Digging to America

  He was sitting on the front porch steps a wiry man in faded jeans. When he saw the car he rose and ambled over, grinning. Salaam aleikum, he said as Maryam stepped forth, and then, in English, It's good to see you.

  It's good to see you, she told him, pressing her cheek to his.

  William was one of those men who had never quite managed to leave their adolescence behind, in her opinion. His jeans were patched with bits of the American flag, and he wore a wisp of a goatee and a single long braid which, now that he was bald on top, made it seem that his hair had somehow slipped several inches backward on his head. His enthusiasm for all things Iranian struck her as adolescent, too. Guess what! he told her now. I've made fesenjan for dinner tonight in your honor.

  Exactly what I'm in the mood for, she said.

  William was in full charge of the cooking and the housework. He was also the breadwinner; he taught creative writing at the local college. Maryam couldn't imagine what Farah did with her time. They had no children hadn't wanted them, evidently and she had never held a job. When she led Maryam upstairs to the guest room she said, Now, I think the bed's made up ... oh, yes, good. The wildflowers on the bureau, jammed clumsily into a cruet, were probably William's doing as well.

  Once Maryam had unpacked they met for cocktails in the parlor, which had the hollow, barnlike feel of a bare-bones New England farmhouse but was decorated with Persian rugs and Isfahani enamelware and jewel-like paisley fabrics. William talked about his newest invention: he was working on an executive toy that he felt sure would make them rich. It's kind of on the order of a lava lamp, he said. You remember those. Only this is much classier-looking. He brought it out to show her: an hourglass shape, in clear plastic, filled with a viscous liquid. See, he said, inverting it, how the liquid sort of squiggles down, spirals clockwise awhile and then changes to counterclockwise, builds up on the surface in a pyramid shape and then all at once decides to flatten ... Doesn't it just grab you?

  Maryam nodded. She did find it oddly mesmerizing.

  What gave me the idea was, we were coming to the end of a bottle of McGleam shampoo and so I turned it upside down over a new bottle; you know how you do. Propped it just so in order to get the last few drops out. And I was watching the drip and suddenly I thought, Man! This could be some, like, Zen-like thing that would center people and focus them. We could market it as a device to lower people's blood pressure! So I worked out this design; figured out the most attractive shape ... only I haven't got the liquid quite right. I mean, it has to be the proper consistency. Thick like McGleam but not too thick, of course, and clear like McGleam because I believe clear is more calming Why can't you just use McGleam? Maryam asked.

  Oh. Use McGleam.

  Wouldn't that be the obvious solution?

  But ... shampoo? Besides, McGleam's about the most expensive brand in the drugstore. He gazed fondly at Farah. Nothing but the best for Farah -june, he said.

  Farah gave him a languid wave and told Maryam, What can I say? I have that tanglesome Karimzadeh hair.

  Over dinner that evening (a real Iranian meal from start to finish, everything authentic), Farah reminisced about their shared childhood. She had a sunnier vision of the past than Maryam did. All her memories seemed to involve hilarious parties, or wagon rides at the family's summer place in Meigun, or daylong picnics with every single relative on both sides in attendance. Where were the quarrels and the schisms, the uncle who took opium and the uncle who embezzled, the aunts' endless, bitter competition for their father's grudging notice? Did Farah not remember the cousin who killed herself when they forbade her to go to medical school, or the cousin who was refused permission to marry the boy she loved? Oh, those were happy, happy times, Farah sighed, and William sighed too and shook his head as if he had been there himself. He loved to hear talk about Iran. He would prompt Farah if she skipped a detail. And the coins! he said. Remember them? The brand-new gold coins that they used to give you children every New Year's? Maryam found this presumptuous of him, although she knew she should feel flattered that he was so interested in their culture.

  It must have been the dinner conversation that caused her to dream that night about her mother. She saw her mother as she had looked when Maryam was just a child pure black hair and unlined skin, the beauty mark on her upper lip accentuated with an eyebrow pencil. She was telling Maryam the story about the nomad tribe she used to spy on as a girl. They had moved into the compound across the street, arriving mysteriously late one night. The women wore gold up to here (and she gestured toward one elbow). The men rode shining horses. One morning she awoke and all of them had vanished. In the dream, as in real life, she told this story in a slow, caressing voice, with a wistful look on her face, and Maryam herself awoke wondering for the first time if her mother might have longed to vanish also. She had never asked her mother a single personal question, at least as far as she could remember; and now it was too late. The thought stirred up a gentle, almost pleasurable melancholy. She still mourned her mother's death, but she had traveled so far from her, into such a different kind of life. It no longer seemed they were related.

  The guest room was beginning to grow light, and the window above her bed showed a square of pale gray sky and a jagged black ridge of fir trees. The scene struck her as no less eerie than a landscape on the moon.

  Over the next several days, she fell into the leisurely routine of the women from her childhood. She and Farah sat drinking tea as they leafed through glossy magazines. William was generally tinkering in his workshop or off somewhere cruising hardware stores and junkyards. Then in the afternoon he started cooking, and every evening he served another Iranian dinner. He took great pride in stating the names of the dishes in Farsi. Have some khoresh, he would say, the kh so stressed and labored that it sounded like a cough. As the week wore on, Maryam found this behavior more and more ridiculous. Although really, where was the harm? She knew she was being unreasonable.

  On the last evening of her visit he asked, May I serve you more polo? and she said, Why don't you just call it rice?

  He said, Pardon? and Farah looked up from her plate.

  I mean, Maryam said, backpedaling, thanks, I'd love more polo.

  Am I pronouncing it wrong? he asked her.

  No, no, I just . . . She disliked herself, suddenly. She seemed to be turning into a cranky old lady. I'm sorry, she said to them both. I guess it's the combination of the different languages. I get confused.

  But that wasn't what was bothering her.

  Once, a year or two after Kiyan's death, a colleague of his had asked her to a concert. A nice enough man, American, divorced. She hadn't been able to think of a good excuse for declining. In the car she had mentioned that Sami was contemplating tennis camp she had used that exact word, contemplating and the man had said, You have an excellent vocabulary, Maryam. And then a few minutes later he had told her he would love to see her sometime in her native dress. Needless to say, she had not gone out with him again.

  And once while she was waiting in her doctor's office a nurse had called, Do we have a Zahedi here? and the receptionist had answered, No, but we have a Yazdan. As if they were interchangeable; as if one foreign patient would do as well as another. And the way she'd pronounced it: Yaz-dun. But even if she'd said it properly, Yazdan was an Americanization, shortened from its longer form when Kiyan first came to this country. Besides, in point of fact Maryam was not a Yazdan anyhow. She was a Karimzadeh, and back home she would have stayed Karimzadeh even after marriage. So the person they were referring to didn't even exist. She was an invention of the Americans.

  Well. Enough. She straightened in her seat and smiled across the table at William. I believe this is the best ghormeh sabzi I've ever eaten, she said.

  He said, Gosh, merci, Maryam.

  When she got back to Baltimore, she found that Susan had changed just in that one week. Several freckles as fine as powdered cinnamon were scattered across her nose now, and she had learned how to walk in f
lip-flops. She strutted through the house with little slapping sounds as the rubber soles hit her heels. Also, Ziba said, she had discovered death. It's like it all at once dawned on her. I don't know from where. She wakes every night now two or three times and asks if she's going to die. I tell her not till she's old, old, old. I know I shouldn't promise that. But I tell her, 'Children don't die.'

  Exactly right, Maryam said firmly.

  Well, but Children do not die.

  Bitsy told her not to worry about it anyhow, because she'd get to come back again as somebody else.

  Maryam raised her eyebrows.

  But Susan said, 'I don't want to be somebody else! I want to be me!'

  Yes, of course she does, Maryam said. Tell her Bitsy's crazy. Oh, Mari -june.

  People have no business pushing their airy-fairy notions on other people's children.

  She meant well, Ziba said.

  Maryam allowed herself a derisive hiss, although she knew that Ziba was right. Bitsy had only been trying to offer reassurance. And she'd been a blessing during Maryam's time in Vermont keeping Susan not just that Tuesday and Thursday but all of Saturday when Ziba's mother had had to undergo an emergency appendectomy. So on Maryam's first Tuesday back home, she made a point of inviting Jin-Ho over to Susan's for the day. Brad delivered her, along with her bathing suit rolled in a towel, and the girls spent the morning splashing in the inflatable wading pool. After lunch, while they were napping together (really just giggling and whispering upstairs in the guest room), Maryam prepared two separate pots of chicken with eggplant, and when it was time for them to walk Jin-Ho home she carried one of the pots with her to give to the Donaldsons.

  Bitsy said, Is that what I think it is? the minute she opened her door. Am I smelling what I think I am? You've made my favorite dish!

  A small token of our thanks, Maryam said. You were so kind to take care of Susan.

  I was happy to do it. Won't you come in?

  We should be getting back, Maryam told her.

  I've just finished making a pitcher of iced tea.

  Thank you, but Right, I forgot, Bitsy said. When it comes to matters of tea you're such a purist. You must hate when people put ice in it. Maryam said, Not at all, although it was true that she had never understood the practice.

  For some reason Bitsy seemed to take this as acceptance of her invitation, because she turned to lead the way into the house. The girls scampered after her and Maryam reluctantly followed, wondering how she had ended up agreeing to this. I didn't leave Ziba a note, she said, placing her pot on the kitchen table. She'll be wondering where we've gone. But even as she spoke she was settling onto a chair.

  You know what you should do? Bitsy asked. She opened the fridge and took out a blue pitcher. You should come help us eat your dish tonight when you've finished watching Susan. Oh, I'm sorry; I can't, Maryam told her.

  Dad will be here!

  I'm having dinner with a friend.

  Bitsy went to the cupboard for glasses. Jin-Ho said, Mama, can me and Susan make popcorn? but all Bitsy said was, What a pity. A man friend, or a woman?

  Pardon? A woman. My friend Kari.

  Mama. Mama. Mom. Can me and Susan I'm having a conversation, Jin-Ho. So, Maryam, is there ever an occasion when you have dinner with just a man?

  Maryam felt taken aback. She said, Are you talking about a ... date? Goodness, no.

  I don't know why not, Bitsy said. You're a very attractive woman.

  I'm past all that, Maryam said flatly. It's too much work. But you surely don't think my father would be work, Bitsy said. Your father?

  Mama, can me and Susan make popcorn?

  I am talking, Jin-Ho. Bitsy set a glass of iced tea in front of Maryam. She hadn't filled her own glass, but she didn't seem to realize that. She sat down opposite Maryam. My father thinks you're wonderful, she said.

  Well ... and I think he's very nice.

  Would you ever go out to dinner with him?

  Maryam blinked.

  He doesn't know I'm asking this. He'd be mortified if he knew! But you're so ... Well, face it, Maryam: you can be fairly daunting. If we waited for him to get up the courage to ask you himself, we'd be waiting forever!

  Maryam said, Oh, I

  He's been mooning over you for months, Bitsy said. She leaned forward, clasping her hands on the table. Her eyes had grown round and shiny. Don't tell me you haven't noticed, she said.

  You must be mistaken, Maryam said, at the same time realizing that Bitsy was probably right. All those coincidental encounters, the way he kept hanging about, the goodbyes that took forever ... She sighed and sat straighter in her chair. Let's talk about your new baby, she said. Ziba says you've heard from the Chinese adoption people.

  Bitsy said, Oh, yes, the . . . But clearly her mind was not on the adoption people. She stayed frozen in her earnest pose, fingers still interlaced and her gaze fixed on something inward.

  They have a child picked out for you, I understand?

  Yes, a ... girl. She appeared to collect her thoughts, finally. Well, of course a girl, she said. That's almost always the case. But still we have a long wait. Probably till next spring, can you believe it? Our daughter's going to be ten or twelve months old before we set eyes on her, and meanwhile there she is! All alone in that big orphanage!

  And so on and so forth, all the niggling requirements and rules and regulations. Maryam took a sip of her iced tea. The girls were on the back porch now, playing with a toy that tinkled out a tinny version of Old MacDonald. The afternoon sun sent a dusty slant of gold across the tiles, and the kitchen seemed safe and peaceful once again.

  At dinner that night, Maryam asked Kari, Do you ever feel exposed because you're not half of a couple?

  Kari said, Exposed?

  I mean, oh, not threatened; I don't mean that, but vulnerable? Unprotected? Anyone can walk up to you and just ... invite you out on a date!

  Horrors, Kari said, and she laughed. But then immediately she grew serious again, so that Maryam suspected she understood what she had been asked. She must; she was a beautiful, fine-boned woman with hauntingly shadowed eyes. Men surely invited her out all the time, although she had never mentioned it. I tell them my culture forbids it, she said.

  Maryam said, You don't! because she'd always felt that Kari was about as liberated as a woman could get.

  I say, 'Pardon? Go out? With a male person? Oh, my goodness!' I say, 'It's clear you don't know I'm a widow.' They say, 'Oh. Uh . . .' because of course they do know, but now they're wondering if there's some primitive Turkish taboo that they weren't aware of.

  I should do that, Maryam said, only half joking.

  It was probably too late, though. Oh, why had she labored all these years to appear so assimilated, so modern and enlightened? Take up wearing a veil, Kari suggested.

  But she was laughing again, and so Maryam laughed too and went back to studying her menu.

  It was Sami and Ziba's turn to host the Arrival Party. Ziba had grand plans, it emerged. I'm thinking about a whole roast lamb, she told Maryam after work one day. Wouldn't that be impressive? You know our Greek friends, Nick and Sofia: they did that for their Easter. Nick dug a hole in their backyard and their auto mechanic made them the spit. We could borrow it, they say. Don't you think?

  That sounds like a lot of trouble, Maryam said.

  I don't mind the trouble!

  And a lot of food, too. How many people are coming?

  Oh, tons of people; you know how it is. Well, only two of my brothers this year, as it happens; but also their wives, and three of their children, and my parents. And all those Dickinsons and Donaldsons or Mac and Abe, at least, and Bitsy's father ...

  Still, a whole lamb! Maryam said.

  But Ziba seemed to be following some other train of thought now. She was gazing at Maryam with a speculative expression. In fact, she said, I think her father would come even if you were the only one here. A dimple showed up in one cheek. Especially if you were the only
one here.

  It sounds as if you've been listening to Bitsy, Maryam said drily. I don't need to hear it from Bitsy! Any idiot can see how he feels.

  Well, this is not a subject that interests me, Maryam told her. She took her handbag from the couch.

  Ziba said, Oh, Mari -june. He's such a kind man, and he always seems so lost. Besides, think how convenient this would be for our two families. Couldn't you just go to dinner with him?

  Maryam stopped digging through her bag for her keys. She said, For heaven's sake, Ziba! Why would you suggest such a thing?

  Why wouldn't I suggest it? You're alone; he's alone ... I'm Iranian; he's American . . .

  What difference does that make?

  You should have been at Farah's with me, Maryam told her. Then you wouldn't ask. Such a point her husband makes about her foreignness! It seems she's not really Farah at all; she's Madame Iran.

  Dave wouldn't do that.

  Oh, no? 'Tell me,' she said, putting on an earnest tone of voice, 'what are your people's folktales, Maryam? What are your local customs? Tell me your quaint superstitions.'

  He did not say that.

  Well, almost, Maryam said. She had her keys in hand now. She said, Anyhow, I'm off. Susie -june? Susan? I'm going.

  Susan didn't answer. She was singing a song from Sesame Street as she rode her rocking horse.

  See you Thursday, Maryam told Ziba.

  But this Ziba was so stubborn. Following Maryam to the front hall, she said, I'm not asking you to marry him.

  Ziba! Enough!

  Or to have a romantic relationship, even. Why, people go to dinner all the time in this country! It doesn't have to lead anywhere. But you don't understand that, because your own marriage was arranged and you never had the chance just to see a movie with a man or grab a hamburger with him.

  There was a great deal that Maryam could have said to this, but she merely waved a hand and stepped out the door. Ordinarily they would have kissed cheeks. Not today. She clicked down the front walk. She could sense Ziba watching after her but she didn't turn around.

  What she could have said to Ziba was: her marriage may have been arranged, but it was nothing like what everyone imagined.