When dealt only lemons, make limoncello
Crowds at the Vatican.
by Christine Kling
Being open to serendipity means you have to be willing to take whatever comes your way, both good and not so good. My recent research visit to Rome to look at the current home of the Sovereign Order of the Knights of Malta and to visit the Vatican for the first time made this fact abundantly clear.
The truly wondrous encounter occurred when Wayne and I boarded a night train to get from Salzburg, Austria to Rome. This was one of those great sleeper trains with sliding doors into a compartment and fold down seats that turned into bunks. It made you feel like you were in an old black and white European spy movie. Since the train didn’t originate in the town where we boarded it just after midnight, there was already a lady asleep on an upper bunk in our compartment. Her sheet and blanket were pulled up demurely under her chin, but she opened her eyes and welcomed us in her Austrian-accented English and offered some helpful suggestions to assist us in getting settled.
Amazingly, I slept the night through only waking a couple of times, but come morning I was the first I one up and off to find the WC. When I returned, Wayne and the little lady had folded up the bunks, and Wayne took off for his morning rituals. Alone with our new travel companion, I asked her if she traveled that route often. That was when she told me yes, she did because she worked in Rome as a visiting historian from a Salzburg University permanently attached to the Vatican Library.
Thankfully, our train was 2 hours late, and I got to spend a little more time talking to her about her job, about the collections at the Vatican, about a trip she once took to Fort Lauderdale when she brought a real Michaelangelo sketch for an exhibition there, and what sort of security measures are taken when she accompanies rare books or manuscripts around the world. My new friend had worked at the Vatican for 20 years! There I was just starting to come up with a story that has an ancient document in the story line, and I got to spend my morning train ride into Rome learning about the difference between papyrus and paper and how the ancient inks age differently depending on the material. I learned about the oldest manuscript in the Vatican Library, a bible that dates back to the 4th or 5th century. She explained about the time she took a rare Bible to some scholars in Poland and then had to stay there because the manuscript had to stay in a special case and the scholars had to call her to to come over if they needed to turn the page – only she was allowed to touch the ancient book.
When I asked her about the Knights of Malta, she told me about several sites, not the least of which was the Knights’ Palazzo up on the Travertine Hill. She told me to look through the keyhole and I would see the dome of St. Peter’s at the Vatican. I was considering asking her if we could meet her at the library the next day, but she explained that she was leaving by plane the next day to accompany another book to an exhibition. She also told us she would be glad to be gone because the upcoming weekend was going to be very bad in Rome.
So here is where we come to the not so good part one must take when trusting to serendipity. We have been wandering along through Europe trusting to what Wayne calls the “no-plan-plan” without reservations more than a few days ahead. I also had not done a ton of research about Rome. I had not realized until our new Vatican Historian told me that the Pope was going to be canonized not one but TWO former Popes on Sunday and there we were arriving on the Wednesday before. Our friend told us that some were estimating there were going to be an additional 5 million people in Rome by Sunday.
When we visited the Vatican the following day, St. Peter’s Square was jammed with hordes! The extra security was still in place from Easter Sunday a few days before and they were building viewing platforms and putting up jumbo trim screens around the square and thought the city. Nobody was going to let me go poking around.
For my last book, I flew to the Philippines and when Typhoon Bopha made me change my plans and get out of Dodge, I had to accept that turn of luck as well . In the end, however, Bopha became a part of my story. Right now the story is just developing in my head, but there’s a good chance Riley and Cole might get thwarted by the canonization as well.
I do love my Italian limoncello.
Fair winds!
Christine
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