All in a day’s work By Jane Spirit Some Portuguese wine and a few olives

 

L

Lucas was glad that it would be time to go home in thirteen minutes. He’d had an early start that morning covering some extra hours available at the factory where he worked. Not accepting them hadn’t been as option. He was finding that it was an expensive business to top up the supplies he was in constant need of these days. Nonetheless, extending his shift today had meant working ten hours on the packaging line. His job was to check the freshly harvested olives for any blemishes as they were fed into the bottling machine. The machine then placed the good olives into small glass jars, pressed on green lids, and fixed on labels. The design of these depicted a little olive grove in which a family sat together at an outdoor table. Each member of the group smiled at the others as they contemplated the large and presumably freshly picked platter of olives placed before them.

He liked that label, but he also resented its sweetness. He enjoyed eating the discarded olives, but he still could not picture himself sitting on some shaded bench surrounded by his nearest and dearest. Lucas’s dad had been a petty criminal and was now in jail. He was also long divorced from Lucas’s mother who had remarried and moved on out of the area as soon as Lucas had left school. He had no brothers or sisters.

Lucas had known that everyone had thought of him as a tough guy like his father when he was growing up. To be honest, he hadn’t minded that at all. It meant that often have felt lonely, but it was also a means of keeping himself safe from the further judgement of others. And okay, so his job wasn’t exactly the greatest, nor were his long-term prospects brilliant. Still, the factory kept him in food and paid his rent, admittedly only for a small and somewhat dingy apartment just out of the town in the foothills. That didn’t really bother him because wherever you lived in Albufeira, you were close to the sea with its literally breathtaking Atlantic waves massing at the shoreline to race the stretches of sand and pound the little coves at every tide

 In his teenage years, Lucas had enjoyed riding those waves on his own hard saved for surfboard. For a while he had looked and felt amazing as he soaked up the admiration of his less sure-footed peers. Inevitably, as time went on, some of them had concentrated on their schoolwork rather than on improving their surfing stances. They had succeeded in ways he knew he never could. When he heard about them setting up businesses, or working for some cushy software company, Lucas had not needed reminding that he should have spent more time in school and less on crafting signature moves on his board. Still, he always told himself that however much he had studied he could never have made it to becoming a career guy. He would never have been allowed to, he reckoned, not with his roots so entangled in the fringes of a provincial criminal fraternity.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                  

Even so, he’d always remembered how some of his teachers had tried to encourage him. He’d thought fondly of his maths teacher for one. Senhor Santos must surely have been the most old-fashioned teacher in the school and had seemed to delight in that as if it were an accolade to have wispy hair, heavy spectacles and a worn linen jacket. Yet still he had shown an interest in Lucas, despite Lucas’s apparent disregard for academic learning. He could still remember how Senhor Santos had suggested in a casual manner that Lucas might like to join the after-school chess club. Of course, his teacher had added, he would only want to be there in the winter months when he couldn’t surf. Surprised, perhaps flattered, that this teacher understood him a little, Lucas had gone along that winter and enjoyed the club, though he hardly liked to admit it. Then he’d become fascinated by the speed he could travel at on two wheels. He’d been glad to leave school and start work at the factory, saving up enough to acquire his red and black motorbike.  Riding it still gave him the same momentary adrenalin rush that he had once felt cresting the waves. At weekends he would steer his way skilfully upwards on the narrow looping roads leading into the hills. At the top he would pause, basking in the pent-up power of the machine, before setting it on its downward way; trusting his own judgement to know when he should gently activate the brakes.

That was how Lucas had come to encounter Senhor Santos once again at a weekend a couple of years ago when he was out for a ride. He had reached the top of the hill on a route he knew like the back of his hand when he had noticed an old, small car that had seemingly parked just off the road. Something about the way the vehicle was positioned had troubled him; as if the driver had had no choice but to stop so awkwardly, partly on the gravelled rock and partly still on the road. Much as Lucas longed to begin the heart racing descent that lay just beyond the high point a few metres away, he knew in an instant that he could not ignore the little cream car or the driver that appeared to be still in it. What if there were some kind of emergency? Lucas had pulled in behind the car and tapped on the driver’s window, only to see Senhor Santos waving back. His old teacher had opened the window to explain that his car appeared to have broken down, and he was just contemplating abandoning it to seek help from the garage in the village at the bottom of the slope. When Senhor Santos got out of his vehicle, Lucas noticed that he looked frailer and was hot and a little dishevelled. What else could Lucas do but offer him a ride on his motorbike down to the garage? Forgetting any resentment about missing the thrilling descent he had anticipated, Lucas buckled down to the task of manoeuvring the bike down the hill side whilst keeping his old teacher securely balanced behind him. From there he would find himself taking his passenger onwards to a small house, isolated by the roadside amongst some long-neglected olive fields.

As they waited together there for his car to be retrieved, Senhor Santos had suggested they play a game of chess to pass the time. He recalled how Lucas had been a promising player at fifteen and so felt sure he would soon remember the strategies he needed fifteen years later. Rusty as he was, Lucas had enjoyed the game and found himself returning regularly to play chess with the retired teacher for old times’ sake. They spoke little, but Lucas was soothed by the old-fashioned house with its motley furniture and by the presence of the skinny black and white stray cat that his old teacher had adopted. More accurately, Senhor Santos had smiled, the cat had adopted him when his wife had died three years ago. Either way, he fed his house guest every morning and evening and named her Avida as his visitor was always so ravenous. In return, the cat allowed his feeder to give her a stroke or two and, as the months passed, this courtesy had been extended to Lucas who appeared to be Senhor Santos’s only regular visitor.

Then, turning up one evening, Lucas had found the door of the house opened by a fierce and smartly dressed older woman, whose chiselled features resembled those of Senhor Santos, though without the smile lines. She explained that she was there for a few days to sort the place out. She told him that her brother was in hospital but would say little about what had happened to him. She remarked only that she had been busy getting rid of the old stray cat that was always hanging about in the yard. She ventured a faint grin when she told Lucas how she’d dowsed the creature in cold water and thought it had finally moved on.

Sad, but suddenly shy, Juan had said little but fretted back at his flat about the old man who had been kind to him. They had given each other a little company, he thought, and for the old man’s sake he could not let things go as far as the cat was concerned. After a few more days he had returned to the house after work, but this time taking in his pannier a little cat food and a bowl. He had found the house deserted now.  Leaving his motorbike outside the porch, Juan had investigated. He had found no cat lurking in the yard but picked up a faint mewing sound coming from the abandoned field nearest the house. There, under the olive bush next to a brackish stream a few yards from the road he’d found Avida. She rubbed against his legs and let him stroke her head before he hurried back to his bike to collect the food and bowl to feed her.

When the old man did not come back, Lucas had presumed that the house had been sold by his sister. As he never saw anyone else living there, he’d assumed that the plot had been acquired as a future investment by some developer. Lucas found that he could not abandon Avida and the babies she gave birth to in time. Each morning, he would drove purposefully to find hungry cats under the olive tree and feed them. Then, in the evening, he returned to feed them again.

This had become his life until just a few months ago when one of his colleagues at the factory had approached him. She had wanted to know whether he was the young man who appeared in their hamlet on a red and black motorbike every morning and evening and seemed to be sneaking round leaving packages for someone or collecting them perhaps? The young woman who had asked him that teasingly and laughed as she told him how her aunt who lived nearby had nothing better to think about. She had seen him coming and going and was suspicious that he was some kind of drugs courier. That was when Lucas had laughed too and explained to her how he had started looking after a stray cat when their feeder had been taken into hospital and never returned. He had offered to take her to meet Avida after work that day and she had agreed. She had also persuaded him that the two of them should band together to help some of the other stray cats she had noticed sleeping in hedgerows or under trees around the town.

Lucas glanced up at the clock once again and smiled to himself because his shift would be over in one minute. Now he did not need to fill the time by thinking about the past. He would have to hurry to put his work things away in their locker and get back to his motorbike. Ana would be waiting there to meet him with the food supplies for the strays they would visit together on their circuitous route back to his flat. Yes, Lucas thought, it was almost time to go home.

About the Author

 

Jane lives in Woodbridge, Suffolk UK. With the encouragement of the local creative writing class which she joined in 2021 she has been writing stories ever since, some of which have appeared on Café Lit. 

Did you enjoy the story? Would you like to shout us a coffee?. Half of what you pay goes to the author the oher half goes to expense se.g. Maintaining hthe web site and setting up The Best of Café Lit book each year.

:SPITTING INTO THE WIND by S. NadjaN Zajdman,Canada Dry ginger ale

It was late in March of 2025 when I received an e-mail from the assistant publisher of the Chicken Soup for the Soul anthology series, inviting me to a Zoom meeting being held for the U.S. publishing empire’s “Canadian contributors.”  Having “contributed” several stories over the years, I discovered that I was on a list.  For those located overseas or on another planet, Chicken Soup for the Soul anthologies are compilations of feel-good stories written not only by serious writers looking to build a portfolio, but mostly by civilians thrilled to see their names in print.  Chicken soup has been called Jewish penicillin, so the stated intention of these themed collections is one of healing and “changing the world one story at a time.”  The themed anthologies have been lauded as panaceas for stress-filled lives.

 Upon acceptance, one receives a small cheque—in U.S. bucks—and ten copies of the anthology in which one’s material appears.  In 2017, when I had two stories accepted in the special anniversary anthology called The Spirit of Canada, I was sent twenty copies.  I couldn’t give away twenty copies.  I couldn’t give away ten copies.  In lieu of all these copies, I would’ve preferred a larger cheque. 

According to this e-mail, the purpose of the proposed meeting, to be hosted by the publisher, was to apologize for the behavior of their government. “Virtually every American feels the same way.”  They do?  I wondered.  Then who were the phantom 77,000 voters who brought a gangster to power and unleashed madness?  Behind the plea I suspected self-interest. I was skeptical, yet receptive.  An inquiring mind wants to know, so I accepted the invitation to the meeting.

The publisher and editor-in-chief is a magna cum laude graduate of Harvard.  She  worked as a Wall Street analyst, a hedge fund manager and a corporate executive before taking on the presidency of Chicken Soup. 

When I zoomed in, precisely on the scheduled hour, the meeting was already in progress. Chicken Soup’s president was in the process of apologizing for somewhere erroneously writing PQ (Province of Quebec) as PB.  When my name appeared in a box on the screen, knowing I am in Montreal, she apologized to me personally.

At first, I kept my camera off.  Then I decided to show my face.  I had nothing to hide.  Besides the publisher and the assistant publisher, there were a handful of Canadian attendees.  Most had their cameras on.  One didn’t.  More had been invited, but many declined; some angrily, telling Chicken Soup in no uncertain terms that they wanted their names removed from its mailing list.

After the Harvard graduate apologized for misspelling PQ, she shared with her audience her love of Canada, which took the form of vacations she and her family   have enjoyed up here, the most recent being taken by her daughter, who is a doctor in New Hampshire, and who loves the cold. Her daughter the doctor visited with (one assumes) the doctor’s husband.  “They came up for a romantic night in Montreal.”  Only one night?  I thought of Benjamin Franklin.  In historic Old Montreal, tucked away on a cobblestoned alley, there is an ancient building upon whose door rests a plaque announcing, “Benjamin Franklin Slept Here.”  Benjamin Franklin slept here for three nights.  This was back in 1812, which was the last time the Americans attempted to liberate us.  Upon studying the locals and surveying the scene, the Founding Father surmised, “We don’t have to conquer the Canadians.  We can buy them.”

Having established her bona fides, the publisher then confessed that Chicken Soup was in trouble, or potentially in trouble.  “Readers think of Chicken Soup as an American publication, but our production is tied up with Canada.  Most of our printing is done in Canada.”  Of course it would be.  The rate of exchange between the U.S. buck and the Canadian loony makes it an attractive option. “We may have to cancel our children’s picture book series.”  The publisher then had a lightbulb moment.  “We may have to cancel our Canadian series!”  I also had a lightbulb moment.  Was she issuing a threat?

The publisher then asked for “suggestions” on how to keep a Canadian audience.  One woman piped up.  “You could publish more stories about Canada!”  Self-interest works both ways.

            “I thought of that.” admitted the publisher.  “But then I thought readers might think I was being manipulative.”  Oh say it isn’t so!  Why would anyone think that?

            I decided to weigh in.  I raised my hand.  I started to speak.

             “Through no fault of their own, my compatriots are facing ruin, and they accept it.  They accept that we are in a state of war.”  I tried to break it gently.  “Under the circumstances, do you believe that the fate of one publishing company is considered relevant?”  

“But only half of us voted for him!” protested the American.  She didn’t protest in the streets, but on Zoom, she protested.

Not only did half your countrymen cast their vote for a convicted felon, an obvious sociopath and a brazen rapist, but they did it TWICE.  What kind of people exhibit such appalling lack of judgement?  How can they be trusted?  I thought, but did  not say.

“And anyway,” the publisher continued to protest, “If Canada imposes tariffs on books, we’ll have to retaliate!”  Was that a slip of the tongue, or a Freudian slip?  Was she aware it was Russia which invaded the Ukraine, and not the other way around?  Was she conscious?

“I am the daughter of Holocaust survivors.”  I revealed.  “I am alert and sensitive to fascist threats and assaults on freedom.”

In response, the publisher revealed that she is Jewish and launched into a long, Trump-like ramble on how she removed her information from a certain website because she feared anti-Semitic attacks.  If this revelation was meant to establish common ground, it wasn’t working.

“If nothing else,” I conceded, “your president was transparent.  Before the election he clearly stated, ‘From Day One, I will be a dictator.’”

“Yes, our president did many things he said he was going to do.  But he never said he was going to do this!”  “This” referred to the imposition of tariffs.  To the publisher it seemed acceptable to dismantle a republic as long as her business wasn’t adversely affected. 

“You asked for suggestions.”  I sighed.  “I suggest impeachment.”

“Oh that was tried twice and it didn’t work!” The publisher scoffed.  “Impeachment isn’t going to happen!”

On my monitor, I stared at the square which held the image of the assistant publisher, who sat stone-faced.  I knew she wasn’t Jewish.  I learnt that years ago, when one of my stories was published in a Chicken Soup anthology whose theme was holiday celebrations.  My story told the tale of childhood Passovers.  Every year the angel Elijah, the patron saint of children, visited the home in which our family Seders were held.   The angel Elijah is a sort of Jewish Santa, except that he is invisible.  Each year I was instructed not only to open the door for the angel so he could partake of the wine prepared for him, but also to accompany him back to the door when he was ready to leave.  One year, I balked at this errand.  In his fifth language, my whimsical, wonderfully imaginative Daddy didn’t hesitate to invoke idioms, mix metaphors, and play with words.  “It’s not polite to let a guest leave alone.”  Impishly, my Yiddishe Poppa added, “With an angel, you have to be a gentleman.”

Daddy’s punchline almost cost me the publication.  A call came from California. 

“Are you a man, or a woman?!”  The assistant publisher challenged.  This was in the days before people signed themselves “She/her” or “He/him.”

Placed on the defense, I could do nothing except insist I was female.  From the sound of my voice, I was either telling the truth, or I was a boy whose—ahh-- voice had yet to drop. 

Not only was my gender placed in question, but my credibility was placed in question, including whether or not my story was fact or a work of fiction.  Chicken Soup’s mandate is to publish true stories. 

In my head, I could hear my father’s response.  I could see him shaking his Yiddishe kop and musing, “Oysh.  A goyishe kop!” Literally, a goyische kop translates as “a Gentile head.” Google translates it as “an idiot” but I prefer
 to interpret the expression as someone who is literal-minded.  Someone lacking in imagination.

Finally giving me the benefit of the doubt, the assistant publisher accepted that I was a woman and that my story was true though, if memory serves, she cut the questionable line in order not to confuse readers.  Unlike me and its head honcho, Chicken Soup’s readers were assumed to be and have goyishe kops. 

Upon hearing that one of his best lines was being cut, Daddy would’ve roared with sardonic laughter. Then he would’ve ground the assistant publisher into matzah meal. He might’ve told her, You dunt like mein ponchline? So you can poot matzah balls in your ‘Chicken Soup!’

‘Nuf said.  Back to our story. 

Because no feasible suggestions were forthcoming, the American publisher made one of her own.  She ventured to suggest that her Canadian contributors contact journalists and exhort them to write “human interest stories” in order to help save the publishing monolith.  The president of Chicken Soup, the former Wall Street analyst, hedge fund manager and corporate executive appealed to and attempted to recruit “Canadian contributors” into serving as public relations volunteers.  And she succeeded.  The handful of Canadian attendees rallied ‘round the flag, almost crying, “I’ll do it!  I’ll do it!  Thank you for your bravery and compassion!”

Bravery?  Perhaps there was a touch in bravery in summoning a Canadian audience, if only through Zoom.  Still, the Ukrainians are braver.

Compassion?  I heard no compassion.  What I heard was panic, fear, self-interest, and an inordinate amount of self-pity.  I didn’t expect to hear it so soon.  I assumed it would be only after American society fully self-destructed that its survivors, like the Germans in 1945, would point a finger at the diabolical Pied Piper who led them to ruin and wail, “We were betrayed!”

I felt frustrated and frozen out by the soft-hearted Canadian attendees, who seemed suddenly to have been stricken with Stockholm Syndrome.  If they could've reached through their screens and hugged the American publisher, they would have.  The compassionate Canadian attendees failed to see that the emperor had no clothes.  In the past, I might’ve reacted the same way.  In the past, whenever American society has gone off the rails, it has done so out of ignorance, arrogance or naivetéBut this time is different.  This time we are not only witnessing but also being subjected to evil.

Realizing that I was spitting into the wind, I “left” the meeting and lay on my sofa, communing with my long-dead dad.  Dad is always in my heart, and he has been on my mind a lot, these days.  Not all my ancestors were murdered by the Germans.  Dad’s eldest brother, an uncle I would never know, was slaughtered by the Russians on the killing grounds of Katyn.  He wasn’t shot for being a Jew.  He was one of 22,000 Polish officers rounded up and nightly dispatched with bullets to the back of their heads because they were perceived as potential threats to an authoritarian regime. 

My dad was luckier.  He survived Stalin’s Soviet Union and ultimately crossed the ocean, becoming a stranger in a strange land.  As the proverbial fish out of water, Dad didn’t take peace and freedom for granted.  He would’ve been horrified at the prospect of his children and grandchildren coming under threat by the puppets and descendants of a variant regime.

I thought of the words of Dad’s contemporary, John F. Kennedy, whom he deeply admired.  We shall pay any price, bear any burden, meet any hardship, support any friend, oppose any foe, in order to assure the survival and the success of liberty.

Finally, I understand what these words mean.

About the author

 Nadja Zajdman is a Canadian author. In 2022 she published the story collection The Memory Keeper, as well as the memoir I Want You To Be Free. In 2023 Zajdman followed up with a second memoir, Daddy's Remains. 2024 saw the publication of Zajdman's essay collection, Between Worlds. 

Did you enjoy the story? Would you like to shout us a coffee?. Half of what you pay goes to the author the oher half goes to expense se.g. Maintaining hthe web site and setting up The Best of Café Lit book each year.