Story 2 from ‘Absurd Tales from Africa’ by Robert Gurney
The bell ringer at St Mary’s Cathedral, Rubaga, in Kampala, retired after decades of service, so the priest placed an advertisement in the Uganda Argus for a new campanologist.
Kabaka Mutesa I Mukaabya Walugembe, the thirtieth Kabaka of Buganda, who reigned from 1856 until 1884, once maintained a palace where Rubaga now stands. He had abandoned the hill after the palace burned down following a lightning strike, giving the land to French missionaries, the White Fathers or “Wafaransa”, as the locals called them. The Anglicans were put on Namirembe Hill, at a good distance from the Catholics, so that they could not engage easily and publicly in fisticuffs.
Anyway, the next day, Claude Pearman, a Bedfordshire man and a Philosophy and Religious Studies lecturer at Makerere University, arrived to apply for the vacancy. The advert had said, “No paperwork. Just turn up”. The priest couldn’t help noticing that his arms were in plaster and that each arm was supported by its own sling.
“What’s wrong with your arms?” he asked Claude.
“I broke both of them during a rugby match between Makerere and Jinja. I tried to tackle a huge soldier from the barracks. Said his name was Amin.”
Claude was a keen rugby player as well as an enthusiastic bell-ringer and an excellent philosopher to boot.
He didn’t tell the priest but he had severe doubts about some aspects of Christianity but he loved the sound of bells, the camaraderie and the sheer physical exercise of pulling on the ropes. He comforted himself, when doubts assailed him, by rehearsing the steps of Pascal’s ‘Wager’ on which he had written several papers.
The steps in Pascal’s thinking rang like pure bell chimes in Claude’s head as he stood inside the cathedral. He remembered, he wasn’t sure why, the beautiful harmony, the symphony of sound, of the churches of his beloved native county. Dozens of churches across Bedfordshire lent their voices to a rich carpet of sound in the still, balmy air at Christmas time. His mother had wanted him to become a vicar but he had rebelled.
“How are you going to ring the bell with arms like that?” the priest asked Claude abruptly, jolting him out of his reverie.
“I can do it, believe me,” said Claude He was desperate to secure the position.
“I bet you can’t,” said the priest.
“I bet I can,” Claude replied. “Let me show you.”
They climbed up the many stairs to the bell tower. Claude leaned against a wall, then started running at full speed towards the largest bell. When he struck the bell with his face, it made the most beautiful sound that the priest had ever heard. The sound could be heard not only all over Rubaga Hill, it could be picked up on all of the seven hills of Kampala.
Claude then ran at another bell and with the first bell still resonating, the harmony was magnificent.
He ran again at a third bell, but this time he slipped and instead of hitting the bell he skidded out the bell-tower, through one of the slats, and fell to his death on the ground below.
The priest ran downstairs. A crowd had formed around the dead man’s body.
“Who is this mzungu?” the crowd asked.
The priest replied, “Well, I don’t know his name, but his face rang a bell.”
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Story 3 in this series is ‘The Bell-Ringer of Montmartre’.
The Bell-Ringer of Montmartre
It’s a miracle! The cry went up from the crowd surrounding Claude’s body. Despite being pronounced dead by the ambulance men who had arrived, one of his feet was seen to move. Claude had fallen on to a bush in a freshly dug flower bed.
….to be continued.
