Lady Bellringer

Dressed in black from head to foot, frail, tiny (4 ft. 7 in.) Felicitas Amorin de Fritscher looked older than her 39 years. As she dusted the carved cedar choir stalls of Lima's 300-year-old cathedral, her son Federico, 11, worked beside her. "I came to live here 17 years ago," she said as she finished cleaning the white-enameled spittoon beside the archbishop's throne. "I was the bride of Federico Fritscher, bell-ringer and caretaker of the cathedral. The pay was small but there were tips from the tourists, and here we paid no rental. With our seven children we were poor but happy."

In the still vastness of the old church she shuffled slowly down a shadowy side aisle to the ornate tomb of Francisco Piz-zarro. Within a glass-walled casket lay the old conqueror's mummy with bones showing here & there through the dark yellow skin. "This was our gold mine [for tips]. Pizzarro is like one of my family," she smiled. "It was my job to keep his chapel clean. I also kept all the keys, including the keys to the underground vaults where archbishops and bishops lie buried. And of course I helped to ring the bells.

"Those bells were my joy and sadness. When it was a repique [a joyous peal of bells for processions and fiestas] I felt like running down the stairs to join the crowd in the square and be happy with them. But when I went up with my husband to toll the big one for someone's death, I always wondered who had died and thought of the life to come. And then--think of it; --I had to toll the big bell for my own husband."

Her husband had died four months ago. Afterwards Felicitas, pregnant with her eighth child, went to Dean Jeronimo Carranza to ask for her husband's job. "It is against tradition," said the dean. When Felicitas appealed, the cardinal himself upheld the dean.

Even after a new man was appointed, the lady bellringer clung to her job and to her three small rooms behind the cathedral. Finally the dean took steps to evict her. "This is no job for a woman," he said. "Of her six girls, two are practically young women now. The sensible thing is to force her to leave." Said a young Lima matron: "The dean is right. Her daughters are pretty and that is likely to make people talk." At week's end, after receiving a cash indemnity, the lady bellringer was turned out of her rooms. Said Felicitas : "It is el destino. And when that is against you, you can cry yourself blind. It is not easy for a pregnant woman to find a job. I only hope it is not a girl this time. Day and night I pray the Lord to give me a second boy."

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