Pan Sagittarius (2509 CE)

by Ian Wallace

  “Just hold a minute, you turned about two corners ahead of me—”

  “I’m waiting.”

  “All right now. Go on.”

  “But, Hertha, the old conjugation is renewed for each of us in egg fertilization: the sperm plunges into the egg and they interchange all their substance, and each of us is born of such a union. I believe that the urge to couple is qualitatively the same as the primeval urge to interchange oneself totally with another. What was lost in totality is regained in intensity. And it was all the same—until the primates, and especially the humans, became so intelligent that intuitively they were subaware of a missing primeval;something. So now, in all the human search for love, there lurks the genetic urge to fuse totally with one’s lover. When a man sinks into his woman, when she gratefully feels him sinking into her—as they clasp each other, with the partial interpenetration standing for the total fusion, with the surging climax guaranteeing it, with the little death which follows consummating it—just for that while they imagine that they have fused, that their individualities are no more. But then they awaken and gaze at each other—and lo, they are unchanged, each is still himself alone, another. And sensing some kind of implacable frustration, some unexpressed denial of a forgotten birthright which was after all a long-lost legacy, they gaze at each other in unconfessed disappointment, sometimes even with hatred. But then they try again—”

  Reaching up to clutch my wrist, she pulled my hand down against her bare thigh, and she whispered: “I won’t hate. I am ready when you are ready for a bout of cosmic frustration.”

  It came into me that Althea was right: with Hertha, it would have to be physical too. And I was ready, believe me: releasing myself had become a categorical imperative. Yet it was secondary and even irrelevant that the indulgence would Vogeler-please me: I could not evade without seeming to reject her; besides, without amour-consummation, for her half the symbolism and therefore all the meaning would be lost.

  Pressing my forehead hard against hers, I went deeply into myself, seeking beyond myself the composure that I needed, arriving at last at letting sense-desire spread and blend and generalize into the unique blessedness that my soul, my self, had to be in order to bring this off for good and not for evil. Far past Althea and far past Thoth I went, until mystically I knew that I was as intimate with ultimate meaning-germinality as I was ever going to be in my realistically delimited brain. And my mind whispered: Open are my eyes to the kinks in my own soul; but I have attained some degree of peace with myself, and soul is fluid, and kinks can be momentarily quarantined. So let the major volume of my soul be pure goodness and truth and beauty and laughter and caring, just for the while that this other soul is in my arms… …

  When it felt perfectly right, I laid my mouth on her open mouth, and my mind said to her mind directly: Give me slow delight, and give yourself slow delight; and when you have attained transfiguration, close your eyes and receive my soul wholly into your soul; for we are our souls, and the interweaving of our souls is total interchange of our substance.

  And then I made love to her with gentleness and with concern for her. At first it confused her, she was lost with it; but when she began to comprehend that for once in her life she was more than a thing for me, she uttered an ineffable sigh and embraced me and languorously, delectably, creatively entered into bodymeaning. Her eyes closed long before climax. When it came—not explosively, but exquisitely—I gathered her soul into the humanely purified sector of mine, washing hers with mine, cherishing hers in mine, taking hers, giving mine, returning hers tonally qualified, reclaiming mine tonally qualified…

  Long afterward, still vaguely in the dream, she rearranged herself.

  We sat side by side, holding hands.

  She studied how to say it. “I do not think I love you. I think I am you.”

  I thought she needed reassurance. “The confusion won’t last long, Hertha: you’ll quickly be entirely you, with your own memories and projects. But you won’t ever be wholly without me, even if you forget me.”

  She looked up at me soberly, squeezing my hand: “Not confusion, Pan —fusion. Why can’t all men and women know this fusion?”

  There was a woman I remembered—fifty years of her. I told Hertha: “Any couple can, gradually, if both of them will. Some of them do arrive at it, although it takes many years of little interchanges to culminate in this all-but-total interknowing. The route is called marriage, with or without a ceremony; but not everyone who sets foot on the route will reach the destination, because it takes a while of good mind-interchange even to comprehend the destination.”

  She looked down, frowning. “I will never marry, with or without a ceremony.”

  “You could marry now, if you wanted, because you have a taste of what it can eventually mean. Before, you would have ruined any marriage you might have tried.”

  She looked up, her small mouth serene. “I will never have the itch again.”

  “You will have it, but it will never have you again.”

  Her chin came still higher, she was almost smiling. “Perhaps I should marry the giant.”

  “It might be hard to get him to hold still while you bring him around to seeing what the marriage is for.”

  “For kids?”

  “For meaning.”

  “I want to give without receiving.”

  “That is quite impossible. But if you pay attention mainly to the giving, and if you always feel grateful for receiving, what you receive will strengthen your power to give.”

  “I will keep on working here. But I will specialize in the scared bashful weak ones and the poor guys who make themselves have hot rocks to prove something, and maybe I can give them some courage or some satisfying proof. But is it really giving if I take their money? But then, a girl has to live. If I were a nurse, they’d pay me, wouldn’t they, to live so I could nurse? I was going to be a nurse, I took most of the training, that’s why I could sort of understand what you said about conjugation and so on, but then a thing happened, and I…I guess I didn’t tell you, I shouldn’t marry anyway, because I can’t have children. Oh, I know now that marriage is for more, but most men don’t understand this, and it would be cheating if I couldn’t give a man children. So I guess I’ll just stay here and do what I can for the weakies and the phony hornies…Pan, thank you so much— “Pan?”

  When she had thoroughly satisfied herself that I had somehow slipped away, she lay back on the bed with her arms randomly at peace above her head on the pillow; and she seemed to be studying the ceiling, but in fact she was inwardly savoring a mood and a continuing presence.

  Just once in a long while, as a vacation from the ones who needed one or another sort of nursing—maybe the giant?

  *

  For me there were no physical consequences from Hertha, but my psychical aftermath was grim. I lingered for weeks in Hell—often with Althea, whose therapy was priceless— deliberately subjecting my soul, my self, to the purest ultrafire, until I was sure that I had cleared me of the torment that I had washed out of Hertha. Thereafter for a while I recuperated dimly in Elysium.

  Toward the end of my convalescence, visiting Althea threw me a momentary shocker: “Today in Hell I saw your Hertha.”

  Then I had blundered again with Hertha—and she was back to endure, finally, the searing therapy that I had just endured, that Lewis Paige was enduring—without my defenses of understanding and intentionality, without even Paige’s thinner defense that he didn’t really believe he was there, but naked in her defenselessly naïve soul that was now more pain-prone than ever by reason of Pan’s disastrous meddling…

  Reading me, Althea countered: “It isn’t quite like that. We tracked her new track for three weeks after you left: it was developing just fine, her new outlook was already well established through the instrumentalities of illuminated client after illuminated client. So we terminated the track before some ridiculous accident could happen. She came into Hell today transiently with a tourism
party out of Paradise, and she sent you a personal message—”

  My grin irradiated my all-at-once wholly recovered soul. “Let me guess. ‘Having a fine time, Pan—wish you were here.’”

  Part Nine

  Von Eltz in Vimy

  Yorick. I do confess me puzzled by this incident, which comes out most clearly in John 13: 21, 25, 26, 27, and 30, and I quote: “When Jesus had thus said, he was troubled in spirit, and testified, and said: ‘Verily, verily, I say to you, that one of you shall betray me.’ He then lying on Jesus’ breast said to him: ‘Lord, who is it?’ Jesus answered, ‘He it is, to whom I shall give a sop, when I have dipped it.’ And when he had dipped the sop, he gave it to Judas Iscariot, the son of Simon. And after the sop Satan entered into him. Then said Jesus to him: ’That which you do, do quickly.’ He then having received the sop went immediately out: and it was night.” End of quote.

  Rosecranz. What is puzzling?

  Yorick. Bypassing the stupidity of the witnesses who didn’t get it, I am puzzled about Jesus and Judas. If Judas knew that Jesus knew, how could Judas go through with it? And if Jesus could foresee his own betrayal, why would Jesus need Judas to get it done? And finally, if Jesus did need Judas to get it done, why is Judas damned?

  Rosecranz. Has it occurred to you that the sop-passing may in fact have been, not a prediction, but rather an instruction? In justice, of course, I should remark that Matthew and Mark told the story differently, while Luke bypassed it entirely, and your John was a creative Platonist who wrote three generations later.

  Yorick. But why with a kiss did he betray him?

  —Nike Pan, Dialogs by a Devout Sceptic (2310)

  9

  Gauleiter Von Eltz, grumpily mused ill-favored archcollaborator Dubois, was possibly the only man in the world of 1943 on Erth who could preserve his aristocratic poise asleep in an armchair. Dark Dubois, thoughtfully stroking his own big wine-ruined nose with a pudgy hand whose arm hid his dirty white bow-tie, contemplated his alien leader. The long body of fortyish Von Eltz, whose uniform was unusually open at the collar, was actually graceful in the chair: somewhat relaxed but not slumped, blond hair brushed smoothly back with a neat off-center part, right-hand knuckles gently pressing into a lean cheek beside the long straight nose, long upper lip and wide brooding thin-lipped mouth undistorted above the long firm chin, one long leg slightly extended and the other pulled back for support. The breathing of this gauleiter was quietly rhythmic. Personification of Master Race in Repose, Dubois reflected, reassuring himself once again that he had indeed cast his wartime lot with the winning side no matter what the Anglians and Vespucians might try to do in faraway Obscuria.

  Eh, but Gauleiter Von Eltz was frowning: the hard horizontal ridges emphasized the height of his forehead, the hard-together brows accentuated his hauteur. Not entirely at inward peace, eh? dreams not quite serene? In that case, Dubois—maliciously amused at this hairline crack in the master-ice—need not fear to awaken the gauleiter and summon him forth to face the angry Gallian crowd outside. Von Eltz, perhaps, would not be sorry to quit this dreaming.

  Dubois approached to touch him awake.

  The frown deepened; a foot shifted. Dubois hesitated. Perhaps Von Eltz should be left to suffer out this dream, whatever it might be: it would only take a few minutes…

  I was already in Von Eltz, he being my current assignment for reasons unknown to me; and while I was half involved in his dreaming, I had stayed half objective to appraise his minion Dubois. But the dreaming seemed to be approaching some sort of crisis; and as I had done with Lewis Paige, a less-cultured obsessive-compulsive, so now with Von Eltz, I allowed myself to be entirely seduced by his subjectivity as though I were he, confident of an awakening alarm by some approaching if-node…

  In my dreaming, I was host to twelve men at a long table: I sat centered on a long side, and I seemed to be celebrating the Sinite Passover. Reason enough for a Brunildic Junker to frown in his sleep! but in my dream, the quality was different. In the dream I was a Sinite, I felt immortally so: I was brooding inwardly, here among my dear grown-man pupils, because I was about to engineer a personal tragedy that would brutally exchange my immortality for a risky chance at eternity…

  “One of you,” casually I asserted, “will betray me.”

  After the expected moment of silent shock, they all leaned toward me with gray faces. Two or three cried: “It isn’t I?”

  I inspected them. Already I had decided who it should be, but now at the last I hesitated—it was not easy to announce, for of course I knew how it would be for him. Should it be another instead? Not Peter—this vigorous man was needed for the future. Not John—he’d get mad and rebel. And so on…

  Again it narrowed to the first choice: Judas the zealot.

  I began to pronounce the name of Judas. My eyes met the deep suffering Judas-eyes. Loving pity suffused me. My eyes dropped.

  I said softly, evading the bitter naming of his name: “It will be the one to whom I pass the sop.”

  I dipped. I held the dripping sop an instant over my flagon—the body and the blood, good bread and the good good wine.

  Silently I passed the sop to Judas.

  He did not take it.

  All the twelve were rigid.

  I demanded: “Do you love me?”

  Judas nodded.

  I commanded: “Take it!”

  After a moment, he took it—not with his fingers, but with his lips from my fingers.

  A kind of group groan came out of them. Some of it was relief on the part of the eleven who were not offered the sop.

  Said Judas thoughtfully, with controlled detachment: “It must be I?” He was fighting for this control. It was not like Judas to control himself, or even to try.

  I said in the same tone: “Who else could it be?”

  He studied the ceiling. I thought his stare might be piercing the ceiling—looking for God, maybe.

  I told him, trying to be stem: “Be off about your business.”

  He arose and went to go.

  He paused.

  He came up behind me and buried his face in my shoulder.

  I reminded him harshly: “Don’t forget to demand the price! The Son of Man has got to go as it is written of him!”

  His choked voice was hard to understand: “All who love you will curse me. Forever.”

  My eyes were squeezed shut. “Woe to that man,” I echoed wearily, “by whom the Son of Man is betrayed. It would have been good for that man if he had not been born—” Then, touching his hairy cheek, I whispered: “But I bless you, Judas—blessèd, blessèd Judas—” I gulped and blurted: “What you have to do, do quickly!”

  He sobbed.

  He went.

  And the dream shifted, as dreams do; and it was the morrow, and I was leaving a garden with the eleven behind me. And he came. Came marching sternly at the head of soldiers. Caused them to pause, as I caused the eleven to pause. Hesitated, glowering at me.

  Seeing that he needed encouragement, I called: “Friend, why have you come?”

  He let out a groaning roar, rushed headlong upon me, clasped my shoulders, burned my cheek with a passionate kiss.

  Released me.

  Astonished, I gazed at the beloved self-sacrificing wretch who now stood trembling and downcast.

  A soldier’s hand gripped and shook my shoulder; a Roman snarled in my own tongue, “You are Jesus of Nazareth?” Almost I laughed at his bad accent…

  But abruptly I comprehended Judas!

  Knew what sign he had arranged with the soldiers. Knew why THAT sign!

  “Judas,” I murmured, trying in my poor inadequate human-animal voice to convey all the love of a master and a friend for the friend who has been willing to give, not merely his life, but his soul…“Judas—it is with a kiss that you betray me?”

  Then there was confusion, and a sword flashed…

  But the point of the sword was only the prodding digit of Dubois. I held my Von Eltz hauteur as I came
awake. “There is, of course,” I suggested dryly, clearing the dream, “a reason for disturbing me?”

  Gruffly said Dubois: “You are wanted on the terrace. The man Leroy Guyon is here.”

  I meditated a moment; then I nodded, and arose, and went to a lavatory to make myself presentable. Emerging, I considered Dubois, who stood stolid awaiting me. Within myself I was quelling profound disturbance. It was another recurrence-dream, I was telling myself. Always it is a dream of recurrence. Dreaming is hardly any longer a continuity in my present. At least, awake, there is no recurrence—or I am not conscious of Dubois waited.

  Although, I reminded myself with a frosty quarter-smile, this time, at least, there was a touch of creativity. Judas was obeying a command; he was a hero.

  Shrugging, I looked at Dubois, raised an interrogatory eyebrow, and pointed to a door. Nodding, Dubois went and opened it, standing back.

  I, Gauleiter Von Eltz, emerged onto my terrace, grandly overlooking the crowd-peopled garden that sloped downward to the bank of the River Maon.

  My soldiers were handling Leroy Guyon even more roughly than the priests had done: they crushed the cuffs into his wrists, which they twisted behind him at an odd angle—and it was scientifically done, so that when they barely touched his wrists the pain shot up his arms and down into his chest. Then they thrust Guyon out of the truck and through the crowd, using him as a buffer to knock people aside. Everybody was quiet at first, and then the crowd started to jeer.