Rome, 1988

Homecoming

I have not set foot in Rome since the day I left for Scotland all those centuries ago. Now, after two world wars, heartbreak, and grief, I was finally ready to face my past and embrace my future, set in the new world. Rome had changed, to be sure—she had traded her horse-carts for the frantic, neon-lit clatter of the eighties—and yet, at her core, she remained that same grand, indomitable mother, watching over the centuries with a patient, stony smile.

As I approached the Basilica of San Lorenzo fuori le mura, a wonderful sort of trembling anticipation took hold of me. Standing before her ancient face, I felt humbled and quietly joyful, like a weary traveler finally reaching a long-lost garden gate. The doors groaned open with a slow, welcoming sigh, revealing a sanctuary that time itself seemed to have forgotten. It was all there, just as I remembered, save for the marble statue of Saint Lawrence who now kept a silent, watchful vigil where none had stood in the sixteenth century.

The Cosmatesque floors retained their ancient splendor, their intricate ribbons of porphyry and serpentine glowing with a quiet fire that made the noise of the modern world simply vanish. When my eyes fell upon the inscription Aedes Lavrenti, my heart gave a joyful leap. The mosaic spoke to me, a divine greeting addressed to my soul across the abyss of years.

Aedes Lavrenti. The house of Lawrence. I was home.

As the sun slanted through the high windows, the scent of frankincense drifted toward me like a warm embrace. In that sweet air, a rush of memories returned: the good brothers who raised me, the long line of Kings and Queens passing into history, in a ghostly procession, the salt-spray of Brittany, the cliffs of Cornwall, and the heavy poverty of Whitechapel. I thought of Monty, still shimmering in my mind with the golden light of days gone by.

I knelt upon that beautiful floor and wept—the first tears to touch my cheeks since 1888. My heart burned, yet was consoled by the coolness and the embrace of the faith I thought I had lost.

I rose at last and emerged from the shadows into the deepening twilight. High above, the statue of Saint Lawrence stood against a sky slowly turning into diamond-speckled velvet, watching over a world that was, at long last, quiet.