The Time of the Goats

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72 12 When the party ­ learned we had named our goat Sta­ linka, the hard­ core ideo­ logues among them were op­ posed, but they could say noth­ ing pub­ licly or pri­ vately be­ cause they did not want to be under­ stood as being op­ posed to our “big ­ brother.” Fur­ ther­ more, the party still did not want to play an ac­ tive role in the goat ques­ tion, and no di­ rec­ tives for ac­ tion had come down from the cen­ tral party lead­ er­ ship, even ­ though thegoatdos­ sierin­ sidetheironstrong­ boxinthemu­ nic­ i­ palparty­ secretary’s of­ fice grew fat­ ter by the day. It was ­ likely that our lit­ tle Sta­ linka was al­ ready in that dos­ sier. Who could know? ­ Father’s ­ friend ­ Changa was a bit taken aback when he first ­ learned our ­ goat’s name, but he never ques­ tioned ­ Father’s in­ teg­ rity, no mat­ ter what he heard about him. He, in turn, never under­ stood how one of his main bucks came to be ­ called Sta­ lin. He had never given his per­ mis­ sion. In the homes of the Goat­ herd Quar­ ter where there were many chil­ dren, it was pos­ sible to have three, four, or even five does but al­ most never a buck. The lead­ ing goat­ herds, es­ pe­ cially ­ Changa, could allow them­ selves to keep two or three bucks, ­ enough not only for their whole herd but for the other does as well. It was ob­ vi­ ous, in those years of 73 hun­ ger, that it made no sense for any­ one to main­ tain bucks sep­ ar­ ately for the sole satis­ fac­ tion of a few goats. Even ­ Changa could get by with two bil­ lies to take care of all the nan­ nies in his herd, but he, like oth­ ers,­ helped out the poor fam­ i­ lies of other goat­ herds. When our Sta­ linka grew and be­ came a ma­ ture doe, she some­ times acted ­ strangely, and a cer­ tain rest­ less­ ness took hold of her. She gave less milk and would sud­ denly dart from the house when she could sense other goats—es­ pe­ cially a billy—being led to the wild part of the park. We ­ stopped her from run­ ning away, but we did not know what was hap­ pen­ ing. We felt sad for our Sta­ linka; we did not know what was both­ er­ ing her. But once, when ­ Changa was going past our house with his herd, our Sta­ linka ­ sensed the does and bucks from a dis­ tance, and she ­ bolted to­ ward them. Then it was clear to all of us. It was time for us to take Sta­ linka to the bucks. ­ That’s what the chil­ dren from the neigh­ bor­ ing ­ houses did with their goats. Ours was no ex­ cep­ tion, and we set­ tled down once we had fig­ ured out the cause of our dear ­ Stalinka’s rest­ less­ ness. It was a Sun­ day after­ noon in ­ spring. A free day. We had spent ­ nearly the whole week be­ fore get­ ting ready to ac­ com­ pany our goat to ­ Changa’s herd. He was ­ Father’s ­ friend, and we be­ lieved he would help get the job done ­ quickly. We woke early that day, with the first crow­ ing of the roost­ ers. We went out­ side. Sta­ linka was awake, ready to go, im­ pa­ tient. We ­ brushed her ­ nicely. We ­ scented her with per­ fume from a lit­ tle bot­ tle my ­ mother never used. We ­ placed a gar­ land of flow­ ers from ­ Mother’s gar­ den­ around her neck. We set off to the bucks.­ Changa was up and about. The nan­ nies had been let out of their­ stalls into the spa­ cious yard at ­ Changa’s house. He no­ ticed us from a dis­ tance and hur­ ried to open the door. The goats nib­ bled the re­ mains of hay left out for them ear­ lier. The few bil­ lies were kept a bit of a dis­ tance from the nan­ nies. Two ­ younger ones with ­ shaggy white and ­ golden hair play­ fully ­ tested their ­ strength 74 by butt­ ing to­ gether their long, curly horns. One of the older bucks no­ ticed...