Free Before the Feast by Sasa Stanisic Page A

morning prayers, and Rosa would wake up and hold him close. Her hair, still soft from sleep. She would whisper his name, getting the emphasis wrong all those years, beautifully wrong.
    The mechanized system will have to take over if Johann doesn’t want to ring the bells. Johann is always punctual, what a hypocrite! An atheist. Johann will want to ring the bells. He knows what to do, and he can do it on his own. Johann’s hands are not soft and delicate any more.
    The bells are ringing.
    The bell-ringer opens his eyes. He is lying outside the front door of his house, with his bell-ringer’s top hat on the gravel, his head on the gravel, blood on the gravel, the crunchy sound of footsteps on the gravel.
    â€œRosa?” He smiles. Rosa says something, it isn’t his name with the emphasis wrong, the bells lose their rhythm and the sound dies away. Johann, my boy, and you’ve practiced this so often. Now, quick chimes as the clapper strikes the bell, rhythmically, the steps on the gravel come closer, the first drops of rain fall, Rosa bending over him—“Master?”—Johann crouches down, takes the bell-ringer’s arm, tries to help him up. “You’re bleeding, Master!”
    â€œNever mind. It’s all right.” Slowly, the bell-ringer sits up.
    The last chime of the bell and its long echo.
    â€œJohann, what’s going on?”
    We ourselves are confused, too. If the bell-ringer is here, and Johann is with him—then who is ringing our bells?
    Gustav drags himself up the steps, unlocks the door, staggers. Johann supports him, helps him over to the sofa. The bell-ringer’s head drops back. Abrasions on the palms of his hands, a deeper cut on his temple.
    â€œJohann?”
    â€œYes, Master.”
    â€œMy times are in thy hand.”
    â€œMaster?”
    â€œThat was the tune. Well rung, almost perfect. My times are in thy hand.” The bell-ringer grimaces. The hair above histemple is sticky with blood. He closes his eyes. Johann cleans his injuries and bandages them. He learned all that from role-playing, who says it’s just a waste of time?
    â€œThat’s good. Thank you, Johann. Please will you—will you go and see to the bells?”
    It’s raining harder now. The bell-ringer’s top hat is still lying on the gravel. Johann picks it up, turns it in his hands. Puts it on. Hurries out into the roads by night.
    WE ARE WORRIED. NO ONE KNOWS THE BIBLE AS well as church bells. Psalm 31:15. My times are in thy hand: deliver me from the hand of mine enemies, and from them that persecute me .
    IN THE YEAR OF OUR LORD 1588, IN THE MERRY month of May, two fine Horses were Spirited Away from Ulrich Ramelow, Inn-Keeper in this Place, and two Starveling Nags left in their Stead. His Groom gave Word to the Inn-Keeper, as had been given to the Groom himself by two Men, one tall as a Tower and t’other round as a Barrel, that since he, mine Host of the Inn, kept good Beer aside for himself but Water’d what he serv’d his Guests, so that it tasted thinner even than Small Beer, the Horses he kept should be such Sorry Nags as those the two Fellows left for him.
    ANNA STANDS BESIDE THE FENCE, STRETCHING . The wood feels soapy, it is rotting and splintered. Slats are breaking away from the fence, coming loose, missing. In the beam of her headlight the green of rot shows through the brittle veining of the wood. Anna has never seen the fence in anything but this ramshackle state, nor the field on the other side of it as anything but running wild. The undergrowth rustles in the wind, the branches of wild rose bushes reach out to her. Rain falls slanting down. Anna can smell cadaverine; the field has made a kill again, it gives and it takes away.
    Anna has grown up with that field. It was waiting outside the window while she was studying, it watched her playing in the yard, it was never a playground itself. Right next to the garden. On her way to