He pushes open the door and sees Leonora sitting behind her desk. She looks different here, her authority is unmistakable

Strange. The door of his home is closed. Eliyahu pauses, hand hovering over the handle. Usually, it is ajar, and children dash in and out. Now it is quiet.

Ordinarily, late afternoon when he comes home from shearing or tending the flock, the soup kitchen is still swarming. With full bellies, the children are less inclined to bicker. Instead, they spin pebbles or chant Mishnayot. Some of the older boys are happy hauling pots to and from the courtyard, where they will be scrubbed and cleaned and then hung up from hooks on the ceiling to wait for the next day’s fare.

Eliyahu steps inside. He looks around. Where are the children? His heart begins to thud. Sweat breaks out on the back of his neck. What has happened? Who has died? Or has an earthquake struck the town while he was safe in the hills? But he would have felt it, he would have fallen to the ground as the earth rippled, would he not?

Where, then, are all the children?

He hesitates for a moment, then the dam in his mind loosens and movement flows into his limbs. He runs. Out of the house, down the cobblestoned street, and into the courtyard where the great woman, Leonora, lives.

He steps into the dim cool of the stone house. There are voices and the clip of wooden soles on a stone floor. A passing servant directs him to the office of the great lady. He pushes open the door and sees Leonora sitting behind her desk. She looks different here, her authority is unmistakable. In the soup kitchen, she is just an older lady, hungry like everyone else, for food, for warmth, for being remembered.

She looks up, and he sees that it was not just his thoughts running away from him. There is something in her eyes. They seem… less willing to listen, more inclined to dictate.

And he feels smaller here. Overgrown. Shabby. His clothes, which bothered him when he first arrived in Tzfat, seem to matter again.