A Tale of Love and Darkness - Amos Oz [65]
After my grandmother's death Grandpa spent less time on his business. He would still sometimes announce, his face beaming with pride and joy, "a very important business trip to Tel Aviv, to Grusenberg Street," or "an extremely important meeting in Ramat Gan, with all the heads of the company" He still liked to proffer to anyone he met one of his many impressive business cards. But now he was busy most days with his tempestuous affairs of the heart: issuing or receiving invitations to tea, dining by candlelight in some select but not too expensive restaurant ("with Mrs. Tsitrine, ty durak, not Mrs. Shaposhnik!").
He sat for hours at his table on the discreet upstairs floor of Café Atara in Ben Yehuda street, dressed in a navy blue suit, with a polka-dot tie, looking pink, smiling, gleaming, well groomed, smelling of shampoo, talcum powder, and aftershave. A striking sight in his starched white shirt, his gleaming white handkerchief in his breast pocket, his silver cufflinks, always surrounded by a bevy of well-preserved women in their fifties or sixties: widows in tight corsets and nylons with seams running down the back, well made up divorcees, adorned with an abundance of rings, earrings, and bracelets, finished off with a manicure, a pedicure, and a perm, matrons who spoke massacred Hebrew with a Hungarian, Polish, Romanian, or Bulgarian accent. Grandpa loved their company, and they were melted by his charms: he was a fascinating, entertaining conversationalist, a gentleman in the nineteenth-century mold, who kissed ladies' hands, hurried forward to open doors for them, offered his arm at every stairway or slope, never forgot a birthday, sent bouquets of flowers and boxes of sweets, noticed and made a subtle compliment on the cut of a dress, a change of hair style, elegant shoes, or a new handbag, joked tastefully, quoted a poem at the appropriate moment, chatted with warmth and humor. Once I opened a door and caught sight of my ninety-year-old grandfather kneeling before the jolly, dumpy brunette widow of a certain notary. The lady winked at me over my enamored grandfather's head, and smiled gaily, revealing two rows of teeth too perfect to be her own. I left, closing the door gently, before Grandpa was aware of my presence.
What was the secret of Grandpa's charm? I began to understand only years later. He possessed a quality that is hardly ever found among men, a marvelous quality that for many women is the sexiest in a man:
He listened.
He did not just politely pretend to listen, while impatiently waiting for her to finish what she was saying and shut up.
He did not break into his partner's sentence and finish it for her.
He did not cut in to sum up what she was saying so as to move on to another subject.
He did not let his interlocutress talk into thin air while he prepared in his head the reply he would make when she finally finished.
He did not pretend to be interested or entertained, he really was. Nu, what: he had an inexhaustible curiosity.
He was not impatient. He did not attempt to deflect the conversation from her petty concerns to his own important ones.
On the contrary: he loved her concerns. He always enjoyed waiting for her, and if she needed to take her time, he took pleasure in all her contortions.
He was in no hurry, and he never rushed her. He would wait for her to finish, and even when she had finished, he did not pounce or grab but enjoyed waiting in case there was something more, in case she was carried along on another wave.
He loved to let her take him by the hand and lead him to her