On the tram built to shuttle fair visitors from the city center to the Heizel Paleis, I spotted the Atomium. It was far larger than the model had prepared me for. The official symbol of the fair—printed on every poster, every pamphlet, and almost every postcard and souvenir—the nine-sphered Atomium was supposed to represent the new atomic age. To me, it looked more like a leftover set from The Day the Earth Stood Still.
The fair would not open for an hour, but throngs of people had already lined up outside the large iron gates. Impatient children pulled at their mothers’ purses; American high school students stuck their hands and heads through the fence, one almost getting stuck; a young French couple necked in public without regard to anyone’s stares; an elderly German woman took a photograph of her husband standing next to a woman dressed in the black skirt, black jacket, black tie, and black hat of a fair guide. It was a thrill to be surrounded by so many people while still feeling unseen. No one paid attention to the nun.
I joined the line of fair workers at the Porte du Parc gate, which led directly into the International Section. As I approached the guard, I took a deep breath and pulled out my Expo 58 badge. He barely looked at me as he waved me in.
It was extraordinary. The model hadn’t come close to depicting the enormity of it all. It was the first World’s Fair since the war, and an estimated forty million tourists from every corner of the globe were expected.
Except for the fair workers hustling to their positions and a brigade of broom-wielding women sweeping debris from the street, I had the main thoroughfare to myself. I passed the Thai pavilion and its multiple tiered roofs resembling a temple atop a gleaming white marble staircase. The U.K. pavilion bore a striking similarity to three white pope’s hats. The French pavilion was an enormous modern basket woven of steel and glass. West Germany’s was modern and simple, like something Frank Lloyd Wright might’ve dreamed up. Italy’s resembled a beautiful Tuscan villa.
I quickly located the American pavilion, and I couldn’t decide whether the building, surrounded with state flags, looked more like an overturned wagon wheel or a UFO. Immediately to its left was the Soviet Union’s behemoth—the largest pavilion by far in the International Section. It looked as if it could eat the American pavilion. Inside there were facsimiles of Sputnik I and II, which I longed to see. I’d never admit it aloud, but when Sputnik was launched, I couldn’t help but feel a twinge of pride. I’d never been to the Motherland, but as I looked up at the sky the night the satellite was shot into space, I felt a connection to the place of my parents’ birth in a way I hadn’t before. That night in D.C. was cloudy, and I knew you couldn’t see it with the naked eye, but still I looked to the heavens, hoping to see a flash of silver streaking across the sky. So there, standing so close to the thing—or at least, a replica of it—I wanted so much to go inside Russia’s pavilion and see it, touch it.
But I couldn’t deviate from Father David’s plan.
On the other side of the American pavilion was my destination: the City of God. The Holy See’s white building, simple and sloping, appeared small enough to fit within the lobby of the USSR’s pavilion. I walked inside the quiet building, the clacking of my cheap black leather shoes echoing off the marble floors. Vatican workers scurried about, preparing to open. They mopped the floors, set out pamphlets, and refilled the basins with holy water. They said Hello, Sister as I passed, and I smiled the way I thought a nun might: with just the corners of my mouth.
Father Pierre was already in position—standing next to The Thinker, his hands behind his back, rocking on his heels. As I passed, his gaze didn’t break from the famous sculpture.
Down the vaulted corridor and into the Chapel of Silence, two nuns were readying the small altar facing the pews. They looked me over, then continued lighting the candles. Had I passed the test? If I hadn’t, the nuns revealed nothing. Nor did they react when I circled the altar and walked through the parting in the heavy blue curtains behind it.