Digging to America by Anne Tyler

Author:Anne Tyler [Tyler, Anne]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Literary, Psychological, General, Family Life, Fiction
ISBN: 9781400025695
Google: LbGoSF38kUQC
Amazon: 034549234X
Publisher: Knopf
Published: 2006-01-02T08:00:00+00:00

Well, almost, Maryam said. She had her keys in hand now. She said, Anyhow, I'm off. Susie -june? Susan? I'm going.

Susan didn't answer. She was singing a song from Sesame Street as she rode her rocking horse.

See you Thursday, Maryam told Ziba.

But this Ziba was so stubborn. Following Maryam to the front hall, she said, I'm not asking you to marry him.

Ziba! Enough!

Or to have a romantic relationship, even. Why, people go to dinner all the time in this country! It doesn't have to lead anywhere. But you don't understand that, because your own marriage was arranged and you never had the chance just to see a movie with a man or grab a hamburger with him.

There was a great deal that Maryam could have said to this, but she merely waved a hand and stepped out the door. Ordinarily they would have kissed cheeks. Not today. She clicked down the front walk. She could sense Ziba watching after her but she didn't turn around.

What she could have said to Ziba was: her marriage may have been arranged, but it was nothing like what everyone imagined.

She had been the most Westernized of young women, the most freethinking and forward-looking. She attended the University of Tehran but she hardly had time for her classes because of her political activities. This was when the Shah was still very much in power the Shah and his dreaded secret police. There were terrible, terrible stories. Maryam attended clandestine meetings and carried tightly folded messages from one hiding place to another. She was thinking she might join the Communist Party. Then she was arrested, along with two young men, while the three of them were distributing leaflets around campus. The young men were kept several days but Maryam's Uncle Hassan arranged for her release within the hour. She wasn't sure how he accomplished it. No doubt there was much head-shaking and cluck-clucking and offering of cigarettes from his flat silver cigarette case. Money changed hands too, probably. Or maybe not; Maryam's family had influence.

But not influence enough, they told her not if she went on behaving like this, endangering herself and all of them as well. Her mother took to her bed and her uncles stormed and shouted. They talked about making her drop out of the university altogether. They considered sending her to Paris, where her second cousin Kaveh was studying science. Maybe she could marry him. She would have to marry someone.

Then their neighbor, Mrs. Hamidi, mentioned her friend's son. He was a doctor in America, a pathologist with a good-paying nine-to-five job and no on-calls, and he happened to be home right now for a three-week visit. His mother thought it was time he got married. She had been introducing him to various young women even though he said he wasn't interested.

Mrs. Hamidi came to tea, bringing her friend and the friend's son, Kiyan. He was a tall, stooped, serious man in a dark gray business suit, and to Maryam he had seemed quite old, it amused her now to recall.

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