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

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