Albert Thelen - The Island of Second Sight

It wasn’t until my third visit that we settled on the material. I sat on the stool and listened to long explanations of the various types of leather. I checked them over, and was told at the very beginning of our workshop conference that Europe had no such thing as good cattle. This was puzzling. Mussolini had already forced millions into his black-shirt legions, and Hitler was about to brand the entire herd of the German people with his hissing swastika. But of course, Master Ulua meant the skins. Good skins were to be had only on the savannahs! If Ulua were a Mongol he would place all his bets on the Upper Tartar water buffalo. In the end I decided on Czech uppers, German inner linings, and soles curried in genuine Spanish tanning bark. This was, Ulua said, the most expensive combination, but I would never regret having chosen it.

I could expect my custom shoes to be ready in about a month, provided that no unforeseen political developments forced the shoemaker to stuff bones or to — but who could dare to take this thought to its conclusion? Certain things were going on; there was once again unrest at the Mosquito Coast; people were rebelling against the Yankees who had established themselves in the region. A certain double-armed general and certified doctor named Don Tiburcio would have to be eliminated. I learned from Don Matías that Carnita was staying up late nights bent over her embroidery frame, sewing the complicated coat of arms on the flag, and that Gracias a Dios was deeply immersed in his heroic life as a pilarierista , yet not without intoning a daily tribute to his far-off political fiancée. I can still see him before me on his sack of flour, this anemic human vessel into which the final, as yet unrealized stanza of the Honduran Horst Wessel Song would soon be poured. Ripeness is all, said Ulua in the melancholy tones of an exile who will soon rush forth into freedom, but who hasn’t seen things go so very badly for him away from home. In my selfish way I replied with the hope that the course of world history would allow Master Ulua to put my shoes on his last before the big bone went off. “And then, my good friend, I can use my new soles to make my entrance at the Cultural Ministry of the Honduran Republic.”

I don’t like bread. To me it is as insipid as the potato, and because it lacks nutritional content you have to fill your belly with large amounts of it to stave off rumblings that can happen at just the wrong time. Nevertheless, we filled our bellies with bread; during the weeks preceding delivery of my new shoes we didn’t have the necessary pesetas for more nourishing fare. The Czech upper leather was beyond our means, and we had to save up for it by stuffing ourselves and going without real food. Jaume made a profit on us.

I quizzed Don Matías intensely on the status of our business. When did he think things would start up? Over and again I steered our flour-sack discussions toward Tegucigalpa; together we worried about the chances of success with the bone-tossing that was supposed to bring about a change in both our lives.

Sometime during this nerve-wracking period of bread-eating, Don Pablo casually interrupted our philosophical musings to mention that my shoes were ready. The Master would be honored if he could bring them to me himself… Oh my noble foot, thine hour is at hand!

Ulua appeared in his Sunday best, a large package under his arm — his masterpiece, wrapped in the Diario de Honduras . We greeted each other with the cordiality of old fellow-assassins. I had obtained cigarettes and coffee, a Costa Rican blend since the only decent kind, the Honduran variety, was sold nowhere on this island of ours behind the moon.

No longer a child, I suppressed my curiosity. First, while still wearing our alpargatas we bestrode with giant steps the paths of politics, clarified certain major aspects of the pronunciamiento , filled our state treasury with other people’s money, imposed German language and literature as required subjects at all Honduran educational institutions, settled minor border disputes with Nicaragua, and discussed this and that concerning Don Patuco. Then the Master unpacked my shoes. A page was being turned in our history, and you could hear it.

When Beatrice returned from one of her distinguished houses, Ulua had already left with his reward and my assurance that the shoes were enorme , and that he shouldn’t apologize for billing me extra for adding reinforcements for my perfectly normal feet — a pittance. We parted as friends with a handshake, a clap on the shoulder, and a huzzah for the Revolution.

The cobbler had poor eyesight, and that was lucky for me, for he didn’t notice how close I was to tears when I caught sight of the monstrosity that emerged from the Diario de Honduras . Were these the pointed shoes we had spent weeks saving up for with bloated bellies? These were indeed pointy-toed shoes, but there are many kinds of points; it all comes down to your personal idea of what a “point” looks like. Ulua had not emulated Pedro’s artistic notions, but rather Nature itself. He had taken as his model the bill of the pelican, whose massive lower jaw is a network of folds of skin. That is what my “pointed” shoes looked like. Instead of an elegant narrowing towards the tips, these “points” gradually broadened out like the open maw of a hippopotamus jutting out from a putrid puddle in a zoo. Yet since the hippopotamus is not indigenous to Honduras, even this allusion to Nature was distorted. What is more, during the months of planning and design the cobbler’s documents containing sketches and measurements had somehow got mixed up with other papel , with the result that, to be on the safe side, the Master had added a size or two when he put leather to last. Later, when his son asked me in passing how I liked his old man’s handiwork, I replied, “ Enorme .” “ Enorme ? How so?” He was surprised, for while his father was good at making revolutions he didn’t know how to make shoes. I was his very first customer for custom work, and I was a German! Ulua was bursting with pride, and Gracias a Dios was going to put this event in the annals. When in exile, don’t just twiddle your thumbs — this, too, was a Honduran trait.

“Don’t cry, darling,” said Beatrice, “We’ll get over this calamity, too. I saw a pair of shoes at the Sindicato , and I’ll give them to you for Christmas. Until then you’ll just have to keep wearing your alpargatas .”

I embraced the woman, not because she promised me a new pair of shoes, but because she refrained from adding the usual consolation that walking on alpargatas was healthy. I am aware that everything poor is healthy. Kaiser Wilhelm’s turnips were also healthy.

The first time I put on my Uluas was the day we left the island. Their size was such that I could place in each one an insole made of forbidden literature.

In these unrhymed recollections of mine there are two names that can be said to rhyme after all: Ulua and the writer Muschler.

A friend of mine from my Hunnish home town, a fellow named Matthias who has lived for many years in Mexico where, as Don Matías, he had met his share of Patucos, Pilars, Sacramentos, and Uluas — how I envy him for this! — this friend once recommended to me Muschler’s novel Bianca Maria as a literary delicacy. I made a note of this “White Mary” for a later time when I would be in need of mental diversion. This moment arrived during our exile in the CantonTicino, in Auressio. I had translated Pascoaes’ Hieronymus into German and Dutch, an accursedly difficult exercise in “applied” mysticism. I was exhausted. Christmas was just around the corner. I felt that I couldn’t stand to look at a single other book. But such a spiritual fasting never lasts long with me. Whatever I started to read, it would have to be simple and refreshing. Then I remembered Bianca Maria; the hour had arrived for me to indulge myself with a pleasure I had been postponing for years. My friend Peter Jud, a book dealer in Locarno, Libreria Internazionale “Under the Arcades,” had it in stock. I ordered it. Beatrice remarked that I probably knew what I was doing and what I was picking out as a means to spoil the Christmas season, be it Muschler or marzipan. Besides, she said, Muschler was now a Nazi bigwig. “Just think of Ulua!”’