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"It is no burden to shelter you for one night."
The boy interrupted the conversation. "We want to go back to Akbar."
"Wait till morning. The city is being sacked by its own inhabitants, and there is nowhere to sleep."
The boy looked at the ground, bit his lip, and once again held back tears. The shepherd led them into the house, calmed his wife and children, and, to distract them, spent the rest of the day talking about the weather.
THE NEXT DAY THEY AWOKE EARLY, ATE THE MEAL PREPARED by the shepherd's wife, and went to the door of the house.
"May your life be long and your flock grow ever larger," said Elijah. "I have eaten what my body had need of, and my soul has learned what it did not know. May God never forget what you did for us, and may your sons not be strangers in a strange land."
"I don't know to which God you refer; there are many who dwell on the Fifth Mountain," the shepherd said brusquely, then quickly changed his tone. "Remember the good things you have done. They will give you courage."
"I have done very few such things, and none of them was because of my abilities."
"Then it's time to do more."
"Perhaps I could have prevented the invasion."
The shepherd laughed.
"Even if you were governor of Akbar, you would not be able to stop the unavoidable."
"Perhaps the governor of Akbar should have attacked the Assyrians when they first arrived in the valley with few troops. Or negotiated peace, before war broke out."
"Everything that could have happened but did not is carried away with the wind and leaves no trace," said the shepherd. "Life is made of our attitudes. And there are certain things that the gods oblige us to live through. Their reason for this does not matter, and there is no action we can take to make them pass us by."
"Why?"
"Ask a certain Israelite prophet who lived in Akbar. He seems to have the answer to everything."
The man went to the fence. "I must take my flock to pasture," he said. "Yesterday they didn't go out, and they're impatient."
He took his leave with a wave of his hand, departing with his sheep.
THE BOY AND THE MAN WALKED THROUGH THE VALLEY.
"You're walking slowly," the boy said. "You're afraid of what might happen to you."
"I'm afraid only of myself," Elijah replied. "They can do me no harm because my heart has ceased to be."
"The God that brought me back from death is alive. He can bring back my mother, if you do the same thing to the city."
"Forget that God. He's far away and no longer does the miracles we hope for from Him."
The old shepherd was right. From this moment on, it was necessary to reconstruct his own past, forget that he had once thought himself to be a prophet who would free Israel but had failed in his mission of saving even one city.
The thought gave him a strange sense of euphoria. For the first time in his life he felt free, ready to do whatever he desired whenever he wished. True, he would hear no more angels, but as compensation he was free to return to Israel, to go back to work as a carpenter, to travel to Greece to learn the thoughts of wise men, or to journey with Phoenician navigators to the lands across the sea.
First, however, he must avenge himself. He had dedicated the best years of his youth to an unheeding God who was constantly giving commands and always did things in His own fashion. Elijah had learned to accept His decisions and to respect His designs.
But his loyalty had been rewarded by abandonment, his dedication had been ignored, his efforts to comply with the Supreme Being's will had led to the death of the only woman he had ever loved.
"Thou hast the strength of the world and the stars," said Elijah in his native tongue, so that the boy beside him would not understand the words. "Thou canst destroy a city, a country, as we destroy insects. Send, then, Thy fire from heaven and end my life, for if Thou dost not, I shall go against Thy handiwork."
Akbar loomed in the distance. He took the boy's hand and grasped it tightly.
"From this moment until we go through the city gates, I am going to walk with my eyes closed, and you must guide me," he told the boy. "If I die on the way, do what you have asked me to do: rebuild Akbar, even if to do so you must first grow to manhood and learn to cut wood or work stone."
