"Jo Walton - The Rebirth of Pan" - читать интересную книгу автора (Walton Jo)

make-up in the same style, and their clothes match their shoes and their bags. Their hair is groomed.
They all read the same paper "The London Evening Standard" and their faces are all the same. I would
know they were English anywhere, by the way they hold their heads. French people would never hold
their heads like that.

I glance back to the little man opposite. He's still looking at me, with an expression of concern and
caring. He reminds me of someone, or I have seen him before somewhere. I can't tell if he's English or
not. The train is coming in to Finchley Road, already. Soon it will plunge down into the darkness. People
are shifting about, getting ready to get off, changing for the Metropolitan line. He smiles at me, and
stands. He puts out a hand towards me, almost hesitantly, and I see the mark on the palm. Oh Lord
Jesus, here? Now? I don't know what to do. Should I kneel? I start to slip forward from the seat, as I
would in church. The man next to me pushes past me impatiently, muttering something angry. I almost fall,
and He catches me for a moment in His arms, and I feel—I don't know what I feel, it is so strange, so
unaccustomed, over too quickly. Bliss. Love. Joy. Then He is gone, whether onto the platform or back
to heaven I don't know. I am sitting again, and the train rattles down into the sudden darkness of the
underground tunnels.

All the way to Baker Street I think about the strangeness of it. He didn't speak, I'm sure of that, but
I know what He meant, in His compassion and His embrace. He meant that I must love Him. He meant
that I must do more than fulfil my part of the bargain I made with His father. He meant that it was wrong
to bargain, but he forgave me anyway. I must not just obey Him and give myself to Him, I must also love
Him. It was easy to love Him while He touched me, and even now, sitting here in the close memory of it,
it is easy. But I know this feeling will fade. I change to the Bakerloo Line at Baker Street, walking fast,
feet clacking on tiles, past walls lined with hundreds of silhouettes of Holmes with his pipe and
deerstalker, changing from grey to brown as I change platforms. Already my worry about Elly is flooding
back against the rapture.

I push onto the tube train. I stand, hanging onto the rounded brown plastic bulb at the end of a
coiled metal strap. In the Metro in Paris, do they still have leather straps? I'll probably have to stand all
the way to Waterloo Station. I usually do, but often I have a pole to hold, which is better. I am pressed
around by strangers, I shall not fear. They do not see me. I am anonymous. I clutch my bag tightly under
my arm. Jesus loves me. I sound like one of those ridiculous evangelists we saw on television in
California. But it is true. He loves me, despite what I am and what I have done. He forgives me. That is
different from the hard bargain I made with God and Father O'Malley. Hanging here from the strap,
lurching with a practised shuffle every time the train corners, I feel finally forgiven my sins, as I did not at
Farm Street.

Father O'Malley was horrified at my confession. He was just one step away from driving the
demons out of me, I could tell. "Why would I have come, if not to be shriven and give it up?" I asked. He
held out a big silver crucifix and spoke in Latin. It was then he cautioned me against making bargains with
God, then he began to set out conditions.

The first was simple, that I should give up worshipping all other gods. All false gods, he said. I
agreed, easily. I had come to the Church for protection. If the old gods could have protected me I would
not have had to turn away from them. I knew the stories. I knew that for what Colin and I had done there
was only condemnation there. They could not protect me from what came to Oedipus, to Jocasta, to
their children. Only the encompassing forgiveness of the Church could do that. Next, Father O'Malley
refused my plea to accept all the guilt and have Colin forgiven on my behalf. He was implacable. He said
he could only forgive him if Colin came and confessed. I knew he would never do that. I begged and
pleaded with Father O'Malley, but he would not be moved. He said that the child, only a mound in my