Pilgrims (22 page)

T
he pilgrims went to Vatican City the next morning and as they approached St. Peter's across the vast brick plaza ringed by colonnades, several thousand tourists were massed on the steps, waiting to enter and view the wonders within, all of them snapping pictures of each other snapping pictures of St. Peter's. At the periphery of the vast mob, tour groups stumbled along like convicts, each of them following a dapper gentleman holding up a metal shepherd's crook with a totem tied to it—a yellow flower, a stuffed lion, a plastic cardinal—as a beacon in the ocean of humanity. A group of Japanese went by like a herd of penguins, headphones clamped to their heads, listening via radio to their group leader, a tall Japanese lady in a kimono, jabbering away into a silver microphone, telling them what they were seeing. Margie could only imagine what they saw here—an enormous pagan temple where guilty Westerners (like her) came to tremble in the presence of the Three-Headed Divinity, one Head of which had been hung up on a pole and left to die and then, magically, had risen in the air on golden wings, accompanied by other avian creatures.

Carl clutched at her arm as they neared what seemed to be the end of the line to get into the basilica—which was still far in the distance—but it wasn't exactly a line: other groups leapfrogged past and still other groups pushed ahead of them. A group of elderly dark-skinned people in strange colorful cloaks stood by, dazed, tired, swaying. Were they beggars? Pigeons scurried around them as if waiting for them to collapse. The bells of St. Peter's began to clang and some car alarms started whooping, triggered by the bells. An ambulance raced by, screaming, and four buses passed, their engines grinding.

“I can't do this,” Carl whispered to her and turned away. Claustrophobia had hit him in a couple of churches and he felt waves of unbearable anxiety looking at St. Peter's. He walked away and she walked with him. “You can go in if you like. I'll wait out here… .” He waved toward the street.

“Don't be silly. We're here together.”

She was glad not to go in. She felt guilty about Paolo but even guiltier about buying an apartment without asking Carl, though it was her money, given to her by Norbert. But still—her motive was to have a place to go to escape from him. She was tingling with guilt. She had been brought up to feel that something horrible would happen to her if she set foot in a holy place when she was in a state of sin. Which she was.

Carl waved her away. Told her to go into St. Peter's—silly to come halfway around the world and not see it—but she took his arm and led him out of the plaza. “We'll come back,” she said. “You'll see. We'll come back when it's less crowded. I think maybe we should buy an apartment here.”

“Why in the world would we ever do that?”

“A romantic getaway.”

“We can't afford a getaway. We may not be able to afford to stay at home.”

The words “romantic getaway” sounded a little silly, hanging in the air. But wasn't it worth it? What price do you put on love? A half million dollars for a sweet little two-bedroom apartment with white walls and wooden shutters, looking out on a narrow street in the heart of Rome, in an 1845 building with excellent water pressure—an apartment listed for $600,000 that Maria had obtained through her friends for an enormous discount. She wanted to take him there right now. “I have a surprise for you,” she'd say, and they'd take a taxi to Via Maggio and up the stairs and there they'd be—“Our love nest, Carl!” she'd say—and maybe they'd do it right then and there. Drop their clothes on the floor and hop into bed and take the long climb up the stairway to heaven and
boom
and then lie curved against each other.

A man in a bearskin hat was selling tickets to a guided tour aboard a van that drove through the Vatican Gardens and Carl thought he could tolerate that fairly well so off they went on a narrow brick-paved alley along an ancient stone wall and around the corner of a palatial mansion where the van stopped. The driver got up out of his seat and motioned to his belly and groaned—international sign language for nausea—and off he went and did not come back. Fifteen minutes, by Carl's watch. The six other passengers seemed content to bide their time but Carl was feeling claustrophobic and had to evacuate so she went with him. They stood beside the bus for a few minutes and then he suggested they walk around and have a look. They stepped
over a low brick wall and into a grove of bamboo and found a path that led them through a dense thicket that opened onto a bare patch of dirt where an old man was turning over the soil with a shovel. He wore a white shirt and white pants and he wore a white beanie.

“Good morning,” said Carl. The old man, startled, turned and said, “Good morning.”

“Looks like you're going to put in some vegetables.”

The old man looked down and said, “It is our hope to put in a few rows of corn. The sweet kind that one boils and then eats with salt and butter. We call it
mais di grande dolcezza
.”

“Sweet corn?”

The old man nodded. “We have received gifts of two packs of seeds from the good people of Dubuque, Iowa.”

Carl shook his head. “Not to tell you what to do, but Iowa corn is for hogs, it's not for people. You'd bust your incisors on that stuff. You want the Anoka Super Sweet from Minnesota. That's the one worth the eating.”

“Minnesota—,” said the old man. “It gets cold there, doesn't it?”

“You need cold weather for corn. Everything needs to have a dormant period to rest up. Your soil in the south is all exhausted. Sweet corn, potatoes, apples, onions—it's all better in the north.”

“Where would I get this Anoka Super Sweet?”

“I'll send you some soon as we get home.”

So the old man wrote an address down on a scrap of brown paper. And just then four men in blue suits strolled up and took hold of Carl and Margie—gently, smiling, nice as could be—and led them back up the path to the van.

Father Wilmer came out of St. Peter's early. He had seen a man on a high ladder replacing a lightbulb and had to leave. “Like Earl Magendanz that time,” said Carl. “Yes, like Earl.” And Father told them the story.

“Earl loved ladders even though he was seventy-five years old—”

“I know, I know,” said Carl. “I was there.”

“So anyway, he went up to change the little spotlight over the Blessed Virgin Mary, which was forty feet in the air and required him to stand on the very top of the ladder on his tiptoes, and we begged him not to, on account of his recent fainting spells, but up the ladder he goes with me behind him—so if he fell, both of us would break our necks, I guess—and he got to the top and was swaying slightly as he reached way up to unscrew the old bulb. And that was when the bird flew in and around the sanctuary and flapped around Earl who waved at him with a damp rag and the ladder swayed and the men steadying it down below hung on for dear life—”

“I was one of those men,” said Carl.

“Anyway, I said, ‘You okay?' and Earl says, ‘Yeah, I'm fine.' And then he noticed the stranger in the big black overcoat walk in and kneel down in front of the Blessed Virgin Mary and burst into tears and cry out that he had fallen as low as a man could fall, meanwhile the bird is flying figure eights around Earl who is looking down at the man and up at the socket and I have hold of his legs and I am perspiring so hard the sweat is running down in my eyes and I have to let go of him and wipe my eyes and the ladder is swaying—”

“Actually it was pretty steady,” said Carl.

“And now Earl is starting to sing,'
Pack up all my care and
woe, here I go, singing low, bye bye blackbird
,' and two guys climb up past me and grab Earl—”

“That was me and Roger,” said Carl.

“And Earl is saying, ‘I'm okay, get your hands off me' and in the struggle he falls thirty feet from the ladder—”

“Ten feet,” said Carl, “and I had hold of his wrist and that broke the fall. Also broke the wrist.”

“And he lands on the big black overcoat guy, knocking him out cold—and when they went to loosen his clothing, they found dozens of billfolds in the lining of his coat. The sheriff came and the thief turned out to be a former child actor who played Timmy on
Friendly Neighbors
on WLT and he'd gone through the Chatterbox at noon and picked pockets, including yours.”

“That is true,” said Carl.

“Anyway, in St. Peter's, I was looking around at the beautiful art and marble and I walked into the ladder. I heard someone yell and looked up and he was almost directly above me, and I thought he was going to jump on my back, and I hightailed it out of there.”

Daryl took pictures of St. Peter's and when the pilgrims reunited in a café that afternoon, Carl looked at them on the camera—the long nave, the great marble canopy over the altar, the celestial light filtering down from the dome, the crowds of carved angels, apostles, bishops, saints. “Nice,” he said, and looked over at Margie. “What are you reading?”

“Just a letter about Rome,” she said.

A
t 0900 Mr. Columbo arrived with the van to take them to the airport to fly back to America. Maria could not be there to bid farewell but sent a beautiful bouquet of pink roses.

They had assembled in the lobby at 0630, their luggage in single file. They were a little crestfallen at the thought of returning home though nobody said so, all of them comfortably dressed for travel except Lyle, who wore a black suit, black shirt, and white tie. Irene said, “You look like a boy I knew in high school, he had Roman hands.” Daryl remarked that the high point of the trip for him had been the ruins of the Forum, just to walk where Caesar and Augustus had walked, and now he was going to read up on Roman history. There had been lengthy discussion about How Much Time to Allow and Margie had argued that two hours was more than enough but the more cautious won out, so they were leaving at 0900 for a 1400 flight.

“It can't hurt to get there early,” said Daryl, and others nodded in agreement.

“Maybe we should have left last night,” said Margie. “Or
Tuesday. Well, one last breakfast then.” And they all trooped in to the familiar buffet, the crusty rolls, the parade of cheeses and cold cuts, the juice tank, the corn flakes, the interesting yogurt pot.

They arrived at DaVinci at 1015. Margie gave Mr. Columbo an envelope with five hundred euros and thanked him and there was a group picture and he thanked them and off he went. They checked their bags and got in the security checkpoint line, which reminded Evelyn of the Magendanzes' trip to Mexico, seven of them, and all of them nervous about traveling out of the country—especially about the danger of losing their passports—so they gave them to Marie for safekeeping, also their billfolds, and she put them into a plastic bag, which the hotel maid thought was garbage and off it went, and the Magendanzes chased off to the dump to search, and tripped an alarm, and took off running, and didn't dare return to the hotel. They made their way north, hitchhiking, not much Spanish between them, but they got by, doing odd jobs, mowing lawns, cleaning houses, reached the Rio Grande and crossed at night into El Paso, made it home in one piece, and there they found a package from the Mexican hotel with their passports and billfolds.

And now the pilgrims came to the checkpoint, removed their shoes, their jackets, swept through the detectors, headed for the gate.
Can't hurt to get there early?
Guess again. The concourse was an aviary of nervous excitation, passengers fluffing themselves up, strutting back and forth, yakking on those dangly cell phones. She could see Carl getting agitated, jiggling his leg, taking deep calming breaths that didn't calm him at all. A man and
a woman sat down near them. She was weeping. “Oh, for crying out loud,” he said. “Grow up.” She told him to go without her. “How long is this going to go on, Doreen?” Evidently she was afraid of flying, which infuriated him. She was a slight woman with reddish hair, a brown raincoat, a green scarf, and tears in her eyes. He told her that if she didn't get on the plane, that was it, he was done with her, and he meant it.

That was too much for Eloise.

She swiveled around and glared at him and called him a name—a simple two-syllable word for a part of the lower digestive tract that all of us have, whether we use that word or not. He pretended not to hear her, so she said it louder. And then she jumped up and circled around the row of seats and the man jumped up and ran into the men's room and stayed in there. Eloise stuck her head in the men's room door and yelled, “I'm out here and I know who you are and you're not going anywhere!”

It was the old Eloise, back to good health.

She came strutting back to her seat and grinned at Doreen, plopped down, and leaned in toward Carl and Margie. “Did I ever tell you about the time Fred came home from the poker game in Sartell at 3:00
A.M.
with a cut over his left eye?”

She had told them, but so what? There was time to kill.

“We'd just broken up and when we were apart, of course, we got along just fine, so we decided to give it one more chance and then he went off to play poker with his old buddies. He comes back to my house around 3:00
A.M.
with a big story about how he was winning and couldn't leave. Well, Mr. Lundberg was waiting outside the house. You remember when the Lundbergs
used to sleepwalk. After they went to that revival service in the tent up near Nashwauk. You didn't know that was why? Well, it was. They stopped in because they were curious and the evangelist was a sweaty man waving a big black Bible and he had two big black dogs who came after the Lundbergs when they refused to kneel down and accept Jesus. They said, ‘We're Lutheran,' and the dogs chased them and they'd had dreams about it ever since and that was why they went sleepwalking in their pajamas. So here was Elmer Lundberg out sleepwalking when Fred came sneaking home at 3:00
A.M.
with a big gash over his eye, bleeding into a towel, and Elmer tried to grab him and Fred just about pissed his pants. He had invented a story about helping a man fix a flat tire and the jack handle hitting his forehead but seeing Elmer put the fear of God in him. He told me the whole truth. He'd been hit by a mirror that fell off the ceiling of a motel room where he'd gone with a girl named Amber who had a thing about older men. He hadn't gone to play poker, he'd gone to poke Amber and there they were reclining in the Jacuzzi and looking at themselves in the mirror overhead. He opened a bottle of cheap champagne and the cork flew and bounced off the mirror and suddenly their reflections got bigger and bigger. The mirror cracked her on the shoulder and she bled and screamed and somebody hit the fire alarm and pretty soon there were six firemen in yellow phosphorescent jackets piling into the room and when they saw Amber they called for reinforcements.”

“Well, looky looky,” said Irene under her breath, and then Mr. Keillor was there, smiling down at them from his great height, in black sweatpants and black sweatshirt (
AMOR VINCIT OMNIA
), his hair rather long and swirly, his eyebrows enormous.
Get those puppies trimmed
, she thought. He put his hand on her shoulder. “Good morning,” he said in his honeyed radio voice. “How's everyone doing today?”

“We're flying back to face the resentment of our friends and neighbors,” said Irene, never one to mince words. “But that means nothing to you. You're flying first class. You're on the gravy train.”

“They upgraded me because I'm platinum,” he said.

“I don't doubt it for a minute,” she said. “And poor Lyle here has Alzheimer's. Think about that for one minute. He had such a good time flying over, he's been looking forward to the return.” She motioned for him to hand over his boarding pass.

“It's not Alzheimer's, actually I just hit my head on a low beam,” said Lyle.

“Please,” said Mr. Keillor. “I need the legroom. I have work to do.”

“I don't doubt for a minute that you do. Let me see that notebook in your back pocket.” He took a step back and clapped his hand over the pocket. “You've been writing down what we say, haven't you, you little sneak.”

“I'm keeping a journal,” he murmured.

“Heck you are. You're writing it all down so you can put it in a book and make us look like idiots on parade. Am I right? Well, tell me, what gives you the right to do that? You're a member of a group, whether you know it or not, and one of the rules when you're in a group is that you don't go around blabbing your mouth about what you saw and heard. That is just basic decency. About time you learned it.”

He sighed. The woman was merciless. He closed his eyes. She
reached over and pulled his boarding pass out of his shirt pocket and handed it to Lyle, who started to protest and then thought better of it. Mr. Keillor felt the boarding pass slip away and did not bother to open his eyes. He held out his hand and she put Lyle's boarding pass in it and he picked up his briefcase and trudged toward the Jetway. He headed for 38F—a middle seat—and there in 38E was a woman who beamed to see him. “I can't believe this,” she said. “Look at this, Wendell. It's the man from the radio. I've listened to you since I was a child. Your stories take me home. Would you mind if I give you a big hug?” she said. He winced. She reached over and patted his shoulder. “Now you tell me if I'm talking too much,” she said. “You just say, ‘Stifle it, Mary Louise.' Oh my God. I am so excited. Wendell, get the camera. Do you mind if we take a picture? Tell me—how long do you think you'll keep on doing the show?”

“Forever, I hope.”

And as he said it, he knew that the End was near. A person always imagines there will be more, and then the steel doors clank shut. He closed his eyes. “I should let you be,” she said. “You probably hate this, being pestered by strangers. I can imagine how hard it is, meeting people you don't know
whatsoever
and they know all about you from your books and stories. I mean, I know about the Sanctified Brethren and how you always were the last one chosen for the softball team, I know about your fear of water and how that girl laughed at you when you tried to kiss her and I know what kind of hand lotion you used when you masturbated. Jergen's. Remember? You mentioned it somewhere. I've read everything you ever wrote, I know all that stuff. Your
fear of damnation. Your ignorance of the names of plants. The time you spilled on the lap of your new seersucker suit. Your agonizing memory loss. Your self-consciousness about your thin wrists. The animosity of your ex-wife. It's all there! You've shared yourself so generously with us fans and now we know you better than we know our own siblings! It's true! I have no idea what my brother's sexual fantasies are, and I know a lot about yours. Sometimes I feel like I'm your therapist! I really do! Honest! Your dream about falling off the cliff in the Faeroe Islands into a vast dark abyss—I think I could work with you on that. And your dream about standing onstage at a microphone and the audience like stone statues and nobody comes out from the wings to help you. Oh that was so telling! So evocative! I mean—if you want to sleep, okay, but if you want to talk, I really think we could work on some of these issues.”

It is two and a half hours from Rome to Amsterdam and then an hour until their nine-hour flight to Minneapolis and Lyle was concerned that due to headwinds or engine malfuntion or whatever, they could easily lose an hour en route and land in Amsterdam too late for the flight to Minneapolis and have to explain their predicament to the Dutch who would put them up in a hostel fifteen miles away in a sleazy neighborhood full of drug addicts. “It's the little things that kill a trip,” he told Margie. So she asked the gate agent if perhaps they could get on the earlier Rome-Amsterdam flight leaving in thirty minutes. The agent was a stocky woman in her midfifties and she looked at Margie as if she were a second-grader and not one of the bright second-graders. “That flight is full,” she said.

“Maybe there are people on that flight who wouldn't mind switching with us. Couldn't you make an announcement on the PA and ask for volunteers?”

“Sit!” the woman cried. “Enjoy the view! Talk among your friends. Tell each other stories. Sing if you like. We can find you a guitar. You can sit here in the gate area for a few hours and have a beautiful time. Enjoy!”

Margie had put a Placidol in Carl's apple juice and he was still a little twitchy, so she gave him another. He had brought a book to read and then on page thirteen there was a plane crash. He read it in the waiting area and it struck him as more than mere coincidence. Flight 1302—plane crash on page thirteen, second paragraph. Could God make this message any clearer? Panic began to flower in his chest, his pulse throbbed, his heart danced in his chest. Sweat ran down his forehead and into his eyes. He remembered the senior class play,
Our Town
, with Cheryl as Emily Webb, and how overwhelming to see his girl marry George Gibbs and then die and go up the hill to the cemetery, and now he could see himself, holding a black umbrella, sitting next to her. He tried to settle down but heard a grinding sound and turned and saw a small albino child riding a coin-operated whale and Carl put two and two together and clearly he was the Jonah and if he boarded the flight, it would crash.

The agents announced general boarding. He told Margie, “I can't go. I'll have to find a boat.” She told him to keep calm. “Take a drink of this liquid protein, see if it doesn't make you feel better,” she said, and put it to his lips. She tilted the bottle up and he gulped it down. She had dissolved another Placidol in the drink and five minutes later he was quite manageable. She
put him in a wheelchair and rolled him through the door and though he let out a little
meep
as he bumped over the threshold, she got him into seat 37A and herself into 37B and pulled out a pillow for him and a blue blanket that he held against the side of his head. It seemed to comfort him.