Digging to America

Sami had a sort of performance piece that he liked to put on for the relatives. He was known for it. One of the relatives would say, almost slyly, “These Americans: can you figure them out?” Then this person would offer some anecdote to start things rolling. And Sami would get going on the American craze for logic. “Logic’s why they’re always suing each other. They believe that for every event there has to be a cause. Surely somebody is to blame! they say. Stumble in the street when you are not looking and break your leg? Sue the city! Sue the store where you bought your glasses and the doctor who prescribed them! Fall down the stairs, bang your head on a cabinet, slip on the bathroom tiles? Sue your landlord! And don’t just sue for medical bills; sue for pain, emotional trauma, public humiliation, lowered self-esteem!”

“Ooh, low self-esteem,” a relative might murmur, and everyone would laugh.

“They feel personally outraged by bad luck,” Sami would go on. “ They have been lucky all their lives and they can’t imagine that any misfortune should have the right to befall them. There must be some mistake! they say. They’ve always been so careful! They’ve paid the closest attention to every safety instruction – the DANGER tag on their hair dryer saying Unplug after every use, and then print on the plastic bag saying This is not a toy, and the recycling pamphlet saying Warning: Before stepping on milk jugs to flatten them, please take firm hold of a reliable source of support. ”

Or he would examine their so-called openness. “So chummy they are, so ‘Hello, I love you,’ so ‘How do you do, let me tell you my marital problems,’ and yet, have any of them ever really, truly let you into their lives?”

Or their claim to be so tolerant. “They say they’re a culture without restrictions. An unconfined culture, a do-your-own-thing kind of culture. But all that means is, they keep their restrictions a secret. They wait until you violate one and then they get all faraway and chilly and unreadable, and you have no idea why. My cousin Davood? He lived here for six months and then he moved to Japan. He said that in Japan, at least they tell you the rules. At least they admit they have rules. He feels much more comfortable there, he said.”

Then others would chime in with stories of their own – the friendships unaccountably ended, the stunned silence after innocent questions. “You can’t ask how much someone’s dress cost. You can’t ask the price of their houses. You don’t know what to ask!”

These conversations were conducted in English, because Sami would not speak Farsi. He had flat-out refused to ever since the day back in preschool when he had discovered that none of his classmates spoke it. And there lay the irony, according to his mother. “You with your Baltimore accent,” she said, “American born, American raised, never been anywhere else: how can you say these things? You’re American yourself! You’re poking fun at your own people!”

“Aw, Mom, it’s all in good humor,” he said.

“It doesn’t sound so good-humored to me. When you were growing up, you were more American than the Americans. In high school you never dated anyone but blondes. I certainly never expected that you would pick up an Iranian girl.”

“I don’t know why not,” he said.

This wasn’t entirely truthful, because in his heart he too had always thought his wife would be American.

* * *

In his senior year in college he met Ziba. She was confident and plain-spoken. She came right up to him after their first class together and said, “Iranian, right?” “Right,” he said. “Me too. Ziba Hakimi,” she said and moved off to join her friends – American friends, male and female mixed. She wore jeans and a Tears for Fears T-shirt, and her hair in those days was short enough so that she could gel and spike it into something resembling punk.

As he came to know her he noticed how much they understood about each other without discussion. A cloak of shared background surrounded them invisibly. She asked him in mid-March if he planned to go home the next weekend, and she didn’t need to explain that she meant for New Year’s.

That summer after graduation he drove over to Washington often to take her to dinner or a movie, and he met a whole string of her relatives. To him the Hakimis seemed both familiar and alien. He recognized the language they spoke, the foods they served, the music they were listening to, but he was uncomfortable with the lavish parties they gave and their zeal for the most expensive brand names – Rolex and Prada and Farragamo.

What would his mother think of these people? He knew what she would think. He brought Ziba home to meet her but he left Ziba’s relatives out of it. And his mother, although she welcomed Ziba graciously, never proposed that the two families get together. To be honest, the Hakimis were only one generation removed from the bazaar. Sami’s parents would never even have met them, if they were back home in Tehran.

In the fall Sami and Ziba went back to the university – Sami to work on his graduate degree in European history and Ziba to start her senior year. They were deeply in love by then. Her family visited constantly. They hugged Sami to their chests and kissed him on both cheeks and inquired after his studies. In Mr. Hakimi’s opinion, European history was not the best choice of fields. “You propose to do what with this? To teach,” he said. “You will become a professor, teaching students who’ll become professors in turn and teach other students who will become professors also. It reminds me of those insects who live only a few days, only for the purpose of reproducing their species. Is this a practical plan? I don’t think so!”

Sami didn’t bother arguing. Somehow, though – how did this happen? – by the time he and Ziba were married he had agreed to work in her uncle’s development company. Just try it, everyone said, and go back to school in the fall if he didn’t like it. He did like it, though.

If his mother was disappointed that Sami had given up his studies, she never said so. Well, of course she was disappointed. But she told him it was his decision. She was cordial to the Hakimis and affectionate with Ziba; Sami knew she liked Ziba and he didn’t think that was only because Ziba was Iranian. For their engagement she had offered them a ring he’d never seen before, an antique ring with a diamond that satisfied even the Hakimis. Or maybe it didn’t. It wasn’t huge. But at least they had professed to be satisfied. Oh, everybody on both sides had been exceedingly well-behaved.

43. Give the English for:

судиться друг с другом (подавать в суд друг на друга); споткнуться; счет за медицинское обслуживание; фен; общительный, дружелюбный; супружеские проблемы; нарушать что-либо (ограничения); наотрез отказался; принимать гостей с размахом, на широкую ногу; сердечный, радушный; нежно, ласково относиться к кому-либо.

44. Find the Russian for:

to start things rolling; to prescribe (glasses); bathroom tiles; Unplug after every use; unconfined culture; stunned silence; And there lay the irony; to poke fun at sb; in good humor; to gel and spike one’s hair; development company.