Goat District was
in agonies awaiting the death sentence on the goats. The streets were
empty, the children sad, the goats hidden in the cellars. Fear reigned, as
if before a war. The people laid in provisions - not much, but something to
see them through hard times.
Without the goats we were certain to go hungry. When it became known
that the Party was preparing special measures against the goats, there was
a fear among the people that old, nearly forgotten quarrels would break
out.
Fear settled on the lives of us children. Even though amongst the poor
families fear entered through one door and left through the other, we were
still terrified in advance that someone could take them from us, could kill
our goats. So fear made a long stay with everyone who had goats. For days
we didn't take them to pasture. The last drops of milk were squeezed from
them. The town swiftly became deserted, its former white bustle vanished.
The long wait began.
'Census, census, census!' was called one morning through Goat District
and through the town.
The news reached our house too.
'What kind of census now, for goodness' sake. Didn't they take the
census last autumn?' my mother said to herself out loud, putting her
knitting down beside her on the balcony. She was sitting beside my father,
who was leafing through an old book. He slowly put down his book, took off
his glasses and before he could reply to my mother's words, my Party-member
brother hurried out onto the balcony calling from a distance, 'Census, a
census of all the goats, order of the highest Party authorities. It's got
to be organised right away.'
My father was considered a pretty well-informed person. He listened
almost all night to local and foreign broadcasts, western and eastern
stations. Sometimes he would listen until early morning while he gathered
together his own version of the truth. He was a calm man, he didn't
easily allow himself to be taken in by enthusiasm, by optimism. He was so
well-informed that he could never be an optimist. Only the ill-informed are
optimists, he often used to say. He had no one, apart from Changa and the
household, to share his thoughts with. It was as if the words from the
radio compensated for this. He often commented on important news out loud,
as if he was having a conversation with the absent speakers.
My father, as a newcomer to the town, without friends or relatives - if
you don't count the goats, those other bodies in the household who lived so
closely with us that they had become a part of it - bearing mind my brother
the Party member, didn't think it very wise for us to get involved with the
politics of the old inhabitants, because even if we were in the right over
something, it would be difficult for them to believe in us. And when my
elder brother went into politics, there was my father as his main advisor
cooling his enthusiasm, his radical ideas, his headlong reactions, his
illusions.
My brother's news of the census brought all the family out onto the
balcony.
'A census of the goats,' my mother was the first to break the silence.
'It'll lead to no good!'
'They want to know how many goats we have for the knife!' said another
of my elder brothers.
Once we'd heard about this census of the goats, we younger ones were
constantly on the verge of tears. My father did not say anything for the
time, but the calm glance shining from his blue eyes soothed us, even
though death was already knocking on the doors of Goat District.
We were seized by all sorts of ideas, of forebodings. The goats were a
part of our lives.
Never in these Balkan lands had the people been so bound up with
animals. The people's and the goats' instinct for self-preservation was
united into a single, sturdy strength that could not be destroyed.
In other times my father, referring to ancient volumes gathered from
all over the Balkans and from other countries, conveyed to us that
virtually all the peoples of the Balkans owed their lives to the goat. He
once said to Changa that if a history of the goat in the Balkans were
written, it would be one of the best histories of the Balkan peoples...
In Goat District the news of the census of goats was exchanged, spread
and grew. Nobody knew quite what kind of census was involved. But one
morning it was made clear, when the census commission began to visit the
houses where there were goats. And when the census began, there settled on
Goat District the silence of the grave, like a never-ending funeral.
My mother was already up by dawn.
She had her routine, developed over the years. In the garden she was
first greeted by the new flowers on her plants, or the shining colour of a
newly ripened fruit, and then by the three goats.
Ther census commission discovered my mother as she was watering the
flowers in the garden from the well. She quickly led them to the balcony.
We children were awake, not having slept for hours. My mother first served
the officials with mulberry preserve and cool water. Then my father
appeared from his study. They greeted each other. We children joined them,
coming up from the goats, thinking we had hidden them well and had left
them sufficient fodder.
The commission was composed of three members. It wasn't difficult to
work out who was the chief - it was usually the one who wore a leather coat
and, quite rightly, had a moustache. People with leather coats and
moustaches were generally from the police, from the administration or from
the Party. The law and justice were theirs. One word from them could change
the entire life of a family. Our frightened childish eyes were directed
towards the man in the long black leather coat with the long moustaches
which gave him a severe expression, even when a thin smile came to his
face. To free himself from the stares we children had nailed to him and to
lower the tension he turned to us first with an unnatural mildness:
'Why are you so frightened, kids? A census, an ordinary census. Instead
of people - goats. What is there to be frightened about? The state wants to
know what resources it has.'
These unexpected words from the chief of the commission lessened our
agony. My youngest brother, wiping his tears, was first to ask him:
'Mister, you arent going to kill our goats, are you?'
'Of course not, son, we don't kill goats.'
'You're not going to take them away with you?'
'No, no, we're just going to carry out a little census!' the chief
finished, and glanced at the second member of the commission. The latter
quickly took several variously coloured census forms and a large yellow
ledger from his leather bag. We could easily recognise the same papers from
the earlier census of the household, and that helped to calm us.
My mother served the members of the commission again, and the chief
sipped a little of the spirits distilled from mulberries.
My father looked thoughtfully out of the large balcony window; it was a
look that seemed to carry him away with the current of the river. Such
moments of feeling had always gripped him since the migrations of his
youth. But now it was difficult to get out of this Balkan cage; one could
only move into another cage, and that would be pretty much the same as
this. He could foresee the coming events, while we were still under the
influence of a few comforting words.
The silence was broken by the severe voice of the second member of the
commission.
'And now let us familiarise ourselves with the census. There is the
main book - it is recognised by its yellow cover - and there are census
forms for each of the goats.'
Calmed by the words of the chief, the severe voice of the second member
of the commission now reduced us to fear again.
My father calmly awaited the words of the census clerk, who
advised him that accurate details must be given; if this were not the case,
he would be answerable according to the law... At these words we children
were completely overcome by terror. We hid ourselves in our mother's arms.
The chief saw this, and interrupted his subordinate.
'In this household they know the law very well. Go on to the
questions.'
This calmed us down again, but now my father assumed an anxious
expression. The census official seemed to be at something of a loss. The
chief said:
'Start over again with the questions, there's a great deal of work to
get through, there are a great many goats in Goat District.'
'A trouble shared's a trouble halved,' my mother murmured
quietly, almost to herself, but in those seconds we children absorbed the
silence, and we understood what she had in mind.
The clerk put on his glasses and in a loud voice put the first
question:
'Name of the household?'
My father, instead of answering the question, asked:
'What household do you mean?'
The chief came down on his subordinate at once:
Watch it! Don't be silly, those forms are for censusing people, not
goats! How many times do I have to tell you?'
My father turned to hide his face. Only we children were able to see
him smile. We thought things were taking a good turn.
The clerklooked at his paper in embarrasment. It was impossible to sort
out the papers left over from the last census of people, which were meant
to be adapted for the goat census. His confusion was only increased by the
stern gaze of his boss. Finally he took a hold on himself and asked my
father:
'How many goats do you have?'
'Three.'
'Name and surname, father's name?'
Everyone laughed. Even we children laughed. One of us said:
'Our goats only have first names!'
The chief couldn't contain himself:
'Of course goats only have one name. This is what happens when they
give you a team of illiterates!'
Furiously, the chief went on with the questions, without looking at the
questionnaire, because he certainly wasn't literate himself. Anyway, he was
there as chief of the commision, not to read and write. But he knew all the
questions off by heart because they'd been repeated so often, so he carried
on as if he was reading:
'Names of the goats?'
'Blanche, Stalinette and Uglymug,' replied my father.
The clerk wrote down the names, spelling out loud "B-l-a-n-c-h,
S-t-a-l- ," but the chief interrupted him to throw back at my father:
'What's this! Stalinette then Uglymug, I don't understand.'
My mother broke in at this point:
'Blanche, she came to us like a gift from the gods, so that our days
would be clear and bright forever; Stalinette came to us just when I gave
birth to my last-born - I'd already lost several children. When we bought
the third, she was a real beauty and we called her Uglymug to save
Stalinette from the evil eye. We wanted Uglymug to protect Stalinette, and
we wanted Stalinette to protect the children.'
The chief looked at my mother, nonplussed. He didn't know how to go on
with the questionnaire.
'My good people, this household is in total confusion. Whoever heard of
a nanny-goat having the name of the great saviour of the people! If it had
been a billy-goat, now... No, no, not even a billy-goat, what am I thinking
of... Now you've got a picture of Stalin in the house. Stalin is our
brother, whatever happens. There are rumours... Stalin freed us all. His
name is a holy name for us all!'
'And for us the goats are holy!' broke in my mother.
'I understand, I understand, but still a goat's a goat!'
There was a new wave of silence. A new wave of fear. We were afraid now
that my father would say something insulting about Stalin. Such a thing had
been known to happen. Even when my brother had suggested calling our goat
Stalinette there had been a danger of it. Now there was a danger that the
census would lead not only the goats but the whole family to its doom. The
chief consulted with the third official, who had been silent up till then,
then went on:
'Using the name Stalinette for a goat can be interpreted in different
ways. The lists go to the higher authorities, the federal authorities. Many
heads could fall because of one ordinary name. Give it another name, and
we'll all be happy. Let's call her... let's call her... whatever you like,
as long as it's not Stalinette.'
We couldn't forget the day when my Party-member brother suggested that
we should call the goat Stalinette and my father only unwillingly agreed,
remaining faithful to his resolve to be free of the names of military
commanders and world figures and freedom-fighters and to find names from
among flowers, from nature. We looked at my Party-member brother, who had
been wanting to speak all along, and now finally broke in:
'For us Stalin means freedom. Write Frieda instead of Stalinette!'
The chief beamed with satisfaction, and said:
'Son, you'll go a long way if you join the Party!'
'I'm already a member,' my brother proudly replied.
Now thoroughly delighted, the chief held out the form to his
subordinate.
'Write Frieda and take care not to get the questions muddled
again.'
'Sex?' asked the clerk.
'Female, of course!' the chief broke in again.
'But it might be male!' he replied, finally saying something in his own
defence.
'The nanny-goats visit the billy-goats when we go to see Changa the
goatherd, across the wooden bridge,' said one of us younger brothers. The
clerk fell back into his earlier embarassment. The chief gave him a fierce
look and told him to go on.
'Nationality?'
This time it was my father who smiled. We children were shaking with
laughter. My Party-member brother, encouraged by the earlier approval of
the chief, was the first to speak:
'Balkan!'
'Balkan,' wrote down the clerk.
'Goats don't have nationalities! Goats have breeding. Ask about the
breed!' advised the chief in a whisper.
'The nationality isn't important. What breed are they?'
'Fair-haired Angora,' replied my father.
With furrowed brow, the clerk asked:
'Religion?'
The chief flamed up again:
'They've got no faith, goats, you donkey!'
My mother murmured:
'They have, goats have got faith, sometimes more than people.'
'Age of the goats?' the questions went on.
'Unknown.'
'Colour of skin, any identifying marks?'
'Blanche is pure white, Stalinette - or rather, Frieda - is white with
a brown throat, and Uglymug is white with black spots.'
The clerk had finished the questionnaire.
'Finished at last!' said the finally satisfied chief, once he had taken
a last glass of spirits, but as they left he added:
'It would have gone faster if we hadn't had such illiterates in our
ranks...'
Translated from the Macedonian by Margaret Reid
