Autopsy of an Eldritch City: Ten Tales of Strange and Unproductive Thinking (26 page)

The book did, however, make a special note that of all the churches that Prof. Mancini had painted throughout his life, his favorite had been St. Durtal’s Church, which he had viewed as his masterpiece. The book also mentioned that St. Durtal had been Prof. Mancini’s favorite saint, one he had felt a close personal kinship with, and that had been the main reason as to why he had agreed to take the job at St. Durtal’s.
Maybe now would be an ideal time to investigate what is known about the life of St. Durtal
, Timothy thought as he closed his copy of
Towers of Family & Faith
and walked over to one of his bookcases, scanning the packed shelves until he located his copy of
Saint Durtal: Painter of the Pit
, part of the Paulist Press’ “Classics of Western Spirituality” series.

According to this book, St. Durtal had been a fairly unknown monk who had lived in a Trappist monastery named Notre-Dame d’Igny in France in the late 16th century. St. Durtal had been a great admirer of the Hell scenes painted by the Flemish masters of the 15th and 16th century, such as Jan van Eyck, Rogier van der Weyden, Dieric Bouts, Hans Memling, Hieronymus Bosch, and Brueghel the Elder. Like those artists, St. Durtal had been obsessed with the imagery and iconography of Hell, and nearly all of the paintings he had created while serving as a monk at d’Igny were depictions of souls suffering torment in Hell. Like many Christians, St. Durtal had no doubt that Hell existed, and part of the reason why he was so obsessed with capturing it in exacting, almost photorealistic detail was to warn the sinners who viewed his art as to what they should expect to endure after death should they not repent and give themselves up to Christ. There was even a legend that, via black magic rituals, St. Durtal had summoned up demons from Hell itself and forced them to pose for him, so he could get them down in perfect detail on his canvases (which made Timothy think of the large stained glass window above the altarpiece at the sanctuary of St. Durtal’s Church). St. Durtal saw himself as a conquistador of the spiritual realm, mapping out the blasphemous contours and geography of Hell, despite the great strain this activity supposedly placed on his already fragile health. St. Durtal had died at around the age of 58, expiring from cancer of the mouth. On his deathbed, he had whispered to his abbot, “My soul departs from my body, my judgment awaits me. May the Good Lord take me up to Heaven, and not send me down to the Pit I have wallowed in my entire life.” As Timothy closed his book on St. Durtal, he thought of another quote he had once read in Antonia White’s
The Hound and the Falcon
: “Heaven without Hell—without the possibility of Hell—is meaningless.”

Timothy tried to do further research into the life of Prof. Mancini on the Internet, but he wasn’t able to find all that much information that he didn’t already know, aside from one intriguing essay written by the noted Lovecraftian scholar Peter Iwanicki that explored the connection between Prof. Mancini and the Salem painter Richard Upton Pickman (1884-1926?), who Prof. Mancini had befriended upon moving to Boston in 1920. Pickman was a painter best known for his ghastly realism, his work depicting bestial canine monsters in graveyards and cellars, and some of his works, such as
Ghoul Feeding
,
The Lesson
, and
Subway Accident
, are much admired by aficionados of grotesque art. It was whispered that Pickman had maintained a hidden studio in Boston’s North End where he had executed his most depraved works of art, and the man had no doubt dabbled in the black arts of occultism. How on earth a pious Christian like Prof. Mancini could have ever come to befriend such a profane artist is another of life’s little mysteries, but it would seem that the two men had greatly inspired each other’s art. It was even said that Prof. Mancini had also kept a hidden studio of his own, where he created his own monstrous paintings, similar to the 14 “Black Paintings” created by the elderly Goya in a two-story house in Madrid from 1819 to 1823 (some of these paintings included
Saturn Devouring His Son
and
Witches’ Sabbath: the Great He-Goat
). For years, fans of Prof. Mancini’s art had tried to locate this supposed “Black Studio” with no success, but it was rumored that the professor had hinted at its location in the epitaph on his gravestone at Lamb’s Blood Cemetery, which was near the borderline that divided Thundermist, Rhode Island from Blackstone, Massachusetts. Timothy wasn’t able to find any pictures of Prof. Mancini’s headstone online, so he decided to just visit the cemetery himself. Besides, it was only about a ten minutes’ drive away from his house. So the following day he climbed into his car and drove out to the cemetery.

III

Ach Golgotha

Of the many cemeteries and graveyards situated in the city of Thundermist, Lamb’s Blood Cemetery was by far one of the oldest, dating back to sometime before the year 1900. Surrounded by a black wrought-iron fence, the lower half of the cemetery was situated in Rhode Island while its upper half fell within the confines of Massachusetts, the borderline between the two states essentially dividing the cemetery into two halves. Timothy parked his car next to the sidewalk that bordered the east side of the cemetery. He then headed to the main entrance, which could be found on the southeast corner of the fence. The gates were swung wide open, and above them were ornate letters spelling out the name of the cemetery in French: Cimetière de sang d’agneau. As he stepped into the cemetery he slipped on his earphones (which were connected to a black iPod clipped to his belt), and he began listening to The Cure’s “The Holy Hour” (off their album
Faith
).

Timothy began wandering around the cemetery, seeking out the grave of Prof. Mancini. Many of the names on the graves were of French origin, and the epitaphs of these graves were also written entirely in French. As Timothy strolled through the necropolis, listening to The Cure, he reflected on what he knew about this cemetery. It was the largest cemetery in the city of Thundermist, and it was maintained by Lamb’s Blood Church. There were 16,000 people buried there, and since May 31, 1955, the cemetery had been shut off from any new burials. That same year, in August, Hurricane Diane had hit the city of Thundermist, and Baart Pond (which was located behind the cemetery) had flooded so greatly that it had taken part of the cemetery along with it. More than fifty caskets had shattered open and their contents floated away with the water. People who lived in houses next to the cemetery had reported seeing bodies floating down the street, and many of these bodies had eventually been washed out to sea, lost forever. It was for this reason that many people believed that the cemetery was haunted. In point of fact, paranormal investigators and amateur ghost hunters considered it to be one of the biggest hot spots for paranormal activity in the Rhode Island/New England area. Translucent orbs had supposedly been photographed floating over the graves at night, and shadowy figures had reportedly been seen lurking amongst the marble monuments. Paranormal investigators had even claimed to have recorded the sounds of the voices of the dead, along with other examples of Electronic Voice Phenomena (EVP). Adding to the atmosphere was the fact that Saddleworth Clinic, a mental hospital for the mentally insane, could be found slightly to the north of the cemetery, its decaying buildings casting bleak shadows on the graveyard below.

As Timothy walked along the winding paths of the cemetery, certain graves seemed to stand out to him. In the center of the cemetery was a large monument depicting a Calvary scene, and it was surrounded by the graves of long-dead priests (some of whom had served as pastors at St. Durtal’s Church). Timothy looked up at the Crucifixion scene. There was Christ, nailed to the cross, head bent down as he looked to the Earth, the letters INRI on a scroll of paper above his head. Three other statues stood at the base of the cross. To Christ’s left was St. John, long haired and effeminate, hands clasped in prayer, gazing up at Christ with a look of longing and despair on his handsome face. To the right of Christ was his mother, Mary, who, like her son, was also gazing downward, as if the sight of her son suffering on the cross were too great a sorrow for her to bear. Kneeling down at the foot of the cross was another woman, who Timothy assumed was Mary Magdalene. Staring up at this depiction of unbearable despair, this profound suffering cast from stone, Timothy thought of a line from Bach’s
St. Matthew’s Passion
: “Ach Golgotha, unselges Golgotha!” Ah Golgotha, unhappy Golgotha!

A grave caught Timothy’s attention not far from the Calvary monument. This grave was graced with a large stone angel with feathery wings and a wreath in its left hand, the angel resting its right arm and head against the top of the gravestone, a look of profound sadness on its beautiful face. Timothy was aware that this style of monument was known as the “Weeping Angel,” and that its prototype was “Angel of Grief,” an 1894 sculpture by William Wetmore Story that served as a grave for him and his wife at the Protestant cemetery in Rome. To Timothy, it looked like the kind of thing one would expect to see on an old Joy Division record cover.

Then there was a grave that portrayed a young woman wearing a robe, clinging to a large cross, as if she were drowning out at sea and the cross was a rock or life preserver that she was clutching to for dear life. Looking at this statue (while The Cure’s “The Blood” began playing on his iPod) caused Timothy to think of “Rock of Ages,” that famous old Christian hymn written by the Calvinist Reverend Augustus Montague Toplady in 1763 (and first published in
The Gospel Magazine
in 1775). In particular, Timothy recalled the following snatch of lyrics from the hymn: “Nothing in my hand I bring, simply to thy cross I cling.”

The most impressive monument at Lamb’s Blood Cemetery, by far, was the Dunwich Mausoleum, which was the final resting place of Howard Dunwich, the governor of Rhode Island during the time period in which St. Durtal’s Church was initially constructed. Built on a lot 150 feet in diameter and designed by the same architect who had designed St. Durtal’s, there was enough space for 33 plots in the burial vault beneath the mausoleum’s superstructure. The Dunwich Mausoleum was constructed from top-grade granite and built in the form of a semi-circle that was 44 feet wide and 41 feet deep, with a long row of twenty foot high Ionic columns at the rear of the upper platform that could be reached by ascending 14 steps. The mausoleum looked like something from a movie set, and being built up high on a hill, cast its shadow over the rest of the cemetery.

After a few minutes of searching, Timothy finally found Prof. Mancini’s grave. It was located on the south side of the cemetery, next to a small aboveground crypt whose outer surface was covered with vines and red and green leaves. The headstone wasn’t all that much to look at, but Timothy made a careful note of its epitaph, writing it down on a notepad that he had taken along with him:

Fausto Mancini
Sept. 19, 1885-Jan. 21, 1973
“To Heaven my eyes I raise,
up above I eternally gaze.
In my hand I hold the Keys,
I praised the Goat upon my knees.”

H’mm, that’s weird
, Timothy thought as he jotted down the epitaph. What could it possibly mean? Then he remembered how, just a few days ago, Henri had told him that many people believed that the fresco of St. Peter in the north transept of St. Durtal’s was a self-portrait of Prof. Mancini himself. And Timothy also remembered how in this fresco, St. Peter had been holding keys in one hand while raising his eyes to the heavens. “To Heaven my eyes I raise,” Timothy muttered. “But what’s all this about praising a goat on his knees? Maybe I should go back to St. Durtal’s and look into the matter further.”

So that following Sunday, Timothy returned to St. Durtal’s Church at 1:00
pm
to take part in another tour of the facility. After parking his car in the parking lot at Plaza Center, he decided to walk behind the church and see what it looked like from the back. So he made his way down Locust Street, passing by many crumbling houses with boarded-up windows: on the side of one of these houses someone had spray-painted the words “Crip Gang,” causing Timothy to shiver and not linger on this particular street, which was as silent as the Aeon of Maat. Eventually, he reached the back of the church, though this wasn’t nearly as impressive to look at as the building’s front; still, the sheer bulk of the apse’s exterior was an impressive sight in its own right. Timothy walked along the shady cement path that ran in between the church’s west wall and the rectory, eventually making it to the front again.

As soon as Henri opened the doors, Timothy headed directly to the north transept, until he stood before the large crucifixion stained glass window. There was the fresco of St. Peter, and now that Timothy had seen a photograph of Prof. Mancini he did note a strong resemblance, though St. Peter was bearded, while in real life the professor had been quite clean shaven, almost cherubic looking, his skin as pink as that of a newly born infant. Timothy looked at the two large keys held in St. Peter’s hand, then at the face of the saint, at those eyes raised to Heaven. Timothy also looked up, to the larger fresco directly above that of St. Peter. This one depicted Jacob wrestling with an angel, from that famous scene in the Book of Genesis, 32:24. It reminded Timothy of a similar scene drawn by Gustave Doré in 1885, only here there was something almost demonic looking about the angel, an expression on its face that seemed to set it apart from the other multitude of angels keeping watch over the church, as if it were a false note in the music of their heavenly choir. The fresco depicted the struggle between Jacob and the angel as taking place in the evening, and the night sky was devoid of almost any detail at all, aside from one constellation: that of Capricorn.