Yanni throws another stone; the goats scatter away, startled. He will wait for them to eat their way towards him again, one more stone’s throw, and he will take them back.
The time comes too soon. He pockets the book which has been lying on his chest. He uncurls slowly and calls his animals with a whistle. The goats eat on but as he walks, they munch towards him until they finally lift their heads and follow him, now hurrying, now taking a bite, back to the windmill’s corral. He listens for any distant bells that may have wandered, but the hillside is silent. He looks over the scrubland. Here and there are houses which are now nothing but ruins, piles of stones. Where walls remain standing, gaping holes are left where the roofs once were, and blind eyes show lifeless interiors. It won’t be many years before Mama and Baba follow Dolly, and then what? Will he remain alone up here with all these ghosts or will his life change so much that only the cottage will remain and that too will lose its roof and eventually the walls begin to crumble?
Chapter 3
The animals leap and push back through the gate toward the windmill, hurrying to be first inside the corral. Yanni secures the gate with the stone and strides down to the house. The chairs around the wooden table at the front of the house are empty. His mama and baba, even at this early hour, forced inside by the growing strength of the sun. A tempting aroma of rosemary and tomatoes drifts from the open door. Mama will be standing by the stove fed by a gas bottle, spoon in one hand, pan handle in the other, chattering away to Baba, who will not hear a word. Cooking is a practical excuse to be inside, in the relative cool when the temperature reaches its heights outside. The food she prepares will not be eaten until the evening brings a wisp of a breeze and the sun loses its strength, and only then will the outside table be laid. If work keeps Yanni in town, or fatigue lengthens his return journey up the endless hill, his food will be set to one side, kept warm, and when he arrives, both Mama and Baba will sit at the table to keep him company even though their bellies will be full.
The bucket is already at the bottom of the well. Yanni hauls it up, fills two waiting pails and, slowed by their weight, takes even steps back to the goats to pour the water into their troughs. How would life have been if the well had dried up along with the others? Maybe it would have just hastened the inevitable. They wouldn’t be living up here, and his life would have been different right from the start. He would probably have spent more days at school. In fact, that would have been guaranteed without goats to look after. He pours the water into the troughs and the animals drink greedily. He returns to the well.
He pulls the bucket up again, brimming with ice cold water. He trudges steadily back up to the goats and after decanting the last bucket, Yanni kicks the gate closed again.
Swinging the empty pails, he heads back down home. He should set off soon for town, but first he checks on the pregnant ewes that seem content in their low-walled enclosure behind the house. The enclosure always makes him smile. It is a standing summary of who, or rather what, has always determined his life. He thought, at the time of building the low walls, he was making a choice, having a say in his world. The naïvety of youth.
‘I will build a new room,’ he can remember saying, so proud, so young, around the time he knew Sophia, and he began to gather stones. Boulders for the base and smaller stones as the walls rose. ‘You will have your bedroom back,’ he announced to his mama, who just smiled. The house is made up of two rooms, the second of which is the only bedroom. It has no windows, just a space filled with a thin mattress on a wood-and-rope base and a curtain for a door. A room that became his the day he was born. It was not the greatest prize in the world to offer back to his mama. Besides,