Digging to America (26 page)

And later the videotape ran almost unobserved; most people knew it so well. Jin-Ho went off in a corner to play Old Maid with two cousins. Linwood and his girlfriend grew all whispery and nuzzly. Several of the women started cleaning up while the other guests stood about in small groups, merely glancing toward the screen from time to time and remarking on how small the girls used to be, or how much more hair Brad used to have, before returning t
o
their conversations. When Ziba crossed in front of the TV with a stack of dishes, she had to say Excuse me only to Susan and Bitsy. Susan was watching the video from her seat on the rug. Bitsy, in the rocker with Xiu-Mei, seemed on the verge of sleep. But then Bitsy asked, out of the blue, Remember how we used to tell each other we wouldn't want to go back to that day for anything on earth?

I remember, Ziba said.

But now I think that in some ways, I would want to go back. I hadn't made any mistakes yet. I was still the perfect mother and Jin-Ho was still the perfect daughter. Oh, not that I'm saying ... I don't mean to sa
y
I know what you're saying, Ziba told her, and she would have given Bitsy a hug if she hadn't had her hands full of cake plates.

What do you suppose their lives were like before they came to us? Bitsy asked, not for the first time. They've had all those months of experiences that we will never know about. I'm sure they must have been treated well, but, oh, it kills me, it just kills me that I wasn't there to hold Jin-Ho when she first opened her eyes on the day that she was born.

On the day that Susan was born, Ziba was on the other side of the world wondering if she'd be able to love a total stranger's baby. And she had cried for half of one night some weeks after Susan's arrival, not knowing what she was crying about till all at once she had thought, What happened to my own baby?

Two things she would never say aloud to anyone not Bitsy, not even Sami.

She told Bitsy, Oh, well, just look at her. She turned out fine anyhow, didn't she? For Jin-Ho was chortling gleefully while Deirdre, studying the card she'd just picked, was pantomiming despair.

In the kitchen, Ziba found her mother scraping plates. Roya and Zuzu were spooning leftovers into refrigerator containers, and Maryam was knotting the drawstring on a plastic bag of garbage.

Dave said, Oh, Maryam -june! Don't lift that! Let me! and he stepped forward to wrest the bag from her. Maryam straightened, brushing a strand of hair off her face. Roya set down a salad bowl and sent a long look toward Zuzu.

Susan started kindergarten that September. She'd been accepted at a private school out in Baltimore County. Every morning Sami drove her there, since he worked in that area anyway, and on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays Ziba picked her up. But the kindergarten program ended at noon, which meant that on Tuesdays and Thursdays Maryam had to be the one who fetched her. Maryam brought Susan back home with her, gave her lunch, and kept her until Ziba arrived several hours later. Ziba told Maryam that she worried this was an imposition now that Maryam was leading such a busy social life; but Maryam said, What do you mean, busy? Ziba didn't answer that.

Often when Ziba got to Maryam's she would find Dave there before her. He would be sitting in the kitchen while Maryam prepared supper and Susan played with the cat. (Later, Ziba would ask Susan, Did Dave eat lunch with you? and most days Susan said, Mmhmm. No telling if he'd been around even longer. All morning? All the previous night?)

Touchingly, Dave made a point of rising when Ziba walked in. Well, hello! Good to see you, he'd say, running a hand through his pelt of gray curls. A mug of coffee would be sitting on the table in front of him he drank coffee around the clock and a jumbled pile of newspapers. He liked to read aloud from the papers and make comments to Maryam. As soon as Ziba turned to greet Susan, he would sit back down and resume where he had left off. Listen to this, he told Maryam. Here's a man arrested for road rage as
a
jogger, for mercy's sake. Maryam smiled and topped off his coffee with the pot that she kept going for him. Oh, thank you! he said. He never failed to show his gratitude another touching quality. Although Ziba thought the newspaper-reading could get a little tiresome.
'Area residents complained that the club's exotic dancers performed with denuded breasts,'
he read from another page.
'Denuded'! Don't you love it? Maryam laughed gently as she rinsed out her Thousand Faces teapot. Where was her new electric contraption? Ah: shoved toward the back of a counter, half hidden by a package of pita.

Susan said a boy named Henry had called her a poop-faced poop-head. Oh, that's just boys, Maryam told her, and Dave announced, with some urgency, Now, here is a bunch of parents protesting the multiplication tables. Ziba was reminded of how a child will tug at his mother's sleeve when she is on the phone, requiring cookies, milk, juice, complaining of a stomachache, desperate to reclaim her attention. They feel that rote memorization dampens the students' love of learning, Dave said. And they don't see why anyone should have to diagram sentences. That's old-fashioned, they say. He lowered the paper to frown at Susan over his reading glasses. You need to diagram sentences, young lady. Don't let anyone tell you otherwise.

Susan said, Okay.

If a certain TV anchorman could diagram a sentence, he would not have reported on the national news that as the father of two young children, chicken pox was sweeping the country.

Huh?

Maryam lit the flame beneath her kettle. Was today your day with the leopard-skin lady? she asked Ziba.

Yes, and you'll never guess now what. Now she wants tiger-striped curtains in the master bedroom. I said, 'But the wallpaper there is zebra-striped!' She said, 'Of course. It's a theme room.'

Maryam leaned back against the counter and folded her arms. She was wearing a long white apron over her black slacks; she looked crisp and almost too thin. Last night I had the most upsetting dream, she said. You've just reminded me. The zebra stripes reminded me. I was driving in a strange city, trying to get to the zoo, and I couldn't find a parking space. So finally I parked on a side street. And then I told the ticket lady, 'Oh! I forgot where I parked!' I said, 'Wait a minute; I just need to make sure I can get back to my car.' So I turned and I went down this street, went down that street ... but I couldn't find my car again. All the streets looked the same.

Maryam, sweetheart? Dave said, lowering his newspaper. Are you feeling particularly anxious these days?

Why, no, not that I

Because I would call that an anxiety dream. Don't you think so, Ziba?

Ziba said, Well...

I do have to drive to Danielle's tomorrow night, Maryam said. And you know how far out of town she lives.

Aha, that's it, Dave told her. You hate driving at night! You don't have any night vision. You always end up getting lost.

Not always.

I will drive you.

No, no. . .

I will drive! I will be at your beck and call! I will drive you there and come back for you at some appointed time.

That's just silly, Maryam told him.

Oh, let him, Mari -june, Ziba said.

Yes, let me, Mari -june. Besides, Dave said. He winked at Ziba. This way I might finally get to meet the famous Danielle.

You haven't met Danielle? Ziba asked.

I haven't met any of her friends.

Why, Maryam! You ought to introduce him, Ziba said. Invite him in when he comes to bring you home.

Ordinarily she would not have been so forward, but all at once she felt a kind of impatience that amounted almost to anger. Wouldn't you think Maryam could show a little more warmth? Clearly she loved the man; why was she so stiff-necked, so obstinate, so frustrating?

But Maryam said, I will drive my own self, thank you, and turned back to her kettle.

Then Susan complained that Moosh had snagged her hair, and Ziba said what did she expect if she swung her braids in his face, and Dave said, Look at this! Now churches are projecting the words to hymns on overhead screens with little bouncing balls like Lawrence Welk. They say it's too much trouble for people to read down the staves in the hymnbooks. For God's sake! Too much trouble!

Maryam clicked her tongue. Ziba told Susan to collect her things because they had to be going.

When the Donaldsons gave their leaf-raking party in October, Maryam attended. She hadn't in the past, not after the very first one. (I have my own leaves to rake, she always said, although her own leaves were oak and barely beginning to turn by then.) But here she came, emerging from the passenger side of Dave's car and waving to the others. She went into the house first to drop off her purse and a bottle of wine, and then she joined Dave, who'd already started raking a section near the front. The girls were helping too this year, each wielding a child-sized rake and competing to see who could make a bigger pile. Xiu-Mei was sitting on a tarpaulin that Brad had spread nearby, reaching for the shiny brass grom--
m
ets. You could tell she had not had much practice operating her hands. They moved as waveringly and unpredictably as those scooping-claw games on boardwalks.

It was a perfect day for this a breezy, bright Saturday afternoon, warm enough so that bit by bit, people shucked their sweaters off. Brad's mother, who as usual was just standing about decoratively, gathered the sweaters and put them in a heap beside Xiu-Mei. Bitsy stopped work for a minute to go inside and check on dinner. Brad's father started a boring real-estate discussion with Sami, and Dave dropped his rake in order to walk over and confer with the girls about something. Ziba couldn't hear what he was saying. All she heard was Sami telling Lou how difficult the insurance companies were making home-buying these days.

Bitsy came back out of the house with a pitcher and a stack of tumblers. Who's for lemonade? she called, and the girls said, I am! I am! Ziba laid aside her rake and went to help, but the men continued working. So did Maryam, till Dave said, Maryam? Want to stop for lemonade?

Oh, she said, maybe later. She was raking alongside the driveway with languid, leisurely strokes. She didn't like sweet drinks, Ziba knew not that she would ever be so rude as to say so.

Dave went over to Bitsy and accepted a glass of lemonade from her. Then he bent and whispered to the girls. Jin-Ho said, Oh, and handed her tumbler back to Bitsy. Susan said, Here, Mama, and shoved her own tumbler at Ziba. They followed Dave across the lawn toward Maryam. Bitsy raised her eyebrows at Ziba, but Ziba had no idea.

Maryam? Dave was saying. Won't you sit down? I brought you a glass of lemonade.

Oh, thank you, bu
t
Sit down, Mari -june! Sit down! Susan said, and Jin-Ho said, Please, please sit down. They were tugging at her arms an
d
giggling. Maryam seemed puzzled, and no wonder; the only place to sit was directly on the ground. But she did allow herself to be dragged down, finally, until she was seated tailor-fashion on a stretch of mossy grass already cleared of leaves. Then Dave handed her the lemonade.

In the distance, Sami was telling Lou, It's like the insurance companies have completely forgotten that gambling is their job description. They won't insure a house if it has ever in its life had a leak; never mind that the leak has long ago bee
n
Dave called, Sami?

Sami broke off and looked over at him.

Girls, Dave said.

Still giggling, the girls dug something out of their pockets. They pressed closer to Maryam and started working busily just above her head. Maryam said, What ? She tried to bat their hands away but they were all over her, four insistent little fists making brisk, bustling motions. It's sugar! Susan cried. We're grinding sugar!

What on ?

Maryam, Dave said. Will you marry me?

Maryam stopped swiping at her hair and stared at him. The girls were still working away, but Dave said, Okay, kids, that's enough now. Reluctantly, they stepped back.

Maryam said, What?

This is a formal proposal, he said, and he dropped to his knees beside her. Will you be my wife?

Instead of answering, she looked at the girls. Sure enough, their hands were full of sugar cubes the uniform white rectangles that came in the yellow Domino box.

The sugar should have been cone-shaped. That was what they used in Iran: rough white cones of sugar some six or eight inches tall. And the people grinding it should have been grown wome
n
known for their happy marriages, and they should have worked over a veil so that the crystals would not be speckling Maryam's hair like a very bad case of dandruff. And it was never ground at proposals. That happened only at weddings.

Either Dave had been gravely misinformed or else he had decided to redesign the whole tradition. Switch it around and embellish it. Americanize it, you might say.

Maryam looked past the girls to the others: Bitsy smiling above her pitcher, Pat clasping her hands as if praying, Sami and Lou gaping, and Ziba herself... what? Probably clench jawed with tension, because it would be so sad if Maryam said no to this poor, sweet, foolish man.

Maryam looked at Dave again. She said, Yes.

Everybody cheered.