A Bell
The apple peddler entered the Bromberg early Saturday morning. A small silver bell tinkled merrily as the rickety pushcart rumbled over the ancient cobblestones of the town. Two streets over, Father Gerome looks up as he hears the faint ringing of the applecart and all the worries that kept him awake last night came rushing back to him. A bell was all he needed. He looks around the beautiful little church that has been his project for the past nine years; from the intricately carved pillars to the ornate alter cloth, he had planned and toiled over every last detail. Now it was finished. Almost. There was only one last thing needed to make God's house complete. Father Gerome opened the big oak doors and walked outside. He squinted against the morning sun and looked up to the towering belfry. It was taller than any other structure in Bromberg but it was unable to do the job it was built for.
Father Gerome sat heavily down on the stone steps of his masterpiece. To build this church he had begged, borrowed, and guilted every last penny he could from this town. Now, on the eve of his triumph, he barely had enough left in the treasury to feed himself, much less buy a bell worthy of such a magnificent belfry. He needed a bell that would enchant all who heard it. Merchants from town and peasants from the countryside would all answer the call of the bell and would stream into the church to allow Father Gerome to speak to their souls. But it was not to be.
Yesterday, Father Gerome swallowed his pride and visited Duke Bromley at his estate. The Duke sat on his big mahogany chair drinking wine as he offered water to Father Gerome. He waited patiently as Father Gerome explained his need and when the Father was finished the Duke's face broke out into a big smile and he laughed heartily.
“You have a lot of balls to come asking me for money again, Father.”
Father Gerome hung his head, knowing what would come next.
“I have paid for more than half of that church by now,” said the Duke. “At this point, I am more likely to give a hitchhiker all my land than I am to give you one more measly coin,”
Father Gerome swallowed. “But God will...”
“I have already bought my way into heaven,” the Duke interrupted. “God will not keep me out of heaven because I refused to buy a bell. Your church is complete. Your flock of pitiful worshipers can meet there with or without a bell.”
Father Gerome remembered this meeting with loathing. That damn know-it-all Duke would one day regret not buying the bell. He still sat on the church steps and he looked around the town square in front of the church. A dog was rooting around in a trash can, The baker was setting out his morning offering of bread, and the applecart was making its way across the square noisily. The cart stopped in front of the church and the apple peddler held out a shiny red apple to the sitting priest.
“Apple Father?” a pleasant voice asks.
Father Gerome was about to decline but he looked at the person offering him the apple and he stopped himself. The regular apple peddler was a big man with a soft voice. He and his family were often at the Sunday church service. Standing in front of Father Gerome now was the apple peddler's daughter, a tiny wisp of a girl, barely big enough to push the heavy pushcart. He could see her toes through her shoes soaked by the cold morning dew.
“Where is your father this morning child?”
The girl looked down. “My father came down sick a couple weeks ago and two days ago he died.”
Shocked, Father Gerome dug out three pennies from his robe and handed them to the girl. “Who gave him his last rites?”
“Nobody,” she said, handing him the apple.
Father Gerome buried his face in his hands, devastated. He had failed. He had been so preoccupied with the church and the bell that he had not noticed their absence from Sunday service, paid no heed to the news of his illness, and had not been available when he was needed the most. A man journeyed to the afterlife without final absolution because his priest had been too busy worrying about a bell. Father Gerome started crying. He looked up to face the girl but she was gone. The square was empty. How did she leave so silently?
Father Gerome sat for a while longer on the steps. He had spent nine years obsessed with building the most beautiful sanctuary for God and the whole time all God had wanted was a shepherd to look after his flock. Father Gerome had failed God and his flock. Perhaps that is why God had not given him a bell. Why call more sheep to the fold when he couldn't even care for the ones he already had?
Father Gerome started to rise from the steps and stopped as he noticed something out of the corner of his eye. There, sitting on the step next to him, was a small silver bell. Just like one that had tinkled merrily from a pushcart, pushed down the streets of Bromberg early one Saturday morning.