A dead man, an old Pole, lies before an altar, his corpse tilted at an awkward angle that makes one slightly too aware of his shoes. People come to see him, millions of people. Many have travelled thousands of miles and all have waited long hours in the too warm Roman spring days and the too cold spring nights. When they reach his body, they are not allowed to stop moving but they each perform quick rituals.
Typically, they cross themselves, raise a phone to take a picture, genuflect and blow a kiss at the body. It is all over in seconds. And then they are outside again, dazed but certain — certain they have been granted a glimpse of the truth. Certain that they have had a part in the greatest show on earth.
Karol Wojtyla was always a theatrical type. As a young man he wrote plays and worked in the theatre. He never lost his touch. As John Paul II, Supreme Pontiff, Vicar of Christ, holder of the keys to the Kingdom, he still knew how to make them gasp in the stalls. He knelt and kissed the ground, he held up babies and, in 1979, he told the Poles not to be afraid and to be “strong with love which is stronger than death”. It was, in retrospect, one of the most dramatic moments of the 20th century. Ten years later communism collapsed, its rotten foundations exposed by a showman priest.
Last week he did it again. Nothing became this star in life like the leaving of it. Every agonising moment of his decline was chronicled and photographed. Who can forget the dove that would not fly away or his hopeless attempts to bless the crowd? And then, just by being dead, he made the world watch.
His funeral on Friday was theatre of an other-worldly grandeur and perfection. The austere cypress coffin, massed scarlet ranks of cardinals, the black suits of the powerful and the flags and banners of the powerless were all arranged by a master director before the mighty masonry of St Peter’s. John Paul made the world look, as it always has done, at Rome, still the city where it all happens.
The first thing I notice as I turn into the Via della Consiliazione very early on Wednesday morning is the staggering, unreal facade of the Basilica, all pale creams in the weak sun. The second thing I notice is the door through which the pilgrims are entering. It is hung with red velvet curtains that could have come straight from the Palladium. Make ’em laugh, John Paul, make ’em cry. And the third thing I notice is that, yet again, the world has come to Rome, the street is choked with an extraordinarily compacted river of pilgrims.
No, let me modify that. The world has come to the Vatican. On the other side of the Tiber, they’re just doing what Romans do — abusing drivers, arguing, shouting, sounding their horns, drinking poisonously strong coffee and buying Eurotrash clothes. On the Spanish Steps the backpackers sun themselves and stare blankly back down the Via Condotti. Tourists trudge dutifully towards the Colosseum. The cats in the ruins stretch and yawn. It’s another day in the Roman life.
Here and there, however, are posters with pictures of the old showman, most just with the caption “Grazie”, but some saying Rome weeps. One shows him being blessed by Christ. Finally, in the window of the Prada shop in Via Condotti, a tasteful card is displayed amid the costly bags and clothes. “Via Condotti Association,” it says, “mourns the death of Pope John Paul II.”
He didn’t like the consumer society any more than he liked communism, but the Italians can live with this. They have always worn the cloak of Catholicism lightly, allowing it to blow sexily open and expose the Mediterranean paganism beneath.
So the multinational millions — more in total than the entire population of the city — are being funnelled into the Vatican. The scale of this operation becomes clear when you reach the roadblock at the end of the Corso Vittorio Emmanuele. The bridge beyond is full of people and police and, as the day wears on, the queue extends down the river. People here will have to wait between 12 and 20 hours to see John Paul.
But they are quiet and, on television, I note this gives the impression of a certain serenity. On the ground it feels more like quiet desperation. One American woman with a toddler on her shoulders says she gave up queueing, angry with the behaviour of the police who move the crowd forward in blocks of several hundred and forcibly stop people leaving these blocks. The best way to get out is to fake a medical emergency — fainting is okay, but most people advise exhibiting stroke or heart attack symptoms. This will get you into the Red Cross tents and a sympathetic policeman should preserve your place in the queue.
The blocks are led by solemn ranks of stewards holding hands. As they are released from their imprisonment, they cheer and try to run, crying “Avanti! Avanti! Avanti!” The nuns seem to handle it best, especially the older ones. With a fierce “Permesso!” they shove their way past any obstacle and who’s going to argue? But the really weird thing is the catastrophic lack of lavatories combined, perversely, with the huge supply of bottled water. There are said to be 3,500 temporary toilet blocks. Well, there aren’t. There are also said to be 500,000 litres of water handed out daily to the pilgrims. Well, it was much more than that.
Boxes of bottles are everywhere and more are constantly being brought in by lorries and then shifted about by forklift trucks. But, if they drink the water they’ll want to go to the loo, but they can’t, so they don’t. As a result, bottle mountains are piling up with people using them as chairs, tables and even beds. Men and women in vivid uniforms — some are called Protezione Civile; others, happily, Maltesers — are waving bottles at the crowd.
