Читаем Witz полностью

As for the women, their dress is formal and is called formal not for its style but for the way you have to wear it, seriously, straight of face, as a sarcastic smile or an ironic eye makes it seem all a laugh or flinch: two women in the same dress in different colors, two women in the same dress in the same color, two of them in different dresses in the same color, then many of them in many different dresses in many different colors, laughing blush into the ear of a mensch himself struggling to hear, and to make himself heard over the din with the cocktail hour soon becoming two and the string quartet only just finishing and then overtime, they’re union…halfheard gossip, metropolitan pretense, obnoxious, mingling with Siburbia’s frustrations, quaint to most, the grip and gripe of the flighty, fleeing Developments; the dinging of silverware on glass, stemware raised then drained; a dropped tray of plates the caterers had been made to rent from the synagogue because who can trust their kashrut, what a scam; as the quartet becomes a trio, a duo, then a cellist solo; in the lobby, the pianist takes over, tinkles away with pathos enough to the cloakroom, the bathroom wait, then gives out the Gershwin like it’s money: “It Ain’t Necessarily So” not necessarily slow, though loud enough to mask the last glass and porcelain swept smash sounding at the threshold, attracting the irked attentions of the father of the bride, finally, it has to be him with his fury and forehead, then a hundred bridesmaids, a nosegay of them the bouquet caught redhanded, redfaced, the event planner and the synagogue’s socialhall manager himself to stand around and shriek tongues as if cancelled checks at the help, enjoying themselves as much as the guests, maybe even more.