Golgotha Falls

by Frank De Felitta

  Now it was 12:30 p.m. and those storm clouds were growing over the desolate valley. And the white church that his mother gazed upon in rapture and prayer was filled with frightening groans and mocking laughter.

  Eddie walked deeper into the heart of the birch woods.

  Occasional shards of sunlight transformed the tops of the trees into strange shapes. A rabbit—or was it a squirrel—leaped over a fallen log into a gilded patch of mushrooms.

  Then the gilded light changed into forms, seven forms, floating densely in the birch grove, sending oblique shafts of silvery luminescence onto the ferns.

  Eddie, mesmerized, walked closer, staring at their brilliance, a brilliance of seven metamorphosing quicksilver shapes of light.

  A voice drifted down from the vague human shapes. Eddie could not see their eyes, but he knew they were aware of him, looking at him, instructing him.

  The voice said: “Et tu puer Propheta Altissimi vocaberis: praebis enim ante faciem Domini parare vias ejus.”

  Eddie backed away, tripped over a fallen branch, and fell into the soft ferns. Shielding his eyes as he turned his face back toward the figures, he saw that they held seven large jars. They were restless, impatient, yet determined, in a final campaign to communicate to Eddie.

  “Ad dandam scientam salutis plebi ejus, in remissionem peccatorum­eoram.”

  Eddie felt their light glowing against his face. He crab-crawled backward over the soft forest ground, then picked himself up and began running.

  He ran until he came out of the forest, and down the slope, where a raven-haired woman stood on the edge of the cemetery next to a tall, distinguished gentleman.

  Eddie stood, awed, staring first at Anita, then at Dean Osborne.

  “I saw angels,” Eddie whispered. “Seven. Carrying jars.”

  Anita nodded, pale and lovely, as though the news in some strange way was not unexpected.

  “They spoke to me,” the child said to her.

  Dean Osborne came close to the boy, laying a firm hand on his shoulder.

  “What did they say?” he asked kindly.

  Eddie swallowed, then turned cautiously back toward the birch woods. The sunlight played, hovered, metamorphosed on the tree-tops, gilding the branches as the storm clouds rolled in.

  “It was a strange language,” Eddie said.

  But Dean Osborne saw the signs of intelligence in the boy’s eyes, and guessed that the mass psychology had engendered some kind of personal vision.

  “Tell us,” Dean Osborne encouraged.

  Eddie found, to his surprise, that the words had pierced his heart and, though in a foreign language, he could now give them utterance in English.

  “They said, ‘And thou, child, shalt be called the prophet of the Highest, for thou shalt go before the face of the Lord to prepare His ways, to give knowledge of salvation to His people, unto the remission of their sins.’ ”

  Dean Osborne was thunderstruck at the exactness of the biblical quotation.

  “I don’t even know what it means,” Eddie smiled sheepishly.

  “It means just what it says,” Anita said quietly.

  Dean Osborne caught the otherworldly quality of Anita’s assurance.

  “Go,” she said gently to the boy. “Repeat those words to your mother. Tell them to the people at the church.”

  Eddie nodded, then turned and ran furiously toward the densely packed, praying crowds kneeling before the Church of Eternal Sorrows.

  “Come now,” Dean Osborne cautioned. “You mustn’t get swept up into this belief phenomenon, Anita.”

  Dean Osborne stopped. The gentle smile on his face slowly froze. He followed Anita’s look upward. The massive cloud formations spread in a barely ambiguous cruciform flux he had seen only once before in his life.

  On Mario’s slides.

  Reddish, rolling, and volatile.

  “Dean Osborne,” Anita whispered. “I think we are coming to the end of history.”

  Transfixed, Dean Osborne watched the clouds spread, gathering definition.

  The metamorphoses of the eastern clouds had also drawn Mario’s attention. Shapes of what seemed like animals were embedded in them. Galloping horses. Dull tremors reverberated beneath the squad car.

  The policeman up front picked up the mike.

  “Riley here. Come in.”

  “What is it, Riley?” crackled a voice.

  “Mild tremors on the ridge here,” Riley reported. “Is there blasting going on somewhere?”

  “Will check. Over and out.”

  Mario was intrigued with the boiling forms in the reddish clouds. No doubt reflections. But of what? He looked at the dark forest on the side of the ridge, then the steep incline leading down to the cemetery and the church. The immense cloud buildup seemed to be pressing toward the church from the east.

  The darkness of the sky unnerved him. What kind of storm was brewing? The ridge road they were parked on seemed to divide the universe between a darkness too terrible to imagine and an unfolding that also terrified him. What the hell was happening?

  The policeman up front rolled down his window. From below were heard the quavering litanies from the crowds, accented by distant thunders, and the horrible laughter emanating from within the church.

  Eamon’s laughter grew and the echoes did not diminish, until the cacophony boomed among the rafters.

  “You chased me, seeking the Second Coming, stinking of the Church’s wealth!” Eamon roared. “But it was all a snare, and you fell into it like a pig in a wallow!”

  Francis Xavier held the black rosary tightly.

  Renata Baldoni, the white-haired Sicilian peasant’s wife, had given him a sure faith. A faith that lived intimately with Christ, in a nourishing mercy, as a sapling is nourished by the irrigation of cool waters. The child learned to desire nothing, feel nothing, but the subtle sensations of that vulnerable mercy stirring throughout the world.

  It was a musical, devout influence that once had moved him to tears of rapture.

  “What are you doing?” Eamon demanded, furious, and yet strangely disquieted.

  Francis Xavier had risen from his kneeling position and stood at the side of the altar. Slowly, very slowly, he slipped off the massive gold Ring of the Fisherman and put it on a chair.

  “You fool!” Eamon hissed.

  But Eamon’s face paled, uncertain, watching Francis Xavier warily.

  “Even the great trickster can serve Christ when he speaks the truth,” Francis Xavier said, untying the gold-embroidered tassels of his cape.

  To choose between the grandeur of Rome and the instincts given him by his mother had never been such a painful, divisive dilemma. But it was so now. And Francis Xavier chose.

  Francis Xavier folded the white and gold cape and placed it on the chair, lovingly, over the Vatican ring.

  “Pimp!” Eamon roared.

  The blue luminescences swarmed around Francis Xavier. Un­perturbed, he lifted the heavy gold pectoral cross over his head, kissed it, and laid it on the folded cape.

  The satin skullcap, embroidered by the Vatican tailors according to centuries-old tradition of pattern, was also placed on the chair.

  Eamon retreated, uncertain. The figure before him, divested of its magnificent outer vestments, lost its pomp and grandeur. All that remained was a Sicilian priest.

  In the gnarled hand, reflecting the light of the yellow altar lamp, was the simple, black rosary.

  “Roman pimp!” Eamon shrieked, livid with rage.

  Francis Xavier approached the Jesuit. He extended his hands slightly, as though to show himself unarmed, except for the black rosary.

  Francis Xavier knelt, crossed himself, and kissed the rosary. He closed his eyes.

  “Pray with me, Eamon,” he whispered, in startling simplicity.

  Deep within, Eamon realized the impossible: The very vulnerability of Francis Xavier, materially and spiritually, would be his only weapon.

  Behind them both, sounds of hooves and
the airborne stench of foul creatures assailed their senses.

  “I, too, have been lost, Eamon,” Francis Xavier said. “You and I both. No priest can live without serving Christ with all his soul.”

  Eamon’s lips distorted into a sneer. The winged silhouettes swooped down and fed greedily from the defiled Host and chalice on the altar. Eamon trembled under the impact of Francis Xavier’s calm, invading spirituality.

  “You have shown me this, Eamon.”

  Eamon raised his hands, covering his ears. Francis Xavier reached out and pulled the hands away. When Eamon looked up, he saw the Sicilian’s deep, masculine gray eyes penetrating his.

  “Christ has chosen you to show me this, Eamon,” Francis Xavier insisted.

  The church rafters trembled, then subsided. Eamon felt the exquisite vulnerability of Francis Xavier, and it terrified him. For the Sicilian was offering himself as a sacrifice.

  “No—Holy Father—” Eamon blurted through clenched teeth. “H-He is too strong for us—”

  Francis Xavier held up the black rosary.

  “In simplicity is our strength, Eamon.”

  Eamon felt a piercing pain in his right side, and a throbbing agony in his wrists and feet, and a pounding ache along the crown of his head, mockeries of the Crucifixion.

  Francis Xavier’s cool hands righted him.

  “I’m so afraid, Holy Father—” Eamon stammered, eyes glistening, grasping at the peasant’s hands.

  Eamon looked deeply into Francis Xavier’s eyes. He saw that there, too, a terrible pain resided, and yet the Sicilian was unafraid.

  “Be strong, Eamon,” Francis Xavier whispered. “For whosoever be­lieveth in Christ with the heart of a child, to him shall Christ come.”

  Gently, for the second time, Francis Xavier folded Eamon’s trembling hands under the altar lamp into the gesture of prayer.

  “Per sanctum Resurrection tuam, libera nos, Domine,” Francis Xavier began, hushed and confident.

  Gaining strength from Francis Xavier’s example, Eamon dared a second time to repeat in English.

  “Through Thy holy Resurrection deliver us, O Lord.”

  Francis Xavier continued the litany. Eamon’s voice gained strength, then faltered as the ancient power rose more forcefully than before.

  Dream images of his dead father, his dead uncle among black vipers, interfered in the litany.

  Francis Xavier heard the litany transformed by the church echoes into denunciations of Christ.

  But worse were waves of a vile, palpable hatred emanating from Eamon, breaking against him, pounding at his resolve. With each savage thrust the energy stung the skin, and stank, and crept up his arms, searching for his soul.

  Francis Xavier smiled softly.

  He forced his mind to perceive himself as a child, praying at the wooden bed, with his mother at his side. Then, the waves of fear had dissipated as she showed him how, and now he felt from her a force more indomitable than sin or death.

  That simplicity, after all the years, after being raised against his will by his gifts through the Church hierarchy into the very chair of Saint Peter, flowed back like cleansing water.

  Francis Xavier paused.

  “Per sanctam Resurrection tuam, libera nos, Domine,” he said again, softly, with unassailable conviction.

  “Through Thy holy Resurrection, deliver us, O Lord!” Eamon cried out with a totality of being that echoed and rebounded in the darkness.

  Suddenly waves of putrescence broke against the alb of the Sicilian. Stinging, glittering lights attacked the gnarled hand that held the rosary.

  Unafraid, Francis Xavier raised his head to the dark rafters above, and his voice rang out, clear and commanding:

  “Begone, Satan! For Christ is at hand!”

  Rolling westward under red, massive clouds, a great cruciform shape gradually began to form above the skies of Golgotha Valley, accompanied by knifing bolts of lightning and claps of earth-­shaking thunder.

  A hushed silence spread throughout the huddled throng before the church, cowering beneath the splendid yet fearsome sight approaching from the east.

  From the unsanctified church came the strong voice of Francis Xavier.

  “Corpus Domini nostri Jesu Christi custodiat animam tuam in vitam aeternam.”

  Cardinal Bellocchi loudly translated.

  “May the Body of Our Lord Jesus Christ preserve thy soul to life everlasting.”

  Everywhere the windows of Golgotha Falls reflected the great cruciform shape moving steadily in the eastern skies.

  “Laudate Dominum, omnes Gentes: laudate eum, omnes populi,” reverberated Francis Xavier’s voice, clear in the valley.

  “Praise the Lord, all ye nations; praise Him, all ye people,” Cardinal Kennedy’s voice sang out.

  The ancient command sent television reporters, cameramen, and sound recorders to their knees. A policeman lowered his head, and began to cry, facing the east.

  The cruciform cloud moved over the town of Golgotha Falls. A murmur of dread and expectation flowed down over the kneeling people.

  “Mamma, are we going to die?” asked a small girl’s voice.

  “Pray, Cindy. Pray to God.”

  In other sections of the crowd fathers cradled their frightened children against their breasts, mouthing half-remembered prayers.

  The ground was shaking. As Dean Osborne and Anita moved toward the police barricades they held on to shrubs, on to one another, ducking against the grit blown up by the winds.

  Dean Osborne saw that even the hard-bitten policemen were rapt by the religious atmosphere. Over his shoulder he saw the immense arms of the cross-shape, and a defined figure began to form at its center.

  How extraordinary, he thought, to perceive and to analyze one’s perceptions simultaneously. It was more subjective than anything B. F. Skinner had dared. But pages out of his thesis surfaced in Dean Osborne’s mind now, and he suddenly realized how that theme had been there, afraid of the strict authority of the great behavioralist.

  Anita walked faster over the stubbled ground. Dean Osborne slowed, staring in amazement at the lightning striking the birch forest of Golgotha Valley. Never had life, curiosity, vitality surged so triumphantly within his breast. The red trails of the swirling clouds blanketed the eastern edge of the town, and fingers of the heated air groped relentlessly toward the police barricades.

  In the swirling dust Dean Osborne lost Anita.

  “Anita!” he called.

  But the winds sucked up his words. The dean stumbled toward the police barricades, arm in front of his eyes, holding on to shrubs against the wind.

  “Deo gratias, alleluia, alleluia!” came the voice of Francis Xavier through the maelstrom.

  Dean Osborne needed no Catholic priest to translate.

  “Praise God!” shouted the people kneeling. “Hallelujah! Hallelujah!”

  The shrieking antiphony of the red cruciform shape came whistling through the streets of Golgotha Falls.

  “I have seen the vision,” Dean Osborne whispered.

  The cruciform mass, identical to what had appeared in the thermovision tapes, now hung triumphant over the Church of Eternal Sorrows, bending trees and snapping branches in its force and heat.

  On the ridge the two policemen stood beside their squad car, staring in terror at the approaching holocaust. The next moment they were both running for cover in the nearby birch forest.

  Caged in the rear of the squad car, Mario shouted hoarsely, “Let me out! Goddamn you bastards—!”

  He braced his back against the car door and slammed his boots repeatedly at the opposite window. The shatterproof glass finally crystallized and powdered under the steady assault. Mario painfully squeezed his body out through the narrow window, scratching his face, arms, and legs. He tumbled to the ground, trying to break his fall with his handcuffed hands. Unable to gain his balance, he rolled down the steep embankment. A tree stump brought him to a jarring stop and a flash of white pain shot behind his e
yes.

  “Anita!” Mario shouted, though his voice was absorbed in the howling winds and rumbling thunder.

  “ANITA!”

  Wincing in pain, Mario tried desperately to crawl out from the thorny shrub. Dimly he thought he saw a familiar figure groping toward him in the storm.

  “ANITA!” he roared.

  Anita stopped, turned, to listen in the swirling debris. Was she imagining that naked cry?

  “MARIO!”

  Battered by the searing storm, Mario began to move, stumbling on his knees, blindly, toward the figure of the woman once his lover.

  “ANITA!”

  Anita changed direction, bending low into the winds. The pain in the voice was mixed with a peculiar, final kind of hopelessness.

  Then, among the debris, the shreds of fabric hurled by the howling winds, between a thorn shrub and the police cars, she saw the brown-jacketed figure, kneeling, unpenitent, unbroken, but confused.

  “Mario—” she gasped, running in his direction.

  Immediately she embraced him, felt him shuddering. His hot, salty tears flowed unashamedly against her face. They had trussed him up like a common criminal and half killed the soul inside.

  “Anita,” he whispered. “I’ve been in hell without you!”

  Anita pressed his face against her breast, rocking him slowly.

  “There will be no more hell, Mario,” she said gently in his ear.

  Mario looked up slowly. The calm assurance of her voice eradicated the psychic storms of the night before, eradicated even the uncanny fear of the metamorphosing storm, out of which now stumbled a figure with a tattered raincoat. Dean Osborne, handkerchief over mouth, had found Anita and Mario at last. Mario saw the transfigured excitement in the old professor’s eyes. Suspiciously, Mario recoiled.

  Dean Osborne covered Mario and Anita with his coat, shielding them from the storm.

  In the cemetery the mounds of loam, restless, cracked and heaved. Tombstones pushed up from the thistles, bits of Victorian brass and velvet from coffin interiors were disgorged.

  “I believe in God,” Anita said, staring at the cemetery and at the white church where Francis Xavier and Eamon Malcolm prayed. “I do, without reservation, believe in a God Almighty!”