“Romans?” Marcos questioned.
“Oh yeah, Romans! Hey, cool!” Katie said. “I didn’t realize it until this minute. The book of Romans was written to the people that lived in this very city! That is so amazing!”
“This is in the Holy Bible?” Marcos asked.
“Yeah,” Katie said. “There’s a whole book written just for the Italians.”
Christy smiled. The coincidence of Katie’s choosing to quote Romans while they were in Rome was definitely a God-thing.
“No one can get to heaven on their own efforts,” Katie continued. “It says that in the book of Romans, too. ‘All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.’ And what’s that other verse in Romans about the gift of God?”
“Romans 6:23,” Todd said. “ ‘For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.’ ”
“See?” Katie said. “We can’t earn eternal life. It’s a free gift from God. But we have to accept it. We can’t earn it.”
Christy wondered if Marcos thought Katie was coming on too strong. But Christy also understood how impossible it was to have been confronted with everything they had seen in the last few hours and not be passionate about one’s faith.
“Doesn’t God love everyone?” Marcos asked.
“Yes,” Todd answered.
“Then good people have nothing to worry about. God will let them into His heaven,” Marcos concluded.
“It doesn’t work that way,” Todd said. “You know what it’s like? It’s like when we went to the Villa Paradiso. On our own, they would never have let us in just because we were good people. But when we mentioned your name and your father’s name, we were welcomed with open arms. All the riches of the hotel were ours for free.”
Christy opened her eyes, stunned at the perfect example Todd had just given. Surely that made sense to Marcos.
Marcos was sitting in the cab’s front seat and had turned around to talk with Todd. “It helps to know the right people in high places,” Marcos said with a grin.
“Exactly. It’s the same way with eternity,” Todd responded. “It’s not what we do, it’s who we know. We knew you and that opened the door to the Villa Paradiso. Knowing Christ opens the door to the eternal paradise.”
“Antonio has tried to convince me of this, as well,” Marcos said. “He told me I must have a relationship with Christ. It is different from how I was taught all my life. I must tell you, though, I see something more in Antonio’s life since he has come back from California.”
“That ‘something’ is really ‘Someone,’ ” Katie said.
Just then the taxi stopped in front of the hotel, and the four of them got out. This time Todd insisted on paying for their ride. “It’s a free gift from me,” Todd said, giving Marcos a friendly, chin-up gesture. “Just accept it, man.”
Christy knew Todd’s words had a double meaning and wondered if Marcos caught it, as well. They went into the fancy hotel, retrieved their luggage, and walked back out to the street to say their good-byes.
Christy felt sad as she received Marcos’s parting kiss on her cheek. With Antonio she could say good-bye more easily, knowing she would see him again in heaven, if not before. With Marcos, this might be the last time she ever saw him, in this life or in eternity.
Christy looked into his handsome face. She remembered how Katie had persuaded Marcos to go to Naples with them, and with a charming grin equal to Katie’s, she said, “Marcos, I want you to come to heaven with us. It won’t be the same without you. Please surrender your life to Christ.”
He looked surprised at her oddly worded farewell. “You have me thinking. Antonio gave me a Holy Bible. Maybe I will read this part for the Italians.”
Christy stood on her tiptoes and kissed him lightly on the cheek. “Buona,” she said because she was pretty sure that meant “good” in Italian.
Marcos smiled. He stepped into a cab and waved as it lurched into the traffic, heading for the train station.
“And now are you going to tell me that was supposed to be a ‘holy kiss,’ Miss ‘Christiana’?” Katie teased.
“Yes, it was.” Christy thought for only a moment how different it was to kiss Marcos’s smooth-shaven cheek compared to Todd’s prickly face. But the comparison went nowhere else in her imagination. In every way, to Christy the kiss was pure and holy.
Then, because she couldn’t resist, she said, “When in Rome, do as the Romans do.”
Todd laughed. Katie only shook her head. “Can I just say that I’ve noticed you’ve certainly become the little kissing bug since you’ve moved to Europe?”
“You don’t see me complaining,” Todd said with a grin still on his face.
“Okay, let’s drop the kissing talk,” Katie said. “I’m getting depressed being around you two happy hearts. Let’s find a place to dump this luggage.”
“Where’s your tour book, Christy?” Todd asked. “Does it list places to stay?”
Christy reached inside her day pack and said, “Shouldn’t we at least go down the block a little? I feel kind of tacky standing in front of a hotel looking for a cheap place to stay.”
“Nobody knows that’s what we’re doing,” Katie said. “I feel safer standing here than in the middle of the street with our backpacks announcing to the whole world that we’re tourists.”
“Here,” Christy said, handing the book to Todd. “You look it up. My brain is fried.”
Todd suggested a pensione he saw listed in the book. He said it was a house that rented out rooms, like an American bed-and-breakfast. The best feature was the low price and the closeness to where they stood at the moment.
Walking six blocks in the early-evening heat, they found the pensione, only to be told no rooms were available. Undaunted, Todd consulted the tour book again as they stood against the side of a shop that sold leather jackets. The shop was closed, its windows barred shut.
“A youth hostel is listed here, but if I’m reading the map correctly, it’s on the other side of town. We could take a cab.”
Christy felt her teeth clenching at the thought of trusting her life to another Italian cab driver. “Isn’t there anything else?” She took the book from Todd when he offered it and scanned the lodgings page. “I had another little book I should have brought because it was only about Italy, and it listed dozens of places to stay in each of the big cities.” She tried hard not to place her frustration on Katie, who had said they didn’t need tour books because they were on an “adventure.”
“We could jump on a train and go to that ‘frantic’ city,” Katie suggested.
Christy gave her a pained expression. “Do you mean Firenze? Florence?”
“Yeah. The frenzy place. I mean, tell me, what is there left to see here?”
“Lots,” Christy said.
“Like what?”
Christy took off her backpack with exaggerated motions, as if she knew this would be a long discussion. “There is a lot of art, fountains, statues, and churches.”
“That’s what Marcos showed us all day. What’s to see in Florence?”
“Fountains, statues, and churches,” Todd said.
“Fountains and statues and churches, oh my!” Katie quipped, smiling at her joke as she took off her pack. “I don’t think we’re in Kansas anymore, Toto!”
Christy didn’t laugh. She wanted to tell them again that this was why they needed to have a plan. How could they make decisions like this when they were all tired and hungry?
“Let’s find a place to eat,” Todd suggested. “We need to sit down and discuss all our options.”
Fortunately, a pizzeria was only half a block away. The food was fast and delicious. The only drawback was they had to stand and eat at small, round tables with high legs. They were discovering it was popular in Italy to grab a quick plate of pasta or a slice of pizza and eat it standing up around tables that came up to Christy’s elbows. The food helped, but the standing didn’t make for a relaxed discussion.<
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“I think we should go on to Florence,” Katie said. “Or Venice, or what about that leaning tower? Where did you say that was?”
“Pisa.”
“Oh yeah. The Leaning Tower of Pisa. How could I forget? Where’s Pisa?”
“North,” Christy said flatly.
“North near Venice?”
“No, north but the opposite direction. It’s actually closer to where we went camping.”
“We should have gone to see it then.”
Christy couldn’t control her tongue another minute. With spicy breath from the pizza sauce, she said, “That’s why I said we should have a plan. If we just jump on a train and take off for Venice or Florence, we might miss something we really wanted to see.”
“So what do you really want to see?” Katie asked.
Christy couldn’t come up with a specific answer. She wanted to see everything.
“I’d like to see Pompeii,” Todd said.
“Marcos was telling me about that place,” Katie said. “How the whole city has been excavated, and you can walk around and see what happened after the volcano erupted and destroyed it. He said the volcanic ash actually preserved some of the people who were running to get away.”
Christy had read about Pompeii in her other Italian tour book. It didn’t sound appealing to her then, and it sounded even more depressing now. She didn’t find herself fascinated with the same things that intrigued Todd and Katie.
“I’d like to go there, too,” Katie said. “I know it’s south, not far from Naples, because Marcos showed me Mount Vesuvius while we were waiting for a bus.”
Christy remembered seeing Mount Vesuvius from the boat deck on their way to Capri. “That means we go back to where we were this morning. That would take two hours or more to get there, and then what? Find a place to stay in Naples or Pompeii?”
“I wouldn’t want to stay in Naples,” Katie said. “Marcos told me some stuff about that city. It’s not the safest place for tourists.”
“So we would stay in Pompeii?” Christy flipped through the tour book. It listed a whole page of interesting facts about Pompeii and how to get there, but it didn’t list any lodgings.
“We could stay here and take a morning train,” Todd suggested.
“But where? The youth hostel?”
They stood in the pizzeria for almost an hour, discussing all the possibilities. Their final decision was a surprise to Christy, and she couldn’t figure out quite how they ended up agreeing on it. They would go to Oslo, Norway.
Instead of staying in Rome, they decided to catch a night train north. The logic that emerged from their lengthy discussion was that they would shoot straight up to Norway and spend the rest of their trip working their way down until they ended up back in Basel, Switzerland, by 8:00 Monday morning, June 27. That’s when Christy’s summer classes began. Todd and Katie’s flight back to California left that afternoon from Zürich.
The part of their plan Christy liked the most was that the long train ride would give them plenty of time to talk and plan so that the remaining sixteen days of their journey would be thought out. She hated to admit it, but she was exhausted. Her stamina hadn’t exactly been at a high point when they had started this trip, and their fast pace had worn her out. With a bittersweet twist, Christy wished they were still camping so she could curl up in the hammock or bathe in the stream and feel her senses come alive again. If they had stuck with Antonio’s plan, this would have been their last night camping.
As they strapped on their packs and walked the sixteen blocks to the train station, Christy decided she was glad they hadn’t stayed at the campground after all. She wouldn’t have wanted to miss Capri or Rome for anything.
They stopped at a small shop that carried mostly magazines and cigarettes just inside the train station. Katie wanted to buy some candy bars, and Christy was curious to see if they sold any tour books in English.
She didn’t find a tour book, but she did find a blank journal with a brown leather cover. Years ago her uncle Bob had given her a diary, and he had told her to write out all her thoughts and feelings on the diary’s pages, trusting that it would become a good friend. His words had come true.
The night before Christy left for this adventure with Todd and Katie, she had written on the final page of her diary and had felt a strong sense of loss. For the first time in almost five years she didn’t have a special place to record her heart’s secrets. That diary had become a close friend.
She paid for the leather-bound journal, having no idea if the price was fair. It sure would be helpful to have Tonio or Marcos around now.
Christy studied the change the salesperson had placed in her hand. So many coins. To her surprise, the salesperson muttered something in Italian and placed three more coins in her hand.
Does he think I just figured out he shortchanged me? How funny! I don’t have a clue how much I paid or how much I now hold in my hand.
She continued to hold the coins in her hand without turning away. For fun, Christy glanced up at the man and gave him an expression that said, “Shame on you for trying to cheat me.”
This time he didn’t mutter anything in Italian. He simply leaned over and handed her three more coins and two paper bills.
Still uncertain as to just how badly she had been treated, Christy decided to get while the going was good. She stuffed the money in her pocket and exited the small shop while trying to keep from bursting out laughing. Todd and Katie were waiting for her out front, and after Christy recounted the story to them, Katie said, “Hey, I think I’ll go back in there, hold out my hand, and give him the evil eye. He probably overcharged me for these two candy bars.”
“I don’t know if it would work after you’ve already left the store,” Todd pointed out.
“Let’s go to that shop over there,” Katie suggested, indicating another small store inside the train station. “It looks as if they sell food. I think we should pack ourselves a picnic.”
“I’m all for that,” Todd said. He was the first one in the shop.
As Christy watched, he selected several hard, round rolls; some small, oval-shaped tomatoes; and a triangle of white cheese. Christy was more interested in buying something to drink for the train. She found liter-sized bottles of water and bought three of them.
Katie purchased two more candy bars and stood at the register, examining with a critical eye the change she had been handed. The woman behind the counter appeared irritated at Katie and rattled off something in Italian, motioning for Katie to move so the next customer could pay.
“Guess I’ll never know if she ripped me off or not,” Katie said as they entered the main terminal. “You just have the right look, Christy.”
“Okay, now we’re getting organized.” Todd walked over to the computerized schedule board and read the departure times. “This is the one we want. Roma to Venezia departing at 20:35 at platform . . .” He glanced at his watch. “Come on! We’re going to have to run to catch it!”
Todd took off at a sprint, and Christy fell in line behind him. She glanced over her shoulder to make sure Katie was with them. As they jogged through the crowds, Christy felt her pack dig into her shoulders and hit her repeatedly on her hip. The spicy pizza in her stomach threatened to come up for another visit.
Despite all the discomfort, they made it to the train. And, thanks to Todd’s quick thinking, they arrived in time to upgrade to first class at the ticket window. First class was packed. It seemed everyone was leaving Rome on this Friday night. Christy figured second class was even worse. They found two seats at the end of an aisle, which Katie and Christy took while Todd stood, studying the tour book.
The train rumbled out of the station, and Christy closed her eyes and tried to find a comfortable position. They were definitely on an adventure now, and they were also coming up with a plan. It seemed to her that both wishes were being fulfilled. She hoped that meant the next two weeks would be less stressful.
During the fi
ve-hour trip to Venice, Christy slept some, walked around some, and visited the rest room with Katie so Katie could demonstrate exactly how she managed to lock herself into the stall in Naples. Christy laughed at her crazy friend and thought how glad she was that they were getting along this well. Much of the earlier tension they both seemed to have struggled with had dissipated. Now Christy felt that the wide gap that had spread between them while she was in Switzerland was closing, and they were getting back to being the close buddies they had been for so many years.
About an hour before they arrived in Venice, Todd and Christy left Katie so they could sit across from each other in the dining car, sipping cappuccino and discussing plans. Todd had done some serious reading during the past few hours, and he now was a huge fan of Christy’s travel guide. His eyes glimmered as he told Christy about the sights that lay before them in Scandinavia.
“And this Fredericksborg Castle in Denmark sounds pretty interesting,” he said. “I know you like castles. It’s only about half an hour from Copenhagen, so when we go through there, I thought that might be a place you would like to stop.”
Christy smiled at Todd. “You remembered that I like castles.”
“Hey, you remembered that I like mangoes. Maybe we’ve both been taking notes on each other for a long time without realizing it.”
“I’d love to see at least one castle on this trip. More, if we can fit them into the schedule. What about you? What do you want to see? I doubt many mango trees will be along the way.”
“There’s this museum in Oslo.” Todd pointed to a short paragraph in the tour book. “It says they have the original Kon-Tiki on display there.”
Christy waited for an explanation. “Kon-Tiki” sounded Polynesian, which would explain why Todd, who had lived in Hawaii when he was young, would be interested. She just didn’t know why a museum in Norway would have something Polynesian.
“It’s Thor Heyerdahl’s raft. He sailed it from Peru to the Easter Islands to prove that early civilization from South America could have found its way to the islands of the Pacific.”
Until Tomorrow Page 11