Middlesex

Wearing embroidered palikari vest, puffy-sleeved poukamiso, and pleated foustanella skirt, my grandfather bestrides the gangway. He pauses a moment to look out at the audience, but the bright lights blind him. He can’t see my grandmother looking back, bursting with her secret. GERMANY taps him on the back. “Macht schnell. Excuse me. Go fastly.”

In the front row, Henry Ford nods with approval, enjoying the show. Mrs. Ford tries to whisper in his ear, but he waves her off. His blue seagull’s eyes dart from face to face as the English instructors appear onstage next. They carry long spoons, which they insert into the pot. The lights turn red and flicker as the instructors stir. Steam rises over the stage.

Inside the cauldron, men are packed together, throwing off immigrant costumes, putting on suits. Limbs are tangling up, feet stepping on feet. Lefty says, “Pardon me, excuse me,” feeling thoroughly American as he pulls on his blue wool trousers and jacket. In his mouth: thirty-two teeth brushed in the American manner. His underarms: liberally sprinkled with American deodorant. And now spoons are descending from above, men are churning around and around . . .

. . . as two men, short and tall, stand in the wings, holding a piece of paper . . .

. . . and out in the audience my grandmother has a stunned look on her face . . .

. . . and the melting pot boils over. Red lights brighten. The orchestra launches into “Yankee Doodle.” One by one, the Ford English School graduates rise from the cauldron. Dressed in blue and gray suits, they climb out, waving American flags, to thunderous applause.

The curtain had barely come down before the men from the Sociological Department approached.

“I pass the final exam,” my grandfather told them. “Ninety-three percent! And today I open savings account.”

“That sounds fine,” the tall one said.

“But unfortunately, it’s too late,” said the short one. He took a slip from his pocket, a color well known in Detroit: pink.

“We did some checking on your landlord. This so-called Jimmy Zizmo. He’s got a police record.”

“I don’t know anything,” my grandfather said. “I’m sure is a mistake. He is a nice man. Works hard.”

“I’m sorry, Mr. Stephanides. But you can understand that Mr. Ford can’t have workers maintaining such associations. You don’t need to come down to the plant on Monday.”

As my grandfather struggled to absorb this news, the short one leaned in. “I hope you learn a lesson from this. Mixing with the wrong crowd can sink you. You seem like a nice guy, Mr. Stephanides. You really do. We wish you the best of luck in the future.”

A few minutes later, Lefty came out to meet his wife. He was surprised when, in front of everyone, she hugged him, refusing to let go.

“You liked the pageant?”

“It’s not that.”

“What is it?”

Desdemona looked into her husband’s eyes. But it was Sourmelina who explained it all. “Your wife and I?” she said in plain English. “We’re both knocked up.”

MINOTAURS

Which is something I’ll never have much to do with. Like most hermaphrodites but by no means all, I can’t have children. That’s one of the reasons why I’ve never married. It’s one of the reasons, aside from shame, why I decided to join the Foreign Service. I’ve never wanted to stay in one place. After I started living as a male, my mother and I moved away from Michigan and I’ve been moving ever since. In another year or two I’ll leave Berlin, to be posted somewhere else. I’ll be sad to go. This once-divided city reminds me of myself. My struggle for unification, for Einheit. Coming from a city still cut in half by racial hatred, I feel hopeful here in Berlin.

A word on my shame. I don’t condone it. I’m trying my best to get over it. The intersex movement aims to put an end to infant genital reconfiguration surgery. The first step in that struggle is to convince the world—and pediatric endocrinologists in particular—that hermaphroditic genitals are not diseased. One out of every two thousand babies is born with ambiguous genitalia. In the United States, with a population of two hundred and seventy-five million, that comes to one hundred and thirty-seven thousand intersexuals alive today.

But we hermaphrodites are people like everybody else. And I happen not to be a political person. I don’t like groups. Though I’m a member of the Intersex Society of North America, I have never taken part in its demonstrations. I live my own life and nurse my own wounds. It’s not the best way to live. But it’s the way I am.