Digging to America

by Anne Tyler

  Sami had to admire the man. Evidently life in a large family had honed his peacemaking skills. And Maryam proved equally adept. She sent him the brilliant, purposeful smile of someone being interviewed. Oh, no, I just help part-time in the office, she told him. When Sami was a pupil there I used to volunteer, you see. I filed, I typed, I made phone calls . . . She gazed brightly around at the others. And then my husband died and I experienced, you might say, a little spell of financial panic. I believe that often happens with widows. They might have a perfectly adequate pension or life insurance or whatnot, but for the first time they're on their own and so they panic.

  Really, Bitsy's father said. And do widowers suffer a similar panic?

  Sami couldn't tell if Dave honestly wanted to know or was just contributing to the rescue effort. Maryam might have been doubtful herself, from the assessing gaze she sent him. Ah, she said finally. Well, widowers, now: I believe their panic relates more to household issues. They worry because now they will have no woman to take care of them. Sometimes they grow quite desperate. They make very sad mistakes.

  Dave gave a short laugh. I'll bear that in mind, he told her.

  Sami expected her to protest to assure him that she hadn't meant anything personal but she merely nodded. And then Linwood appeared in the kitchen doorway, several grains of rice sticking to one lens of his glasses, and cleared his throat and announced that Jin-Ho had a stomachache. Oh, dear, Bitsy said. It must be all the excitement. She rose and laid her napkin aside and went into the kitchen.

  Ziba wasn't enjoying herself anymore. Sami could tell that, if no one else could. She was gazing down at her plate, not eating, fiddling with her fork. He was too far away to reach over and stroke her hand. He tried to catch her eye but she wouldn't look up. Instead, by accident, he caught Mrs. Hakimi's eye. Mrs. Hakimi seemed to have been lying in wait for him, because the instant he glanced toward her she put on a toothy smile. He didn't know how much of the conversation she'd understood. He smiled back at her and looked away.

  Why couldn't Ziba just shrug Bitsy off? Why was she so susceptible to Bitsy's criticisms? Maybe they should find some Iranian friends. Enough of this struggle to fit in, to keep up!

  He heard Brad, at the other end of the table, telling Aunt Azra that he envied her. Envy, Aunt Azra said slowly. Sami knew she was repeating the word because she wasn't sure of the meaning, but Brad must have thought she was disputing him. He said, No, I mean it! Absolutely. One day not too far off, immigrants are going to be the new elite in this country. That's because they bear no burden of guilt. Their forefathers didn't steal any Native American land and they never owned slaves. They have perfectly clear consciences.

  Aunt Azra was staring at him with a look of blank astonishment. Sami was fairly certain it was the word consciences that had stumped her.

  If Ziba had not been so downcast, she would have been nagging Sami about the final round of kebabs. He slid back his chair and stood up. Save some room, folks! There's one last batch coming, he said. He went out to the kitchen, where he found his way blocked by Bitsy. She was kneeling beside Jin-Ho at the children's table. Sweetie? she was asking. You want to go lie down? Jin-Ho shook her head. Susan, seated next to her, leaned forward to peer into Jin-Ho's face with a comical expression of concern.

  Then Bitsy said, Oh.

  She was looking at Jin-Ho's tumbler, which was empty except for the ice cubes. You had a soft drink, she told Jin-Ho.

  Jin-Ho stuck out her bottom lip and averted her eyes.

  Well, no wonder! Bitsy said. Of course your stomach hurts! My goodness!

  Sami said, Oh, give her a break, Bitsy.

  Bitsy pivoted to look up at him.

  He felt a sort of rush to the head, a surge of joyous rage. He said, Don't you ever quit?

  Excuse me?

  You and your little digs about soft drinks, refined sugar, working mothers, preschools I don't understand, Bitsy told him. She rose, holding on to the back of Jin-Ho's chair. Did I say something wrong?

  You've said everything wrong, and you owe my wife an apology.

  I owe ... Ziba? I don't understand!

  Figure it out, he said, and then he brushed past her and headed toward the back door.

  From behind him, in a very small voice, Susan said, Papa? Is Bitsy bad?

  Uh, he said. He paused and glanced back at her. She had her eyebrows raised in two worried slants like the two sides of a roof. He said, No, Susie -june, never mind. I guess I'm just feeling irritable.

  It was only when he was searching for the word irritable literally, quick-tempered that he realized that both he and Susan had been speaking Farsi. This was a shock but also a satisfaction, for some reason. He flung a triumphant glance at Bitsy, who was still holding on to Jin-Ho's chair and gaping at him, and then he went on out into the yard.

  By now the kebabs were way overdone. The lamb chunks might still be salvaged, but the chicken looked like leather. He used a pot holder to grab the skewers one by one and shift them to the platter, and then he lifted the grate so he could stir the coals apart with the tongs. His heartbeat was gradually slowing. The rage had dimmed and he was left feeling slightly foolish.

  When the screen door clicked shut, he turned to see Brad approaching. In his Orioles T-shirt and flapping shorts Brad looked mussed and uncomfortable. He stopped a foot or so away and swatted at some insect buzzing around his head. Then he said, How you doing there?

  I'm okay, Sami said. He turned back to the grill. He poked a coal with the tongs.

  Guess we've had a little misunderstanding of some sort, Brad said.

  Sami poked another coal. Then he said, We didn't have a misunderstanding.

  All right, Brad said. Why not tell me what happened.

  We were all fine, Sami said. Then your wife comes along and hurts my wife's feelings.

  Well, how, exactly?

  Sami looked at him. He said, You have to ask?

  I'm asking, friend.

  You sat there at the table; you heard her slam our entire approach to child-rearing; you saw how she ruined our party She ruined ... ? Aw, gee, Sami, Brad said. I know Bitsy can be outspoken sometimes, but 'Pushy' is a better word for it, Sami said.

  Now, hold on, here Pushy, and self-righteous, and overbearing, and ... pushy, Sami said.

  To demonstrate, he stepped forward and pushed against the front of Brad's T-shirt with one palm. Brad's chest felt spongy, almost bosomy. It made Sami want to push him again, harder, and so he did. Now, hold the phone! Brad said, and he pushed back, but in a half hearted way. Sami dropped the tongs and grabbed hold of him with both hands and tried to butt him in the stomach with his head, and Brad seized two fistfuls of Sami's hair and lunged against him and knocked him flat on the ground, luckily clear of the grill, and landed panting on top of him. For a moment they both lay there, as if wondering what to do next. Sami had a dizzy feeling and he couldn't get his breath. He heard high, thin sounds from the direction of the back door the distressed cries of the women, no different in Farsi than in English, as everyone streamed out onto the steps.

  Brad rolled off Sami and staggered to his feet and wiped his face with his sleeve. Sami sat up and then stood. He bent forward, wheezing, and shook his head to clear it.

  He should have been aghast at himself. He should have been mortified that anyone had witnessed this. Instead, though, he felt exultant. He couldn't seem to keep a straight face as he raised his eyes to his guests, who were frozen in poses of horror. The children were dumbstruck and the men were openmouthed and the women were pressing their hands to their cheeks. He turned to Brad and found him sheepishly grinning, and they fell on each other and hugged. Clapping Brad's broad, damp back, stumbling around the yard in a clumsy dance, Sami imagined that to the relatives, the two of them must resemble two characters in some sitcom, two wild and crazy Americans, two regular American guys.

  Brad and Bitsy were talking about adopting a second child. To Dave's mind, this was insane. He didn't say so, of cour
se. He said, Is that a fact. But Bitsy must have caught something in his tone, because she said, All right, Dad, out with it. What do you have against it?

  Nothing! he told her. Why do you ask?

  You think I'm too old, don't you.

  Absolutely not, he told her.

  This much was true. He wasn't quite sure of her age, frankly. Thirty-five? Forty? Connie would have known. He did some quick math. Okay, forty-three. But that wasn't his objection. Mainly he just felt that people shouldn't press their luck. He'd been so apprehensive with the first adoption, and so relieved when it worked out. Jin-Ho was his most interesting grandchild. And probably the brightest, or second-brightest next to Linwood. Why not quit while they were ahead? Anyhow, children were a lot of trouble. You would think Brad and Bitsy could content themselves with just one.

  He had felt the same about his own children. He had embarked on parenthood reluctantly, sending regretful backward glances at his carefree young-married days, and although the first baby had proved a delight he hadn't hankered for more. If not for Connie's lobbying, Bitsy would have been an only child. Then of course the two boys were delights as well, and he wouldn't have traded them for anything, but still he could remember quite clearly sitting in the melee of tantrums and wet diapers and little sharp-edged building blocks and thinking, Too many children and not enough Connie. He had felt almost childlike himself as he angled for Connie's attention, snatched the smallest stray bits of her, competed for her ear and for her thoughtful, focused gaze.

  What would Connie have said to Bitsy's new plan?

  Oh, probably Go ahead, dear. I'm sure it will turn out wonderfully.

  He missed Connie more than he could say. He tried not to say, in fact. She had died in March of '99, over a year ago. Almost a year and a half. He could see people thinking that he must be past the worst of it. Time to buck up! Time to move on! But the truth was, it was harder now than immediately after her death. Back then he had felt so grateful that she no longer had to suffer. Besides which, he'd been just plain exhausted. He'd just wanted to get some sleep.

  But now he was as lonely as God. He was rackingly, achingly lonely, and he rattled around the house with far too much time on his hands and not enough to do. It was summer. School was over not only for the year but forever, in his case, because in June he had retired. Had this been a mistake? He had always had other interests his hobbies and his volunteer work and community concerns but now he couldn't get up the energy. He sighed a lot and he spoke aloud to Connie. He said, Going to fix that door lock, finally, and Well, drat. I meant to buy eggs. Once or twice he thought he caught a glimpse of her, but in situations so unlikely that he couldn't pretend they were real. (On a hot July afternoon, for instance, she stood by the backyard bird feeder tugging off a snow-flecked mitten with her teeth.) More satisfying were the memories of past events that popped up out of nowhere, as vivid as home movies. The time soon after they married when she drove their VW Beetle into the driveway with smoke pouring from the back seat (something to do with the engine) and flung open the door and jumped out and threw herself into his arms; or the time she sent in his name for a local TV station's Hero of the Day award and he had been so gruff and ungracious when she told him (his heroism had involved carpooling three children at all hours of the day and night, not any rescues from burning buildings), although now his eyes filled with tears at her gesture.

  He thought, Why, this is just unbearable.

  He thought, I should have been allowed to practice on somebody less important first. I don't know how to do this.

  He forgot that he had practiced, on four grandparents and two parents. But there was no comparison, really.

  He had tended her illness for so long that it had become second nature, and now he couldn't believe that she could manage without him. Was she comfortable where she was? Did she have everything she needed? He couldn't stand to think she might be feeling abandoned.

  Yet he was completely unreligious and had never conceived of an afterlife.

  He kept her voice on the answering machine because erasing it seemed an act of violence. He knew some people were disquieted when they heard her cheery greeting. It's the Dickinsons! Leave a message! He could tell by their initial Uh . . . when he played back their calls. Bitsy, though, said she found it a comfort. Once she phoned him and said, in a quavering voice, Dad? Can I ask you a favor? Can I just dial this number a few times and you not answer?

  I'm having a kind of blue day today and I wanted to hear Mom's voice.

  It was Bitsy who was his partner in mourning, much more so than her brothers. Remember your mother's silk pie? he would ask her, or Remember that song she used to sing about the widow with her baby? and he wouldn't have to offer any excuse for bringing it up. Bitsy fell in with him unquestioningly. Her tomato aspic, too, she would say, and Yes, of course, and what was that other song? The one about the lumberjack?

  Even with Bitsy, though, he rationed these conversations. He didn't want to worry her. He didn't want her sending him one of her probing glances. Are you all right, Dad? Are you really all right? Would you like to come to dinner this evening? We've invited the next-door neighbors but you're more than welcome, I promise. It would do you good to get out.

  It would not do him good to get out. That much he was certain of. In social situations, now, all he could think was, What is the point? The chitchat about the weather, politics, property taxes, children useless, every bit of it. And the neighbors dropping by his house with casseroles and cookies. Guess what! Tillie Brown told him from behind a Saran-wrapped platter. I'm another grandma!

  Pardon?

  My daughter just gave birth to her fourth little boy!

  Good God, he said, and he gazed down at the platter. Salmon loaf, from the looks of it. He was touched by these offerings but puzzled. What did they imagine he could do with it all? There was only one of him! And anyhow, food tasted to him like sawdust these days.

  A couple of the unattached women had told him they would love to go out some evening for dinner although not nearly as many women as the folklore would have you believe. He always put them off. Even if he'd had any interest, which he didn't, the effort of adjusting to a new person was beyond him. It had been hard enough the first time. He said, Well, now, isn't that nice of you, and never followed up. They didn't pursue it. He suspected they were just as glad not to have to bother. More and more of the world seemed to be barely trudging along, from what he had observed.

  Bitsy said they hoped to adopt this second child from China. There was a greater need in China, she said. But applying was more complicated than it had been for Korea, and physically obtaining the child would be more complicated too. They would have to travel there to get her. And it would definitely be a her, she said. She gazed off at Jin-Ho, who was playing in the sandbox some distance from the patio where they sat. Two little girls, she told Dave. Won't that be sweet? Luckily, Brad has never been the type who thought he had to have a son.

  Will you take Jin-Ho with you to China? Dave asked.

  Oh, my Lord, no! With all those unfamiliar germs? Besides, the trip will be so difficult. It isn't just the flight; we'll have to stay for several weeks while we go through the paperwork. She set her iced-tea glass down with a sudden, decisive motion and looked at him directly. In fact, I've been meaning to ask you, she said. Do you think we could leave her with you?

  With me?

  Now that you're retired.

  But You know how she adores you.

  But, honey, it's been a long time since I took care of a threeyear-old.

  Unfortunately, Bitsy told him, she'll be more like four or five. Maybe even in kindergarten. This whole process could take a couple of years, we hear.

  Oh, Dave said. Well, then.

  It crossed his mind that he might very well be dead in a couple of years. He was surprised at how the thought cheered him.

  It was the Donaldsons' turn to host the girls' Arrival Party. Bitsy was already debating the best d
ay for it. The fifteenth falls on a Tuesday this year, she told Dave, and so Ziba's asking why not have the party the Sunday before. But ... I don't know. Granted Sunday is more convenient, but I'd prefer to celebrate on the actual date, wouldn't you?

  Well, either way, Dave said.

  I mean the real, actual date the girls arrived in our lives! Right, he said hastily. Sure. The actual fifteenth.

  He felt he'd been backed into a corner. He often did, with Bitsy. Oh, this daughter of his had always managed to make life harder than it needed to be, for herself and for everyone around her. From earliest childhood she had held fierce, unbending opinions, and even though she tended to be right he could see that there were times when people wished they disagreed with her. Maybe global warming was not so bad after all! he could hear them thinking. Maybe world peace was less desirable than they had imagined!

  Connie used to say that Bitsy's problem was, she doubted her own goodness. At heart she was insecure; she worried she was unworthy. Dave found it helpful to remind himself of that, on occasion. (And what would he do without Connie's forgiving slant of vision to guide him in the future?)

  Then after the date had been settled Tuesday, what a shock there was the issue of the menu. Apparently Bitsy felt that the Yazdans had changed the rules, as she put it, when they'd served a full meal the year before. I mean, look what we did the first year, she told Dave on the phone. We put out the simplest refreshments, tea and coffee and cake. But last year! Last year we had enough food to feed a homeless shelter for a month. Jin-Ho got a stomachache and slept clear through the movie; never saw a bit of it.

  So? Dave said. This year you do it your way again.

  The Yazdans might feel that was inhospitable, though. You know how they focus on food. And then if I do serve a meal, I could never cook so many dishes. I don't have enough pots and pans! I don't have big enough pots and pans.