Free Once in Europa by John Berger

pearls.
    How are you, Humpback?
    So you’ve come at last!
    You disappeared! You disappeared! She opened her arms to embrace him. You disappeared and so I said to myself: I’ll go and find Humpback, and here I am.
    She stepped back to look at him. He had a beard, his hair was tangled, his skin was dirty and his blue eyes, staring, were focused a little too far away.
    How did you get here? he asked.
    I left the car at the chalet below.
    Where the old lady is?
    There’s nobody there now, and the windows are boarded up.
    They must have taken the cows down, he said. What date is it?
    September 30th.
    What did you come for, when I was burning the sheep?
    How do you mean?
    You came up to the Rock of St. Antoine with your husband.
    No.
    The day I was burning the sheep, I saw you.
    It must have been somebody else.
    I’d never mistake another woman for you.
    I was very sorry to hear about what happened to your sheep, Boris.
    Grandma used to say that dreams turned the truth upside down. Last night I dreamed we had a daughter, so in life it’ll be a son.
    Humpback, I’m not pregnant.
    Is that true?
    I don’t want to lie to you.
    Why did you come to spy on me? If you’re telling the truth, tell it.
    I didn’t want to.
    Why didn’t you come over and speak to me?
    I was frightened.
    Of me?
    No, Humpback, of what you were doing.
    I was doing what had to be done. Then I was going to come and visit you.
    I was waiting for you, she said.
    No, you weren’t. You had seen what you wanted to see.
    I’ve come now.
    If he’s conceived today, he’ll be born in June.
    After these words, he roughly took her arm and led her towards the crooked chalet whose wood had been blackened by the sun. He pushed open the door with his foot. The room was large enough for four or five goats. On the earth floor were blankets. The window, no larger than a small transistor radio, was grey and opaque with dust. There was a cylinder of gas and a gas-ring, on which he placed a black saucepan with coffee in it.
    I’ll give you whatever you want, he said.
    He stood there in the half light, his immense hands open. Behind him on the floor was a heap of old clothes, among which she recognised his American army cap and a red shirt which she hadonce ironed for him. In the far corner something scuffled and a lame lamb hobbled towards the door where a dog lay. The floor of beaten earth smelled of dust, animals and coffee grounds. Taking the saucepan off the gas, he turned down the flame, and its hissing stopped. The silence which followed was unlike any in the valley below.
    If it’s a boy, I’ll buy him a horse—
    Ignoring the bowl of coffee he was holding out to her, without waiting for the end of his sentence, she fled. He went to the door and watched her running, stumbling downhill. Occasionally she looked over her shoulder as if she thought she were being pursued. He did not stir from the doorway and she did not stop running.
    In the evening it began to snow, tentatively and softly. Having brought all three dogs into the chalet, Boris bolted the door, as he never did, lay down beside the animals and tried to sleep, his fist in his mouth. The next morning, beneath the white pine trees and through the frozen brambles and puddles of water, he drove his flock of miserable grey sheep towards the road that led down to the village.
    When Corneille the cattle dealer drew up in his lorry before Boris’s house and walked with the slow strides of the fat man he was through the snow to tap on the kitchen window, Boris was not surprised; he knew why Corneille had come. He swore at his dogs, who were barking, threatened them with being salted and smoked if they were not quieter, and opened the door. Corneille, his hat tilted towards the back of his head, sat down on a chair.
    It’s a long time since we’ve seen you, said Corneille. You weren’t even at the Fair of the Cold. How are things?
    Quiet, replied