The High Voice of Tbilisi – Part 2: The Bell

They stayed after rehearsal that evening, when the others had gone. Giorgi lit a candle and led her behind the carved wooden screen at the front of the church.

There was a narrow stone stair. At the top, the bell tower. And in the tower, the Silver Bell itself, small and ancient, its surface engraved with saints.

Nino ran her fingertips along the wooden frame that held it. There were fresh scratches. New bolts.

"Someone's been loosening this," she said.

"The bell is seven hundred years old," Giorgi said. "There is a state inspection on Friday, to decide whether it is safe to leave here or whether it goes to a museum."

"What happens to it on Thursday?"

Giorgi did not know.

He asked Levan the next day, carefully. Levan laughed and said there would be a special concert on Thursday night, for a generous patron, Mr. Gelashvili, who was paying for the church roof.

"He has asked to hear you sing the hymn alone," Levan said. "From the gallery. Under the bell tower." He paused. "It is a great honour."

Nino did not like it.

That night, she went through every recording from the last month. On three more of them, at the edge of hearing, she found the same whispering voice. Once, it said a name.

Gelashvili.

And once, something else.

"While they're listening to him, no one will hear us."

She called Giorgi at midnight.

"They're going to steal the bell," she said. "During your concert. Your voice is the cover."

There was a long silence on the line.

"Then I'll sing louder," he said.

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Next: Part 3, The Concert. A candlelit church, a single high note held for forty-one seconds, and two men frozen in the tower.