Surprise

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 Thinking, Fast and Slow (2011)

  experiences in which we saw one object in motion touching another object, which immediately starts to move, often (but not always) in the same direction. This is what happens when a billiard ball hits another, and it is also what happens when you knock over a vase by brushing against it. Michotte had a different idea: he argued that we see causality, just as directly as we see color. To make his point, he created episodes in which a black square drawn on paper is seen in motion; it comes into contact with another square, which immediately begins to move. The observers know that there is no real physical contact, but they nevertheless have a powerful “illusion of causality.” If the second object starts moving instantly, they describe it as having been “launched” by the first. Experiments have shown that six-month-old infants see the sequence of events as a cause-effect scenario, and they indicate surprise when the sequence is altered. We are evidently ready from birth to have impressions of causality, which do not depend on reasoning about patterns of causation. They are products of System 1. In 1944, at about the same time as Michotte published his demonstrations of physical causality, the psychologists Fritz Heider and Mary-Ann Simmel used a method similar to Michotte’s to demonstrate the perception of intentional causality. They made a film, which lasts all of one minute and forty seconds, in which you see a large triangle, a small triangle, and a circle moving around a shape that looks like a schematic view of a house with an open door. Viewers see an aggressive large triangle bullying a smaller triangle, a terrified circle, the circle and the small triangle joining forces to defeat the bully; they also observe much interaction around a door and then an explosive finale. The perception of intention and emotion is irresistible; only people afflicted by autism do not experience it. All this is entirely in your mind, of course. Your mind is ready and even eager to identify agents, assign them personality traits and specific intentions, and view their actions as expressing individual propensities. Here again, the evidence is that we are born prepared to make intentional attributions: infants under one year old identify bullies and victims, and expect a pursuer to follow the most direct path in attempting to catch whatever it is chasing. The experience of freely willed action is quite separate from physical causality. Although it is your hand that picks up the salt, you do not think of the event in terms of a chain of physical causation. You experience it as caused by a decision that a disembodied you made, because you wanted to add salt to your food. Many people find it natural to describe their soul as the source and the cause of their actions. The psychologist Paul Bloom, writing in The Atlantic in 2005, presented the provocative claim that our inborn readiness to separate physical and intentional causality explains the near universality of religious

• From Christianity: The First Three Thousand Years (2009)

  25 Culture Wars (1960–Present) THE SECOND VATICAN COUNCIL: HALF A REVOLUTION In 1978, on my first visit to Rome, on the eve of the enthronement of the tragically short-lived Pope John Paul I, I stared with some astonishment at the flower-decked grave of Pope John XXIII in the crypt of St Peter’s Basilica. His tomb was flanked by a pair of large bronze-effect wreaths, gifts from the late General Francisco Franco of Spain. They looked like two particularly sinister minders for this most cheerily informal of twentieth-century popes, and presumably had been in place since soon after the Pope’s death in 1963. I would be interested to know to what Valley of the Fallen they have now been relegated. The possibility of embarrassing memories around the tomb has otherwise ended, since the Pope himself has been reverently relocated to the customary sacred glass-fronted showcase, in the run-up to his being declared a saint.1 Although John XXIII enjoyed one of the shorter pontificates in the papacy’s history, it had a transformative effect on Christianity far beyond the boundaries of the Roman Catholic Church. It negated everything that Caudillo Franco had stood for – hence the glorious inappropriateness of those two bronzed wreaths. There was an unconscious symbolism about the clash of styles embodied in their presence which might make historians regret their disappearance. The last half-century of Christian experience has witnessed a war of cultures whose result still remains in doubt. Cardinal Roncalli, a former Vatican diplomat enjoying the honourable semi- retirement of the Patriarchate of Venice, was elected John XXIII in 1958 largely because he had few enemies, and because no one involved in the election thought that he could do much harm; he was seventy-six and it was (rightly) thought that he would not enjoy a long period in office. After the last exhausted years of Pius XII, it was sensible to look for a man of peace who would give the Church a chance to find a decisive leader to set an appropriate direction for the future. Certainly Roncalli had proved good at defusing conflict throughout his career, but that might have provided a hint that he was unlikely to perpetuate the

• From Thinking, Fast and Slow (2011)

  predictions under some conditions. In the first version of the Tom W problem, which provides no details about him, it is obvious to everyone that the probability of Tom W’s being in a particular field is simply the base rate frequency of enrollment in that field. However, concern for base rates evidently disappears as soon as Tom W’s personality is described. Amos and I originally believed, on the basis of our early evidence, that base- rate information will always be neglected when information about the specific instance is available, but that conclusion was too strong. Psychologists have conducted many experiments in which base-rate information is explicitly provided as part of the problem, and many of the participants are influenced by those base rates, although the information about the individual case is almost always weighted more than mere statistics. Norbert Schwarz and his colleagues showed that instructing people to “think like a statistician” enhanced the use of base-rate information, while the instruction to “think like a clinician” had the opposite effect. An experiment that was conducted a few years ago with Harvard undergraduates yielded a finding that surprised me: enhanced activation of System 2 caused a significant improvement of predictive accuracy in the Tom W problem. The experiment combined the old problem with a modern variation of cognitive fluency. Half the students were told to puff out their cheeks during the task, while the others were told to frown. Frowning, as we have seen, generally increases the vigilance of System 2 and reduces both overconfidence and the reliance on intuition. The students who puffed out their cheeks (an emotionally neutral expression) replicated the original results: they relied exclusively on representativeness and ignored the base rates. As the authors had predicted, however, the frowners did show some sensitivity to the base rates. This is an instructive finding. When an incorrect intuitive judgment is made, System 1 and System 2 should both be indicted. System 1 suggested the incorrect intuition, and System 2 endorsed it and expressed it in a judgment. However, there are two possible reasons for the failure of System 2—ignorance or laziness. Some people ignore base rates because they believe them to be irrelevant in the presence of individual information. Others make the same mistake because they are not focused on the task. If frowning makes a difference, laziness seems to be the proper explanation of base-rate neglect, at least among Harvard undergrads. Their System 2 “knows” that base rates are relevant even when they are not explicitly mentioned, but applies that knowledge only when it invests special

• From The Art of Seduction (2001)

  Casanova, however, was not one to be daunted. He smuggled letters to I count upon taking [ the Caterina. He began to attend Mass at the convent several times a week, French people] by surprise. A bold deed upsets people's catching glimpses of her. The nuns began to talk among themselves: who equanimity, and they are was this handsome young man who appeared so often? One morning, as dumbfounded by a great Casanova, leaving Mass, was about to board a gondola, a servant girl from novelty. the convent passed by and dropped a letter at his feet. Thinking it might be —NAPOLEON BONAPARTE, from Caterina, he picked it up. It was indeed intended for him, but it was QUOTED IN EMIL LUDWIG, NAPOLEON, TRANSLATED BY not from Caterina; its author was a nun at the convent, who had noticed EDEN AND CEDAR PAUL him on his many visits and wanted to make his acquaintance. Was he interested? If so, he should come to the convent's parlor at a particular time, when the nun would be receiving a visitor from the outside world, a friend The first care of any dandy of hers who was a countess. He could stand at a distance, observe her, and is to never do what one decide whether she was to his liking. expects them to do, to always go beyond. . . . Casanova was most intrigued by the letter: its style was dignified, but The unexpected can be there was something naughty about it as well—particularly from a nun. He nothing more than a had to find out more. At the appointed day and time, he stood to the side gesture, but a gesture that is totally uncommon. in the convent parlor and saw an elegantly dressed woman talking with a Alcibiades cut off the tail of nun seated behind a grating. He heard the nun's name mentioned, and was his dog in order to surprise astonished: it was Mathilde M., a well-known Venetian in her early twen- people. When he saw the looks on his friends as they ties, whose decision to enter a convent had surprised the whole city. But gazed upon the mutilated what astonished him most was that beneath her nun's habit, he could see animal, he said: "Ah, that that she was a beautiful young woman, particularly in her eyes, which were is precisely what I wanted to happen: as long as the a brilliant blue. Perhaps she needed a favor done, and intended that he Athenians gossip about would serve as her cat's-paw. this, they will not say His curiosity got the better of him. A few days later he returned to the anything worse about me." convent and asked to see her. As he waited for her, his heart was beating a • Attracting attention is not the only goal of a

• From Thinking, Fast and Slow (2011)

  The mind that makes up narratives about the past is a sense-making organ. When an unpredicted event occurs, we immediately adjust our view of the world to accommodate the surprise. Imagine yourself before a football game between two teams that have the same record of wins and losses. Now the game is over, and one team trashed the other. In your revised model of the world, the winning team is much stronger than the loser, and your view of the past as well as of the future has been altered by that new perception. Learning from surprises is a reasonable thing to do, but it can have some dangerous consequences. A general limitation of the human mind is its imperfect ability to reconstruct past states of knowledge, or beliefs that have changed. Once you adopt a new view of the world (or of any part of it), you immediately lose much of your ability to recall what you used to believe before your mind changed. Many psychologists have studied what happens when people change their minds. Choosing a topic on which minds are not completely made up—say, the death penalty—the experimenter carefully measures people’s attitudes. Next, the participants see or hear a persuasive pro or con message. Then the experimenter measures people’s attitudes again; they usually are closer to the persuasive message they were exposed to. Finally, the participants report the opinion they held beforehand. This task turns out to be surprisingly difficult. Asked to reconstruct their former beliefs, people retrieve their current ones instead—an instance of substitution—and many cannot believe that they ever felt differently. Your inability to reconstruct past beliefs will inevitably cause you to underestimate the extent to which you were surprised by past events. Baruch Fischhoff first demonstrated this “I-knew-it-all-along” effect, or hindsight bias, when he was a student in Jerusalem. Together with Ruth Beyth (another of our students), Fischhoff conducted a survey before President Richard Nixon visited China and Russia in 1972. The respondents assigned probabilities to fifteen possible outcomes of Nixon’s diplomatic initiatives. Would Mao Zedong agree to meet with Nixon? Might the United States grant diplomatic recognition to China? After decades of enmity, could the United States and the Soviet Union agree on anything significant? After Nixon’s return from his travels, Fischhoff and Beyth asked the same people to recall the probability that they had originally assigned to each of the fifteen possible outcomes. The results were clear. If an event had actually occurred, people exaggerated the probability that they had assigned to it earlier. If the possible event had not come to pass, the participants erroneously recalled that they had always considered it unlikely. Further experiments showed that people were driven to overstate the accuracy not only of their original predictions but also of those made by others. Similar results have been found for

• From Middlesex (2002)

  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 didn't remember the salesman's having mentioned any- thing about a flight feature. Even better, Milton hadn't 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 fly- ing 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 didn't matter what eyewitnesses saw, or that the newspapers reported the next day that the Cadillac was part of the ten-car pileup on the bridge. Sitting back in the comfortable leather bucket seat, Milton Stephanides could see the downtown sky- line 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 er- ror, he learned how to steer the flying car. It wasn't a matter of turn- ing 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 rea- son Milton was no longer afraid of heights. He guessed that this was because his death was imminent; there was nothing left to fear. With- out vertigo or perspiration, he gazed down at Grand Circus Park un- til 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 father's head had been crushed against the steering wheel. The detective who later informed my mother of the accident, when asked about the condition of Milton's 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 understand- able why, hovering in the Cadillac, he might have forgotten that the 510

• From The Art of Seduction (2001)

  Finally, seduction has a pace and rhythm. In phase one, you are cautious and indirect. It is often best to disguise your intentions, to put your target at ease with deliberately neutral words. Your conversation should be harmless, even a bit bland. In this second phase, you turn more to the attack; this is the time for seductive language. Now when you envelop them in your seductive words and letters, it comes as a pleasant surprise. It gives them the immensely pleasing feeling that they are the ones to suddenly inspire you with such poetry and intoxicating words. Pay Attention to Detail Lofty words and grand gestures can be suspi- cious: why are you trying so hard to please? The details of a seduction— the subtle ges- tures, the offhand things you do— are often more charming and revealing. You must learn to distract your victims with a myriad of pleasant little rituals— thoughtful gifts tailored just for them, clothes and adornments designed to please them, gestures that show the time and attention you are paying them. All of their senses are engaged in the details you orchestrate. Create spectacles to dazzle their eyes; mesmerized by what they see, they will not notice what you are really up to. Learn to suggest the proper feelings and moods through details. The Mesmerizing Effect In December 1898, the wives of the seven major Western ambassadors to China received a strange invitation: the sixty-three-year-old Empress Dowager Tzu Hsi was hosting a banquet in their honor in the Forbidden City in Beijing. The ambassadors themselves had been quite displeased with the empress dowager, for several reasons. She was a Manchu, a race of northerners who had conquered China in the early seventeenth century, The barge she sat in, like a establishing the Ching Dynasty and ruling the country for nearly three burnish'd throne, \Burn'd hundred years. By the 1890s, the Western powers had begun to carve up on the water: the poop was beaten gold; \ Purple the parts of China, a country they considered backward. They wanted China sails, and so perfumed that to modernize, but the Manchus were conservative, and resisted all reform. \ The winds were love-sick Earlier in 1898, the Chinese Emperor Kuang Hsu, the empress dowager's with them; the oars were silver, \ Which to the tune twenty-seven-year-old nephew, had actually begun a series of reforms, of flutes kept stroke, and with the blessings of the West. Then, one hundred days into this period of made \ The water which reform, word reached the Western diplomats from the Forbidden City that they beat to follow faster, \ As amorous of their

• From The Art of Seduction (2001)

  ing to guess their destination. A few hours later they entered Milan—what majesty?" • The king joy, the sisters had never been there. Casanova led them to his apartment, replied: "Ask, and it shall where three dresses had been laid out—the most magnificent dresses the be granted. " • Shahrazad called out to the nurses, girls had ever seen. There was one for each of the sisters, he told them, and saying: "Bring me my the green one was for Clementina. Stunned, she put it on, and her face lit children. " • . . . "Behold up. The surprises did not stop—there was a delicious meal, champagne, these three [ little boys] whom Allah has granted to games. By the time they returned to the château, late in the evening, us. For their sake I implore Clementina had fallen hopelessly in love with Casanova. you to spare my life. For if The reason was simple: surprise creates a moment when people's de- you destroy the mother of these infants, they will find fenses come down and new emotions can rush in. If the surprise is pleasur- none among women to love able, the seductive poison enters their veins without their realizing it. Any them as I would." • The sudden event has a similar effect, striking directly at our emotions before king embraced his three we get defensive. Rakes know this power well. sous, and his eyes filled with tears as he answered: A young married woman in the court of Louis XV, in eighteenth- "I swear by Allah, century France, noticed a handsome young courtier watching her, first at Shahrazad, that you were the opera, then in church. Making inquiries, she found it was the Duc de already pardoned before the coming of these children. Richelieu, the most notorious rake in France. No woman was safe from I loved you because I this man, she was warned; he was impossible to resist, and she should avoid found you chaste and him at all costs. Nonsense, she replied, she was happily married. He could tender, wise and eloquent. May Allah bless you, not possibly seduce her. Seeing him again, she laughed at his persistence. and bless your father and He would disguise himself as a beggar and approach her in the park, or his mother, your ancestors, coach would suddenly come alongside hers. He was never aggressive, and and all your descendants. seemed harmless enough. She let him talk to her at court; he was charming O, Shahrazad, this thousand and first night and witty, and even asked to meet her husband. is brighter for us than The weeks passed, and the woman realized she had made a mistake: she the day!" looked forward to seeing the marquis. She had let down her guard. This — TALES FROM THE THOUSAND had to stop. Now she started avoiding him, and he seemed to respect her AND ONE NIGHTS, TRANSLATED BY N.J. DAWOOD

• From Middlesex (2002)

  "She won't 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 bot- tom Tessie and me, lumped together like home fries; over on the left the bikini-liners, lying sunny side up. Helga kept us all sizzling. Holding her aluminum tray, she moved from body to body, spread- 310 I ing 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 violentiy removed. "Oh my!" cried the large lady. "Is nothing," belittled Helga. "I do it per- fect." "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 sec- onds later the wax had hardened. "I have a surprise for you," Tessie said. "What?" I asked, as Helga ripped. I was certain my fledgling mus- tache was gone. Also, my upper lip. "Your brother's coming home for Christmas." My eyes were tearing. I blinked and said nothing, momentarily dumbfounded. Helga turned to my mother. "Some surprise," I said. "He's bringing a girlfriend." "He's got a girlfriend? Who would go out with him?" "Her name is . ." Helga ripped. After a moment my mother re- . sumed, "Meg." From then on, Sophie Sassoon took care of my facial hair. I went in about twice a month, adding depilation to an ever-growing list of upkeep requirements. I started shaving my legs and underarms. I plucked my eyebrows. The dress code at my school forbade cosmet- ics. 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 in Funny Girl. The tri- umphant, long-nosed divas. At home I snooped in Tessie's bath- room. 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 college— he was a sophomore now— had the bathroom to myself. This was evident from the medicine cab- 311

• From Story of the Eye (1928)

  It was so extraordinary that one girl and my mother fell back together, and the others let out piercing shrieks. I myself felt a sudden terror, which stifled my voice, and so it took me a few seconds before I could hurl some threats, which were unintelligible to the phantom, even though I was certain from the very beginning that it was all a hoax. The phantom did flee the moment he saw me striding towards him, and I didn’t let him out of my sight until I recognized my older brother, who had cycled up with another boy. Wearing a sheet, he had succeeded in scaring us by popping out under the sudden ray of an acetylene lantern. The day I found the photograph in the magazine, I had just finished the sheet episode in the story, and I noticed that I kept seeing the sheet at the left, just as the sheeted ghost had appeared at the left, and I realized there was a perfect coincidence of images tied to analogous upheavals. Indeed, I have rarely been as dumbfounded as at the apparition of the false phantom. I was very astonished at having unknowingly substituted a perfectly obscene image for a vision apparently devoid of any sexual implication. Still, I would soon have cause for even greater astonishment. I had already thought out all the details of the scene in the Seville vestry, especially the incision in the priest’s socket and the plucking of his eye, when, realizing the kinship between the story and my own life, I amused myself by introducing the description of a tragic bullfight that I had actually witnessed. Oddly enough, I drew no connection between the two episodes until I did a precise description of the injury inflicted on Manuel Granero (a real person) by the bull; but the moment I reached this death scene, I was totally taken aback. The opening of the priest’s eye was not, as I had believed, a gratuitous invention. I was merely transfering, to a different person, an image that had most likely led a very profound life. If I devised the business about snipping out the priest’s eye, it was because I had seen a bull’s horn tear out a matador’s eye. Thus, precisely the two images that probably most upset me had sprung from the darkest corner of my memory—and in a scarcely recognizable shape—as soon as I gave myself over to lewd dreams. But no sooner did I realize this (I had just finished portraying the bullfight of May 7) than I visited a friend of mine, who is a doctor. I read the description to him, but it was not in the same form as now.

• From Bright Lights, Big City (1984)

  “You bet.” You take Stevie’s hand and make for the dance floor, where you add yourselves to the confusion. Elvis Costello says pump it up when you don’t really need it. Stevie carves sinuous figures between the beat. You do your patented New York Torque. The music is just about loud enough to drive everything between your ears down through the spinal column into your bones, and possibly you can shake it out via your fingertips, femurs and toes. Stevie puts her arms on your shoulders and kisses you. When she says she has to go to the Ladies’, you head for the bar to get drinks. Tad awaits you. “Have you seen our friend?” “Which friend?” “Your formerly deceased not-yet-ex wife.” You look up from the bottles and scan the immediate vicinity. “Amanda?” “Sure enough. The face that launched a thousand trips to Bloomingdale’s.” “Where?” Tad puts his hand behind your head and directs your gaze to a group near the elevator. She is standing in profile, not twenty feet away. At first you think this is just a close resemblance, then she lifts her hand to her shoulder and begins to twirl a strand of hair between the tips of her fingers. Her agent used to tell her she’d ruin her hair that way. There is no doubt. Not now, you think. She’s wearing toreador pants and a silver flak jacket. Beside her, a Mediterranean hulk in a white silk shirt emanates a proprietary air. As you watch he smiles at something Amanda has said, and reaches over to squeeze her ass. Au contraire, Pierre. Sexual Abandonment in spades. The man looks like he was carved by Praxiteles in 350 B.C. and touched up by Paramount in 1947. You wonder if the physique is functional or cosmetic. How well would he respond if you ripped his

• From Middlesex (2002)

  inet. 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 prom- ised to make me "the girl with the hair" (but wasn't I already?). From there we move on to the facial products: my Epi* Clear Acne Kit; my Grazy Curl hair iron; a bottle of Femlron pills which I was hoping to someday need; and a shaker of Love's 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 L'Air du Temps by Nina Ricci ("Only the romantic need apply"). I also had a tub of Jolen 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," she'd said, astonishing me completely. No fur- ther 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 per- son. He'd grown his hair out (not as long as mine, but still). He'd 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 understand 2001 : A Space Odyssey , even the ending. But it wasn't un- til Chapter Eleven descended into the basement to play Ping-Pong with Milton that I understood what was behind all this. We'd 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. 312

• From Looking for Alaska (2005)

  We started with the 50s wing of dorms and made our way backward around the hexagon—she pushed open the back windows while I looked out and made sure no one was walking by. I’d never been in most people’s rooms. After three months, I knew most people, but I regularly talked to very few—just the Colonel and Alaska and Takumi, really. But in a few hours, I got to know my classmates quite well. Wilson Carbod, the center for the Culver Creek Nothings, had hemorrhoids, or at least he kept hemorrhoidal cream secreted away in the bottom drawer of his desk. Chandra Kilers, a cute girl who loved math a little too much, and who Alaska believed was the Colonel’s future girlfriend, collected Cabbage Patch Kids. I don’t mean that she collected Cabbage Patch Kids when she was, like, five. She collected them now—dozens of them—black, white, Latino, and Asian, boys and girls, babies dressed like farmhands and budding businessmen. A senior Weekday Warrior named Holly Moser sketched nude self-portraits in charcoal pencil, portraying her rotund form in all its girth. I was stunned by how many people had booze. Even the Weekday Warriors, who got to go home every weekend, had beer and liquor stashed everywhere from toilet tanks to the bottoms of dirty-clothes hampers. “God, I could have ratted out anyone,” Alaska said softly as she unearthed a forty-ounce bottle of Magnum malt liquor from Longwell Chase’s closet. I wondered, then, why she had chosen Paul and Marya. Alaska found everyone’s secrets so fast that I suspected she’d done this before, but she couldn’t possibly have had advance knowledge of the secrets of Ruth and Margot Blowker, ninth-grade twin sisters who were new and seemed to socialize even less than I did. After crawling into their room, Alaska looked around for a moment, then walked to the bookshelf. She stared at it, then pulled out the King James Bible, and there—a purple bottle of Maui Wowie wine cooler. “How clever,” she said as she twisted off the cap. She drank it down in two long sips, and then proclaimed, “Maui WOWIE!” “They’ll know you were here!” I shouted. Her eyes widened. “Oh no, you’re right, Pudge!” she said. “Maybe they’ll go to the Eagle and tell him that someone stole their wine cooler!” She laughed and leaned out the window, throwing the empty bottle into the grass. And we found plenty of porn magazines haphazardly stuffed in between mattresses and box springs. It turns out that Hank Walsten did like something other than basketball and pot: he liked Juggs . But we didn’t find a movie until Room 32, occupied by a couple of guys from Mississippi named Joe and Marcus. They were in our religion class and sometimes sat with the Colonel and me at lunch, but I didn’t know them well. Alaska read the sticker on the top of the video. “The Bitches of Madison County . Well.

• From Middlesex (2002)

  noticed their military bearing, the high polish of their shoes, their vivid neckties. She must have felt the contrast between the young men's 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, flat-topped headgear of my grandparents' former tormentors. The hats named for the city in Morocco where the blood-colored dye came from, and 143 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 she'd 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 back- yard. 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 weren't 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 women's 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. "I'm 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 Desdemona's face. "We got a problem. What you is?" "I'm Greek." "Greek, huh. That's a kind of white, isn't it? You born in Greece?" "No. From Turkey. We come from Turkey. My husband and me, too." 144 "Turkey! Why didn't you say so? Turkey's a Muslim country. You a Muslim?" "No, Greek. Greek Church." "But you born in Turkey." "What?" "Yes." "And your people come from Turkey?"

• From Middlesex (2002)

  Jimmy Zizmo was so many things I don't know where to begin. Amateur herbalist; antisuffragist; big-game hunter; ex-con; drug pusher; teetotaler— take your pick. He was forty- five years old, nearly 88 twice as old as his wife. Standing on the dim porch, he wore an inex- pensive 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 he'd 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 girl's, his eyelashes so thick he might have been wearing mascara. But my grandmother didn't 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 didn't tell us about him in your letters?" "He's not an Arab. He's from the Black Sea." "This is the sala" Zizmo was meanwhile explaining to Lefty as he showed him around the house. "Pontian!" Desdemona gasped with horror, while also examining the icebox. "He's 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 he's so dark?" "I don't know and I don't care." "You're free to stay as long as you like"— Zizmo was now leading Lefty upstairs—"but there are a few house rules. First, I'm a vegetar- ian. 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 don't want any trouble with the police. Now, about die 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 down- stairs as she inspected the oven. "At least he's not my brother." "Quiet! Don't even joke." 89 "I didn't 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. He'd never announced it to a stranger before, and it made him feel happy and frightened all at once. "If you don't get paid, don't get married," Zizmo said. "That's 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? I'm an importer." "I don't know of what," Sourmelina answered in the kitchen. "An importer. All I know is he brings home money."

• From Middlesex (2002)

  Now Fard Muhammad steps from behind the podium. He crosses the stage and descends to the main floor. He approaches Des- demona while continuing to display his omniscience. "Still running the speakeasy? Those days are numbered. Lefty bet- ter find something else to do." Fedora tilted to one side, suit neatiy 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 Desdemona's heart madly thumps, Fard Muhammad removes his hat to reveal his face. And the Prophet smiles. Surely you've guessed by now. That's right: Jimmy Zizmo. "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 163 aware of the repercussions and begins to scold. "Why you leave your wife and child? What's the matter with you?" "My only responsibility is to my people ." "What people? The mavrosV* "The Original People." She cannot tell if he is serious or not. "Why you don't like white people? Why you call them devils?" "Look at the evidence. This city. This country. Don't 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, unnatu- ral appetites. And you and Lefty? Do you think you fooled me?" "Please, Jimmy." "Don't call me that. That isn't my name." "What you mean? You are my brother-in-law." "You don't 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 didn't see. But it's 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 per- sonal 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, "Don't 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. 164

• From Middlesex (2002)

  am back to my old ways. To my solitary walks through Victoria- park. To my Romeo y Julietas, my Davidoff Grand Cms. To my ,1 embassy receptions, my Philharmonie concerts, my nightly rounds at the Felsenkeller. It's 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 don't get the bright leaves here in Europe the way you do in New England. The leaves smolder but never catch flame. It's still warm enough to bicycle. Last night I rode from Schoneberg to Orianenburger Strasse 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 doll's 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, their Strich, my feelings toward them were not a man's. I was aware of a good girl's reproachfulness and disdain, along with a perceptible, physical empathy. As they shifted their hips, hook- ing me with their darkly painted eyes, my mind filled not with im- ages 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. The Huren themselves didn't 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. 307 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? You're getting just the tiniest bit of a mustache. Have your mother bring you by the shop. I'll take care of it for you." A mustache? Was it true? Like Mrs. Drexel? I hurried to the bath- room to see. Mrs. Tsilouras was reapplying lipstick, but as soon as she left I put my face up to the mirror. Not a full-fledged mustache: only a few darkish hairs above my upper lip. This wasn't as surprising as it may seem. In fact, I'd been expecting it. Like the Sun Belt or the Bible Belt, there exists, on this multifari- ous 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 blan- kets Syria, Iran, and Afghanistan, before lightening gradually in In- dia. After that, except for a single dot representing the Ainu in Japan, the Hair Belt ends.

• From Middlesex (2002)

  Jimmy Zizmo (shortened from Zisimopoulos) had come to America in 1907 at the age of thirty. The family didn't know much about him except that he was a hard bargainer. In a series of letters to Sourmelina's 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, hold- ing 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 laborer's dark complexion. Such a discrepancy might have dis- appointed a normal bride, but Sourmelina didn't care one way or an- other. 86 Sourmelina had written often, describing her new life in America, but she concentrated on the new fashions, or her Aeriola Jr., the ra- dio she spent hours each day listening to, wearing earphones and manipulating the dial, stopping every so often to clean off the car- bon 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 unsatis- fied; or inferring, from a passage about Sourmelina's latest hair- style—something called "cootie garages"— whether 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 sleeping-together mar- ried?" 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 couldn't abide such irony. She grabbed Sourme- lina's hands and pleaded, "You have to promise never to tell. We'll live, we'll die, and that will be the end of it." "I won't tell." "People can't even know I'm your cousin." "I won't tell anyone." "What about your husband?" "He thinks I'm picking up my cousin and his new wife." "You won't say anything to him?" "That'll be easy." Lina laughed. "He doesn't listen to me."

• From Middlesex (2002)

  in slow motion, suckinghistoothlessmawandholdingoutahand for spare change.But whatcan theydo?They don't haveanyplumbing. Nosewers, terrible,terrible.Shewalked byabarbershopwheremen were getting their hairstraightened, wearing showercapslike women. Acrossthe streetyoung menwerecallingout to her: "Baby,you gotsomanycurvesyoumake a car crash!" "You mustbea doughnut, baby,'causeyoumake myjellyroll!" Laughtererupted behind herasshehurriedon. Fartherandfar- therin,past streetsshedidn'tknowthe namesof.Thesmellof unfa- miliarfood intheairnow,fishcaught fromthenearbyriver, pig knuckles, hominygrits,friedbaloney,black-eyed peas.Butalsomany houseswherenotiiing was cooking,where no one waslaughingor eventalking,dark roomsfull ofwearyfacesandscroungy dogs.It wasfroma porch like thisthat somebodyfinally spoke. A woman, thank God. "Youlost?" Desdemona took inthesoft,molded face. "I amlookingforfac- tory.Silkfactory." "Nofactoriesaroundhere.Ifthere was they'd be closed." Desdemonahandedhertheaddress. Thelady pointedacrossthestreet."Youthere." Andturning, whatdid Desdemona see? Didshe seea brown brick building known until recently as McPhersonHall?Aplacerented out for politicalmeetings,weddings,ordemonstrationsbytheoccasional traveling clairvoyant?Didshenoticetheornamentaltouchesaround theentrance, theRomanurns spillinggranitefruit,theharlequin marble? Ordid hereyesfocus insteadonthetwoyoungblackmen standing atattentionoutsidethefrontdoor? Didshe notice their im- peccablesuits, onethelightblue of a globe'swateryportions,the other thepale lavenderof Frenchpastilles? Certainly she must have noticed their military bearing,the highpolishoftheirshoes,their vivid neckties. Shemust havefeltthecontrast betweentheyoung men's confident airand thatofthe downtrodden neighborhood, but whatever shefelt at that moment,her complexreactionhascome down to meas a single, shocked realization. Fezzes. They were wearing fezzes.Thesoft, maroon, flat-topped headgear of my grandparents'former tormentors.Thehatsnamed for the city inMorocco wherethe blood-coloreddyecamefrom, and 143 which (on the heads ofsoldiers)had chasedmy grandparents outof Turkey, stainingthe earth adarkmaroon.Now heretheywere again, in Detroit,ontheheadsoftwohandsome youngNegroes. (And fezzeswillappearoncemoreinmy story,onthe day of a funeral, but the coincidence, beingthekindofthingonly reallifecancome up with,istoogoodtogiveawayrightnow.) Tentatively,Desdemona crossed the street.She told themen she'd comeaboutthead.Onenodded."Youhave togoaroundback,"he said.Politely,heledherdownanalleyand intothewell-swept back- yard.Atthatmoment,as ata discreetsignal,the backdoorswung openand Desdemonareceivedher secondshock.Twowomenin chadorsappeared.Theylooked,tomygrandmother,like devout Muslims from Bursa, exceptforthecolorof theirgarments.They weren'tblack.Theywerewhite.Thechadors startedat their chins andhung all thewaytotheir ankles.White headscarvescoveredtheir hair.Theyworenoveils, butas theycameforward,Desdemona saw brownschooloxfordsontheirfeet. Fezzes,chadors,andnextthis: a mosque.Inside,theformer McPhersonHallhadbeenredecoratedaccordingtoaMoorish theme.Theattendantsled Desdemonaovergeometrictilework.They tookherpastthick,fringeddraperiesthatshutout thelight.There wasnosoundbutthe swishingofthewomen'srobesand,fromfar off,whatsoundedlikeavoicespeakingor praying.Finally,they showedherintoan office wherea womanwashangingapicture. "I'mSisterWanda,"thewomansaid,without turningaround. "Supreme Captain,TempleNo. 1." Shewore anothersortofchador entirely,withpipingandepaulettes.The pictureshewashanging showed a flying saucer hoveringovertheskyline ofNewYork.Itwas shootingoutrays. "You come aboutthejob?" "Yes.Iamsilkworker.Havelot experience. Farming the silk, makingthecocoonery,weavingthe ..." Sister Wandaswiveledaround. She scanned Desdemona's face. "Wegota problem.What youis?" "I'mGreek." "Greek,huh. That's a kindofwhite,isn'tit? You borninGreece?" "No.From Turkey.WecomefromTurkey. My husbandandme, too." 144 "Turkey! Whydidn'tyou say so?Turkey's a Muslimcountry.You a Muslim?" "No, Greek. GreekChurch." "But youborninTurkey." "What?" "Yes." "And yourpeoplecomefromTurkey?" "Yes." "Soyouprobablymixedupalittlebit,right?Younot allwhite." Desdemonahesitated. "See,Pm tryingto seehowwecanworkit,"SisterWanda went on."MinisterFard, who cometousfromtheHolyCityofMecca,he alwaysbe impressingon ustheimportanceofself-reliance.Can'trely onnowhiteman no more. Gottodo forourself, understand?"She loweredhervoice."Problem is, nobodyworth atootcomeforthe ad.Peoplecomeinhere, theysay theyknowsilk, but they don'tknow nothing. Just hopingto get hiredandfired. Getaday'spay." Shenar- rowed hereyes."Thatwhat you planning?" "No.Iwantonlyhire. No fire." "Butwhat youis?Greek,Turkish, or what?" Again Desdemonahesitated.She thought about herchildren. She imaginedcoming hometothem withoutanyfood.Andtiienshe swallowed hard. "Everybody mixed.Turks,Greeks,samesame." "That's whatIwantedto hear."SisterWandasmiledbroadly. "Minister Fard, he mixed,too.Letmeshowyouwhatweneed." Sheled Desdemonadown a long, wainscotedcorridor,through a telephone operator'soffice,and intoanotherdarkerhallway.Atthe far endheavy drapesblocked offthemain lobby.Twoyoungguards stood at attention. "You cometowork for us, fewthingsyou should know. Never, ever, go through themcurtains.Main templeinthere, where Minister Fard deliverhis sermons.You stay back herein the women's quarters. Best cover yourhair,too.That hatshowsyour ears, which beanenticement." Desdemona instinctively touchedher ears,lookingbackatthe guards. Their expressions remainedimpassive. Sheturnedback, fol- lowing the Supreme Captain. "Let me showyou theoperationwe gotgoing,"SisterWanda 145

• From Holy Ghost Girl (2012)

  They laughed together when Gary or I told funny stories, and at those moments their eyes held and a wistful look passed between them, but they never touched. Brother Terrell’s ministry may have been responsible for the rift between the Colemans. Women who followed the ministry often ended up alienated from their husbands. Sometimes men complained of the money their wives gave and sometimes they said the preacher had taken their place in their wives’ affections. Brother Terrell explained his effect by paraphrasing Jesus: “I have not come to bring peace, but a sword, and a man’s enemies will be of his own household.”Sometimes after school Sister Coleman picked me up and took me to her office, a three-room building surrounded by a dirt parking lot. On my first trip there, I was so distracted by the green metal vending machine in the hall (three kinds of snacks) that I didn’t pay much attention to Sister Coleman’s explanation of what kind of work she did. Until we walked into the main room. Teeth, sets of teeth, top and bottom, the whole pink and white inside of a mouth, many mouths, were scattered across counters, shelves, and the very table where Sister Coleman directed me to sit.“I . . . I . . .” My hand flew across my mouth, as if to safeguard what was inside.She nudged me toward the table. “Child, did you hear what I said?”I shook my head no.She took my hand away from my mouth. “What is it?”I pointed around the room. “Whose are those?”She laughed. “We make them at the lab, then bring them here for the employees and me to finish up.”I put my schoolbooks on the table and used them to nudge a set of dentures out of the way.“They won’t bite, you know.”I didn’t know.She walked back to the entry. “Come on out here. We’ll get you a snack.”It took me a long time to choose between peanuts, orange crackers with cheese, and orange crackers with peanut butter. After changing my mind at least four times, I chose the peanut-butter crackers. I savored every bite, wiped the crumbs from my mouth, and crumpled the cellophane wrapper. “I could eat a dozen of those.”Life sometimes offers hints of what’s to come, a foreshadowing that we can only decipher years later, if at all. People say, “I should’ve seen that comin’,” but the signs are often subtle, saying one thing and meaning another. Once or twice a week we went with Sister Coleman to an abandoned movie theater where we met with about five other believers and “had church.” These people, mostly women, were followers of Brother Terrell who had decided they could no longer tolerate the false doctrines of the institutionalized church. There was no minister and no music to accompany our strained renditions of old gospel choruses.