The Fifth Mountain

The crow, however, took flight. Elijah went on waiting for Jezebel’s soldiers to arrive, for dying a single time sufficed.

The day went by without anything happening. Could they have forgotten that the principal enemy of the god Baal still lived? Jezebel must know where he was; why did she not pursue him?

“Because I saw her eyes, and she is a wise woman,” he told himself. “If I were to die, I would live on as a martyr of the Lord. If I’m thought of as just a fugitive, I’ll be merely a coward who had no faith in his own words.”

Yes, that was the princess’s strategy.

SHORTLY BEFORE NIGHTFALL, a crow—could it be the same one?—perched on the bough where he had seen it that morning. In its beak was a small piece of meat that it accidentally dropped.

To Elijah, it was a miracle. He ran to the spot beneath the tree, picked up the chunk of meat, and ate it. He didn’t know from where it had come, nor did he wish to know; what was important was his being able to satisfy a small part of his hunger.

Even with his sudden movement, the crow did not fly away.

“This crow knows I’m going to starve to death here,” he thought. “He’s feeding his prey so he can have a better feast later.”

Even as Jezebel fed the faith of Baal with news of Elijah’s flight.

The two of them, man and crow, contemplated each other. Elijah recalled the game he had played that morning.

“I would like to talk to you, crow. This morning, I had the thought that souls need food. If my soul has not yet perished of hunger, it has something still to say.”

The bird remained immobile.

“And, if it has something to say, I must listen. Because I have no one else with whom to speak,” continued Elijah.

In his imagination Elijah was transformed into the crow.

“What it is that God expects of you?” he asked himself, as if he were the crow.

“He expects me to be a prophet.”

“This is what the priests said. But it may not be what God desires.”

“Yes, it is what He wants. An angel appeared to me in my shop and asked me to speak with Ahab. The voices I heard as a child—”

“Everyone hears voices as a child,” interrupted the crow.

“But not everyone sees an angel,” Elijah said.

This time the crow did not reply. After an interval, the bird—or rather, his own soul, delirious from the sun and loneliness of the desert—broke the silence.

“Do you remember the woman who used to make bread?” he asked himself.

ELIJAH REMEMBERED. She had come to ask him to make some trays. While Elijah was doing as she asked, he heard her say that her work was a way of expressing the presence of God.

“From the way you make the trays, I can see that you have the same feeling,” she had continued. “Because you smile as you work.”

The woman divided human beings into two groups: those who took joy in, and those who complained about, what they did. The latter affirmed that the curse cast upon Adam by God was the only truth: “Cursed is the ground for thy sake; in sorrow shalt thou eat of it all the days of thy life.” They took no pleasure in work and were annoyed on feast days, when they were obliged to rest. They used the Lord’s words as an excuse for their futile lives, forgetting that He had also said to Moses: “For the Lord shall greatly bless thee in the land which the Lord thy God giveth thee for an inheritance to possess it.”

“Yes, I remember the woman. She was right; I did enjoy my work in the carpentry shop. She taught me to talk to things.”

“If you had not worked as a carpenter, you would not have been able to place your soul outside yourself, to pretend that it is a crow talking, and to understand that you are better and wiser than you believe,” came the reply. “Because it was in the carpentry shop that you discovered the sacred that is in all things.”

“I always took pleasure in pretending to talk to the tables and chairs I built; wasn’t that enough? And when I spoke to them, I usually found thoughts that had never entered my head. The woman had told me that it was because I had put the greater part of my soul into the work, and it was this part that answered me.

“But when I was beginning to understand that I could serve God in this way, the angel appeared, and—well, you know the rest.”

“The angel appeared because you were ready,” replied the crow.

“I was a good carpenter.”

“It was part of your apprenticeship. When a man journeys toward his destiny, often he is obliged to change paths. At other times, the forces around him are too powerful and he is compelled to lay aside his courage and yield. All this is part of the apprenticeship.”

Elijah listened attentively to what his soul was saying.

“But no one can lose sight of what he desires. Even if there are moments when he believes the world and the others are stronger. The secret is this: do not surrender.”

“I never thought of being a prophet,” Elijah said.

“You did, but you were convinced that it was impossible. Or that it was dangerous. Or that it was unthinkable.”

Elijah rose.

“Why do you tell me what I have no wish to hear?”

Startled at the movement, the bird fled.

THE BIRD RETURNED the next morning. Instead of resuming the conversation, Elijah began to observe it, for the animal always managed to feed itself and always brought him the food that remained.

A mysterious friendship developed between the pair, and Elijah began to learn from the bird. Observing it, he saw that it managed to find food in the desert, and he discovered that he could survive for a few more days if he learned to do the same. When the crow’s flight turned into a circle, Elijah knew there was prey at hand; he would run to the spot and try to catch it. At first, many of the small animals living there escaped, but he gradually acquired the skill and agility to capture them. He used branches as spears and dug traps, which he disguised with a fine layer of twigs and sand. When the quarry fell, Elijah would divide his food with the crow, then set aside part to use as bait.

But the solitude in which he found himself was terrible and oppressive, which is why he decided again to pretend he was conversing with the crow.

“Who are you?” asked the crow.

“I’m a man who has found peace,” replied Elijah. “I can live in the desert, provide for myself, and contemplate the endless beauty of God’s creation. I have discovered that there resides in me a soul better than ever I thought.”

They continued hunting together for another moon. Then one night when his soul was possessed by sorrow, he asked himself again, “Who are you?”

“I don’t know.”

ANOTHER MOON DIED and was reborn in the sky. Elijah felt that his body was stronger, his mind more clear. Tonight he turned to the crow, who was perched on the same branch as always, and answered the question he had asked some days before.

“I am a prophet. I saw an angel as I worked, and I cannot doubt what I am capable of doing, even if the entire world should tell me the opposite. I brought about a massacre in my country by challenging the one closest to the king’s heart. I’m in the desert, as before I was in a carpentry shop, because my soul told me that a man must go through various stages before he can fulfill his destiny.”

“Yes, and now you know who you are,” commented the crow.

That night, when Elijah returned from the hunt, he went to drink and found that the Cherith had dried up. But he was so weary that he decided to sleep.