The hero at the center of the watch, Brighella, in a white suit sitting at the base of a set of stairs, jerkily raised his hand, which held the bow of a violin. A shrill jingling began. Brighella began shaking the violin back and forth, lifting it closer to his chin and then lowering it again. A woman in a white dress sitting higher up on the steps began to pluck a harp. In the right lower corner of the clock face sat a man, also in white clothing. He began nodding his head and counting time with his hand. Between the harpist and the timekeeper crouched a strange oddity resembling a turtle with a harlequin checked cape on its hunched back. The turtle man twitched his head in a nod, chin up, chin down. Those were all the clock face’s animated parts, three hands and two heads in jerky motion.
Masks covered the upper parts of the faces. Everyone wore foolish headgear, like collapsed chef’s hats or crumpled nightcaps. The only woman in the group bore a sort of Valkyrie helmet on her locks. Really, when you thought about it carefully, the characters looked more like Star Wars heroes than commedia dell’arte figures. They were situated on the imposing white steps of a Renaissance-style mansion, but the view out the window was an entirely different, almost futuristic scene, some kind of space station with rockets prepared to lift off. The numbers on the watch face didn’t follow normal watch face logic (so much for practicality and usability!), instead resembling more a countdown. Along the left edge of the watch face near Brighella’s lifted violin bow snaked the number series 60, 50, 40, 30, 20, 10, 00. Did this thing only measure one minute?
The watch was butt ugly. Even uglier was its six-figure price, which is worth mentioning again: €370,000. For that you could have bought 190 water tanks (at 8,000 liters a piece) for use in an emergency. Or 1,947 family tents (at 16 m2). Or 74,000 warm blankets. Or 411,111 measles vaccinations. “There are a total of twenty-four Commedia dell’Arte watches in existence, one of which now belongs to you, Jean-Philippe,” the birthday boy’s father said in conclusion. Then he winked. “Now you can’t miss the last train any more! In future you’ll always be able to make it home in time to your little Ninjuška!”
N°7. Optimal body structure. Nina had ideal birthing hips, which also appealed to most hetero men. In Jean-Philippe’s words: Plus que fantastique! N°8. Efficiency. Nina could operate on four to six hours of sleep even if she only enjoyed them in two-hour stretches. N°9. Imagination. Without this you can’t be a Good Mother. At most you can be middling but more likely bad. In the modern multiple choice world, an unimaginative mother is no better than a chain-smoking mother, a boozer mother, an absentee mother, a mother who uses the belt, a profligate mother, or, worst of all, a scene-scripting drama queen mother (which Jean-Philippe’s previous fiancé doubtless would have become), who believes her home is a stage and her children paying customers, expecting to receive applause and roses after every show. An unimaginative mother fails to offer her children the best opportunities. She operates on autopilot. She glides along in one rut, blinded by the speed, and never sticks her head out the window.
Nina had a singular imagination that always activated in difficult situations. It was a minor miracle, at least if you consider her first and third characteristics, Nos. 1 (“pragmatism”) and 3 (“apt situational assessments”), which are counterforces to imagination. Imagination springs from disorganization and failed situational assessments. Life doesn’t conform to the ideal and heaps obstacles in the wanderer’s way. Imagination is an adaptation. As the species improves, it will disappear. In three hundred thousand years, no one will remember Proust, Nerval, Pascal, Brecht, Luther, Puccini, Rosa Luxemburg, Wittgenstein, Louise Bourgeois, Paganini, or Sappho. They simply aren’t needed. In the future, all scientific and artistic struggling will only weaken the species.
Nina was an almost perfect woman. All of her sharp edges had been smoothed away. However, the world around her was not on the same level with her perfection. It was illogical and capricious, cruel, and sometimes even ugly. Nina’s mild temperament and maternally oriented, well-incubated Words of Sense simply weren’t enough in all situations.
Now and then, to everyone’s surprise, Nina’s hibernating imagination awoke and lifted its drowsy head from beneath the covers. It found focus. It found the solution that no one else had thought of. Take one example. Let us return to the series of events currently underway. Nina is doubled over, holding her belly with both hands, bellowing like a lioness. The women have gathered around her. They flail frantically without a clue as to what to do. Now Nina collapses on her back. Now Nina whimpers. Now Nina is in such a bad state that she must be helped instantly!
Surprisingly, Wlibgis makes the first move. She has a son herself, a thirty-year-old good-for-nothing, so she knows something about pregnancy and childbearing too. From being in the hospital, she’s also used to the idea of turning and tugging and rolling a person during washing; lifting them from bed to bed using a sheet, or easing them to the side when the bedpan needs to
