HE NEXT DAY, ELIJAH AND THE WOMAN RESUMED their labors. The old man who had approached them the night before came to them again.

“I don’t have anything to do and I could help you,” he said. “But I’m too weak to carry bodies.”

“Then gather bricks and small pieces of wood. Sweep away the ashes.”

The old man began doing as they asked.

WHEN THE SUN reached its zenith, Elijah sat on the ground, exhausted. He knew that his angel was at his side, but he could not hear him. “To what avail? He was unable to help me when I needed him, and now I don’t want his counsel; all I desire is to put this city in order, to show God I can face Him, and then leave for wherever I want to go.”

Jerusalem was not far away, just seven days’ travel on foot, with no really difficult places to pass through, but there he was hunted as a traitor. Perhaps it would be better to go to Damascus, or find work as a scribe in some Greek city.

He felt something touch him. He turned and saw the boy holding a small jar.

“I found it in one of the houses,” the boy said.

It was full of water. Elijah drank it to the final drop.

“Eat something,” he said. “You’re working and deserve your reward.”

For the first time since the night of the invasion, a smile appeared on the boy’s lips, and he ran to the spot where the woman had left the fruits and grain.

Elijah returned to his work, entering destroyed homes, pushing aside the rubble, picking up the bodies, and carrying them to the pile in the middle of the square. The bandage that the shepherd had put on his arm had fallen off, but that mattered little; he had to prove to himself that he was strong enough to regain his dignity.

The old man, who now was amassing the refuse scattered throughout the square, was right: soon the enemy would be back, to harvest fruits they had not sown. Elijah was laboring for the invaders—the assassins of the only woman he had ever loved in his life. The Assyrians were superstitious and would rebuild Akbar in any case. According to ancient beliefs, the gods had spaced the cities in an organized manner, in harmony with the valleys, the animals, the rivers, the seas. In each of these they had set aside a sacred place to rest during their long voyages about the world. When a city was destroyed, there was always a great risk that the skies would tumble to the earth.

Legend said that the founder of Akbar had passed through there, hundreds of years before, journeying from the north. He decided to sleep at the spot and, to mark where he had left his things, planted a wooden staff upright in the ground. The next day, he was unable to withdraw it, and he quickly understood the will of the Universe; he marked with a stone the place where the miracle had occurred, and he discovered a spring nearby. Little by little, tribes began settling around the stone and the well; Akbar was born.

The governor had once explained to Elijah that, following Phoenician custom, every city was the third point, the element liking the will of heaven to the will of the earth. The Universe made the seed transform itself into a plant, the soil allowed it to grow, man harvested it and took it to the city, where the offerings to the gods were consecrated before they were left at the sacred mountains. Even though he had not traveled widely, Elijah was aware that a similar vision was shared by many nations of the world.

The Assyrians feared leaving the gods of the Fifth Mountain without food; they had no desire to disturb the equilibrium of the Universe.

“Why am I thinking such thoughts, if this is a struggle between my will and that of the Lord, who has left me alone in the midst of tribulations?”

The sensation he had felt the day before, when he challenged God, returned: he was forgetting something of importance, and however much he forced his memory, he could not recall it.

ANOTHER DAY WENT BY. MOST OF THE BODIES HAD been collected when a second woman approached.

“I have nothing to eat,” she said.

“Nor have we,” answered Elijah. “Yesterday and today we divided among three what had been intended for one. Discover where you can obtain food, then inform me.”

“Where can I learn that?”

“Ask the children. They know everything.”

Ever since he had offered Elijah water, the boy had seemed to recover some part of his taste for life. Elijah had told him to help the old man gather up the trash and debris but had not succeeded in keeping him working for long; he was now playing with the other boys in a corner of the square.

“It’s better this way. He’ll have his time to sweat when he’s a man.” But Elijah did not regret having made him spend an entire night hungry, under the pretext that he must work; if he had treated him as a poor orphan, the victim of the evil of murderous warriors, he would never have emerged from the depression into which he had been plunged when they entered the city. Now Elijah planned to leave him by himself for a few days to find his own answers to what had taken place.

“How can children know anything?” said the woman who had asked him for food.

“See for yourself.”

The woman and the old man who were helping Elijah saw her talking to the young boys playing in the street. They said something, and she turned, smiled, and disappeared around one corner of the square.

“How did you find out that the children knew?” the old man asked.

“Because I was once a boy, and I know that children have no past,” he said, remembering once again his conversation with the shepherd. “They were horrified the night of the invasion, but they’re no longer concerned about it; the city has been transformed into an immense park where they can come and go without being bothered. Naturally they would come across the food that people had put aside to withstand the siege of Akbar.

“A child can always teach an adult three things: to be happy for no reason, to always be busy with something, and to know how to demand with all his might that which he desires. It was because of that boy that I returned to Akbar.”

THAT AFTERNOON, more old men and women added their numbers to the labor of collecting the dead. The children put to flight the scavenger birds and brought pieces of wood and cloth. When night fell, Elijah set fire to the immense pile of corpses. The survivors of Akbar contemplated silently the smoke rising to the heavens.

As soon as the task was completed, Elijah was felled by exhaustion. Before sleeping, however, the sensation he had felt that morning came again: something of importance was struggling desperately to enter his memory. It was nothing that he had learned during his time in Akbar but an ancient story, one that seemed to make sense of everything that was happening.

THAT NIGHT, a man entered Jacob’s tent and wrestled with him until the break of day. And when he saw that he prevailed not against him, he said, “Let me go.”

Jacob answered, “I will not let thee go, except thou bless me.”

Then the man said to him: “As a prince, hast thou power with God and with men, and hast prevailed. What is thy name?” And he said, Jacob.

And the man answered: “Thy name shall be called no more Jacob, but Israel.”

ELIJAH AWOKE WITH A START AND LOOKED AT THE FIRMAMENT. That was the story that was missing!

Long ago, the patriarch Jacob had encamped, and during the night, someone had entered his tent and wrestled with him until daybreak. Jacob accepted the combat, even knowing that his adversary was the Lord. At morning, he had still not been defeated; and the combat ceased only when God agreed to bless him.

The story had been transmitted from generation to generation so that no one would ever forget: sometimes it was necessary to struggle with God. Every human being at some time had tragedy enter his life; it might be the destruction of a city, the death of a son, an unproved accusation, a sickness that left one lame forever. At that moment, God challenged one to confront Him and to answer His question: “Why dost thou cling fast to an existence so short and so filled with suffering? What is the meaning of thy struggle?”

The man who did not know how to answer this question would resign himself, while another, one who sought a meaning to existence, feeling that God had been unjust, would challenge his own destiny. It was at this moment that fire of a different type descended from the heavens—not the fire that kills but the kind that tears down ancient walls and imparts to each human being his true possibilities. Cowards never allow their hearts to blaze with this fire; all they desire is for the changed situation to quickly return to what it was before, so they can go on living their lives and thinking in their customary way. The brave, however, set afire that which was old and, even at the cost of great internal suffering, abandon everything, including God, and continue onward.

“The brave are always stubborn.”

From heaven, God smiles contentedly, for it was this that He desired, that each person take into his hands the responsibility for his own life. For, in the final analysis, He had given His children the greatest of all gifts: the capacity to choose and determine their acts.

Only those men and women with the sacred flame in their hearts had the courage to confront Him. And they alone knew the path back to His love, for they understood that tragedy was not punishment but challenge.

Elijah retraced in his mind each of his steps. Upon leaving the carpentry shop, he had accepted his mission without dispute. Even though it was real—and he felt it was—he had never had the opportunity to see what was happening in the paths that he had chosen not to follow because he feared losing his faith, his dedication, his will. He thought it very dangerous to experience the path of common folk—he might become accustomed to it and find pleasure in what he saw. He did not understand that he was a person like any other, even if he heard angels and now and again received orders from God; in his certainty that he knew what he wanted, he had acted in the selfsame way as those who at no time in their lives had ever made an important decision.

He had fled from doubt. From defeat. From moments of indecision. But the Lord was generous and had led him to the abyss of the unavoidable, to show him that man must choose—and not accept—his fate.

Many, many years before, on a night like this, Jacob had not allowed God to leave without blessing him. It was then that the Lord had asked: “What is thy name?”

The essential point was this: to have a name. When Jacob had answered, God had baptized him Israel. Each one has a name from birth but must learn to baptize his life with the word he has chosen to give meaning to that life.

“I am Akbar,” she had said.

The destruction of the city and the death of the woman he loved had been necessary for Elijah to understand that he too must have a name. And at that moment he named his life Liberation.

HE STOOD and looked at the square before him: smoke still rose from the ashes of those who had lost their lives. By setting fire to the bodies he had challenged an ancient custom of the country, which demanded that the dead be buried in accord with ritual. He had struggled with God and with custom by choosing incineration, but he felt no sense of sin when a new solution was needed to a new problem. God was infinite in His mercy, and implacable in His severity with those who lacked the courage to dare.

He looked around the square again: some of the survivors still had not slept and kept their gaze fixed on the flames, as if the fire were also consuming their memories, their pasts, Akbar’s two hundred years of peace and torpor. The time for fear and hope had ended: now there remained only rebuilding or defeat.

Like Elijah, they too could choose a name for themselves. Reconciliation, Wisdom, Lover, Pilgrim—there were as many choices as stars in the sky, but each one had need to give a name to his life.

Elijah rose and prayed, “I fought Thee, Lord, and I am not ashamed. And because of it I discovered that I am on my path because such is my wish, not because it was imposed on me by my father and mother, by the customs of my country, or even by Thee.

“It is to Thee, O Lord, that I would return at this moment. I wish to praise Thee with the strength of my will and not with the cowardice of one who has not known how to choose another path. But for Thee to confide to me Thy important mission, I must continue this battle against Thee, until Thou bless me.”

To rebuild Akbar. What Elijah thought was a challenge to God was, in truth, his reencounter with Him.

THE WOMAN WHO HAD ASKED ABOUT FOOD REAPPEARED the next morning. She was accompanied by several other women.

“We found some deposits,” she said. “Because so many died, and so many fled with the governor, we have enough food for a year.”

“Seek older people to oversee the distribution of food,” Elijah said. “They have experience at organization.”

“The old ones have lost the will to live.”

“Ask them to come anyway.”

The woman was making ready to leave when Elijah stopped her.

“Do you know how to write, using letters?”

“No.”

“I have learned, and I can teach you. You’ll need this skill to help me administer the city.”

“But the Assyrians will return.”

“When they arrive, they’ll need our help to manage the affairs of the city.”

“Why should we do this for the enemy?”

“So that each of us can give a name to his life. The enemy is only a pretext to test our strength.”

AS ELIJAH HAD FORESEEN, the old people came.

“Akbar needs your help,” he told them. “Because of that, you don’t have the luxury of being old; we need the youth that you once had and have lost.”

“We do not know where to find it,” one of them replied. “It vanished among the wrinkles and the disillusion.”

“That’s not true. You never had illusions, and it is that which caused your youth to hide itself away. Now is the moment to find it again, for we have a dream in common: to rebuild Akbar.”

“How can we do the impossible?”

“With ardor.”

Eyes veiled behind sorrow and discouragement made an effort to shine again. They were no longer the useless citizens who attended judgments searching for something to talk about later in the day; now they had an important mission before them. They were needed.

The stronger among them separated the usable materials from the damaged houses and utilized them to repair those that were still standing. The older ones helped spread in the fields the ashes of the incinerated bodies, so that the city’s dead might be remembered at the next harvest; others took on the task of separating the grains stocked haphazardly throughout the city, making bread, and raising water from the well.

TWO NIGHTS LATER, ELIJAH GATHERED ALL THE INHABITANTS in the square, now cleared of most of the debris. Torches were lit, and he began to speak.

“We have no choice,” he said. “We can leave this work for the foreigner to do; but that means giving away the only chance that a tragedy offers us: that of rebuilding our lives.

“The ashes of the dead that we burned some days ago will become the plants that are reborn in the spring. The son who was lost the night of the invasion will become the many children running freely through the ruined streets and amusing themselves by invading forbidden places and houses they had never known. Until now only the children have been able to overcome what took place, because they have no past—for them, everything that matters is the present moment. So we shall try to act as they do.”

“Can a man cast from his heart the pain of a loss?” asked a woman.

“No. But he can find joy in something won.”

Elijah turned, pointed to the top of the Fifth Mountain, forever covered in clouds. The destruction of the walls had made it visible from the middle of the square.

“I believe in One God, though you think that the gods dwell in those clouds on the Fifth Mountain. I don’t want to argue whether my God is stronger or more powerful; I would speak not of our differences but of our similarities. Tragedy has united us in a single sentiment: despair. Why has that come to pass? Because we thought that everything was answered and decided in our souls, and we could accept no changes.

“Both you and I belong to trading nations, but we also know how to act as warriors,” he continued. “And a warrior is always aware of what is worth fighting for. He does not go into combat over things that do not concern him, and he never wastes his time over provocations.

“A warrior accepts defeat. He does not treat it as a matter of indifference, nor does he attempt to transform it into a victory. The pain of defeat is bitter to him; he suffers at indifference and becomes desperate with loneliness. After all this has passed, he licks his wounds and begins everything anew. A warrior knows that war is made of many battles; he goes on.

“Tragedies do happen. We can discover the reason, blame others, imagine how different our lives would be had they not occurred. But none of that is important: they did occur, and so be it. From there onward we must put aside the fear that they awoke in us and begin to rebuild.

“Each of you will give yourselves a new name, beginning at this very moment. This will be the sacred name that brings together in a single word all that you have dreamed of fighting for. For my name, I have chosen Liberation.”

The square was silent for some time. Then the woman who had been the first to help Elijah rose to her feet.

“My name is Reencounter,” she said.

“My name is Wisdom,” said an old man.

The son of the widow whom Elijah had loved shouted, “My name is Alphabet.”

The people in the square burst into laughter. The boy, embarrassed, sat down again.

“How can anybody call himself Alphabet?” shouted another boy.

Elijah could have interfered, but it was good for the boy to learn to defend himself.

“Because that was what my mother did,” the boy said. “Whenever I look at drawn letters, I’ll remember her.”

This time no one laughed. One by one, the orphans, widows, and old people of Akbar spoke their names, and their new identities. When the ceremony was over, Elijah asked everyone to go to sleep early: they had to resume their labors the next morning.

He took the boy by the hand, and the two went to the place in the square where a few pieces of cloth had been extended to form a tent.

Starting that night, he began teaching him the writing of Byblos.

THE DAYS BECAME WEEKS, AND THE FACE OF AKBAR was changing. The boy quickly learned to draw the letters and had already begun creating words that made sense; Elijah charged him with writing on clay tablets the history of the rebuilding of the city.

The clay tablets were baked in an improvised oven, transformed into ceramics, and carefully stored away by an aged couple. At the meetings at the end of each afternoon, Elijah asked the old folk to tell of what they had seen in their childhood, and he wrote down the greatest possible number of stories.

“We shall keep Akbar’s memory on a material that fire cannot destroy,” he explained. “One day our children and the children of their children will know that defeat was not accepted, and that the unavoidable was overcome. This can serve as an example for them.”

Each night, after his lessons with the boy, Elijah would walk through the deserted city until he came to the beginning of the road leading to Jerusalem; he would think about departing, then turn around.

The heavy work demanded that he concentrate on the present moment. He knew that the inhabitants of Akbar were relying on him for the rebuilding; he had already disappointed them once, when he had been unable to prevent the death of the enemy general—and thus avoid war. But God always gives His children a second chance, and he must take advantage of this new opportunity. In addition, he was becoming ever fonder of the boy and desired to teach him not only the characters of Byblos but also faith in the Lord and the wisdom of his ancestors.

Even so, he did not forget that in his own land reigned a foreign princess and a foreign god. There were no more angels bearing flaming swords; he was free to leave whenever he desired, and to do whatever he wished.

Each night, he thought of departing. And each night he would lift his hands to the heavens and pray.

“Jacob fought the whole night through and was blessed at daybreak. I have fought Thee for days, for months, and Thou refusest me Thy ear. But if Thou lookest about Thee, Thou wilt know that I am winning: Akbar is rising from its ruins, and I am rebuilding what Thou, using the Assyrian sword, made ashes and dust.

“I shall struggle with Thee until Thou bless me, and bless the fruits of my labor. One day Thou shalt have to answer me.”

WOMEN AND CHILDREN carried water to the fields, struggling against the drought that seemed to have no end. One day, when the inclement sun shone down in all its force, Elijah heard someone say, “We work without ceasing, we no longer recall the pains of that night, and we even forget that the Assyrians will return as soon as they have sacked Tyre, Sidon, Byblos, and all of Phoenicia. This is a good thing for us.

“But because we concentrate so much on rebuilding the city, it seems that everything remains the same; we do not see the result of our effort.”

Elijah reflected for some time on what he had heard. And he ordered that, at the end of each day of work, the people gather at the foot of the Fifth Mountain to contemplate together the sunset.

Most were so weary that they exchanged not a word, but they discovered that it is important to allow thought to wander as aimlessly as the clouds in the sky. In this way, anxiety fled from each person’s heart and they found inspiration and strength for the day to come.

ELIJAH AWOKE SAYING THAT TODAY HE WOULD NOT LABOR.

“In my land, this is the Day of Atonement.”

“There is no sin in your soul,” a woman told him. “You have done the best that you can.”

“But custom must be maintained. And I shall keep it.”

The women left, bearing water for the fields, the old men went back to their task of erecting walls and shaping the wood for doors and windows. The children helped to mold the small clay bricks that would later be baked in fire. Elijah watched them with immense joy in his heart. Then he went out from Akbar and walked toward the valley.

He wandered about aimlessly, praying the prayers that he had learned in childhood. The sun was not yet completely risen, and from the place where he stood he could see the enormous shadow of the Fifth Mountain covering part of the valley. He felt a horrible premonition: the struggle between the God of Israel and the gods of the Phoenicians would go on for many generations, and for many thousands of years.

HE RECALLED that one night he had climbed to the top of the mountain and spoken with an angel. But since Akbar’s destruction he had never again heard the voices from heaven.

“O Lord, today is the Day of Atonement, and my list of sins against Thee is long,” he said, turning toward Jerusalem. “I have been weak, for I have forgotten my strength. I have been compassionate when I should have been firm. I have failed to choose, for fear of making the wrong decision. I have yielded before the time to do so, and I have blasphemed when I should have given thanks.

“Still, Lord, I have also a long list of Thy sins against me. Thou hast made me suffer more than was just, by taking from this world one that I loved. Thou hast destroyed the city that received me, Thou hast confounded my search, Thy harshness almost made me forget the love I have for Thee. For all that time I have struggled with Thee, yet Thou dost not accept the worthiness of my combat.

“If we compare the list of my sins with the list of Thy sins, Thou shalt see that Thou art in my debt. But, as today is the Day of Atonement, give me Thy forgiveness and I shall forgive Thee, so that we may go on walking at each other’s side.”

At that moment, a wind blew, and he heard his angel say to him, “Thou hast done well, Elijah. God hath accepted thy combat.”

Tears streamed from his eyes. He knelt and kissed the valley’s arid soil.

“Thanks unto you for having come, for I still have one doubt: is it not a sin to do this?”

The angel said, “If a warrior fight with his instructor, doth he offend him?”

“No. It is the only way to teach the technique that he must learn.”

“Then continue, until the Lord call thee back to Israel,” said the angel. “Rise and go on proving that thy struggle hath meaning, because thou hast known how to cross the current of the unavoidable. Many navigate it and founder; others are swept to places for which they were not fated. But thou confrontest the crossing with dignity; thou hast guided the path of thy vessel well and transformed pain into action.”

“How sad that you are blind,” said Elijah. “Otherwise you would see how orphans, widows, old people have been able to rebuild a city. Soon, all will be as it was.”

“Would that it not be so,” said the angel. “Remember that they have paid a high price so that their lives could be changed.”

Elijah smiled. The angel was right.

“Would that thou mightest act as do men who are given a second chance: do not twice commit the same error. Never forget the reason for thy life.”

“I shall not forget,” he replied, happy that the angel had returned.

CARAVANS NO LONGER CAME THROUGH THE VALLEY; the Assyrians must have destroyed the roads and changed the trade routes. Day after day, children scaled the only turret in the wall that had escaped destruction; they were charged with watching the horizon and alerting the city to the return of enemy warriors. Elijah planned to receive them with dignity and hand over command.

Then he could depart.

But with each passing day the feeling grew that Akbar had become part of his life. Perhaps his mission was not to remove Jezebel from the throne but to be there with these people for the rest of his life, carrying out the humble role of servant for the Assyrian conqueror. He would help to reestablish trade routes, learn the language of the enemy, and during his moments of repose, oversee the library, which was daily more complete.

Whereas on a night already lost in time the city had appeared to be at its end, it now seemed possible to make it even more beautiful than it had been. The work of rebuilding encompassed widening streets, erecting sturdier roofs, and creating an ingenious system for bringing water from the well to the most distant places. And his soul too was being restored; each day he learned something new from the old people, from the children, from the women. That group, which had not abandoned Akbar only because of the absolute impossibility of doing so, was now a competent, disciplined company.

“If the governor had known that they were of such help, he would have created another type of defense, and Akbar would not have been destroyed.”

Elijah thought a moment, then saw that he was mistaken. Akbar needed to be destroyed so that all could awaken the forces that lay dormant inside their own being.

Months went by without the Assyrians showing any sign of life. By now Akbar was almost complete, and Elijah could think of the future. The women had repaired pieces of cloth and made new garments from them. The old folk were reorganizing the dwellings and attending to the city’s sanitation. The children were helping when asked, but they usually spent the day at play: that is a child’s foremost obligation.

Elijah lived with the boy in a small stone house rebuilt on the site that had once been a storage place for merchandise. Each night the inhabitants of Akbar would sit around a fire in the main square, telling stories that they had heard earlier in their lives, alongside the boy, who noted everything on clay tablets that were baked the next day. The library was growing before their very eyes.

The woman who had lost her son was also learning the characters of Byblos. When Elijah saw that she could create words and phrases, he charged her with teaching the alphabet to the rest of the population; in this way, when the Assyrians returned, they could be used as interpreters or teachers.

“This was just what the high priest wanted to prevent,” an old man, who had taken the name Ocean because he desired to have a soul as great as the sea, said one afternoon. “That the writing of Byblos survive to threaten the gods of the Fifth Mountain.”

“Who can prevent the unavoidable?” Elijah replied.

The people of Akbar would toil by day, watch the sunset together, and recount stories during the night.

Elijah was proud of his work. And with each day that passed he grew more impassioned with it.

One of the children charged with keeping the vigil descended in a run.

“I saw dust on the horizon!” he said excitedly. “The enemy is returning!”

Elijah climbed to the turret and saw that the news was correct. He reckoned that they would be at the gates of Akbar the next day.

That afternoon he told the inhabitants that they should not attend the sunset but gather in the square. When the day’s work was over, he stood before the assembled group and saw that they were afraid.

“Today we shall tell no stories of the past, nor speak of Akbar’s future,” he said. “We shall talk about ourselves.”

No one said a word.

“Some time ago, a full moon shone in the sky. That night, what all of us had foreseen, but did not want to accept, came to pass: Akbar was destroyed. When the Assyrian army departed, the best among our men were dead. Those who had escaped saw that it was futile to remain here, and they determined to go. Only the old, the widows, and the orphans were left—that is, the useless.

“Look about you; the square is more beautiful than ever, the buildings are more solid, the food is divided among us, and everyone is learning the writing invented in Byblos. Somewhere in this city is a collection of tablets on which we have written our stories, and generations yet to be born will remember what we did.

“Today we know that the old, the widows, the orphans, also departed. They left in their place a band of youths of every age, filled with enthusiasm, who have given name and meaning to their lives.

“At each moment of rebuilding, we knew that the Assyrians would return. We knew that one day we would be obliged to hand our city over to them and, together with the city, our efforts, our sweat, our joy at seeing it more beautiful than before.”

The light from the fire illuminated tears coursing down the faces of some of the people. Even the children, who customarily played during the evening meetings, were listening attentively to his words. Elijah continued.

“This does not matter. We have carried out our duty to the Lord because we accepted His challenge and the honor of His struggle. Before that night, He had urged us, saying, Walk! But we heeded Him not. Why?

“Because each of us had already decided his own future: I thought only of removing Jezebel from the throne, the woman who is now called Reencounter wanted her son to become a navigator, the man who today bears the name Wisdom wished merely to spend the rest of his days drinking wine in the square. We were accustomed to the sacred mystery of life and gave little importance to it.

“Then the Lord thought to Himself: They would not walk? Then let them be idle for a long time!

“And only then did we understand His message. The steel of Assyrian blades swept away our youth, and cowardice swept away our adults. Wherever they are at this moment, they are still idle; they have accepted God’s curse.

“We, however, struggle with the Lord, just as we struggle with the men and women we love in our lifetimes. For it is that struggle with the divine that blesses us and makes us grow. We grasp the opportunity in the tragedy and do our duty by Him, by proving we were able to obey the order to walk. Even in the worst of circumstances, we have forged ahead.

“There are moments when God demands obedience. But there are moments in which He wishes to test our will and challenges us to understand His love. We understood that will when Akbar’s walls tumbled to the ground: they opened our horizon and allowed each of us to see his capabilities. We stopped thinking about life and chose to live it.

“The result is good.”

Elijah saw that the people’s eyes were shining again. They had understood.

“Tomorrow I shall deliver Akbar without a struggle; I am free to leave whenever I choose, for I have done what the Lord expected of me. But my blood, my sweat, and the only love I have known are in the soil of this city, and I have decided to remain here the rest of my days, to prevent its being destroyed again. Make whatever decision you wish but never forget one thing: all of you are much better than you believed.

“Take advantage of the chance that tragedy has given you; not everyone is capable of doing so.”

Elijah rose, ending the meeting. He told the boy that he would return late and said he should go to bed without waiting for his arrival.

HE WENT TO THE TEMPLE, the only place that had escaped the destruction and had not needed rebuilding, though the statues of the gods had been taken away by the Assyrians. With all respect, he touched the stone that, according to tradition, marked the spot where an ancestor had embedded a staff in the ground and been unable to wrest it free.

He thought how, in his country, places such as this were being erected by Jezebel, and a part of his people bowed down before Baal and his deities. Once again the premonition ran through his soul that the war between the Lord of Israel and the gods of Phoenicia would go on for a long time, beyond anything his imagination could encompass. As in a vision, he saw stars crossing the sun and raining death and destruction on both countries. Men who spoke strange languages rode animals of steel and dueled in the middle of the clouds.

“It is not this that thou shouldst now see, for the time hath not yet come,” he heard his angel say. “Look out the window.”

Elijah did as he was ordered. Outside, the full moon illuminated the streets and houses of Akbar, and despite the late hour he could hear conversations and laughter from the city’s inhabitants. Even facing the Assyrians’ return, the people kept the will to live, ready to confront a new stage in their lives.

He saw a form and knew that it was the woman he had loved, who now returned to walk with pride through her city. He smiled, feeling her touch his face.

“I am proud,” she seemed to be saying. “Akbar truly is still beautiful.”

He felt the urge to weep, then remembered the boy, who had never shed a tear for his mother. He checked his sobs and thought anew of the most beautiful parts of the story that together they had lived, from the meeting at the city gates, till the moment she had written the word love on a clay tablet. Once again he could see her garment, her chair, the fine sculpting of her nose.

“You told me you were Akbar. Well, I have taken care of you, healed your wounds, and now I return you to life. May you be happy among your new companions.

“And I want to tell you something: I too was Akbar and did not know.”

He knew that she was smiling.

“Long since, the desert wind wiped away our footprints in the sand. But at every second of my existence, I remember what happened, and you still walk in my dreams and in my reality. Thank you for having crossed my path.”

He slept there, in the temple, feeling the woman caressing his hair.

THE CHIEF TRADER SAW A RAGGED GROUP OF PEOPLE IN the middle of the road. Thinking they were robbers, he ordered the caravan to take up arms.

“Who are you?” he asked.

“We are the people of Akbar,” replied a bearded man with shining eyes. The leader of the caravan noticed that he spoke with a foreign accent.

“Akbar was destroyed. We have been charged by the governments of Sidon and Tyre to find a well so caravans can cross the valley again. Communication with the rest of the land cannot be interrupted forever.”

“Akbar still exists,” the man said. “Where are the Assyrians?”

“The entire world knows where they are,” laughed the caravan leader. “Making the soil more fertile. And feeding the birds and wild animals for a long time now.”

“But they were a powerful army.”

“There’s no such thing as power or an army, if we find out where they’re going to attack. Akbar sent word that they were approaching, and Sidon and Tyre set an ambuscade for them at the end of the valley. Whoever didn’t die in battle was sold as slaves by our navigators.”

The ragged people cheered and embraced one another, crying and laughing at the same time.

“Who are you people?” insisted the trader. “And who are you?” he asked, pointing to their leader.

“We are the young warriors of Akbar” was the reply.

THE THIRD HARVEST had begun, and Elijah was the governor of Akbar. There had been great resistance at first; the old governor had attempted to return and reoccupy his position, for such did custom dictate. The inhabitants of the city, however, refused to admit him and for days threatened to poison the water in the well. The Phoenician authorities finally yielded to their demands; after all, Akbar’s only importance was the water it supplied to travelers, and the government of Israel was in the hands of a princess of Tyre. By conceding the position of governor to an Israelite, the Phoenician rulers could begin to consolidate a stronger commercial alliance.

The news spread throughout the region, carried by the merchant caravans that had begun circulating again. A minority in Israel considered Elijah the worst of traitors, but at the proper moment Jezebel would take on the task of eliminating this resistance, and peace would return to the region. The princess was content, for one of her worst foes had in the end become her greatest ally.

RUMORS OF A NEW Assyrian invasion began to arise, and the walls of Akbar were rebuilt. A new system of defense was developed, with sentinels and outposts spread between Tyre and Akbar; in this way, if one of the cities was besieged, the other could send troops overland while assuring the delivery of food by sea.

The city prospered before one’s very eyes: the new Israelite governor had created a rigorous system, based on writing, to control taxes and merchandise. The old folk of Akbar attended to it all, using new techniques for supervision, and patiently resolved the problems that arose.

The women divided their time between tending to the crops and weaving. During the period of isolation, to recover the small amount of cloth that had remained, they had been obliged to create new patterns of embroidery; when the first merchants arrived in the city, they were enchanted by the designs and placed several orders.

The children too had learned the writing of Byblos; Elijah was certain that one day this would be of help to them.

As was always his wont before the harvest, he strolled through the fields that afternoon, giving thanks to the Lord for the countless blessings bestowed upon him for all these years. He saw people with their baskets filled with grain, and around them children at play. He waved to them, and they returned his greeting.

Smiling, he walked toward the stone where, long ago, he had been given a clay tablet with the word love. It was his custom to visit that spot every day to watch the sunset and recall each instant that they had spent together.

 

“AND IT CAME TO PASS AFTER MANY DAYS, THAT THE WORD OF the Lord came to Elijah in the third year, saying, Go, shew thyself unto Ahab; and I will send rain upon the earth.”

FROM THE STONE WHERE HE SAT, ELIJAH SAW THE world shudder about him. The sky turned black for an instant, but the sun quickly shone again.

He saw the light. An angel of the Lord was before him.

“What has happened?” asked Elijah, startled. “Has the Lord pardoned Israel?”

“No,” answered the angel. “He desireth that thou return to liberate thy people. Thy struggle with Him is ended, and—at this moment—he hath blessed thee. He hath given thee leave to continue His work in that land.”

Elijah was astonished.

“But, now, just when my heart has again found peace?”

“Recall the lesson once taught thee,” said the angel. “And recall the words the Lord spake unto Moses:

“And thou shalt remember all the way which the Lord thy God led thee to humble thee, and to prove thee. To know what was in thine heart.

“Lest when thou hast eaten and art full, and hast built goodly houses, and dwelt therein, and when thy herds and thy flocks multiply, then thine heart be lifted up, and thou forget the Lord thy God.”

Elijah turned to the angel. “What about Akbar?” he asked.

“It can live without thee, for thou hast left an heir. It will survive for many years.”

The angel of the Lord disappeared.

ELIJAH AND THE BOY ARRIVED AT THE FOOT OF THE Fifth Mountain. Weeds had grown between the stones of the altars; since the high priest’s death no one had gone there.

“Let’s climb it,” he said.

“It’s forbidden.”

“Yes, it’s forbidden. But that doesn’t mean it’s dangerous.”

He took him by both hands, and they began climbing toward the top. They stopped from time to time to gaze at the valley below; the absence of rain had left its mark throughout the countryside, and with the exception of the cultivated fields around Akbar, everything seemed a desert as harsh as those of Egypt.

“I’ve heard my friends say the Assyrians are coming back,” the boy said.

“That could be, but what we have done was worthwhile; it was the way that God chose to teach us.”

“I don’t know if He bothers much with us,” the boy said. “He didn’t have to be so severe.”

“He must have tried other means before discovering that we were not listening to Him. We were too accustomed to our lives and no longer read His words.”

“Where are they written?”

“In the world around us. Merely be attentive to what happens in your life, and you will discover where, every moment of the day, He hides His words and His will. Seek to do as He asks: this alone is the reason you are in the world.”

“If I discover it, I’ll write it on clay tablets.”

“Do so. But write them, above all, in your heart; there they can be neither burned nor destroyed, and you will take them wherever you go.”

They walked for some time more. The clouds were now very close.

“I don’t want to go there,” the boy said, pointing to them.

“They will do you no harm: they’re just clouds. Come with me.”

He took him by the hands, and they climbed. Little by little, they found themselves entering the fog. The boy clung to him, and although Elijah tried to talk to him now and again, he said not a word. They walked among the naked rocks of the summit.

“Let’s go back,” asked the boy.

Elijah decided not to insist; the boy had already experienced great difficulties and much fear in his short life. He did as he was asked; they came out from the fog and could once again discern the valley below.

“Someday, look in Akbar’s library for what I wrote for you. It’s called The Manual of the Warrior of Light.”

“Am I a warrior of light?” replied the boy.

“Do you know what my name is?” asked Elijah.

“Liberation.”

“Sit here beside me,” said Elijah, pointing to a rock. “I cannot forget my name. I must continue with my task, even if at this moment all I desire is to be at your side. That was why Akbar was rebuilt, to teach us that it is necessary to go onward, however difficult it may appear.”

“You’re going away.”

“How do you know?” he asked, surprised.

“I wrote it on a tablet, last night. Something told me; it may have been my mother, or an angel. But I already felt it in my heart.”

Elijah caressed the boy’s head.

“You have learned to read God’s will,” he said contentedly. “So there’s nothing that I need to explain to you.”

“What I read was the sadness in your eyes. It wasn’t difficult. Other friends of mine noticed it too.”

“This sadness you read in my eyes is part of my story. Only a small part that will last but a few days. Tomorrow, when I depart for Jerusalem, it will not have the strength it had before, and little by little it will disappear. Sadness does not last forever when we walk in the direction of that which we always desired.”

“Is it always necessary to leave?”

“It’s always necessary to know when a stage of one’s life has ended. If you stubbornly cling to it after the need has passed, you lose the joy and meaning of the rest. And you risk being shaken to your senses by God.”

“The Lord is stern.”

“Only with those He has chosen.”

ELIJAH LOOKED AT AKBAR below. Yes, God sometimes could be very stern, but never beyond a person’s capacity: the boy was unaware that they were sitting where Elijah had received an angel of the Lord and learned how to bring him back from the dead.

“Are you going to miss me?” Elijah asked.

“You told me that sadness disappears if we press ahead. There’s still much to do to leave Akbar as beautiful as my mother deserves. She walks in its streets.”

“Come back to this place when you have need of me. And look toward Jerusalem: I shall be there, seeking to give meaning to my name, Liberation. Our hearts are linked forever.”

“Was that why you brought me to the top of the Fifth Mountain? So I could see Israel?”

“So you could see the valley, the city, the other mountains, the rocks and clouds. The Lord often has his prophets climb mountains to converse with Him. I always wondered why He did that, and now I know the answer: when we are on high, we can see everything else as small.

“Our glory and our sadness lose their importance. Whatever we conquered or lost remains there below. From the heights of the mountain, you see how large the world is, and how wide its horizons.”

The boy looked about him. From the top of the Fifth Mountain, he could smell the sea that bathed the beaches of Tyre. And he could hear the desert wind that blew from Egypt.

“Someday I’ll govern Akbar,” he told Elijah. “I know what’s big. But I also know every corner of the city. I know what needs to be changed.”

“Then change it. Don’t let things remain idle.”

“Couldn’t God have chosen a better way of showing us all this? There was a time when I thought He was evil.”

Elijah said nothing. He recalled a conversation, many years before, with a Levite prophet while the two awaited death at the hands of Jezebel’s soldiers.

“Can God be evil?” the boy insisted.

“God is all-powerful,” answered Elijah. “He can do anything, and nothing is forbidden to Him, for if it were, there would exist someone more powerful than He, to prevent His doing certain things. In that case, I should prefer to worship and revere that more powerful someone.”

He paused for several instants to allow the boy to fathom the meaning of his words. Then he continued.

“Still, because of His infinite power, He chose to do only Good. If we reach the end of our story, we shall see that often Good is disguised as Evil, but it goes on being the Good, and is part of the plan that He created for humanity.”

He took the boy by the hand, and together they descended the mountain in silence.

THAT NIGHT, the boy went to sleep in his arms. As soon as day began to break, Elijah carefully removed him from his bosom so he would not awaken him.

He quickly donned the only garment he possessed and departed. On the road, he picked up a piece of wood from the ground and used it as a staff. He planned never to be without it: it was the remembrance of his struggle with God, of the destruction and rebuilding of Akbar.

Without looking back, he continued toward Israel.

FIVE YEARS LATER, ASSYRIA AGAIN INVADED THE COUNTRY, this time with a more professional army and more competent generals. All Phoenicia fell under the domination of the foreign conqueror except Tyre and Zarephath, which its inhabitants called Akbar.

The boy became a man, governed the city, and was judged a sage by his contemporaries. He died in the fullness of his years, surrounded by loved ones and saying always that “it was necessary to keep the city beautiful and strong, for his mother still strolled its streets.” Because of their joint system of defense, Tyre and Zarephath were not occupied by the Assyrian king Sennacherib until 701 B.C., almost 160 years after the events related in this book.

From that time on, Phoenician cities never recovered their importance and began to suffer a series of invasion—by the Neo-Babylonians, the Persians, the Macedonians, the Seleucids, and, finally, by Rome. Even so, they continue to exist in our own time because, according to ancient tradition, the Lord never selected at random the places He wished to see inhabited. Tyre, Sidon, and Byblos are still part of Lebanon, which even today remains a battlefield.

ELIJAH RETURNED TO ISRAEL AND CALLED THE PROPHETS together at Mount Carmel. There he asked them to divide into two groups: those who worshiped Baal, and those who believed in the Lord. Following the angel’s instructions, he offered a bullock to the first group and asked them to call out to the heavens for their gods to receive it. The Bible says:

“And it came to pass at noon, that Elijah mocked them, and said, Cry aloud: for he is a god; either he is talking, or he is pursuing, or he is in a journey, or peradventure he sleepeth, and must be awaked.

“And they cried aloud, and cut themselves after their manner with knives and lancets, till the blood gushed out upon them.

“And there was neither voice, nor any to answer, nor any that regarded.”

Then Elijah took his animal and offered it, following the angel’s instructions. At that moment the fire of heaven descended and “consumed the burnt sacrifice, and the wood, and the stones.” Minutes later, a heavy rain fell, ending four years of drought.

From that moment, civil war broke out. Elijah ordered the execution of the prophets who had betrayed the Lord, and Jezebel sought him everywhere, to kill him. He fled, however, to the eastern part of the Fifth Mountain, which faced Israel.

The Syrians invaded the country and killed King Ahab, husband of the princess of Tyre, with an accidentally shot arrow that entered an opening in his armor. Jezebel took refuge in her palace and, following several popular revolts and the rise and fall of various governments, was captured. She preferred leaping from a window to giving herself up to the men sent to arrest her.

Elijah remained on the mountain until the end of his days. The Bible says that one afternoon, when he was conversing with Elisha, the prophet he had named as his successor, “there appeared a chariot of fire, and horses of fire, and parted them both asunder; and Elijah went up by a whirlwind into heaven.”

Almost eight hundred years later, Jesus bade Peter, James, and John to climb a mountain. The Gospel according to Matthew relates that Jesus “was transfigured before them; and his face did shine as the sun, and his raiment was white as the light. And, behold, there appeared unto them Moses and Elias talking with him.”

Jesus asks the apostles not to speak of this vision until the Son of Man be risen from the dead, but they reply that this will happen only when Elijah returns.

Matthew 17:10—13 tells the rest of the story:

Zd his disciples asked him, saying, Why then say the scribes that Elias must first come?

“And Jesus answered and said unto them, Elias truly shall first come, and restore all things. But I say unto you, That Elias is come already, and they knew him not, but have done unto him whatsoever they listed.

“Then the disciples understood that he spake unto them of John the Baptist.”

MARIA CONCEIVED WITHOUT SIN, PRAY FOR US WHO call on Thee. Amen.