These thoughts fluttered around me with the bats and I waved them away, one by one. I warmed myself and ate and listened to the birdsong in the dark.
So far, it was a normal hunt.
I fell asleep by the fire and dreamt that Nisha was made of sand. She dissolved before me like a castle on the shore.
The rising sun was my calling. I had a last shot of coffee to wake myself fully and threw the rest on the fire, then stamped out the remaining flames and forgot about the dream. The thick woods began to stir, to wake. I usually make more than 2,000 euros for each hanging, and this one was a good one – there were around two hundred blackcaps stuck on the lime sticks. They are worth more than their weight in gold. Tiny songbirds migrating from Europe to Africa to escape the winter. They fly in from the west, over the mountains, stopping here on our island before heading out to sea, towards Egypt. In the spring, they make the return journey, coming from the southern coast. They are so small that we can’t shoot them. They’re also endangered, a protected species.
I was always frightened at this point, looking over my shoulder, expecting that this time I would be caught and thrown in jail. I’d be totally screwed. This was always my weakness – the fear, the anxiety I felt before killing the birds. But the woods were quiet, no sound of footsteps. Just the birdsong and the breeze through the tree branches.
I removed one of the attached birds from the stick, gently prying its feathers from the glue. This one had tried hard to free itself, it seemed. The more they try to escape, the more stuck they get. I held it in my palms and felt its tiny heart racing. I bit into its neck to end its suffering, and dropped it, lifeless, into a large, black bin-liner. This is the most humane way to kill them – a quick, deep bite to the neck.
I’d filled up the first bag and begun to remove the feathers and berries from the lime sticks with my lips so I could reuse them, when I heard the crunch of leaves.
Shit. I froze for a moment and held my breath. I scanned the surroundings and there it was, in a clearing between the bushes. The mouflon was calmly staring at me. It stood in the long shadows of the trees and it wasn’t until the light shifted that I saw the most extraordinary thing: instead of the usual red and brown, its short-haired coat was gold; its curved horns, bronze. Its eyes were the exact colour of Nisha’s – the eyes of a lion.
I thought I must be dreaming, that I must still be asleep by the fire.
I took a step forward and the golden mouflon took a small step back, but its posture remained straight and strong, its eyes fixed on mine. Moving slowly, I removed my backpack from my shoulders and took out a slice of fruit. The mouflon shuffled its feet and lowered its head so that its eyes now looked up at me, half-wary, half-threatening. I placed the slice of peach in my palm and held out my hand. I stayed like that, as still as a tree. I wanted it to come closer.
Seeing the beauty of its face, a memory came to me, sharp and clear. Last March, Nisha and I had gone to the Troodos mountains. She loved to go for long walks on Sunday mornings when she wasn’t working. She’d often come with me into the forest to pick mushrooms, wild asparagus, blue mallow or to collect snails. On this day, I had wanted to see if we could spot a mouflon ovis. I hoped that we would see one in the depths of the woods or the verge of the mountains, at the threshold to the sky. We were so high up and she slipped her hand in mine.
‘So, we’re looking for a sheep?’ she’d said.
‘Technically, yes.’
‘I’ve seen plenty of sheep.’ There was a mocking smile in her eyes.
‘I told you, it doesn’t look like a sheep! It’s a magnificent creature.’
‘So. We’re looking for a sheep that doesn’t look like a sheep.’ She was holding her hand over her eyes, scanning the area around us, pretending to look.
‘Yes,’ I said, matter-of-factly.
This made her laugh and her laughter escaped into the open sky. I felt in that moment that she had never been a stranger.
We’d been walking around for hours and were about to turn back, as the evening was closing in, when I suddenly spotted one standing at the edge of a steep cliff. I could tell it was female as it had smaller curved horns and no ruff of coarse hair beneath its neck. I pointed so that Nisha could see.
The mouflon saw us and faced us straight on.
Nisha stared at it in amazement. ‘It’s so pretty,’ she said. ‘It looks like a deer.’
‘I told you.’
‘Nothing like a sheep.’
‘See!’
‘Its fur is smooth and brown . . . and such a gentle look on its face. It’s like it’s going to speak to us. Doesn’t it look like it wants to say something?’