Goatherd

I could see the road passing by the entrance to the village – the fleeting cars and tricycles that like the numerous veils of a dancer covered and uncovered the stall of a fish vendor on the road’s farther side, and the housing project that stretched out from behind her.

Then I caught sight of a woman entering the village, pulling a black goat on a rope. A young white goat followed them, half walking, half running.

Since it gamboled along freely, in a playful manner, it could only be the kid of the black goat. The slack of the rope between its neck and the woman’s hand told me that the black goat was as intent as the woman on getting to where they were going. They looked like a family together taking the path behind a mound. And as they descended the woman’s body gradually disappeared, feet then waist and upper body then cloth-covered head, next the black goat and the white kid – head, then body, then the small tail, which seemed to wag a little as it vanished.

I would usually see them at this time of day. Occasionally the woman would tether the goat just outside our fence, whenever it had abundant grass. (I did not then see the kid.) In the freshness of the morning, I would just be starting my constitutional. The girl from a neighboring house would be taking a Labrador for a walk, or vice versa, because likely as not the dog would walk ahead and pull the distracted girl along.

This morning, however, I did not expect to see the woman and the goats. The day promised to be drenching, to such as goats not a cheerful prospect. But I was sure that the woman, undoubtedly devoted to her animals, would find a place for them despite the harsh weather – where it was dry and grassy, and the goats away from the attack of dogs and the mischief of children.

In my mind I wished her success, seeing how the veil of rain had thickened, and become less translucent, and the outside had become a matter less of scene than of feeling.

What kind of woman was she?

I must confess to not knowing her features, or background, having observed her only from a distance. But clearly she was of slender means, perhaps running a little store, with a tricycle driver or security guard for a son or a salesgirl for a daughter.

Did she tend the goats for the meat, meaning to sell them to be butchered at the proper time? Most of those who keep goats take this route – getting the female to bear kids, and caring for them until they reach a certain age and size and acquire a certain plumpness as to be ready for the table.

But if she – as did my brother and I when we were boys – raised goats for their own sake, more as pets than source of victuals, she would be a special kind of goatherd. The goats would take to her as to a friend, and turn their heads and bleat whenever she approached, or whenever they heard her voice.

In her dedication to the goats’ welfare, sparing no effort to find abundant grass for them to graze on despite the storms big or small, risking life and limb to ward off harm from them (and I felt that she would do this if the leash slipped from the hand of the inattentive girl and the Labrador leapt after the goats), she would in effect be offering herself to the goats as their true pasture and food.

Somehow she would remind me, however imperfectly, of Jesus, who in John describes himself as the good shepherd that gives his life for the sheep.