Duomo Speaking

Duomo Speaking

It's been a long time. I am the Duomo of Milan. I've seen a lot of
people trampling up and down my aisles, the dull clanging of metal on
stone echoes down the ages. Time brings changes. Metal isn't used much
in soles anymore. The marble and stone of my floors have an easier
life.

The light in here is pretty good these days, we've lost some of the
gloom. I have heard over loud voices suggest we've lost in atmosphere
and that might be true. I like the way shafts of light from spotlights
come down as though through high windows to fall and merge with the
gloom below. Whatever, I get a good look at the visitors and that is
all that matters. I sometimes wonder why I am up in the rafters. I
could look up from the floors or across from the walls, but I find my
'eyes' up here, high above the little human creatures that come within
my walls.

You suppose I don't feel anything for those ant-like creatures? No. No.
I have a long memory. It goes all the way back to 1387 and the years
when Giangaleazzo Visconti, the ruler of Milan, laboured over my
conception. He was thinking of the Madonna, placed her up there in all
the glory of my roof. They brought granite down from Lake Maggiore,
used marble panels to finish the job. Who paid for it all?
Giangalleazzo paid in part, the Pope donated something, but most of the
money came from collections by the people of Milan. They held festivals
to raise the money, each district working to outdo the others. I
haven't forgotten that.

The work took years and they argued over how I should be built,
architects came from all over Europe to help, though normally it was
the locals who held their own and packed the foreigners off home. In
1419 the Pope came and dedicated the high altar. That was a colourful
day which made us all very proud. I felt myself coming together, the
vibrations that sang in my heart became strong. Even so it was
centuries before I was really finished and even now the work goes on
just to keep my looks up to scratch.

There was a church here before me but they say it wasn't grand enough
for the piazza. I suspect there were other reasons. I looked into
Giangalleazzo's heart and saw a man standing alone who felt the need of
alliances. He chose the people of Milan, treated them carefully,
cutting the taxes, ending the corruption of officials, and giving them
a glorious place of worship. He seized power here but none complained
after the cruelty of his uncle Bernabo. Giangalleazzo's brilliance and
my grandness brought us a time of peace and solidarity.

These days a lot of people still find their way inside my doors. You
interested? So watch those people down there. See them now. Little
Japanese girl walking down the aisle. See her? She's got that black
hair cut straight across her forehead, her shirt is hanging down at the
back, dangles out below her leather jacket. They call that fashion. I
swoop down on her and her head is full of jangling sounds. I am not
used to that and get a bit befuddled. One glimpse of soaring planes,
screeching cars, bare hotel rooms and rising girlish laughter, jumbled
wonder full of fears, all tightly bundled, is enough for me.

I turn my attention to a known face. This one has been before, perhaps
even more often than the old ladies who come to light candles for
missing or errant children, grandchildren, their hearts full of pain
for ill friends, dead friends, for themselves. This one has the round,
respectable face of a balding fifty year old man. I wonder how to help
him. He looks like any other grey-suited businessman till you look into
his eyes. There you fall. It's a terrible fall into cold, wrenching
guilt. A darkness impossible to escape.

I know his story too well. I have searched his thoughts for a way to
help him. I have tried a trick or two. His is a difficult case. Some
are easy, others not. One old girl came here every day for two years
pleading for the life of her son who had been lost at sea. There was no
definite news. There never would be but she kept hoping. I wanted to
help. He was dead. I knew that. The problem lay in how I could tell
her. How can stone speak? I wait till the moment presents itself. Two
years I waited for circumstance to lend a hand.

She arrived one freezing winter morning, all covered up in woollies and
coat, her nose red from the biting cold outside, and came to her
favourite saint's altar. There, just as she was lighting a candle, she
looked into the eyes of her saint and asked if her son were alive. The
wick of the candle crackled as it lit, and, just as the flame grew
strong, a door opened to let in the gust of air I needed to snuff out
that flame.

The old dear's face fell, she slumped to her knees and I felt for her.
Should I have left her that hope? It was a terrible shuddering moment
as she gasped for air, but then she looked up through her tears to
smile at her saint and I heard her give thanks.

I ask how I can do that for this man. I haven't yet told you his story,
have I? Let me tell you now.

Here was a man locked into a life. He worked from early morning to late
evening. He loved the family he left at home, the wife who smiled
jovially at him in the morning, the teenage children who rushed by him
whenever he came near. He still remembered them as infants he could
hold tight in his arms, forgave them everything. He had accepted things
the way they were. He was sad he hadn't been able to smile back at his
wife all those mornings. He just wasn't the type. Mornings were always
hard with frost that had to thaw.

He wondered if his wife had been happy. The question worried at him,
followed on from his nightmare thoughts, when sleep eluded him late
into the night. They had grown fat together, pleasantly plump, and
their lives had seemed to be carved into stone. He had risen in the
company to a point where nothing could touch him. Even complete
disaster would only bring early retirement and a fat pension
accompanied by various offers to act as consultant. He would be better
off. He might have considered precipitating things had there been no
risk of damaging his reputation, he held very dear his prestige in the
company.

He was a shouter. It was in his blood. Perhaps it stemmed from that
morning frost, problems arriving too soon on his desk. His secretary
would shrink back into herself, ready to weather the storm, his howls
of derision blasted at some damned fool at the other end of a telephone
line. Worse, a colleague across his desk, head rolling as the verbal
battering swung into full force. His secretary had threatened to leave
if he didn't treat her well. He had had to control himself with her.
She was too good to lose.

Now it all seemed ridiculous. All that noise. And for what? All it led
to was one awful day. Saturday. Now it is coming. The moment. He is
driving his car. It is a nice luxurious car. A silver grey Lancia
Thema. He is hurrying. Accelerating through the traffic. He overtakes a
car on the inside. His wife is sitting next to him. She is chattering
about her day. She has to get her hair done. He looks at her. Her hair
doesn't need cutting. The carefully permed curls frame her large,
smiling face as always. He says nothing, shrugs inwardly. She has to
visit some friends, pick up cakes for that evening. People were coming
round. He was to remember. Not come home too late. And on and on. It is
late. Then it happens.

He is sitting airbag in his face one moment, then slumped up against
the steering wheel. The car is still moving. He can see things swinging
out of view outside. There is broken glass everywhere. He is trying to
look around to the passenger seat. He stops there.

In his thoughts at night he tries to fill in the blanks. He shivers. He
is back in the driving seat listening to his wife again but now also
looking for turnings, traffic lights. He missed something. The lorry
had hit full force. The lorry driver said he couldn't do anything. The
car had just appeared from nowhere. He had missed a traffic light. Gone
with the red. He couldn't see it. Had he just blanked out for a second?
Had he looked down? Got lost in his thoughts. There had been a big
contract to sign that morning. He had been thinking of the final
clauses to be added. He had been listening to her.

She was dead.

He had no power over that. He couldn't shout at anyone. He wanted to
howl. And now he sits in my pews and stares fixedly at Jesus up on his
cross with all number of thoughts rushing through his mind. But he
can't ask for forgiveness. He asks to be ripped apart. Yes. He asks to
be given permission to die. He can't bear to look his children in their
eyes. He can't bear to stay in his own home. He can't stand to sleep in
his bed. But he forces himself to it. He forces himself to think of
her. He goes endlessly over the accident.

He will never know.

What help can we give him? No freak draught is going to help this man.
Not in a thousand years. He needs a stronger hand to help him to his
feet. He needs to see himself.

Jesus Christ is high up near the rafters barely visible from below,
that is to allow people's imaginations to fill in whatever they need to
see, but in some cases it is necessary to make people see. There is a
spotlight trained upon Him. Please don't judge me. It is not a cheap
trick. It is a last hope.

Our poor man stands, raises his eyes for one last look, the spotlight
flashes on and he freezes under the vision. At that moment Jesus twists
and jarrs with pain, his naked body flailed from within and without.
Our man looks up to His face and sees only pain, pure and devastating.
How he stares! Then there are thoughts that fall away in a thousand
understandings that have me gasping for a second, I didn't think he had
anything like it in him. In one awful moment he has understood the
power and meaning of Christ. Jesus shows him he is not alone, there is
someone ready to stand with him in an agony even more wracked than his
own. But more, this Man is able to show it, share it, not hide it
frozen beneath the skin.

I'm not sure that it worked. It thawed him out enough to get him back
to his home and his children. He spent a few days humming with the
power of the experience. But he is not the religious type. His vision
faded and began to lose its hold. We see him less and less. He comes in
and peers up at Jesus, tries to see through the gloom. We let him see
once, that should have been enough, and now he will just have to get on
with things. His guilt is back, eating into his flesh, as it sinks
deeper perhaps his half forgotten vision will flicker back into light
and bring his soul to us for an eternity.

We can't but hope.