Confusion

Passages

Every passage tagged with this emotion in the Vela corpus. Search the body text, narrow by source or register, click through to a book’s profile to see how the passage sits with the rest of the work.

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• From The Art of Seduction (2001)

  Contact with foreigners was now even more discouraged than on his movement of her robe. She first visit, but he managed to track Pei Pu down. She told him she had held out her hand for me to borne a son, in 1966, but he had looked like Bouriscout, and given the kiss and told me to sit down on the couch beside growing hatred of foreigners in China, and the need to keep the secret of her. On this occasion I her sex, she had him sent him away to an isolated region near Russia. It was certainly was not the so cold there—perhaps he was dead. She showed Bouriscout photographs Confuse Desire and Reality— The Perfect Illusion • 299 of the boy, and he did see some resemblance. Over the next few weeks they seducer. . . . After an managed to meet here and there, and then Bouriscout had an idea: he sym- interval Pauline pulled a pathized with the Cultural Revolution, and he wanted to get around the hell rope and ordered the woman who answered to prohibitions that were preventing him from seeing Pei Pu, so he offered to prepare a hath which she do some spying. The offer was passed along to the right people, and soon asked me to share. Bouriscout was stealing documents for the Communists. The son, named Wearing bathgowns of the finest linen we remained Bertrand, was recalled to Beijing, and Bouriscout finally met him. Now a for nearly an hour in the threefold adventure filled Bouriscout's life: the alluring Pei Pu, the thrill of crystal-clear bluish water. being a spy, and the illicit child, whom he wanted to bring back to France. Then we had a grand dinner served in another In 1972, Bouriscout left Beijing. Over the next few years he tried room and lingered on repeatedly to get Pei Pu and his son to France, and a decade later he fi- together until dusk. When nally succeeded; the three became a family In 1983, though, the French I left I had to promise to return again soon and I authorities grew suspicious of this relationship between a Foreign Office spent many afternoons official and a Chinese man, and with a little investigating they uncovered with the princess in the Bouriscout's spying. He was arrested, and soon made a startling confession: same way." the man he was living with was really a woman. Confused, the French or- —HARRISON BRENT, dered an examination of Pei Pu; as they had thought, he was very much a PAULINE BONAPARTE: A WOMAN OF AFFAIRS man. Bouriscout went to prison. Even after Bouriscout had heard his former lover's own confession, he was still convinced that Pei Pu was a woman. Her soft body, their intimate relationship—how could he be wrong? Only when Pei Pu, impris- The courtesan is meant to be a half-defined, floating

• From The Art of Seduction (2001)

  ness of any kind, she eventually left him. Consumed by her memory, Rilke leading men of Athens long continued to pursue her. In 1926, lying on his deathbed, he begged watched all this with his doctors, "Ask Lou what is wrong with me. She is the only one who disgust and indignation knows." and they were deeply disturbed by his One man wrote of Salomé, "There was something terrifying about her contemptuous and lawless embrace. Looking at you with her radiant blue eyes, she would say, 'The behaviour, which seemed to reception of the semen is for me the height of ecstasy.' And she had an in-them monstrous and suggested the habits of a satiable appetite for it. She was completely amoral . . . a vampire." The tyrant. The people's feelings Swedish psychotherapist Poul Bjerre, one of her later conquests, wrote, "I towards him have been very think Nietzsche was right when he said that Lou was a thoroughly evil aptly expressed by Aristophanes in the line: woman. Evil however in the Goethean sense: evil that produces good. . . . "They long for him, they She may have destroyed lives and marriages but her presence was exciting." hate him, they cannot do without him. . . ." • The fact was that his voluntary The two emotions that almost every male felt in the presence of Lou donations, the public shows Andreas-Salomé were confusion and excitement—the two prerequisite he supported, his unrivalled feelings for any successful seduction. People were intoxicated by her strange munificence to the state, the mix of the masculine and the feminine; she was beautiful, with a radiant fame of his ancestry, the power of his oratory and smile and a graceful, flirtatious manner, but her independence and her in- his physical strength and tensely analytical nature made her seem oddly male. This ambiguity was beauty . . . all combined to expressed in her eyes, which were both coquettish and probing. It was con-make the Athenians forgive him everything else, and fusion that kept men interested and curious: no other woman was like this. they were constantly finding They wanted to know more. The excitement stemmed from her ability to euphemisms for his lapses stir up repressed desires. She was a complete nonconformist, and to be in- and putting them down to youthful high spirits volved with her was to break all kinds of taboos. Her masculinity made the and honourable ambition. relationship seem vaguely homosexual; her slightly cruel, slightly domi- —PLUTARCH,"THE LIFE OF neering streak could stir up masochistic yearnings, as it did in Nietzsche. ALCIBIADES," THE RISE AND Salomé radiated a forbidden sexuality. Her powerful effect on men—the FALL OF ATHENS: NINE GREEK lifelong infatuations, the suicides (there were several), the periods of intense LIVES, TRANSLATED BY IAN SCOTT-KILVERT creativity, the descriptions of her as a vampire or a devil—attest to the ob-scure depths of the psyche that she was able to reach and disturb.

• From The Art of Seduction (2001)

  realized that I had been celibacy and spiritual virtue would have created disciples but not physical slighted, but on the other I love. The combination of these traits, however, both drew people in and felt a reverence for Socrates' frustrated them, a coquettish dynamic that created an emotional and physical character, his self-control and courage . . . The result attachment to a man who shunned such things. His withdrawal from the was that I could neither world had the effect of only heightening the devotion of his followers. bring myself to be angry Coquetry depends on developing a pattern to keep the other person off with him and tear myself balance. The strategy is extremely effective. Experiencing a pleasure once, away from his society, nor find a way of subduing we yearn to repeat it; so the Coquette gives us pleasure, then withdraws it. him to my will. . . . I was The alternation of heat and cold is the most common pattern, and has sev-utterly disconcerted, and eral variations. The eighth-century Chinese Coquette Yang Kuei-Fei to-wandered about in a state of enslavement to the man tally enslaved the Emperor Ming Huang through a pattern of kindness and the like of which has never bitterness: having charmed him with kindness, she would suddenly get an-been known. gry, blaming him harshly for the slightest mistake. Unable to live without —ALCIBIADES, QUOTED IN the pleasure she gave him, the emperor would turn the court upside down PLATO, THE SYMPOSIUM to please her when she was angry or upset. Her tears had a similar effect: what had he done, why was she so sad? He eventually ruined himself and his kingdom trying to keep her happy. Tears, anger, and the production of guilt are all the tools of the Coquette. A similar dynamic appears in a lover's quarrel: when a couple fights, then reconciles, the joys of reconciliation only make the attachment stronger. Sadness of any sort is also seductive, particularly if it seems deep-rooted, even spiritual, rather than needy or pathetic—it makes people come to you. Coquettes are never jealous—that would undermine their image of fundamental self-sufficiency. But they are masters at inciting jealousy: by paying attention to a third party, creating a triangle of desire, they signal to their victims that they may not be that interested. This triangulation is extremely seductive, in social contexts as well as erotic ones. Interested in narcissistic women, Freud was a narcissist himself, and his aloofness drove his disciples crazy. (They even had a name for it—his "god complex.") Behaving like a kind of messiah, too lofty for petty emotions, Freud always maintained a distance between himself and his students, hardly ever inviting them over for dinner, say, and keeping his private life shrouded in mystery.

• From The Art of Seduction (2001)

  senator, or grave judge, \ end. One morning, knowing her aunt was out, he visited their house. It Will surrender to was the first time he and Cordelia had been alone together. As dryly and eloquence. Nevertheless, politely as possible, he proceeded to propose to her. Needless to say she was dissemble \ Your powers, avoid long words, \ Don't shocked and flustered. A man who had shown not the slightest interest in look too highbrow. Who her suddenly wanted to marry her? She was so surprised that she referred but a mindless ninny \ the matter to her aunt, who, as Johannes had expected, gave her approval. Declaims to his mistress? Had Cordelia resisted, her aunt would have respected her wishes; but she An overlettered style \ Repels girls as often as not. did not. Use ordinary language, \ On the outside, everything had changed. The couple were engaged. Jo- Familiar yet coaxing hannes now came to the house alone, sat with Cordelia, held her hand, words—a s though \ You were there, in her presence. talked with her. But inwardly he made sure things were the same. He re- If she refuses your letter, \ mained distant and polite. He would sometimes warm up, particularly Sends it back unread, when talking about literature (Cordelia's favorite subject), but at a certain persist. point he always went back to more mundane matters. He knew this frus- — O V I D , THE ART OF LOVE., trated Cordelia, who had expected that now he would be different. Yet TRANSLATED BY PETER GREEN even when they went out together, he took her to formal socials arranged for engaged couples. How conventional! Was this what love and marriage were supposed to be about, these prematurely aged people talking about houses and their own drab futures? Cordelia, who was shy at the best of times, asked Johannes to stop dragging her to these affairs. The battlefield was prepared. Cordelia was confused and anxious. 256 • The Art of Seduction Therefore, the person who Then, a few weeks after their engagement, Johannes sent her a letter. Here is unable to write letters he described the state of his soul, and his certainty that he loved her. He and notes never becomes a spoke in metaphor, suggesting that he had been waiting for years, lantern in dangerous seducer. hand, for Cordelia's appearance; metaphor melted into reality, back and —SØREN KIERKEGAARD, EITHER/OR, TRANSLATED BY forth. The style was poetic, the words glowed with desire, but the whole HOWARD V. H O N G was delightfully ambiguous—Cordelia could reread the letter ten times AND E D N A H . H O N G without being sure what it said. The next day Johannes received a response. The writing was simple and straightforward, but full of sentiment: his letter had made her so happy, Cordelia wrote, and she had not imagined this side Standing on a crag of

• From Middlesex (2002)

  While he was gone, I didn't 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 chil- dren, 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 salmon-colored 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 434 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 ec- stasy But of course the faces weren't 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 woman's pubic hair was like a patch of evergreen against white snow, the man's member like a redwood sprouting from it. I looked. I looked once again to see how other people were made. As I looked, I didn't take sides. I under- stood 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. Luce's 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 ge- netic 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 subject's XY karyotype was not discovered until puberty, when she began to virilize. The girl's 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 435

• From The Art of Seduction (2001)

  Occasionally Johannes would veer off into a more philosophical discussion, for he had noticed, out of the corner of his eye, that on these occasions Cordelia would listen to him closely, while still pretending to lis- ten to Edward. This went on for several weeks. Johannes and Cordelia barely spoke, but he could tell that he intrigued her, and that Edward irritated her to no end. One morning, knowing her aunt was out, he visited their house. It was the first time he and Cordelia had been alone together. As dryly and politely as possible, he proceeded to propose to her. Needless to say she was shocked and flustered. A man who had shown not the slightest interest in her suddenly wanted to marry her? She was so surprised that she referred the matter to her aunt, who, as Johannes had expected, gave her approval. Had Cordelia resisted, her aunt would have respected her wishes; but she did not. On the outside, everything had changed. The couple were engaged. Jo- hannes now came to the house alone, sat with Cordelia, held her hand, talked with her. But inwardly he made sure things were the same. He re- mained distant and polite. He would sometimes warm up, particularly when talking about literature (Cordelia's favorite subject), but at a certain point he always went back to more mundane matters. He knew this frus- trated Cordelia, who had expected that now he would be different. Yet even when they went out together, he took her to formal socials arranged for engaged couples. How conventional! Was this what love and marriage were supposed to be about, these prematurely aged people talking about houses and their own drab futures? Cordelia, who was shy at the best of times, asked Johannes to stop dragging her to these affairs. The battlefield was prepared. Cordelia was confused and anxious. Let wax pave the way for you, spread out on smooth tablets, \ Let wax go before as witness to your mind— \ Bring her your flattering words, words that ape the lover: \ And remember, whoever you are, to throw in some good \ Entreaties. Entreaties are what made Achilles give back \ Hector's Body to Priam; even an angry god \ Is moved by the voice of prayer. Make promises, what's the harm in \ Promising? Here's where anyone can play rich.... \ A persuasive letter's \ The thing to lead off with, explore her mind, \ Reconnoiter the landscape. A message scratched on an apple \ Betrayed Cydippe: she was snared by her own words. \ My advice, then, young men of Rome, is to learn the noble \ Advocate's arts—not only to let you defend \ Some trembling client: a woman, no less than the populace, \ Elite senator, or grave judge, \ Will surrender to eloquence.

• From Middlesex (2002)

  Though preferable to automobiles, streetcars didn't appeal to Desdemona either. She had trouble telling the lines apart. The fitful, ghost-powered trolleys were always making unexpected turns, shut- ding 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 ad- dress 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 don't make silk in Detroit? she triumphantiy asked her absent husband. That's 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 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 hadn't taken my silkworms, I could set up a cocoonery in the backyard. I wouldn't 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 un- blocked 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-REF- ERENCES. Look at that poor man. Mana! He looks like a refugee. Might as well be Smyrna, this city. What's the difference? The streetcar la- bored on, moving away from the landmarks she knew, the greengro- cer's, the movie theater, the fire hydrants and neighborhood newspaper stands. Her village eyes, which could differentiate be- tween trees and bushes at a glance, glazed over at the signage along the route, the meaningless roman letters swirling into one another 139 and the ragged billboards showing American faces with the skin peel- ing off, faces without eyes, or with no mouth, or with nothing but a nose. When she recognized Gratiot's 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 em- ploy 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."

• From Middlesex (2002)

  "YOU HAVE HEARD OF THE DARWINIAN THEORY OF NATURAL SELECTION? THIS WAS UNNATURAL SELEC- BY HIS SCIENTIFIC GRAFTING YACUB PRO- TION. DUCED THE FIRST YELLOW AND RED PEOPLE. BUT HE DIDN'T 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 be- cause all the brothers had gotten rid of their slave names but Minister Fard hadn't gotten around to the girls yet, so here she was, still Dar- lene 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. Mil- lie 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 her- self off. "Enough. I'm not going to listen to this crazy person any- more. I work. They pay me. That's it." But the next morning, she was back at the temple. At one o'clock the voice began speaking, and again my grandmother paid attention: "NOW LET US MAKE A PHYSIOLOGICAL COMPARI- SON BETWEEN THE WHITE RACE AND THE ORIGINAL 155 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 Fard's pro- nouncements. But as the days passed, my grandmother found herself obediendy 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. "He's just a charlatan," she said. "Taking everyone's money." Still, she didn't move. In a moment, the heating system rumbled with the latest revelations.

• From Middlesex (2002)

  Sometimes, before or afterward, I switched on die 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 it's hard to believe, but that's the way it works. The mind self-edits. The mind airbrushes. It's 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 387 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 didn't 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.

• From Middlesex (2002)

  When they opened it, the man looked from belly to belly. "I'm 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 114 story. He had indeed contracted the eye disease favus on the Giulia. 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 mondis he'd been living in New York, on the Lower East Side. "Grinding lenses for an optometrist." Recentiy he'd managed to retrieve some assets from Turkey and had come to the Midwest. "I'm going to open a practice here. New York has too many doctors already." He stayed for dinner. The women's delicate conditions didn't ex- cuse 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, the lakia, on top. Dr. Philo- bosian 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 night— a-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. "It's all the Minotaur's fault," Lefty joked. "Don't talk about that play," Desdemona scolded. "Why are you looking at me like that?" asked Lina. "I can't 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. Peo- ple 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. There's 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 115 happened to glance up at this portrait. Nine months later, her baby was born— furry as a bear!" The doctor laughed, enjoying himself, sipping more wine. "That can't happen, can it?" Desdemona, suddenly alarmed, wanted to know. But Dr. Philobosian was on a roll. "There's another story about a woman who touched a toad while making love. Her baby came out with pop eyes and covered with warts."

• From Middlesex (2002)

  I got up. I went over to the open suitcase and checked again to see if I'd packed everything. My parents and I were leaving in an hour. We were going to New York City to see a famous doctor. I didn't know how long we'd be gone or what was wrong with me. I didn't 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 Revo- lution. 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 396 Turkey. That mulberry tree had stood outside my bedroom on Mid- dlesex, never divulging its significance to me. But now things are dif- ferent. 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 can't possibly fin- ish up this section of my life without mentioning the following fact: The most widely raised type of silkworm, the larva of the Bornbyx mori, no longer exists anywhere in a natural state. As my encyclope- dia poignantly puts it: "The legs of the larvae have degenerated, and the adults do not fly." 397 BOOK FOUR C^D THE ORACULAR VULVA Tr] rom my birth when they went undetected, to my baptism where P they upstaged the priest, to my troubled adolescence when they 11 didn't 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 doctor's wild claim about my anatomy. The diagnosis, delivered over the phone to a largely uncomprehending Milton and then bowdler- ized by him for Tessie's benefit, amounted to a vague concern about the formation of my urinary tract along with a possible hormonal de- ficiency. The doctor in Petoskey hadn't 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 Milton's insistence I had been taken one last time to see Dr. Phil.

• From Holy Ghost Girl (2012)

  Years later, the girl and the boy would tell my sisters that they had often wondered why there were three ponies, three beds, three bikes, three of everything, when there were only two of them.I became suspicious of Brother Terrell’s relationship with the woman when I noticed on my visits to Bangs that they were almost always together. Instead of referencing Mama from the platform as he had once done, he talked about the preacher woman, calling her a great woman of God. She had replaced Brother Starrs, who had replaced Brother Cotton a few years back, and was now the one who introduced Brother Terrell. She had become his de facto second-in-command. I often glimpsed them getting out of the Mercedes together at the back of the tent. Then one day I saw her with Pam and Brother Terrell’s other daughters. There was something about their body language, the ease and familiarity with which the Terrell girls interacted with her, as if she were a family member. I asked my mother about the relationship one afternoon as she drove me, blindfolded, from Bangs to her farm for a visit. She admitted that Brother Terrell was involved with the woman. She didn’t mention the daughter.“He said it was a mistake. He got himself into a mess with that woman, and now he says he’s working everything out. I believe him. He’s always done right by me and the girls.”I adjusted the blessed handkerchief that covered my eyes, careful not to let it slip. The walls that divided Brother Terrell’s lives began to crumble. My mother confronted the preacher woman and told her about my sisters. The woman didn’t believe her. Someone broke into the prophet’s ranch house. The next week, the Fort Worth Star-Telegram printed a long piece describing the ranch and the house in detail. The guitar-shaped swimming pool received special attention. Brother Terrell told my mother IRS agents had broken into the house with the reporter. Around the same time, Randall spotted my sisters during a tent service in Bangs, noticed the resemblance they bore to his own sisters, and confronted my mother.“Carolyn, I know those girls are Daddy’s. They look just like him.”My mother admitted the truth. Randall confronted his daddy, who admitted nothing. Randall made it his personal cause to force his father to publicly recognize my sisters. When Brother Terrell and the preacher woman arrived at the tent before the service started, they saw Randall walking around with my sisters in the area at the back of the platform where all the insiders would be sure to see them. Brother Terrell gave Randall a quick nod on his way past. My sisters looked the other way. During the mid-to-late seventies, Brother Terrell fasted more than he ate. My mother told me he weighed one hundred and twenty pounds, not much for a man six feet tall. She was afraid he was dying.

• From Holy Ghost Girl (2012)

  Thus began our descent into the ninth circle of hell. The day we moved into Sister Coleman’s house, she gathered us up next to her on the sofa and told us she had always wanted children, had in fact wanted us , and now the Lord had given us to her. Her remarks made me feel special, and uneasy. What did she mean, God had given us to her?“You mean to take care of, while our mother is away.”“Excuse me?”“God gave us to you to take care of until Mama comes back.”“Of course. What did you think I meant?”I shrugged. “Plus, you already got Bug.”I pointed to the quilt on the floor where Bug lay on his side, legs in braces, eyes staring at nothing. He drooled and vocalized in the flat, toneless voice of a lost lamb or calf. Bug was big for a six-year-old, but Sister Coleman carried him everywhere. She would not put him in a wheelchair. I have no proof, but I believe it was Bug who first brought Sister Coleman to the tents. Each time a revival came to town, she lugged him to the front row and waited.Gary and I were physically everything Bug was not, but emotionally we were a mess. My brother was a bed wetter with a nervous stutter and was prone to visions or nightmares, depending on your perspective. I was a thief who lied to cover my transgressions and committed the unpardonable childhood sin of sassing and talking back on a regular basis. Maybe Sister Coleman did not know this about us, or maybe she thought she could change us for the better. She made sure we went to bed and woke up at the same time, ate three meals a day, and visited the doctor when we were sick. She even took us on vacation once. When I turned seven, she enrolled me in first grade and bought me new clothes to wear to school. My blouses were tucked in, my socks matched, and headbands kept my hair out of my face. I looked respectable for the first time since Mama left us in Houston. Within weeks, Sister Coleman had given us more toys and clothes than we had ever owned: stacks of books and a big easel for me, trucks and a G.I. Joe for Gary.The only material thing we lacked during the year and a half we lived with the Colemans was a room of our own. Their home was the newest and most comfortable house we had lived in, but it had only two bedrooms; Sister Coleman and Bug slept in one and the sinner husband had the other to himself. I camped in the living room on a daybed and Gary slept on a single bed pushed against a corner of the den. The Colemans seemed to like each other, or to have once liked each other.

• From Middlesex (2002)

  I had ever worn or possessed. They all seemed to be heaped at the foot of her bed— the 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 wasn't 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 mother's 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 hadn't gotten my period? She thought about our waxing ap- pointments at the Golden Fleece and my husky alto— everything, re- ally: the way I never filled out dresses right, the way women's 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 didn't Callie's face have a strange look sometimes? So in- . masculine. And no fat on her, nowhere at all, all bones, . and Dr. Luce had said that Callie . and why hadn't he mentioned anything about chromo- . and how could it be true? So ran my mother's thoughts, as somes . 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 . tense, so . no hips. But it wasn't possible . was a . . . . . . . From this last thought Tessie turned back. Milton, on the other hand, didn't waste time reevaluating the evi- dence. On hotel stationery Callie had proclaimed, "I am not a girl." But Callie was just a kid. What did she know? Kids said all kinds of crazy things. My father didn't understand what had made me flee my surgery. He couldn't fathom why I wouldn't 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 466 me back safe and sound. They could deal with the medical situation later.

• From Looking for Alaska (2005)

  “But shit, if y’all need privacy, just leave a note on the door next time.” Takumi and I laughed, and then Takumi said, “Yeah, Pudge and I were getting a little testy, but man, ever since we showered together, Pudge, I feel really close to you.” “So how’d it go?” I asked. I sat down on the COFFEE TABLE, and Takumi plopped down on the couch next to the Colonel, both of us wet and vaguely cold but more concerned with the Colonel’s talk with Jake than with getting dry. “It was interesting. Here’s what you need to know: He gave her those flowers, like we thought. They didn’t fight. He just called because he had promised to call at the exact moment of their eight-month anniversary, which happened to be three-oh-two in the A.M. , which—let’s agree—is a little ridiculous, and I guess somehow she heard the phone ringing. So they talked about nothing for like five minutes, and then completely out of nowhere, she freaked out.” “Completely out of nowhere?” Takumi asked. “Allow me to consult my notes.” The Colonel flipped through his notebook. “Okay. Jake says, ‘Did you have a nice anniversary?’ and then Alaska says, ‘I had a splendid anniversary,’” and I could hear in the Colonel’s reading the excitement of her voice, the way she leaped onto certain words like splendid and fantastic and absolutely . “Then it’s quiet, then Jake says, ‘What are you doing?’ and Alaska says, ‘Nothing, just doodling,’ and then she says, ‘Oh God.’ And then she says, ‘Shit shit shit’ and starts sobbing, and told him she had to go but she’d talk to him later, but she didn’t say she was driving to see him, and Jake doesn’t think she was. He doesn’t know where she was going, but he says she always asked if she could come up and see him, and she didn’t ask, so she must not have been coming. Hold on, lemme find the quote.” He flipped a page in the notebook. “Okay, here: ‘She said she’d talk to me later, not that she’d see me.’” “She tells me ‘To be continued’ and tells him she’ll talk to him later,” I observed. “Yes. Noted. Planning for a future. Admittedly inconsistent with suicide. So then she comes back into her room screaming about forgetting something. And then her headlong race comes to its end. So no answers, really.” “Well, we know where she wasn’t going.” “Unless she was feeling particularly impulsive,” Takumi said. He looked at me. “And from the sound of things, she was feeling rather impulsive that night.” The Colonel looked over at me curiously, and I nodded. “Yeah,” Takumi said. “I know.” “Okay, then. And you were pissed, but then you took a shower with Pudge and it’s all good. Excellent. So, so that night…” the Colonel continued.

• From Holy Ghost Girl (2012)

  The tent would remain up until the church was finished. This put no one’s mind at ease.Locals blamed Brother Terrell for bringing the first homosexuals, hippies, and blacks to the community. The town of Coleman in nearby Hamilton County saw its black student population increase from sixty to one hundred and twenty within months. Just a few years earlier a sign posted inside the city limits of the Hamilton County seat had read: IF YOU’RE BLACK, DON’T LET THE SUN SET ON YOU IN HAMILTON. Believers were blamed for everything from vandalism to cattle mutilations, but nothing stuck until the death of that little girl I’d read about in the Mexia paper. The sheriff, judge, and district attorney had called for an investigation. Reporters from Dallas, Fort Worth, Abilene, and the wire services swarmed. An AP story quoted the stepfather of the girl as saying he didn’t just let his stepdaughter die.“I believe it was the will of God, and if he wanted her to die, it didn’t make no difference if I took her to fifty doctors.”Brother Terrell and his followers said the child died because the parents did not have enough faith. Even in my new nonrebellious mode, this explanation was hard to swallow. The girl’s parents had prayed and they had asked Brother Terrell and several of the ministers close to him to pray, and now everyone said the parents didn’t have enough faith. I argued the issue with a friend in the ministry. Jesus had said that faith equal in size to a mustard seed could move mountains. Surely these people had at least that much faith, or they wouldn’t have been living in a tent in Bangs.The friend shrugged off my argument. “You better make sure you know exactly how much faith you have when you decide not to take your kid to the doctor.”I filed the deaths under “unknowable,” but that didn’t feel right either. If the child had received medical care, she would have lived. That much we knew. My prayer became, “Lord, I believe. Help my unbelief.”Brother Terrell’s notoriety turned to full-blown infamy. Newspapers ran photos of him arriving and leaving the tent in Bangs in his Mercedes or Lincoln. They showed him stuffing his pockets with love offerings and ran the photos alongside the squalid living conditions of some of his followers. They emphasized that no one really knew where or under what conditions he lived, something my mother gave thanks for daily. After the article was published, Brother Terrell said from the platform that the reporters were out to get him, and we all nodded and said amen, including those of us who knew that the newspaper articles were a fairy tale compared to what was really going on.He railed against the press. “These bunch of lying reporters better watch out. The Bible says, ‘Touch not my anointing.’ They come against God, and they’ll wish’t they hadn’t.”But the reporters kept on coming.

• From Middlesex (2002)

  number forty-five (Locke,Rousseau). Heresheis reachingup, with- out resortingto tiptoes,toput itonthetop shelf.Andhereis Tessie, looking up andsaying, "Ithink you'regrowing,Cal." It turnedoutto bean understatement.Beginningin January of seventh grade and continuingintothe following August,my previ- ously frozenbody underwenta growthspurtofuncommonpropor- tionsand unforeseeable consequences.ThoughathomeIwasstill kept onthe Mediterranean Diet,thefoodatmynewschool— chickenpot pies,TaterTots, cubed Jell- O— canceled outitsfountain- of-youtheffectsand,in all waysbut one,Ibegantogrowup.I sprouted withthe velocity ofthe mungbeanswestudiedinEarth Science. Learningabout photosynthesis,wekeptonetrayinthedark andoneinthelight, andmeasuredthemeverydaywithmetricrulers. Likeamungbean mybodystretched up towardthegreatgrowlamp inthesky, andmycasewasevenmoresignificantbecauseIcontinued togrowinthedark.Atnight,myjointsached.Ihadtroublesleep- ing.Iwrappedmylegsinheating pads, smilingthroughthe pain. Becausealongwithmynewheight,somethingelse was finallyhap- pening. Hair wasbeginningtoappearintherequiredplaces. Every night,afterlocking mybedroomdoor,Iangledmy desklampjustso andbegantocountthe hairs.Oneweektherewere three;thenext, six;twoweekslater, seventeen.Inagrandmood onedayIrana combthrough them."Abouttime," Isaid,andeven thatwasdiffer- ent:myvoice wasbeginning tochange. Itdidn't dosoovernight.Idon't remember anycracking.Instead my voicebegan aslowdescentthat continuedfor thenextcouple of years.The earsplitting qualityithadhad— whichI usedasa weapon againstmy brother— disappeared.Hitting the"free" in thenational anthem was athingofthe past. My mother keptthinkingthatIhad acold. Salesladies lookedpastme for thewomanwhohadasked for help. It wasanotunbewitching sound, a mix offlute andbassoon, myconsonants slightiyslurred, arush andbreathinesstomostofmy pronouncements. Andtherewere thesigns onlya linguistcould pick up, middle-class elisions, gracenotes passed downfromGreekinto midwestern twang,the heritage from my grandparentsand parents that lived onin melikeeverything else. I grew tall. Myvoice matured. Butnothingseemedunnatural. My slight build, mythin waist, thesmallnessofmyhead, hands, and 303 feet raised noquestionsinanybody'smind.Many genetic males raised as girlsdon'tblendinsoeasilyFrom anearlyagethey look different, movedifferently,theycan'tfind shoesorgloves thatfit. Other kidscallthemtomboysor worse:ape-women, gorillas.My skinniness disguisedme.Theearly seventieswere a good timeto be flat-chested. Androgynywasin. Myricketyheight andfoal'slegsgave me thepostureofafashionmodel.My clothesweren'tright,my face wasn't right, but myangularity was.Ihadthatsalukilook.Plus, for whateverreason— my dreamytemperament, my bookishness— Ifit rightin. Still, it wasn't uncommonfor certaininnocent,excitable girlsto respondtomypresenceinwaysthey weren'taware of. I'mthinking ofLily Parker, whousedtoliedownonthelobbycouchesand rest herheadinmylap,looking up andsaying,"You havethemostper- fectchin." Or of JuneJames, whousedtopullmyhairoverherown head,sothatwecouldshareitlikeatent.My body might havere- leased pheromones thataffected my schoolmates.Howelsetoex- plainthewaymyfriendstuggedonme,leanedonme?Atthisearly stage,before my malesecondarycharacteristicshadmanifested them- selves,beforetherewerewhispers about meinthehallsandgirls thoughttwice about layingtheirheadsinmylap—inseventhgrade, whenmyhair wasglossyinsteadoffrizzy,mycheeks still smooth,my muscles undeveloped, andyet, invisibly but unmistakably,Ibeganto exudesomekind ofmasculinity,intheway Itossedupandcaught my eraser,for instance, or in theway Idive-bombed people'sdesserts withmy spoon,in theintensityofmy knitbrowormyeagernessto debateanyone onanythinginclass;whenIwasa changeling,before Ichanged,Iwas quitepopular atmy newschool. But this stagewas brief.Soonmy headgearlost its nighttime war against theforces ofcrookedness. ApollogaveintoDionysius. Beautymayalways bealittlebitfreakish,but theyearIturnedthir- teen Iwasbecoming freakierthanever. Considertheyearbook. In the fieldhockey teamphoto,takenin thefall,I amonone knee inthefront row. Withmyhomeroomin thespring,I amstooping inthe back.My face isshadowedwithself- consciousness. (Over the yearsmy perpetually perplexed expression would drive photographers todistraction.It ruined class photos and Christmascards until,in themostwidely published pictures of me, the problemwas finallysolved byblockingout my facealtogether.) 304

• From Looking for Alaska (2005)

  And I imagined that Alaska would want a smoke, and so it seemed to me that the Colonel had begun an excellent ritual. The Colonel spit into the stream and broke the silence. “Funny thing, talking to ghosts,” he said. “You can’t tell if you’re making up their answers or if they are really talking to you.” “I say we make a list,” Takumi said, steering clear of introspective talk. “What kind of proof do we have of suicide?” The Colonel pulled out his omnipresent notebook. “She never hit the brakes,” I said, and the Colonel started scribbling. And she was awfully upset about something, although she’d been awfully upset without committing suicide many times before. We considered that maybe the flowers were some kind of memorial to herself—like a funeral arrangement or something. But that didn’t seem very Alaskan to us. She was cryptic, sure, but if you’re going to plan your suicide down to the flowers, you probably have a plan as to how you’re actually going to die, and Alaska had no way of knowing a police car was going to present itself on I-65 for the occasion. And the evidence suggesting an accident? “She was really drunk, so she could have thought she wasn’t going to hit the cop, although I don’t know how,” Takumi said. “She could have fallen asleep,” Lara offered. “Yeah, we’ve thought about that,” I said. “But I don’t think you keep driving straight if you fall asleep.” “I can’t think of a way to find out that does not put our lives in considerable danger,” the Colonel deadpanned. “Anyway, she didn’t show warning signs of suicide. I mean, she didn’t talk about wanting to die or give away her stuff or anything.” “That’s two. Drunk and no plans to die,” Takumi said. This wasn’t going anywhere. Just a different dance with the same question. What we needed wasn’t more thinking. We needed more evidence. “We have to find out where she was going,” the Colonel said. “The last people she talked to were me, you, and Jake,” I said to him. “And we don’t know. So how the hell are we going to find out?” Takumi looked over at the Colonel and sighed. “I don’t think it would help, to know where she was going. I think that would make it worse for us. Just a gut feeling.” “Well, my gut wants to know,” Lara said, and only then did I realize what Takumi meant the day we’d showered together—I may have kissed her, but I really didn’t have a monopoly on Alaska; the Colonel and I weren’t the only ones who cared about her, and weren’t alone in trying to figure out how she died and why. “Well, regardless,” said the Colonel, “we’re at a dead end. So one of you think of something to do. Because I’m out of investigative tools.”

• From Holy Ghost Girl (2012)

  I rocked up on my toes to see over the ledge.“There’s one. Look!”“Hey, there’s another one.”Each time a plane landed, Mama murmured, “That’s not it. That’s not it.” In between landings she glanced at the crowds rolling down the concourse until she glimpsed a familiar face.“Wait. There he is. There’s David.”She pulled Gary from the window and started to tell me to watch him. She was gone before she finished her sentence, moving like a homing device through the throng. I kept my eye on her back for as long as I could, then lost her in the ocean of elbows, chests, shoulders, and hundreds of unfamiliar faces. We stood apart from the crowd until it swelled and widened and engulfed us too. Gary tried to twist his hand free and I tightened my grip.“Ouch. That hurts.”I backed us against the wall and we stayed put. Eventually the crowd thinned and there was enough space between the bodies that I could look for my mom.“Do you see her?”“Not yet.”And then I did. My mother and Brother Terrell stood at the top of the concourse, so close they almost touched. She looked up at him and they began to walk toward us. The closer they came, the more awkward I felt. To see them together like that, without Pam or Betty Ann or Randall or even the baby around, was odd, a bit like coming upon the tent in someone’s living room. Out of context, out of place, wrong. Gary must have felt it, too, because by the time they reached us, neither of us could think of a thing to say. Mama asked us if we were going to say hello. We didn’t answer.“I brought y’all something.” Brother Terrell reached into a bag and pulled out a pilot’s cap with wings pinned to the front for Gary and a purse for me. I looked inside the purse and asked about Pam and Randall.He stuck both hands in his pockets and shifted from side to side. “They couldn’t come this time. Maybe next time.”“Okay. Just wondering.” I slipped the purse over my shoulder and Gary slapped on his cap and we ran ahead of the grown-ups.That night when my mother tucked us in, I asked the question that had nagged at me all through dinner: Where would Brother Terrell sleep?“Right there on the couch. Why?”I couldn’t think of a single reason why I had asked the question or why I did not quite believe her answer.I tiptoed into the living room the next morning before anyone was awake, determined to find out what was going on. There was Brother Terrell, curled up on the couch with the pillow over his head and the blanket pulled and twisted around him. He was there every night when I went to bed and every morning when I woke up. That arrangement began to shift as his visits became more regular.

• From Holy Ghost Girl (2012)

  and the last shall be first.” Unsure of whether to join the family or take a seat inside, I positioned myself to the side of the line. Was I family? Friend? Foe? Pam walked over, took my arm, and settled the question. I filed into church that morning with all of the women and children who had lived separate and sometimes secret lives with Brother Terrell. Legitimate and illegitimate, adopted and semiadopted, steps, halves, and blood relatives, mistresses and wives paraded down the aisle, two by two. The existence of my sisters and other children born outside the sanctity of marriage had become known fifteen years earlier, but the funeral marked our first and only appearance as a family. We numbered around seventy as we filed into the center section of the church. My husband and I took seats behind my three sisters. The secrets Brother Terrell had gone to such lengths to conceal had names and faces and sat shoulder to shoulder in his church, and yet it was a day like any other. The Earth didn’t shift on its axis. The sun didn’t fall from the sky. One less person drew breath, one less person sat among us, but the world creaked on and on.Most of Brother Terrell’s longtime followers and supporters had left him by the time Randall died. After his release from prison in 1987 he put up tents that seated twenty-five hundred, small tents by his old standards, and was lucky to draw two hundred people. Some believers had drifted away years earlier when news of his relationships with my mother and the preacher woman became known. Others left when he divorced the preacher woman and married a woman young enough to be his daughter. On the day of the funeral, many found their way back. The Bangs church, built to seat about twenty-five hundred, was full. Old friends flew toward one another, often meeting in front of the casket, laughing and talking in subdued voices while Randall slept on, hands folded on his chest. The family sat quiet and subdued.A minister who was a friend to Randall and a colleague of Brother Terrell’s opened the service with a prayer. He spoke of Randall as a man of faith, a preacher. This image of Randall did not fit with my memory of the boy who could not sit through a tent service, the boy who was always angling for a chance to play husbands and wives. The minister looked down at the casket.“Brother Randall fasted, prayed, and believed the Word, just like his daddy. He taught me so much about faith. I know many of y’all came to hear him preach over the years and heard the story of how time and time again God raised him up from his deathbed.”The family shifted from side to side. We studied our fingernails.