The next day, Lara practically skipped outside, every cell of her body singing its own happy little song. Matteo had stayed longer than he should have inside the cabin with her, their naked bodies nestled together, their rumbling bellies ignored, sleeping just enough to refresh themselves enough to celebrate their pleasures again.
But finally he’d pulled himself away, shrugging into his clothes and battered jacket to brace himself against the stiff breeze outside. He headed off to visit the cheese factory, another whitewashed, dark-roofed, flower-adorned Austrian-style building on this dairy farm. Lara—knowing she had no self-control when it came to cheese—had chosen to stay outside in the fields, talking to the cows.
Accompanying her now was Isabella, a tall woman in her early twenties, Lara guessed, who strode across the hills in her boots and pinafore dress as though she’d been doing it since babyhood. Which she had, actually, having been born in the very hut where Lara and Matteo were now staying.
Lara scanned the scene before her, taking in the dozens of pale brown and white cows lying down together and chewing their cud, drinking in the sheer brilliance of the day.
Then she stepped in a huge cow pat.
‘Oh, shit,’ she mumbled, gingerly extricating her horribly stained sandshoe from the suction of the poo.
‘Ha, exactly!’ Isabella hooted, clapping her hands. ‘You are blessed, yes?’
‘Blessed with shit,’ Lara muttered.
‘Ah, it is hard to look down at where you are going when you have all this to enjoy,’ said Isabella, motioning to the endless rows of stony Dolomite mountains in the distance, some capped with white snow and some disappearing altogether into slow, moody clouds.
‘When I was young, on cold morning with the fire had gone out, I would put my feet inside a big cow poopie to warm them up,’ Isabella said, without a hint of embarrassment.
‘That’s…really gross,’ Lara said, laughing, and wiping her ruined sandshoe sideways on the grass in a futile attempt to clean it.
‘It gets very cold up here,’ her guide said. ‘Very soon, in few days, we will herd the cows down the mountains, through the village, into lower pastures. Too cold up here for them. The grass stop growing. It is a festival we do each year to celebrate the old ways. Hundreds of years of history for shepherds to bringing their animals up here in the summer to eat the grasses, herb and flower, and make cheese all summer long. Then back to the lower fields, and the shepherds they do other works while the mammas are pregnant with baby cow. So we celebrate this and decorate the cow in headdress of flowers and everyone come to see them walking through the streets.’
‘I’d love to see that,’ Lara said.
‘You should come.’ Isabella took the moment to stretch up tall. Sunlight bounced off the long plaits that wound neatly around her head.
‘I will ask Matteo if we can come to the festival before we go home.’
Home. That was a strange thing to say. Home to Samuel? Lara didn’t allow herself to ponder that for too long, though, and instead pulled her shoe back on and straightened up to resume their walk. They were nearing the cows; a gentle tinkling of bells rang in rhythm with the slight swaying of their heads as they chewed.
‘It’s like they’re in meditation,’ Lara observed. ‘It’s so sweet the way they all lie down together, as if someone said they should stop work now and have a break and they all agree. Like council road workers having smoko.’
‘Smoko?’
‘It’s what we call it in Australia when all the men working on the roads put down their tools and stop for tea and cigarettes.’
‘Ah.’ Isabella nodded. ‘Like riposo?’
‘I guess so. But not as long.’
They stopped a few metres from the herd, as huge bovine heads turned in the direction of the intruders, considering their options but in no hurry to move. Their ears—easily as long as Lara’s forearm—flicked lazily against flies.
‘Cows are gentile,’ Isabella agreed. ‘They lick each other and all be together like this. I call this cow council,’ she said, grinning.
‘That’s perfect,’ Lara said. ‘I wonder what they’re discussing.’
‘World peace, I think.’
‘I like that.’
‘Come, you can pat,’ Isabella said, leading the way to an enormous animal with lethal-looking horns, wearing a thick collar and a metal bell the size of a dinner plate.
‘Are you sure?’ Lara said, tiptoeing over.
‘Of course. This is Serafina.’ Isabella squatted down at Serafina’s shoulder and began to stroke her neck. The cow turned her head to Isabella and licked her arm. ‘See, she is very docile.’
Lara approached too, also squatting beside the cow’s shoulder, but just a little behind Isabella. ‘Hello, Serafina. What a beautiful name you have.’ She offered her hand for the cow to sniff, which she did, her rubbery wet nose—the size of Lara’s fist—snuffling at her skin before extending her blue tongue and licking her arm too. Lara squealed. The cow’s tongue was rough, like a big piece of sandpaper affectionately nuzzling her.
Isabella laughed and lowered herself to sit on the ground, a few yellow wildflowers bending under her weight. ‘The tongue is so rough so they can to grab the long grass and pull into their mouth. They do not want to lose out on the food.’
‘That’s how I feel about chocolate,’ Lara said. ‘A big long tongue would help me too; I could just snatch it from the shelves on my way past and keep going.’
‘That is it exactly!’ Isabella said, delighted.
Lara sat down too and admired the sheer bulk of Serafina. Her two-toed hooves were big, yet very small, really, when she considered how much weight they needed to carry. They sat in blissful silence for a few minutes, simply stroking Serafina’s warm body.
‘Do all your cows have names?’ Lara asked, looking around at the rest of the group, some obviously much younger, some with smaller horns, some pale with spots. And many of them were now also licking and grooming nearby friends. It was as if Isabella and Lara had started a circle of massage.
‘Yes, of course. We love our cows. This is Rosina, Marcella, Sofia, Luisa…’ Isabella rattled off a dozen names before stopping. ‘And that one over there is Freya. She is little, only one horn, but she gives good milk. She thinks she should live in our house. Arrives to the door and tries to come inside.’
As though she knew she was being spoken of, Freya lay down on her side and stretched out all four legs like a cat before closing her eyes in the sun.
‘I don’t want to leave these hills,’ Lara said, suddenly overcome by all this peace around her. Isabella looked at her, but said nothing. Lara put her hand over her mouth, shocked by her own admission. For the first time, she had begun to imagine the possibility of a life away from her mother, sister and kids, and it was both glorious and devastating at the same time.