Albert Thelen - The Island of Second Sight

Now we had the island all to ourselves.

Render unto the Kaiser the things which are the Kaiser’s, and unto God the things that are God’s. No believing soul would ever have difficulty rendering unto God what belongs to Him. But to render unto the Kaiser the taxes he demands: who hasn’t spent sleepless nights over this problem? To this day my head spins whenever I fill out a tax form. I have had to do this in many different countries and languages, and each time I have been confronted with the same riddle: why all this gibberish that a normal human being cannot understand without crib notes? Nowadays the latest literary fad is “hermetic” poetry. Isn’t all poetry “hermetic”? But for me, plumbing the depths of a poem is child’s play compared to puzzling out a tax form. I filled out my first Spanish form to the best of my knowledge and with the worst conscience imaginable.

The tax agency chose to ignore my poverty status and demanded that I pay hundreds of pesetas, or else… The letter ended with a threat signed by some bureaucrat. I was stunned. This was just like Germany.

We hadn’t regained our composure when Pedro came by and asked us if we had been visited by some new misfortune. Pilar was gone, Helvecio was gone, and we had the whole game to ourselves. But then he spied the tax man’s letter. Aha, he said, that’s a bit of a problem. We would have to figure out some way. Foreigners on the island could expect harsh treatment. There were too many suspicious cases among them; so many of them came here under questionable pretenses.

Pedro took out his pad and began sketching Vigoleis as a victim of abrogated civil liberties. Then he drew Beatrice with shorn locks, incarcerated in a Tower. Finally he told me to meet him at the Palma City Hall — he knew a few important people there.

The most important person’s office was a reflection of his rank: large and empty. Or almost empty, for it contained a diplomat’s desk and along the walls, in keeping with Mallorquin custom, a few dozen handsome, uncomfortable, upright chairs that had leather seats and leather backs with embossed coats-of-arms that pressed into the flesh of anyone sitting on them. The walls featured impressive paintings that fascinated me as a tour guide, but happily I was not obliged to offer any explanations of them. If I had, I would have listed them among the greatest Spanish masters. The gentleman seated on the heraldic throne behind the desk had the appearance of an old El Greco. And it seemed to me that he knew this, or rather that he knew he looked like the real thing.

On the surface of his desk were to be seen a gold cigarette case, a little silver bell, a book with gilded margins and bright-colored bookmarks, and the important person’s right hand, pale and tired from signing so many documents.

Pedro had not briefed me concerning what he, I, and the important person were to talk about. I had to rely on my instincts as a tour guide, but I soon realized that the owner of the pale right hand was likewise a born Führer .

Don Francisco was enormously pleased to make the acquaintance, finally, of Don Vigo. He had of course heard a great deal about him — wait, what had been the occasion? Had he read him? No, in all honesty not one line; even educated Spaniards had no knowledge of German, Spain was oriented more toward France. A zoologist, of course! Don Vigoleis was a scientist of animal life. Don Francisco nodded appreciatively at Pedro’s explanations; he seemed captivated by the whole story. I was no less intrigued by these revelations about my own career, and Pedro was doing quite a fine job of making it all up. I have always had a weakness for animals; as a kid I kept quite a few of the smaller varieties. I trained jackdaws and starlings, I bred budgerigars and meal-worms, kept canaries, moles, frogs, salamanders and pet fishes, rabbits, hamsters, squirrels — a stinking, squeaking, copulating, expensive, noisy and silent menagerie. I could well have turned out to be some kind of expert in zoology — why not? And now that’s just what I was. My hobby, Pedro explained, was the flea. “Go ahead, Vigo, tell Don Francisco something about your latest scientific findings in this field that concerns us all!”

Don Francisco made a welcoming gesture and offered us cigarettes. “Fleas?” He was very interested, if only from a scientific standpoint. These tiny animals were what had brought me to Spain? Remarkable, very remarkable.

The flea, I began, was an anabiotic incarnation — I ought to have said “as we all know,” in order to lend credence to my thesis, but my Spanish wasn’t yet good enough for that. But I got by with some famous names: Haeckel, Darwin, Bölsche, Aristotle. I spoke of occasionalism and prestabilism, Mendelism and pseudo-ovulation, fabricating the evolutionary story as far as the kangaroo, the focal point of my research: the flea as a degenerative mutation of the marsupialia . My investigations would lend support to the theory of degeneration, according to which the entire world of fauna originated through the progressive deterioration of the most highly evolved creature, Homo sapiens . For purely economic reasons I was conducting my research with the flea, a more accessible animal than the kangaroo. It had become apparent that the Iberian flea, and its subspecies the Spanish, Balearic, and specifically the Mallorquin flea, Pulex irritans maioricensis , were best suited as guinea pigs. My research station was located on Barceló Street, and my research assistant was the daughter of a Swiss scientist who had made his name in a different, albeit no less flagellating, field of inquiry. I was preparing a lengthy study on my topic, under sponsorship of the Union Internationale des Recherches Zoologiques in Geneva, at whose most recent congress I had delivered a paper on the pouched flea. The press had printed detailed reports of my discoveries. Don Francisco recalled seeing my name in the papers.

I need not emphasize that during this disquisition I felt as if ants were crawling over my entire body. From my very first day on Spanish soil I was plagued by fleas. Not a single page of these jottings of mine, at least in their Iberian aspects, was lived through without flea bites, although Beatrice somehow was spared this pestilence. The bubonic plague made her immune to many things, but also allergic to a host of other threats. Keating Powder was actually beyond our means; we went through a whole can of the stuff in a single day. And Zwingli’s godmother hadn’t yet financed the invention of DDT.

Don Francisco listened politely and, feigning real interest, asked me a few questions. He expressed his hopes that my research could proceed undisturbed, if not un-bitten. The island, he explained, offered not only the necessary fleas, but also the appropriate degree of tranquility. This was the moment when Pedro chimed in and pointed out that certain untowardnesses had already occurred. Don Vigo was involved in an unpleasant matter concerning taxes, one that made doubtful his permission to remain in Palma. He was being asked to remit horrendous sums to Internal Revenue; weren’t scientific stipends regarded as tax-free? “Vigoleis, do you happen to have the documents with you?”

He had them indeed. Don Francisco’s expression turned mournful. After a moment’s thought he ventured the idea that the flea professor had no doubt, out of absent-mindedness and modesty, neglected to introduce himself to the island’s Governor. It was important, he said, to know how to deal with official agencies as well as with fleas. He might be able to do something about the present case. He rang his silver bell, a functionary entered, and the two of them whispered something to each other in Mallorquin dialect. My documents then disappeared with the functionary. Our conversation continued. Clima ideal , bullfights — my flea circus was at an end. The functionary returned with a file folder. Don Francisco glanced through it to see if it was the right one. Then he dismissed the functionary, stood up, and said approximately as follows: “Don Vigoleis, you may rest assured that we Spaniards are proud to have such an eminent pulelogist in our midst. Our country has a glorious history; it has enjoyed world-wide prestige under a monarch on whose empire the sun never set. Today we are perhaps not at the height of our power in the political sense. But in matters intellectual and scientific we outclass the rest of the world. La Cierva, Marañón, Unamuno — you surely know the names. As far as your personal research is concerned, you shall not be further harassed by the tax authorities as long as you are our guest.”