Free Middlesex by Jeffrey Eugenides Page A

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, he’d 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 her—Desdemona, sitting on the suitcase where he’d left her—and felt even happier.
   Lefty couldn’t pinpoint the moment he’d begun to have thoughts about his sister. At first he’d just been curious to see what a real woman’s breasts looked like. It didn’t matter that they were his sister’s. He tried to forget that they were his sister’s. Behind the hanging kelimi that separated their beds, he saw Desdemona’s silhouette as she undressed. It was just a body; it could have been anyone’s, or Lefty liked to pretend so. “What are you doing over there?” Desdemona asked, undressing. “Why are you so quiet?”
   “I’m reading.”
   “What are you reading?”
   “The Bible.”
   “Oh, sure. You never read the Bible.”
   Soon he’d found himself picturing his sister after the lights went out. She’d invaded his fantasies, but Lefty resisted. He went down to the city instead, in search of naked women he wasn’t related to.
   But since the night of their waltz, he’d stopped resisting. Because of the messages of Desdemona’s 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 man’s lap before while riding in an oxcart. She’d never slept like spoons, encircled by a man’s arms; she’d 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 we’ll be lucky tomorrow and get a ride. And when we get to Smyrna, we’ll get a boat to Athens”—his voice tight, funny-sounding, a few tones higher than normal—“and from Athens we’ll get a boat to America. Sound good? Okay. I think that’s good.”
   What am I doing? Desdemona thought. He’s 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 brother’s 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 the chureki in two. But her face remained sad. “I don’t see any boats coming,” she said.
   “They’re coming. Don’t worry. Eat.” Lefty sat down on the suitcase beside her. Their shoulders touched. Desdemona moved away.
   “What’s 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.”
   “Don’t go,” Desdemona pleaded. “I’m sorry. I don’t 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 didn’t stay angry long. It wasn’t 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.