Anne Tyler - Digging to America

Like these men following the women's gossip depending on their gossip, relying on it for connection Sami floated on the gentle current of the relatives' Farsi, comprehending some ninety percent and letting the other ten percent wash past him. The men discussed a cousin's investment proposal; the women debated adding an extra pinch of saffron; the nieces quarreled over a Walkman. If Sami stayed silent long enough, people might forget him so completely that they said things he shouldn't hear mentioned Uncle Ahmad's new tax-evasion scheme, or let slip some sharp-tongued reference to Maryam. (Well, Khanom would claim it was cheating to put potatoes in the bottom of the rice pan the Khanom emphasized in an acid and satirical tone.) Their attitude toward his mother didn't offend him as much as it might have, because he figured she deserved it. After all this time, for instance, she still called Ziba's mother Mrs. Hakimi and not Gita — june. He knew that was no mere oversight.

Where is the cinnamon? Who's taken it? Ziba asked. Her Farsi was twangier than his mother's, just unfamiliar enough to give her a sheen of added appeal. I asked him when he was leaving, one sister-in-law told the other, and he said he wasn't sure; either before the wedding or after. 'Well, what date is the wedding?' I asked, and he said he didn't know because he hadn't found someone to marry yet. Ziba's mother, swathed in a traffic-sign-yellow apron reading CAUTION! GUY AT THE GRILL, hoisted a casserole onto the counter with a little puff of a breath. Iranian women were very hardworking, Sami always noticed. They produced such labor-intensive dishes hundreds of hand-rolled stuffed grape leaves, dozens of butter-brushed filo sheets and so many of them for each meal. Aunt Azra was shaping several pounds of ground lamb into a single enormous ball, patting it all over with efficient little slaps. The men were heaving themselves from their chairs and moving out to the backyard for a smoke. Mr. Hakimi favored thick black cigars that smelled like burning tires, and both of Ziba's brothers (middle-aged, and as bald as their father) had nicotine-stained fingers from their two-pack-a-day cigarette habit. They felt it was unreasonable that they couldn't smoke indoors. Secondhand smoke! one of them scoffed, spitting the phrase out in English before slipping back into Farsi. I have smoked around my daughters all their lives, and look at them! They're much healthier than Susan.

They all thought Susan was too small for her age, and too pale. They also thought she looked too Chinese, but a few confrontations with Ziba had taught them not to mention that.

How would your family feel about a child who was Asian? Sami had asked Ziba when she first brought up adopting. Ziba's instant answer had been I don't care what my family feels; I care about having a baby. And because it was Sami's fault that she couldn't have one of her own, he had felt compelled to go along with her plan. He had hidden his doubts from everyone but his mother; to her he had poured them out, stopping by her house several times a week as furtively as if she were the Other Woman and sitting in her kitchen, letting his cup of tea grow cold, clamping his hands between his knees and talking on and on while Maryam listened noncommittally. I know Ziba believes that we'll be rescuing someone, he said. Some child who never had a chance, some disadvantaged orphan. But it's not as simple as she thinks, changing a life for the better! It's so easy to do harm in this world but so hard to do good, it seems to me. Easy to bomb a building to smithereens but hard to build one; easy to damage a child but hard to fix one who has problems. I don't think Ziba knows this. I think she just imagines we'll swoop up some lucky baby and give it a perfect life.

He waited for his mother to contradict him (he wanted her to contradict him), but she didn't. She took a sip of her tea and set down her cup. He said, And it's not as if children come with return guarantees. You can't simply hand them back if they don't work out.

You can't hand a birth child back either, his mother said.

But it's less likely you would want to. A birth child is blood-related; you recognize certain traits and so you tolerate them better.

Or worse, his mother said. Traits in yourself that you've always disliked. That happens too, on occasion.

It did? He decided not to pursue this. He stood up and circled the kitchen, fists thrust deep in his pockets, and when his back was toward her he said, Also, um, I worry that this child will feel out of place. He or she will always look so unmistakably foreign to other people, so Korean or Chinese. You know?

He turned back to find his mother regarding him with what seemed to be amusement, but she said nothing.

I realize that sounds very superficial, he told her.

She waved a hand dismissively and took another sip of tea.

And then, he said. Speaking of which. It would be so obvious that we were not the true parents. There wouldn't be even a possibility of any physical resemblance.

His mother said, Ah, well. When your children resemble you, you tend to forget they're not you. Much better to be reminded they're not, every time you set eyes on them.

I don't think I'd need reminding, he said.

I remember once when you were in high school, I heard you phoning a girl and you said, 'This is Sami Yaz-dun.' It came as such a shock: my oh-so-American son. Partly I felt pleased and partly I felt sad.

Well, I wanted to fit in! he said. I wasn't so American! Not to them, at least. Not to the kids in my school.

She waved a hand again. She said, At any rate. You're thinking you might not love this child. You will, though. I promise.

He wasn't sure which claim was more presumptuous: that she knew what he was thinking or that she could predict how he would feel.

But she was right, of course, on both counts. In the last few weeks before Susan arrived he dreamed almost nightly that their baby was some sort of monster, once a lizardy creature and once a normal human but with evil vertical pupils like a goat's; and that Ziba was unsuspecting and angrily turned away when he tried to warn her. Then as soon as he saw Susan's fragile hair and pinched, anxious face, not beautiful at all despite what Ziba believed, he had felt a kind of caving-in sensation and a wave of fierce protectiveness, and if that wasn't love it soon became love. Susan was the greatest joy of his life. She was endlessly charming and funny and fascinating and, yes, eventually beautiful, which in some ways he regretted because her plainness had tugged at his heart so. Her cheeks rounded out but her mouth kept its pursed shape, as if she were forever carrying on some interior deliberation, and her hair grew long enough to be caught up in two paintbrush ponytails, one above each ear. When he sat among the relatives with her, she nestled against him trustfully and from time to time patted his wrist or twisted around to look up at him, her breath smelling sweetly of the trashy grape soft drink she liked.

The women had started discussing Aunt Azra's immigration prospects had she any hope of a green card? and Sami had to guess at some of the officialese. Ali told me I would need a… something, something, something. Then the men returned from the yard, wrapped in an almost visible veil of tobacco and ash, and the women interrupted themselves to announce a shortage of tomato paste. This made the men very happy. I'll go! I'll go! the three of them said. They loved American supermarkets. Sami, are you coming? this last in English. He felt that he ought to say yes, although he was sorry to leave the women's talk, which was turning, by the time the car keys had been found, to Ziba's conviction that Bitsy preferred Maryam's house to this one. Atusa, her oldest sister-in-law, told her she must be imagining things. Prefer Khanom's little unstylish house to this big, fancy, nice, modern one? You're just nervous, Ziba — june. You're just nervous about your party.