Middlesex by Jeffrey Eugenides

in ten or fifteen others, then twenty or twenty-five, each house setting fire to its neighbor until entire blocks are burning. The smell of things burning that aren’t meant to burn wafts across the city: shoe polish, rat poison, toothpaste, piano strings, hernia trusses, baby cribs, Indian clubs. And hair and skin. By this time, hair and skin. On the quay, Lefty and Desdemona stand up along with everyone else, with people too stunned to react, or still half-asleep, or sick with typhus and cholera, or exhausted beyond caring. And then, suddenly, all the fires on the hillside form one great wall of fire stretching across the city and—it’s inevitable now—start moving down toward them.
   (And now I remember something else: my father, Milton Stephanides, in robe and slippers, bending over to light a fire on Christmas morning. Only once a year did the need to dispose of a mountain of wrapping paper and cardboard packaging overrule Desdemona’s objections to using our fireplace. “Ma,” Milton would warn her, “I’m going to burn up some of this garbage now.” To which Desdemona would cry, “Mana!” and grab her cane. At the hearth, my father would pull a long match from the hexagonal box. But Desdemona would already be moving away, heading for the safety of the kitchen, where the oven was electric. “Your yia yia doesn’t like fires,” my father would tell us. And, lighting the match, he would hold it to paper covered with elves and Santas as flames leapt up, and we ignorant, American children went crazy throwing paper, boxes, and ribbons into the blaze.)
   Dr. Philobosian stepped out into the street, looked both ways, and ran straight across through the door opposite. He climbed to the landing, where he could see the top of Mrs. Bidzikian’s head from behind as she sat in the living room. He ran to her, telling her not to worry, it was Dr. Philobosian from across the street. Mrs. Bidzikian seemed to nod, but her head didn’t come back up. Dr. Philobosian knelt beside her. Touching her neck, he felt a weak pulse. Gently he pulled her out of the chair and laid her on the floor. As he did so, he heard footsteps on the stairway. He hurried across the room and hid behind the drapes just as the soldiers stormed in.
   For fifteen minutes, they ransacked the apartment, taking whatever the first band had left. They dumped out drawers and slit open sofas and clothing, looking for jewelry or money hidden inside. After they were gone, Dr. Philobosian waited a full five minutes before stepping out from behind the drapes. Mrs. Bidzikian’s pulse had stopped. He spread his handkerchief over her face and made the sign of the cross over her body. Then he picked up his doctor’s bag and hurried down the stairs again.
   The heat precedes the fire. Figs heaped along the quay, not loaded in time, begin to bake, bubbling and oozing juice. The sweetness mixes with the smell of smoke. Desdemona and Lefty stand as close to the water as possible, along with everyone else. There is no escape. Turkish soldiers remain at the barricades. People pray, raise their arms, pleading to ships in the harbor. Searchlights sweep across the water, lighting up people swimming, drowning.
   “We’re going to die, Lefty.”
   “No we’re not. We’re going to get out of here.” But Lefty doesn’t believe this. As he looks up at the flames, he is certain, too, that they are going to die. And this certainty inspires him to say something he would never have said otherwise, something he would never even have thought. “We’re going to get out of here. And then you’re going to marry me.”
   “We should never have left. We should have stayed in Bithynios.”
   As the fire approaches, the doors of the French consulate open. A marine garrison forms two lines stretching across the quay to the harbor. The Tricolor descends. From the consulate’s doors people emerge, men in cream-colored suits and women in straw