136 21 It was not dif fi cult to dis cover how Father had reached the con clu sion that Changa was in the for tress with the goats. After all, the most sig nifi cant an swers to his life’s key ideas and ques tions were dis cov ered in his books. After the night dur ing which he stayed awake anx iously search ing through his books, some thing Changa had said dur ing their last con ver sa tion amid those books came to mind, and now he was fully con vinced that he knew where Changa was. I “When an i mals are about to die,” Changa had asked, “Why do they look for dark ness?” “I don’t know,” my father re called an swer ing, “but human be ings ap proach ing death seek light, even a ray of light, to bring light ness into the dark ness of death!” “Why is that?” Changa had per sisted. My father had then con tin ued thought fully: “Con tem plat ing death, a per son ex presses his pow er less ness. Had he grown more ac cus tomed 137 to the thought of death dur ing the course of his life, he would be less likely to seek light at the end. As death ap proaches, a per son senses how the cir cle of light—his fam ily, his peo ple, his father land, the world— di min ishes.” “An i mals don’t have a father land, so they don’t have any light to de fend!” Changa stated sim ply. Ev i dently, nei ther Father nor Changa had a de fin i tive an swer, but it had been etched in the goatherd’s mind: an i mals die in dark ness. I To my father, this was a clear in di ca tion that Changa had cho sen the large shel ter in the for tress as a grave for him self and all the goats in the city, wish ing in the end, even in death, to be worthy of their great love. My father then re called all the books that Changa had sought in con nec tion with the his tory of the for tress. Yes, Changa had clearly been fas ci nated by the al most mys ti cal his tory of the for tress. More than once when he went with his goats along the hill up to the for tress, the goats had quickly climbed along the shaded rocky prec i pices where no human foot could tread, as if they had awak ened some in stinct passed down from their dis tant wild an ces tors, those for mid able lords of the steep Bal kan peaks. From his books, father sensed that his tory was one long, cloudy, un cer tain dream that did not re peat nor was linked to any that had come be fore. There was al ways a new dream to dream, dif fer ent from the last. My father felt in his mar row how tragic his tory was when life was marked by re set tle ments, wars, and sep ar a tions. When fate had led him here be neath the for tress, Father’s dream re turned, to bring to life the chron i cle of the fall of the Bal kan em pires. This for tress was just such a mon u ment to fal len em pires. My father had rap idly dou bled, trip led the num ber of books he owned about the for tress. He learned that the Kale had been set tled in [44.220.251.57] Project MUSE (2024-03-29 13:08 GMT) 138 pre his toric times, dur ing the Neo lithic and early Bronze Age, four thou sand years be fore the Com mon Era; the re mains of dug outs, huts, and pal i sades were proof of those set tle ments. The Kale had re mained a bat tle ground for the chang ing em pires; it stood like a bea con in the ocean of time. Gen er a tions of oc cu pi ers, cel e brated or name less, would for tify it, as if for the ages; they re built these cyclo pean stone walls that had been as sem bled by pre vi ous oc cu pi ers. They would es tab lish their...