Wilfred Lever, son of ambitious missionaries, is wrenched from his life in an Indian village by a prophecy: he shall be Elijah in his own country. Sent to Adelaide to stay with a perverted aunt, he is well into adolescence when his family joins him there. In the first manifestation of a burgeoning power complex, he forces himself upon his sister, now a deeply desirable young woman. The prophecy seals Wilfred's moral doom as the institutional nature of his life protects him from retribution. A character with no moral compass, he gets away with corruption and hypocrisy. But when Wilfred rapes his niece, it seems his number is up. The board forces Wilfred's resignation, but at his lowest point, it seems the prophecy really is true. The church is priming him for politics: all his travails have led him to this moment, where at last he is on the brink of true power.