The Time of the Goats

10

62 10 Death came and went at will in our fam­ ily dur­ ing times of war, re­ set­ tle­ ment, ­ drought, and hun­ ger; many of ­ Mother’s del­ i­ cate off­ spring died. A ­ newborn’s fin­ gers that had still not been held soon ­ pulled away from­ Mother’s with­ ered ­ breasts. We all had a lit­ tle ­ brother or sis­ ter whom death had car­ ried off, and we never got over our loss. We be­ lieved that our goat would now keep death from ap­ proach­ ing our fam­ ily when­ ever it ­ wanted. Hun­ ger ­ spread ­ through the coun­ try, but in the Goat­ herd Quar­ ter, a happy time was dawn­ ing with the goats. No one knew how long this time would last, but no mat­ ter how long it ­ lasted, it was im­ por­ tant to take ad­ van­ tage of it to give ­ strength to our lives and move us from child­ hood to youth, from youth to adult­ hood. The city awoke to yet more pos­ ters and slo­ gans, both old and new: “Long live So­ cial­ ism!” “Our fu­ ture is Com­ mu­ nism!” “Tito and Sta­ lin are our Fu­ ture!” “Death to the class enemy!” “Broth­ er­ hood and Unity!” “Death to the Spec­ u­ la­ tors!” “Long live the Col­ lec­ tives!” “Death to . . .” Death to this, death to that. We did not under­ stand the mean­ ing of these slo­ gans. We no­ ticed only that the more there were, the more ­ stores 63 were emp­ tied, pri­ vate busi­ nesses were ­ closed, and ­ prices rose. So we chil­ dren were fright­ ened by these new slo­ gans. We were fright­ ened most of all when the day ­ dawned with a new slo­ gan: “Death to the goats!” My ­ mother was near­ ing the end of her preg­ nancy, but she could not free her­ self of house­ hold wor­ ries and main­ tain­ ing her usual order.­ Nearly at the limit of her ca­ pac­ ity to give birth, she en­ tered into an un­ cer­ tain bat­ tle ­ between the ­ strength of her body and the life of this new­ born. After so many ­ deaths, this birth was a ­ strike back at fate, a way out, a re­ newal of hope. God ­ seemed to keep these Bal­ kan moth­ ers alive ­ longer than their in­ fants. ­ Dressed in black, they were the last to ex­ tin­ guish, like long ta­ pers sym­ bol­ iz­ ing fam­ ily and life it­ self. When they lost a more­ grown-up son or daugh­ ter, they would curse God that he had not taken them. But God in­ fused their dark­ ened souls with new ­ strength to en­ dure. No one could under­ stand the mean­ ing of this black cir­ cle of life. Every new birth was a hol­ i­ day for the Goat­ herd Quar­ ter. Every fam­ ily re­ joiced as much as if it were their own new­ born. Life con­ tin­ ued, new life after so many ­ deaths in the Great War. But the waves of the war had cast up ­ Noah’s arks ­ filled with the many fam­ i­ lies res­ cued from all parts of the Bal­ kans and be­ yond. There were even some Se­ phar­ dic Jew­ ish fam­ i­ lies; there was an Ar­ me­ nian fam­ ily of musi­ cians, and a Rus­ sian fam­ ily, res­ cued from the Oc­ to­ ber Rev­ o­ lu­ tion; there were sev­ eral Turk­ ish fam­ i­ lies as well as sev­ eral fam­ i­ lies from Ae­ gean Mac­ e­ do­ nia; and here was our Al­ ba­ nian fam­ ily ­ amidst the large Mac­ e­ do­ nian pop­ u­ la­ tion, which had ­ landed in this small Goat­ herd Quar­ ter. But also other, un­ known fam­ i­ lies came and left the Goat­ herd Quar­ ter. Here were inter­ min­ gled na­ tion­ al­ ities, ­ faiths, and cus­ toms; peo­ ple lived in trust, under­ stand­ ing; to­ gether they more eas­ ily coun­ tered the blows of fate in those un­ cer­ tain times. Be­ cause the great wars and the strat­ e­ gies of those who waged them had not fate­ fully al­ ien­ ated them from each other, be­ cause no frat­ ri­ ci­ dal war had been in­ flicted upon them as in other parts of the Bal...