81 14 The Goat herd Quar ter was in a frenzy as every one an tic i pated a death sen tence for the goats. The streets re mained empty, the chil dren sad, the goats hid den in base ments. Fear reigned, just as it does be fore war breaks out. The peo ple stored pro vi sions; there was not much to be had, but they put to gether as much as pos sible for the dark days ahead. With out the goats, we were sure to go hun gry. Once it was learned that the party was pre par ing spe cial meas ures against the goats, there was a dan ger that the old, nearly for got ten quar rels would begin again. Fear set tled into all our child hoods. Al though in poor fam i lies, fear en ters one door and goes out the other, we were nearly de feated from think ing that some one could take away our goats and kill them. This fear would lin ger a long time in those who kept goats. For days, we did not bring the goats to pas ture. The last drops of milk were squeezed from them. The city quickly emp tied; the white whirl van ished. The great wait began. One morn ing, the word “Cen sus, cen sus, cen sus!” echoed through the Goat herd Quar ter and the city. The news reached our fam ily as well. 82 “Now what kind of cen sus is this, for heaven’s sake; wasn’t there a cen sus in the fall?” asked my mother aloud, set ting aside her knit ting as she sat on the bal cony beside my father, who was leafing through an old book. He slowly set the book aside and took off his glasses, but be fore he could re spond to Mother’s words, my brother the party mem ber rushed out onto the bal cony, call ing from a dis tance, “There is going to be a cen sus, a cen sus of all the goats; it’s an order from the su preme party lead er ship. The govern ment has to get it or ga nized quickly.” My father was con sid ered a well-informed per son. Through out the night, he lis tened to local and foreign radio sta tions, both West ern and East ern. Some times, he lis tened until the small hours of the morn ing, and he would then put to gether his under stand ing of the truth. He was a calm per son; he did not fall eas ily into traps of en thu siasm or op ti mism. He was too well in formed ever to be an op ti mist. Only the ill-in formed are op ti mists, he would often tell us. Ex cept for our fam ily and Changa, there was no one with whom he could share his thoughts. He some how com pen sated for that by lis ten ing to the voices on the radio. He often com mented aloud about sig nifi cant news items as if en ter ing into con ver sa tion with ab sent in ter loc u tors. My father, an im mi grant to the city, with out kith or kin (not count ing the goats, those foreign crea tures who had, over time, shared so much with us that they had be come part of our fam ily), thought it un wise to get mixed up in local pol i tics—hav ing in mind my brother the party mem ber—be cause even when we were right about some thing, it was dif fi cult for oth ers to put trust in us. Yet when my older brother did get in volved in pol i tics, my father was the one who be came his main ad visor, tem per ing his en thu siasms, strong re ac tions, hasty judg ments, and il lu sions. My old est brother’s news about the cen sus brought the whole fam ily out onto the bal cony. Mother was the first to break the si lence: “A cen sus of the goats. That can’t be a good thing.” “They want to see how many goats we have and then—the knife!” said one of my older broth ers. [54.87.17.177] Project MUSE (2024-03...