Fifth Mountain

"Your duty was to destroy a city of righteous men?"

"A city does not die, only its inhabitants and the ideas they bore within themselves. One day, others will come to Akbar, drink its water, and the stone that its founder left behind will be polished and cared for by new priests. Leave me now; my pain will soon be over, while your despair will endure for the rest of your life."

The mutilated body was breathing with difficulty, and Elijah left him. At that moment, a group of people--men, women, and children--came running toward him and encircled him.

"It was you!" they shouted. "You dishonored your homeland and brought a curse upon our city!"

"May the gods bear witness to this! May they know who is to blame!"

The men pushed him and shook him by the shoulders. The boy pulled loose from his hands and disappeared. The others struck him in the face, the chest, the back, but his only thoughts were for the boy; he had not even been able to keep him at his side.

The beating did not last long; perhaps his assailants were themselves weary of so much violence. Elijah fell to the ground.

"Leave this place!" someone said. "You have repaid our love with your hatred!"

The group withdrew. Elijah did not have the strength to rise to his feet. When he recovered from the shame, he had ceased to be the same man. He desired neither to die nor to go on living. He desired nothing: he possessed no love, no hate, no faith.

HE AWOKE to someone touching his face. It was still night, but the moon was no longer in the sky.

"I promised my mother that I'd take care of you," the boy said. "But I don't know what to do."

"Go back to the city. The people there are good, and someone will take you in."

"You're hurt. I need to attend to your arm. Maybe an angel will come and tell me what to do."

"You're ignorant, you know nothing about what's happening!" Elijah shouted. "The angels will come no more because we're common folk, and everyone is weak when faced with suffering. When tragedy occurs, let people fend for themselves!"

He took a deep breath, trying to calm himself; there was no point in arguing further.

"How did you find your way here?"

"I never left."

"Then you saw my shame. You saw that there is nothing left for me to do in Akbar."

"You told me that all life's battles teach us something, even those we lose."

He remembered the walk to the well the morning before. But it seemed as if years had passed since then, and he felt the urge to tell him that those beautiful words meant nothing when one faces suffering; but he decided not to upset the boy.

"How did you escape the fire?"

The boy lowered his head. "I hadn't gone to sleep. I decided to spend the night awake, to see if you and my mother were going to meet in her room. I saw the first soldiers come in."

Elijah rose and began to walk. He was looking for the stone in front of the Fifth Mountain where one afternoon he had watched the sunset with the woman.

"I mustn't go," he thought. "I'll become even more desperate."

But some force drew him in that direction. When he arrived there, he wept bitterly; like the city of Akbar, the spot was marked by a stone, but he alone in that entire valley understood its significance; it would neither be praised by new inhabitants, nor polished by couples discovering the meaning of love.

He took the boy in his arms and once again slept.

"I'M HUNGRY AND THIRSTY," THE BOY TOLD ELIJAH AS soon as he awoke.

"We can go to the home of one of the shepherds who live nearby. It's likely nothing happened to them because they didn't live in Akbar."

"We need to repair the city. My mother said that she was Akbar."

What city? No longer was there a palace, a market, or walls. The city's good people had turned into robbers, and its young soldiers had been massacred. Nor would the angels return, though this was the least among his problems.