Middlesex - Jeffrey Eugenides [83]
And now Desdemona is descending the stairs on her way out. She reaches the first floor and turns to look back at the lobby. For the first time ever, the Fruit of Islam do not guard the lobby entrance. The drapes hang open. Desdemona knows she should keep going out the back door, but she has nothing to lose now, and so ventures toward the front. She approaches the double doors and pushes her way into the sanctum sanctorum.
For the first fifteen seconds, she stands still, as her idea of the room switches places with reality. She had imagined a soaring dome, a richly colored Ezine carpet, but the room is just a simple auditorium. A small stage at one end, folding chairs stacked along the walls. She absorbs all this quietly. And then, once more, there is a voice:
“Hello, Desdemona.”
On the empty stage, the Prophet, the Mahdi, Fard Muhammad, stands behind the podium. He is barely more than a silhouette, slender and elegant, wearing a fedora that shadows his face.
“You’re not supposed to be in here,” he says. “But I guess today it’s all right.”
Desdemona, her heart in her throat, manages to ask, “How you know my name?”
“Haven’t you heard? I know everything.”
Coming through the heating vent, Fard Muhammad’s deep voice had made her solar plexus vibrate. Now, closer up, it penetrates her entire body. The rumble spreads down her arms until her fingers are tingling.
“How’s Lefty?”
This question rocks Desdemona back on her heels. She is speechless. She is thinking many things at once, first of all, how can Fard know her husband’s name, did she tell Sister Wanda? … and, second, if it’s true he knows everything, then the rest must be true, too, about the blue-eyed devils and the evil scientist and the Mother Plane from Japan that will come to destroy the world and take the Muslims away. Dread seizes her, while at the same time she is remembering something, asking where she has heard that voice before …
Now Fard Muhammad steps from behind the podium. He crosses the stage and descends to the main floor. He approaches Desdemona while continuing to display his omniscience.
“Still running the speakeasy? Those days are numbered. Lefty better find something else to do.” Fedora tilted to one side, suit neatly 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.
“Mana!”
“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 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 mavros?”
“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, unnatural 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