My Chicken Odesa

I’d never really had a proper birthday party until I turned six. At the time, we were on a voyage to Sri Lanka, on the M.V. Ohrmazd – once a passenger liner, now a merchant vessel. This was the largest ship I had ever been on, and I spent a lot of time exploring the areas I was told not to: the derelict guest cabins, and the dining-room bar that was filled with cobwebs and a stale smell of disuse. Outside the bar was an empty, rust-stained open-air pool, with shattered floor lights and mouldy sky-blue tiles. Daddy had the pool cleaned and filled with sea water so that I could float about in it. I didn’t know how to swim, so I would jump in wearing a ship’s life jacket, accidentally swallowing water. Intensely briny, the water was heavy and dense. Our life on board was engulfed in this brininess. My hair and skin would be sticky from it; even when I opened my mouth to eat, I’d taste the salty air.