The Foreign Service Journal, July-August 2004

a different world now, although years ago there had been foreigners in that neighborhood, too. He thought of the conversation with his family the previ- ous night, the focus on finding him a marriage partner, the unstated plan to do it before his father died. His father, 78 and with a bad heart, had been a widower for three years. He continued to live in the family home with Hameed’s old- est brother and his wife and children, as was the Bangladeshi custom. Next door another brother lived in a smaller house. They all gathered for dinner most nights, and the house rang with the singsong games of children and the bustle of the women in the kitchen. After dinner, Hameed sat with his father and brothers chewing paan. The cheek-sucking dryness of the betel nut gave him a sense of ease, although he chewed it only here. In 17 years in the States, he had lost many of his home- country ways, even his accent, and become a U.S. citizen. He was tenured at his small college in Tennessee and would be returning there after this 18-month sabbatical with an international aid organization. Surely he would find a wife before then and start his own family. It would mean a lot to be able to present his first child to his father for his blessing. He hadn’t looked very hard for a wife in the States. First he was busy with school, then with work. A couple of long relationships had petered out. Over the years he realized that he wanted to marry someone who shared the same childhood experiences and customs, religion and family val- ues, so the Dhaka job had come at the right time. Why was he thinking about this now? He yanked himself back to the present as Stan pulled onto a bumpy lane bor- dering the lake. Better to relax and enjoy this interlude. They unloaded the banana leaves from the back of Stan’s car and carried them to a boat that Jerry and Loretta had already claimed. “Here’s your costume, Hameed.” Loretta handed him a gown-like thing made of yellow cloth. He wondered if Stan could be right about Loretta. Wouldn’t it be ironic if she turned out to be the one he fell for? He would have come all the way back to his native country, after years in the States, to marry an American. What would his brother, busy finding suitable Bangladeshi candidates, make of that? He put on the costume. It was sleeveless and came to his knees. Then Loretta gave him a yellow hat shaped like the end of a bananamade frompainted cardboard. He put it on and stepped into the green leaf boat with his teammates. The Bangladeshi fisherman-owner sat barefoot on his haunches watching them with a bemused expression on his face. His lunghi was pulled up and wrapped to resemble shorts. His undershirt was clean but pocked with small wear holes. He puffed a local cigarette, a bidi, whose acrid smoke brought memories floating towardHameed—memories of his grandfather and uncles smoking on the flat roof of their house before sleeping on hot summer nights, memories of last night’s conversation, which had started with a compli- ment to his sister-in-law. “Your cooking is delicious, as always, Rifat,” he had said, smiling at his sister-in-law when she joined them in the sit- ting room. “Will you be sure to teach my future wife this particular dish?” “With pleasure, brother. When might I start?” “Yes, Hameed, when? We are running out of girls.” Hameed gave his oldest brother, who was a banker and Rotarian, a mock scowl. “Farouk Bhai, I don’t think I’m being unreasonable to ask that she already have experience living in the States. You know I’ll be going back there to live and I want her to be able to adjust, to be happy.” “No, that’s not unreasonable. But does she also have to be beautiful, intelligent, well-educated, charming and ath- letic? Where am I going to find such a girl? What was wrong with the last two, I’d like to know?” “Well, Salma’s years in Russia really didn’t qualify her. And Nila was too young, only 19 and not yet finished with her education. Besides, I need to feel a spark.” “A spark?” Hameed stood up and stretched, tired from a busy work- week and the tensions of this wife search. “Yes, my brother. Use your networking skills to find me a spark.” His father had been silent, but the look on his face, which made it clear that Farouk was speaking for both of them, changed to a smile. “The spark will come, my son, if we choose carefully.” Hameed nodded and smiled as he bent to kiss his father’s cheek. “Well, Father, I’ll takemy leave. I have to be up early tomorrow.” “Okay, I’ll add spark to the list.” Farouk shook his head. “Don’t forget tomorrow afternoon. We have to be at the F O C U S 46 F O R E I G N S E R V I C E J O U R N A L / J U LY- A U G U S T 2 0 0 4 Mary Cameron Kilgour was an FSO with USAID from 1966 to 1995. She served in Pakistan, Colombia, Costa Rica, the Philippines, Liberia and Bangladesh. Retired in Gainesville, Fla., she writes fiction and creative nonfiction and volunteers with several local groups. Her childhood memoir will be published in January 2005.