Middlesex

genitalia. That, coupled with her being brought up as a girl, resulted in her thinking, acting, and looking like a girl. The problem came when she started to go through puberty. At puberty, the other androgen—testosterone—started to exert a strong effect. The simplest way to put it is like this: Callie is a girl who has a little too much male hormone. We want to correct that.”

Neither Milton nor Tessie said a word. They weren’t following everything the doctor was saying but, as people do with doctors, they were attentive to his manner, trying to see how serious things were. Luce seemed optimistic, confident, and Tessie and Milton began to be filled with hope.

“That’s the biology. It’s a very rare genetic condition, by the way. The only other populations where we know of this mutation expressing itself are in the Dominican Republic, Papua New Guinea, and southeastern Turkey. Not that far from the village your parents came from. About three hundred miles, in fact.” Luce removed his silver glasses. “Do you know of any family member who may have had a similar genital appearance to your daughter’s?”

“Not that we know of,” said Milton.

“When did your parents immigrate?”

“Nineteen twenty-two.”

“Do you have any relatives still living in Turkey?”

“Not anymore.”

Luce looked disappointed. He had one arm of his glasses in his mouth, and was chewing on it. Possibly he was imagining what it would be like to discover a whole new population of carriers of the 5-alpha-reductase mutation. He had to content himself with discovering me.

He put his glasses back on. “The treatment I’d recommend for your daughter is twofold. First, hormone injections. Second, cosmetic surgery. The hormone treatments will initiate breast development and enhance her female secondary sex characteristics. The surgery will make Callie look exactly like the girl she feels herself to be. In fact, she will be that girl. Her outside and inside will conform. She will look like a normal girl. Nobody will be able to tell a thing. And then Callie can go on and enjoy her life.”

Milton’s brow was still furrowed with concentration but from his eyes there was light appearing, rays of relief. He turned toward Tessie and patted her leg.

But in a timid, breaking voice Tessie asked, “Will she be able to have children?”

Luce paused only a second. “I’m afraid not, Mrs. Stephanides. Callie will never menstruate.”

“But she’s been menstruating for a few months now,” Tessie objected.

“I’m afraid that’s impossible. Possibly there was some bleeding from another source.”

Tessie’s eyes filled with tears. She looked away.

“I just got a postcard from a former patient,” Luce said consolingly. “She had a condition similar to your daughter’s. She’s married now. She and her husband adopted two kids and they’re as happy as can be. She plays in the Cleveland Orchestra. Bassoon.”

There was a silence, until Milton asked, “Is that it, Doctor? You do this one surgery and we can take her home?”

“We may have to do additional surgery at a later date. But the immediate answer to your question is yes. After the procedure, she can go home.”

“How long will she be in the hospital?”

“Only overnight.”

It was not a difficult decision, especially as Luce had framed it. A single surgery and some injections would end the nightmare and give my parents back their daughter, their Calliope, intact. The same enticement that had led my grandparents to do the unthinkable now offered itself to Milton and Tessie. No one would know. No one would ever know.

While my parents were being given a crash course in gonadogenesis, I—still officially Calliope—was doing some homework myself. In the Reading Room of the New York Public Library I was looking up something in the dictionary. Dr. Luce was correct in thinking that his conversations with colleagues and medical students were over my head. I didn’t know what “5-alpha-reductase” meant, or “gynecomastia,” or “inguinal canal.” But Luce had underestimated my abilities, too. He didn’t take into consideration the rigorous curriculum at my prep school. He didn’t allow for my excellent research and study skills. Most of all, he didn’t factor in the power of my Latin teachers, Miss Barrie and Miss Silber. So now, as my Wallabees made squishing sounds between the reading tables, as a few men looked up from their books to see what was coming and then looked down (the world was no longer full of eyes), I heard Miss Barrie’s voice in my ear. “Infants, define this word for me: hypospadias. Use your Greek or Latin roots.”

The little schoolgirl in my head wriggled in her desk, hand raised high. “Yes, Calliope?” Miss Barrie called on me.

“ Hypo. Below or beneath. Like ‘hypodermic.’ ”

“Brilliant. And spadias?”

“Um um …”

“Can anyone come to our poor muse’s aid?”

But, in the classroom of my brain, no one could. So that was why I was here. Because I knew that I had something below or beneath but I didn’t know what that something was.

I had never seen such a big dictionary before. The Webster’s at the New York Public Library stood in the same relation to other dictionaries of my acquaintance as the Empire State Building did to other buildings. It was an ancient, medieval-looking thing, bound in brown leather that brought to mind a falconer’s gauntlet. The pages were gilded like the Bible’s.

Flipping pages through the alphabet, past cantabile to eryngo, past fandango to formicate (that’s with an m), past hypertonia to hyposensitivity, and there it was:

hypospadiasnew latin, from Greek, man with hypospadias fr. hypo + prob from spadon, eunuch, fr. span, to tear, pluck, pull, draw.—An abnormality of the penis in which the urethra opens on its under surface. See synonyms at eunuch.

I did as instructed and got

eunuch —1.a castrated man; especially, one of those who were employed as harem attendants or functionaries in certain Oriental courts.2. a man whose testes have not developed. See synonyms at hermaphrodite.

Following where the trail led, I finally reached

hermaphrodite —1.one having the sex organs and many of the secondary sex characteristics of both male and female.2. anything comprised of a combination of diverse or contradictory elements. See synonyms at monster.

And that is where I stopped. And looked up, to see if anyone was watching. The vast Reading Room thrummed with silent energy: people thinking, writing. The painted ceiling bellied overhead like a sail, and down below the green desk lamps glowed, illuminating faces bent over books. I was stooping over mine, my hair falling onto the pages, covering up the definition of myself. My lime green coat was hanging open. I had an appointment with Luce later in the day and my hair was washed, my underpants fresh. My bladder was full and I crossed my legs, putting off a trip to the bathroom. Fear was stabbing me. I longed to be held, caressed, and that was impossible. I laid my hand on the dictionary and looked at it. Slender, leaf-shaped, it had a braided rope ring on one finger, a gift from the Object. The rope was getting dirty. I looked at my pretty hand and then pulled it away and faced the word again.

There it was, monster, in black and white, in a battered dictionary in a great city library. A venerable, old book, the shape and size of a headstone, with yellowing pages that bore marks of the multitudes who had consulted them before me. There were pencil scrawls and ink stains, dried blood, snack crumbs; and the leather binding itself was secured to the lectern by a chain. Here was a book that contained the