13/2/98

Good and Proper

What hope is there for a typical Israeli family when a refined old English auntie comes for tea?

    My wife's sister's husband's ex-boss's ex-wife's aunt, for some reason, decided to visit Israel, so naturally, we had to have her over for tea. She is British. When a British person over the age of 55 comes by for tea, you have to revamp your entire budget for that month.
    A North American pops by, you sit her down, serve a cup of coffee and scrounge a cookie, and she'll always say she had a really super time. An Israeli drops in, she makes the coffee, drinks it standing up and carries on for half an hour that you really don't have to bother with cookies because she doesn't like the ones you buy.
    The British are different. As soon as you flick the switch on the kettle it's called "entertaining." The kids have to be reconditioned, reprogrammed and, for that matter, redressed, to ensure an exemplary cameo appearance before their prompt disappearance into a sealed, soundproof room. The house has to be scrubbed, the plants polished, the windows have to sparkle and I have to shave. We have to get out the silver, crystal and bone china we've had packed away since we got married.
    And the reason no British person over the age of 55 ever drops by without calling is because you can't serve a cup of tea without first baking for three days solid.
    This sounded too much like something we're forced to go through once a year anyway, so I suggested to my wife that we kill two birds with one stone and set the invitation for Pessah. (Come to think of it, we could be killing two brits with one stone if we had her 'round during Shavuot.)
    No, she said, for once we can be civilized. "Well, excyo-o-o-se me," I said, squidging my face the way one does to mimic English snootiness, "but perhaps you should have thought of that before marrying a fur-trapping, hockey-loving, beer-bellied, blubber-eating frost-bitten colonial Canadian moose, eh?"
    This was an argument I was not going to win. (Come to think of it, the last time I won an argument was when I convinced her to marry me.)
    I agreed to do my part: I agreed to shave.
    Came the big day. The woman would be arriving at 8:30 p.m. I was due home from work at 4:30 p.m. That left too much time for even the wildest imagination to concoct a reason to be late. At first I thought if I drive very slowly, who knows what might happen, but then I decided that, instead, if I drive very fast, there was a good chance I might get arrested and have to spend the night in jail.
    I got home at 4:10.
    Fishing for my house key, I noticed with mounting alarm that the front door had just been painted. I entered. Three indignantly-clean children greeted me, anxious that I shouldn't turn and flee.
    "Mommy even shampooed our Mickey Mouses."
    "And she said if I didn't blow my nose she'd vacuum it."
    "And she said you shouldn't come in until you take off your shoes and put these on." New socks. "She waxed the floors."
    I thought perhaps I should have a word with her. I found her on the balcony, drugging the cat. "Honey," I said, "what if Auntie goes to the window to see the view? There's grafitti on the house across the street."
    "Not anymore," she said.
    That really impressed me. "Who is your sister's husband's ex-boss's ex-wife's aunt, the Queen Mother? I mean, should I put on a tie?"
    "No, she's Mrs. Zacharietta Tink, and yes, you should put on a tie."
    "But my tie doesn't fit me anymore."

THE FLOWERS arrived at 4:45 p.m., an arrangement of white lilies and purple rhododendrons to fill the living room, an array of yellow roses and red hyacinths for the kitchen, a splash of orchids to cover the fuzzy black bubbles on the wall by the window in the bathroom and a Venus fly-trap to keep the children amused in their sealed room.
    At 5:15, the dried fruits, nuts, mints, chocolates, sherry and brandies were artistically laid out. The neighbors upstairs were coaxed to go to the opera for the evening. I shaved.
    At 6:05 my wife, in a panic, embarked on a blitz diet.
    At 6:15 I was sworn off smoking, belching and swearing. 
    At 6:40 I was given a crash course on royal genealogy, as it was sure to come up in conversation.
    At 7:00 the cakes were placed on the table. A lemon roll, gooseberry-rum cream pie, custard butterscotch fig-chip thins, profiterols, coconut-meringue Marguerites, marble cake with real marbles and a six-layer chocolate-fudge Tutti Frutti carrot cake with a glazed salep-blueberry-rhubarb icing designed like a fluttering Union Jack.
    At 7:20 the cheese and crackers were brought out.
    At 7:35 I shaved again.
    At 7:45 the toilet was flushed and refilled with fresh water. I suggested we fill it with Perrier instead. My wife thought for a moment and decided that would be going too far.
        At 8:30:06 the doorbell rang.
    "Somebody's at the door!" the kids yelled, and ran the other way.
    I arranged a smile and opened the door. "Why, Mrs. Zecharietta Tink!" I exclaimed, and gave the woman a correct peck on each cheek.
    "No," said the woman in raspy Hebrew, "I'm Zehava and I'm collecting for--." She was outta there faster than a hare in a foxhunt.
    At 8:30:31 she arrived.
    "How do you do," she said.
    "How do you do," we said.
    "How do you do what?" an Israeli child said.
    "Shh!" we said.
    "How charming," she said.
    "Wanna see me lick my nose with my tongue?" the child said.
    "NO!" we said.
    She did anyway. "Salty," the child said, grinning.
    We didn't know what to say.
    "Do come in," my wife said.
    "Yes, do," I said Britishly.
    "Doo-doo," added the kids helpfully.
    Without further do, she did. I took her coat and she thanked me. "Where shall I powder my nose?" she asked.
    "Why don't you just lick it?" a kid said.
    "Sorry," we said.
    We showed her to the bathroom. The door closed, and we hauled off the little 'uns for a little talking-to. They said they thought they were behaving. They squirmed free.
    A moment too late, I noticed one of them peering through the bathroom-door keyhole. "But I thought you said you were gonna powder your nbbbbbbb," the kid said as my sweaty hand clamped down on her mouth.
    Presently, our guest emerged. "What a lovely home you have," she exclaimed.
    "Why, thank you," my wife said, leading the way to the living room.
    I helped the woman onto the couch. "Why, thank you," she said.
    "Daddy, why did she say 'thank you' if you made her sit where the cat vomited?"
    I looked daggers at the kid. "Why, thank you very much." It was quickly explained that the incident took place many, many years ago, and we'd had the couch reupholstered since. "Daddy's lying," a child confirmed.
    "Nice weather we're having," my wife said quickly.
    "Quite," said Zacharietta Tink.
    "Warm," I added enthusiastically.
    "But the weatherman's calling for rain, I hear."
    "Oh, dear."
    "We had rain last week. Thursday, it was. No, Wednesday. It was quite rainy, wasn't it, dear?"
    "Quite, yes, but it let up around dinnertime, remember?"
    "It rained in London the day before my flight."
    "No!"
     "I'm afraid so. I called my brother Nigel as soon as I arrived to ask after the weather there and he told me it wasn't raining at the moment but that the papers said it might.
    "Perhaps it won't."
    "Perhaps."
    "Perhaps it'll really piss down tomorrow."
    "Children, that's enough!"
    "You know," said Mrs. Tink sweetly, "I don't believe I have been properly introduced to your darling daughters." Each one politely announced her own name. My wife and I swelled with pride. "And I'm Mrs. Tink."
    The children howled. "Mrs. Stink! Mrs. Stink!"
    My wife and I died.
    The elderly lady smiled primly, indomitably, and held out her arms to the little Israeli children. They edged away. "I brought presents." They leapt onto her lap. "Oh, my," she said.
    "Gimme," they said.
    "Children!" This was not how they were raised. Suddenly, they remembered.
    "Gimme please."
    Three beautifully-wrapped packages emerged. She had won them over. They thanked her, she kissed them, they kissed her back and she thanked them back. My wife knew what was coming. She announced that it was time for all good children to go to bed. Nobody budged. Mrs. Tink implored that they first be permitted to open their gifts. Mrs. Tink, I suddenly realized, must never have had children of her own.
    They ripped open the packages. A stuffed duck, a stuffed dog, a stuffed rabbit.
    "But it's green, I hate green. Change it for a pink one.
    "I don't want the dog, I want the rabbit, the dog is ugly."
    "I love the rabbit. I want to name it after you. I want to name it Stinky."
    "I want more presents."
    "Why is your lap so fat?"
    "Please don't give me anything green again."
    I volunteered to let my wife carry on the conversation from there while I put the children to bed.
    I tucked them in and turned out the light.
    "Daddy?"
    "What?"
    "Do you think she likes us?" 
    Heroically, I rejoined the ladies.   
    "... Such awful children," Mrs. Tink was saying. "The way they carry on. They're a blight on the whole country."
    My stomach turned.
    My wife nodded. "Quite so. And the way they dress. Just awful!"
    Mrs. Tink shook her head. "Well, look what kind of a mother they have! And the father -- such a sop."
    "Ne'er-do-wells."
    I'd heard just about enough. "Mrs. Stink," I said tartly.
    "Tink."
    "Yes. My girls --"
    "Darlings," she bubbled, then turned back to my wife. "Spoiled brats, all of them. And the worst is Charles."
    Oh, those children!
    "Margaret had no business wearing that dreadful tartan hand-me-down. But Di was ravishing."
    "Was she?"
    "Indeed."
    "I say," I said.
    "Her Majesty was most embarrassed."
    "Was she!"
    "I never!"
    "Tea?"
    "How kind."
    "Cake?"
    Our guest pretended to notice the spread for the first time. "How enchanting! Don't tell me you went to all this trouble just for me!"
    "Really, it was no trouble," my wife said.
    "Not at all," I said, and presumed to be getting a dirty look from she who went to all the trouble.
    "You shouldn't have."
    She was right. "Please indulge," I insisted.
    "I dare say, I couldn't," she persisted.
    Which meant I couldn't either.
    I thought it was time to show Mrs. Tink the paint job on the outside of the door, but my wife asked after her Uncle Wycombe, and then they went on about the Middle East situation which, naturally, spilled over into the Pakistani situation in London and the problem she's having with her Norwegian gardener. They exchanged a few recipes, debated the weather again and, after another cup of tea, agreed how disgraceful the hotel service is, compared Hillary Clinton to Nancy Reagan, paused briefly to cover AIDS, Yugoslavia, the Lubavitcher Rebbe and crime in the streets, before tackling the meatier issues of tooth decay, my career and that it's a small world isn't it.
    "Indeed," I said.
    "Heavens," she exclaimed. "Look at the time." I held my breath. "I must be going now," she said sorrowfully.
    "Not so soon!"
    "I'm afraid so, dears."
    "We must do this again someday."
    "Tomorrow?"
    I groaned desultorily. "Dash it all, if only we could. But tomorrow we're having  my cousin Douggie from Saskatoon for dinner. He's a dredger. Just out of prison. Dreadful company."