The Rebirth of Pan

THE REBIRTH OF PAN Jo Walton
Copyright Jo Walton 1997

Creative Commons License
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/

Table of Contents
1. NO GOOD FRIDAY
2. LORD OF THE VINE
3. MARIE, MARIE, HOLD ON TIGHT
4. LADY OF DESIRE
5. THE BROKEN MAN
6. LORD MAKER
7. THE BURNING TREE
8. GIVER OF FRUITS
9. WATERED WITH BLOOD
10. LADY OF WISDOM
11. XENIA KOPELLA
12. MOTHER EARTH
13. GREAT PAN

14. LADY OF SILENCES
15. THE ASSUMPTION
16. LORD OF THE WAVES
17. MAGIC IN THE REALISED WORLD
18. SKY FATHER
19. MARE NOSTRUM
20. LORD OF LIGHT
21. WHO ARE THESE COMING TO THE SACRIFICE?
22. THE LORD OF THE DEAD
23. THE SICKNESS OF THE PEARL
24. LORD OF BATTLES
25. LITTLE DOUBT GOD WAS A MAN
26. LORD MESSENGER
27. THE REBIRTH OF PAN
28. ATROPOS
ATROPOS
Not mine to cast the lot or spin your life.
Not mine to set the count or sew the shape.
Not mine to say how you may fill it out.
But mine to watch, and cut the final thread.

1. NO GOOD FRIDAY
(Raymond)
The dust, the crowd, the heat, the hill, the cross;
the trees, the waiting knife, the nymphs' lament;
the empty tomb; the petals white, still white--
The death of gods is not a trivial thing.
The cross looks authentically heavy. The man carrying it has the beard,
the tattered loincloth, the crown of thorns. Scourge marks are visible
from time to time when His short cloak pulls away. Even His
expression is convincing, exhausted, strained, suffering. His soulful
brown eyes are familiar from centuries of religious paintings. This
might have been Rembrandt's model. He looks exactly like the pictures
on the walls of my grandmother's house, in school, in the illustrated
children's Bible I won for good attendance in Sunday School. He isn't
terrified like the others. Nobody is making him do this. It isn't hard at
all to believe in Him.
Only the crowd spoils the illusion, too few dressed in the fashions of
Palestine two thousand years ago, too many in the fashions of today,
jeans, sweatshirts, baseball caps. They wear their technology dangling
visibly about them, black plastic curves of cameras, telephones,
walkmans. Sweat trickles down my back. I try to concentrate on the
man, the man who is taking upon himself a martyrdom more truly than
he can imagine. He is a Christian, chosen from the most devout in the
region. Or so it says in the book about the re-enactment I bought back
home in Lyons and read on the train south. It gave his name too, but I
ignored that. I want to think of Him as the Son of Man.
The incidents along the way are re-enacted faithfully. Veronica wipes
His face with her handkerchief, and holds it up to the crowd, showing
the photographic likeness. A clever touch, it is a photograph. I cannot

feel impressed, cannot see it as a miracle, though a fat woman is
weeping over it. She wears a black dress, splitting slightly under the
arms, and has a faint moustache. Her tears are genuine. For her it is real,
but to me it is only a trick; photographs are too familiar. For a moment
the gimmick jars me from the state I have worked so hard to capture
and this hot and dusty town is Siena, not Jerusalem. Everything has too
much focus. Lest I should look at Him and ruin everything, finding
Him only a man, I glance away, into the crowd. My gaze catches on the
bare neck and covered breasts of a suntanned woman in a white dress.
She is close, almost touching me. A small gold cross dangles around
her neck and rests on her skin just above her neckline. Her brown hair
has fallen forward and I cannot see her face. I concentrate, to get back
into the right state of mind.
Around me tourists are taking photographs. The locals do not. I do not
touch the camera that hangs around my own neck. It is not yet time. We
process up the street, following in His wake. The Wandering Jew
refuses to carry the cross. He is a stereotyped Shylock, with a long nose
and a rueful expression. I wonder if he is really a Jew, or a Christian in
disguise, or a rationalist for that matter, and what he thinks of this
anyway. He slinks away. Most of these people have been involved in
the re-enactment since last Sunday, from the triumphal entry under the
palms of Siena. They repeat this re-enactment every three years, the
book said, since Medieval times. It says the faithful come from all over
the world. The streets are crowded, but there are not so many faithful as
all that these days. Every three