Jeffrey Eugenides - Middlesex

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 don’t want to be in it?”

“We’re going on vacation this week.”

“That sucks,” said Jerome. “It’s going to be genius.”

We stood silent. After a moment I said, “Real geniuses never think they’re geniuses.”

“Who says?”

“Me.”

“Because why?”

“Because genius is nine-tenths perspiration. Haven’t you ever heard that? As soon as you think you’re 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 don’t try to be a genius and maybe you’ll 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, Jerome’s resemblance to the Obscure Object was even more pronounced. The tawny eyebrows, the butterscotch complexion—here they were again, in permissible form.

“You’re a lot smarter than most of my sister’s friends.”

“You’re 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. “We’ve 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.”

“Can’t you leave me alone for a minute?”

“You want me to leave you alone?” I said. “Okay, I’ll leave you alone.” I didn’t move.

“Can’t 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?”

“You’ve got bad breath.”

This checked the Object. This struck her to her core. She wilted. “I do?” she asked.

“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 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 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.”