Time

I listened to the church bells strike seven this morning and knew it was almost time to get out of bed. In a couple of minutes, they struck the hour again, and I threw back the comforter. When we first moved in to La Bastiole, we were puzzled by the church bell phenomenon. It was strange enough, we thought, that we could hear the village church striking the hour, every hour, every day; why, though, did we hear the hour struck twice? Seven strikes, or twelve, or two, two or three minutes, and then, seven or twelve or two strikes again.

For a week we were certain that we were hearing two different clocks. La Bastiole sits on a hillside below one village and along from another. Each village has a church with a tower, bien sûr, and so we decided that the two clocks were not quite synchronized. Then one day we walked up the hill to our village and heard the bells strike, then, turning back towards home, we heard the same hour struck but from the opposite direction. The sounds were distant enough from each other that we realized that we could not be hearing both clocks from our house.

That left one explanation: the same tower was striking the hour twice. Seven o'clock; two minutes; seven o'clock again. It suggests a different notion of time, n'est pas? C is forever setting all of our clocks, watches, computers, ovens, telephones to the atomic clock, or Greenwich, or some international official this is what time it really is clock. He will wait until the second hand is at 59 and then ease the minute hand over, and then give a satisfied nod: one piece of the universe controlled. We come from people who are terminally punctual. They arrive on time. Our lives in America were punctual lives. Five minutes earlier or later was the difference between sitting an extra half hour in traffic.

So the matter of seven o'clock happening twice was mind-bending. It can only be seven o'clock once. Which time is correct? If you miss the first chiming, then won't your hour end up with only 58 minutes in it? While I find that my hours often have more or less than the standard 60 minutes, I did find it puzzling that the clock should strike the hour twice. And it wasn't just the clock we could hear: I found that in other villages the church clocks did the same thing.

I asked Olivier. At first, he looked confused at my question. Pourquoi les cloches sonnent-elles deux fois? Why do the church bells strike twice? He looked a little suspicious, like I might be trying to trick him with this silly question. Then he remembered that my French wasn't that good. In his best imitation of Yves Montand, he raised his eyebrows and shrugged. C'est comme ça, he said. It's like that.

I've never gotten another answer, and I've asked the question many times. I don't wonder about it so much any more. These days, when I hear the bells chime, I sometimes forget to count all the way to the end. Then I wait until they sound again, and start over. It's about nine o'clock. Time to think about taking a walk.