I
wish the scent of newly baked bread still had the same positive effect on my olfactory senses as it once had.
Nora places a tray with four round breads on the table and a bowl of olive oil beside.
“Breakfast buffet!”
She points toward the white, flat bread, gives a thumbs-up and smiles broadly.
Yesterday’s dense fog has gone and there is only a bit of soft, fluffy cloud left, lying just above the placid sea surface.
Bo peers through the binoculars in the direction of Sri Lanka.
Nora puts her pinkie fingers in her mouth and whistles loudly in his direction.
“Come sit with us even if you don’t want to eat.” she admonishes him friendly yet decisively.
He drags his heels, sinks down beside me, places his water bottle on the table and leans his head against my shoulder.
“Fresh bread baked this morning.”
I indicate the bread with my hand.
His silence shows he doesn’t appreciate my attempt to entertain.
Janek comes up on deck and looks at Bo’s water bottle which has fallen over and is rolling on the table. He shakes his head and asks for the binoculars. We all look in the same direction as the lens towards what appears to be birds moving in a flock farther away.
“Fishermen.”
He looks at Nora who goes below and starts the engine.
“Was it fishermen who drove after us for such a long time yesterday?”
I put my hand on my brow to try to see Janek in the sun.
“No, in all probability they were pirates. Fishermen don’t usually have weapons aboard. But I don’t want them on board anyway. I made that mistake once when a fishing boat approached. We started a conversation and unexpectedly they jumped over to my boat. Suddenly there were four fishermen on board and my then-girlfriend in her bikini.”
He wipes the sweat from his brow and continues, “They have this whole other view of women and one of them walked over and touched her breasts. I asked what on earth he thought he was doing but he didn’t understand and seemed to think he was entitled to do so.”
He shakes his head and directs the wheel in the opposite direction of the fishing boat.
My feminine pain-body wakes to life. It has rested, slumbering for generations of female oppression.
“What did you do then and what did she say?”
I straighten myself up a bit too hastily and Bo, who seems to have fallen asleep is compelled to do the same.
“I asked them to leave my boat, she walloped him and shouted in Polish that he was a pig!”
He holds back his laughter.
“But they didn’t want to leave the boat without getting something from us. They wandered about like confused, uncivilised apes and stared unabashed at my girlfriend who covered herself with her sailing jacket. I tried to get rid of them and offered them the cash I had and a bottle of wine. But that wasn’t enough. They also wanted a few CDs and my headphones. Don’t know why they acted like they did… maybe because they live like they do, mostly out at sea, away from civilisation, or if it was about their religion.”
“Do you seriously think we need to worry about crazy fishermen from Sri Lanka, and now pirates, too? I can’t take it!” Bo grumbles.
“Thieves are everywhere, even at sea. The likelihood of being robbed out here is much less than on dry land.”
Nora takes the binoculars and gazes out over the ocean in all directions.
“But what do you mean, would their religion consider it reasonable to paw other women’s breasts if they want?”
My feminine pain-body is still active.
“I don’t know, but women belong to the lower caste in their religion, I believe.”
He wipes his brow with his forearm.
“Here’s to Catholicism.” he continues and kisses his crucifix.
“But, Janek, what the hell? Catholicism really has so much shit beneath its pious exterior: paedophile scandals, misuse of power, the burning of witches, crucifixions, to name some of the devilry done in God’s name and legitimised by the religion’s belief system. Ugh!”
Nora shakes her whole body as though in an attempt to shake off what she just said.
Janek straightens his back and assumes a defensive position.
“I believe something as natural as sex should absolutely not be made into something shameful, that’s when things like this occur.”
“But which God we pray to seems in the highest degree to come down to how we, in our social and familiar cultures are formed to believe. We rarely question it. In some cases, questioning one’s own religion implies the death sentence, especially when one is a woman.”
I speak loudly and seem to continue to want to defend my sisters’ oppression.
“I just have one thing to add to this talk of religion that always seems to engage us!” bellows Bo and waves dramatically with his arms.
“With this trip I’ve taken the atheists’ side. No God was there for me when I needed it most.”
“But why does anyone need to declare any religious belief, isn’t this one of the foremost reasons for war on our planet?”
Nora speaks calmly and tries to dampen the hot-blooded energy that has resulted round the subject.
A small-scale war on a lonely sailboat out on the open sea. With the mind as a weapon, there is always the potential to war. The same war in a larger scale that has gone on since human’s beginning. As long as the egotistical and isolated minds are awake, there will always be potential war.
That claustrophobic feeling of inadequacy fills my being. The feeling that my personally accepting responsibility does not matter, it makes me feel physically ill.
Heavy armour made in iron squeezes my broken ribcage.
A quiet sigh that chafes within.
A quiet longing home. Home to my heart.
A quiet prayer to a God who forgives my human flaws and who laughs at the divine circus in which it is amused by.
And all this simply to be able to know yourself again.