My Short Life as a Guide 

    One of the assumptions I bought with me when I moved to the small town I live in now was that it would take a long time to be accepted. Small towns, I believed, were like clubs with pecking orders and patriarchs who stood guard at the gate to make sure that newcomers didn't waltz into any inner sanctums without being pre-approved by all the other members. 

    I was wrong. Within minutes of my arrival people were dropping off apple pies, asking me to church suppers, even inviting me to be a hostess for the annual house tour, which benefits the local arts and activities center. It has never been an ambition of mine to be a house-tour hostess, but this seemed like a particularly intimate offer and I jumped at the opportunity. 

    On the Sunday afternoon of the house tour I arrived at l p.m. at Don and Rosemary Jones's large, pleasantly furnished Victorian-era house on the railroad tracks. My job was to stand inside the Joneses' dining room and tell people that they were looking at a genuine Victorian-era dining table, chairs and sideboard which had been given to Mrs. Jones by her mother when she got married. 

    "And don't forget to say," said the woman in charge 'that the fireplace mantel came from the Fan District in Richmond." I didn't even know what the Fan District was, but I nodded and waited for the house tourists to arrive. The tour would take them through the front hall, living room, dining room and, finally, the kitchen, where Conde Hopkins, who taught history at the local high school, would take over. 

    The first group of people came into the dining room, and I told them what I knew. They were polite but did not linger. The second group was similarly flaccid. Then again, there wasn't a great deal of plot or electricity in the information I was delivering. With two hours and thirty minutes to go, I decided to up the voltage. After telling about the mantel and the fact that Mrs. Jones's mother had given her the furniture for the wedding, I pointed to the head of the dining room table. "And it was right here, on this needlepoint side chair, in l954, that Pope Pius XII had tea." 

    Instantly, I had everyone's attention. All eyes were riveted to the end of the dark brown mahogany table where the pontiff had actually leaned his white linen-clad elbows. This was taking the tour to a higher, albeit psychopathic level, where suddenly one was in the presence of history. And after I had told the story several times more it was as real to me as to anybody listening. 

    In l954, the year of the great blizzard (I had to hope there was one) , the pope, I said, had been en route by train from Florida to Washington, D. C. where he was scheduled to have an audience with the president. (I omitted the president's name because I couldn't think that fast.) But the snow blocked the tracks and the pope's private car was stuck right outside the Joneses' house. "So," I said, "they brought the pontiff inside to warm up until the rails were cleared." 

    It was a warm and human story, and everybody loved the fact that Pope Pius XII had actually been here, even though the Joneses are Episcopalians and the town has definite Methodist and Baptist underpinnings. And next door, in the kitchen, my friend, Conde decided that what was good for the dining room was good for the kitchen, too. 

    "It's a little known fact," she began, "but this kitchen was designed by Salvador Dali, who was a houseguest in the l940's. (Actually, Dali did spend a week here but certainly the Jonses' plain, almost Shaker-style kitchen, with wooden counters and cabinets, was anything but surreal.) People looked at Conde with disbelief, but she was serene in her knowledge. 

    "Before Dali came along," she continued "people built their storage cabinets on the ground. But when Dali was here he looked at the cabinets one day and said, 'Let's lift these things and hang them from the ceiling.'" 

    Suddenly hanging cabinets seemed outlandish and daring. Everybody's eyes darted to the sky and what was hidden became plain - which is the mark of a good teacher. I bowed my head respectfully and from that moment on Conde and I were co-conspirators. The remaining two and a half hours flew down the rails, like the pontiff's own private car once the snow had been cleared from the tracks. 

    The following morning I received a call from Rosemary Jones who had heard from a variety of sources that there was more to her home than met the eye, her own included. "I happen to know," she said dryly, "that Pope Pius XII never left Italy during his entire life." 

    "He has now," I answered. And every time I pass the Joneses' house I think about that wintry day in '54 when he sought refuge inside. That, I suppose, is the test of a good story - that even the fabricator believes it. Of course neither Conde nor I has been invited to host any more house tours. As for the town, the fact that I did not turn its back upon the tellers is a test of its continuing forbearance. The longer I live here, the more I rely upon it.