Patricia Lockwood spends 72 hours in Rome after being invited to meet the pope, ostensibly to repair the friendship between artists and the church. Hilarity and hyperbole ensue.
At the English-language bookshop Otherwise, we make friends with the man behind the till, Donato, who poses for a picture while exclaiming: ‘I’m ugly as fuck though!’ He has excellent taste in literature. He gives us a free tote bag. On the back of it is printed: ‘Good fiction’s job is to comfort the disturbed and disturb the comfortable.’ I have the chance to do the funniest thing possible and carry this into the Sistine Chapel.
A bit of weather crosses the pope’s face. He’s mad at me, maybe, for not giving him a drawing called The Quantum Eternity of Love. No, he’s mad at me for not giving his hand back. He retrieves it, with surprising strength, and then raises two fingers and blesses my stomach. He is finally smiling – no longer trapped with the artists, but back with the bambini. Oh my God, I realise, as I walk back to my seat, he 100 per cent thinks I am pregnant.
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