Continent Read Free Page A

and sore. My father applies a poultice of mullein and then stands to display what he has managed to coax from the cow’s vestigial teats. ‘Milk,’ he says. ‘Good and fresh!’
    ‘Freemartins don’t produce milk,’ I say. ‘They can’t and they don’t.’
    Both men chuckle. ‘Talking skull,’ says my father.
    T ODAY a helicopter has been circling the village. It lifts a dust devil of dry earth and grass in its path. Foxes, owls and night voles which should be sleeping in holes and hollows flee from the helicopter’s storm of agitated air. The pilot is searching for a level landing spot. The machine settles at last on the edge of the village. Its engine is cut and all that can be heard for a moment is the complaint of a calfseparated from the herd. All the villagers have hurried to touch the machine. It is the first aircraft to have landed here.
    A woman climbs from the helicopter. She has an old tanned face and young blonde hair. Who speaks German or English or French, she wants to know.
    ‘English,’ I say. ‘Some French. I am at your service, of course.
Je ne demande pas mieux. Cela va sans dire.’
    ‘Excellent. Tell me, do you know the man who has the herd of freemartin cows?’
    ‘He is my father.’
    Now she is delighted. She holds out a broad hand. ‘My name is Anna,’ she says. ‘And yours?’
    ‘Lowdo.’ (‘Lowdo, Lowdo,’ repeat my neighbours, recognizing a word.) She is a Swedish film-maker, she says. She is making a documentary. Would it be possible to film in the village, to talk to my father, to see the freemartin herd? I turn and ask my neighbours. Yes, yes, they say. Let her film in the village. Our house is her house. Now she introduces the pilot, her cameraman and her sound recordist. They grin and wave as I translate their names and their occupations.
    ‘Who’d like a ride in the helicopter?’ the pilot asks. ‘You could see your village from above.’ Nobody volunteers.
    I lead Anna and her crew along the track to our compound. She is animated and delighted with everything she sees. She makes notes. She asks thenames of flowers and small children. I explain the significance of the cattle necklaces and help her with the pronunciation of some common words. She is, she says, interested in living folklore. She has filmed in thirty countries but still she hasn’t lost her sense of wonder. ‘As soon as I heard just half a whisper of this freemartin business,’ she says, ‘I just dropped everything and flew right out. It’s all so magical, so naive.’ But, no, she isn’t criticizing. Naivety she admires. It is a quality missing in Sweden. Have I ever visited Stockholm? No? Then it must be arranged. She will talk about it to a man she knows at the embassy. But first she asks for all my help with her film. Will I do that for her? Will I persuade my father to agree to the filming?
    My father is unimpressed (or so he claims) by the fuss and commotion. It is all inconvenient. Already, he complains, customers have been scared away. He has lost money; he has lost time; his milk does not last for ever; the clatter of the helicopter has upset his herd.
    ‘Tell him that this film is very important to us,’ instructs Anna.
    ‘Ask her how important,’ says my father.
    Anna offers fifty American dollars but they are worthless away from the city and the banks. My father points at the bags and boxes of the film crew. Each one is opened. He inspects cameras and lenses andfilm cans. Clothes and camping gear are unpacked and displayed. He touches a hurricane lamp, a camping stove, a torch, an inflatable mattress and the aluminium tent-poles. These are his fee. Anna nods: ‘Tell your father that these are our gifts to him when we leave. These are his only when all the film is in the can.’
    I work hard for Anna and her film. My father is not easily managed. He does not understand the requirements of the cameraman. He does not have the patience for the repetitions of filming. But he has set