Digging to America

by Anne Tyler

  Susan wore blue jeans also. (Who knew they made jeans so tiny?) She wore a red-and-white-striped long-sleeved T-shirt that could just as well have been a boy's, and little red socks with nonskid soles. The socks were a new addition till the weather turned cold she'd gone barefoot and she didn't like them. She kept tugging them off her feet with a triumphant squawk, and then Maryam hoisted her into her lap and put them on again. Wicked girl! she scolded. Susan laughed. As soon as she was set back down on the rug she would fling herself on her favorite toy, a xylophone that she banged energetically with any object at hand. She didn't crawl yet she was a bit behind in her physical skills, which Maryam blamed on life in the foster home but clearly she was working on it.

  If it were up to her, Maryam would have dressed this child differently. She'd have chosen more feminine clothes, little white tights and A-line jumpers and blouses with ruffles. Wasn't that part of the fun of having a girl? (Oh, how she used to hope for a girl after Sami was born!) She herself dressed with the utmost care even just to babysit. She wore trousers, yes, but slim, tailored trousers, with a fitted sweater in some jewel color and good shoes. She regularly had the gray tinted from her hair, although she preferred that this not be known, and she secured her chignon with tortoiseshell combs or brightly patterned scarves. It was important to keep up appearances. She believed that. Let the Americans lounge about in their sweatsuits! She was not American.

  Not American! Check your passport, Sami always told her. She said, You understand what I mean.

  She was a guest, was what she meant. Still and forever a guest, on her very best behavior.

  Perhaps if she lived in Iran, she would have been more casual. Oh, not that she would have let herself go, nothing so extreme as all that, but she might have worn a housecoat at home the way her mother and aunts used to do. Or would she? She couldn't even imagine now what her life would be like if she had not moved to Baltimore.

  Susan was in the process of giving up her morning nap. She might fall asleep when she was put down or she might not; so while Maryam was waiting to find out which, she read the paper or flipped through a magazine, something that didn't require an uninterrupted block of time. If so much as half an hour passed and Susan was still chirping, Maryam would get her up again. Once more they would go through their reunion scene Susan's Ah! and Maryam's Su-Su-Su! Maryam would change her diaper and put her in a sweater and take her out in the stroller.

  There were no sidewalks here. Maryam found that amazing. How could they have constructed an entire neighborhood long curving roads of gigantic, raw new houses with two-story arched windows and double-wide front doors and three-car garages and failed to realize that people might want to walk around it? There weren't any trees either, unless you counted the twiglike saplings staked in all the front yards. (Tiny yards. The houses had devoured most of the available space.) In weeks past, when it was still hot, Maryam had often kept Susan inside, knowing they'd find not a chip of shade anywhere and the pavements would be radiating heat. But now that fall had arrived the sun felt good. She would stretch their walk till lunchtime, covering every smooth, blank, uncannily deserted street in Foxfoot Acres and commenting as she went. Car, Susan! See the car? Mailbox! See the mailbox?

  In her own neighborhood there were squirrels, and dogs on leashes, and other children in carriages and strollers. She would have had many more sights to point out.

  Lunch was strained baby foods for Susan and a salad for Maryam. Then Susan had a little playpen time in the family room extending from the kitchen while Maryam did the dishes, and after that a bottle and another nap this one long enough that Maryam was free to fix something for Sami and Ziba's supper. Not that they expected it, but she had always enjoyed cooking and Ziba, it turned out, did not. Left to their own devices, they tended to eat Lean Cuisines.

  While the rice was boiling, she straightened the house. She put Susan's toys in the toy chest and carried a bagful of wet diapers out to the garbage can. She stacked and aligned various reading materials but did not throw away so much as a scrap of paper, not a subscription card or a pizza flyer, for fear of overstepping.

  Again she had an image of her mother, this time stooping painfully to retrieve a chewing-gum wrapper and placing it silently, almost reverently, in an ashtray on the coffee table.

  This house was as big as the neighboring houses, with a room for every purpose. It had not only a family room but an exercise room and a computer room, each one carpeted wall to wall in solid off-white. There wasn't a Persian rug anywhere, although you might guess that the occupants were Iranian from the wedding gifts in the dining-room cabinet the Isfahani coffee sets and the tea glasses caged in silver. The playroom had been fully stocked with toys as soon as the agency sent Susan's photograph. And the nursery was ready long before that, the crib and bureau and changing table purchased back when Ziba was first trying to get pregnant. (Maryam's mother would have said that preparing so far ahead was what had doomed them. Didn't I warn you? she would have asked, each month when Ziba once again reported failure.)

  Maryam had told Ziba to trust in the power of time. You'll have your baby! You'll have a houseful of babies, she'd said. And she had confided her own long wait. Five years we tried, before Sami was born. I was in despair. This was a great concession on her part. To speak openly of trying was so indiscreet. (She had been stunned when Ziba first spoke of it. Not a comfortable thought at all, one's son having a sex life, even though of course Maryam assumed that he did.) Besides which, she had always told her relatives that that five-year wait was deliberate. Visiting back home three years after her wedding, she had parried their sly questions with boasts about her independence, her relief that she was not burdened yet with children. I take courses at the university; I'm active in the wives' group at the hospital . . . While in fact, she had wanted a baby right away something to anchor her, she had envisioned, to her new country.

  She saw herself now on that first visit home: her clothes chosen carefully for their Westernness, stylish sheaths in electric prints of hot pink and lime green and purple; her hair lacquered into a towering beehive; her feet encased in needle-toed, stiletto-heeled pumps. She winced.

  She winced too at recalling her automatic assumption that Ziba's failure to get pregnant was exactly that Ziba's failure. When they discovered that it was, instead, Sami's failure, Maryam had been shocked. Mumps, perhaps, the doctors said. Mumps? Sami had never had mumps! Or had he? Wouldn't she have known? Did he have them while he was away in college, and he had felt too embarrassed to mention such things to a woman?

  He'd been fourteen years old when his father diedjust beginning to turn adolescent, with a fuzzy dark upper lip and a grainy voice. She had wondered how she could possibly see him through this stage on her own. She knew so little about the opposite sex; she'd lost her father when she was a child and had never been close to her brothers, who were nearly grown before she was born. If only Kiyan could have stayed alive just a little while longer, just four or five years longer, till Sami had become a man!

  Although now she wasn't so sure that Kiyan would have known much, either, about the process of becoming an American man.

  And if Kiyan could have shared grandparenthood with her! That was a major sorrow, now that Susan was here. She imagined how it would be if the two of them were babysitting together. They would send each other smiles over Susan's head, marveling at her puckery frown and her threadlike eyebrows and her studious examination of a stray bit of lint from the carpet. Kiyan would have retired by now. (He'd been nine years Maryam's senior.) They would have had all the time in the world to enjoy this part of their lives.

  She went out to the kitchen and took the rice off the stove and dumped it briskly into a colander.

  By the time Ziba had returned from work, Susan would be awake again and drinking her post-nap sippy cup of apple juice, or she'd have moved on to haul forth from the toy chest everything that Maryam had put away. Ziba would scoop her up even before she'd taken her blazer off.
Did you have fun with your Mari -june, Su-Su? Did you miss your mommy? They would delicately touch noses Ziba's profile beaky and sharp, Susan's as flat as a cookie. Did you think your mommy would stay away forever? Always she spoke English to Susan; she said she didn't want to confuse her. Maryam had expected her to lapse into Farsi from time to time, but Ziba plowed heroically through the most difficult words think, with its sticky th sound, and stay, which came out es-stay. (To her own puzzlement, Maryam found Ziba's broken rhythms much easier to understand than Sami's smooth, easy flow.)

  Maryam located her purse and put on her suede jacket. Don't go! Ziba would say. What's your hurry? Let me make tea. Most days, Maryam declined. Issuing farewell remarks instructions for heating dinner, message from the dentist's office she would blow a kiss toward Susan and let herself out the front door. She was trying to be the perfect mother-in-law. She didn't want Ziba to consider her a nuisance.

  Often when she reached home she would just vegetate awhile, slumped in her favorite armchair, free at last to relax and let herself be herself.

  Jin-Ho's mother phoned in October to invite them all to supper. This was while Maryam was babysitting, and so she was the one who answered. You come too, Bitsy told her. It's going to be just us, our two families, because I believe the girls should get to know each other, don't you? So as to maintain their cultural heritage. I meant to ask you before this but what with one thing and another ... An early, early supper, I thought, on Sunday afternoon. We'll rake leaves beforehand.

  Maryam said, Rake ... ?

  She wondered if this was some idiomatic expression having to do with socializing. Break the ice, mend fences, chew the fat, rake leaves ... But Bitsy was saying, We still have elms, believe it or not, and they're always the first trees to shed. We thought we'd throw a big jolly leaf-raking party and let the girls roll around in the piles.

  Oh. All right. You're very kind, Maryam said.

  She liked the way Bitsy called the babies the girls. It made her visualize a Susan of the future, wearing knee socks and a pleated skirt, with her arm linked through her best friend's arm.

  Logically, they should have taken separate cars to the leaf-raking party. The Donaldsons lived in Mount Washington and Maryam a short distance south of them, in Roland Park. (The wrong side of Roland Park, so called, although even the wrong side was very nice, the houses just a bit smaller and closer together.) Sami and Ziba, coming from the north, would have to drive right past the Donaldsons' neighborhood to get to Maryam's; but even so, they insisted on giving her a ride. Maryam suspected that this was because Ziba felt the need of moral support. Ziba was subject to fits of insecurity every now and then. And sure enough, when they arrived at Maryam's where Maryam was already waiting out front, so as not to hold them up Ziba popped from the car to announce that they were going to come in for a moment because she worried they were too early. Maryam said, Early? She checked her watch. It was 3:55. They'd been invited for four o'clock, and the drive would take roughly five minutes. We're not early! she said. But Ziba was already extricating Susan from her car seat. Sami, stepping out from behind the wheel, said, Ziba claims that four o'clock means ten past four, in Baltimore.

  Not when only one set of guests has been invited, Maryam told him. (She had studied these customs at some length herself.) But Ziba had Susan in her arms by now and was coming up the front walk. She wore the offhand kind of clothes appropriate for leafraking jeans and a bulky rose turtleneck but had obviously spent some time on her hair and makeup. A huge, horizontal ponytail jutted from the back of her head, so frizzy that it defied gravity, and her lips were two different colors, shiny pink outlined in a red that was almost black. You look very nice, Maryam told her. She meant this sincerely. Ziba was a strikingly pretty young woman. And Sami was so handsome! He had his father's chiseled mouth and thick eyebrows. His rimless, old-man spectacles somehow made him seem younger, and the collar of his plaid flannel shirt stood up boyishly at the back. Ten minutes early, ten minutes late, what difference does it make? he asked his mother. He kissed her on both cheeks. Check out Susan's work clothes.

  Susan wore blue denim overalls, faded convincingly at the knees, and a chambray shirt. Her jacket, also blue denim, had a tractor appliquTd on one pocket. You're all ready to help us rake! Maryam told her, and she lifted her from Ziba's arms.

  We're bringing a bottle of wine, Ziba said. What do you think? Is that wrong? I know it's still daylight, but we're staying for supper, after all.

  Wine is perfect, Maryam said, jouncing Susan on her hip. We should certainly bring wine. Isn't that so, Susie -june.

  Susan gave her a secretive smile.

  Shall we go in and sit down? Ziba asked.

  What for? We'll just have to get up again, Sami said. She acts like it's some big deal, he told his mother, and then to Ziba he said, We visit people all the time. Why is this any different?

  But these people are older than our other friends, Ziba said. Bitsy is forty, she told Maryam. She mentioned it on the phone.

  She's a weaver and she used to teach yoga and she writes poetry and ... oh, what will we talk about? she ended on a wailing note. Babies, Maryam said.

  Ah, Ziba said, brightening. Babies.

  What else do we talk about, these days? Sami asked the sky. The Donaldsons' baby is keeping her Korean name for good, Ziba told Maryam.

  Jin-Ho Donaldson, Maryam tried out. It had a peculiar ring. Donaldson seemed so ultra-American, or was that because she was reminded of McDonald's hamburgers?

  Jin-Ho Dickinson-Donaldson, actually, Ziba said.

  Maryam's jaw dropped. Sami laughed. Then he said, Okay, folks, it's four o'clock. Time to hit the road.

  Ziba turned to follow him back to the car, but she seemed to be lagging a bit, Maryam noticed.

  As always, the two women had their ceremonial disagreement about who should sit where. Please, Ziba said, gesturing toward the front, but Maryam said, I like the back. This way I sit next to Susan. She handed Susan to Ziba, who would make quicker work of buckling her in, and walked around the rear of the car to slip in on the other side. Sami had his seat adjusted far enough back so that it touched her knees, but not uncomfortably. She had spoken the truth when she said she preferred to sit there. How awkward if she had assumed the seat of honor, as her own mother-in-law used to do! Although she had an odd sense of being a child again, Susan's sibling, as the two of them swayed from side to side when Sami turned a corner.

  The Donaldsons' house was a worn white clapboard Colonial on one of the narrower streets in Mount Washington. The sprawling, woodsy yard was ankle-deep in yellow leaves that clattered as the Yazdans waded up the front walk, and the porch was strewn with bicycles and boots and garden tools. It was Brad who opened the door, wearing corduroys and a woolen shirt stretched taut across his belly. Well, hey! he said. Welcome! Great to see you! and he chucked Susan under the chin. This kid has plumped up some. She was looking a bit peaked at the airport.

  Fifteen pounds, three ounces, at her last doctor visit, Ziba told him.

  Fifteen? He frowned.

  And three ounces.

  I guess she's going to be one of those petite little people, he said.

  Jin-Ho was going to be an Amazon, Maryam thought when she saw her straddling Bitsy's waist. She was stocky and bloomingly healthy-looking, with fat cheeks and bright, laughing eyes. She still wore that squared-off hairstyle she had arrived with, seemingly all of a piece, and although she too was in corduroys, her top was a multicolored, quilted affair with striped sleeves and a black silk sash the kind of thing Maryam recalled from the days when Sami and Ziba were researching Korea. Hasn't she grown? Bitsy asked, shifting Jin-Ho slightly to give everyone a good view. These pants are size eighteen months! We had to switch her to a full crib the second week she was here.

  Bitsy herself wore a black-and-white-striped jersey and black slacks and fluorescent jogging shoes. There was something aggressive about her plainness, Maryam thought her blatant lack of makeup, her cho
pped hair and angular, rawboned body. She might almost be making a statement. Next to her, Ziba looked very glamorous but also a little bit flashy.

  First they sat a few minutes in the living room, waiting for Jin-Ho's grandparents. Both couples were coming, Bitsy said, but none of the aunts or uncles or cousins because too large a crowd might overwhelm the girls. In fact, the girls seemed fairly impervious. They sat on a braided rug and pursued their separate activities Jin-Ho piling alphabet blocks into a dump truck, Susan trying to maneuver a jingle-bell out of a wooden rattle. Susan was so sweet and intent, and her fingers worked so cleverly, that Maryam wondered if the Donaldsons might feel slightly envious.

  Bitsy and Ziba were discussing lactose intolerance. Bitsy blamed it on a clash of cultures. It wasn't in the Asian tradition to slug down gallons of milk, after all. No wonder Jin-Ho had tummy trouble! Did Susan? Or ... Bitsy grew unaccountably flustered. Or maybe your people don't drink milk either, she said.