Hee Hee Cheese

The road to Bize-Minervois does not go anywhere in a straight line.

It leans through the hills the way a sentence leans through a long thought, and the afternoon light came in sideways through the car windows, gold and unhurried.

A hand-painted sign flashed past. FROMAGERIE, with an arrow.

Then another sign, further along: a cartoon cow in a cyclist’s jersey, bent low over handlebars, grinning.

Both hands on the wheel. Eyes on the road.

In the mirror, a blue cat froze mid-crime.

Two Empty Things

Rosa sat behind the passenger seat holding a small transparent piggy bank shaped, unhelpfully, like herself.

She shook it.

Nothing shook back.

Her stomach made a sound that filled the whole car.

He poked her belly.

She said ow and turned away, which is what you do when someone is both annoying and correct.

Azul was holding something empty too.

But he was holding it differently.

The Idol

It was a cheese wrapper. Flattened, licked clean, entirely finished with its life.

He held it up to the window like a framed portrait of a national hero.

A cow’s face on the foil. Red. Round. Laughing.

Azul turned to her with the face of a man about to explain the stock market.

He counted it off on his fingers.

Rosa considered this.

She ate. She slept. She was not famous.

Somewhere in that arithmetic, something was missing.

The car went very quiet.

Outside, the farm gate came up fast. White house. Ivy on the wall. FROMAGERIE hanging crooked in the sun.

Rosa did not ask another question.

She just said: Aunt Go. Hurry.

The Celebrity Hunt

The car had barely stopped.

Azul went out through the window. Rosa attempted the door, mostly succeeded, and arrived on the gravel in stages.

Behind them, Aunt Go — that would be me — unloaded a sketchbook, three brushes and a folding stool, at the speed of someone who has done this before and knows how it ends.

Don’t wander too far, I called.

They were already across the yard.

Where are we going?

To meet Jaja.

The famous cow?

The legend. A beat. Today, she teaches us her trade.

The barn door stood open on a rectangle of darkness.

They stopped. Exchanged a look. Squinted.

So where is she?

Follow the laughter.

And there was laughter. Somewhere in that building, quite clearly, something was laughing.

Terrible Spies

They went in the way that only two very confident amateurs can go in.

Azul used hand signals. He invented most of them. Rosa copied every one without understanding a single one.

Both of them walked into things.

Halfway across the barn Azul stopped.

Do you hear that?

The laughter got louder.

There was a small door at the back of the barn.

They reached for the handle together.

She’s in there.

Get ready.

---

The Reveal

The door opened.

The room behind it was an old dairy, cool and white-tiled, and it was in complete disorder.

A young farmer had one arm around a goat and one hand on a milking cup, and every time the cup came close the goat collapsed into helpless, wheezing laughter and poured herself straight out of his grip.

He tried again.

She laughed harder.

Behind him, two more goats were chasing each other in a wide loop around the room. One went under a milking station on her side, like a stone skipping.

The milking machine swung through the air, attached to nobody.

It did not look like a farm.

It looked like a party that had started without permission.

…what?

Those are goats.

Where’s Jaja?

Azul turned slowly on the spot, checking every corner of the room, the way you check a pocket you already know is empty.

Time stopped for exactly one second.

Everything Rosa had believed for the last five minutes fell quietly off a shelf.

WE DROVE ALL THIS WAY FOR LAUGHING GOATS?!

---

The nearest goat turned to face her.

Looked her directly in the eye.

And laughed harder than before.

HHHEEEEEEHHHHHHEEEEEEEE!!

A beat.

Another beat.

Then Rosa laughed. Not a polite laugh — the other kind, the one that arrives without being invited and refuses to leave.

Then Azul.

Then the goats again, because goats will laugh at anything, including you.

Then the farmer, who had by now given up entirely on the milking.

Rosa chased a goat. A goat chased Azul. A third ran rings around all of them. Somebody knocked over a bucket and nobody stopped for it.

Outside, at golden hour, the whole loud parade came spilling into the yard — one pig, one blue cat, three goats, one farmer, all of them running nowhere in particular and laughing so hard they had to keep stopping.

I sat on my folding stool with a wet brush and did not paint a single line.

---

Field Note

Nobody in that yard had become famous.

The piggy bank was still empty. So was the wrapper.

The cow on the foil was still on the foil, still laughing her enormous painted laugh, still selling cheese to somebody else, somewhere else.

We had driven a long way to meet her.

We met three goats and a tired young farmer instead, and the hills went gold, and none of us could breathe properly for about four minutes.

Some things you chase.

Some things simply happen to you while you are busy chasing.

I have never been able to decide which one counts as arriving.