Yesterday, Karen and I took Belle to see Efi, the recommended veterinarian.
Belle is our adopted cat.
Although, as Karen has already pointed out in a lovely piece of her own, that description gives us far too much credit.
We did not adopt Belle.
Belle adopted us.
She appeared, evaluated the property, assessed the humans, checked the food service, and eventually decided we would be acceptable.
We are Belle’s humans.
There is a difference.
Yesterday, being Belle’s humans came with certain responsibilities.
One of them was taking her to the vet.
Belle was reasonably cooperative through the early stages of the visit.
Then Efi needed to conduct a somewhat more intimate examination.
Specifically, an examination involving what we will delicately call Belle’s back door.
Belle objected.
Strongly.
Apparently, there are limits to the human-cat relationship, and allowing someone with veterinary credentials to get that close to her rear end is one of them.
Efi tried.
Belle moved.
Efi tried again.
Belle made her position clearer.
Diplomacy had failed.
So we moved to bribery.
A can of cat food appeared.
It was opened.
Belle immediately reconsidered several of her deeply held principles.
Her head went down.
She started eating.
And kept eating.
While Belle was fully occupied at one end, Efi quietly took care of business at the other.
Examination completed.
Still eating.
Dignity compromised.
Still eating.
International borders violated.
Still eating.
Efi looked at her and said:
Φαγανή
fagani
A hearty eater. Someone who really likes her food.
And just like that, I had forgotten all about Belle’s back door.
Because I had a new Greek word.
The adjective is:
φαγανός — φαγανή — φαγανό
faganos — fagani — fagano
It describes someone who eats a lot and eats with enthusiasm.
A child can be fagano.
A person can be faganos or fagani.
And, as we now have veterinary confirmation, a cat can most definitely be fagani.
Belle qualified.
Decisively.
The word belongs to the Greek fag- family, which you also hear in:
έφαγα
efaga
I ate
and:
φαγητό
fagito
food
Which brings us briefly to one of the small pleasures of Greek.
The present tense is:
τρώω
troo
I eat
Yesterday?
έφαγα
efaga
I ate
Of course it is.
Why should the past tense bear any obvious resemblance to the present?
That might give foreigners dangerous levels of confidence.
Greek cannot have that.
But fagani was only the beginning.
Because then you discover:
φαγάνα
fagana
And this is where the word starts eating everything in its path.
A fagana can be someone who eats enormous quantities of food.
That part makes sense.
You look across the table at someone who has demolished the bread, finished the potatoes, cleaned the plate, and is now watching your lamb chop with unnecessary interest.
A human food-processing facility.
Fine.
But a fagana is also an excavator.
A great mechanical beast with a bucket that digs into the earth and scoops it up.
It eats the ground.
So:
fagana.
And if you think that is good, it gets better.
A fagana can also be a dredger, the enormous machine that deepens harbors and channels by scooping mud, sand, gravel, and whatever else is sitting on the bottom.
In other words, Greece looked at a machine chewing through the seabed and apparently thought:
Yes.
That thing is eating.
And we are nowhere near finished.
Because once the Greeks had a word for something that consumes enormous quantities, there was no reason to limit it to food or dirt.
A car can be a fagana.
Not because it is eating souvlaki.
Because it is swallowing gasoline.
You know the car.
You fill the tank.
You drive around the block.
The fuel gauge visibly drops.
Another fifteen kilometers and you are wondering whether you should have taken out a small business loan before leaving home.
Αυτό το αυτοκίνητο είναι φαγάνα.
Afto to aftokinito ine fagana.
This car is a gas guzzler.
And suddenly English and Greek meet in almost exactly the same place.
We call it a gas guzzler.
The Greeks call it something that eats.
Different verb.
Same hungry machine.
Your old air conditioner can be a fagana too.
Turn it on in July.
Feel that beautiful cold air.
Enjoy it.
Then wait for the electricity bill.
Your air conditioner has eaten your pension.
And then we arrive at money.
Which is where the word really begins to enjoy itself.
Anything that constantly swallows money can be a fagana.
A project.
A house.
A boat.
A business.
Possibly a swimming pool.
And, naturally, gambling machines.
Greek slang has used faganes for slot machines, which may be the most accurate name for a slot machine I have ever heard.
You put in money.
The machine eats it.
You put in more.
It eats that too.
Eventually it makes cheerful noises and flashes lights at you, encouraging you to continue feeding it.
Occasionally it might give something back.
Usually it would prefer another snack.
Which makes me think of the children’s game Hungry Hungry Hippos.
You remember it.
Four plastic hippopotamuses surrounding a pile of little balls while children pound furiously on levers and the hippos lunge toward the center trying to swallow everything in sight.
That is basically:
Fagana: The Board Game.
Except slot machines use euros.
Naturally, Greek was not going to stop at machines.
Humans were next.
A greedy person can also be called a fagana.
Someone for whom enough is never enough.
More money.
More property.
More influence.
More of whatever is available.
Now the eating has become completely metaphorical.
The person is not hungry for food.
They are hungry for everything.
And this is where the word feels particularly Greek to me.
Because Greek uses eating to talk about all sorts of things that have nothing to do with lunch.
Money gets eaten.
Time gets eaten.
Someone can eat an inheritance.
Someone can eat the best years of your life, although at that point you may want something stronger than a dictionary.
The boundaries between consume, waste, take, steal, devour, and plain old eat become wonderfully flexible.
One little idea gets invited everywhere.
Which brings us back to Belle.
There she was on the examination table.
Her personal sovereignty under attack.
A veterinarian working at one end.
A can of food positioned strategically at the other.
Belle had made her decision.
There are moments in life when one must defend one’s dignity.
And there are moments when someone opens a can of particularly good cat food.
Belle understands priorities.
She ate through the crisis.
Perhaps that is the purest definition of fagani.
Not merely someone who eats a lot.
Someone for whom eating remains important even when circumstances suggest that attention should perhaps be directed elsewhere.
Like your back door.
And fagani is so much nicer than the English alternatives.
“Greedy” sounds judgmental.
“Glutton” sounds biblical.
“Pig” seems particularly inappropriate when addressing a cat or a person.
But fagani can be almost affectionate.
Our little fagani.
And from there, one ordinary Greek word family stretches surprisingly far: from a cat attacking a can of food to excavators, dredgers, gas-guzzling cars, money-eating machines, and people for whom enough is never quite enough.
Different things.
Same underlying idea:
Something that consumes.
That is one of the things I still love about Greek.
I grew up speaking it. I know the language.
And yet a veterinarian can look at a cat eating lunch, say one perfectly ordinary word, and suddenly I am discovering a whole corner of Greek I had never really stopped to think about.
Karen got Belle.
Belle got lunch.
Efi got the examination done.
And I got another story.
Although, if we are being completely accurate, Belle got considerably more than lunch.
She got two humans, a house, veterinary care, unlimited attention, and now editorial coverage.
The little fagani has done very well for herself.
Which should surprise absolutely no one.
After all, she adopted us.
