The Rebirth of Pan | Page 5

is still dead.

2. LORD OF THE VINE
A world is more than days and place and folk
a world is dreams and vision, thought and word
a living thing that breathes, and grows and dies
and once the thread is cut will wake no more.
Yanni was not the best shoemaker on the island of Ithyka, but he was the one who made sandals for the gods.
Ithyka was an island famed throughout all of Greece for its shoes and shoemakers. There the old craft of shoemaking was kept alive, and the old families of shoemakers handed down the trade secrets to each new generation. Some said that the sandals made on Ithyka were the same as those worn by Homer himself. It was true enough that their like could be seen on many an old vase and bowl. The same was true of sandals made up and down the Aegean, but somehow the reputation of the shoemakers of this little green westerly island stood above the rest.
As everyone acknowledged that Ithyka was the best island for shoemaking, so everyone acknowledged that the very best shoemaker on Ithyka was Yanni's uncle Spiro. Spiro could make shoes that would almost walk on their own, as the saying was, with stitches so tiny they could hardly be seen. Spiro was so exclusive he made shoes only for shoemakers. Yanni was not the most expensive shoemaker either. That was his cousin Kosta, with his airy wood-panelled shop and his long waiting list of rich Athenians longing to wear his handcrafted sandals. Nor was he the cheapest, the cheap cobblers all worked down at the far end of the harbour near the stinking tannery, in the part of the whitewashed maze of streets known as the streets of the leatherworkers. All the good leatherworkers had long since moved from those little cramped workshops and found little cramped workshops scattered around the town in more salubriously scented areas. Yanni's workshop was only two streets back from the harbour, on a corner opposite the whitewashed dome of Ag. Nikolaos's chapel and the priest's house. The little shop smelled of new leather and leathergoods, and of the jasmine which grew wild up the side of the iron staircase at the back of the building.
All the people who came into Yanni's shop paused, blinked and sniffed. Outside the sunlight was like a solid wall of heat and brightness. The contrast of stepping through the hanging bags and sandals into the shadowed interior was too much for human eyes. At the same moment the newcomer would pause, inhale the characteristic fresh leather and jasmine smell of the shop and sniff to catch it again. Yanni sat in the back of the shop, at a little table with his set of lasts, working with leather. Whenever anyone walked in he would glance up and watch them blink and sniff. Mostly it was someone he knew, a regular wanting another pair of sandals or a leather bag. Often enough it was a tourist, who would gush enchantedly over everything from the donkeys tied up outside to the quality of workmanship. Whoever it was, Yanni would sum them up in one rapid glance. It was his only hesitation in his work, and it was very brief. Even before his youngest sister Taxeia bustled up to the customer and tried to sell them something, Yanni would drop his eyes to the grey iron of his last, the pale gold leather and the tools in his hands.
Just occasionally someone would come to the door and step inside without pause, blink or sniff. That was Yanni's signal to put down his work, dismiss Taxeia with a smile, and step forward, attentive to his holy patron. What happened after Taxeia scampered up the iron ladder to the upstairs room, what size and style sandals the gods wore, and what coin they used, were things he never told anyone. Indeed, he was a very close-mouthed man, even for a shoemaker.
When people asked him questions about Them he just smiled, or agreed that he was indeed a fortunate man and tried to turn the conversation aside. When Yanni had inherited the mantle of holy shoemaker at his grandfather's death there was some surprise and muttering among the other shoemakers. Spiro in particular was jealous, and quarrelled bitterly with his sister, Yanni's mother Dafni. Though as time went on Yanni's status and his discretion became known and accepted things. Everyone became used to the state of affairs which was after all in no way remarkable.
When his neighbour, Pappa Andros, the local priest, asked him about his visitors he was careful to refer to them always as "Agios"--"the holy", a word in common use for saints and gods alike. Pappa Andros did not press him. He was a local man, and the gods had always had