Luisa always said that she’d never regretted trying to get a better view, and she said things like she knew what she was talking about. Even though we woke up at 4:30 in the morning, Papa banging on our door so hard that a picture frame fell off the wall, we were still at the back of the line.
“Do you see those people, all the way up there? My God, they’re already at the butcher’s.” My father craned his neck over the snake of people that disappeared into the horizon. It was only 10 a.m., but the summer heat made the air wavy in a way that hurt my head. The line really did look like a snake then, wiggling from side to side but barely inching forward. Luisa climbed onto Papa’s shoulders for the first time since his hair was still dark.
“I think the group up front has chairs,” she said. “They probably spent the night here.”
“Why didn’t we do that?” Papa moaned as Luisa slid from his back. “If your mother were still here, she would have thought of that. She always had a plan.”
When he learned the Pope would be traveling through our little town, Papa could scarcely talk about anything else. Every time he walked past John Paul II’s portrait, where it hung on a nail in the living room, he kissed his pointer and middle fingers and touched the Pope’s forehead. Papa was a sweaty man, and in the hotter months the oil on his fingertips would leave a wet spot. But the Pope, with white hairs and a placid smile, didn’t seem to mind.
We joined the line at 6 a.m. Given the size of the crowd, I thought for sure we were waiting to meet the man himself. My father could put his real fingertips on the Pope’s real forehead, and I could finally find out whether twice-weekly Mass was worth it.
“Maria, are you dumb?” Luisa laughed. “He’s just going down the street in that big white car. We’re waiting for a spot on the road to see him drive by.”
“The newspaper calls it the ‘Popemobile,’ but I think that’s disrespectful,” Papa grumbled. “I mean, he’s in a Benz. He’s not Batman.”
Mass definitely wasn’t worth this. We had finally moved forward a little, but now we were no longer covered by an awning. I closed my eyes when we stepped into the sun.
“Okay, well, can I at least go get some water or a snack or something?” I whined.
I could tell Papa didn’t want me to leave, but he was sweating through his dress shirt and I knew he needed water, too. He handed me a 5-note. Some old general whose name I always forget glared at me from its center.
“Be quick,” he said. “But if they don’t let you back in the line, we’re not going to wait for you.”
Outside of the chaos of the line, the market had been abandoned. A trio of matted dogs were feasting on a pallet of tomatoes that had fallen onto the sidewalk. Still, I went to my usual spot, where an old Iranian man sold me candy and sodas for cheap if I let him give me a few semi-offensive compliments. But the store was empty. I was pretty sure Ismail wasn’t Catholic, but he must have been somewhere in the line, too. I guess I couldn’t blame him.
I hesitated for a moment before snatching the waters from the cooler behind his counter. I sat on an overturned milk crate on the floor and chugged the first empty before opening Luisa’s. I grabbed another.
A motor revved outside the door. I had shut the big porthole window to keep the burn of the sunlight out. I worried it was Ismail coming to collect the harassment I owed him. I ran behind the counter to pull the remaining water bottles forward so he wouldn’t notice any were missing.
I was about to open the door when I heard an unfamiliar voice speaking an unfamiliar language. It sounded a little like Spanish, but the accent wasn’t Argentine. It sounded like flowers, all Ls and Os.
I pulled on the heavy circle of wood that covered the window, hoping to see just a sliver of what was happening outside. But the hinge was loose, and the door swung completely open. I just barely got out of the way before it could hit me right in the face.
In the sun again, I closed my eyes to let them adjust. Before I opened them, I heard that voice again.
“Santità, siamo quasi pronti per iniziare.”
“Your Holiness, we’re almost ready to begin.”
The sun glinted off the bright white of the Popemobile. He was surrounded by much less security than I thought there would be. The side street must be some sort of staging ground before he started his route. It was kind of like a school play.
I was so close I could see his forehead, that spot Papa had blessed so faithfully. He dabbed at it with a handkerchief woven with gold thread. I couldn’t wait to tell Papa the Pope was a sweaty man, too.
