Middlesex - Jeffrey Eugenides [45]
“Sometimes.”
“No drinking. Go to a speakeasy if you want to drink. I don’t want any trouble with the police. Now, about the 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 downstairs as she inspected the oven.
“At least he’s not my brother.”
“Quiet! Don’t even joke.”
“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.”
“But how can you marry somebody you don’t know anything about?”
“To get out of that country, Des, I would have married a cripple.”
“I have some experience with importing,” Lefty managed to get in as Zizmo demonstrated the plumbing. “Back in Bursa. In the silk industry.”
“Your portion of the rent is twenty dollars.” Zizmo didn’t take the hint. He pulled the chain, unleashing a flood of water.
“As far as I’m concerned,” Lina was continuing downstairs, “when it comes to husbands, the older the better.” She opened the pantry door. “A young husband would be after me all the time. It would be too much of a strain.”
“Shame on you, Lina.” But Desdemona was laughing now, despite herself. It was wonderful to see her old cousin again, a little piece of Bithynios still intact. The dark pantry, full of figs, almonds, walnuts, halvah, and dried apricots, made her feel better, too.
“But where can I get the rent?” Lefty finally blurted out as they headed back downstairs. “I don’t have any money left. Where can I work?”
“Not a problem.” Zizmo waved his hand. “I’ll speak to a few people.” They came through the sala again. Zizmo stopped and looked significantly down. “You haven’t complimented my zebra skin rug.”
“It’s very nice.”
“I brought it back from Africa. Shot it myself.”
“You’ve been to Africa?”
“I’ve been all over.”
Like everybody else in town, they squeezed in together. Desdemona and Lefty slept in a bedroom directly above Zizmo and Lina’s, and the first few nights my grandmother climbed out of bed to put her ear to the floor. “Nothing,” she said, “I told you.”
“Come back to bed,” Lefty scolded. “That’s their business.”
“What business? That’s what I’m telling you. They aren’t having any business.”
While in the bedroom below, Zizmo was discussing the new boarders upstairs. “What a romantic! Meets a girl on the boat and marries her. No dowry.”
“Some people marry for love.”
“Marriage is for housekeeping and for children. Which reminds me.”
“Please, Jimmy, not tonight.”
“Then when? Five years we’ve been married and no children. You’re always sick, tired, this, that. Have you been taking the castor oil?”
“Yes.”
“And the magnesium?”
“Yes.”
“Good. We have to reduce your bile. If the mother has too much bile, the child will lack vigor and disobey his parents.”
“Good night, kyrie.”
“Good night, kyria.”
Before the week was out, all my grandparents’ questions about Sourmelina’s marriage had been answered. Because of his age, Jimmy Zizmo treated his young bride more like a daughter than a wife. He was always telling her what she could and couldn’t do, howling over the price and necklines of her outfits, telling her to go to bed, to get up, to speak, to keep silent. He refused to give her the car keys until she cajoled him with kisses and caresses. His nutritional quackery even led him to monitor her regularity like a doctor, and some of their biggest fights came as a result of his interrogating Lina about her stools.