Albert Thelen - The Island of Second Sight

But now it was the high-school teacher’s turn to get egg on his face. To be brief about it: no matter how close he stuck his pince-nez to the glass, he couldn’t make head or tail out of what he saw, and no doubt he couldn’t read Italian anyway. He was just about to apologize in front of his whole class when another bevy of schoolgirls, led by a decorous nun, noisily entered this hall of dubious science. The eleventh-graders switched battlefields. One single zealot, a pimply kid with spectacles, stayed with us, making careful notes for his history essay. In the next room, another guide had started his lecture. Back in those days nobody felt obliged to shout “ Achtung! The Führer is about to speak!”

Having once again demonstrated my prowess as a Leader in the field of applied science, how could I possibly fail here on the island? Beatrice studied hard. She devoured books, copied out excerpts, memorized dates. Then, like a good student, she scouted the city, visiting all the main attractions. As for me, I read nothing and visited nothing, for I have no memory at all and don’t believe in marble tombs. The day before any tour, I could orient myself just a bit so the customers wouldn’t end up at all the wrong places.

A few days later we received our marching orders. A Woermann ship was arriving. About twenty guides were signed on. At seven in the morning the rented cars stood in long rows at the pier. The tour director distributed lists, armbands, and written instructions. Each of us was assigned to a group of 20–25 people and told which car to use. Among the guides were some professional interpreters who had hold of the basic 1000 words in each language, and a few could actually speak them. For years they had been dragging foreigners, people whom as native islanders they despised, across the insular landscape — and holding out their palms at the end of each excursion.

Like all slogans, the one propagated by the Spanish Tourist Board, “ Mallorca clima ideal ,” is a fraud — or shall we say, is based on a faulty conception of nature’s meteorological vagaries. In any case, thousands of tourists have spent their time on the island in a driving rain. Let us concede, however, that on the day of our maiden tour, a hot sun and hot dust descended on all and sundry. The steamer dropped anchor in the bay, the harbor police climbed aboard, and longboats, sloops, and dinghies headed out to take on the passengers. Then the first batches came on land and fanned out. Each excursion participant had been assigned to a particular automobile. All they had to do was find the right number, or call it out as they came on land.

The Germans are great organizers, though they have never trusted their own organizations. A mad dash commenced. People bared their teeth, yelled, bumped up against each other. Each one wanted to be the first, wanted the best car and the best seat in the car. Fathers pushed mothers aside; daughters forgot their deportment-class manners; sons with facial scars, imagining that they were back in the Heidelberg dueling lists, flailed about trying to snag the snazziest car for their elders — why else travel First Class? In a shipwreck, scenes like this one are kept under control with a pistol. We weren’t allowed to carry any, and so we had all we could do to deal with these high-paying German gentry. “Your number, please? Oh, I’m sorry. Yours is the next car, there, see the number on it?”—“What, that old jalopy? We’re not getting into that thing, no sirree! That Schulz family over there, they got that big Mercedes. Are they any better than us? Do you know what kind of people the Schulzes are? Where can I register a complaint?”—“With your Guide, or with the company president in Hamburg. It’ll go faster with the Guide.”—“All right, then where’s the Guide, otherwise they’ll drive away right under our noses. We’re First Class, in case you didn’t know. Where’s our Führer ?”

“At your service, sir, and I’m happy to inform you that the car we have selected for you is an unusual one, with a very special feature.”—“Liesl, come over here, the Guide here says that our car has some kind of special feature. Let’s hear about it. The hell with the Schulzes.” Liesl comes over, also two daughters and a son. I explain: “This old jalopy was formerly a luxury limousine, as you can see for yourself. It once belonged to no less a personage than the banker Juan March — you know, sure, that’s the one. The special feature is the motor, 200 horsepower. The old rascal had it custom-installed for his drug-trafficking. Just between you and me, it’s seen its share of cadavers. Later on I’ll show you some bullet holes. A historic automobile, believe you me — if that sort of thing interests you.” The family hesitates, but finally is cultured enough to enter the historic gangster vehicle. — “The one occupied by the family you have jokingly referred to as ‘Schulz’ may look better, but the motor’s all shot. I know that car from a hundred tours and more. Breaks down every fifty miles.”

Our driver gets in, I sit next to him. In the back seat Daddy and Mom are all smiles. Son and daughters on the fold-out seats are all smiles. After all, they’ve done it once again! They’ve picked a true Leader!

For a while now they can relax. Before we drive off, they’ll write a quick postcard to Aunt Amalia back in Germany: “Dear Auntie, guess where we are! We’re sitting in the Führer’s limousine, haha!”

Now I have to leave the car again, down the way there’s another insurrection, they’re almost into fisticuffs. It’s Beatrice’s group! Beatrice is standing in the middle of a rude throng. In her excitement she’s talking French, and that works miracles. These are all people of culture, after all. They’ve studied foreign languages, so they become as gentle as lambs and summon forth their meager fragments of French. “Oh please, Madame, keep on speaking French, we all know it and it’s easier for you as a Spaniard, though I must say your German isn’t bad at all — a little bit of an accent, but it sounds delightful. In Valencia we had another guide who spoke French, maybe you know him, real swarthy type, you know, and he was wearing…”

I am able to catch Beatrice just long enough to belch out a string of pithy Dutch expletives. These sons of bitches, let’s drown the lot of ’em, shoot ’em all, string ’em up in the baobab trees! But Beatrice, so very touchy about spittle and footprints on our polished apartment floor, acts here as if transformed. She is even able to calm me down, by pointing out that this crazed multitude is traveling First Class. Really decent passengers, Third Class, would be arriving soon enough, and they’d be easier to deal with. Then she was gone, chasing after a woman about to dispense blows with her purse in retaliation against a Spanish driver. No sooner had this luxury-class fury taken her seat next to him, she gasped, than he tried to pinch her in a certain place— jawohl , and she was not going to tolerate such behavior! Other ladies were furious because no one had tried to pinch them — why go to all this trouble and travel through Spain as an unattached female? Both factions were right, in my opinion. All of the ladies should have been spirited off to the Clock Tower and thrown to the bulls. But on their chartered tour they all eventually got what they paid for. Those Spanish drivers are fairly bursting with virility. And the way they drive is tantamount to seduction itself: one hand on the wheel, the other on the female client. Lots of squeals and shrieks, especially in the curves, where hip contact naturally gets closer. Oh, I wish them all a safe journey! Still, in all my years as a Führer I never once heard of an accident arising from customer service of the kind under discussion. Well, perhaps a scratched fender here, a torn undergarment there…