by Anne Tyler
Yes, was all Maryam said, but she couldn't resist sending Susan a glance across the room. Susan wore a rosebud-print dress her other grandma had bought at a fancy shop in Georgetown, and the pale pink made her black hair and black eyes even more startlingly beautiful.
All the American guests were carrying their plates into the living room, while all the Iranian guests remained standing around the buffet table. Every time she saw this, Maryam tried to decide: were the Americans more greedy for rushing off into private corners and huddling possessively over their food, or were the Iranians more greedy for staying close to the source as they ate while other guests, not yet served, did their best to reach in between them? In any case, she knew enough to lead the Donaldsons into the living room. She saw to it that they were seated on the floor around the coffee table, since all of the chairs were taken, and then she went to the kitchen to fetch a bib for Jin-Ho. When she came back, Brad and Bitsy had struck up a conversation with the next-door neighbor, who was sitting on the couch breast-feeding her baby. You can never begin too young, Bitsy was saying. I'm talking about the mother-infant exercise program, she told Maryam. It's not only good for their muscles but it also develops the brain. Something about hand-eye coordination, I believe.
Obviously, she had settled in. Maryam tied the bib around JinHo's neck and went off to see who else needed tending.
It was an excess of politeness that led Maryam to invite the Donald-sons to an Iranian New Year's dinner that spring. In fact, she had more or less stopped celebrating the New Year. Sami and Ziba always went over to Washington, where Ziba's parents gave a gigantic party attended by throngs of bejeweled and perfumed guests people much more newly arrived than Maryam and really not her type. This year was no exception, but Ziba told Maryam that at some point after the actual New Year's, she would love to serve the Donaldsons a few of the traditional dishes. They so much enjoyed what they ate at Susan's birthday party, she said. I was thinking we could ask Brad and Bitsy's parents, too, and my parents if they're free. We could set up a Haftseen table and make perhaps a morgh polo . . . well, you would make it, but I would help as much as possible. Would you be willing?
Maryam would have been more than willing, ordinarily, but now she felt an inner pinch of resistance. Why should they have to put on these ethnic demonstrations? Let the Donaldsons go to the Smithsonian for that! she thought peevishly. Let them read National Geographic! All she said to Ziba, though, was, Won't it be too much for you, on top of your weekend in Washington?
Too much? Why, no, Ziba said. Or ... are you saying it's too much for you?
Certainly not. I'm not the one going to Washington! But the Haftseen table, for instance. It would need to be set up ahead of time, and you will both be away.
There was no reason whatsoever that the table should be set up ahead of time. And anyhow, they were free to schedule this for any date they liked. Surely Ziba must have realized that Maryam was just inventing excuses, but she drew the wrong conclusion. She said, Oh! You prefer to give the dinner at your house?
My house? Well, but Of course! I should have thought! It's just that our house has more room. If you prefer your house, though . . .
Well, it's true that my house is quite small, Maryam said. But you're the one who's cooking. You should get to choose.
You'll be doing the rest of it, though the decorating, the cleaning up afterward. Your house makes more sense.
No, that's okay, Ziba said. We'll use your house. That will be just fine.
So Maryam invited the Donaldsons to her house.
Ten days before the party, Sami took her to Rockville for some of the more exotic ingredients. (It was a longer trip than she felt comfortable driving alone.) Traffic on I-95 was bumper to bumper, and Sami muttered under his breath whenever the stream of red taillights lit up in front of them. We should just be glad this place is as close as it is, Maryam told him. When I first came to this country, your grandmother had to mail most of my spices from Iran.
She could see those parcels still, clumsily stitched-together cloth bundles bulging with sumac and dried fenugreek leaves and tiny, blackened dried limes, the homemade cardboard address tags hand-lettered in her mother's shaky English. What we couldn't get shipped, we cheated on, she said. We traded around our secret tricks, the other wives and I. Pomegranate sauce made with frozen concentrated Welch's grape juice and tinned pumpkin-pie filling; I remember that one. Yogurt curd made with skim milk and goat cheese whirled in the blender.
In those days, all of their friends had been Iranian, all more or less in the same situation as Maryam and Kiyan. (At one of their big poker parties a wife could call, Agha doctor! and every man in the room could answer, Yes?) Where were those people now? Well, many had gone back home, of course. Others had moved on to other American cities. But some, she knew, remained right here in Baltimore; only she had lost touch with them. Politics had increasingly complicated matters, for one thing. Who supported the Shah? Who did not? Then after the Revolution you could be sure that most of the new arrivals had definitely supported the Shah, had perhaps even held high positions with the secret police, and it was wiser to avoid them altogether. Besides, Kiyan was dead by then and she no longer felt comfortable in that two-by-two social circle.
If only your father had lived to see the Shah overthrown! she said to Sami. He would have been so happy.
For about three and a half minutes, Sami said.
Well, yes.
He would hate to hear what's going on there now.
Yes, of course.
She'd been listening to music from home one day on Kiyan's old shortwave radio while she ironed. Already there'd been public demonstrations and rumors of unrest, but even the experts had been unable to predict the outcome. And then in midnote the music had stopped and there was a long silence, broken at last by a man announcing, quietly and levelly, This is the voice of the Revolution. A thrill had run up her spine and tears had filled her eyes, and she had set down her iron and said, out loud, Oh, Kiyan! Do you hear that?
What's going on there now would break his heart, she told Sami. Sometimes, you know what? I think the people who are dead are lucky.
Whoa! Sami said. Maryam glanced reflexively toward the traffic ahead, expecting some emergency. But no, this seemed to be one of those exaggerated reactions you saw so often in young people. No way, Mom! Hold on there!
Oh, I don't mean that literally. But what would he say, Sami? He loved his country! He always meant for us to go back there someday.
Thank God we didn't, Sami said, and he flicked his turn signal on and swung sharply into the fast lane as if the very thought made him angry.
He had never been to Iran himself. The one time since his birth that Maryam had gone back, Sami was already grown and married and working for Peacock Homes, and he had claimed he couldn't get away. He had no interest, was the real reason. She looked over at him sadly, at his large, curved nose so like Kiyan's and his endearing little spectacles. Now he would probably never go, and certainly not with her, because she had resolved not to return after that last visit. It wasn't the restrictions, so much the funereal long black coat she'd had to wear and the unbecoming headscarf but the absence of so many of the people she had loved. Of course she had been told about their deaths as they occurred (her mother, her great-aunts, her aunts and some of her uncles, each loss reported one by one in roundabout, tactful terms on thin blue aerogram paper or, in later years, over the telephone). But underneath, it seemed, she had managed not to realize fully until there she was, back in the family compound, and where was her mother? Where was her cluster of aunts clucking and bustling and chortling like a flock of little gray hens? And then at the airport when she was leaving there'd been a problem with her exit visa, something inconsequential that was settled fairly easily by a cousin with connections, but she had felt a sense of panic that was almost suffocating. She had felt like a bird beating its wings inside its cage. Let me out, let me out, let me out! And she'd never been back.
In the grocery store, where she and Sami had to struggle through a crowd of other Iranians shopping for their New Year's parties, she couldn't help asking, Who are these people? The children were using the familiar you when speaking to their parents; they were loud and unruly and disrespectful. The teenage girls were showing bare midriffs. The customers nearest the counter were pushing and shoving. This is just ... distressing! she told Sami, but he surprised her by snapping, Oh, Mom, get off your high horse!
Excuse me? she said, truly not sure she had heard right.
Why should they act any better than Americans? he demanded. They're only behaving like everyone else, Mom; so quit judging.
Her first impulse was to snap back. Was it so wrong to expect her countrymen to set a good example? But she counted to ten before she spoke (a tactic she had learned during his adolescence) and then decided not to speak at all. Instead she proceeded down the aisle in silence, dropping cellophane packets of herbs and dried fruits into the basket he was carrying for her. She paused before a bin of wheat kernels, and Sami said, Will there be time enough to sprout them? There was plenty of time, as he knew full well. He must be asking only to make amends. So she said, Well, I think there will be. What's your opinion? and after that they were all right again.
She did judge. She knew that. Over the years she had become more and more critical, perhaps because of living alone for so long. She would have to watch herself. She made a point of smiling at the next person who jostled her, a woman with short hair dyed the color of a copper skillet, and when the woman smiled back it turned out she had a single, deep groove at the outer corner of each eye just like Aunt Minou's, and Maryam felt a rush of affection for her.
The Donaldsons had been invited for lunch on a Sunday that fell a full eight days after Ziba's parents' party; so there was less reason than ever for Maryam to host the event at her house. By now, though, she was resigned. She cooked the whole week before, a dish or two a day. She set up the Haftseen table in the living room the seven traditional objects, including a vibrant little putting green of sprouted wheat kernels, artfully arranged on her best embroidered cloth. And Sunday morning she rose before dawn to make the final preparations. The only other windows alight were in houses where there were small babies. The only sounds were the birds, a clamor of new and different songs now that spring was here. She padded around the kitchen barefoot, wearing muslin pants and a long-tailed shirt that used to belong to Sami. Her tea cooled on the counter as she rinsed the rice and set it to soak, and climbed on a stool to fetch down her trays, and snipped the stems of the yellow tulips that had been waiting overnight in buckets on the back porch. By now the sun was rising, and through the open window she heard the newspaper carrier's squeaky-braked van and then the slap of the Baltimore Sun against her front step. She brought the paper into the kitchen to read with her second cup of tea. From where she sat she could see into the dining room, where the silver gleamed on the table and the stemware sparkled and the tulips marched down the center in a row of slim glass vases. She loved this time before a party when the napkins had not yet been crumpled or the quiet shattered.
At twelve-thirty, freshly bathed and dressed in narrow black trousers and a white silk tunic, she was standing at her front door to welcome Sami and Ziba. They came early to help with last-minute preparations, although, as Sami pointed out, she had left them nothing to do. No, but this way I get to have a little visit with Susan, she said. Susan was a very competent walker by now, and the minute Sami set her down she made a beeline for the basket where Maryam kept her toys. Her hair had grown long enough that it fell in her eyes if they didn't tie it up into a sort of vertical sprout on top of her head. It wisped around her little shell ears and trailed in thin strands down the back of her flower-stem neck. Susiejune, Ziba told her, say, 'Hi, Mari -june!' Say, 'Hello, Mari -june!'
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 her 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, 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 as she st
ruggled 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, Dad 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?