Albert Thelen - The Island of Second Sight

“Beatrice, chérie , Bice, Bé,” I said, as it began raining underneath the Kaffir god, “my dear, unlike the feathered fauna, we lack a preen gland with which to oil our beaks and then smear each and every feather until we are as waterproof as a burkha. I’ve been thinking. While you were asleep I went deeply into my soul, and have returned with certain insights. During our very first night here, when the tempests of human lust raged all around us, we decided to go jump in the sea holding hands. But the ocean depths rejected us. Now that the waters are threatening us from above, don’t you agree that our neighbors’ libidinous yawpings are more endurable?? Or should we go kill ourselves again? The mysterious Heraclitus once said, panta rhei , everything is in flux, you can’t step twice into the same river. I invite you to join me in pondering this matter. Do you think that the Captain still has a tiny bit of his old man’s anniversary poison left over? Somebody ought to take that secret compartment and bang out all of its contents. Or wasn’t it perhaps an act of Divine Providence that we were cheated out of the chest? Under the present circumstances, a chameleon would start evolving gills. But unfortunately we’re not that kind of lizard. Nevertheless, I sense a miracle in the offing!”

Beatrice wasn’t interested in developing gills, or in putting a noose around her neck, or in poison. And unlike the flounder, she rejected the idea of a moveable eye in order to face misery from only one side of her head. In a word, she didn’t want to take her own life again, and this meant that I had to preserve mine to remain with her. This was Point Number One of our watery breakfast chat. Point Number Two emerged, and ended, in a single word. “Antonio!” we cried out as if with one voice. How could we have forgotten that good man for so long?

Antonio said that now that the rainy period has arrived, earlier than usual (honestly), we could no longer remain at the Torre. The barn would get cold and drafty, Arsenio wouldn’t have the roof repaired—“Tell us about it,” I thought to myself — and so it was time that we looked elsewhere for lodgings. So our camping days were over! Antonio advised us to rent a small unfurnished apartment. We could scour up some furniture somewhere, time would tell. In a country where time has no meaning, this was a somewhat risky proposition — but the water was rising. Don Vigo would have to go looking, upstreet and downstreet; vacant pisos were always indicated by a piece of white paper in the window or tied to the balcony. Then he would enter and start asking about how many rooms, whether there was running water — but we already knew about such things. It was no doubt the same in other countries. I assured Antonio that it was no different than in Holland — and started thinking about Madame Perronet, a long staircase, a ship captain in loden coat and floppy hat, a girl’s corpse…

The Encyclopedic Dictionary of Wilhelm Traugott Krug offers information about more things than a normal human being needs to know, in order, consonant with a very broadly conceived polypragmosyne (check it out in Krug), to reach the end of his days. Yet this superb reference work contains no advice whatsoever concerning how one should conduct a search for a piso —either systematically or by violating all rules of civility. This is probably the case because both methods are subject to happenstance — not an appealing matter for Krug, who was a genuine philosopher. Nonetheless, following Beatrice’s suggestion I scoured the entire city of Palma, carrying a map and a street index, checking off each street, alley, bridge, square, and so-called island as I investigated it. There was no dearth of white paper in windows and on balconies. The city was undergoing a building boom. The island was flourishing. It was bustling with activity that was already beginning to concentrate in the capital, and it was expected that the island’s population would double in the next 30 years. Here as elsewhere, human reproduction was largely an arbitrary matter, but this technique can also fill the world systematically with new progenitors. Besides, the Spaniard loves to change his whitewashed walls frequently. Moving his household will give him, it is true, the same whitewashed walls as before, but in different dimensions and with new neighbors and new excitements. He loves the street, not cozy togetherness at home and hearth. He loves his club and the bordello. The women can be depended on to frequent the church.

My Spanish had improved to the point where I could haggle without difficulty. I climbed upstairs and downstairs from morning to night. Many apartments in many sections of the city stood empty; I stuck my nose into all of them and cringed at the prices, but without anyone noticing my horror. No, I said, this was too large — just the wife, no kids and only two maids, one of whom slept at home. How charming, I said, a poem, a little gingerbread house, but unfortunately too small — seven kids, the eighth on its way, three maids, a cook, and we were expecting the in-laws from Paris soon. My family situation became more and more complicated. During this search I got to know my Vigoleis truly well for the first time. My profession changed with the changing circumstances. And it occurred that by mistake I looked at the same apartment twice, telling the landlady a different story each time—“What? Last week I had three kids and now I have seven? Well, yes, four from my first marriage that I had asked to join us”—and I was gone. Once I was confronted by the house-owner himself and subjected to a cross-examination. He asked me one question after another, each one more compromising than the last, and finally I sensed that he actually knew us — which was true. He demanded the gospel truth, he was in the know, I was the pimp for some puta out there, what I wanted was to drag his house down in the dirt, he knew all of us including Don Helvecio of the Príncipe — but perhaps we could make a deal: 1250 pesetas a month, 3 months in advance, hay que ser hombre! If something is very expensive, the Spaniard says it will cost him el ojo de la cara —the eye in his head. For me at the time, the cheapest apartment was so pricey that I would have had to toss down both of my eyes.

Weeks later I finally located an apartment in the Old City. I encountered only cats and nuns. The apartment was just right for us, and not too expensive — I would have lost one eye and closed the other. The owner was a pleasant fellow, a book printer, and his workshop was in the same house. I figured that we might collaborate, since he always had proofreading to get done. I rented the flat with a handshake and sprinted out into the darkening street. The cats scurried away and the nuns blessed themselves. A thief? An adulterer? Before they could recover, I was back at the Clock Tower fetching our passports for the rental contract. When the printer saw our documents, he hesitated. Was the Madame my wife or my “relationship”? Since she was neither the one nor the other, and since I couldn’t conjure up the appropriate term in any language, I responded to the severe glance of the man’s pince-nez by saying that Doña Beatriz was my wife. “Legal?” “No.” “So?” “Yes.”

A man, he said, could have as many lovers or mistresses as he wanted. But a woman must be married. I could move in any time at all with my querida , but with a doubtful wife — he must have consideration for his own spouse, the neighbors, and his Catholic printing house.

So once again I missed the boat. It was too late to explain to this moralist that my wife was my querida , my doxy, my hooker, my concubine and my Pilar, tell him that we were coming straight from the Clock Tower slut hut, and ask him where I might continue my search. Too late; I was shown the door. The owner wanted things above-board.