The Time of the Goats

15

90 15 When ­ Father whis­ pered in se­ cret to my ­ mother, “Sta­ lin is done for,” we im­ me­ di­ ately ­ thought about our poor lit­ tle Sta­ linka. With tears in our eyes, we went out to see her, to ­ stroke her hair, to hug her. Sta­ linka, as al­ ways, ­ greeted us se­ renely and ten­ derly and then ­ turned her gaze back to­ ward the suc­ cu­ lent ­ grasses. For us, the quar­ rel ­ between Tito and Sta­ lin was im­ por­ tant be­ cause it was con­ nected to our goats, es­ pe­ cially our Sta­ linka. We tried to over­ hear other ­ things my ­ father whis­ pered about Sta­ lin fol­ low­ ing the most re­ cent news. My ­ mother’s re­ ac­ tion was al­ ways the same: “As long as there is no war, as long as there is no war!” We ­ quickly ­ stopped call­ ing Sta­ linka by her name. She was ac­ cus­ tomed to her name, how­ ever, so when we did not use it, she ­ treated us dif­ fer­ ently. In our young minds, we ­ feared that if we used her name too often, Sta­ linka would be the first to be taken away and slaugh­ tered. With the news con­ cern­ ing the end of good re­ la­ tions ­ between Tito and Sta­ lin, the time of the ­ goats’ de­ mise was ap­ proach­ ing. Every­ one was anx­ ious about it, the whole Goat­ herd Quar­ ter, the city, the coun­ try, 91 but be­ cause of our Sta­ linka, we wor­ ried more than the oth­ ers. It was pos­ sible that they would take the goats away or kill them, but be­ cause of Sta­ linka, our fam­ ily could be pun­ ished. We ­ worked out all kinds of plans to save our goats, be­ gin­ ning with Sta­ linka. We ­ wanted to take a large ­ amount of food and hide in the ­ nearby moun­ tain caves with our goats; we could live ­ awhile on goat milk, and then, when ­ things ­ calmed down, we would re­ turn to the city when free­ dom re­ turned as well. We could not com­ pre­ hend what ter­ rible thing the goats had done for them to be ­ killed now. After all, as any­ one could read in ­ Father’s books, peo­ ple had sur­ vived pre­ cisely be­ cause of the goats. What had hap­ pened to these peo­ ple? But for us, the Goat­ herd Quar­ ter had grown into our white for­ tress of life in the ­ shadow of the great stone for­ tress. Moth­ ers ­ pulled their chil­ dren out of ­ death’s em­ brace with the milk of these goats. In the Bal­ kans, this love ­ between peo­ ple and goats was pure, com­ plete, and holy. With the goats, peo­ ple of dif­ fer­ ent ­ faiths and na­ tion­ al­ ities drew­ closer more eas­ ily. In the post­ war years of Com­ mu­ nism, the more these peo­ ple were as­ sured that God did not exist, the more they be­ lieved that God did exist ­ through these goats, sent here for life to con­ tinue. Every fam­ ily in the Goat­ herd Quar­ ter who kept goats con­ cocted every pos­ sible plan to save the goats, in­ di­ vid­ u­ ally and col­ lec­ tively. In our fam­ ily, as soon as ­ Father went to work, we chil­ dren began to turn on the radio more fre­ quently, hop­ ing to be the first to learn any news about the de­ struc­ tion of the goats and to be the first to do some­ thing about it. At that time, our par­ ents did not talk about the goats, so as not to alarm or sad­ den us. But one morn­ ing, it fi­ nally hap­ pened; the radio broad­ cast the first news about the end of the goats. “The goats,” ­ echoed the ­ speaker’s en­ er­ getic voice, “are sworn en­ e­ mies of So­ cial­ ism. Be­ cause of the goats, our glo­ ri­ ous work­ ing class would never be able to reach Com­ mu­ nism. The goats are de­ stroy­ ing So­ cial­ ist pub­ lic lands: the moun­ tains, the for­ ests. There­ fore, we must col­ lec­ tively de­ stroy them . . .” These words from the radio were like poi­ son­ ous ar­ rows pierc­ ing our souls. Even ­ though we never...