The Voice of God

On the first Saturday in June, I completed the Italia Coast 2 Coast Trail with a group of 8 friends. We were together for all of the 18-day trip, sharing the day from breakfast, through the walking, dinner, and sometimes lodging. At our last dinner together, in Orbetello around a long table, were Guiseppie and his wife Laura, both fluent English speakers; Irish Ann Marie, a strong walker with a wicked sense of humour; Gayden, a tall and blonde attention getter but also a strong walker with an eye for a very good photo; and David and Barbara from Missouri, who I walked with in Hungary/Slovenia/Croatia, and with David in France. Guiseppie stood to make toast: “Sepp,” as his wife Laura calls him, had been an Italian Air Force Pilot who flew F-104’s, among other things. We’ve walked together on three trails in Italy. He thanked us for coming together to experience their country and culture and announced that he had arranged to pay for the dinner. Our protests were to no avail, so we ordered another bottle of wine. The dinner was emotional as it was delicious. The next morning, we all headed in different directions. Sepp and Laura went home to Verona. Ann Marie flew back to England from Pisa. Gayden went to meet friends in Cinque Terre. David and Barbara went to Pompeii. It was over.

I took the train into Rome, arriving in the afternoon. The Roma Termini train station is enormous, and I went out the wrong side of the building and then walked around the enormous station to my hotel, which turned out to be across the street on the opposite side. The hotel was old but decent and under $100.  My flight to Luxembourg was at 8 PM the following evening. I found dinner and went to sleep early.

In the morning, I checked out of the hotel and put my backpack into their luggage storage room. I’m not a great tourist. What would I do with a free day in Rome? I spent three days with Josette in Rome sightseeing a few years before; the Forum Romani and Coliseum and the Vatican Museum were places I didn’t need to see again.  I already have a photo with Josette in front of the Trevi Fountain. It was not even a selfie; one of the thousand or so tourists around us took the photo. The weather was lovely, so I just wandered around for a while. I sat on a park bench and watched people walk by. I got coffee and a croissant at a café with tables in a park. When it was time for lunch, I stopped in a replica of an English Pub. I had seen signs pointing the direction to it, and I like English pubs. Besides, I’d been eating in Italian restaurants for three weeks. I got a pint of ale and ordered lunch. Sometimes I take photos of meals so I can remember what was served, but in this case I didn’t – quite likely it was fish and chips. While I was waiting, I searched on my cell phone for “things to do in Rome.” I found a reference to a museum which sounded interesting, so I put the location into Apple Maps for walking directions.

Following walking directions in a city can be tricky because tall buildings often block signals from the GPS satellites. The route took me down major streets lined with ground floor retail and upstairs residential, past restaurants and shops, bus stops and coffee shops, along crowded sidewalks, and through small parks. Although it was busy, it wasn’t quite as crowded as in the old city touristic areas, with their piazza and fountains. The tourists in those places can be elbow to elbow crowds stretching from one side to the other in the smaller streets. My hometown has a lot of tourism, but to handle the number of tourists one sees in Rome it would be necessary to do as the Romans do and close Main Street to cars because that space would be needed for the people and the tables of the bars and restaurants spilling out into the street. (Not a bad idea, eh?) Then the map indicated a left turn onto a narrow and winding cobblestone street with no sidewalks and buildings close together. Not far down the street I heard music coming from my right.

I turned my head toward the music and saw a church. Usually, old churches stand out from the buildings around them, but this one was fitted between tall apartment buildings, with a tobacco shop on one side and storefronts on the other. The church front was Baroque style, quite a bit different than the austere apartments surrounding it. There was a poster that was affixed to the door. I took a photo of the poster and used Google to translate the text to English. The church was hosting a three-day series of organ concerts! Once inside I looked over a display about their organ, which was apparently famous. The church was built in the 15^th century and wasn’t all that big with the large and complex organ console in front of the altar and a little to the left. The pipes were arranged above the door I had just entered with a gallery on either side wall. The organist was seated at the console with his back to the congregation. There were a few other people inside the church listening to him play. I took a seat near the front. The scene in front of me was a bit overwhelming; there was lots of gold and a huge painting behind the altar, which was flanked by four tall gleaming columns of serpentine purple and white marble. Light streaming through colored glass windows flooded the space with yellows and blues and reds and greens. The walls were ornately decorated with gold accents. Painted statues and ancient paintings lined the walls, each telling their story. I turned to fix my attention back onto the music. From the program listing on the poster, I decided it was a composition by Chopin. This was by deduction; the other composers on the program were J S Bach and a Gothic piece. The church’s official name was Saint Anthony of the Portuguese of Campo Marzio. Its common name was the Portuguese Cathedral, and it served the area’s Portuguese community. Today’s organist was Polish, as was Chopin. I listened for the next 45 minutes. Most of that time I was the only listener. The music was romantic and lyrical, it swelled and diminished, was melancholic and introspective, and sometimes the huge pipes created sounds I could feel in my body.

The organist finished his program, put the score in a leather satchel, stood, and walked out the front door of the church. The concert, like my walk, was over.

 I went back outside to the street, trying to understand the impact of the music, and the church, on me. I thought about a Portuguese fisherman who might have been there five hundred years before. I wondered what he might have thought, immersed in art, color, gold, and the rich smell of incense. The music from the organ could have been the loudest sounds the fisherman had ever heard. I wonder if he would have thought the music was the voice of God.

Perhaps it was.