The Scent of the blueberry -- 16

“Like having an abortion,” she repeated. “You’re right – I deserved that.” Silence. “Maybe no sane woman. Or no decent woman.”

“I didn’t mean it that way. You’ve got to stop beating yourself up like that. Anyway, do you want to hear the story or not?”

“Sure. Why not. After all this is over, I’ll just have to take up karaoke.”

“Yeah, right. Anyway, nothing happened for a very long time. I kept up my training and prepared for a war that never seemed to come. I began to think that I was wasting my time – that we were all wasting our time. I didn’t realize that the Adversary was also preparing – reading the same books, learning the same martial arts, marshalling support among the other ang-, uh . . . people.

“And it all came to a head at some point?”

“Yes. I received a summons, and found myself addressing the largest army I had ever seen. My army. My army to command. I looked out at them, and I saw the jealousy in the eyes of my generals – far older and more experienced than me – and heard them whisper to each other. This kid? I got passed over for this kid? What kind of joke is this?”

“And I looked at the soldiers, and I looked in their eyes. And I knew that they figured that here was a kid whose only wounds were the paper cuts he had received from his books. And all I wanted to do was walk away. Turn around and walk away.”

“But you didn’t.”

“No. I didn’t. I knew they wanted me to speak – to say something to inspire them. They knew that the forces against them were well-trained and equipped – and the Adversary was noted for his ability as a general. A brilliant leader – and charismatic.”

“And what did you say?”

“I opened my mouth, and a croak came out. I sounded like you after the blueberry scent had taken hold. So I took a sip of water and tried again. My voice cracked, and I thought I was going to wet my pants.”

“You were that afraid?”

“Yes, that afraid. I wasn’t afraid of death, you understand, or even of failure. I was afraid that I might succeed.”

“Evelyn looked at him. “Now I really don’t understand.”

“Until then I had always believed that it was all temporary. They would find out that the threat wasn’t real. Or it would be real, and we would take care of it and go home. But when I was standing up there, I realized that, if I succeeded, I would be a hero. I could never go home again – never write a song, never look at the clouds without calculating whether they would produce too much rain for the cavalry. The thought of losing, the fear of losing, was unbearable – but the idea of winning was almost more than I could bear.”

Silence. “Do you suppose that the other men sensed it?”

“They certainly sensed something. By the time I had managed to move my voice into a reasonable register and start to say something that was vaguely inspirational, I could see that a few of the soldiers in the back were slipping away. The officers – I don’t know what they thought. A few of them told me later. The whole thing was pretty embarrassing.”

“It sounds horrible.”

“I couldn’t walk through the camp without people nudging each other and whispering. If the Adversary had had any spies in the camp, he was probably rolling on the ground laughing when he heard their reports.”

“No doubt.”

“Maybe that was the idea. I don’t know. I do know that there were at least 5 generals who were far better qualified for the job than I was. If it had been any other group, I would probably have suffered a convenient accident before the battle, but God’s troops don’t operate that way.”

“I would suppose not.”

“I thought that I might get some advice from God himself, but he seemed to be busy with the construction project. At the time I thought that it was the most bizarre thing in the world – to be preoccupied with a construction project while an upstart warrior is threatening to dethrone you. But there is an advantage to working for someone who can see the future, and the whole thing worked out very well.”

“What do you mean?”

“I’ll tell you after lunch. Let’s stop here.”