Heaven Is Paved With Oreos

by Catherine Gilbert Murdock

  Saturday, July 13—LATER

  I am sitting inside our number two pilgrimage church for today. It was done by a woman named St. Helena whose son was a Roman emperor, so she was rich. Miss Hesselgrave says St. Helena murdered her daughter-in-law, but even so she likes her because St. Helena was born in England. Miss Hesselgrave says St. Helena is a mother of the church (although not, I think, a mother-in-law of it) for all her church work and because her son was so important.

  Z agrees. She says these two churches = the Great Moms tour.

  I am not sure it is appropriate for me to be scribbling in my journal in such a sacred place, but I need to write this down.

  Here is what happened. As Z and I were walking here just now, we passed two college students carrying backpacks with guitars strapped to them. Seeing them, Z told me a long story about how she was living in San Francisco in 1976, during the American bicentennial, which was the year the United States turned two hundred years old. She really wanted to go to the fireworks on the Fourth of July, but she couldn’t find a ride so she ended up hiking across the Golden Gate Bridge with a backpack and guitar just like those two students. It was so windy, though, that she worried the guitar and backpack were going to blow off the bridge—with her attached to them!

  She told it really well—Z is a great storyteller—and I laughed . . . But then I remembered a story Dad tells us about when he was a kid, when his scout troop made a gigantic float of Washington crossing the Delaware for their bicentennial Fourth of July, and Dad was supposed to be General Washington. But on July 3rd (which is the day Dad tells us the story every year) he fell off his dirt bike and broke his arm so badly that he had a fever and had to stay in bed with Grandma Ann taking care of him. So instead Uncle Tommy was Washington and Dad never got to be the father of our country.

  Dad’s story is funny too, especially because you can tell he doesn’t feel sorry for himself at all. But until today I’d never thought about what Z was doing on that day, and about how when her son was lying in bed hurt and sad, she was on the other side of the country watching fireworks. That’s not where I’d want my mom to be if I was hurt.

  Would Mary have done that to her son, Jesus? I don’t think so. Would St. Helena? (Actually, I have my doubts about St. Helena.)

  Thinking about this has put me back to being uncheery. Uncheery and preoccupied.

  Saturday, July 13—LATER

  We are about to go into the number three church. My feet hurt. I do not like thinking about Z as a mom. What does Curtis see in Emily? Why does he talk about her, and notice her posters? Do you think he thinks she’s inspiring? That is depressing. Emily would never inspire me. She would not inspire me to do anything.

  Here is what I would write Curtis if I was writing him:

  Dear Curtis:

  Today I’ve seen lots of marble skulls with bad teeth. It is strange that rich people would pay artists to carve bad teeth on purpose. What do you find inspiring?

  From, Sarah.

  PS: Say hi to your sister. But you don’t have to tell her about the skulls.

  Saturday, July 13—LATER

  We are at lunch. The pizza tastes like it was made last year and the pop isn’t even cold, but the restaurant has air conditioning and the menu is in English. We are near the Coliseum right now, which means tourists x tourists (= tourists2). Hungry tourists will eat anything.

  I did not like church number three. It looked like a birthday cake full of sculpture and carved shells and decorations . . . The church did have the heads of St. Peter and St. John the Evangelist in silver jars, according to Miss Hesselgrave, but unfortunately I did not see them.

  Now we have to go from here to another church—the last one for today!—that is so far away we have to take the subway. I know that taking the subway is not what real pilgrims did one thousand years ago when they walked to Rome from hundreds of miles away, climbing across the Alps and sometimes freezing to death. When they finally made it here, they didn’t say, “Whew, now we can take the subway.” No, they kept walking. And Miss Hesselgrave and her companion never took the subway, and that is not only because it hadn’t been invented yet. Miss Hesselgrave would automatically disapprove of subways, I just know it.

  But we are not those kinds of pilgrims. We are the Z kind.

  Z is looking forward to this next church. She says it’s the only one (except St. Peter’s, obviously) that she remembers from last time. How could you not remember the other three churches we saw today? But Z says she and her college friends had been to a lot of churches by then and after a while they all look alike. Also they’d had wine with lunch.

  Saturday, July 13—LATER

  BEDTIME. I just checked in with Mom, and she said it sounds like we’re having fun. I did not tell her about the heads in jars. I would tell Curtis, though, if he and I were talking. If the two of us ever talk again.

  Church number four is called San Paolo Fuori le Mura, which in English = St. Paul Outside the Walls because it is outside the old walls of Rome. It is definitely not a church that a lot of tourists visit. The subway stop isn’t even labeled “San Paolo,” just S.P. BASILICA. If you didn’t know what S.P. meant, you would be stuck. It is a not-so-nice neighborhood. People on the street sell socks and pants and cooking equipment—stuff that isn’t bought by tourists. You can also tell it’s not a tourist neighborhood because of all the dogs. Guess what: Italians do like dogs after all! Walking from the subway to the church, I saw eight people with dogs. The people looked Italian, but the dogs just looked like dogs.

  Remember St. Helena, the possibly English possible murderer? Her son built a church here to honor St. Paul, because this is where St. Paul is buried. They kept making the church bigger and fancier, even in the Middle Ages. Then, in 1823, a workman accidentally burned the building down. It was a huge tragedy.

  Miss Hesselgrave visited after they rebuilt it, and she said the new church is “beneath contempt”—those are her exact words. I have to admit the outside doesn’t have the tingly feeling of some of the other churches I’ve seen in Rome. Maybe that’s why Z remembers it, because it is so untingly. This church could be a library in Minneapolis. There were hardly any people either, just some parked tour buses that I didn’t pay attention to because you see tour buses in Rome wherever the streets are big enough for buses.

  But Z did look at the buses, and then she stared at them, and she grabbed my arm and pointed. Some of the buses had red crosses painted on their sides and wheelchair ramps. One of the buses had its door open, so you could see inside. The bus didn’t have any seats. It only had beds—beds and IV poles. Because the people riding that bus were too sick to sit up.

  Seeing that gave me goose bumps. Already I had goose bumps.

  Then we went inside.

  Like I said, there was almost no one there. But you could still hear people singing. The singers weren’t a choir in robes like you’d have in Wisconsin, but normal people who were marching down the center of the church—normal touristy people, only some of them had crutches and leg braces, and a lot of them were in wheelchairs. One man was playing a guitar as they walked. Even though I couldn’t understand the words, it was the saddest, most beautiful song I have ever heard in my life.

  They were pilgrims. Real pilgrims, not interested-in-art pilgrims like us, or bossy sort-of pilgrims like Miss Hesselgrave. They weren’t wearing brown or carrying walking sticks or hiking to Rome from the freezing Alps, but that didn’t matter. They were pilgrims who had traveled to this church because they had faith that St. Paul could help them.

  When the pilgrims got to the main altar of the church, they all knelt down—even the people in wheelchairs who could kneel—and they prayed in another language, and then they sang some more.

  By this time we were near the altar as well, sitting off to the side. I wished Paul was with us. He would really appreciate this music.

  I looked over at Z. She was crying. I thought she was crying because the music was so beautiful and sad, a
nd maybe she was. But she looked so depressed—she looked even sadder than music can make someone look.

  I wanted to say, Isn’t it beautiful? or You’re on a pilgrimage: it’s okay! or Remember the Oreos. But I couldn’t, because at that moment all I could think about was Dad’s broken arm and how Z had not been there for him. So I didn’t say anything. Then we rode the subway back to our hotel and went to a little restaurant for supper.

  We didn’t say much. Z had pasta with smelly cheese, and I had pizza that came with an egg on it. A poached egg, right in the middle. But I didn’t eat the egg, because that’s disgusting.

  I feel like Z has a lot on her mind that she’s not talking about. I have a lot on my mind too, but I think Z has more. I keep getting the feeling that something bad is going to happen.

  I did not ask if she saw pilgrims the last time she was at St. Paul Outside the Walls. I didn’t feel like talking about them at all—I felt like bringing up pilgrims would be disrespectful.

  I would write Curtis a pretend postcard, but I don’t even know what to pretend-say.

  Dear Curtis:

  I feel extremely quiet.

  Sarah

  I am not sure I would say even that.

  Sunday, July 14

  Today Z turns sixty-four years old. I sang her “Happy Birthday” as soon as I woke up, and I gave her a card that I had carried all the way from Red Bend. She was tremendously pleased.

  Today is also the birthday of the country of France. At breakfast the hotel restaurant was decorated with little French flags, and some of the guests had red-white-and-blue pins because red, white, and blue are the French colors too. Everyone was in an unusually good mood even though we weren’t in France.

  “Today is the Bastille Day,” our waiter said.

  “I know,” I said. “And it’s also my grandmother’s birthday!”

  “To be true? How many of the years do you have?”

  Z smiled and said sixty-four.

  “Oh! You are too young—you cannot be!”

  Then he went away, and I thought that would be the end of it, but a few minutes later he came back with the other waiters and they stood around our table and sang “When I’m Sixty-Four” to Z! And people from other tables joined in—even people who didn’t speak English! Some of them didn’t sing that well and the lyrics got jumbled, but it was definitely the Beatles.

  Z cried. Especially at the end when our waiter sang, all jumbled up, “Tell me the truth, and make it sincere, you’re who I adore. I know I will love you, think only of you, when I’m sixty-four.” Z thanked everyone and blew her nose and kissed our waiter on the cheek. She tried to explain. “That song has many memories for me.”

  “Ah,” the waiter said. “The music, it is . . .” He touched his heart and said something in Italian that sounded meaningful. Z nodded.

  Now we are back in our room. Z is taking a bath. She is singing loudly: “I would be useful fixing a plug, if your bulbs have blown. You could plant a garden in a flower bed, buy us a yard gnome, paint the house red.” Only she stopped at “the house,” so it sounded odd. Odder.

  As soon as Z is done with her bath we are going to walk to the next pilgrimage church. We are already five-sevenths done! After this next church we will be six-sevenths done!

  Sunday, July 14—LATER

  We are back in our hotel room having a siesta. A siesta is where you nap in the heat of the day, but Z is not napping. She is staring at the ceiling. She looks like she could stare at it forever.

  I am staring at the ceiling too, but it is the ceiling of my brain. It is good I have this journal, because sometimes writing stuff down helps me to figure it out, and right now I need all the help I can get.

  Z and I just walked in the heat all the way to San Lorenzo Fuori le Mura and back (six-sevenths done!). Fuori le mura means outside the walls, the same as St. Paul Outside the Walls yesterday, which shows how important the walls of Rome used to be. They were put up to keep out armies of barbarian invaders. If you built something outside these safe walls, this fact was so important that they put it right in the name. The Roman walls are still there, but now they have openings cut in them for sidewalks and roads. The openings are pretty small, though. I strongly advise against driving an SUV in Rome, or you will find yourself stuck. But you will not knock down the walls, I guarantee: they are terrifically thick.

  San Lorenzo (“St. Lawrence” in English) was a Christian man back in pagan Rome who was grilled to death. I would not mention this except that in front of the church is a statue of him holding a grill. I am not joking. The church is where he is buried. It is much smaller than the other churches we’ve been to, and tremendously old—so old that the front of the church has all sorts of old Roman carvings stuck to it, kind of like a mixed-up antique store, and the columns on the inside are even more jumbled than the churches we saw yesterday. They are different colors and in some places they’re way too short . . . It’s like someone said, Now it’s the Dark Ages and you have to build a church, and you can only use what you find lying around in the ruins. Don’t worry about matching.

  This church had the best mosaic I have seen yet. It is a picture of the man who built San Lorenzo. He is holding a model of the church to show that he paid for it, but the model looks like it was built out of Lego bricks. I love that.

  And guess what: ANOTHER OREO FLOOR! Which I pointed out to Z, and she got a huge smile. “Didn’t I tell you this place was special?” she whispered. Actually she hadn’t, but I understood her point.

  But then something happened—something almost as weird and stay-up-late-thinking as what happened yesterday with the pilgrims in St. Paul. As we were walking out, we passed a tour group, so of course Z stopped and not-listened. The guide was Italian, but he talked in English, explaining how the columns on the front of the building had originally come from Roman temples. But then he started talking about the 1940s, how this was destroyed and that was destroyed and the frescoes—so beautiful!—were destroyed when that wall was blown up . . . because San Lorenzo was bombed during World War Two! By us!! By “the Allies”—which means Americans, right? Or possibly British, but probably us. The whole neighborhood was bombed for hours in 1943, which means that it doesn’t really matter whether an American bomb or a British bomb fell on the church: the point is, this building was knocked down by the good guys. It wasn’t completely destroyed, but the front of the church was, and the roof and ceiling, and some of the paintings and murals too. And it wasn’t rebuilt until 1949.

  So this church I like because it’s so old . . . turns out in fact to be, superduper young. Young as in the exact same age as Z! Younger than my elementary school and Z’s house!

  I know: parts of San Lorenzo are still old, and the back part, with its Lego model and yard-sale columns, was almost not damaged. But I think it is immensely unfair to trick people like that by making the front of the church look old even when it isn’t.

  I also do not like the thought that Americans destroy churches.

  After our siesta, we are going to the seventh church—the last one! It will be seventh out of seven = all of them! It is the church Z never made it to. The time got away from me, she says. This is one of the ways Z and I are different. If it had been me, I would have made sure no matter what that I saw all seven churches.

  I hope Americans didn’t bomb this one too.

  Z is still staring at the hotel-room ceiling. She looks extremely far away with her thoughts.

  Dear Curtis:

  Today is Z’s birthday. We saw a church that was blown up, but they put it back together. I wish you were here so we could figure out how they did it. Maybe we could make a project about it for social studies—

  Do people do social studies projects in high school? Do they make displays?

  Probably not. And if they do, people like Emily probably make fun of them. And now Curtis will not be there to do the project with me. He will not be there to protect me.

  Sunday, July 14—LATER
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br />   We haven’t gone to church number seven. It got too complicated this afternoon . . . We will go tomorrow. We will clearly never be good pilgrims like the St. Paul pilgrims in their wheelchairs, so it really doesn’t matter if we take another day.

  This afternoon, Z kept saying she wanted to buy herself something for her birthday. Roman stores do not sell clothes that look like Z, though. So she finally decided to buy some lipstick. She spent a long time picking the right one—I think she tried fifty colors. The sales clerk kept saying, “That looks good.” I think it was the only English the sales clerk knew. Finally Z bought one.

  Then she said she had to show me something, and she took me to another church.

  Yes, I know: another church. When we still haven’t made it to church number seven! Z said this church was different, though—which it was, because we didn’t have to walk very far at all to get there. The number seven church you have to take a bus to.

  This church—the one Z took me to this afternoon—had tombs all over the floor (or under the floor, I suppose), which you could tell because full-length people were carved into the floor stones—knights and priests and others who you couldn’t even make out because so many visitors have walked on the carvings and rubbed them out.

  No one but me seemed to notice the floor people, though. Z walked right over them to the back of the church, where crowds of people were standing with their different tour guides, and she motioned to me and pointed to a painting hanging on the side wall of a chapel so you couldn’t even see it straight on. “Isn’t it amazing?” she asked.