The Constant Bell

We moved into the old Panti Asuhan building in Yogyakarta during the rainy season of 2011. The apartment was spacious, with high ceilings and a wrap-around veranda overlooking a neglected garden full of frangipani and overgrown ferns. We hired a housekeeper, Sari, a quiet girl from a small village who lived in a separate servant’s quarters near the back gate. There was a bell in the kitchen, connected to her room, meant for us to summon her when needed.

One morning, Sari approached me with a confused expression. ‘Ibu,’ she said, ‘why did you call me at two in the night? The bell rang and rang. I waited by the door, but you didn’t open.’ I was startled. I assured her we were all asleep, that no one had touched the bell. She insisted, saying it had been a constant ringing, not just a short call. We dismissed it as a dream or the wind, but she remained unconvinced, her eyes darting towards the kitchen as if something was still lurking there.

Over the next weeks, small anomalies began. The lamps in the living room, which we always switched off before bed, would be lit every morning. I thought I was becoming forgetful. The front door, which we always locked, would be found slightly ajar. My husband, Aryo, started accusing me of carelessness, and I found myself apologizing for things I didn’t remember doing. Sari grew more nervous, whispering that the old building had a history. She mentioned a previous tenant, a Dutch woman who had died in the 1940s, and that her room – now our store room – had been the site of a terrible incident.

Then the bell began ringing at night. Not just for Sari, but for us. At 2am, a single, sharp chime would echo through the apartment. We would wake up, hearts pounding, and find nothing. This happened every night. We tried removing the bell, but it would ring from the walls. We hired an electrician, who found no wiring issues. Sari started sleeping with her door barricaded, but she would still appear at our bedroom door in the early hours, trembling, saying the bell had called her and she had seen a figure standing in the garden, looking up at our windows.

One evening, while searching for a lost earring, I found an old photograph behind a loose panel in the living room. It showed a woman in a white dress, standing on the veranda, holding a bell. The caption on the back read: ‘Untuk memanggil pembantu’ – to call the servant. But the woman’s face was obscured by wear. That night, I decided to test something. I placed the photograph on the kitchen counter, near the bell. At 2am, the bell rang, and I crept to the kitchen. The photograph was gone. In its place was a small, rusted key.

Aryo and I confronted our landlord, an old man who spoke in riddles. He revealed that the previous tenant, a wealthy widow, had been found dead in the garden, her throat cut. Her servant was blamed, but the woman’s own diary, which was never found, supposedly contained a confession to a terrible secret. The landlord gave us a cryptic warning: ‘The bell calls those who know its true purpose.’ We didn’t understand.

Sari quit after finding a neatly folded white dress on her bed, a dress she didn’t own. She left without notice, and we were alone. That’s when the ringing became more insistent. It would start at 2am and continue for hours. I began sleepwalking, and Aryo would find me in the kitchen, holding the bell, my hand moving as if to ring it. He would lead me back to bed, but I would have no memory of it.

One night, I saw the figure in the garden. It was the woman from the photograph. She was gesturing to me, pointing towards a forgotten well near the servant’s quarters. I walked out in a trance, my bare feet on the cold stones. Aryo caught me just as I was about to step into the well. He pulled me back, but I saw a leather-bound book floating just beneath the water’s surface.

We retrieved the book. It was the diary of the widow, Madam Klara. The entries revealed that she had been a cruel mistress, and that her servant had died of a broken heart after being accused of theft. Madam Klara had buried the servant’s belongings in the garden, including a small bell that had been the servant’s only possession. The diary also spoke of a curse: ‘Until the bell rings for the one whose hands are stained, the house will never be still.’

The final entry was dated the day before Madam Klara’s death. It read: ‘She comes to me at night, holding the bell. She says I must pass it on. But I will not. I will take the secret to my grave.’

We moved out a week later, leaving the bell and the diary behind. But in our new apartment, far from Yogyakarta, I still hear the occasional ring at 2am. And sometimes, when I look in the mirror, I see the reflection of a woman in white standing behind me, holding a bell, her lips curved into a silent smile.