“Rak, rak,” she says, over and over again,  pointing to the side of her neck, until I leave the food prep and retrieve my English-Russian dictionary.

Cancer. Yes, I know. But how can she know I’ve seen the medical certificate and just about every other document filed in her behalf? Our ‘conversations’ don’t amount to much, plus I must lend her my glasses when she looks up a word, then stick them back on my own face to read what she’s pointing out. Most of our exchanges have to do with presence and, every once in a while, she wishes to hug me. So we hug, I listen to her wheezing and long for better health for her, and quieter times for me.

Wishful thinking. Any wonder a fourteen-year old cabin boy was the main informant for the fairy and siren tales in Françoise Morvan’s book La douce vie des fées des eaux (The Gentle Life of Water Fairies). No wonder at all, as far as I’m concerned. The life of a cabin boy on a nineteenth century fishing vessel did not include TV, video games or even reading, if the boy hadn’t seen too much schooling. Some of the songs and tales from the sea speak of sodomy and cannibalism when life onboard stretched out for too long. Cabin boys handled the slops, the fish guts and every other unpleasant chore that befalls those on the lower rungs of the pecking order. Any wonder tales of long-haired maidens with magnificent breasts and magical powers got mixed into the bawdier or more gruesome stories exchanged during sea lulls?

What the reading of Morvan’s book also brings to mind is a personal dissatisfaction with one element of my current draft involving hand-written notes about maritime law. Of course, not everything people leave behind when they move from a house has much importance – in real life, that is. In story though, what’s the point in mentioning an object, unless it has more than passing interest?

Another day filled with other people’s needs. Guests for dinner. Tomato salad, spanakopita, moussaka and fig cake.  News on the Child Protection front – we should get the daily allowance promised since April for the sheltering of the boys put out on the street. A nice thought but I’ll believe it when I see it.

Rak, rak – the doctor hasn’t called back.

Fig cake: butter a baking dish. Split fresh figs into it. Mix together two eggs, sugar, flour, a bit of melted butter and something tasty like cognac, rum or whatever. Pour the batter over the figs. Hot oven until brown. Slather with a bit of lemon marmalade.