Anne Tyler - Digging to America

Oh, my heavens, no! I've never been good at pastry.

Me neither, Ziba said. My mother's the pastry expert. She makes delicious baklava.

Is that right! Bitsy turned to Mrs. Hakimi. She knew it was laughable to think that a louder tone of voice would make her more easily understood, but somehow she couldn't stop herself. Isn't that wonderful! Baklava! she said, with more animation than she'd shown since high school.

Mrs. Hakimi said, I do not ever buy the… and then she gazed helplessly at Ziba and dissolved in a stream of Farsi.

She doesn't buy the filo dough. She makes her dough from scratch, Ziba said. She rolls it out herself, thin enough to see daylight through.

Isn't that… wonderful! Bitsy said again.

My wife is a very talented person, Mr. Hakimi announced. Mrs. Hakimi made a tsking sound and looked down into her teacup.

Well, next we're going to show a videotape, Bitsy said. She figured it would count for something if she faced the Hakimis as she spoke, even though her words were meant for Ziba. My brothers and one of Brad's uncles and, oh, just lots of people, some of our friends too, brought video cameras to the airport when we went to meet Jin-Ho. So we're going to show the tape, but I want to apologize right now for the fact that it's all Jin-Ho and no Susan. We didn't know back then that Susan would be there! Otherwise we'd have filmed her too.

Oh, that's okay, Ziba said. I have the memory in my head.

You do? Bitsy asked. Isn't it funny, the whole evening's such a blur to me. I remember when I first saw Jin-Ho's face; I remember reaching out for her. But then what? How did she react? It all seems like a dream now.

Mrs. Hakimi poked Ziba's arm. Tell about Susan, she ordered.

What about her, Mummy?

Tell about when we first met her.

Oh, Ziba said. She turned to Bitsy. My parents didn't come to the airport, remember. They had a prior engagement. She lowered her sweeping lashes a fraction of an inch. (Prior engagement. Right.) They visited later that week, and when they walked in, Susan was sitting in her high chair and she raised her eyebrows at them and said, 'Ho?' Only babbling, you understand. She didn't mean anything by it. But it sounded like a Farsi word, khob. The word for 'well.' 'Well?' she was saying. 'Do I pass inspection, or don't I?'

Mrs. Hakimi said, Khob? and doubled over with laughter, covering her mouth with one hand. Her husband said, Ha. Ha. He looked across the room toward Susan. A child of spirit, he said. We Hakimis are known for our spirit. We have, how do you say. We have backbone.

Bitsy smiled and followed his gaze. It was true that Susan generally showed a certain dauntlessness, puny though she was. At the moment she seemed to have decided that she had been toted around long enough, and she had planted herself in Jin-Ho's child-sized rocker and was gripping its arms so stubbornly that when one of the cousins tried to lift her, the rocker came along with her.

Mrs. Hakimi was still saying, Khob? and laughing behind her cupped palm, and Ziba was watching her fondly. Now they dote on her, she told Bitsy. She's their favorite grandchild.

Mr. Hakimi said, No, no, no, no, no. No favorites, and wagged a thick index finger at his daughter, but it didn't seem he really meant it.

Well, why don't we go watch the video, Bitsy told them. Everybody! she called, clapping her hands. Shall we move into the TV room for the video?

She threaded through the crowd, rounding up those who hung back to continue their conversations. Brad, are you coming? Laura? Jeannine? Somebody bring the girls in; they haven't seen this either.

She had straightened the TV room earlier that morning, but already the children had managed to wreck it. Various cushions were strewn on the rug, and a Teen People magazine lay in the seat of the armchair. (Stefanie's, no doubt the ten-year-old going on twenty.) Bitsy plucked it up between thumb and forefinger and dropped it on the windowsill. Sit here, she told her mother. Will this be comfortable? Somebody hand me a cushion for Mom.

Brad, meanwhile, was rummaging through the videotapes heaped on top of the TV. You kids took my tape out of the machine, he complained. I had it all ready to roll! Now, where…? Ah. Got it.

Some of the older people packed themselves in a row on the sofa the Hakimis and Brad's parents. Dave settled on one arm of Connie's chair and everyone else sat on the floor even Maryam, assuming almost a lotus position with her back very straight. Abe offered to bring her a chair from the dining room, but she said, I prefer this, thank you, and she drew Susan onto her lap and wrapped her arms around her.

A while ago, Sami and Ziba had gone away for the weekend and left Susan with Maryam. Bitsy was amazed when she heard about it. During her own brief absences never longer than a couple of hours, and only for unavoidable reasons such as doctor appointments she used a person from Sitters Central, a woman certified in infant CPR. Anyhow, her mother was too frail to babysit and her in-laws had made it plain that they had their own busy lives. But under no circumstances would she have considered leaving Jin-Ho overnight. She would have been frantic with worry! Children were so fragile. She realized that now. When you thought of all that could happen, the electrical sockets and the Venetian-blind cords and the salmonella chicken and the toxic furniture polish and the windpipe-sized morsels of food and the uncapped medicine bottles and the lethal two inches of bathtub water, it seemed miraculous that any child at all made it through to adulthood.

She reached for Jin-Ho and pulled her closer, even though it meant pulling her cousin Polly along with her.

Brad said, Here we go! and stepped back from the TV. On a dated-looking, pale blue watered-silk background, copperplate script spelled out The Arrival of Jin-Ho. Classy, someone murmured, and Mac called, This was a firm I found in the Yellow Pages. Very reasonably Ssh! everyone told him, because now a voice could be heard from the TV set Mac's own voice, but more public-sounding. Okay, folks, we're at the Baltimore/ Washington Airport. Friday evening, August fifteenth, nineteen ninety-seven. It is seven thirty-nine p. M. The weather is warm and humid. The plane is due to land in, let's see…

Brad closed the curtains, turning the watered silk a deeper blue, and then settled on the floor next to Bitsy. Watch, sweetheart, he told Jin-Ho. She was sucking her thumb and her eyes were at half-mast. (She hadn't slept during her nap today, perhaps sensing the excitement.)

A jumble of figures appeared: Dickinsons and Donaldsons, intermingled, wearing summer clothes. You could tell it must have been hot because people had a frazzled, sweaty look, even the most attractive of them not quite at their best. Well, except for Pat and Lou, as cool and chalky as two bisque figurines. (Although Pat was heard to say, from her place on the couch, Good heavens! I'm so old!) A girl cousin scampered across the screen, green plaid shirttails flying. That's me! That's my old shirt! little Deirdre shouted, and Jeannine said, Ssh.

I loved that shirt!

Straight ahead you see the proud parents, Mac's onscreen voice was announcing. Brad and Bitsy, both very happy. Bitsy got up at five this morning. This is an extremely important day in their lives.

Just hearing him say those words made Bitsy a little teary. To herself, though, she looked not so much happy as terrified. And so unformed! So tentative and shy, as if it would take motherhood to turn her into a grownup. She was clutching her tape recorder and speaking into it inaudibly, her chin tucked in an unbecoming way. Beside her, Brad held a car seat level in both arms as if he expected their daughter to drop into it from the heavens.

The scene broke off and then, confusingly, Mac himself appeared, filmed by someone else. He was squinting into his video camera, and just beyond him Uncle Oswald was squinting into his camera. Bitsy thought of the childhood Christmas when she and both of her brothers had been given Kodaks, and every photo from that day showed not faces but head-on cameras aimed glaringly at whoever happened to be taking the picture.