A Tale of Love and Darkness - Amos Oz [183]
So the lost property was restored to its owner, young Edward al-Silwani was released from custody, the honor of the respectable firm of Silwani and Sons once more shone forth from the company's letterhead without blot or stain, while dear Mr. Stav was invited together with his wife to partake of coffee at Silwani Villa in Sheikh Jarrah on Saturday morning. As for the dear child, their friends' son who would be staying with them, whom they had no one to leave with on Saturday morning, of course, what a question, he must come with them, the whole Silwani family was impatient to express their gratitude to Mr. Stav for his efficiency and integrity.
After breakfast on Saturday therefore, just before we set out, I put on my best clothes, which my parents had left with Auntie Mala especially for the visit ("The Arab attaches great importance to outward appearances!" Father insisted): a gleaming white shirt, freshly ironed, its sleeves rolled up with splendid precision; navy blue trousers with cuffs and a neat crease down the front; and a serious-looking black leather belt with a shiny metal buckle that, for some reason, bore the image of the two-headed imperial Russian eagle. On my feet I wore a pair of sandals that Uncle Staszek had polished for me with the same brush and black polish that he had used for his own best shoes and Auntie Mala's.
Despite the heat of the August day, Uncle Staszek insisted on wearing his dark woolen suit (it was his only one), his snow-white silk shirt, which had made the journey with him fifteen years ago from his parents' home in Lodz, and the unobtrusive blue silk tie he had worn on his wedding day. As for Auntie Mala, she agonized for three quarters of an hour in front of the mirror, tried out her evening dress, changed her mind, tried a dark pleated skirt with a light cotton blouse, changed her mind again, and looked at herself in the girlish summer frock she had bought recently, with a brooch and a silk scarf, or with a necklace and without the brooch and the scarf, or with the necklace and a different brooch but without the scarf, with or without drop earrings?
Suddenly she decided that the airy summer frock with the embroidery around the neck was too frivolous, too folksy for the occasion, and she went back to the evening dress she had started with. In her predicament Auntie Mala turned to Uncle Staszek and even to me, and made us swear to tell the truth and nothing but the truth, however painful: wasn't this outfit too dressy, too theatrical for an informal visit on a hot day? Wasn't it wrong for her hairdo? And while we were looking at her hair, what did we think, really and truly, should she tie her plaits up around her head, or should she undo them and let her hair fall loose over her shoulder, and if so which one?
Finally, reluctantly, she opted for a plain brown skirt, a long-sleeved blouse set off with a pretty turquoise brooch, and a pair of pale blue drop earrings to match her beautiful eyes. And she unplaited her hair and let it fall freely over both shoulders.
On the way, Uncle Stav, his thickset body crammed uncomfortably into his heavy suit, explained to me some of the facts of life resulting from the historical difference between cultures. The Silwani family, he said, was a highly respected Europeanized family whose menfolk had been educated in excellent schools in Beirut and Liverpool and could all speak Western languages well. We ourselves, for our part, were definitely Europeans, although perhaps in rather a different sense of the word. We, for example, attached no importance to outward appearances but only to inner cultural and moral values. Even a universal genius like Tolstoy had not hesitated to walk around dressed as a peasant, and a great revolutionary like Lenin had mostly despised bourgeois dress and