A Merchant's Reputation

My father was a different man in the community. In the market, he clapped men on the back and chortled at jokes he would later excoriate. Every new mother could expect lavish gifts that they could never afford without him.

He knew how to buy love better than anyone I’ve ever known.

“A merchant’s reputation is his most valuable asset,” my father would tell us, as far back as I can remember.

As a boy, I believed this was business advice. I was much older when I realized the power his reputation gave him.

Kristof and I had been the village shepherd for five years before they started calling me a liar. Even then, I was too young to understand the effort it takes to maintain an image.

He knew how to paint himself so no one could believe anything but the best of him.

I was only a boy then; I thought that the truth would prevail.

Yet, somehow, I was the liar.

I cried wolf. That much of the story is true.

Let me tell you what happened. Please, this is an old man’s dying wish.

You can decide whether to believe me or not.

I can still feel the burn of the summer sun on my skin. Each day that summer, the air was heavy and sultry. Even the sheep stood, lethargic in the field. I spent the days fighting to keep my eyes open, counting the sheep, while my younger brother Kristof dozed on the far side of the knoll.

Everything changed the day my mother’s scream rang across the field. The shrill note still rattles in my mind.

It was just luck that we were in the pasture closest to home.

I knew her scream and how my father’s gold-ringed fingers could turn to weapons against her. I knew to drop my head to my chest, stay very still, and pray for the bleating to stop.

But that day, they didn’t stop. She just kept screaming. I just kept praying.

It was Kristof who broke the pattern, his childish voice screaming the only thing that could draw the village to the field.

“Wolf! Wolf! Wolf!”

I looked around, but saw no wolves.

His tiny arms waved towards the road while he stared at me, eyes wide and frantic.

My eyes darted between him and the road several times. I didn’t understand.

The air in the pasture hung silent for a moment before I noticed.

Silence.

His cry had paused my mother’s screams.

The townsfolk were coming. Soon, my parents would need to come out to the field, too. My father would never risk the suspicion of being absent during a town crisis.

I took off down the dirt path back to the village, repeating my brother’s cry.

“Wolf! Wolf! Wolf!”

The people came charging up the hill—scythes and knives in hand, ready to drive back the beast. They came in droves, stopping, gasping for breath at the top of the hill, and looking around. But when they got there, there was only my brother and the sheep.

They demanded an explanation. I shook my head. What could I say?

One of the older men rounded on Kristof, his gravelly voice menacing. Neither of us listened to his admonishment, because that was when we saw our parents slip into the fray.

My mother’s eyes were red, but she was here—alive, upright! My breath came easy. A bubble of laughter escaped Kristof’s mouth.

The man stepped back as if he had been slapped. He rounded on the crowd, searching for my father to punish Kristof and me for our prank.

I wanted to grab them, make them notice how gingerly my mother moved, and beg them to ask questions. But I stayed silent.

And who would believe me, anyway?

What could I say that would make them see my father for what he was?

That night, he beat Kristof until blood soaked the back of his trousers while my mother cried into her dinner.

Perhaps we had saved her life, but we lost the only thing we had: the neighbors’ trust.

We all prayed he would return to the sea, to selling his wares, giving us a few months of peace. But for reasons I do not understand, a week later, my father was still here.

And he was getting more agitated, more violent.

I had seen him hold a knife to my mother’s throat, threatening to make her death look like an accident.

She’d used too much dill in the tzatziki.

My heart raced. He was going to kill us all.

There was nothing I could do to stop him.

On that fateful final morning, the sun rose watery and cool. I mistook it for a sign that peace was coming. A tiny bubble of hope floated in my chest.

My father was snoring away as I dressed. Just as I was about to leave, Kristof threw a silent elbow into my ribs, nodding his head towards my mother.

She was lying in bed, her eyes darting between the kitchen and the door. She mouthed "knife.”

I assumed she wanted the knife out of the house, away from my father. I felt that for the first time in my life, I was doing something to keep her safe.

The knife made a slight hiss of metal on fabric as I slid it into my satchel.

These days, I wonder if she meant for me to bring it to her. Perhaps I took away her only means of defense.

I never got to ask.

That morning, we were late for our rounds to pick up the sheep. The women, up with the sun to turn out the sheep and make breakfast, clucked their disapproval.

“What has gotten into you?” they said. But it wasn’t really a question. And I didn’t know how to answer. So, I just shook my head.

By midday, the air was so thick that it was hard to breathe. We led the sheep towards the cliffs in search of a breeze. We had to walk past our house to get to the cliffs.

That was how we saw it: the bloody scythe leaning against our barn.

An icy understanding spread over my body.

Without thinking, I was off down the path, screaming the only thing that ever interrupted the cycle of pain.

“Wolf! Wolf! There is a wolf!”

My father came out of the barn, wiping his hands on a cloth. For a brief moment, our eyes met.

I turned the other way.

Once more, the villagers came running, but by the time they got there, the bloody blade had vanished. Only a faint line of blood on the white stucco showed where it had been. You had to know what to look for.

I thought I might be sick.

No one else seemed to notice that my mother was missing.

I tried to draw their attention to it.

“Has anyone seen my mother?” I asked. Though I was nearly a man, my voice was high and pleading.

They mistook my question as a bid for sympathy. They thought I was fearing for myself.

“Your mother cannot save you from the consequences of your own actions,” an elder snarled to me, grabbing my ear to march me to my father. His face was purple with rage.

“If you can’t manage your own sons, how can I trust you to manage my money, Georgios?” one man said.

For a moment, his face flashed—pinched eyebrows, clenched jaw, dead eyes. I had broken the cardinal rule—I had damaged his reputation.

Then, quick as lightning, his face changed back. Of course it did; everyone was looking.

I was the only one who saw the change. He clapped the man on the back, promised to deal with my behavior, and transitioned to charming them. Soon enough, all the men were laughing about the follies of their own youth.

The people straggled back to their homes, one by one, then all at once. I wanted to beg them not to go.

Soon it was just the three of us in the clearing—my father, Kristof, and me. He lunged for Kristof, and I turned and ran back down the path.

I tried to tell the truth this time.

“Please, please help. My father is going to kill us. I think he killed my mother. Please!”

Everyone closed their shutters.

Only an old, stooped grandmother agreed to follow me up the hill. She shuffled behind me, slow, pausing every few steps to catch her breath. She was my only safety, my witness.

By the time we climbed the hill, the field was empty, sheep scattered across the farthest knoll I could see, spooked by whatever had left the giant bloody stain in the middle of the field.

I fell to my knees.

“It seems there was a wolf,” the grandmother said. “And it dragged one of your sheep right into the woods.” She sighed.

“A pity. Once they get one sheep, they’ll come for them all.”

My father loped out of the woods then, a bloody knife in his hand.

He was whistling, casual.

“I took care of the wolf on my own,” he reassured the woman. The hair on my arms stood up. He was staring into the side of my head, but I couldn’t tear my eyes from the blood in the grass.

I couldn’t bear to look up at him. I just drove my fingers into the grass, felt the dirt pressing under my fingernails.

His voice was relieved, almost jovial.

“I’m set to ship out early in the morning, so I’ll be spending tonight at the docks. I think the best punishment for your actions is to handle the dead sheep. You’ll need to bury it so another wolf doesn’t come around,” he said, squatting down next to me.

He pried my fingers from the dirt and pressed the knife into my hand.

He leaned in, voice low so only I could hear him.

“None of this would have happened if it hadn’t been for your lies.”

He headed down the hill, arm in arm with the old woman.

I’ve never been able to wash their blood from my hands.