There was no novelty in Mariam Mendez's pregnancy and it was; sort of a biannual event expected by the village. It happened every time Frank Mendez came home from overseas trip- he was a cook on a vessel owned by a Panamanian Shipping company that operated between Muscat in the gulf and South Africa. He came on a long home leave every two years and she got pregnant and delivered after he was gone. There was nothing new about it and that made a small ripple in the gossiping circles. She already had one daughter named Alice and two boys; Pascal and Emanuel, before she got pregnant with Francis. The only difference this time was that the father, Frankie Mendez, for the first time was in Goa for the delivery as he was let go by the new owners, who were Muslims, and did not want any pork cooking cook on board. They paid him a one year's salary as parting gift and now he was thinking to settle for a permanent shore job in is ancestral village near Domblim. With some cash in his pocket he did not miss the life on a Costal Vessel; so he thought when he arrived.

As usual; Mariam and kids were happy at first but then within few weeks the troubles started to surfaced slowly. He, being a lifelong sailor with an unbridle freedom to do anything, and no one to question his behavior on board or actions at anchorage, he started to feel married life on a continuous basis, oppressive and the daily chores unbearable. He resented the constant noise coming at him in many forms and shapes; some with hands extended for loans and others for probing his past life at sea as if he was the Sindbad the Sailor of the Arabian Nights. "I would rather be on a ship talking to the stoves and the chickens and pigs kept on board," he would mutter to himself. His wife pestered him to take her to bazar for baby stuff or to dress in a suit for church and then the visits from Father De Mello; and that got on his nerves:

"I haven't seen you at the Sunday Mass, "or " I am open for your confession this evening."
He was admonished and to top it all; his wife would push him to go to a doctor to check himself out; just in case he had visited someone out of the man's needs". That would then lead into a real vexing episode because Mariam wasn't always discreet about it and would say so in front of the Padre. In such occasions Frankie would rush out and not return home for a day or two; taking refuse in the steamers at the anchorage visiting from the African ports he knew well.
In the bed, it was Mariam who always wanted him to fulfill his conjugal duties every night as soon as she was free from the monthly sitting out days. He was not comfortable with her. She was very classical beauty to him and there was an awe-filled admiration of her in his heart. He always felt like he had married up because Mariam had passed 9th grade and he had bolted out of third grade to work odd jobs. Mendez family were wealthy landowners of bye gone era where as Mariam's family was relatively middle class educated folks who couldn't come up with the dowry for her to get married in their own proper class, so marrying a semiliterate Mendez was not as shabby as it sounded then.
The fact that she could read and write Portuguese and English was enough for Frankie to develop that inferiority, a less educated person feels in spite of owning real estate and commercial crop producing land.

To prove his worth or just to get out of town, he had taken up a job as a cook on a feeder vessel that operated between ports and big ocean liners not wanting to get into the harbor channels and would unload cargo at the anchorage in high seas. Rather than working at his own coconut, mango, and cashew farms and the rice fields, he left everything for his wife to handle and skipped town, following his drinking buddy Jokim; another drop out friend already working as a Khalasi (deck hand) on the M.V. Gomantak. Tactfully, a word in the village was spread that he was a Merchant Marine on the Chowgule Shipping corporation's Steam Ship playing between the port of Marma-Goa and Europe; a far cry from the truth. At home, Miriam took over the management of Wadi as the farming estate was called and used her education to set it in a proper, financially solid, self-propelling enterprise mold. He really didn't need a job at all; he could have taken care of children but he was not suitable for that job either.

In their marriage only favorable thing for him was his beautiful, suave wife adored his handsome face and showed him off. He was a good looking devil with a silky black hair, light skin with a sailor's tan, above average height of five eleven, smiling face with a delicate nose and all accompanied by that certain charms and mannerism; all copied from the heroes of western movies' gun-slinging heroes. In spite of his lack of schooling he was a good catch for Mariam when she got married to him at the age of eighteen. However, the perfect couple image was a window dressing. In reality, Frankie the sailorman had difficulties in managing the affairs of Amore with his wife. It was not like the women he spent time with in the distant ports. There was some sort of a wall of sanctity that stood between them when they were in bed.

Frankie just couldn't think of doing to Miriam all those tricks of amour which would make the other women go wild in the bed. With her it was like that term he had heard before from the other sailors-Wham --bang- Thank you Ma'am affair which left her very much unfulfilled but then, luckily for him, there was that sure shot pregnancy and the end of her passion filled longings of the wicked soul of that daughter of eve. After that he expected a relaxed life at home- the off the boat experience of being an householder.

For Mariam, love making was the mandatory, 'la Joie d'vie.' Frankie had no clues about how to join her in that mood of amore, rise to the occasion and show his passion for her. How could he? He was intimidated by the heat of the moment; he knew sexual copulation techniques but was a dodo bird, when it came to romance. On the other hand, she was a radiant and healthy young woman with ferocious appetite for a romantic sex and always had harbored those romantic desires from the time she came to age. However they never crossed the threshold of entertaining those romantic thoughts of floating in the ball rooms and then lovemaking with one of the Portuguese men with blue eyes and strong muscular bodies. After marriage, she expected Frankie to fulfill them. In the virgin days all those wicked thoughts were cured by the confession and performing the umpteen numbers of Hail Maries which Father De Mello routinely prescribed.
"It is not exactly forbidden, but when you are a married woman, it is, so look at your husband and be fruitful and multiply."
Old padre had advised her the first time she let him on her secret wickedness. After their marriage; she did follow the advice by having a child every two years and with each pregnancy she forgot her fantasies and moved towards the pragmatic and practical life of a Wadi owner. Childbirths ended after Frankie was gone and she remarried to a Portuguese senior official, lot older than her. Getting pregnant for conceiving Francis was the last time Frankie and Miriam together.

Soon she began to resent his presence in her and children's routine and their well-choreographed matriarchal life. They started to argue at first when Frankie showed up after saying good byes to his lucky sailor friends still sailing on the blue yonder. When that became a routine nightly business, it became obvious that he was a threat to the tranquility of the household, the surroundings, to the health of a pregnant mother and her brood. In all their existence as a family, Frank Mendez, the father and his children knew each other by reference only. He did not have those special feelings for them which come by the tactile interactions between a newborn and his or her parents when held close to heart and coo chi cooed as infants. He found out about the birth only when his vessel and the forwarded mail made connections in some port and that used to occur as late as three months to a year and they were told about his paternity position whenever he arrived home.

This was mainly his fault. Busy with getting ready to head for the town, he would just not go to the agent's office right on the jetty where the vessel was berthed at the mooring, to see if there was any mail. Often they would sail out with his letters still languishing in the pigeon hole for few months and then the mail would get forwarded to the vessel's next port of call and sit that office for a while and eventually someone else would collect that correspondence, and promptly sent to his vessel, along with the official ship mail and it was dropped his in front of him. No wonder by the time he got the news of addition to his household, the child would be crawling on the Mariam's home as it came to be known with the passage of time and by the absence of a sole owner of their house; Mr. Frank Jokim Mendez, the Marine. Whenever he was home, his children feared him more than they liked him. His efforts to link with them were awkward and then he lacked the knowledge of their idiosyncrasies to hold a meaningful conversation beyond inquiring about their daily humdrum routines and friends etc.

He was getting lonely amidst the sea of people and no one understood this. Miriam's hands were full and all day would go quickly dealing with the affairs of her Wadi. He, if at all was home, would sit squatting on the floor without saying much but watching his beautiful, smart wife dealing with contractors and labors with profound admiration and loathing for his own existence. Merchants and vendors would come in and curtsy her without paying attention to him as if he was a pile of rags or a sack of coconut kept there waiting for a pick up. It didn't bother him and she stopped even glancing at him while conducting her business as she used to do in the beginning to see if he was paying attention to what was going on. He would sometimes just get up and leave and head for the waterfront or the beach and then return with the smell of coconut toddy on his breath. No one could tell if Frankie was depressed or just bored because he would show no emotions on his face save that flashy smile irrespective of the prevailing ambiance of the situation.
This time he was at home for what looked like a long, long spell and that was increasing the stress level all around. Finally, a solution was sought and with the intervention of Father De Mello, a chafe's job in one of the Mumbai's emerging five star hotels was found for him and the myth of being a Merchant Marine got replaced with a new one that he was called up by a Canadian Shipping Company. It really did not matter to anyone in the town what happened to him but She took no chance for gossips and nasty rumors about her dealing with men were reaching her. In her own right, she was a wealthy, beautiful young woman worthy of envy and even jealousy.

He was gone merrily as he had many acquaintances from the old shipping business shacked up in the dingy rooms of Collabra fishing village's back alleys. The life in close quarters with men of the proverbial, 'similar feathers', was much more suitable and attractive to a sailorman like him, than the ancestral Wadi with the banana plants and coconut trees, with the constant traffic of folks with whom he did not, or could not much relate to. The early life experience it seems shapes a person's personality and by the time he or she reaches past their thirties, they are set in their ways. Only the most determined and strong individuals make changes in their persona to achieve something new; a different type of adventure that challenges them. Not every Master who commanded a ship to cross the world's oceans every day of their lives, has opted for a voyage to any unknown and uncharted seas. With his low IQ, Frankie was not expected to be another Columbus by anyone including himself. He was a 'happy- go- lucky', sort of bloke hanging somewhere between being a God Fearing when he was in troubled waters and an Atheist when he was having fun and did not need anyone else.

The decade of fifties had begun and there was a conflict arising due to the status of Goa as a Portuguese colony being looked upon by the Hindu and some Catholics as a blot on Independent India's face. There were troubles on the borders which historically was left porous by the Colonial Masters and after Independence, by the early Indian administration. When Francis was born; his father was in Mumbai but couldn't come home for the legitimate reason of not getting opportunity to return to work or just indifference on his part and no one really cared or missed him and then what had happened in the Mariam's Wadi in the Village near Dambolim, was of an affair of serious as well as of extra ordinary nature. involving the God with whom Frankie had no dispute or love. Under the circumstances, no one informed the father of this divine newborn.

For this event, the ever fertile wife of Frankie was chosen by the Almighty to conceive a Son for the world of slave like blind devotees, willing to pray to any and every type of divinity promoted by the Catholic, Muslim or any other sponsoring or non sponsoring faith; as long as the one that is believed in by anyone, had the propensity and capabilities to bring prosperity, health and a progeny to the human race. Goa, India was that place and Francis' birth was the auspicious event. In a blissful ignorance Frankie's life was sailing on the even keel and no one was rocking his boat nor he had to rush to any specific place, save to an opportunity to boldly go where no one would know his name and that's what happened to him; he simply vanished from the face of this planet and none were disturbed by that event.