Alice Munros Best

America! What do you think of that!
    “There are no wizards, anyway,” said the Franciscan, who had climbed up with the men on this evening, as he often did. “If you had said asaint, you might have made some sense.” He spoke severely, but Lottar thought he was happy, as they all were, as she too was permitted to be, in their presence and in his, though he paid no attention to her. The strong tobacco that they gave her to smoke made her dizzy and she had to lie down on the grass.
    THE TIME CAME when Lottar had to think about moving inside her house. The mornings were cold, the ferns were soaked with dew, and the grape leaves were turning yellow. She took the shovel and cleaned the sheep droppings off the floor, in preparation for making up her bed inside. She began to stuff grass and leaves and mud into the chinks between the stones.
    When the men came they asked her what she was doing that for. For the winter, she said, and they laughed.
    “Nobody can stay here in the winter,” they said. They showed her how deep the snow was, putting hands against their breastbones. Besides, all the sheep would have been taken down.
    “There will be no work for you – and what will you eat?” they said. “Do you think the women will let you have bread and yogurt for nothing?”
    “How can I go back to the
kula?”
Lottar said. “I am a Virgin, where would I sleep? What kind of work would I do?”
    “That is right,” they said kindly, speaking to her and then to each other. “When a Virgin belongs to the
kula
she gets a bit of land, usually, where she can live on her own. But this one doesn’t really belong to the
kula
, she has no father to give her anything. What will she do?”
    Shortly after this – and in the middle of the day, when visitors never came – the Franciscan climbed the meadow, all alone.
    “I don’t trust them,” he said. “I think they will try again to sell you to a Muslim. Even though you have been sworn. They will try to make some money out of you. If they could find you a Christian, it might not be so bad, but I am sure it will be an infidel.”
    They sat on the grass and drank coffee. The Franciscan said, “Do you have any belongings to take with you? No. Soon we will start.”
    “Who will milk the ewes?” said Lottar. Some of the ewes were already working their way down the slope; they would stand and wait for her.
    “Leave them,” said the Franciscan.
    In this way she left not only the sheep but her shelter, the meadow, the wild grape and the sumac and mountain ash and juniper bushes and scrub oak she had looked at all summer, the rabbit pelt she had used as a pillow and the pan she had boiled her coffee in, the heap of wood she had gathered only that morning, the stones around her fire – each one of them known to her by its particular shape and color. She understood that she was leaving, because the Franciscan was so stern, but she did not understand it in a way that would make her look around, to see everything for the last time. That was not necessary, anyway. She would never forget any of it.
    As they entered the beech wood the Franciscan said, “Now we must be very quiet. I am going to take another path, which does not go so near the
kula.
If we hear anybody on the path, we will hide.”
    Hours, then, of silent walking, between the beech trees with their smooth elephant bark, and the black-limbed oaks and the dry pines. Up and down, crossing the ridges, choosing paths that Lottar had not known existed. The Franciscan never hesitated and never spoke of a rest. When they came out of the trees at last, Lottar was very surprised to see that there was still so much light in the sky.
    The Franciscan pulled a loaf of bread and a knife from some pocket in his garment, and they ate as they walked.
    They came to a dry riverbed, paved with stones that were not flat and easily walkable but a torrent, a still torrent of stones between fields of corn and tobacco. They could hear dogs barking, and sometimes people’s voices. The corn and tobacco plants, still unharvested, were higher than their heads, and they walked along the dry river in this shelter, while the daylight entirely faded. When they could not walk anymore and the darkness would conceal them, they sat down on the white stones of the riverbed.
    “Where are you taking me?” Lottar finally asked. At the start she had thought they must be going in the direction of the church and the priest’s house, but now she saw that