
Allright , I said.
So we left the museum and went back to my apartment. We
had another drink; we slow-danced in the living room. And
then I led Julie into the bedroom, where I hadnt led anyone
in quite a long time.
She switched off the lights.
Wait a minute, I said. Are you turning off the lights
because of you or because of me?
Because of me.
Why?
Because Im a shy, modest Oriental lady. Just dont expect
me to bathe you.
No bathing?
Not unless you do a Zorba dance.
Where did I put that bouzouki of mine, anyway? I was
trying to keep up the banter. I was also taking off my
clothes. So was Julie. It was like jumping into cold water.
You had to do it without thinking too much. We got under
the covers and held each other, petrified, happy.
I might be your last stop, too, I said, clinging to her. Did
you ever think of that?
And Julie Kikuchi answered, It crossed my mind.
Chapter Eleven flew to San Francisco to collect me from
jail. My mother had to sign a letter requesting that the police
release me into my brothers custody. A trial date would be
set in the near future but, as a juvenile and first-time
offender, I was likely to receive only probation. (The offense
came off my record, never interfering with my subsequent
job prospects at the State Department. Not that I concerned
myself with these details at the time. I was too stunned, sick
with grief poisons, and wanted to go home.)
When I came out into the outer police station, my brother
was sitting alone on a long wooden bench. He looked up at
me with no expression, blinking. That was Chapter Elevens
way. Everything went on in him internally. Inside his
braincase sensations were being reviewed, evaluated,
before any official reaction was given. I was used to this, of
course. What is more natural than the tics and habits of
ones close relatives? Years ago, Chapter Eleven had
made me pull down my underpants so that he could look at
me. Now his eyes were raised but no less riveted. He was
taking in my deforested head. He was getting a load of the
funereal suit. It was a lucky thing that my brother had taken
as much LSD as he had. Chapter Eleven had gone in early
for mind expansion. He contemplated the veil of Maya, the
existence of various planes of being. For a personality thus
prepared, it was somewhat easier to deal with your sister
becoming your brother. There have been hermaphrodites
like me since the world began. But as I came out from my
holding pen it was possible that no generation other than
my brothers was as well disposed to accept me. Still, it
was not nothing to witness me so changed. Chapter
Elevens eyes widened.
We hadnt seen each other for over a year. Chapter Eleven
had changed, too. His hair was shorter. It had receded
farther. His friends girlfriend had given him a home perm.
Chapter Elevens previously lank hair was now leonine in
back, while the front retreated. He didnt look like John
Lennon anymore. Gone were his faded bell-bottoms, his
granny glasses. Now he wore brown hip-huggers. His widelapel
shirt shimmered under the fluorescent lights. The
sixties have never really come to an end. Theyre still going
on right now in Goa. But by 1975 the sixties had finally
ended for my brother.
At any other time, we would have lingered over these
details. But we didnt have the luxury for that. I came across
the room. Chapter Eleven stood up and then we were
hugging, swaying. Dads dead, my brother repeated in my
ear. Hes dead.
I asked him what had happened and he told me. Milton had
charged through customs. Father Mike had also been on
the bridge. He was now in the hospital. Miltons old
briefcase had been found in the wreckage of the Gremlin,
full of money. Father Mike had confessed everything to the
police, the kidnapping ruse, the ransom.
When this had sunk in, I asked, Hows Mom?
Shes all right. Shes holding up. Shes pissed at Milt.
Pissed?
For going out there. For not telling her. Shes glad youre
coming home. Thats what shes focusing on. You coming
back for the funeral. So thats good.
We were scheduled to take the red-eye out that night. The
funeral was the next morning. Chapter Eleven had been
dealing with the bureaucratic side of things, getting the
death certificates and placing the obituaries. He asked me
nothing about my time in San Francisco or at Sixty-Niners.
Only when we were on the plane and Chapter Eleven had
had a few beers did he allude to my condition. So, I guess I
cant call you Callie anymore.
Call me whatever you want.
How about bro?
Fine with me.
He was quiet, blinking. There was the usual lag time while
he thought. I never heard much about what happened out
there at that clinic. I was up in Marquette. I wasnt talking to
Mom and Dad that much.
I ran away.
Why?
They were going to cut me up.
I could feel him staring at me, with that outer glaze that
concealed considerable mental activity. Its a little bit weird
for me, he said.
Its weird for me, too.
A moment later he let out a laugh. Hah! Weird! Pretty
fucking weird.
I was shaking my head in comic despair. You can say that
again. Bro.
Confronted with the impossible, there was no option but to
treat it as normal. We didnt have an upper register, so to
speak, but only the middle range of our shared experience
and ways of behaving, of joking around. But it got us
through.
One good thing about this gene I have, though, I said.
What?
Ill never go bald.
Why not?
You have to have DHT to go bald.
Huh, said Chapter Eleven, feeling his scalp. I guess Im a
little heavy on the DHT. I guess Im what theyd call DHTrich.
We reached Detroit a little after six in the morning. The
smashed-up Eldorado had been towed to a police yard.
Waiting in the airport parking lot was our mothers car, the
Florida Special. The lemon-colored Cadillac was all we
had left of Milton. It was already beginning to take on the
attributes of a relic. The drivers seat was sunken from the
weight of his body. You could see the impression of
Miltons cloven backside in the leather upholstery. Tessie
filled this hollow with throw pillows in order to see over the
steering wheel. Chapter Eleven had tossed the pillows into
the backseat.
In the unseasonal car, with its powerful air-conditioning
switched off and sunroof closed, we started for home. We
passed the giant Uniroyal tire and the thready woods of
Inkster.
What times the funeral? I asked.
Eleven.
It was just getting light. The sun was rising from wherever it
rose, behind the distant factories maybe, or over the blind
river. The growing light was like a leakage or flood, seeping
into the ground.
Go through downtown, I told my brother.
Itll take too long.
Weve got time. I want to see it.
Chapter Eleven obliged me. We took I-94 past River
Rouge and Olympia Stadium and then curled in toward the
river on the Lodge Freeway and entered the city from the
north.
Grow up in Detroit and you understand the way of all things.
Early on, you are put on close relations with entropy. As we
rose out of the highway trough, we could see the
condemned houses, many burned, as well as the stark
beauty of all the vacant lots, gray and frozen. Once-elegant
apartment buildings stood next to scrapyards, and where
there had been furriers and movie palaces there were now
blood banks and methadone clinics and Mother Waddles
Perpetual Mission. Returning to Detroit from bright climes
usually depressed me. But now I welcomed it. The blight
eased the pain of my fathers death, making it seem like a
general state of affairs. At least the city didnt mock my
grief by being sparkling or winsome.
Downtown looked the same, only emptier. You couldnt
knock down the skyscrapers when the tenants left; so
instead boards went over the windows and doors, and the
great shells of commerce were put in cold storage. On the
riverfront the Renaissance Center was being built,
inaugurating a renaissance that has never arrived. Lets go
through Greektown, I said. Again my brother humored me.
Soon we came down the block of restaurants and souvenir
stores. Amid the ethnic kitsch, there were still a few
authentic coffee houses, patronized by old men in their
seventies and eighties. Some were already up this
morning, drinking coffee, playing backgammon, and
reading the Greek newspapers. When these old men died,
the coffee houses would suffer and finally close. Little by
little, the restaurants on the block would suffer, too, their
awnings getting ripped, the big yellow lightbulbs on the
Laikon marquee burning out, the Greek bakery on the
corner being taken over by South Yemenis from Dearborn.
But all that hadnt happened yet. On Monroe Street, we
passed the Grecian Gardens, where we had held
Leftysmakaria .
Are we having amakaria for Dad? I asked.
Yeah. The whole deal.
Where? At the Grecian Gardens?
Chapter Eleven laughed. You kidding? Nobody wanted to
come down here.
I like it here, I said. I love Detroit.
Yeah? Well, welcome home.
He had turned back onto Jefferson for the long miles
through the blighted East Side. A wig shop. Vanity
Dancing, the old club, now for rent. A used-record store
with a hand-painted sign showing people grooving amid an
explosion of musical notes. The old dime stores and sweet
shops were closed, Kresges, Woolworths, Sanders Ice
Cream. It was cold out. Not many people were on the
streets. On one corner a man stood impervious, cutting a
fine figure against the winter sky. His leather coat reached
to his ankles. Space funk goggles wrapped around his
dignified, long-jawed head, on top of which sat, or sailed
really, the Spanish galleon of a velvet maroon hat. Not part
of my suburban world, this figure; therefore exotic. But
nevertheless familiar, and suggestive of the peculiar
creative energies of my hometown. I was glad to see him
anyway. I couldnt take my eyes away.
When I was little, street-corner dudes like that would
sometimes lower their shades to wink, keen on getting a
rise out of the white girl in the backseat passing by. But
now the dude gave me a different look altogether. He didnt
lower his sunglasses, but his mouth, his flared nostrils, and
the tilt of his head communicated defiance and even hate.
That was when I realized a shocking thing. I couldnt
become a man without becoming The Man. Even if I didnt
want to.
I made Chapter Eleven go through Indian Village, passing
our old house. I wanted to take a nostalgia bath to calm my
nerves before seeing my mother. The streets were still full
of trees, bare in winter, so that we could see all the way to
the frozen river. I was thinking how amazing it was that the
world contained so many lives. Out in these streets people
were embroiled in a thousand matters, money problems,
love problems, school problems. People were falling in
love, getting married, going to drug rehab, learning how to
ice-skate, getting bifocals, studying for exams, trying on
clothes, getting their hair cut, and getting born. And in some
houses people were getting old and sick and were dying,
leaving others to grieve. It was happening all the time,
unnoticed, and it was the thing that really mattered. What
really mattered in life, what gave it weight, was death. Seen
this way, my bodily metamorphosis was a small event. Only
the pimp might have been interested.
Soon we reached Grosse Pointe. The naked elms reached
across our street from both sides, touching fingertips, and
snow lay crusted in the flower beds before the warm,
hibernatory houses. My body was reacting to the sight of
home. Happy sparks were shooting off inside me. It was a
canine feeling, full of eager love, and dumb to tragedy. Here
was my home, Middlesex. Up there in that window, on the
tiled window seat, I used to read for hours, eating
mulberries off the tree outside.
The driveway hadnt been shoveled. Nobody had had time
to think about that. Chapter Eleven took the driveway a little
fast and we bounced in our seats, the tailpipe hitting. After
we got out of the car, he opened the trunk and began
carrying my suitcase to the house. But halfway there he
stopped. Hey, bro, he said. You can carry this yourself.
He was smiling with mischief. You could see he was
enjoying the paradigm shift. He was taking my
metamorphosis as a brain teaser, like the ones in the back
of his sci-fi magazines.
Lets not get carried away, I answered. Feel free to carry
my luggage anytime.
Catch! shouted Chapter Eleven, and hefted the suitcase. I
caught it, staggering back. Right then the door of the house
opened and my mother, in house slippers, stepped out into
the frost-powdery air.
Tessie Stephanides, who in a different lifetime when space
travel was new had decided to go along with her husband
and create a girl by devious means, now saw before her, in
the snowy driveway, the fruit of that scheme. Not a daughter
at all anymore but, at least by looks, a son. She was tired
and heartsick and had no energy to deal with this new
and heartsick and had no energy to deal with this new
event. It was not acceptable that I was now living as a male
person. Tessie didnt think it should be up to me. She had
given birth to me and nursed me and brought me up. She
had known me before I knew myself and now she had no
say in the matter. Life started out one thing and then
suddenly turned a corner and became something else.
Tessie didnt know how this had happened. Though she
could still see Calliope in my face, each feature seemed
changed, thickened, and there were whiskers on my chin
and above my upper lip. There was a criminal aspect to my
appearance, in Tessies eyes. She couldnt help herself
thinking that my arrival was part of some settling of
accounts, that Milton had been punished and that her
punishment was just beginning. For all these reasons she
stood still, red-eyed, in the doorway.
Hi, Mom, I said. Im home.
I went forward to meet her. I set down my suitcase, and
when I looked up again, Tessies face had altered. She had
been preparing for this moment for months. Now her faint
eyebrows lifted, the corners of her mouth rose, crinkling the
wan cheeks. Her expression was that of a mother watching
a doctor remove bandages from a severely burned child.
An optimistic, dishonest, bedside face. Still, it told me all I
needed to know. Tessie was going to try to accept things.
She felt crushed by what had happened to me but she was
going to endure it for my sake.
We embraced. Tall as I was, I laid my head on my mothers
shoulder, and she stroked my hair while I sobbed.
Why? she kept crying softly, shaking her head. Why? I
thought she was talking about Milton. But then she clarified:
Why did you run away, honey?
I had to.
Dont you think it would have been easier just to stay the
way you were?
I lifted my face and looked into my mothers eyes. And I told
her: This is the way I was.
You will want to know: How did we get used to things? What
happened to our memories? Did Calliope have to die in
order to make room for Cal? To all these questions I offer
the same truism: its amazing what you can get used to.
After I returned from San Francisco and started living as a
male, my family found that, contrary to popular opinion,
gender was not all that important. My change from girl to
boy was far less dramatic than the distance anybody travels
from infancy to adulthood. In most ways I remained the
person Id always been. Even now, though I live as a man, I
remain in essential ways Tessies daughter. Im still the one
who remembers to call her every Sunday. Im the one she
recounts her growing list of ailments to. Like any good
daughter, Ill be the one to nurse her in her old age. We still
discuss whats wrong with men; we still, on visits back
home, have our hair done together. Bowing to the changing
times, the Golden Fleece now cuts mens hair as well as
womens. (And Ive finally let dear old Sophie give me that
short haircut she always wanted.)
But all that came later. Right then, we were in a hurry. It was
almost ten. The limousine from the funeral parlor would be
arriving in thirty-five minutes. You better get cleaned up,
Tessie said to me. The funeral did what funerals are
supposed to do: it gave us no time to dwell on our feelings.
Hooking her arm in mine, Tessie led me into the house.
Middlesex, too, was in mourning. The mirror in the den was
covered by a black cloth. There were black streamers on
the sliding doors. All the old immigrant touches. Aside from
that, the house seemed unnaturally still and dim. As always,
the enormous windows brought the outdoors in, so that it
was winter in the living room; snow lay all around us.
I guess you can wear that suit, Chapter Eleven said to me.
It looks pretty appropriate.
I doubt you even have a suit.
I dont. I didnt go to a stuck-up private school. Where did
you get that thing, anyway? It smells.
At least its a suit.
While my brother and I teased each other, Tessie watched
closely. She was picking up the cue from my brother that
this thing that had happened to me might be handled lightly.
She wasnt sure she could do this herself, but she was
watching how the younger generation pulled it off.
Suddenly there was a strange noise, like an eagles cry.
The intercom on the living room wall crackled. A voice
shrieked, Yoo-hoo! Tessie honey!
The immigrant touches, of course, werent around the
house because of Tessie. The person shrieking over the
intercom was none other than Desdemona.
Patient reader, you may have been wondering what
happened to my grandmother. You may have noticed that,
shortly after she climbed into bed forever, Desdemona
began to fade away. But that was intentional. I allowed
Desdemona to slip out of my narrative because, to be
honest, in the dramatic years of my transformation, she
slipped out of my attention most of the time. For the last five
years she had remained bedridden in the guest house.
During my time at Baker & Inglis, while I was falling in love
with the Object, I had remained aware of my grandmother
only in the vaguest of ways. I saw Tessie preparing her
meals and carrying trays out to the guest house. Every
evening I saw my father make a dutiful visit to her perpetual
sickroom with its hot-water bottles and pharmaceutical
supplies. At those times Milton spoke to his mother in
Greek, with increasing difficulty. During the war
Desdemona had failed to teach her son to write Greek.
Now in her old age she recognized with horror that he was
forgetting how to speak it as well. Occasionally, I brought
Desdemonas food trays out and for a few minutes would
reacquaint myself with her time-capsule life. The framed
photograph of her burial plot still stood on her bedside table
for reassurance.
Tessie went to the intercom. Yes,yia yia , she said. Did
you need something?
My feet they are terrible today. Did you get the Epsom
salts?
Yes. Ill bring them to you.
Why God no letyia yia die, Tessie? Everybodys dead!
Everybody butyia yia !Yia yia she is too old to live now.
And what does God do? Nothing.
Are you finished with your breakfast?
Yes, thank you, honey. But the prunes they were not good
ones today.
Those are the same prunes you always have.
Something maybe it happen to them. Get a new box,
please, Tessie. The Sunkist.
I will.
Okay, honeymou . Thank you, honey.
My mother silenced the intercom and turned back to me.
Yia yias not doing so good anymore. Her minds going.
Since youve been away shes really gone downhill. We told
her about Milt. Tessie faltered, near tears. About what
happened.Yia yia couldnt stop crying. I thought she was
going to die right then and there. And then a few hours later
she asked me where Milt was. She forgot the entire thing.
Maybe its better that way.
Is she going to the funeral?
She can barely walk. Mrs. Papanikolas is coming to watch
her. She doesnt know where she is half the time. Tessie
smiled sadly, shaking her head. Who would have thought
she would outlive Milt? She teared up again and forced the
tears back.
Can I go and see her?
You want to?
Yes.
Tessie looked apprehensive. What will you tell her?
What should I tell her?
For another few seconds my mother was silent, thinking.
Then she shrugged. It doesnt matter. Whatever you say
she wont remember. Take this out to her. She wants to
soak her feet.
Carrying the Epsom salts and a piece of the baklava
wrapped in cellophane, I came out of the house and walked
along the portico past the courtyard and bathhouse to the
guesthouse behind. The door was unlocked. I opened it
and stepped in. The only light in the room came from the
television, which was turned up extremely loud. Facing me
when I entered was the old portrait of Patriarch
Athenagoras that Desdemona had saved from the yard
sale years ago. In a birdcage by the window, a green
parakeet, the last surviving member of my grandparents
former aviary, was moving back and forth on its balsa wood
perch. Other familiar objects and furnishings were still in
evidence, Leftys rebetika records, the brass coffee table,
and, of course, the silkworm box, sitting in the middle of the
engraved circular top. The box was now so stuffed with
mementos it wouldnt shut. Inside were snapshots, old
letters, precious buttons, worry beads. Somewhere below
all that, I knew, were two long braids of hair, tied with
crumbling black ribbons, and a wedding crown made of
ships rope. I wanted to look at these things, but as I
stepped farther into the room my attention was diverted by
the grand spectacle on the bed.
Desdemona was propped up, regally, against a beige
corduroy cushion known as a husband. The arms of this
cushion encircled her. Protruding from the elastic pocket on
the outside of one arm was an aspirator, along with two or
three pill bottles. Desdemona was in a pale white
nightgown, the bedcovers pulled up to her waist, and in her
lap sat one of her Turkish atrocity fans. None of this was
surprising. It was what Desdemona had done with her hair
that shocked me. On hearing about Miltons death, she had
removed her hairnet, tearing at the masses of hair that
tumbled down. Her hair was completely gray but still very
fine and, in the light coming from the television, it appeared
to be almost blond. The hair fell over her shoulders and
spread out over her body like the hair of Botticellis Venus.
The face framed by this astonishing cascade, however,
was not that of a beautiful young woman but that of an old
widow with a square head and dried-out mouth. In the
unmoving air of the room and the smell of medicine and
skin salves I could feel the weight of the time she had spent
in this bed waiting and hoping to die. Im not sure, with a
grandmother like mine, if you can ever become a true
American in the sense of believing that life is about the
pursuit of happiness. The lesson of Desdemonas suffering
and rejection of life insisted that old age would not continue
the manifold pleasures of youth but would instead be a long
trial that slowly robbed life of even its smallest, simplest
joys. Everyone struggles against despair, but it always wins
in the end. It has to. Its the thing that lets us say goodbye.
As I was standing there taking my grandmother in,
Desdemona suddenly turned her head and noticed me. Her
hand went up to her breast. With a frightened expression
she reared back into her pillows and shouted, Lefty!
Now I was the one who was shocked. No,yia yia. Its
notpapou . Its me. Cal.
Who?
Cal. I paused. Your grandson.
This wasnt fair, of course. Desdemonas memory was no
longer sharp. But I wasnt helping her out any.
Cal?
They called me Calliope when I was little.
You look like my Lefty, she said.
I do?
I thought you were my husband coming to take me to
heaven. She laughed for the first time.
Im Milt and Tessies kid.
As quickly as it had come, the humor left Desdemonas
face and she looked sad and apologetic. Im sorry. I dont
remember you, honey.
I brought you these. I held out the Epsom salts and
baklava.
Why Tessie isnt coming?
She has to get dressed.
Dressed for why?
For the funeral.
Desdemona gave a cry and clutched her breast again.
Who died?
I didnt answer. Instead I turned down the volume on the
television. Then, pointing at the birdcage, I said, I
remember when you used to have about twenty birds.
She looked over at the cage but said nothing.
You used to live in the attic. On Seminole. Remember?
Thats when you got all the birds. You said they reminded
you of Bursa.
At the sound of the name, Desdemona smiled again. In
Bursa we have all kind of birds. Green, yellow, red. All kind.
Little birds but very beautiful. Like made from glass.
I want to go there. Remember that church there? I want to
go and fix it up someday.
Milton is going to fix it. I keep telling him.
If he doesnt do it, I will.
Desdemona looked at me a moment as if measuring my
ability to fulfill this promise. Then she said, I dont
remember you, honey, but please can you fix foryia yia the
Epsom salts?
I got the foot basin and filled it with warm water from the
bathtub faucet. I sprinkled in the soaking salts and brought
it back into the bedroom.
Put it next the chair, dollymou .
I did so.
Now helpyia yia to get out of bed.
Coming closer, I bent down. I slid each of her legs out of the
covers, turning her. Putting her arm over my shoulder, I
pulled her to her feet for the short walk to the chair.
I cant do nothing anymore, she lamented on the way. Im
too old, honey.
Youre doing okay.
No, I cant remember nothing. I have aches and pains. My
heart it is not good.
We had reached the chair now. I maneuvered around
behind her to ease her down. Coming around to the front
again, I lifted her swollen, blue-veined feet into the sudsy
water. Desdemona murmured with pleasure. She closed
her eyes.
For the next few minutes Desdemona was silent, luxuriating
in the warm foot bath. Color returned to her ankles and rose
up her legs. This rosiness disappeared under the hem of
her nightgown but, a minute later, peeked out the collar. The
flush spread up to her face, and when she opened her eyes
there was a clarity in them that had been absent before.
She stared straight at me. And then she shouted,
Calliope!
She held her hand to her mouth. Mana!What happen to
you?
I grew up, was all I said. I hadnt intended to tell her but
now it was out. I had an idea it wouldnt make any
difference. She wouldnt remember this conversation.
She was still examining me, the lenses of her glasses
magnifying her eyes. Had she had all her wits, Desdemona
could not possibly have fathomed what I was saying. But in
her senility she somehow accommodated the information.
She lived now amid memories and dreams, and in this
state the old village stories grew near again.
Youre a boy now, Calliope?
More or less.
She took this in. My mother she use to tell me something
funny, she said. In the village, long time ago, they use to
have sometimes babies who were looking like girls. Then
fifteen, sixteenthey are looking like boys! My mother
tell me this but I never believe.
Its a genetic thing. The doctor I went to says it happens in
little villages. Where everyone marries each other.
Dr. Phil he used to talk about this, too.
He did?
Its all my fault. She shook her head grimly.
What was? What was your fault?
She was not crying exactly. Her tear ducts were dried up
and no moisture rolled down her cheeks. But her face was
going through the motions, her shoulders quaking.
The priests say even first cousins never should marry, she
said. Second cousins is okay, but you have to ask first the
archbishop. She was looking away now, trying to
remember it all. Even if you want to marry your godparents
son, you cant. I thought it was only something for the
Church. I didnt know it was because what can happen to
the babies. I was just stupid girl from village. She went on
in that vein for a while, castigating herself. She had
momentarily forgotten that I was there or that she was
speaking aloud. And then Dr. Phil he tell me terrible things.
I was so scared I had an operation! No more babies. Then
Milton he have children and again I was scared. But nothing
happen. So I think, after so long time, everything was okay.
What are you saying,yia yia ?Papou was your cousin?
Third cousin.
Thats all right.
Not third cousin only. Also brother.
My heart skipped. Papouwas your brother?
Yes, honey, Desdemona said with infinite weariness.
Long time ago. In another country.
Right then the intercom sounded:
Callie? Tessie coughed, correcting herself: Cal?
Yeah.
You better get cleaned up. The cars coming in ten
minutes.
Im not going. I paused. Im going to stay here withyia yia.
You need to be there, honey, said Tessie.
I crossed to the intercom and put my mouth against the
speaker and said in a deep voice, Im not going into that
church.
Why not?
Have you seen what they charge for those goddamn
candles?
Tessie laughed. She needed to. So I kept going, lowering
my voice to sound like my fathers. Two bucks for a
candle? What a racket! Maybe you could convince
somebody from the old country to shell out for that kind of
thing, but not here in the U.S.A.!
It was infectious to do Milton. Now Tessie lowered her
voice in the speaker: Total rip-off! she said, and laughed
again. We understood then that this was how we were
going to do it. This was how we were going to keep Milton
alive.
Are you sure you dont want to go? she asked me.
Itll be too complicated, Mom. I dont want to have to
explain everything to everybody. Not yet. Itll be too big of a
distraction. Itll be better if Im not there.
In her heart Tessie agreed, and so she soon relented. Ill
tell Mrs. Papanikolas she doesnt need to come stay
withyia yia.
Desdemona was still looking at me but her eyes had gone
dreamy. She was smiling. And then she said, My spoon
was right.
I guess so.
Im sorry, honey. Im sorry this happen to you.
Its all right.
Im sorry, honeymou .
I like my life, I told her. Im going to have a good life. She
still looked pained, so I took her hand.
Dont worry,yia yia. I wont tell anyone.
Whos to tell? Everybodys dead now.
Youre not. Ill wait until youre gone.
Okay. When I die, you can tell everything.
I will.
Bravo, honeymou . Bravo.
At Assumption Church, no doubt against his wishes, Milton
Stephanides was given a full Orthodox funeral. Father Greg
performed the service. As for Father Michael Antoniou, he
was later convicted of attempted grand larceny and served
two years in prison. Aunt Zo divorced him and moved to
Florida with Desdemona. Where to exactly? New Smyrna
Beach. Where else? A few years later, when my mother
was forced to sell our house, she moved to Florida, too,
and the three of them lived together as they once had on
Hurlbut Street, until Desdemonas death in 1980. Tessie
and Zoë are still in Florida today, two women living on their
own.
Miltons casket remained closed during the funeral. Tessie
had given Georgie Pappas, the undertaker, her husbands
wedding crown, so that it could be buried along with him.
When it came time to give the deceased the final kiss, the
mourners filed past Miltons coffin and kissed its burnished
lid. Fewer people came to my fathers funeral than we
expected. None of the Hercules franchise owners showed
up, not one of the men Milton had socialized with for years
and years; and so we realized that, despite his bonhomie,
Milton had never had any friends, only business associates.
Family members turned out instead. Peter Tatakis, the
chiropractor, arrived in his wine-dark Buick, and Bart
Skiotis paid his respects at the church whose foundation he
had laid with substandard materials. Gus and Helen Panos
were there and, because it was a funeral, Guss
tracheotomy made his voice sound even more like the
voice of death. Aunt Zo and our cousins didnt sit in front.
That pew was reserved for my mother and brother.
And so it was I who, upholding an old Greek custom no one
remembered anymore, stayed behind on Middlesex,
blocking the door, so that Miltons spirit wouldnt reenter the
house. It was always a man who did this, and now I
qualified. In my black suit, with my dirty Wallabees, I stood
in the doorway, which was open to the winter wind. The
weeping willows were bare but still massive and threw up
their twisted arms like women in grief. The pastel yellow
cube of our modern house sat cleanly on the white snow.
Middlesex was now almost seventy years old. Though we
had ruined it with our colonial furniture, it was still the
beacon it was intended to be, a place with few interior
walls, divested of the formalities of bourgeois life, a place
designed for a new type of human being, who would inhabit
a new world. I couldnt help feeling, of course, that that
person was me, me and all the others like me.
After the funeral service, everyone got back into the cars for
the drive to the cemetery. Purple pennants flew from the
antennas as the procession drove slowly through the
streets of the old East Side where my father had grown up,
where he had once serenaded my mother from his
bedroom window. The motorcade came down Mack
Avenue and when they passed Hurlbut, Tessie looked out
the limousine window to see the old house. But she couldnt
find it. Bushes had grown up all around, the yards were
littered, and the decrepit houses now all looked the same to
her. A little later, the hearse and limousines encountered a
line of motorcycles and my mother noticed that the drivers
were all wearing fezzes. They were Shriners, in town for a
convention. Respectfully, they pulled over to let the funeral
procession pass.
On Middlesex, I remained in the front doorway. I took my
duty seriously and didnt budge, despite the freezing wind.
Milton, the child apostate, would have been confirmed in his
skepticism, because his spirit never returned that day,
trying to get past me. The mulberry tree had no leaves. The
wind swept over the crusted snow into my Byzantine face,
which was the face of my grandfather and of the American
girl I had once been. I stood in the door for an hour, maybe
two. I lost track after a while, happy to be home, weeping
for my father, and thinking about what was next.
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