Digging to America

by Anne Tyler

  Susan was in the Threes class, having turned four only in January. Usually Maryam resisted the urge to look in on her, and when the Threes tramped past the glassed-in office on their way to the playground she tried not to glance up from her desk. It was a pleasure, therefore, to have this excuse to walk straight into the classroom. The children were stowing their art supplies, washing their hands at the knee-high sinks, hanging their smocks in the cubbies labeled with their names. It took Maryam a minute to find Susan because she was sitting at the Reading Table with a book. Had she finished her art project early, or had she never joined the group at all? Maryam always worried, because Susan seemed so reserved next to her rowdier classmates. The teachers kept insisting, though, that she was doing fine. She's such a little ... person, one had said just recently. Maryam's feeling exactly, and so she had relaxed, for the moment.

  Time to go, she told Susan now. You're coming home with me today, remember?

  Susan shut her book and filed it neatly away on the shelf, all without saying a word, but as she walked past one of the teachers she said, I get to sleep in my new room tonight.

  Oh, I know you do! the teacher said. Greta, this was a spirited type.

  But first I'm going to Mari june's because Mama's busy setting up my bed.

  Well, aren't you lucky! Greta said, and she flashed a grin at Maryam. Have fun, you two!

  Maryam smiled and thanked her, but Susan walked out of the room without responding. And in the car, she refused to discuss her day. You'd think Maryam would have learned by now, but she always found herself asking, How was school? What did you do? while Susan gazed out the side window in a silence that seemed not rude but diplomatic, as if she were graciously overlooking Maryam's faux pas. She still rode in a safety seat, because she weighed so little. Jin-Ho had graduated to a booster by now but Susan didn't yet qualify, even though she kept arguing about it.

  Just the week before, Maryam had taken in a small stray cat that she'd named Moosh Farsi for mouse because of his gray coat. Susan was in love with him, and the minute they arrived at the house she had to race through all the rooms calling, Moosh? Moosh? Mooshi jon! Where are you, Mooshi jon?

  Let him find you, Maryam told her. Come sit in the kitchen and have your snack. He'll show up by and by.

  Which was what happened. Susan had barely started on her milk and cookies when Moosh appeared out of nowhere to twine around the legs of her chair. Moosh! she squealed. Can I feed him something? Can I give him some of my milk?

  Try these cat treats, Maryam said, and she handed her a box.

  Susan slid off her chair and squatted next to Moosh, her sharp bare knees jutting outward. On the wall above her, the phone started ringing, and Maryam reached over to answer it. Hello? she said.

  It's Dave Dickinson, Maryam. How are you?

  Hello, Dave. I'm fine; how are you?

  I understand you're watching Susan this afternoon.

  Yes, just till the movers are done.

  I was wondering if you might like me to bring Jin-Ho to keep her company.

  Oh, you have Jin-Ho today? Maryam asked.

  Well, no, but I could go get her.

  That would be very nice. Susan, she said, would you like for Jin-Ho to come over?

  Susan said, Yes! without taking her eyes from the cat, who was cautiously sniffing the treat she held out. So Maryam told Dave, We'd love to see her. Thank you for thinking of it.

  We'll be there in half an hour, he said.

  He made such offers a lot nowadays. He must be missing Connie. And Maryam suspected also that he was having trouble adjusting to retirement. She could tell it from the way he prolonged all conversations, and took forever to say goodbye, and invariably joined in when the Donaldsons and the Yazdans got together for any social event.

  This afternoon he stayed on after bringing Jin-Ho even though Maryam told him she'd be happy to watch both girls on her own. It's not as if I have anything better to do, he said, and then he gave a strange grimace. I mean, he said, I like sitting here. If I'm not in your way.

  Not in the least, Maryam said. In fact, she had planned on using this time to make a meal to take Sami and Ziba, but she asked, Could I fix you a cup of tea? Or coffee?

  Coffee would be good. Oh, but, I'm sorry; you have things to do, don't you? Really, I don't need any coffee.

  She smiled at his phrasing. Although need was, come to think of it, a word that summed Dave up these days. He watched people so expectantly; he kept his eyes fixed on her so steadfastly as she moved around the kitchen. And when she set his coffee in front of him he was so disproportionately grateful. This is very kind of you, he said. I really appreciate your going to the bother.

  It was no bother, she told him.

  As long as he was just sitting there, she might as well proceed with her cooking. She took a pan from the cupboard almost soundlessly, as if that would keep him from noticing what she was up to. While she was filling the pan with water he said something she didn't catch, and she waited till she'd turned the faucet off before she said, Excuse me?

  I was saying, this coffee tastes unusually delicious. Do you get it someplace special?

  Just the supermarket, she said with a laugh.

  Well, maybe it's because someone besides me made it. I get awfully tired of eating my own cooking.

  A streak of gray passed by: Moosh escaping the girls, who followed close behind. He was not so much running as walking very fast, trying to keep his dignity, and the girls managed to corner him between the table and the door. Mooshi-Moosh, they were saying. Mooshi june! even Jin-Ho, squatting next to Susan and holding out a cat treat. Like Susan, she wore shorts and a T-shirt, and on her feet were those jelly sandals that all the children favored this year.

  Mooshi? Is that his name? Dave asked.

  Moosh, Susan told him.

  Well, hi there, Moosh! Dave said heartily. Where do you happen to come from?

  Susan turned to Maryam and wrinkled her forehead. She said, I didn't know Moosh could talk.

  He can't, Maryam said, spooning out rice. You'll have to answer for him.

  Oh. Susan turned back to Dave and said, Mari -june found him under her porch.

  Lucky Moosh! he said.

  Guess what, Susan told him. I get to sleep in my new room tonight.

  So I heard. You have a whole new house.

  The moving truck's moving my bed today.

  Is it a normal house, or is it a magic house? Dave asked. What?

  Well, for instance, some mornings when I go for my run I see this house two streets over that I really like to look at. It's got a porch swing, and a hammock, and a cupola on the roof. But then other mornings, I don't see it.

  Susan sat back on her heels and studied him in silence. I mean, he told her, it's not there.

  Where'd it go?

  Well, I don't know, he said. Sometimes it's there and some - times it's not. A lot of things do that more than we're aware of. They do? She looked at Maryam. They do? she asked Maryam.

  'There was one, and there wasn't one,' Maryam quoted, surprising even herself. 'Except for God, there was no one. '

  Dave said, What's that?

  That's how people at home used to begin old stories. It's like 'Once upon a time,' I guess.

  Really! Dave said. He set down his coffee cup. That's fascinating! How does it go, again? 'There was one ...'

  Oh, well. It's just a loose translation, she said.

  No, really. How does it go?

  She couldn't say why she felt so weary, all at once. She dropped the scoop back into the rice bin. At her feet, Susan was asking, What's a cupola, Mari -june? Does my new house have a cupola?

  Instead of answering, Maryam told Dave, You know, it's ridiculous that you should have to stay around here all afternoon just twiddling your thumbs. Why not let me bring Jin-Ho back when I take Susan home?

  Oh, he said.

  She felt a twinge of remorse. Not that you aren't welcome, she said. But there's no reason you
should tie up your day.

  I don't have a day, Maryam.

  She pretended not to hear this. All you'd have to do is switch Jin-Ho's booster seat to my car, she said, if you don't mind my asking.

  So that he was forced to say, Well, of course, I don't mind at all. Then he stood up, with his hands hanging loose at his sides in an empty, disconsolate way. But still she didn't relent.

  Susan and Jin-Ho spent the afternoon building Moosh a house out of a cardboard carton. They begged a bath mat from Maryam to pad the floor, and they scrawled windows on the walls with a felt-tip marker. For a bed they lined a shoe box with one of Maryam's scarves, although she warned them that most likely Moosh would refuse to use it. Cats are too willful to sleep where you tell them to, she said. Jin-Ho said, Okay, the shoe box can be his bureau, then, but Susan who was fairly willful herself said, No! It's his bed! I want it to be his bed!

  Well, I guess it won't hurt to try, Maryam told her.

  And we're going to have a cupola, too.

  Maryam laughed and went back to her cooking.

  Around six o'clock, Ziba called to let her know they were more or less moved in. At least the furniture's in place, she said. So Maryam wrapped the rice pot in a towel and rounded up the girls and put them in the car. When she dropped Jin-Ho off at the Donaldsons', Bitsy came out with a Styrofoam cooler of food for Sami and Ziba. This can be for tomorrow, she said, and then I thought the day after tomorrow I'd invite them for supper at our house. Would you like to join us, Maryam? I could ask Dad to come too.

  Oh, thank you, but I have plans, Maryam said. She didn't want Sami and Ziba to think she was overly involved in their lives.

  On the way to the new house, she tried to orient Susan. See, when you're old enough to walk home from Jin-Ho's on your own you would pass this big house with the trellis, and then you would cross the street looking both ways first, remember and then at this next street you would turn right, at the yard with the bird feeder in it ...

  Susan listened in silence, studying each landmark as if committing it to memory. She had the most beautiful posture. She sat in her seat like a miniature queen, perfectly composed.

  Ziba met them at the door in one of Sami's old shirts. Her face was shiny with sweat and there was a smudge on one cheekbone. Come in! she told them. Welcome to your new home, Susiejune! She swooped Susan up in her arms and showed her the living room. See how nice it looks? Do you like it? See where we put your rocking horse? Maryam, holding the rice pot, took a right instead of a left and headed toward the kitchen. She had planned to send Sami out to her car for Bitsy's cooler, but he was nowhere to be seen and Ziba was carrying Susan up the stairs now, chattering in a rather anxious way about how pretty Susan's new bedroom was; so Maryam went back for the cooler herself. She saw when she unpacked it that Bitsy had supplied not just a casserole of some sort and a container of salad, but also a dessert a homemade pie. She set the pie on the table next to her pot. The pot contained Sami's favorite dish: rice with fish and mixed greens, a meal complete in itself; but now she wished she'd provided something on the side.

  Ziba came into the kitchen, holding Susan by the hand, and said, Will you stay and eat with us?

  Maryam had assumed all along that she would stay, but the fact that the question had been asked made her doubtful, suddenly. She said, Oh, well, I know you must have work to do.

  You're more than welcome, Ziba said, not denying that she had work.

  So Maryam declined again and took her leave.

  Slipping back into her car, waving at Ziba and Susan, who stood watching from the porch, she wondered if she had done the wrong thing. Should she have offered to help, to put the meal on the table and share it with them and clean up afterward? Or was Ziba glad to see the last of her? It was so hard to tell. She could understand, sometimes, why Sami lost his patience with these elaborate old-country courtesies that concealed everybody's true feelings.

  She cast a final glance at the two on the porch and then pulled away from the curb, feeling unsettled and dissatisfied.

  The new house changed their lives, and only for the better. Susan could join in the neighbor children's outdoor games no more complicated playdate arrangements. It was a ten-minute drive to her preschool, and less than that to the grocery store, and just a short walk to the Donaldsons'. When school let out for the summer and Maryam resumed her Tuesday-Thursday babysitting schedule, she sat on Sami and Ziba's front porch contentedly hulling strawberries while Susan rode her tricycle, or she puttered with Susan and Jin-Ho in the tiny backyard garden they had planted. The first slim carrots were ready in late June, and both girls were beside themselves. They ate them raw for lunch with a dill-and-yogurt dip. Even Susan, who usually spurned all vegetables, polished off three.

  Maryam worked at Julia Jessup just one day a week in the summer. She paid a few bills, saw to correspondence, made a couple of telephone calls to order supplies or arrange for routine maintenance. Often the only other person in the building was the janitor, pushing his wide broom down halls that were already gleaming. The school's director, Mrs. Barber, spent her summers in Maine, but she would phone from time to time and ask how things were going. Oh, fine, Maryam would tell her. The men are here to resurface that place underneath the jungle gym, remember? And the Windham twins' father has been transferred to Atlanta, so I've written to the next two families on the waiting list. She was aware of sounding busier than she really was, as if trying to demonstrate that she was earning her pay.

  Even during the school year this was an undemanding job, carried out at a measured pace among people long familiar to her. She worked in a kind of trance, sitting at an immaculate desk in the center of the so-called goldfish bowl that she shared with Mrs. Barber and Mrs. Simms, the assistant director. It soothed her, somehow, to perform the most trivial tasks to perfection. At the end of every day she emptied her computer's recycling bin, and she defragmented her hard drive exactly once a month.

  In July she went to Vermont to visit her double first cousin, a daughter of an uncle on her father's side and an aunt on her mother's side. Farah was several years younger than Maryam, and different from her in almost every way. Living in an area where everyone else was a native, married to an ex-hippie she had met while she was studying in Paris, she had chosen to become exaggeratedly Iranian. She met Maryam's plane in an outfit so exotic that even in Tehran, people would have gawked: a maroon satin tunic over tight white leggings, curly-toed sequined slippers straight from a Persian miniature, and a bib of golden chains that all but covered her plump bosom.

  Maryam jon! Maryam jon! she shrieked, jumping up and down. Everyone else at the gate pale and drab by comparison turned to stare at her. Salaam, Mari june! she cried. For a moment Maryam wanted to pretend she had nothing to do with this woman, but then when they were face-to-face she saw Farah's Karimzadeh eyes, long and narrow with pointed corners, and the Karimzadeh nose as straight as a pin. Unlike Maryam, Farah was letting her hair go gray, and the gray hairs frizzed and corkscrewed up from the black just as their grandmother's used to.

  During the drive from the airport (in a dusty beige Chevrolet with a back seat full of machine parts), Farah spoke Farsi in such a rush that it seemed to have been bottled up inside her. She relayed all the news from home, quoting telephone conversations not just word for word but in the appropriate voices their cousin Sholeh's thin whine, their second cousin Kaveh's bullish bellow. Farah kept in much closer touch with the family than Maryam did. Oh, a dozen times a week, she said, one person or another will be wearing me out with complaints, and at my expense, too. Which implied it was she who placed the calls, but why, if she found them so tedious? Some form of survivor guilt, perhaps. They go on and on about the difficulties of current conditions their entertainment so limited, almost no films allowed, almost no music, no liquor except what the smugglers deliver in bleach jugs after dark. They imagine my own life is sheer pleasure. They have no idea how hard it is here!

  To look at her, encased i
n satin and glittering with gold, their relatives might have laughed, but Maryam knew what she meant. It was hard, harder than the people back home could possibly imagine, and sometimes she wondered how they both had lasted this long in a country where everything happened so fast and everybody else knew all the rules without asking.

  My sister reads off lists of items she wants me to send, Farah said. Athletic shoes and cosmetics and bottles of vitamin pills. There are vitamins in Iran! Perfectly good ones, but she believes that the vitamins in America are more powerful. I sent her a bottle of Vigor-Vytes and the first pill she took, she told me, 'Already I feel so much younger! I have so much more energy!'

  Uttering the phrase Vigor-Vytes led Farah to change over to English, probably without meaning to. It was a phenomenon Maryam had often observed among Iranians. They'd be rattling along in Farsi and then some word borrowed from America, generally something technical like television or computer, would flip a switch in their brains and they would continue in English until a Farsi word flipped the switch back again.

  I suppose you have less of that because your brothers can ask their children to send things, Farah was saying. Or Parviz can, at least, with his two up there in Vancouver where all the stores are excellent. (This last sentence flipped back and forth lickety-split, triggered first by Parviz and then by Vancouver.) And besides, you're so much stronger. You would just say no. I should be stronger. I am a, how you say, floormat.

  Doormat, Maryam said.

  Doormat. I am a push-off.

  Maryam held her tongue.

  They had been traveling through the New England countryside at a speed that was surely illegal, passing small, tidy farms that could have lined the tracks of a toy train set. Now they swerved onto a gravel road, with a clanking of metal from the back seat. A few minutes later they parked in the yard of the Jeffreys' gray clapboard house. Oh, good, Farah said. William's home.