Albert Thelen - The Island of Second Sight

Well now, I explained — with the infallible instinct that has made our German nation the foremost nation in the world, my devoted followers had picked out at first glance the one item in the collection that made it worth our while to spend any time at all in the sacristy. All the other objects in the cases and on the walls were of no account, the usual sacralia , but that item over there — and then things went black before my eyes, jet black, my mind blackened out the sum of 25 pesetas. But then came the second bolt of lightning: The Black Death! God’s Avenging Angel! Angels of the Lord wreaking Heaven’s vengeance on earth! Let them perish by the plague, these sinners, unmourned and unburied, and let their bodies litter the fields as dung and a feast for the birds of the air!

In just a few seconds it all took shape as in a dream, across centuries and continents, a crazy jumble of thoughts and images: the Justinianine Plague of the 6th century; passages from the Old Testament; scores of woodcuts from the broadsheet exhibit at the “Pressa” in Cologne; the devastating Black Death of the 14th century, thinning the ranks of Europe’s population almost as efficiently as a mechanized war. I waxed as eloquent as an Old Testament prophet; they hung on my words, no one paid any more attention to the black object that had spread the Great Dying all across the island. Here in the Valley of Muza, the sheik who had given his name to this place, Vall-de-Muza, here in this valley the Grim Reaper had raged more fiercely than anywhere else in these parts. People died like flies, the area stank like the pestilence, healthy persons simply collapsed dead in a heap, and their boils burst open, emitting fumes of new death. Blasphemers turned instantly into pious worshipers, god-fearing monks cursed the Lord, devout believers echoed Job on his dung-heap.

This went on for years, I explained further. If it had lasted one or two more years, Mallorca, the Golden Isle, would have been like an extinct volcano. But behold, in the classic hour of direst need, a priest (“old and gray,” naturally) received a miraculous inspiration: a penitential procession! Amid lamentations and sacred hymns, amid prayer and self-flagellation, let all the able-bodied pass though the mountains at night and implore Heaven for surcease, and the Mother of God for Her succor: Lord, have mercy on Thy suffering children from the Valley of Muza!

The image I sketched out of the nocturnal cavalcades was gruesomely appealing: plague victims straggling in long lines through the very landscape that the tourists could see around them. Imagine that it is nighttime: dark clouds scud overhead, moonlight hovers over the scrubby pines, the chalky ridges, the desolate palms. There is a smell of death.

Slowly, I backed up toward the exit, hoping to draw my rapt audience away from that accursed black object before I let go with my punch line. For once that was out, all eyes would of course turn again to the object just explained. “Lo and behold, ladies and gentlemen, the processions hadn’t taken place but a few nights when the Avenging Angel lifted his hand from the tormented Valldemosans. Fewer and fewer of them died, and then suddenly there were no more deaths at all. Their wounds healed, their scabs fell off, only their terrible scars remained as testimony to the disaster. The last bodies were buried, and they threw their plague-infested garments into the fire. The Black Death had been conquered! But not before he demanded one last sacrifice: the old, gray priest. He died like the wizened old mother in Goethe’s famous poem.

“Centuries later, as a memorial to the devout processions, one of the monks in the Charterhouse carved in miniature a torch just like the ones fueled with pitch and carried at the head of the procession on those nights, adding their eerie glow to the mournful tones of the Miserere , and visible far and wide in the mountains. The Archbishop of Toledo blessed the replica before it was framed and exposed to the reverent attention of the faithful. Once a year this so-called taeda pestis is shown in the open air. And every 13th year this eloquent relic is carried in solemn procession over the very same route as that followed by the Valldemosans so very long ago. May the Good Lord preserve us from hunger and pestilence, Amen!”

Round about me it had become perfectly silent. You could have heard the proverbial pin drop, but only if somebody dropped one. And besides, outside in church and colonnade we could hear the tumult of the tourist mob, munching figs and oranges and drinking beer from bottles and wine from calabashes. Several were already drunk. They were thus doubly out of character, for a Spaniard never gets soused on fermented spirits. He has other means of intoxication.

No sooner had I capped my pious fable with the final “Amen,” than I heard another guide noisily approaching the sacristy. It was a Spaniard, and he was doing his level best with his German and his Germans. He trumpeted forth: “Lady anda gentaman, nowa I showa la sacristía witha genuina naila froma True Crossa ofa Christa ina beautifula frame-a!”

I broke out in a cold sweat. A nail from the Cross of Golgotha! Oh Lord, Who wert crucified for us, why hast Thou forsaken Thy Vigoleis? The most obvious answer — why hadn’t he thought of it? Long ago Schopenhauer put his finger on a peculiar defect of the Germans: that they can’t see what lies at their very feet and go looking for it in the clouds. And the same Schopenhauer also realized that any charlatan could lead Germans by the nose if he just kept on mouthing nonsense at them. Was there something of both in Vigoleis: a charlatan and a man of the clouds? Is Vigoleis’ personality bisected in this authentically German way, as with the incomparable Nietzsche, Heine, and Börne, and on down to the dullest German teutonophobes? Be that as it may, I had done a masterful job of spouting nonsense!

I was able to evade the Spanish Führer and lead my group out into the fresh air. No one noticed anything amiss.

Outside I sat down on the parapet. The Avenging Angel came within an ace of snatching me up and flinging me into the abyss. I was already starting to hear my bones rattle when Beatrice came over to me with a smile. I never would have thought that prostitution would give her such pleasure. But she had “charming people” in her group, she told me. Why, there was even a publisher among them, and she had mentioned my… “But Vigo, what’s happened, you look awful!”

“Beatrice, I’ve just escaped the Black Death!”

The Peruvian ambassador’s daughter stared at me, then she quickly sprang to the rescue. “You come with me, over here in the shade! I think you’re getting sunstroke!”

“Ah, chérie , the emergency is over. I’ve already had a stroke. Just let me sit down. Tonight I’ll explain everything.”

“A woman?”

“Much worse! You’ll hear all about it tonight — that is, if I’m able to talk any more.” Before Beatrice could push a wedge of orange into my mendacious mouth, we were surrounded by a circle of gentlemen: General von Puttkammerwitz and his Staff.

“Aha, now we’ve got him, our disappearing artist! A little flirting, eh? Jaja , great landscape, as I’m beginning to notice, odd similarity to certain chalk deposits in the Dolomites, could this be the same strat…? Ach , I beg your pardon, didn’t mean to disturb…”

“Not at all, Herr General . Permit me to introduce you.”

The daughter of the Peruvian diplomat in Madrid had no objection, and behaved in keeping with her background. Herr von-zu-und-auf-Putt-und-Kammerwitz cracked his heels together. Not only he, but the entire Staff clicked to attention and each member barked out his name in turn. I remember only one: Lieutenant von der Hölle. Beatrice made her “snooty” face, and the General Staff seemed to appreciate that, though they were somewhat less charmed by the fact that she preferred to speak French. It was a first-rate scene, and they all racked their martial brains to recall “who we have sitting over there (they meant in Lima) at the embassy.” But before they could agree on a qualified diplomat, an elderly lady appeared, walked up to Beatrice with a glowing smile, and in purest Swiss German began an earnest conversation with the Peruvian woman, beginning with “Do luege Sie emol” and continuing out of earshot of the General Staff.