Anne Tyler - Digging to America

A bride! You came over as a bride?

I had been married just one day when I boarded the airplane, Maryam said.

So the trip to America was your honeymoon! How romantic! From his place at the head of the table, Sami said, Now, Mom. Tell the whole story.

Oh, tell! Bitsy said, and Lou tapped his water glass with his knife. Jin-Ho, who was just nodding off, started a bit and then resettled her head against her mother's shoulder.

Maryam said, There is no story.

Yes, there is, Sami said. He turned to the others. She made that so-called honeymoon trip alone, he said. My dad was already over here. She had a proxy wedding all by herself and joined him afterward.

Is that true? Pat asked her. You had a wedding without the groom? But how did that work?

Show them the photo, Sami told Maryam.

Oh, Sami, they don't want to see the photo, she said, and she ignored their protests (Yes, we do! Show us, Maryam!) and rose to pick up the platter of stuffed grape leaves. Would anyone care for seconds? she asked.

A photo of Mom in her wedding dress, Sami said, standing alone beside a long table you can hardly see for the presents. It looks as if she's marrying the presents.

Maryam said, Well, I wouldn't say. . There was something in his tone that hurt her feelings. Something amused; that was it. And perhaps Mr. Hakimi felt it too, because he cleared his throat and said, In fact many, many girls married that way at the time. All those young men who went to America, don't you know, or Germany or France… Of course they needed wives, by and by. It was a reasonable solution.

But how did you court at such long distance? Pat asked Maryam.

Court! Sami said. He laughed. They didn't. The marriage was arranged.

Maryam sensed a new alertness around the table, but she didn't look up from the platter she stood holding in both hands. No one had taken seconds. Maybe they had disliked the grape leaves. Maybe they had disliked the whole meal.

So you see, Sami told Bitsy, it wasn't as romantic as you think.

Maryam said, Oh, Sami. She spoke very gently, to hide the outrage in her voice. You can't know everything about it, she said. And then she turned away, with as much dignity as possible, and carried the grape leaves out of the room and shut the swinging door behind her.

In the kitchen, she filled the kettle with water for tea. Obviously she should clear the table before she served the pastries and fruit, but she wasn't quite ready yet to go back and face the others. She lit the burner beneath the kettle and then remained at the stove, her arms folded tightly across her chest, her eyes stinging with tears.

When Kiyan had told her, for instance, that her hair smelled like an Armenian church: what could Sami know about that?

The swinging door opened slowly and Connie walked through, carrying two plates. Maryam said, Please, you mustn't, and took the plates from her. You'll tire yourself, she said.

Connie said, That's okay; I wanted to stretch my legs. Instead of going back to the dining room, she settled on the stool and watched Maryam scrape the plates. Aren't family gatherings wearing? she said. All those people who know you so well, they think they can say just anything.

It's true, Maryam said. She began fussing with the stacks of soiled cookware that cluttered her one small counter. While she was facing away from Connie, she dabbed hurriedly at the tip of her nose. And really they don't know you so well, she said.

You're right; they don't know the half of it, Connie agreed. She turned toward the swinging door, where her husband was just entering with two more plates. We're commiserating about family gatherings, she told him.

Ah, yes, dreadful affairs, Dave said, and he went straight to the garbage bin in a familiar way and started scraping the plates. Maryam never could get used to men helping out in the kitchen. Where was Ziba? Wasn't it Ziba who should be doing this? Families in general, Dave was saying. They're vastly overrated.

Connie tsked and gave him a friendly swat.

And holding this dinner at my house, Maryam went on (reminded by thoughts of Ziba). I never asked to do that! I mean… forgive me; of course I'm pleased to have you, but We understand, Dave told her. Probably he didn't understand, but he was nice enough to nod his woolly gray head in a sympathetic manner, and Connie nodded too and said, It's funny how we get maneuvered into these things.

We're too careful with each other, Ziba and I, Maryam said. She turned toward the stove and uncovered the kettle to see if the water was boiling. Our family is not very good at saying what we want. Sometimes we end up doing what none of us wants, I suspect, just because we think it would satisfy the others.

Be rude, like us, Dave suggested, and he draped an arm around Connie's shoulders and winked at Maryam. She had to laugh.

Then Connie and Dave returned to the dining room for more plates, and Maryam spooned tea leaves into her best china teapot. She did feel better now. There was something consoling about those two. She poured boiling water into the teapot and replaced the lid and then balanced the teapot on top of the kettle.

Maybe the hiss of the simmering water was what brought back, all at once, a scene from the earliest days of her marriage. Whenever she had felt particularly lonesome, she remembered, she used to set a tumbler of club soda on her nightstand. She used to go to sleep listening to the bubbles bounce against the glass with a faint, steady, peaceful whispering sound that had reminded her of the fountain in her family's courtyard back home.

It was Bitsy who thought up the idea of an Arrival Party. That was what she called it, right off, so that Brad had to ask, A what, hon? Come again?

A party to commemorate the date the girls arrived, she told him. In two weeks it will be a year; can you believe it? Saturday, August fifteenth. We ought to mark the occasion.

Would you be up to it, with your mother?

Bitsy's mother had suffered a setback a whole new tumor, this time involving her liver. They'd had a hard couple of months. But Bitsy said, It would do me good. It would do us all good! Get our minds off our troubles. And we'd confine it to the two families; no nonrelatives. Make it kind of like a birthday party. A daytime event, right after the girls' naps when they're at their best, and I wouldn't serve a full meal, only dessert.

Maybe a Korean dessert! Brad said.

Oh. Well.

Wouldn't that be neat?

I checked Korean desserts on the Internet, Bitsy told him. Spinach cookies, fried glutinous rice…

Brad started looking worried.

She said, I was thinking maybe a sheet cake frosted like an American flag.

That's a great idea!

With candles? Or one candle, for one year. But absolutely no presents; remind me to tell the Yazdans that. They're always bringing presents. And we might sing some sort of song together. There must be a suitable song about waiting for someone's arrival.

There's 'She'll Be Coming Round the Mountain,' Brad said.

Well… and the girls can wear Korean outfits. Shall we offer to lend Susan a sagusam? You can be sure she doesn't own one.

That would be good.

We could have a ceremony, sort of. The girls would be in another room; we'd light the cake and start singing; they would walk through the door hand in hand… just like arriving all over again. Don't you think?

And, hey! Brad said. We could show the video!

Perfect! The video, Bitsy said.

Her brother Mac had taken all the different airport videos to be edited into a single tape. Since then the tape had sat on a shelf there never seemed to be time to watch even the news, anymore but this was their chance to view it. Maybe at the end of the party, to wind things up, Bitsy said. Is this all too hokey, maybe?