Digging To America Part 2

Ten days before the party, Sami took her to Rockville for some of the more exotic ingredients. (It was a longer trip than she felt comfortable driving alone.) Traffic on I-95 was b.u.mper to b.u.mper, and Sami muttered under his breath whenever the stream of red taillights lit up in front of them. We should just be glad this place is as close as it is, Maryam told him. When I first came to this country, your grandmother had to mail most of my spices from Iran.

She could see those parcels still, clumsily st.i.tched-together cloth bundles bulging with sumac and dried fenugreek leaves and tiny, blackened dried limes, the homemade cardboard address tags hand-lettered in her mother's shaky English. What we couldn't get s.h.i.+pped, we cheated on, she said. We traded around our secret tricks, the other wives and I. Pomegranate sauce made with frozen concentrated Welch's grape juice and tinned pumpkin-pie filling; I remember that one. Yogurt curd made with skim milk and goat cheese whirled in the blender.

In those days, all of their friends had been Iranian, all more or less in the same situation as Maryam and Kiyan. (At one of their big poker parties a wife could call, Agha doctor! and every man in the room could answer, Yes?) Where were those people now? Well, many had gone back home, of course. Others had moved on to other American cities. But some, she knew, remained right here in Baltimore; only she had lost touch with them. Politics had increasingly complicated matters, for one thing. Who supported the Shah? Who did not? Then after the Revolution you could be sure that most of the new arrivals had definitely supported the Shah, had perhaps even held high positions with the secret police, and it was wiser to avoid them altogether. Besides, Kiyan was dead by then and she no longer felt comfortable in that two-by-two social circle.

If only your father had lived to see the Shah overthrown! she said to Sami. He would have been so happy.

For about three and a half minutes, Sami said.

Well, yes.

He would hate to hear what's going on there now.

Yes, of course.

She'd been listening to music from home one day on Kiyan's old shortwave radio while she ironed. Already there'd been public demonstrations and rumors of unrest, but even the experts had been unable to predict the outcome. And then in midnote the music had stopped and there was a long silence, broken at last by a man announcing, quietly and levelly, This is the voice of the Revolution. A thrill had run up her spine and tears had filled her eyes, and she had set down her iron and said, out loud, Oh, Kiyan! Do you hear that?

What's going on there now would break his heart, she told Sami. Sometimes, you know what? I think the people who are dead are lucky.

Whoa! Sami said. Maryam glanced reflexively toward the traffic ahead, expecting some emergency. But no, this seemed to be one of those exaggerated reactions you saw so often in young people. No way, Mom! Hold on there!

Oh, I don't mean that literally. But what would he say, Sami? He loved his country! He always meant for us to go back there someday.

Thank G.o.d we didn't, Sami said, and he flicked his turn signal on and swung sharply into the fast lane as if the very thought made him angry.

He had never been to Iran himself. The one time since his birth that Maryam had gone back, Sami was already grown and married and working for Peac.o.c.k Homes, and he had claimed he couldn't get away. He had no interest, was the real reason. She looked over at him sadly, at his large, curved nose so like Kiyan's and his endearing little spectacles. Now he would probably never go, and certainly not with her, because she had resolved not to return after that last visit. It wasn't the restrictions, so much the funereal long black coat she'd had to wear and the unbecoming headscarf but the absence of so many of the people she had loved. Of course she had been told about their deaths as they occurred (her mother, her great-aunts, her aunts and some of her uncles, each loss reported one by one in roundabout, tactful terms on thin blue aerogram paper or, in later years, over the telephone). But underneath, it seemed, she had managed not to realize fully until there she was, back in the family compound, and where was her mother? Where was her cl.u.s.ter of aunts clucking and bustling and chortling like a flock of little gray hens? And then at the airport when she was leaving there'd been a problem with her exit visa, something inconsequential that was settled fairly easily by a cousin with connections, but she had felt a sense of panic that was almost suffocating. She had felt like a bird beating its wings inside its cage. Let me out, let me out, let me out! And she'd never been back.

In the grocery store, where she and Sami had to struggle through a crowd of other Iranians shopping for their New Year's parties, she couldn't help asking, Who are these people? The children were using the familiar you when speaking to their parents; they were loud and unruly and disrespectful. The teenage girls were showing bare midriffs. The customers nearest the counter were pus.h.i.+ng and shoving. This is just ... distressing! she told Sami, but he surprised her by snapping, Oh, Mom, get off your high horse!

Excuse me? she said, truly not sure she had heard right.

Why should they act any better than Americans? he demanded. They're only behaving like everyone else, Mom; so quit judging.

Her first impulse was to snap back. Was it so wrong to expect her countrymen to set a good example? But she counted to ten before she spoke (a tactic she had learned during his adolescence) and then decided not to speak at all. Instead she proceeded down the aisle in silence, dropping cellophane packets of herbs and dried fruits into the basket he was carrying for her. She paused before a bin of wheat kernels, and Sami said, Will there be time enough to sprout them? There was plenty of time, as he knew full well. He must be asking only to make amends. So she said, Well, I think there will be. What's your opinion? and after that they were all right again.

She did judge. She knew that. Over the years she had become more and more critical, perhaps because of living alone for so long. She would have to watch herself. She made a point of smiling at the next person who jostled her, a woman with short hair dyed the color of a copper skillet, and when the woman smiled back it turned out she had a single, deep groove at the outer corner of each eye just like Aunt Minou's, and Maryam felt a rush of affection for her.

The Donaldsons had been invited for lunch on a Sunday that fell a full eight days after Ziba's parents' party; so there was less reason than ever for Maryam to host the event at her house. By now, though, she was resigned. She cooked the whole week before, a dish or two a day. She set up the Haftseen table in the living room the seven traditional objects, including a vibrant little putting green of sprouted wheat kernels, artfully arranged on her best embroidered cloth. And Sunday morning she rose before dawn to make the final preparations. The only other windows alight were in houses where there were small babies. The only sounds were the birds, a clamor of new and different songs now that spring was here. She padded around the kitchen barefoot, wearing muslin pants and a long-tailed s.h.i.+rt that used to belong to Sami. Her tea cooled on the counter as she rinsed the rice and set it to soak, and climbed on a stool to fetch down her trays, and snipped the stems of the yellow tulips that had been waiting overnight in buckets on the back porch. By now the sun was rising, and through the open window she heard the newspaper carrier's squeaky-braked van and then the slap of the Baltimore Sun against her front step. She brought the paper into the kitchen to read with her second cup of tea. From where she sat she could see into the dining room, where the silver gleamed on the table and the stemware sparkled and the tulips marched down the center in a row of slim gla.s.s vases. She loved this time before a party when the napkins had not yet been crumpled or the quiet shattered.

At twelve-thirty, freshly bathed and dressed in narrow black trousers and a white silk tunic, she was standing at her front door to welcome Sami and Ziba. They came early to help with last-minute preparations, although, as Sami pointed out, she had left them nothing to do. No, but this way I get to have a little visit with Susan, she said. Susan was a very competent walker by now, and the minute Sami set her down she made a beeline for the basket where Maryam kept her toys. Her hair had grown long enough that it fell in her eyes if they didn't tie it up into a sort of vertical sprout on top of her head. It wisped around her little sh.e.l.l ears and trailed in thin strands down the back of her flower-stem neck. Susiejune, Ziba told her, say, 'Hi, Mari -june!' Say, 'h.e.l.lo, Mari -june!'

Mari -june, Susan said obligingly, only it came out more like Mudge. She gave Maryam one of her tucked smiles, as if she knew exactly how clever she'd been.

Ziba wanted to fiddle and fidget Is there anything we can do? Should Sami open the wine? Which tablecloth did you use? but Maryam told her it was all taken care of. Have a seat, she said. Tell me what you'd like to drink.

Ziba didn't answer because she was pummeling cus.h.i.+ons, even nudging Sami aside so she could get to the one he was sitting against. She was nervous, Maryam supposed. She had dressed up a little too much for daytime, in the same s.h.i.+ny turquoise mini-dress she'd worn to her parents' party, and two circles of rouge on her cheeks made her seem feverish. Probably she was comparing Maryam's house to her own Maryam's too-small living room and traditional, rather dowdy furniture overlaid with paisley scarves and little Iranian trinkets and finding it lacking. Susan, put that back! she said when Susan hauled out a plush dog. We can't have toys scattered all over the place when guests are coming!

Oh, why not? Jin-Ho will want to play too, Maryam told her; and Sami, lazily twirling a string of clay prayer beads he'd picked up from the coffee table, said, Relax, Zee. Settle down.

She made a cross little puffing sound and flung herself into a chair.

It didn't help that the next arrivals were Ziba's parents. They were a bit early, having misjudged the travel time from Was.h.i.+ngton, and when Mrs. Hakimi apologized to Maryam in Farsi (I'm very sorry; I ask your forgiveness; I told Mustafa we should just drive around a bit but he said ), Ziba cried, Mummy, please; you promised you'd speak English for this!

Mrs. Hakimi sent Maryam a rueful glance. She was a pleasant-looking woman with a plump, tired face, and she let her family walk all over her, Maryam had noticed especially her husband, who maintained the rigid posture of a military man although he'd made his money in business. He imported things. (Maryam wasn't sure what.) He had a bald yellow head and an enormous stomach that strained the vest of his gray sharkskin suit. Susie -june! he roared, and he pounced on Susan, who smiled shyly but curled over till she was practically a shrimp shape, and no wonder; Mr. Hakimi was a cheek-pincher. Pinch-pinch! with his big yellow fingers while Susan squirmed and looked around for Ziba.

I understand your party last week was a great success, Maryam told Mrs. Hakimi.

Oh, no, it was nothing. A very plain affair, Mrs. Hakimi said, and then she took a sudden swerve back into Farsi. I'm sure our meal today will be much more elegant, since you were the one who prepared it and no one else I know makes such delicious Her words came all in a rush, as if she hoped to get as much said as possible before she was apprehended; but Ziba said, Mummy! and Mrs. Hakimi broke off and looked at Maryam helplessly.

In Maryam's experience, it used to be the wives who adapted more quickly. Almost overnight they had decoded the native customs, mastered the ins and outs of supermarkets and car pools, grown confident and a.s.sertive while their husbands, buried in work, confined their new English to medical terms or the vocabulary of seminar rooms. The men had depended on the women, back then, to negotiate the practical world for them; but in the case of the Hakimis the situation seemed to be reversed. When Brad's parents arrived in their spring outfits the colors of Easter eggs, proclaiming their names vivaciously before Maryam could introduce them, Mrs. Hakimi only smiled at her lap and shrank lower in her chair. It was Mr. Hakimi who a.s.sumed command of the conversation. So you are the paternal grandparents! May I say how pleased we are to meet you! And what do you do for a living, Lou?

Why, I'm an attorney, retired! Lou said, nearly matching Mr. Hakimi's hearty tone. The wife and I are leisure folk now. We take a lot of cruises, golfing trips; I'm sure you've heard of Elder-hostel ...

Maryam excused herself and went off to check on dinner. She lowered one flame, raised another, and then allowed herself a little spell of gazing out the kitchen window before the sound of the doorbell pulled her away. When she returned to the living room Brad and Bitsy were just coming in, Brad carrying Jin-Ho, while Bitsy's parents followed at some distance. Connie was having a little trouble with the steps. Dave cupped a palm beneath her elbow as she struggled to lift one foot to meet the other. Oh, I'm sorry, Maryam said, crossing the porch to greet her. I should have told you to come in the back.

But Connie said, Nonsense, I need the exercise, and she squeezed both of Maryam's hands in hers. I can't tell you how I've been looking forward to this, she said. At long last she had given up her baseball cap. Her scalp was thinly furred with a half inch of gray hair, very fine and soft-looking, and she wore a navy cotton dress that seemed too big for her. When she reached the door, she paused and took a deep breath as if she were bracing herself. Then she plunged into the living room. You must be Ziba's parents! she cried. h.e.l.lo! I'm Connie d.i.c.kinson, and this is my husband, Dave! Hi, Pat! Hi, Lou!

There was a flurry of greetings and compliments (Pat's new hair color, Bitsy's drawstring trousers), and then Dave asked about the Haftseen table, which gave Mr. Hakimi the chance to deliver a lecture. Haftseen means 'seven s's,' he began in a public sort of voice. We have here seven objects that start with the letter s. Dave and Connie nodded solemnly, while Bitsy prevented Jin-Ho from s.n.a.t.c.hing the embroidered cloth off the table.

Now, hold on there! Lou said. Those hyacinths don't start with s!

Brad said, Dad That plate of gra.s.s doesn't start with s!

S in our language, Mr. Hakimi told him.

Oh. Aha. Very interesting.

Your house is charming, Maryam, Bitsy said. I love the mixture of textiles. I'm a weaver, you know, so of course I notice such things. She made another grab for Jin-Ho, this time picking her up. Did you bring all these rugs with you when you first came?

Oh, no, Maryam said. She laughed. When I first came, I brought a single carpetbag.

But a Persian carpetbag, I'll bet, in some fascinating pattern. Well, yes...

She had given away the carpetbag a month after she arrived, ashamed it wasn't Samsonite. Oh, in those days she wouldn't have brought rugs from home even if she'd had the s.p.a.ce. She'd wanted everything sleek and modern, solid-colored, preferably beige American-American, as Kiyan used to say. Both of them had so admired the Western style of decorating. Only later did she understand that they had embraced the worst of the style the cheap beige plastic dinnerware, the wasteland of bland beige carpeting, the chairs upholstered in beige synthetics shot through with metallic threads.

Now it was Dave carrying on the what-do-you-do conversation. He had just informed Mr. Hakimi that he was a physics teacher, and while Maryam circled the room with soft drinks and wine and (for Mr. Hakimi) whisky on the rocks, she learned that Connie taught high school English and Brad taught biology. So perhaps it was only natural that this family felt ent.i.tled to tell other people how to do things. Could genes determine occupations, even? she wondered as she returned to the kitchen.

The rice was beginning to send out its browned-b.u.t.ter, popcorn smell. She moved the pot to the sink and switched off the burner. From the living room she heard Mr. Hakimi introducing the next topic: politics, specifically Iranian politics the long, n.o.ble history of Iran and its bitter end in the Revolution. Just as well she was out of sight; she avoided discussing such matters with any of Ziba's relatives. She ran cold water into the sink and waited for the pot to stop steaming, although she could easily have left it unattended. When she heard small, uneven footsteps behind her, she was delighted. Susie june! she cried, turning, and Susan smiled and raised both arms and said, Up? She enunciated very carefully, as if she were aware that she was working to learn a language. Maryam picked her up and laid her face against Susan's soft cheek. Then Jin-Ho toddled in with a toy truck clasped to her chest and said, Kack? Kack? and Maryam took a guess and went to the cupboard for Triscuits. Cracker, she said, handing one to each child. Thank you, Mari june! and she set Susan down. Susan and Jin-Ho started rolling the truck between them, each clutching a Triscuit in one hand and squatting in that boneless way that only small children can manage, feet set flat and wide apart and bottoms an inch from the floor. They were such a pleasure to watch. Maryam could have stood there all afternoon just drinking in the sight of them.

As it turned out, that was the high point of the party. By the time the guests were seated at the table, both little girls had gone past their nap times. Susan was carried wailing to the crib Maryam kept for her upstairs, while Jin-Ho stuck it out in her mother's lap, growing steadily crankier and squirmier and violently averting her face from the morsels of food Bitsy offered.

And it wasn't only the children who were fractious. First Pat took it upon herself to suggest that Connie might like to try wrapping her head in a pretty silk scarf (did even the in-laws in this family feel free to give advice to each other?), and Connie flushed and looked unhappy, and Dave said, Thank you, Pat, but I think Connie's beautiful just the way she is, and Pat said, Oh! Why! Of course! I never meant ! Then Bitsy, apparently hoping to smooth things over, said, While we're speaking of fas.h.i.+ons, Ziba, Susan's little topknot was darling, and Ziba said, Yes, I'm trying to get her hair out of her eyes, and Bitsy said, Ah, well, Jin-Ho doesn't have that problem because we're keeping the style she came with. I guess we just don't feel we should Americanize her.

Americanize! Ziba said. We're not Americanizing! (As if anything really could Americanize a person, Maryam thought, having watched too many foreigners try to look natural in blue jeans.) It must be that Ziba still felt insecure around the Donaldsons, because ordinarily she would not have bristled like that.

And when Mr. Hakimi took his own stab at peacemaking, he just made the situation worse. But! We're neglecting our hostess! he bellowed. This is such excellent food, my dear madam, and you were so kind to relieve Ziba of the burden of entertaining!

Ziba said, It wasn't a burden! What are you talking about? We could have had it at our house! I was longing to have it at our house!

Maryam said, You were?

We have more room at our house! I told you that! We wouldn't need to squeeze around the table on desk chairs and porch chairs and kitchen chairs!

Maryam said, But I thought you said Now she couldn't remember what either one of them had said. She had trouble reconstructing the whole conversation. All she knew was that once again, they must both have been too polite, too please-I-insist and whichever-you-prefer. Well, she said finally. I wish I had known.

Connie set down her fork and leaned across the table to touch Maryam's hand. In any case, it's a lovely party, she said.

Thank you, Maryam told her.

And besides, Bitsy chimed in, this way we get to see your house, and all your beautiful things! Tell me, Maryam; I'm dying to know: what was in that one carpetbag you brought? What does a person choose to take with her, when she's leaving her country for good?

Gratefully, Maryam turned her thoughts to the carpetbag. A silk peignoir set, she remembered. And two sets of lacy lingerie hand-sewn by Aunt Es.h.i.+'s seamstress ... She smiled and shook her head. It wasn't how you imagine, she told Bitsy. I was a brand-new bride. I was thinking about how I looked, not my house.

A bride! You came over as a bride?

I had been married just one day when I boarded the airplane, Maryam said.

So the trip to America was your honeymoon! How romantic! From his place at the head of the table, Sami said, Now, Mom. Tell the whole story.

Oh, tell! Bitsy said, and Lou tapped his water gla.s.s with his knife. Jin-Ho, who was just nodding off, started a bit and then resettled her head against her mother's shoulder.

Maryam said, There is no story.

Yes, there is, Sami said. He turned to the others. She made that so-called honeymoon trip alone, he said. My dad was already over here. She had a proxy wedding all by herself and joined him afterward.

Is that true? Pat asked her. You had a wedding without the groom? But how did that work?

Show them the photo, Sami told Maryam.

Oh, Sami, they don't want to see the photo, she said, and she ignored their protests (Yes, we do! Show us, Maryam!) and rose to pick up the platter of stuffed grape leaves. Would anyone care for seconds? she asked.

A photo of Mom in her wedding dress, Sami said, standing alone beside a long table you can hardly see for the presents. It looks as if she's marrying the presents.

Maryam said, Well, I wouldn't say . . . There was something in his tone that hurt her feelings. Something amused; that was it. And perhaps Mr. Hakimi felt it too, because he cleared his throat and said, In fact many, many girls married that way at the time. All those young men who went to America, don't you know, or Germany or France ... Of course they needed wives, by and by. It was a reasonable solution.

But how did you court at such long distance? Pat asked Maryam.

Court! Sami said. He laughed. They didn't. The marriage was arranged.

Maryam sensed a new alertness around the table, but she didn't look up from the platter she stood holding in both hands. No one had taken seconds. Maybe they had disliked the grape leaves. Maybe they had disliked the whole meal.

So you see, Sami told Bitsy, it wasn't as romantic as you think.

Maryam said, Oh, Sami. She spoke very gently, to hide the outrage in her voice. You can't know everything about it, she said. And then she turned away, with as much dignity as possible, and carried the grape leaves out of the room and shut the swinging door behind her.

In the kitchen, she filled the kettle with water for tea. Obviously she should clear the table before she served the pastries and fruit, but she wasn't quite ready yet to go back and face the others. She lit the burner beneath the kettle and then remained at the stove, her arms folded tightly across her chest, her eyes stinging with tears.

When Kiyan had told her, for instance, that her hair smelled like an Armenian church: what could Sami know about that?

The swinging door opened slowly and Connie walked through, carrying two plates. Maryam said, Please, you mustn't, and took the plates from her. You'll tire yourself, she said.

Connie said, That's okay; I wanted to stretch my legs. Instead of going back to the dining room, she settled on the stool and watched Maryam sc.r.a.pe the plates. Aren't family gatherings wearing? she said. All those people who know you so well, they think they can say just anything.

It's true, Maryam said. She began fussing with the stacks of soiled cookware that cluttered her one small counter. While she was facing away from Connie, she dabbed hurriedly at the tip of her nose. And really they don't know you so well, she said.

You're right; they don't know the half of it, Connie agreed. She turned toward the swinging door, where her husband was just entering with two more plates. We're commiserating about family gatherings, she told him.

Ah, yes, dreadful affairs, Dave said, and he went straight to the garbage bin in a familiar way and started sc.r.a.ping the plates. Maryam never could get used to men helping out in the kitchen. Where was Ziba? Wasn't it Ziba who should be doing this? Families in general, Dave was saying. They're vastly overrated.

Connie tsked and gave him a friendly swat.

And holding this dinner at my house, Maryam went on (reminded by thoughts of Ziba). I never asked to do that! I mean ... forgive me; of course I'm pleased to have you, but We understand, Dave told her. Probably he didn't understand, but he was nice enough to nod his woolly gray head in a sympathetic manner, and Connie nodded too and said, It's funny how we get maneuvered into these things.

We're too careful with each other, Ziba and I, Maryam said. She turned toward the stove and uncovered the kettle to see if the water was boiling. Our family is not very good at saying what we want. Sometimes we end up doing what none of us wants, I suspect, just because we think it would satisfy the others.

Be rude, like us, Dave suggested, and he draped an arm around Connie's shoulders and winked at Maryam. She had to laugh.

Then Connie and Dave returned to the dining room for more plates, and Maryam spooned tea leaves into her best china teapot. She did feel better now. There was something consoling about those two. She poured boiling water into the teapot and replaced the lid and then balanced the teapot on top of the kettle.

Maybe the hiss of the simmering water was what brought back, all at once, a scene from the earliest days of her marriage. Whenever she had felt particularly lonesome, she remembered, she used to set a tumbler of club soda on her nightstand. She used to go to sleep listening to the bubbles bounce against the gla.s.s with a faint, steady, peaceful whispering sound that had reminded her of the fountain in her family's courtyard back home.

It was Bitsy who thought up the idea of an Arrival Party. That was what she called it, right off, so that Brad had to ask, A what, hon? Come again?

A party to commemorate the date the girls arrived, she told him. In two weeks it will be a year; can you believe it? Sat.u.r.day, August fifteenth. We ought to mark the occasion.

Would you be up to it, with your mother?

Bitsy's mother had suffered a setback a whole new tumor, this time involving her liver. They'd had a hard couple of months. But Bitsy said, It would do me good. It would do us all good! Get our minds off our troubles. And we'd confine it to the two families; no nonrelatives. Make it kind of like a birthday party. A daytime event, right after the girls' naps when they're at their best, and I wouldn't serve a full meal, only dessert.

Maybe a Korean dessert! Brad said.

Oh. Well.

Wouldn't that be neat?

I checked Korean desserts on the Internet, Bitsy told him. Spinach cookies, fried glutinous rice ...

Brad started looking worried.

She said, I was thinking maybe a sheet cake frosted like an American flag.

That's a great idea!

With candles? Or one candle, for one year. But absolutely no presents; remind me to tell the Yazdans that. They're always bringing presents. And we might sing some sort of song together. There must be a suitable song about waiting for someone's arrival.

There's 'She'll Be Coming Round the Mountain,' Brad said.

Well ... and the girls can wear Korean outfits. Shall we offer to lend Susan a sagusam? You can be sure she doesn't own one.