Digging to America (6 page)

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 cushions, 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 shiny turquoise mini-dress she'd worn to her parents' party, and two circles of rouge on he
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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 Washington, 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
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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 assertive 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 assumed 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 a
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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. Hello! I'm Connie Dickinson, 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 snatching the embroidered cloth off the table.

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

Brad said, Da
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That plate of grass 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 space. 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 entitled 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-butter, 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, noble 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 he
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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 fashions, 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.) I
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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 sai
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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 Eshi'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 glass 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.