When we arrive in the village, the vet and his team are welcomed in a big courtyard at the village chief’s home and we are taken to a classroom at the elementary school. There we begin waiting for the children. In the first hour we only manage to administer shots to the teachers’ children. No one else. I step outside and look around. There’s a long line outside the village chief’s home. All those village dogs. The vet has a lot on his hands. I send the health officer to the local mosque to ask the imam to make an announcement over the loud speaker. One of the village chief’s daughters comes over with a young boy, who is a village guard, but no one else.

Toward noon I start wandering through the village. It is harvest time and almost everyone is out in the fields. Everyone is working, save those tending to the dogs. I set my sights on a field full of children and launch my attack. A dark-haired boy, about six or seven, has no idea what’s going on. Sweeping him up into my arms, I head back to the school. The technique works. I take Erdinç with me on the next trip out. By then the other kids have heard about us and they scramble the moment they see us. We deploy hunting tactics: Erdinç rounds up the prey and I bag them. As we tackle them to the ground, mothers and fathers silently watch us from a distance. Clearly they have decided to stay out of it. Within an hour we have captured and immunized nine or ten kids. But the remaining few will be the hardest. They are a little older and wiser to our game. I can’t remember how many trips I have made when I step into a large field, a little stream running beside it. I spot three of them. If I chase them toward the stream, I can corner them there. Erdinç gets a grip on two and leads them away. But the last one has some wheels on him and he bolts. At one point I get close enough to catch a piece of his old jacket. I feel a rush of joy as he squirms out and then he is gone. I’m left there holding nothing but his jacket. Scrambling up a hill without breaking his stride, he is the image of a lizard that has just lost its tail.

*

I always remember the way dad used to straighten his jacket collar in the mirror. He loved suits. Whenever his tailor Celal got some good fabric, dad would ask him to make him a new suit, or at least a new jacket. In his suit and his white hat and his shiny shoes, he was the perfect town soda salesman. He had only finished elementary school but his nickname in the city club was College Man, and, although he always kept it a secret, I think he really liked it.