The Time of the Goats

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42 7 The goat ­ quickly ­ changed life for our fam­ ily as well. Not a day ­ passed with­ out my ­ father learn­ ing some­ thing new about goats and their own­ ers. For years, the neigh­ bors had ­ looked sus­ pi­ ciously at the only man in the neigh­ bor­ hood to wear a hat, the man who left the house every day at the same time with his black bag and re­ turned late at night. Now my­ father had be­ come a com­ pletely dif­ fer­ ent per­ son to these peo­ ple. He was­ theirs. They often came to our house; they were en­ chanted and ­ cheered by their con­ ver­ sa­ tions with him about goats. They be­ came ­ Father’s new­ friends. One morn­ ing, the lead goat­ herd, ­ Changa, a liv­ ing leg­ end dur­ ing the time of the goats, came to visit my ­ father ac­ com­ pa­ nied by sev­ eral other­ well-known goat­ herds. ­ Changa was a tall, strap­ ping man with long blond hair, an eagle nose, a solid face with ruddy ­ cheeks, and a broad fore­ head. Al­ though il­ lit­ er­ ate, he was a smart and brave man. Had it not been for ­ Changa, the goats would ­ surely have been left on the road half­ way to the city dur­ ing our first win­ ter of free­ dom. He had a whole herd of se­ lect Saa­ nen does and sev­ eral ­ shaggy bucks, used for stud each­ spring, when ­ masses of goats in sea­ son were ­ brought to them. 43­ Changa was not a party mem­ ber, so con­ ver­ sa­ tion with my ­ father was ea­ sy­ go­ ing. Their char­ ac­ ters ­ seemed to com­ ple­ ment each other, and they ­ quickly grew close. They be­ came good ­ friends, in­ sep­ a­ ra­ ble. We chil­ dren ­ learned that ­ Changa was just his nick­ name; his real name was Melko Me­ lov­ ski. The goat ques­ tion ­ brought my ­ father and ­ Changa to­ gether. The lead goat­ herd began to come to our house often, which no­ tice­ ably in­ creased our ­ family’s rep­ u­ ta­ tion among the goat­ herds in the Goat­ herd Quar­ ter and more ­ widely through­ out the city, even ­ though we had only one ten­ der goat, a goat ­ golden to us chil­ dren.­ Changa ­ walked with a heavy, firm tread. When we heard the creak of the ­ stairs lead­ ing to ­ Father’s room, we knew that ­ Changa was com­ ing. We would go into ­ Father’s room so we could see ­ Changa and say hello to him, and he would often give us a coin or two. Then, happy, we would go into the neigh­ bor­ hood with our goat to an­ nounce who had come to our house. Every­ one lis­ tened to us with en­ thu­ siasm. We never fully under­ stood what my ­ father and ­ Changa ­ talked about, but we knew that part of the con­ ver­ sa­ tion was al­ ways about goats and our fu­ ture with them.­ Changa some­ times ­ stayed with my ­ father and his books until dawn.­ Father would read to him, ex­ plain­ ing ­ things from the ­ wide-open books, some with il­ lus­ tra­ tions of goats. ­ Changa lis­ tened, en­ rap­ tured. He­ looked at the pic­ tures. He was par­ tic­ u­ larly ­ struck by an old lith­ o­ graph in which one could ­ clearly see a Saa­ nen goat suck­ ling a lion. “Is it ­ really pos­ sible,” he asked my ­ father du­ bi­ ously, “for a goat to ­ suckle a lion?!” “Yes, it’s pos­ sible, it’s pos­ sible,” my ­ father as­ sured him. For the first time, ­ Changa grew sad. He truly re­ gret­ ted that he did not know how to read; he re­ gret­ ted that he was il­ lit­ er­ ate, un­ ed­ u­ cated to his very soul. He ­ begged ­ Father to help him be­ come lit­ er­ ate, to teach him to read. And so, while ­ Father read the books to ­ Changa about goats, he ­ taught him to read. With his quick and nat­ u­ ral in­ tel­ li­ gence,­ Changa eas­ ily ­ learned “the lit­ tle let­ ters,” as he told my ­ father in jest. After his long con­ ver­ sa­ tion with my ­ father, we ­ watched him leave with a book or two, per­ haps some notes. Later, ­ through his con...