Part 17 (1/2)

Oh, Dave. I'm so sorry, Maryam said. I know this must bring it all back to you.

Well, naturally I'm worried.

But every year they find new treatments, she said. And they caught it early, I a.s.sume.

Yes, the doctors have been very encouraging. It's just that it's kind of a shock to all of us.

Of course it is, she said. She shaded her eyes with one hand; the sun had moved directly above him. I hope she'll let me know if there's anything I can do, she said. I'd be happy to pick up the children, bring food...

I'll tell her that. Thanks, he said. I know she means to talk to Ziba as soon as they're sure what the plan is.

Another woman approached, pus.h.i.+ng a baby in a stroller. Now that they had an audience, Dave changed the subject. Anyhow! he said. Will you be going to the Arrival Party this year? Oh. Of course you will. It's your turn.

Well, not my turn; Sami and Ziba's. And I may be in New York then.

New York?

Kari and Danielle and I have been talking about seeing some plays.

But you could do that anytime, he said.

One of the plays may close soon, though. And besides. You know. Really that's a young people's party. I'm getting too old for such things.

Old! he said, so sharply that the woman with the stroller sent Maryam a curious glance.

And also there's a chance that my cousin Farah will be here, Maryam said.

It's both the time when you're away and the time you have a guest?

Well, not on the exact same date ...

She gave up. She stopped speaking.

Dave said, Look. Maryam. It's absurd to think we can't both attend the same social event.

This from the man who had told her straight out, No, we can not go on seeing each other.

But she said, Well, you're right, of course.

You didn't come last year either. You missed a good party. Yes, so I heard. Ziba told me.

Jin-Ho accidentally dropped the videotape in the punch bowl, but we fished it out before any damage was done. And 'Coming Round the Mountain' got so raucous that when the cousins shouted, 'Hi, babe!' you'd swear they must be hanging out the windows of a brothel. Other than that, though . . .

Maryam laughed. (She had always loved his particular way of wording things.) Think about it, he said.

She said, All right.

Then the children started trickling forth from the school their own two in front, blocky-haired Jin-Ho and Susan with her long braids swinging and they went their separate ways.

During the next few days, she found herself haunted by a lingering sorrow. Partly, of course, this was due to the news about Bitsy. Maryam a.s.sumed she fervently hoped that the cancer had been caught in time, but still she hated to think of what the Donaldsons must be going through. And then another part of her grieved once again for Dave. Seeing him had reminded her of how he'd stood on his porch that morning watching her drive away, his frayed, patched gardening pants buckling at the knees in an elderly manner. She missed him very much. She tried never to allow herself to know how much.

She wrote Bitsy a note, expressing her concern and offering any help that was needed. I am sending you my best thoughts, she wrote, wis.h.i.+ng for the thousandth time that she were religious and could volunteer her prayers. I hope you will not hesitate to call on me. She debated a moment before she signed it. Sincerely? Yours very truly? In the end she settled on Affectionately, because Bitsy might have her faults but at least they were well-meaning faults. She was a good-hearted, generous woman, and Maryam felt the same sympathy for her that she would feel for an old friend.

Her world had become very peaceful since the breakup. Well, it had been peaceful before, too, but somehow her brief venture into a livelier, more engaged way of life made her appreciate the blessed orderliness of her daily routine. She awoke before dawn, when the sky was still a pearly white and the birds were barely stirring. One of the cardinals on her block had a habit of omitting the second note of his call and repeating just the first in a flinty, bright staccato. Vite! Vite! Vite! he seemed to be saying, like an overeager Frenchman. A jet plane crossed the highest windowpanes perfectly level, perfectly silent, and sometimes a wan, translucent moon still hung behind the neighbors' maple tree.

She lay gathering her thoughts, absently stroking the cat, who always slept in the crook of her arm, until the young doctor down the street started his noisy car and set off for morning rounds. That was the signal for her to get up. How creaky she was becoming! Every joint had to learn to bend all over again each morning, it seemed.

By the time she came back from her shower, the sun had risen and more of the neighborhood was awake. The new puppy exploded from the house next door, yapping excitedly. A baby started crying. Several cars swished past. You could tell what time it was on this street just by counting the cars and hearing how fast they were going.

She dressed with care, eyeliner and all; she was not a bathrobe kind of woman. She made her bed and collected her water tumbler and the book she had fallen asleep with, and only then did she head downstairs, trailed by the cat, who liked to twine between her feet.

Tea. Toasted pita bread. A slice of feta cheese. While the tea was steeping she arranged her silver on a woven-straw place mat. She refilled Moosh's water bowl and checked his supply of kibble. She went out front for the newspaper, barely glancing at the headlines before laying it aside and sitting down to breakfast. (She preferred to concentrate on one thing at a time.) The tea was fresh and hot and bracing. The feta was Bulgarian, creamy and not too salty. Her chair was placed to catch the suns.h.i.+ne, which gilded the skin on her arms and felt like warm varnish on her head.

What a small, small life she lived! She had one grown son, one daughter-in-law, one grandchild, and three close friends. Her work was pleasantly predictable. Her house hadn't changed in decades. Next January she would be sixty-five years old not ancient, but even so, she couldn't hope for her world to grow anything but narrower from now on. She found this thought comforting rather than distressing.

Last week she'd noticed an obituary for a seventy-eight-year-old woman in Lutherville. Mrs. Cotton enjoyed gardening and sewing, she had read. Family members say she hardly ever wore the same outfit twice.

No doubt as a girl Mrs. Cotton had envisioned something more dramatic, but still, it didn't sound like such a bad existence to Maryam.

If it was a Wednesday the one day she worked, in the summer she would set off for Julia Jessup shortly after nine, when the rush-hour traffic had finished. She would greet the janitor, open the mail, see to the small bit of paperwork. The smell of waxed floors made her feel virtuous, as if she were the one who had waxed them, and she drew a sense of accomplishment from discarding the past week's calendar pages. The school without its children their Hi, Mrs. Yaz! Morning, Mrs. Yaz! gave her a gentle twinge of nostalgia. On the bulletin board, an unclaimed mitten from last winter seemed to be shouting with life.

If it was not a Wednesday, she would take the newspaper into the sun porch after clearing away her breakfast things. She read desultorily bad news, more bad news, more to shake her head at and turn the page. Then she placed the paper in the recycling bag underneath the sink and went to weed her flowerbeds, or paid some bills at the desk in Sami's old room, or busied herself with some household task. Very rarely did she go out in public during the morning. Going out was work. It required conversation. It raised the possibility of mistakes.

She had noticed that as she grew older, speaking English took more effort. She might ask for es-stamps instead of stamps, or mix up her he's and she's, realizing it only when she saw a look of confusion cross someone's face. And then she would feel exhausted. Oh, what difference did it make? she would wonder. So unnecessary, for a language to specify the s.e.xes! Why should she have to bother with this?

She was lonelier in public than she was at home, to be honest.

Before lunch she generally took a long walk, traveling the same route every day and smiling at the same neighbors and dogs and babies, noticing a new sapling here, a change of house color there. Summer was the time to call in the painters and the nursery crews. Workmen swarmed over the neighborhood as industriously as ants. She encountered her favorite plumber clanking through the tools in his panel truck.

It was hot now, but she liked being hot. She felt she moved more smoothly in heat. The glaze of sweat on her face took her back to airless nights in Tehran, when she and her family slept on mattresses dragged up to the rooftop and you could look across the city and see all the other families arranging their mattresses on their rooftops, as if every house had split open to show the lives going on inside. And then at dawn the call to prayer would float them all up from their sleep.

It wasn't that she wished to be back there, exactly (so much about that unprivate way of life had gone against her grain, even then), but she wouldn't have minded hearing once more that distant cry from the minaret.

She went home and rinsed her face in cool water and fixed herself a light lunch. Made a few phone calls. Looked at her mail. Sometimes Ziba stopped by with Susan. Or sometimes she just left Susan off while she ran errands; Maryam liked those days best. You could amuse a child more easily if no grownups were around. She would let Susan play with her jewelry box, sifting gold chains and cl.u.s.ters of turquoises through her fingers. She would show her the photo alb.u.ms. This is my maternal great-uncle, Amir Ahmad. The baby on his knee is his seventh son. It was unusual in those days for a man to be seen holding a baby. He must have been an interesting person. She studied his face stern and square-bearded, topped by a heavy black turban, giving nothing away. She had only the faintest memory of him. And this is my father, Sadredin. He died when I was four. He would be your great-grandpa. But would he? The words sounded untruthful the instant they slipped from her mouth. Close though she felt to Susan as close as any grandmother could possibly feel she had trouble imagining the slightest link between the relatives back home and this little Asian fairy child with her straight black hair, her exotic black eyes, her skin as pale and opaque and textureless as bone.

On several occasions Jin-Ho came along, and twice Xiu-Mei too. Ziba looked after them quite a bit during the month of July, because Bitsy's chemotherapy made her want to nap all the time. But she was doing very well, Ziba reported. She said, Are you sure you don't mind, Mari june? I promise I won't be gone long. Maryam said, Of course I don't mind, and meant it. For one thing, this was a way of helping Bitsy. And then two or three children could entertain each other. All Maryam did was serve them refreshments at some point during the visit homemade cookies or brownies and apple juice tea in tiny enamelware cups.

Jin-Ho was now a head and a half taller than Susan, and she had asked to be called Jo, although none of them could remember to do it. Xiu-Mei was still small and frail but feisty, with a mind of her own. She wore hand-me-downs from both Jin-Ho and Susan; it was strange to see Susan's faded playsuits resurrected, coupled with JinHo's old sandals and a pacifier strung on a length of elastic around her neck.

In the late afternoon, on her own again, Maryam might finally venture forth for whatever shopping she needed to do. Then she would fix a complete and serious dinner, even if she was the only one eating it. Often, though, her friends would come over. Or else she would go to one of their houses. The four of them were all excellent cooks. Each had a different cuisine: Turkish, Greek, French, and Maryam's own Iranian. It was no wonder they ate less and less frequently at restaurants.

Dressing for an evening with her friends, Maryam felt none of the anxiety she used to feel dressing for social events in the old days. Back then she might change outfits several times before deciding what to wear, and she used to prepare a mental list of conversational gambits. It wasn't just age that made the difference (although that helped, no doubt); it was more that she had winnowed out the people she wasn't at ease with. No longer did she accept invitations to those meaningless, superficial parties she and Kiyan had endured. Her friends occasionally questioned this. Or Danielle did, at least. Danielle was forever seeking new acquaintances and new experiences. But Maryam said, Why should I bother? This is one good thing about getting old: I know what I like and what I don't like.

Whenever Danielle heard the word old, she would wrinkle her nose in distaste. But the other two women nodded. They knew what Maryam meant.

They talked often about aging. They talked about where the world was headed; they talked about books and movies and plays and (in Danielle's case) men. Surprisingly little was said about children or grandchildren, unless they happened to be dealing with some specific crisis. But almost always the subject of Americans came up, in an amused and marveling tone. They never tired of discussing Americans.

Whether Maryam spent her evening in or out, she was in bed by ten as a rule. She read until her eyelids grew heavy two or three hours, sometimes and then she turned off her lamp and slid further under the covers and curled one arm around Moosh. Outside her window the neighborhood mockingbird sang alone in the sycamore, and she would fall asleep feeling thankful for the tallness of her trees, which let birdsong fall from such a great height and were wonderful too during summer rains, when they gave off a steady murmur that sounded to her like Aah. Aah.

One morning she answered her phone and a woman said, Maryam?