All The Bells on Earth

ALL THE BELLS ON EARTH

James P. Blaylock

www.sfgateway.com

Our full energies are to be given to the soul’s work—to the great fight with the Dragon—the taking of the kingdom of heaven by force.

J
OHN
R
USKIN
P
RE
-R
APHAELITISM

A
WET WINTER NIGHT
. Nearly two in the morning and the spirit of Christmas haunts the ocean wind, sighing through the foil candycanes that sway from lampposts along Chapman Avenue, through the ribs of the illuminated Santa Claus in the distant Plaza, along empty alleys dark with shifting, anxious shadows. Raindrops slant across the misty glass globes of streetlamps, and heavy, broken clouds drift across the face of the moon. For a few moments the terra-cotta roof tiles of St. Anthony’s Church glisten in the moonlight. The downtown houses appear out of the darkness: clapboard bungalows with shadowy porches and leafy flowerbeds, curb trees pushing up the sidewalks, the houses dark except for the yellow glow of front porch lamps and here and there strings of Christmas lights left on all night.

The moon slips behind clouds again, and in the deepening gloom a human figure steps out of the shadows onto the peak of the church roof and walks carefully across the rainwashed tiles, bent low and carrying a stiff cloth bag. The bell tower rises before him, above the west wall of the church, its white stucco a pale ghost against the deeper darkness of the roof. Within the open arches of the tower stand the crossmembers and struts of the iron framework that supports a carillon of eleven heavy bells.

He climbs over the cast concrete railing in the east-facing arch and dissappears among the maze of shadows cast by the bells, and suddenly the silent night is broken by a tumult of flapping wings, and the sky above the tower is clouded with circling white doves.

F
ATHER
M
AHONEY SAT
in the small sacristy of Holy Spirit Catholic Church and listened to the water dripping from the eaves outside the windows, which were tilted open to let in the melody of the rain. The room was pleasantly scented with the smell of the night air, mingling with the odor of floor wax and incense blocks. It was early in the morning—he wasn’t sure just what time it was—but he rarely slept later than four these days, and over the years he had gotten used to seeing the sunrise as well as the sunset. And anyway, today he was seventy—he didn’t have the leisure to be wasting a morning of this quality.

He heard a noise from somewhere off in the church, what sounded like the creaking of wooden joints.

Probably it was just the old church settling in the weather. He sat for a moment listening to hear it again, but there was nothing, just the sound of the rainy morning. Something about the rain improved the silence, something vast and deep that reminded him of the last notes of a hymn or the silence that followed the ringing of bells.

On the library table in front of him lay an open cigar box next to his cup of instant coffee. The box was filled with seashells. He picked out several kelp scallops and paired them according to size and color, but none of the pairs looked quite right. There had already been half a dozen Pacific storms this winter, and the shelling was better than any year he could remember. He had found two perfect chestnut cowries beneath the Huntington Beach pier last week—the first he had ever found. They sat on the table now, neatly arrayed beside the scallops and a handful of jewel-box shells.

He picked up an issue of
The Nautilus
and began to flip through the pages, but right then he heard the sound of wood scraping against wood, as if someone had pushed a pew out of its place in the church. He stood up and walked to the door, edging it open and looking out past the altar, seeing no one. He stepped across the choir and looked down into the nave, which was empty, the pews sitting square and neat and solid. After a moment he went back into the sacristy and sat down again, idly stirring the shells in the box with his index finger and gazing at the three stained-glass windows in the east wall.

It was in the early morning that he most liked to sit in the wood-paneled room and simply look at these windows, which depicted Christ and two angels ascending into heaven. Holly leaves with red berries bordered the windows, and the same color of red tinted the stigmata on Christ’s out-turned palms. The windows looked out on a garden of tree ferns and maidenhair, and tonight the ivory light from the garden lamps muted the colors of the rain-washed glass, tinting the holly berries and the bleeding wounds an unearthly shade of deep red that reminded him of the sacrament. He couldn’t help making these connections, seeing the spirit of one thing alive in something else; it was evidence of the great design.

There was the sound of car wheels swishing on the wet asphalt of the street, and he was momentarily thankful to be inside, where it was warm and dry and close. Picking up one of the cowries, he ran his finger over the smooth hump of its shell. And then, as he set it back down on the table among the others, the sacristy door creaked open.

A man stepped into the room. He wore an oversized coat and trousers, rubber gloves, and a pair of dirty white loafers with tassels. Covering his head was a rubber mask that resembled the face of a goat, complete with a protruding rubber tongue, curled-back horns, and a tuft of coarse hair.

T
HE MAN IN
the church tower reeled against the railing, shocked at the rush of wings around him, at the wheeling birds that had been nesting in the belfry. Dropping the canvas sack full of tools, he held onto the smooth stucco of the tower wall with both hands. Although there was a floor beneath the bells, he felt himself to be standing at the edge of a yawning pit, as if the tower were a deep open well into the darkness.

Birds landed on the peak of the roof and stood in the rain before wheeling away again, disappearing into the deep shadows of a big cypress tree in the lot next door. In a moment the night was quiet, and he felt steady again. He let go of the wall, shoved his tools aside with his foot, and forced himself to attend to the bells. There was just enough light to make out the immense bolts that secured them—three bolts in each of the two biggest bells, which must have been three feet in diameter, their bronze walls some three or four inches thick. He groped in the bag of tools, his heart racing, and found a can of lubricant, then sprayed the heavily rusted nuts that secured the biggest bell.

It would be easier simply to cut the wires attached to the clappers and silence the bells that way, but then it would be equally easy for the bellringer to reattach the wires. He wanted something else to happen, something more permanent.

He took a big wrench from the bag and fit it to the nut, leaning into it hard, throwing his weight behind it. Nothing happened. It was frozen tight. The wind blew a flurry of raindrops through the arch, and he let up on the wrench, picking up the can of spray lube again and spraying the nuts heavily. A car drove past on the street below, its headlights glaring against the wet asphalt, and he cursed the driver under his breath.

Christmas lights winked off and on along the eaves of a house across the street, throwing a faint glow of blue and red and green across the dull metal of the bells. Somehow the colors horrified him, as if they were live things, tiny spirits dancing on the cold bells, mocking him, appearing and disappearing like goblin gold. The bells began to thrum in the wind, as if they had a voice, and for a moment he fancied he could hear a melody in the raindrops plinking against the bronze. The iron framework before him was dizzyingly complicated, and the bells swam in and out of his vision.