she didn't know how to read.
Meanwhile, the old man persisted in his attempt to strike up a conversation. He said that he was tired and thirsty, and asked if he might have a sip of the boy's wine. The boy offered his bottle, hoping that the old man would leave him alone.
But the old man wanted to talk, and he asked the boy what book he was reading. The boy was tempted to be rude, and move to another bench, but his father had taught him to be respectful of the elderly. So he held out the book to the man—for two reasons: first, that he, himself, wasn't sure how to pronounce the title; and second, that if the old man didn't know how to read, he would probably feel ashamed and decide of his own accord to change benches.
'Hmm…' said the old man, looking at all sides of the book, as if it were some strange object. 'This is an important book, but it's really irritating.'
The boy was shocked. The old man knew how to read, and had already read the book. And if the book was irritating, as the old man had said, the boy still had time to change it for another.
'It's a book that says the same thing almost all the other books in the world say,' continued the old man. 'It describes people's inability to choose their own destinies. And it ends up saying that everyone believes the world's greatest lie.'
'What's the world's greatest lie?' the boy asked, completely surprised.
'It's this: that at a certain point in our lives, we lose control of what's happening to us, and our lives become controlled by fate. That's the world's greatest lie.'
'That's never happened to me,' the boy said. 'They wanted me to be a priest, but I decided to become a shepherd.'
'Much better,' said the old man. 'Because you really like to travel.'
'He knew what I was thinking,' the boy said to himself. The old man, meanwhile, was leafing through the book, without seeming to want to return it at all. The boy noticed that the man's clothing was strange. He looked like an Arab, which was not unusual in those parts. Africa was only a few hours from Tarifa; one had only to cross the narrow straits by boat. Arabs often appeared in the city, shopping and chanting their strange prayers several times a day.
'Where are you from?' the boy asked.
'From many places.'
'No one can be from many places,' the boy said. 'I'm a shepherd, and I have been to many places, but I come from only one place—from a city near an ancient castle. That's where I was born.'
'Well then, we could say that I was born in Salem.'
The boy didn't know where Salem was, but he didn't want to ask, fearing that he would appear ignorant. He looked at the people in the plaza for a while; they were coming and going, and all of them seemed to be very busy.
'So, what is Salem like?' he asked, trying to get some sort of clue.
'It's like it always has been.'
No clue yet. But he knew that Salem wasn't in Andalusia. If it were, he would already have heard of it.
'And what do you do in Salem?' he insisted.
'What do I do in Salem?' The old man laughed. 'Well, I'm the king of Salem!'
People say strange things, the boy thought. Sometimes it's better to be with the sheep, who don't say anything. And better still to be alone with one's books. They tell their incredible stories at the time when you want to hear them. But when you're talking to people, they say some things that are so strange that you don't know how to continue the conversation.
'My name is Melchizedek,' said the old man. 'How many sheep do you have?'
'Enough,' said the boy. He could see that the old man wanted to know more about his life.
'Well, then, we've got a problem. I can't help you if you feel you've got enough sheep.'
The boy was getting irritated. He wasn't asking for help. It was the old man who had asked for a drink of his wine, and had started the conversation.
'Give me my book,' the boy said. 'I have to go and gather my sheep and get going.'
'Give me one-tenth of your sheep,' said the old man, 'and I'll tell you how to find the hidden treasure.'
The boy remembered his dream, and suddenly everything was clear to him. The old woman hadn't charged him anything, but the old man—maybe he was her husband—was going to find a way to get much more money in exchange for information about something that didn't even exist. The old man was probably a Gypsy, too.
But before the boy could say anything, the old man leaned over, picked up a stick, and began to write in the sand of the plaza. Something bright reflected from his chest with such intensity that the boy was momentarily blinded. With a movement that was too quick for someone his age, the man covered whatever it was with his cape. When his vision returned to normal, the boy was able to read what the old man had written in the sand.
There, in the sand of the plaza of that small city, the boy read the names of his father and his mother and the name of the seminary he had attended. He read the name of the merchant's daughter, which he hadn't even known, and he read things he had never told anyone.
*
'I'm the king of Salem,' the old man had said.
'Why would a king be talking with a shepherd?' the boy asked, awed and embarrassed.
'For several reasons. But let's say that the most important is that you have succeeded in discovering your
