Middlesex

by Jeffrey Eugenides

  “It’s 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? Don’t tell me you like him.”

  “I didn’t 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.

  “It’s good you’re 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 moon-blanched 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 icono-stasis 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 don’t let her forget about me while we’re 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, it’s 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.

  “What’s the matter?” Tessie’s 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, deceit—they all came together. If God doesn’t help you, you have to help yourself.

  “It’s my stomach,” I said.

  “What have you been eating?”

  “Or not exactly my stomach. It’s 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.

  “It’s like somebody’s 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.”

  “You’re happy I’m sick? Thanks a lot.”

  “You’re not sick, honey.”

  “Then what am I? I don’t feel good. It hurts.”

  My mother took my hand, still beaming. “Hurry, hurry,” she said. “We don’t 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 they’re sitting off the coast,” Milton now, “what do you expect? The Junta comes in and throws Makarios out. So the Turks are getting anxious. It’s a volatile situation.”

  “Yeah, but to help the Turks—”

  “The U.S. isn’t helping the Turks,” Milton went on. “They just don’t 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.

  “Don’t be so naïve, Milt,” Jimmy Fioretos again. “Who do you think’s jamming the radar? It’s the Americans, Milt. It’s us.”

  “How do you know?” my father challenged.

  And now Gus Panos through the hole in his throat: “It’s that goddamned—sssss—Kissinger. He must have—ssssss—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 can’t 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 isn’t something you can prove . . .

  Plus, it didn’t 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 couldn’t 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. “We’re not going on vacation. There’s a war!”

  Then I told her I had cramps and that I’d be right over.

  FLESH AND BLOOD

  I’m quickly approaching the moment of discovery: of myself by myself, which was something I knew all along and yet didn’t know; and the discovery by poor, half-blind Dr. Philobosian of what he’d 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 they’d 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 summer—while the President’s lies were also getting more elaborate—I started faking my period. With Nixonian cunning, Calliope unwrapped and flushed away a flotilla of unused T
ampax. 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 mother’s anxieties and somehow even my own. I felt I’d taken charge of things. I wasn’t at the mercy of nature anymore. Even better, with our trip to Bursa canceled—as well as my appointment with Dr. Bauer—I was free to accept the Object’s invitation to visit her family’s summer house. In preparation I bought a sun hat, sandals, and a pair of rustic overalls.

  I wasn’t particularly tuned in to the political events unfolding in the nation that summer. But it was impossible to miss what was going on. My father’s identification with Nixon only grew stronger as the President’s 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 don’t think the Democrats aren’t doing the same thing?” Milton asked the Sunday debaters. “The liberals just want to stick it to him. So they’re playing pious.” Watching the evening news, Milton delivered a running commentary to the screen. “Oh yeah?” he’d say. “Bullshit.” Or: “This guy Proxmire’s 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 couldn’t 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 it’s 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 they’re 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. “It’s 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 whatever’s 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 didn’t 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, we’re leaving,” Jimmy Fioretos said.

  “It’s summer,” said Phyllis. “I don’t have a coat.”

  “Then get whatever the hell it is you have to get.”

  “We’re going, too . . . sssss . . . I’ve lost my . . . sssss . . . appetite.”

  Even Uncle Pete, the self-educated opera buff, drew the line. “Maybe Gus didn’t grow up in Greece,” he said, “but I’m sure you remember that I did. You are talking about my native land, Milton. And your parents’ own true home.”

  The guests left. They didn’t 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 mother’s 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. “Callie’s got iced tea,” Aunt Zo announced as she came out, “and I’ve got the booze.” But then she saw how Father Mike was looking at my mother and she went silent. My mother stood up, blushing. “I’ll take the booze, Zo.” Everyone laughed nervously. Aunt Zo poured the glasses. “Don’t look, Mike,” she said. “The presvytera’s getting drunk on Sunday.”

  The following Friday I drove up with the Object’s 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 Object’s 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 o’clock 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 the Weekly 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 u
p and shook his father’s hand. They attempted a hug.

  “Where’s your mother?”

  “She’s upstairs getting dressed for the party you’re incredibly late for. Her mood reflects that.”

  “Why don’t you take Callie up to her room? Show her around.”

  “Check,” said Jerome.

  We went up the back stairs off the kitchen. “The guest room’s being painted,” Jerome told me. “So you’re staying in my sister’s room.”

  “Where is she?”

  “She’s out on the back porch with Rex.”

  My blood stopped. “Rex Reese?”

  “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 hadn’t 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 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. I’m 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. Let’s 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. “Doesn’t even make it to the bathroom. Pukes right on the bar.”