Golgotha Falls

by Frank De Felitta

  “Mario—” Anita’s trembling whisper cut through the darkness.

  But Mario already was running along the south wall, its heat still palpable along the path. His boots dug up the gravel on the edge of the cemetery. Anita moved quickly after him.

  “Mario! Wait for me!”

  Mario leaped into the shadows, caught hold of black cloth fluttering there, whirled it around. Anita’s lantern caught the pale face of a tall Catholic priest.

  The priest writhed, ducked, and twisted, but Mario’s arm pinned him against the rectory wall.

  Gradually, the priest subsided, head back against the stone, eyes like pinpoints in Anita’s lantern, staring at Mario. The priest was blond, and his hair trembled in the night breeze while the crickets screamed an abominable and indifferent derision.

  Mario’s hand dropped to his side. “A priest,” he whispered, disgusted. “A real live Holy Roman cassocked priest!”

  The priest licked his lips and straightened his robe. He tried to avoid the paralyzing beam of light. “What are you doing here?” he demanded. “Who are you?”

  “Us? What are you doing here?”

  “I have a right to be here,” the priest said. “My name is Eamon James Malcolm. I am a Jesuit.”

  Mario leaned against the wall on his left arm.

  “Great,” Mario said slowly. “A Jesuit. Wonderful.”

  Anita moved the beam to the side of Malcolm’s face. The pale eyes went from her to Mario, back and forth, glistening with anger.

  “When did you arrive?” Anita asked quietly. “You weren’t here an hour ago.”

  “I just came. I drove up in that Oldsmobile. When I saw the church door had been broken down—” Father Malcolm hesitated. “I was afraid. I thought of vandals.”

  “Vandals!” Mario howled without warmth. “For Christ’s sake! Didn’t you see the cables? Our electronics components?”

  Father Malcolm shifted from the wall. He smoothed his hair down. “If I misjudged you,” he said, “please forgive me.”

  There was a long impasse. Mario became aware of the night chill at the base of his neck.

  “Please let us go inside the rectory,” Father Malcolm offered. “We can speak there.”

  Mario and Anita followed the dark figure toward the rectory door. Twice Father Malcolm turned to observe them as he stepped through the dark debris to a lantern by the armoire.

  The rectory stank as before of decayed organic dust, and Anita remembered the wax and varnish mixture that the priest Lovell had concocted in this very room so many years ago.

  The priest bent over the lantern. He adjusted the alcohol knob and Anita and Mario saw the strong contours of an intelligent face.

  “Tell me who you are,” the Jesuit said, “and what you are doing here.”

  The voice had the familiar authority of the Church. Mario bristled.

  “I am Anita Wagner,” Anita said evenly. “This is Mario Gilbert. We are parapsychologists.”

  The Jesuit raised an eyebrow. He glanced from Anita to Mario, the anger modified by curiosity.

  “Parapsychologists?” he murmured. “ESP? Clairvoyance? Things like that?”

  “We’re from Harvard University,” Mario said. “We’ve come to investigate the church.”

  The Jesuit looked back at Anita. She flicked the raven-black hair off her forehead and her smile, though polite, was also defiant. The lantern burned behind her. It made her silhouette firm and full underneath the cotton blouse. The Jesuit turned away.

  “Harvard University,” he repeated with respect.

  “Yes.”

  The Jesuit toyed with the top of a coffee pot still in a cardboard box.

  “Well,” he conceded, “ESP has been proved, hasn’t it? Everybody experiences it to some degree.”

  He stared at the parapsychologists. They did not budge. The woman had an almost preternatural confidence that worried him.

  “And clairvoyance,” he added, “I suppose the mystics of the Church experienced something very much like it.”

  The parapsychologists made no effort at finding common ground. Father Malcolm thought he detected a derisory smile on Mario’s lips. He changed his stratagem.

  The Jesuit leaned forward on the kitchen table. “And you’ve come to conduct experiments in my church?” he asked.

  Mario and Anita exchanged glances.

  “Your church?” Mario said. “You left it derelict for sixty years. You hardly have a right to it now.”

  “The taxes are paid, the title kept. It belongs to the Holy See of the Roman Catholic Church and is administered by the bishop of the Boston archdiocese.”

  “Look at it!” Mario said, gesturing at the brooding black absence of stars beyond the doorway. “Is that a Roman Catholic church? It’s a pile of shit!”

  The Jesuit winced at the profanity. He drew back from the kitchen table.

  “It suffered a terrible profanation, Mr. Gilbert,” he said. “Unsanctified, it fell under the influence of—another power.”

  Even as Mario stared angrily at the Jesuit, the man intrigued him. Father Malcolm had a quiet, obsessive quality that threatened to disrupt Mario’s intellectual control.

  “May I ask, Father,” Anita said after a long silence, “just why you are here?”

  Now the twin poles of Father Malcolm’s nature produced a nervous confusion. He did not know whether to trust Anita and Mario. He could not size them up, for all his study. The Jesuit stood rooted among the bright lantern beams and chasm-dark shadows.

  “I’ve come,” he said hesitantly, “to reconsecrate the church, and return it to Christ.”

  Mario’s thumb involuntarily jerked across the palm. Anita sensed the entire tensing of his body, but Mario only gazed shamelessly up and down the Jesuit.

  “You mean you’ve come to exorcise it?” Mario said incredulously.

  “Yes. I have an authorization from Bishop Lyons.”

  Mario held a lit cigarette. Spiders crawled out along the rectory wall, feeling their way past the oval bright spot under the window. For a long time, Mario simply watched the spiders, then the priest.

  “Strange, isn’t it?” Father Malcolm said.

  “What?”

  “That you and I have come to the Church almost at the same hour.”

  “Coincidence.”

  “Perhaps. One never knows how these calls are sent.”

  Mario repressed a smile at the archaic language.

  The priest suddenly brushed a hand through his hair, and the ring glittered violently like a flame.

  “How long do you need to be here, Mr. Gilbert?”

  “Two months. Maybe three.”

  “Not possible. I need only a few days to prepare the church. Once it is cleansed, it will resume as a functioning holy edifice.”

  Mario calmly smoked, but Anita saw the dark, dangerous spark growing in the depths of his eyes.

  In the long confrontation, neither man spoke, each accustomed to the twisted and necessary conduits of political power.

  “Well, I’m not moving, Father,” Mario said finally, flicking ash out the rectory window.

  “And yet you have no rights, have you?”

  “I have all kinds of rights.”

  Surprised, Father Malcolm settled back against the far windowsill, half out of shadow, so that his blond hair contrasted vividly with the dark night of the fields.

  “What rights are those, Mr. Gilbert?”

  “For two thousand years, the Roman Catholic Church has obstructed every avenue of scientific inquiry. I’d say you owe us three months.”

  “A bit overstated, don’t you think?”

  “Religion is organized monopoly of the paranormal,” Mario said quickly. “But now, here in Golgotha Falls, the monopoly is being broken.”

  The Jesuit merely clasped and unclasped his hands as though they caused him pain. “It’s true,” he conceded. “The Roman Catholic Church has never denied the existence of the supernatural.” He folded his arms,
looking altogether uncomfortable, even unable to collect his thoughts. “The very core of the Church, the abiding presence of Jesus Christ that occurs when the bread and wine change to the Body and Blood of the Savior, is perhaps the greatest example of this.”

  Mario groaned. “Spare me! I was inoculated with that as a child. So I’m immune.”

  “I see. And now you are an atheist.”

  “I am a scientist. I believe in what I can measure.”

  “Then I cannot allow you in the church.”

  Mario’s eyes went dangerously deep and dark.

  “Why not?” Anita asked gently.

  “Because the mysteries of the Church must not be analyzed by the instruments of science. It would be a further profanation.”

  “Bullshit,” Mario countered. “Science abounds in the Vatican. The Pope gives televised masses. The place is filled with computers. It’s a new day, Father Malcolm.”

  “Perhaps,” Father Malcolm said quietly, “but the Pope experiences the interior act of grace. As do all priests. In any case, the truths of science and the truths of the Church can never be compatible.”

  “If what the Church believes is true, you shouldn’t fear the analysis of science.”

  Anita crossed her legs. The movement broke the rising argument.

  “Father Malcolm,” she said carefully, “we have no desire to interfere in your services. As far as we’re concerned, we’re looking for frequencies or wave patterns in the extreme range of the human response. What the Roman Catholic Church interprets that to be, or how it wishes to treat them, is of no concern to us.”

  The Jesuit smiled.

  “I do understand your position,” he said. “But this church was so grossly defiled, and to be able to celebrate the Eucharist in it once again—why—this is the sole purpose of my mission here. It is hardly a Petri dish designed for your study.”

  “Try to understand,” she said persuasively, “we have risked much to be here.”

  The Jesuit tried to read the depths of her eyes, and thought he found sincerity there. His manner softened.

  “I believe I understand, Miss Wagner,” he said. “I know what universities are like and I know Harvard. They can hardly be supportive of your presence here.”

  “There is a very mixed feeling,” she conceded.

  “Look, neither of us wishes to disturb the hierarchies that have allowed us to come here,” he said carefully. “Is this true?”

  “Yes,” Anita replied.

  “Then perhaps we can work out a compromise.”

  Mario looked at him with suspicion. “What kind of compromise?”

  “Perhaps we might work together,” the Jesuit offered naively. “At least through the exorcism.”

  Mario slowly shook his head. “I don’t know what you mean by ‘work together.’ And I don’t know if I’m willing to risk a half a million dollars of equipment on whatever mumbo-jumbo you’re planning!”

  Mario watched the Jesuit’s pale face grow paler and the delicate eyes darken. A savage thrill surged briefly through Mario. Grinning, he turned to share the feeling with Anita. To his surprise and dismay she looked back with a cautious glance, a look of sympathy on her face that meant she had sided with the priest.

  “Mario,” Anita leaned forward, out of the shadow, her angular face pale as a satin pillow. “We have to talk this over.”

  “What the hell—”

  But something had sparked Anita’s imagination. Some vague plan, some improvisation, some mental manipulation that would exploit the Jesuit.

  “Mario. Let’s talk it through tonight.”

  Mario wondered what had occurred to her so swiftly. He knew better than to dismiss it out of hand. But the Jesuit’s presence rankled. It rankled Mario even more now that the Jesuit was agreeing to a compromise. Priestly goodness always smelled impure, like sour milk in his nostrils.

  Mario relented grudgingly with an almost imperceptible shrug of the shoulders. He gestured to Anita that they should go.

  “Good night, then,” Father Malcolm said hopefully, coming to the door with them.

  Anita nodded with a friendly smile, but Mario stalked off into the tall grass without looking back, hands jammed in his pockets.

  “A priest!” he whispered. “I can’t believe it! A Satan-hating Catholic priest! And a Jesuit to boot! Those bastards love nothing better than to argue! And we don’t have the time!”

  Anita caught up to him at the side of the Volkswagen.

  “Mario—please listen to me—”

  Mario slumped against the side door, running both hands into his hair, and then, in a frenzy, threw open the door and reached for a bottle of the Italian wine.

  “God’s punishment for becoming an atheist,” he quipped, drinking straight from the bottle.

  Mario saw the determined look in her eye.

  “Okay, lady,” he said. “What bright idea came to you in there?”

  “Mario. Let him do the exorcism.”

  Mario drank deeply from the green wine bottle, shaking his head.

  “Let’s make him the object of measurement. Let’s record what we’ve never recorded before, a believer in the midst of a passionate ritual.”

  “We didn’t come here to record an exorcism,” Mario said with distaste.

  Anita came very close to him.

  “There’s an opportunity here, Mario. Granted, it’s not what we planned. But it’s good. It’s very good for us. Let’s make the most of it.”

  Mario briefly considered the mass of equipment in the church and still in the van, waiting to be assembled. He felt the uniqueness of the opportunity like a dread weight in his heart. As a scientist, he knew Anita was right. It was an unprecedented situation for field research. But the whole notion of a practicing Jesuit made him sick.

  “Please, Anita! The man’s got a messiah complex! He’s preparing to wage a battle with Satan and his fucking minions! It’s mythological bullshit! There’s nothing real in it!”

  Anita gently put a slender hand on his arm, calming him down.

  “It’s real to him,” she reminded Mario. “Unless you have some private reason to avoid watching an exorcism?”

  Mario looked away.

  “No. Of course not,” he mumbled evasively. “But, shit, Anita, this stuff makes my skin crawl, this sanctimonious—”

  Anita walked in front of him and looked directly into his eyes. Mario did have an ancient score to settle against the Catholic Church, she knew. But she had never seen him frightened before. The Jesuit had triggered deep memories, memories that began long before she ever met him.

  “Agreed?” she insisted.

  But Mario only dug his toe into the clay, reluctant to concede.

  “Mario. We can’t fight him. The church belongs to the archdiocese. All the Jesuit has to do is contact his bishop and have him complain to Harvard. Dean Osborne would shut us down in a single afternoon!”

  Mario miserably gulped more wine. He offered the bottle to Anita. She gently pushed it aside.

  “This could be our last project with a functioning lab, Mario,” she said persuasively. “Don’t destroy it by being obstinate about the priest.”

  Mario grinned charmingly. The grin wavered, revealing a strange, powerful sense of despair. He tried putting an arm around her waist. She softly pushed his hand away.

  “Agreed?” she repeated.

  Mario nodded. “Agreed.”

  Depressed, Mario followed her into the van. They undressed. From the slats in the small side windows, they saw the light in the rectory. A silhouette moved back and forth between the door and the old American car parked under the apple tree. The priest was bringing box after box into the rectory.

  Mario moaned and sank softly onto the towels rolled up into a pillow. The sight of the cassocked priest had succeeded in stirring up the ashes of the past, rekindling scenes of his lonely youth, so carefully repressed. Try as he now did to quell their stabbing insistence, the miserable years he had spent in Ou
r Lady of the Precious Blood Home for Wayward Boys sparked full-blown back to life.

  It had been a tough school in which to acquire a sentimental education. The boys had been rough, moody, and violent, and by the ninth grade fully a third of them had seen the inside of reform school.

  Mario would stare out at the tenements of Boston. He knew no other world. He knew only that his mother had given him three times to the home and taken him back twice. After that, according to Father Pronteus, she was barely subsisting on welfare and didn’t have the heart even to visit him.

  The institution was the poorest in Boston. The floors were so warped, grown men tripped on them. The toilets reeked. A pervasive odor of sweat and mold lingered in the shower stalls and locker rooms, and in the tiled halls as well.

  And in those halls, among the black lockers and black benches, it was reputed that half the Fathers were homosexual. It resulted, Mario gradually realized, from the abnormal imperative for celibacy.

  A vague homoeroticism was the medium of all relationships in Our Lady of the Precious Blood. Mario, even at the age of seven, was fascinated by the nuns who floated, so strangely impassioned, past the Virgin Mary. His own ambiguous mother—the Virgin Mother on an azure field with painted stars—and the nuns, whose most casual motions revealed layers of starched cloth, all fused into a vague yet powerful ambience. It was a moody, almost erotic atmosphere that weighed on his heart and first taught him desire.

  The principal and Father Superior, Father Pronteus, was an opponent of that atmosphere. He was a large, handsome, charismatic man in whose bright eyes Mario detected a fierce spirituality, a burning idealism, that raised him above the dreary claustrophobia of the orphanage.

  Mario served as Father Pronteus’s altar boy. Mario excelled in Father Pronteus’s Latin class. The early history of the Church, with its subtle distinctions of matter and essence, transformation and existence, fascinated Mario. Often he stayed late after class listening to Father Pronteus. The Church taught that beyond the flesh, even though it animated the flesh, lay a sphere of idealization and spirituality, where Christ reigned supreme.

  Mario discussed with Father Pronteus the possibility of becoming a priest.

  Mario was fifteen when Father Pronteus caught him masturbating in the locker room. The older man brought him immediately into the administration office. There was a rambling, awkward discussion of the distinction between the flesh and the spirit. Father Pronteus drew closer to Mario, paternally.