Middlesex - Jeffrey Eugenides [97]
Meanwhile, Desdemona and Milton were writing to each other, too. Before going off to war, my father had promised his mother that he’d finally become literate in Greek. Now, from California, lying on his bunk in the evenings, so sore he could barely move, Milton consulted a Greek-English dictionary to piece together reports on his navy life. No matter how hard he concentrated, however, by the time his letters arrived at Hurlbut Street something had been lost in translation.
“What kind of paper this is?” Desdemona asked her husband, holding up a letter that resembled Swiss cheese. Like mice, military censors had nibbled at Milton’s letters before Desdemona got to digest them. They bit off any mention of the word “invasion,” any reference to “San Diego” or “Coronado.” They chewed through whole paragraphs describing the naval base, the destroyers and submarines docked at the pier. Since the censors’ Greek was even worse than Milton’s, they often made mistakes, lopping off endearments, x’s and o’s.
Despite the gaps in Milton’s missives (syntactical and physical), my grandmother registered the danger of his situation. In his badly penned sigmas and deltas she spied the shaking hand of her son’s growing anxiety. Over his grammatical mistakes she detected the note of fear in his voice. The stationery itself frightened her because it already looked blown to bits.
Seaman Stephanides, however, was doing his best to prevent injury. On a Wednesday morning, he reported to the base library to take the admittance exam for the U.S. Naval Academy. Over the next five hours, every time he looked up from his test paper, he saw his shipmates doing calisthenics in the hot sun. He couldn’t help smiling. While his buddies were baking out there, Milton was sitting under a ceiling fan, working out a mathematical proof. While they were forced to run up and down the sandy gridiron, Milton was reading a paragraph by someone named Carlyle and answering the questions that followed. And tonight, when they would be getting creamed against the rocks, he would be snug in his bunk, fast asleep.
By the time the early months of 1945 rolled in, everyone was looking for exemptions from duty. My mother hid from charitable works by going to the movies. My father ducked maneuvers by taking a test. But when it came to exemptions, my grandmother sought one from nothing less than heaven itself.
One Sunday in March, she arrived at Assumption before the Divine Liturgy had started. Going into a niche, she approached the icon of St. Christopher and proposed a deal. “Please, St. Christopher,” Desdemona kissed her fingertips and touched them to the saint’s forehead, “if you keep Miltie safe in the war, I will make him promise to go back to Bithynios and fix the church.” She looked up at St. Christopher, the martyr of Asia Minor. “If the Turks destroyed it, Miltie will build it again. If it only needs painting, he’ll paint.” St. Christopher was a giant. He held a staff and forded a rushing river. On his back was the Christ Child, the heaviest baby in history because he had the world in his hands. What better saint to protect her own son, in peril on the sea? In the shadowy, lamplit space, Desdemona prayed. She moved her lips, spelling out the conditions. “I would also like, if possible, St. Christopher, if Miltie he could be excused from the training. He tells me it is very dangerous. He’s writing to me in Greek now, too, St. Christopher. Not too good but okay. I also make him promise to put in the church new pews. Also, if you like, some carpets.” She lapsed into silence, closing her eyelids. She crossed herself numerous times, waiting for an