The City of Bells II

My companion, not bothering to hide his annoyance with me at my behavior, came to sit beside me. I broke off a piece of my pastry and handed it to him as a sort of silent apology. He took it but he still didn’t look happy with me. It didn’t matter, it was worth it, I was home.

I didn’t know anyone in the city anymore so we stopped in a hotel with a view of the river. Even after my companion had gone to sleep I sat at the window with all of the lights out, looking down at the city below me, and thinking. I think it was around two in the morning that I finally gave up on the idea of staying in the motel, even at this time of the night the city was calling me, and I couldn’t stand staying indoors.

Once I was out on the street I was left with the question of what to do at two in the morning. Even if a city like this one, with a lot of night life, things were starting to slow down by this time and the people who were out could be looked at with great suspicion. Even at this hour though there was the sound of bells, muffled with cloths, but still being wrung.

Since I didn’t feel like hanging out a bar, which was about the only thing still open at this time of night, or a convenience store, I found myself back in the park which was open at any time. There was no one here this time of night, not even people with shadier business had stuck around. I don’t think I slept much that night, propped on my park bench, though I may have drifted a couple of times in and out of consciousness. I know I was woken up by a police officer once, he thought I was homeless and I had to show him my papers before he would leave me alone. I explained to him that I hadn’t been able to sleep in my room and he gave me a look like I was crazy but walked away. It was almost dawn when I crept back into the motel room and slipped into my bed. I didn’t feel like explaining to my companion that I had been out all night in the park.

We had supper in an outdoor café that night, right next door to one of the old cathedrals. The bells rang evening mass while we were there and my companion flinched but I reveled in the sound. I reveled in everything, even how tired I felt after having stayed up all night. Something about my joy much have shown on my face because my companion gave me a strange look.

“How long to you mean to make me stay here. Remember you promised that after this we could go see where I was raised. After that we still have a program to write about travels across Europe on foot. We should probably leave tomorrow or the next day,” he told me. I nodded reluctantly, wishing I had known what I was saying when I had made those commitments. I hadn’t realized what going home was like before.

That night I left the motel room around two in the morning again, I just couldn’t stay inside knowing that this was my last night in the city. I wanted to see every aspect of the familiar scenes before I was forced to go, even if it was when no one in their right mind would be about. Tonight there were no bells, that was what I missed above all else, it was wrong that on my last night in the city there should be none of the bells that I loved so much. I even thought about pounding on the doors of a church and demanding bells to be rung but they would want a reason and I would probably be locked up as a lunatic if I tried to explain.

It was in this frame of mind, desperate for any bell at all, even the mournful funeral chimes, that I found myself once more in my place at the park. The policeman had already passed my by twice, looking at me suspiciously both times, that my eyes fell on the park’s bell tower. It was a tapering affair, and I had climbed mountains, I found myself climbing the tower without a second of thought. I found myself clutching the bell pull and before I could think at all I pulled with all of my might. The beauty of the bells filled my head. They were just for me, I how never expected to get married, and wouldn’t know the joys of hearing them for my funeral, had the feeling for the first time of the bells being for me alone. They filled my head and continued to chime out their melody even after the police had shown up and carried me off. They rang in my head as my companion bailed me out of jail, they rang me onto the plane, and I knew they would never be stopped. No matter how many other foolish promises I would make that would keep me from the city, those bells would be with me, and if they ever did stop, I made myself a foolish promise that I would keep just like all the other ones that I make. I would come back and do it again, the bells would not die.