"Good advice, mostly," Saskia said.
"Necessary advice, anyway," Els added.
"What's sin?" Jack asked.
"Just about everything," Alice answered.
"There's good sin and bad sin," Els told Jack.
"There is?" Saskia said; she looked as confused as Jack was.
"I mean good advice and bad advice," Els explained. It seemed to Jack that sin was more complicated than fornication.
Entering the hotel room, Alice said: "The thing about sin, Jack, is that some people think it's very important and other people don't even believe it exists."
"What do you think about it?" the boy asked. Alice appeared to trip, although Jack saw nothing that she could have tripped on; she just started to fall, but Els caught her.
"Damn heels," Alice said, but she wasn't wearing heels.
"Now listen, Jack," Saskia spoke up. "We've got a job to do--making sure your mom wears the right clothes is important. We can't be distracted by a conversation about something as difficult as sin."
"We'll have that conversation later," Els assured the boy.
"Have it once the singing starts--have it without me," Alice said, but Els just steered her to the closet.
Saskia was already looking through Alice's dresser drawers. She held up a bra that would have been much too big for her but not nearly big enough for Els. Saskia said something in Dutch, which made Els laugh. "You're going to be disappointed in my clothes," Alice told the prostitutes.
The way Jack remembered it, his mom tried on every article of clothing in her closet. Alice was always very modest around Jack. He never saw his mother naked or half naked, and for an hour or more in the Krasnapolsky was the first time he saw so much of her in a bra and panties; even then, Alice clasped the sides of her breasts with her upper arms and elbows, and crossed her hands on her chest to cover herself. Jack actually saw more of Saskia and Els than he did of his mother, because the two women surrounded her as they dressed and undressed her--they were full of advice.
Finally a dress was chosen; it struck Jack as pretty but plain. The dress was like his mom--she was pretty but plain, at least in comparison to how the women looked and dressed in the red-light district. It was a sleeveless black dress with a high neckline; it fit her closely, but it wasn't too tight.
Alice didn't own a pair of genuine high heels, but the heels she chose for the occasion were medium-high--or they were high for her--and she put on her pearl necklace. It had belonged to her mother; her father gave it to her on the day she left Scotland for Nova Scotia. Alice thought they were cultured pearls, but she didn't really know. The necklace meant a lot to her, no matter what kind of pearls they were.
"Won't I be cold in a sleeveless dress?" Alice asked Saskia and Els. The women found a fitted black cardigan in the closet.
"That sweater is too small for me," Alice complained. "I can't button it up."
"You don't need to button it," Els told her. "It's just to keep your arms warm."
"You should leave the sweater open and hug your arms around yourself," Saskia said, showing her how to do it. "If you look like you're a little cold, that's sexy."
"I don't want to look sexy," Alice replied.
"What's sexy?" Jack asked.
"If you look sexy, the men think you can give them good advice," Els explained. The two prostitutes were fussing over Alice's hair, and there was still the matter of lipstick to resolve--and makeup.
"I don't want lipstick, I don't want makeup," Alice told them, but they wouldn't listen to her.
"Believe me, you want lipstick," Els told her.
"Something dark," Saskia said. "And eye shadow."
"I hate eye shadow!" Alice cried.
"You don't want William looking in your eyes and really seeing you, do you?" Els asked her. "I mean, supposing for a moment that he actually shows up." That quieted Alice; she let the women make her up.
Jack just watched the transformation. His mother's face looked more chiseled, her mouth bolder; most foreign of all was the darkness shrouding her eyes, which made her look as if someone close to her had died and she was keeping the death from Jack. Overall, his mom looked a lot older.