WEBVTT 1 00:00:05.000 --> 00:00:08.240 Twenty five years have climbed these steps, a single warm 2 00:00:08.279 --> 00:00:10.199 path through the stone, the left heel of each step 3 00:00:10.240 --> 00:00:12.480 worn deeper from my habit of ascending at a slight tilt, 4 00:00:12.679 --> 00:00:15.560 balancing the toll bag against my thigh. I know no 5 00:00:15.839 --> 00:00:18.559 I knew every groove, every spider silk twist in the corners, 6 00:00:18.640 --> 00:00:20.920 every echoing tone. As the wind rattles the belfry doors. 7 00:00:21.679 --> 00:00:24.199 This morning, as in every march, the ritual enfals with 8 00:00:24.280 --> 00:00:27.399 familiarity that borders on reverence. Unlock the brass gade, test 9 00:00:27.480 --> 00:00:29.600 the thick but laces, check the battery in my little 10 00:00:29.600 --> 00:00:31.559 head lamp, and rise into the dusty air. At the 11 00:00:31.559 --> 00:00:34.000 heart of the village. There are four bells in the 12 00:00:34.039 --> 00:00:37.520 terror of Santandria Baugh. I can tell you this, shaped 13 00:00:37.520 --> 00:00:40.520 blind finger by finger, the old Madder bell casts seventeen 14 00:00:40.600 --> 00:00:42.880 ninety eight with a flat pockwark running its rim. The 15 00:00:42.920 --> 00:00:46.759 slender Misana cast eating forty six, with packs and curly capitals. 16 00:00:46.799 --> 00:00:49.840 The piccolo, the highest voice, cracked but mended in the annante. 17 00:00:49.920 --> 00:00:52.240 The Thunderer, brought down from the ruined abbey in thirty two, 18 00:00:52.439 --> 00:00:54.840 still bearing the scorched grooves of lightning on its shoulder, 19 00:00:55.479 --> 00:00:58.159 I have recorded every dull thought, every patch of verdigris, 20 00:00:58.200 --> 00:01:00.920 and shudder of cable sent my apprenticeship. So when I 21 00:01:00.920 --> 00:01:03.520 come through that last kramptarch, the haze of doves scattering 22 00:01:03.560 --> 00:01:07.840 before me, and see five bells, I freeze, not four five. 23 00:01:08.519 --> 00:01:10.840 The newcomer hangs just above the others, but on a 24 00:01:10.879 --> 00:01:13.359 crossbeam that neither SAgs nor looks new, as though it's 25 00:01:13.359 --> 00:01:16.079 always belonged. It is mass of no lighter than a 26 00:01:16.120 --> 00:01:18.319 grown mule, but shining bronze, as if cast for a 27 00:01:18.359 --> 00:01:20.760 royal parade, not dulled by rain or guano. As the 28 00:01:20.799 --> 00:01:25.000 rest on its flanks, swirling engravings that avid ivins, culls, 29 00:01:25.159 --> 00:01:27.599 and sigils I cannot place in any tradition of the valley. 30 00:01:28.159 --> 00:01:30.319 I press both hands to the lowest edge of this bell. 31 00:01:30.920 --> 00:01:33.640 It is cold, colder than the morning's breath, almost look 32 00:01:33.719 --> 00:01:36.920 to the touch, but unquestionably solid. I let my knuckle 33 00:01:36.920 --> 00:01:39.560 tap the body. It hums, not out of sync with 34 00:01:39.599 --> 00:01:42.280 the rest, yet not like them, made of a metallic pulse, deeper, 35 00:01:42.400 --> 00:01:44.959 almost close enough to feel on your teeth. I move 36 00:01:45.000 --> 00:01:47.359 from bell to bell with my checklists, but I am adrift. 37 00:01:48.000 --> 00:01:50.239 My measured rhythm gone a double and triple check the 38 00:01:50.239 --> 00:01:53.680 clapp as, the ropes, the oscillation limitters, no evidence of 39 00:01:53.680 --> 00:01:56.519 fresh bolts, no sign someone's disturbed the frame, None of 40 00:01:56.519 --> 00:01:59.760 the usual soul, distorted's livers left from hoisting. I even 41 00:01:59.760 --> 00:02:01.640 sna and if the air for oil new paint, nothing 42 00:02:02.359 --> 00:02:04.799 only dust, as if the fifth bell had always hung there. 43 00:02:05.439 --> 00:02:09.240 Descending the spiral, a grip the reeling. I replayed previous climb, 44 00:02:09.319 --> 00:02:11.759 rekle every log and line drawn in pencil, and stole 45 00:02:11.759 --> 00:02:13.599 the fifth bell. Sits in my mind like a misstep 46 00:02:13.639 --> 00:02:17.360 in a familiar path. Half disbelieving, half uneasy, I resolved 47 00:02:17.360 --> 00:02:20.080 to check my records, my hands to steady all these 48 00:02:20.159 --> 00:02:23.000 years trembles. I lock the belfry behind me. It's nearly 49 00:02:23.080 --> 00:02:25.439 mean when I trudge home, sunlight glancing off the lake 50 00:02:25.479 --> 00:02:28.159 and ribboning over the water, the shoal silver with darting fish. 51 00:02:28.960 --> 00:02:31.520 My house, modest but well cared for her sits off 52 00:02:31.560 --> 00:02:34.360 the main road, garden and ride with early dafttills, tolls 53 00:02:34.400 --> 00:02:37.479 lined up in sol joy ranks outside the workshop. Every 54 00:02:37.520 --> 00:02:40.599 habit deliberate and precise. Dismantle a lafe to free a 55 00:02:40.599 --> 00:02:43.919 stuck air, replace a fault in don Vittorio's OLV radio. 56 00:02:44.599 --> 00:02:46.159 Even my eggs go into the pan in the same 57 00:02:46.240 --> 00:02:48.439 order every day, lunch for anner and me, two for her, 58 00:02:48.960 --> 00:02:51.840 one for me, always a sliver of salt, never pepper. 59 00:02:52.479 --> 00:02:55.000 Discomfort in knowing things how they fit, where they belong. 60 00:02:55.639 --> 00:02:57.680 I can walk from here to the bakery blind, come 61 00:02:57.719 --> 00:02:59.960 to the notes of each bell from memory. The sun 62 00:03:00.080 --> 00:03:02.240 tendary tower isn't just the tallest thing in the village. 63 00:03:02.280 --> 00:03:05.879 It's the beating heart, wedding's funerals, the odd christening, the 64 00:03:05.919 --> 00:03:08.319 colorful chaos of the like festival every spring. The bells 65 00:03:08.400 --> 00:03:12.120 keep score. Without them, we drift. I keep the parish 66 00:03:12.199 --> 00:03:14.879 ledges like a second set of lung scan digitized and 67 00:03:15.000 --> 00:03:17.240 yet a sound. It teases me, also written in my 68 00:03:17.280 --> 00:03:19.680 fussy script. If the power fails, the church still rings. 69 00:03:19.680 --> 00:03:23.360 Papa Anna sixteen is at that luminal age, half in 70 00:03:23.360 --> 00:03:25.719 the world of algorithms and TikTok, half hungry for the 71 00:03:25.759 --> 00:03:28.280 stories I gave her. At bedtime. She sho up as 72 00:03:28.280 --> 00:03:30.800 attack brown hair in a perpetual messy knot always soldering 73 00:03:30.840 --> 00:03:33.280 little circuits in the kitchen, her phone camera third eye. 74 00:03:33.759 --> 00:03:36.360 This is her week to stay with me, her mom 75 00:03:36.680 --> 00:03:39.199 my late wife's cousin smiles to see Anna drawn into 76 00:03:39.240 --> 00:03:41.919 my routines, and I spec secretly thanks the Saints for 77 00:03:41.960 --> 00:03:44.919 every clock I insist we fix together. The village flows 78 00:03:44.960 --> 00:03:48.159 on its own clock. Shiny at the cafe dispenses gossip 79 00:03:48.159 --> 00:03:51.680 as he stirs his coffee. Sonora Rosa, my ancient neighbor, 80 00:03:51.759 --> 00:03:54.199 still puts out sweet wine and bascati for the delivery 81 00:03:54.240 --> 00:03:57.560 boy every Thursday. Even the stray cats form myself appointed 82 00:03:57.599 --> 00:04:00.879 parliament to top my shed. Everything here depends at some 83 00:04:01.000 --> 00:04:04.800 level on the bells. By late afternoon, my nerves have calmed, 84 00:04:05.400 --> 00:04:09.879 I tell myself, I simply, mister renovation a Safano serrite. Miss. 85 00:04:09.960 --> 00:04:12.000 Something fell out of step for a year, a decade, 86 00:04:12.639 --> 00:04:15.800 but I cannot quite believe it. Anna returns from school, 87 00:04:15.800 --> 00:04:18.199 green hoody, trailing her back back, and dumps her things 88 00:04:18.199 --> 00:04:21.120 by the kitchen table. Lunch smells good. Did you fry 89 00:04:21.160 --> 00:04:25.240 the bread, bread, eggs, and your infernal cheese? I scrape 90 00:04:25.279 --> 00:04:27.680 her plate, watching her eyes flick to my notebook left 91 00:04:27.680 --> 00:04:30.959 open beside the stove. You do realize, Papa, you're turning 92 00:04:30.959 --> 00:04:33.680 into a library. If I am, you'll inherit it. So 93 00:04:33.759 --> 00:04:37.360 start loaning the catalog. Now she grins and snags a slice. 94 00:04:37.879 --> 00:04:39.800 How many times will you climb the tower this week? 95 00:04:39.920 --> 00:04:42.959 Is it the bells or the pigeons? This time? Annual inspection, 96 00:04:43.120 --> 00:04:45.920 everything legal. My own joke falls flat, the thought of 97 00:04:45.920 --> 00:04:48.519 the fifth bound Bibles at my confidence, subtle but persistent. 98 00:04:49.240 --> 00:04:52.199 After lunch at tidy, check the day's repairs, and chat 99 00:04:52.240 --> 00:04:55.240 briefly with Don Vittorio outside the sacristy, His soft captions 100 00:04:55.279 --> 00:04:58.240 row brushing years of dust off the pews. He's easy 101 00:04:58.279 --> 00:05:01.160 to talk to, keeps old, superstif alive. But trust my 102 00:05:01.199 --> 00:05:04.160 reports more than any officials. If ever I doubted a 103 00:05:04.199 --> 00:05:06.600 nod or a cable, he'd nod and say, Steffano, you 104 00:05:06.759 --> 00:05:09.839 keep our roof singing. He knows, and everybody knows. I 105 00:05:09.920 --> 00:05:12.720 keep the bells, and the bells keep us. Yet never, 106 00:05:12.920 --> 00:05:15.079 in all those years of stories bedside tales to Anna 107 00:05:15.160 --> 00:05:17.800 a long afternoon's watching processions from the church steps, never 108 00:05:17.839 --> 00:05:21.319 did I save five bells. All was four. It's a 109 00:05:21.319 --> 00:05:24.160 point of pride. Even any villager would laugh. Cerdi knows 110 00:05:24.199 --> 00:05:26.920 every ball and flaw and every turn except the ones 111 00:05:26.959 --> 00:05:30.000 the pigeons making secret As the sun falls and shutters 112 00:05:30.040 --> 00:05:32.079 go up along the pisa. I am left with only 113 00:05:32.079 --> 00:05:34.800 the problem of the fifth bell. Its image persists in 114 00:05:34.839 --> 00:05:37.279 my mind, wrong yet and avoidable, A silent addition I 115 00:05:37.279 --> 00:05:41.800 cannot place. I tell myself it will make sense. After dinner. 116 00:05:41.839 --> 00:05:44.879 I will check every record, every photograph. To night, I 117 00:05:44.879 --> 00:05:48.000 will find my mistake. Yet I am unsettled and not afraid, 118 00:05:48.160 --> 00:05:50.639 but unable to file this away is just another curiosity 119 00:05:50.680 --> 00:05:53.279 in the heart of sant Andrea. That night, as the 120 00:05:53.279 --> 00:05:55.800 wind gusted, shutter is against ancient stone, and Anna tapped 121 00:05:55.839 --> 00:05:58.079 furiously at her laptop, I set out my letters on 122 00:05:58.120 --> 00:06:00.399 the kitchen table with the solemnity of a manner sealing 123 00:06:00.439 --> 00:06:03.720 family secrets. I chose my favorite, the ten volume labeled 124 00:06:03.759 --> 00:06:07.160 Companions design, the annually started in nineteen ninety eight, binding 125 00:06:07.199 --> 00:06:10.240 still tight, I flipped through a decade of scrolled notations, 126 00:06:10.319 --> 00:06:14.160 checking chain tension, copper replacements. Each page. On its supper 127 00:06:14.199 --> 00:06:17.199 margin a careful sketch of the belfry arrangement, five bells 128 00:06:17.360 --> 00:06:21.399 labeled with dates initials. My jaw set. This, I thought, 129 00:06:21.480 --> 00:06:25.120 is a mistake. I must have lazily copied the previous diagram. 130 00:06:25.399 --> 00:06:27.680 So I pulled a photo album from beneath Ane's olds 131 00:06:27.720 --> 00:06:29.920 Go Projects the one with her communion Butcher based on 132 00:06:29.959 --> 00:06:33.839 the front wedding two thousand nine, the newly wed beneath 133 00:06:33.879 --> 00:06:36.199 the tower arch. In the background, a full spread of 134 00:06:36.199 --> 00:06:41.959 bells five Baptism twenty fourteen. Five bells clearly visible, even 135 00:06:42.000 --> 00:06:44.000 one caught in mid motion, a blur in the sun 136 00:06:44.680 --> 00:06:47.399 chest height. I booted up my computer the forward and 137 00:06:47.480 --> 00:06:52.040 marked beltones annual wayfroms and digital photographs twenty sixteen, twenty seventeen, 138 00:06:52.120 --> 00:06:55.519 twenty nineteen, Last autumns blue sky check. Each file shows 139 00:06:55.600 --> 00:06:59.160 in astonishing clarity, five bells gleaming. I can nearly trace 140 00:06:59.160 --> 00:07:01.680 my fingerprints on the cave. This is not a small 141 00:07:01.759 --> 00:07:04.959 thing to doubt your own life. My mind ran two explanations. 142 00:07:04.959 --> 00:07:08.439 Have I lost time? Did I have? I've my pulse stuttered. 143 00:07:08.959 --> 00:07:10.959 I yanked open the little shoe books where all prince 144 00:07:11.000 --> 00:07:13.959 curl brittel at the corners. An envelope in my late 145 00:07:13.959 --> 00:07:16.839 father's new script wore at a matrimonial nineteen ninety five, 146 00:07:17.399 --> 00:07:20.000 A hands tinted photograph of the belfry from across the lake. 147 00:07:20.680 --> 00:07:25.120 Five bells always five. Anna came in Abe's slum round 148 00:07:25.120 --> 00:07:27.759 her neck. She watched as I held up two photos 149 00:07:27.759 --> 00:07:31.959 in trembling hands. Papa, are you okay? Tell me something, 150 00:07:32.040 --> 00:07:37.000 caro Emia. How many bells are in Santandrea? She snorted, five? Obviously? 151 00:07:37.199 --> 00:07:40.600 Why are you sure? She looked at me in that wary, 152 00:07:40.920 --> 00:07:43.319 sideways way of teenages whose parent has not, for the 153 00:07:43.360 --> 00:07:47.000 first time become solenly eccentric. They've always been five. You 154 00:07:47.040 --> 00:07:49.079 told me about them when I was little. Wait, you're 155 00:07:49.079 --> 00:07:51.800 not going to take one away, or you. She tried 156 00:07:51.800 --> 00:07:54.399 to lighten it, but I shook my head. No, Now, 157 00:07:54.600 --> 00:07:58.639 I just I've faltered. I can't explain it. I remember 158 00:07:58.680 --> 00:08:03.240 only four, always four, She shrugged. That's not possible, Baba. 159 00:08:03.879 --> 00:08:06.639 Maybe you're thinking of somewhere else. How faith in the 160 00:08:06.639 --> 00:08:09.399 world's continuity is unbroken, a teenager's certainty that the world 161 00:08:09.480 --> 00:08:11.360 is not in the habit of swapping pieces in the night. 162 00:08:11.959 --> 00:08:14.600 I will ask Don Vittorio tomorrow, I said, meaning it 163 00:08:14.720 --> 00:08:17.360 less as a plan and more as a lifeline. Try 164 00:08:17.360 --> 00:08:19.319 not to worry. Maybe the fifth bell was out for 165 00:08:19.360 --> 00:08:22.920 repairs once, she offered, entirely sensible. Or maybe you just 166 00:08:22.959 --> 00:08:25.000 talk more about the big ones because they were easier 167 00:08:25.040 --> 00:08:27.600 to see from the street. Yet her glance lingered a 168 00:08:27.600 --> 00:08:31.160 moment unsettled by my insistence, or perhaps it was only 169 00:08:31.160 --> 00:08:34.559 my own doubt reflected. The next morning, I found an 170 00:08:34.639 --> 00:08:37.399 vittre on the steps of the Victory, sipping thick sweet calf, 171 00:08:38.000 --> 00:08:39.879 his round face crinkled in the shade of the olive 172 00:08:39.919 --> 00:08:42.320 trees as he greeted me. Steffano, the bells are healthy, 173 00:08:43.000 --> 00:08:47.159 then catchy. My expression is something. The matter I explained 174 00:08:47.200 --> 00:08:50.279 for No. Five, the memory, the plants, the impossibility of 175 00:08:50.279 --> 00:08:52.679 finding a time. When the fifth eni door left, he 176 00:08:52.759 --> 00:08:55.240 smiled gently, then looked puzzled, even a little hurt, as 177 00:08:55.240 --> 00:08:57.200 if a question were an oud jerk at church expense. 178 00:08:57.879 --> 00:09:00.840 But Steffano, there have always been five bells, the old tradition, 179 00:09:00.919 --> 00:09:03.679 the sink campaign. Every villager knows before my time, even 180 00:09:04.200 --> 00:09:07.120 he clinks his spoon. The fifth she's special. She only 181 00:09:07.159 --> 00:09:09.399 sings at certain hours, on the day of Saint Anthony, 182 00:09:09.480 --> 00:09:12.679 or during storms. I pressed, Do you recall any addition, 183 00:09:12.840 --> 00:09:16.080 any ceremony, any repair. When the fifth came, he shook 184 00:09:16.120 --> 00:09:18.759 his head the folds of his robe roughly. No. No, 185 00:09:19.000 --> 00:09:21.759 they've always been you, of all people should remember. He 186 00:09:21.840 --> 00:09:24.000 laid his hand on my arm, a gesture of comfort, 187 00:09:24.039 --> 00:09:27.120 but it did not quite land sometimes as we h 188 00:09:27.279 --> 00:09:30.000 detail slip away from us. Trust your record keeping signor 189 00:09:30.080 --> 00:09:32.440 you are the most precise soul I know. But there 190 00:09:32.480 --> 00:09:34.720 was no condescension, only a hint of concern, as if 191 00:09:34.759 --> 00:09:38.559 he suspected a slip in my mind. Maybe so still 192 00:09:38.639 --> 00:09:42.240 I left hollowed by contradiction to everyone, it seems five 193 00:09:42.279 --> 00:09:45.879 is so obviously barely worth, remark Annette, catching me Sellen 194 00:09:45.919 --> 00:09:48.759 at dinner prodded a little more papat let it go. 195 00:09:48.960 --> 00:09:50.679 It must be a mix up, ye know. You always 196 00:09:50.679 --> 00:09:53.120 say things out of if you stuck close enough. And 197 00:09:53.240 --> 00:09:55.879 yet it was precisely my checking that open the split. 198 00:09:56.519 --> 00:09:59.240 I found myself that night, sitting upright with notebook and 199 00:09:59.240 --> 00:10:01.240 pen at the read e, scanning the logic. Hat I 200 00:10:01.240 --> 00:10:03.120 ever climbed the tower and not seen the fifth bell? 201 00:10:03.679 --> 00:10:05.759 Could I remember which steps led were when I'd been 202 00:10:05.759 --> 00:10:08.720 an apprentice under old pytro when there must, by village 203 00:10:08.759 --> 00:10:12.080 logic have been five. But my own living memory stubbornly 204 00:10:12.120 --> 00:10:16.039 halted at four, nothing else. Hoping for a loophole. The 205 00:10:16.080 --> 00:10:18.360 next morning, I let myself quietly down into the ack 206 00:10:18.399 --> 00:10:21.120 house beneath the sacristy, humble stacks of blueprints, some more 207 00:10:21.159 --> 00:10:25.600 bloom more than vapor. I worked systematically seventeen ninety eight, 208 00:10:25.679 --> 00:10:29.320 the drawing in a gallink five bells nineteen thirty two, 209 00:10:29.440 --> 00:10:32.000 repair after the lightning, five bells in a new arrangement 210 00:10:32.759 --> 00:10:35.600 nineteen ninety eight. My own first year is official custodian 211 00:10:35.720 --> 00:10:39.440 five bells, signed by the engineer. I poured over church ledges, 212 00:10:39.519 --> 00:10:42.679 insurance claims, hand scrolled notes about broken roops or lost pulleys. 213 00:10:42.720 --> 00:10:44.960 Never in decades of records did anyone scribble at a 214 00:10:45.000 --> 00:10:47.720 bell or a remove bell cled in the basement, light 215 00:10:47.799 --> 00:10:50.039 damp in my socks. I couldn't find even a whisper 216 00:10:50.080 --> 00:10:53.960 of transition. I've five five. Anna met me for coffee, 217 00:10:54.000 --> 00:10:57.799 lugging her tablet in a box of supermarket pastries. So, papap, 218 00:10:57.799 --> 00:11:00.480 did you solve the mystery bell? I tried to explain 219 00:11:00.559 --> 00:11:03.480 the plans, every version, every era. There's no spot missing, 220 00:11:03.600 --> 00:11:06.240 no frame changed, nothing that reads installed. It's as if 221 00:11:06.240 --> 00:11:10.360 it simply always was. She scoffed. Maybe the bell frame 222 00:11:10.440 --> 00:11:12.960 was changed before even Rosa was born. Some repairs back 223 00:11:13.000 --> 00:11:16.120 when people didn't write everything down. I shook my head. 224 00:11:16.440 --> 00:11:18.559 I remember climbing the bones of that tower before you 225 00:11:18.600 --> 00:11:20.960 were born. Every bolt in the frame, every patch of lichen, 226 00:11:21.039 --> 00:11:24.039 there was only ever space for four. Anna's tone shifted, 227 00:11:24.080 --> 00:11:26.879 half mocking, half invested, Now sensing how un settled at 228 00:11:26.879 --> 00:11:29.879 we came, Well, your own nos disagree with you. If 229 00:11:29.919 --> 00:11:32.639 you can't trust your pasself, Pappy, you're in trouble. It 230 00:11:32.720 --> 00:11:35.159 felt as if every trail I followed bent slightly, flickering 231 00:11:35.200 --> 00:11:38.039 sideways at the end, keeping me from the answer. I 232 00:11:38.080 --> 00:11:40.919 next visited Senora Rosa cross the street, the oldest villager 233 00:11:40.960 --> 00:11:43.639 I know. Her kitchen a museum of tablecloths, silver relics, 234 00:11:43.840 --> 00:11:46.799 and dried the lavender. She laddled out tiny glasses of 235 00:11:46.840 --> 00:11:49.519 her thick omdlica and listened. Head cocked to my dad's 236 00:11:50.200 --> 00:11:52.679 The fifth bell carrove, she said, eyes shining with the 237 00:11:52.679 --> 00:11:55.919 gleam of shared secrets. Though it's a blessed thing I remember. 238 00:11:56.000 --> 00:11:58.080 Must have been forty three. Fire started at the bickery, 239 00:11:58.120 --> 00:12:00.840 everyone rushing with buckets, the bells all ringing, But the fifth, 240 00:12:00.879 --> 00:12:02.799 she told on after the other stopped. They said it 241 00:12:02.799 --> 00:12:04.879 brought the rain, or was it after the thunder storm? 242 00:12:04.919 --> 00:12:07.200 One lightning split the fig tree, and only to Quintus 243 00:12:07.200 --> 00:12:09.720 sounded a clearer note, that's bad luck. Unless you count 244 00:12:09.720 --> 00:12:12.919 it lucky. Her stories by now had curled and shifted 245 00:12:12.960 --> 00:12:15.559 through the decades, yet always contained the fifth. And as 246 00:12:15.559 --> 00:12:17.519 a girl, you saw five. There was never a time 247 00:12:17.559 --> 00:12:20.480 with only four. She pressed her wrinkle hand against my cheek. 248 00:12:21.200 --> 00:12:23.360 I have always counted to five. We even played a game, 249 00:12:23.360 --> 00:12:25.679 the children Hidden Belt, where one player must hide whilst 250 00:12:25.679 --> 00:12:28.399 the rest chime in turn. Five rounds always five, I 251 00:12:28.440 --> 00:12:30.960 wondered absently if any child in the village could play 252 00:12:31.000 --> 00:12:34.639 with four. Her words drifted to the pies outside, laughter 253 00:12:34.720 --> 00:12:37.480 and triaks bubbling from a knot of children. I strolled 254 00:12:37.519 --> 00:12:39.919 over and watched as they spun in their little ritual circle. 255 00:12:40.519 --> 00:12:44.120 How many bells in the church? I asked, testing a 256 00:12:44.240 --> 00:12:47.320 chorus five. A dark haired boy piped up the secret 257 00:12:47.320 --> 00:12:49.279 bell rings. Only if you close your eyes, then you 258 00:12:49.360 --> 00:12:52.480 run back. The contradiction weighed on me. I visited Luka, 259 00:12:52.559 --> 00:12:55.039 the local historian who keeps the Dymannus at the edge 260 00:12:55.039 --> 00:12:57.960 of the square, trove of newspaper clippings, seep your photographs, 261 00:12:58.240 --> 00:13:03.360 yellowed festival programs. He grin, pushing his glasses up his nose. Stefano, 262 00:13:03.480 --> 00:13:06.000 you caught the bog the bells of stable history. Surely 263 00:13:06.639 --> 00:13:09.000 I told him my memory the evidence of the confusion. 264 00:13:09.519 --> 00:13:12.320 He rubbed his stubble well. I did find an odd 265 00:13:12.360 --> 00:13:14.480 one once, a clipping from the nineteen twenties about a 266 00:13:14.519 --> 00:13:16.519 return of the fifth. It read like a tall tale, 267 00:13:16.519 --> 00:13:19.399 some village masquerade. Nothing in the official documents. I checked. 268 00:13:19.440 --> 00:13:22.000 The festival looks. The frame in every drawing always holds five. 269 00:13:22.120 --> 00:13:24.039 Except he fled for a drawer. The dimension for the 270 00:13:24.039 --> 00:13:27.960 fifth bell here is just omitted. He pointed the sketch 271 00:13:28.000 --> 00:13:32.759 foot noted only see existing structure, no dimensions, no mass, nothing. 272 00:13:33.440 --> 00:13:37.639 Luca laughed. Tristan Italian village, five bells for two centuries, 273 00:13:37.840 --> 00:13:39.679 and no one writes down how the thing was hoisted 274 00:13:39.759 --> 00:13:42.840 up there. He looked at me more carefully. You're not 275 00:13:42.879 --> 00:13:47.039 the first to wonder. Perhaps I was left restless. Returning 276 00:13:47.039 --> 00:13:49.279 to the belfery, I brought tools in an old pitchpipe, 277 00:13:49.840 --> 00:13:53.519 I climbed, making diagrams, tracing fingers along metal, knocking each bell, 278 00:13:53.559 --> 00:13:56.320 and recording the reasons for Anna to chart. Later, four 279 00:13:56.360 --> 00:14:00.519 bells responded as expected, lower, clearer, distinct, the fifth tone, 280 00:14:00.559 --> 00:14:04.600 though somehow slippery, each measure a slight shift its note, 281 00:14:04.639 --> 00:14:07.200 not quite true, not quite reproducible. As if part of 282 00:14:07.200 --> 00:14:10.519 the air between chimes belonged elsewhere. But each time I charted, 283 00:14:10.519 --> 00:14:12.200 the echo of the math refused to fit the others. 284 00:14:12.879 --> 00:14:16.440 I scribbled, I raised, then tried again, muttering to myself, 285 00:14:16.559 --> 00:14:20.039 imagining Anna's grin. Bells are like puzzle boxes, Papa, except 286 00:14:20.080 --> 00:14:22.720 the pieces move when you look away. That evening, I 287 00:14:22.759 --> 00:14:26.039 lined up my diagrams. The more I clarified, the more 288 00:14:26.080 --> 00:14:28.600 the evidence closed off my doubts. There had always, somehow 289 00:14:28.639 --> 00:14:32.639 been five bells. The contradiction hardened. I could trust nothing, 290 00:14:32.840 --> 00:14:35.759 not even my own living memory. The pattern was merciless 291 00:14:35.840 --> 00:14:38.240 for everyone else. The fifth bell's presence was as stable 292 00:14:38.240 --> 00:14:40.679 as stone, yet searched for in his jury, it flickered 293 00:14:40.720 --> 00:14:43.440 at the edges. Could a whole village forget fifth of 294 00:14:43.480 --> 00:14:46.840 its identity? I could memory? Its off paced the boundary 295 00:14:46.919 --> 00:14:49.799 between truth and need. That question sent me back to 296 00:14:49.840 --> 00:14:52.200 my own childhood diaries, packed away in the bottom drawer 297 00:14:52.200 --> 00:14:54.639 of my bedroom dresser. Next to annas earl is science 298 00:14:54.679 --> 00:14:58.720 Fair Medals. The earliest entry, A childish growl saw the 299 00:14:58.720 --> 00:15:01.039 bells with no note to day, five bells, all different. 300 00:15:01.120 --> 00:15:03.639 I want to climb like Patta. One day I dropped 301 00:15:03.639 --> 00:15:05.120 the book, as though it had hissed in my hand. 302 00:15:05.679 --> 00:15:08.600 How could my own handwriting betray me? I'd always loved 303 00:15:08.600 --> 00:15:11.159 those high steps. But know the memory, afore stubborn as 304 00:15:11.159 --> 00:15:13.759 tree roots, had ever written my own story my old 305 00:15:13.759 --> 00:15:16.759 school project, taged twelve, complete with labeled drawing, five bells, 306 00:15:16.759 --> 00:15:21.000 color coded, each with its name. Impossible. The more evidence 307 00:15:21.000 --> 00:15:22.879 I found, the more certain I became that the world 308 00:15:22.919 --> 00:15:25.799 itself had quietly changed around me, closing ranks behind a story. 309 00:15:25.799 --> 00:15:28.960 I could not fully join a Sunday mass. After the sermon, 310 00:15:29.039 --> 00:15:32.080 Don Vittorio lingered by the font. He saw me hovering 311 00:15:32.120 --> 00:15:35.200 and raised an eyebrow. I know I seen foolish, father, 312 00:15:35.279 --> 00:15:38.279 I began, But I need to understand. Is there was 313 00:15:38.320 --> 00:15:41.759 there ever a time with fewer bells? He smiled, almost pityingly. 314 00:15:42.399 --> 00:15:45.080 There is a saying steffunoe. Some bells keep time, others 315 00:15:45.159 --> 00:15:47.279 keep hope. The fifth fought the quintus the hope. She 316 00:15:47.399 --> 00:15:49.720 rings differently for every soul. My grandmother called it the 317 00:15:49.720 --> 00:15:51.879 bell of new beginnings. I don't think he should worry 318 00:15:51.879 --> 00:15:54.080 that your memory is are clotted. Sometimes the world makes 319 00:15:54.120 --> 00:15:57.480 room for what is needed. Anna stood outside, arms folded, 320 00:15:57.480 --> 00:15:59.720 eyeing the old clock while she waited for me, I suggested, 321 00:15:59.799 --> 00:16:03.159 we oh, my brother Pallo long gone to Milan. He answered, 322 00:16:03.159 --> 00:16:06.600 in his careless, sitied old tone. What's the troublesty? Run 323 00:16:06.600 --> 00:16:09.480 out of rope? Again? I pressed, in your memory, how 324 00:16:09.480 --> 00:16:13.039 many bells in the old tower? Five? Always? Five? Remember 325 00:16:13.159 --> 00:16:15.159 that time I almost broke my arm climbing up because 326 00:16:15.159 --> 00:16:17.120 you dared me to touch the highest one. We got 327 00:16:17.120 --> 00:16:19.080 in trouble. You must have blocked out. You hate mess 328 00:16:19.639 --> 00:16:22.159 a little sharper, I asked, do you remember which bell 329 00:16:22.200 --> 00:16:26.000 it was? He didn't hesitate, the middle one, the new one, 330 00:16:26.159 --> 00:16:28.320 they said, but it was always there. Really, why are 331 00:16:28.320 --> 00:16:31.279 you asking? That? Did me in for the day. Some 332 00:16:31.440 --> 00:16:34.240 time before sunset, I climbed again, the tools and questions, 333 00:16:34.240 --> 00:16:37.240 weighing only slightly less than my usual bag. The wind 334 00:16:37.240 --> 00:16:39.759 on the landing was cool, smelling faintly of sweeth, hate 335 00:16:39.759 --> 00:16:42.240 and far off rain. I gazed at the fifth bell, 336 00:16:42.399 --> 00:16:44.320 and for the first time stepped close, so close I 337 00:16:44.320 --> 00:16:46.240 could see my own face pulled in the crescent shadow 338 00:16:46.279 --> 00:16:49.440 under the rim. The engraving snaked around, not quite letters, 339 00:16:49.480 --> 00:16:52.840 but suggestive of movement. I stared too long, perhaps, and 340 00:16:52.919 --> 00:16:54.799 found the pattern shift in the line seemed to flicker 341 00:16:54.799 --> 00:16:56.799 at the corner of my sight. As if I focus, 342 00:16:56.919 --> 00:16:59.879 the script danced away. Refusing a single form. I drew 343 00:16:59.919 --> 00:17:02.080 the pattern into my notebook as best I could, hands 344 00:17:02.080 --> 00:17:05.240 trembling in the last gold light. It was nothing I recognized, 345 00:17:05.240 --> 00:17:09.039 no Ladin, no Greek, no parochial touch. Turn Suddenly the 346 00:17:09.079 --> 00:17:11.640 miracle was not in the material, but in memory itself, 347 00:17:12.200 --> 00:17:15.599 my own mind. As Treacher said, any archav changing under scrutiny, 348 00:17:16.119 --> 00:17:18.759 I could not finally believe only in the physical clues, 349 00:17:18.920 --> 00:17:21.359 not the photographs, not the ledgers, not even what I 350 00:17:21.440 --> 00:17:24.599 myself recalled at bed time for Anna. Now everything pointed 351 00:17:24.599 --> 00:17:26.920 in two directions, out of a stability in every record, 352 00:17:26.960 --> 00:17:28.680 in every voice but my own, and yet a living 353 00:17:28.720 --> 00:17:31.720 instability in me. On the way home, I wonder, was 354 00:17:31.759 --> 00:17:34.640 the fifth bell just a story? If so, why was 355 00:17:34.680 --> 00:17:37.240 I the only one outside it? What? Sorry could bind 356 00:17:37.279 --> 00:17:39.839 a whole village but cut out one loyal keeper. I 357 00:17:39.920 --> 00:17:42.240 lay awake, eyes darting from the lines of my ceiling 358 00:17:42.240 --> 00:17:45.319 to the open windows shimmer of moonlight. I resolved, if 359 00:17:45.359 --> 00:17:47.599 nothing else, someone else in the village must remember a 360 00:17:47.640 --> 00:17:49.680 time of difference to break in the pattern, a lost year, 361 00:17:49.759 --> 00:17:52.359 a moment of changing from four to five. I would 362 00:17:52.400 --> 00:17:55.119 find it that day. Luca found me at the cafe. 363 00:17:55.119 --> 00:17:57.440 Before I could find him, he had a file fold 364 00:17:57.440 --> 00:18:00.200 of tucked under his arm. Stefano rumors his You're on 365 00:18:00.240 --> 00:18:03.240 an impossible chase. Take a look at this though inside 366 00:18:03.279 --> 00:18:06.400 a news clipping, yellowed edges torn first a deloquent to 367 00:18:06.440 --> 00:18:09.119 camp on her returns blaired. The nineteen twenty three headline 368 00:18:09.519 --> 00:18:12.279 a black and white photo of villages in Garland's hands raised, 369 00:18:12.400 --> 00:18:17.200 crowned with bells. Strange no, Luca said, According to this, 370 00:18:17.480 --> 00:18:19.960 there used to be a party whenever the fifth bell returned. 371 00:18:20.000 --> 00:18:22.359 Some festival canceled by the deoces. They said it got 372 00:18:22.359 --> 00:18:25.240 too rowdy, too strange. But the records quiet as a tomb, 373 00:18:25.319 --> 00:18:28.119 not a single mention in parish locks. He opened a 374 00:18:28.119 --> 00:18:30.960 notebook filled with spy drew riding. These are copied from 375 00:18:30.960 --> 00:18:33.200 an old midwife's diary in the next village, she wrote, 376 00:18:33.240 --> 00:18:35.000 the fifth bell went silent for the whole of the drought. 377 00:18:35.039 --> 00:18:37.200 The priest insisted it was broken the day before the 378 00:18:37.279 --> 00:18:39.240 rains came. It sounded in the middle of the night, 379 00:18:39.240 --> 00:18:40.960 and people danced in the streets. We woke to the 380 00:18:41.000 --> 00:18:43.640 field shining I felt the hair on my neck prickle, 381 00:18:44.319 --> 00:18:48.359 so sometimes it was gone. He nodded more than once, apparently, 382 00:18:48.400 --> 00:18:51.240 but only during long spells of trouble famine epidemics. After 383 00:18:51.279 --> 00:18:53.440 the soldiers passed her, the midwif froughte that old man 384 00:18:53.480 --> 00:18:56.480 would declare, when the fifth quiets, we are alone. Later 385 00:18:56.599 --> 00:18:59.359 that week, Rose introduced me to her cousin, a teacher 386 00:18:59.400 --> 00:19:02.079 now retired to the shore of the railway. He listened 387 00:19:02.079 --> 00:19:04.519 to my doubts and nodded, eyes missing. I was a 388 00:19:04.519 --> 00:19:06.799 boy during the war. I remember hearing all the bells, 389 00:19:06.960 --> 00:19:09.160 but one summer the fifth was silent, and the grown 390 00:19:09.240 --> 00:19:11.599 ups grew afraid. Then one spring, the fob lifted over 391 00:19:11.680 --> 00:19:14.119 night and the fifth was back. It's always been reassuring, 392 00:19:14.200 --> 00:19:17.000 you know, even when you don't notice it. Anna, who 393 00:19:17.079 --> 00:19:20.279 had grown curious despite herself, corraled three friends, ages ranging 394 00:19:20.279 --> 00:19:22.599 from thirteen to sixteen, to help run a digital recording 395 00:19:22.599 --> 00:19:25.240 of the bells as I ran them in sequence. Anna 396 00:19:25.319 --> 00:19:28.240 set her laptop, her microphones, her friend's phones all calibrated 397 00:19:28.640 --> 00:19:31.759 the four main bales chimed the fifth. The sound appeared 398 00:19:31.759 --> 00:19:34.440 as a gap of flatline in the recordings, sometimes static, 399 00:19:34.599 --> 00:19:38.920 sometimes pure silence. Anna's brown knitted. She frowned, replayed the files. 400 00:19:39.519 --> 00:19:42.359 The others listened. I heard it you also at ring 401 00:19:42.359 --> 00:19:46.559