I’m woken by the sound of a church bell. I know it’s not a work day, so it’s not my alarm. And it’s not the joyful jangle of sound that rings out from the nearby Greek Orthodox Cathedral on a Sunday morning. Although it sounds like it’s coming from the same church. This is the long slow peal of a single bell, ringing out over and over again after each brief interval of silence. I’ve never heard a death knell before but this sounds like one. Then I remember it’s Good Friday. The sound continues intermittently all day and now into evening as I sit in my lounge room reading.

Through the open window I hear the shuffle and murmur of a crowd, followed by the sonorous timbre of a male voice chanting what sounds like a funeral hymn. I get up to have a look and stepping out onto the balcony I’m surprised by a slow wave of lit candles moving through the dark laneway behind our building. It’s an astonishing and ethereal sight. As the tail of the crowd passes our gates and the candles disappear, I decide to follow them.

Out in the lane, the flashing lights of a police car greet me. The road ahead is closed to traffic. I catch up with the procession and walk slowly behind them. We move at pace with the still tolling bell. There are parents and children, teenage girls all dressed up, and a few older people, talking and laughing as they walk. Outside one terrace house, a family four generations deep stands with candles, watching the procession go by. As it passes them, they step out of their gate and join in.

A middle-aged man, out walking his old Jack Russel, has stopped to chat with someone in the front yard of one of the new apartments.  As I walk by, I hear him say, “The Greek Church. They do it every year.”

“Really? That’s cool,” the younger man inside the front yard responds. And it is. On this long weekend Friday night, this procession has added a dose of enchantment to our neighbourhood.

The front of the crowd reaches Cleveland Street where the police have stopped traffic, and snakes left, back towards the cathedral. I decide to cut through along James Street which runs in parallel. Suddenly I’m in a dark laneway all by myself. I start jogging, running past the Reconciliation Park Community Garden, and turn right onto George Street, finding myself thankfully once again at the edge of a crowd. I stand with the police officers and other locals, observing as a row of giggling young altar boys in white robes walk by. They head the procession, followed by eight men wearing black suits, looking like pall bearers, carrying a decorated wooden temple. It’s the Epitaphios, which apparently bears an image of the dead body of Christ. I realise I have been following the re-enactment of a funeral service for a long dead god.

Two priests in long black robes follow, each swinging a metal incense burner on a triangular chain. The scent of frankincense wafts across the street. The whole procession stops in front of the gates of the cathedral and a prayer is chanted as they move in. As the last of the faithful disappear a sudden quiet descends on the now empty street; a mystical transformation of this usually noisy, grid locked road. It’s almost enough to tempt me to believe in this story of miracles and redemption.

The crowd disperses and I  walk slowly home along the terrace lined street and my glimpse into other lives and their stories continues. At the last of the houses, I look into an open doorway and my eye is led along a lit corridor to a kitchen where a man prepares a meal. A little further along, walking past a block of flats, I look through a window into a lounge where a woman sits in front of a television screen. Ahead of me, on the crest of the ridge, the Post Office clock tower, topped with a green cupola balanced on Italianate arches, is brightly lit against the deep indigo of the night sky. It stands watching over our high street like a medieval Florentine tower over that small city state.

Back home, I make a tomato and cheese sandwich for dinner. Afterwards, as I put the kettle on, I hear the sound of a honky tonk blues piano. It sounds like someone riffing. They are joined by a trumpet and it’s as if a cart load of boogie-woogie gypsies has just arrived in our suburb. I stand listening as the sound threads its way down the street and I realise it’s coming from someone’s portable Bluetooth speaker. I imagine the past and its stories following the sound down the high street like a troupe of ghosts mimicking the Good Friday procession or perhaps something closer to November’s Night of the Dead. I see the present, with its wild juxtapositions of wealth and poverty, sanity and madness, elation and sadness, country town quiet and the siren sounds of the city, standing on the sidewalk to watch the passing parade.

A little later on in this long weekend, midnight on the Saturday to be precise, I’m woken once more by bells. They’re coming from the same church but this time they’re a wild joyful jangle of sound. As the bells continue to ring, I doze in a semi-dream state, imagining that I’m flying above the cathedral. It’s lit from within by hundreds of candles as the hymns of the gathered congregation spill out into the night, transforming this period of mourning into a time for celebration. The bells finally stop and my mind flies back to my darkened room, my breath sets its rhythmic course towards morning, and I return to sleep, lulled by the weekend’s unexpected gifts.

Images: Courtesy of Wikimedia Commons including ‘The Epitaph at the Good Friday service at St. George Orthodox Church in Adelaide, Australia’ by Maggas and ‘Lit Candle on Easter Sunday Rite’ by Cyan Star