“Because it happens to be the answer to your problem.”
“What is it?”
“Winnowing!”
Seeing me draw a blank, she laughs. “Separating the grain from the chaff,” she remarks. “That’s exactly what you need to do.”
Again I look vacantly: Again she smiles with confidence as if she has the pulse of the world under her finger.
“Think of it this way, Sis. The human brain is like a set of kitchen drawers. The cutlery is placed in one drawer. The napkins in another. And so on. Use the same model. When you are nursing, open the ‘motherhood’ section. When you are writing, pop open the ‘novelist’ one. Simple. Close one drawer, use the other. No confusion. No contradictions. No fretting. All thanks to winnowing.”
“Wow, that’s splendid, but there is a small detail you left out: While I’m writing, who will take care of the baby?”
“As if that’s a problem,” she says with a snort. “Hello. The age of globalization is here. Snap your fingers. You can find a nanny. Filipino, Moldavian, Bulgarian . . . You can even choose her nationality.”
Little Miss Practical thrusts her hand into one of her pockets and produces a paper. “Look, I’ve made a list of all the information you’ll need. Phone numbers of the nanny agencies, babysitters, nursery schools, pediatricians. You should also get an assistant to answer your e-mails. It’ll make life easier. And if you get a secretary and a tape recorder, you can stop writing altogether, ya’ mean?”
With a heavy heart I ask, “What do you mean?”
“I mean, instead of writing your novels, you can speak them. The recorder will tape your voice. Later, your secretary can type up the whole text. Isn’t it practical? That way you can finish a novel without having to leave the kid.”
“Just curious,” I say as calmly as I can manage. “How exactly am I going to afford a nanny, an assistant and a secretary?”
“Oh, you’re being so negative,” she says. “Here I’m offering practical solutions for material problems and you see only the downside.”
“But money is a material problem,” I object, my voice cracking. For a brief moment neither of us says a word, mutually frowning and sulking.
“Besides, even if I had the money,” I say, “I still couldn’t do what you suggest. It goes against my sense of equality and freedom. I can’t have all those people working for me, as if I were a raja or something.”
“Now you’re talking nonsense,” snaps Little Miss Practical. “Don’t you know that every successful female writer is a raja?”
“How can you say that?”
“How can you deny that?” she asks back. “Remember that wolf woman you adore so much.”
Just when I am about to ask what wolf woman she is talking about, it dawns on me that she is referring to Virginia Woolf.
“Do you think that lady of yours had only a room of her own ? No way. She also had a cook of her own, a maid of her own and a gardener of her own, not to mention a butler of her own! Her diaries are full of complaints about her many servants.”
Laden with curiosity I ask, “Since when do you read about the lives of novelists?”
Little Miss Practical’s readings are based solely on two key criteria: efficiency and functionality. How to Win Friends and Hearts, The Key to Unwavering Success, Ten Steps to Power, The Art of Knowing People, Awaken the Millionaire Inside, The Secret to Good Life . . . She gobbles up self-help books like popcorn, but never reads novels. Fiction, in her eyes, has no function.
“If it’s useful, I’ll read it,” she says defensively.
“And what is the use of the wolf woman?”
She turns a disparaging dark gaze on me. “That lady of yours used to write orders to her servants on scraps of paper. What chores needed to be done, what dishes needed to be prepared, which dresses needed washing . . . She would write them down. Can you imagine? They lived under the same roofbut instead of talking to them, she wrote to
“What is it?”
“Winnowing!”
Seeing me draw a blank, she laughs. “Separating the grain from the chaff,” she remarks. “That’s exactly what you need to do.”
Again I look vacantly: Again she smiles with confidence as if she has the pulse of the world under her finger.
“Think of it this way, Sis. The human brain is like a set of kitchen drawers. The cutlery is placed in one drawer. The napkins in another. And so on. Use the same model. When you are nursing, open the ‘motherhood’ section. When you are writing, pop open the ‘novelist’ one. Simple. Close one drawer, use the other. No confusion. No contradictions. No fretting. All thanks to winnowing.”
“Wow, that’s splendid, but there is a small detail you left out: While I’m writing, who will take care of the baby?”
“As if that’s a problem,” she says with a snort. “Hello. The age of globalization is here. Snap your fingers. You can find a nanny. Filipino, Moldavian, Bulgarian . . . You can even choose her nationality.”
Little Miss Practical thrusts her hand into one of her pockets and produces a paper. “Look, I’ve made a list of all the information you’ll need. Phone numbers of the nanny agencies, babysitters, nursery schools, pediatricians. You should also get an assistant to answer your e-mails. It’ll make life easier. And if you get a secretary and a tape recorder, you can stop writing altogether, ya’ mean?”
With a heavy heart I ask, “What do you mean?”
“I mean, instead of writing your novels, you can speak them. The recorder will tape your voice. Later, your secretary can type up the whole text. Isn’t it practical? That way you can finish a novel without having to leave the kid.”
“Just curious,” I say as calmly as I can manage. “How exactly am I going to afford a nanny, an assistant and a secretary?”
“Oh, you’re being so negative,” she says. “Here I’m offering practical solutions for material problems and you see only the downside.”
“But money is a material problem,” I object, my voice cracking. For a brief moment neither of us says a word, mutually frowning and sulking.
“Besides, even if I had the money,” I say, “I still couldn’t do what you suggest. It goes against my sense of equality and freedom. I can’t have all those people working for me, as if I were a raja or something.”
“Now you’re talking nonsense,” snaps Little Miss Practical. “Don’t you know that every successful female writer is a raja?”
“How can you say that?”
“How can you deny that?” she asks back. “Remember that wolf woman you adore so much.”
Just when I am about to ask what wolf woman she is talking about, it dawns on me that she is referring to Virginia Woolf.
“Do you think that lady of yours had only a room of her own ? No way. She also had a cook of her own, a maid of her own and a gardener of her own, not to mention a butler of her own! Her diaries are full of complaints about her many servants.”
Laden with curiosity I ask, “Since when do you read about the lives of novelists?”
Little Miss Practical’s readings are based solely on two key criteria: efficiency and functionality. How to Win Friends and Hearts, The Key to Unwavering Success, Ten Steps to Power, The Art of Knowing People, Awaken the Millionaire Inside, The Secret to Good Life . . . She gobbles up self-help books like popcorn, but never reads novels. Fiction, in her eyes, has no function.
“If it’s useful, I’ll read it,” she says defensively.
“And what is the use of the wolf woman?”
She turns a disparaging dark gaze on me. “That lady of yours used to write orders to her servants on scraps of paper. What chores needed to be done, what dishes needed to be prepared, which dresses needed washing . . . She would write them down. Can you imagine? They lived under the same roofbut instead of talking to them, she wrote to
Similar Books
