By Gulperie Efflatoun-Abdalla Almost all of us arrived together. Amidst a great noise of chairs being pushed back and voices and laughter, we arranged ourselves around the table. We were eight altogether. I like the restaurant very much, especially during the day. The branches of the royal poinciana trees growing on the pavement opposite sometimes seem to brush against the large bay windows that let light flood into the huge dining room. It was when I was putting my serviette on my knees that I saw it. Sitting opposite, with its long white hair and large black patches, its two front feet carefully set either side of its plate to show off its little hooves with their three black, shiny nails, it faced me. Sitting quite still, and aware that I was the only person in the group that had seen it, I stared back. How could it keep its balance so easily, sat like that on its haunches? It can't have been a very comfortable position for a quadruped. Mystified, I saw a waiter who I didn't know coming up behind it. He unfolded a serviette and, holding it at both ends, tied it round its throat, being careful to place the serviette behind the white beard. Then he leaned towards, showing it the menu in the large yellow folder that he had opened to suggest certain dishes. What language was he using to speak to this extraordinary figure? A goat! Sitting down for lunch with us! Was I dreaming? Was I having visions? Did it know how to read? Whatever the case might be, it nodded its head as it followed the pen the waiter was using to point to various dishes on the menu. It was listening and, apparently having chosen, raised its head and looked straight at me. It had black eyes, which were fixed on me with an expression of pride and sparkled with mischief. They expressed a peculiar sort of complicity between it and me. I felt a desire to talk to it and ask it questions like someone I had just got to know, while all the time I knew that it would not be able to answer. I was fascinated, and my eyes were fixed on it. I would now be incapable of remembering how the meal went, or what the content of the conversation was that took place around the table. It seemed that no one else had noticed either its presence or its strange behaviour. What was my friend the goat eating? I regarded the little horns nestling above its ears, and watched as it bent its head towards its plate, perhaps to lap up a soup or a sauce, or to nibble at something green. I understood that it had finished when it passed its tongue over its chops, and, lifting up its head again with a satisfied air, it regarded me. Dumbfounded, I watched as its thick lips drew back over its white teeth in order that it might smile at me. It had finished eating. Just then, the waiter came up to help it from the table, and I heard a muffled click as its hooves made contact with the floor. Now it turned its back on me and made its way, completely naturally, towards the lift accompanied by the waiter who pressed the call button. It then looked round towards me, gave me a conspiratorial smile, and, jerking its head upward, made its way into the lift. The lift doors closed, and I saw no more of it. Where was this strange creature going, whose attitude showed that it knew me? Wasn't I the only one among all my friends to whom the goat had made signs indicating a kind of fellow- feeling? And what about the waiter who had taken care of everything and had acted as if the goat was an important person? Where had he gone? For what obscure reason had I been the only person to witness this strange little scene? If the goat had seemed to be signaling to me as it went into the lift, wasn't this because it wanted me to follow? But where to? And in which direction? Perhaps it was some sort of premonition. Out of common sense I rejected the idea. I didn't need this creature, however charming, if out of place, to remind me of the time I had left with all its joys and sorrows. Written in 2005 and translated from French by David Tresilian.
