Albert Thelen - The Island of Second Sight

Before we could call her by that name, the Finnish girl came to our house to learn English. She already spoke Spanish and French fluently, was able to get by in German, and knew the many dialects of her homeland.

She often talked about her friend Mamú, and as such things will happen, she told Mamú a lot about the two of us. Mamú wanted to get to know us, she said, and this matched our own desire to pay a visit to the elderly lady. But then we would have to hurry, Auma said, and Mamú almost didn’t dare to invite us. But if we were in fact the “nice people” Auma told her we were, then she wanted to meet us before she died, and we would have to promise to stand at her bier when it was all over. Such was, in outline, the nature of her wish, which was for us of course tantamount to a command.

Mamú had kidney trouble. The doctors, reputable specialists of whom there were a few on the island, had given her up. A German professor of medicine had concurred with their death sentence, and thus we could be certain that Mamú’s days were numbered. As is well known, one doesn’t play games with kidneys. The physicians decided that this caso could live another two, at most three weeks at the maximum, though they feared for their professional standing by saying so. One month, and then Goodbye Mamú! This was a harsh calculation. Anyone who has ever taken a vacation knows how quickly those few days are over.

That is how things stood with this very ill woman. We called her “Mamú” in our own conversations well before we were actually summoned to her bedside to submit to her special test: were we in fact “nice people”? Were we nice enough to be on hand when the time came, and then to accompany her to her grave? A woman of this type, a 72-year-old dying woman who requests the company of a Vigoleis and a Beatrice for her final weeks — people she knows only from hearsay, but whom she asks for, out of thousands of possibilities, just because they are reported to be “nice”—a woman who desires the presence of strangers at a time when most people would want a priest, the immediate family, or the family lawyer? A human being of this kind must, I told myself, be in possession of practical wisdom and quixotic gifts to a degree that not even a busted kidney could impair. Let those doctors say what they want about your chances, Mamú, but in the meantime keep on consulting Higher Authorities! When would you like us to visit?

The practitioners of medical science, myopic as ever, had zeroed in on renal cancer. But they overlooked another science, Christian Science, which also had its claims and demands. This latter science of course cannot raise the dead, but it is capable of postponing death within certain limits. It is vital to know something about this special set of beliefs. Ignorance of it can lead to blindness — not the blindness of fate, but of those who write out prescriptions in defiance of fate.

It was the third time that we were summoned to a deathbed on this island. Is it at all surprising, then, that we were less than deeply touched as we bowed to the old lady laid out before us under a palm tree in her garden? Was it heartless of us not to be overwhelmed by the event, but instead just curious about what it might lead to? “Laid out before us”—that is of course an allusion to death, which is precisely the topic at hand. In reality, the ailing woman was resting on a chaise longue, an American patent model with dozens of adjustments. One shift of the mechanism and presto! — just the proper angle for breathing one’s last.

It had been several days since Auma had practiced her cosmetic art on Mamú’s face, and as a consequence we could plainly see the effects of physical decline. I estimated her chances at less than a week. Beatrice, a pessimist in matters of the short run, gave her two weeks. If we could have had any idea of the stony accretions inhabiting her kidneys at the time, we might have expected her to succumb during our very first visit.

Several women ministered to Mamú during her final days: an elderly, experienced German nanny, a Mallorcan housemaid, and of course Auma, Mamú’s Finnish light of the sun and “beautiful little darling.” In addition, there was one of Mamú’s daughters, an imposing boxy woman with a bust of the type one often sees behind the ticket counter at a circus. She had been summoned by wire from Paris, and had now taken charge like someone used to having her tune danced to. Another daughter, married and living in Budapest, was expected any day, as was Mamú’s only son, who lived in the United States. Mamú wanted her children, her children’s children, friends, and nice people near her as she joined the choir invisible in the classic manner we read about in novels: with laying-on of hands and final blessings. After it’s all over, let the descendants squabble over the inheritance. That is an ugly prospect, so it’s better to die beautifully, if at all possible. Mamú wanted very much to die in this fashion, and yet in all probability she would never perish as gloriously as her husband had. We soon were told about his unique manner of joining the majority, but I wish to save that for later. Right now I am about to take Mamú’s heart by storm. Quite literally I am going to spit my way to the heart of a dying woman.

This is how it was done: just as Mamú was not an ordinary mortal, neither was she an ordinary “terminal.” The way she received us was stylish, the style being that of the upper crust, the only class that could do justice to a situation of this kind. Mamú’s daughter, the busty one whose front end supported some genuine diamonds, had ordered the kitchen help to wheel out some very fancy hors d’oeuvres on a sideboard. There were mixed drinks, too, of a variety to please every taste. Madame la fille was sure that everyone would just adore the tomato-juice cocktail she had prepared herself and was now offering to all assembled. I had no choice but to accept, naturellement . No sooner had I taken a swig of this concoction — too big a swig, I confess — when with an even more natural reflex action, I discharged the entire mouthful onto the greensward.

This was an awkward moment. I had misbehaved. Everyone’s eyes were on me — something I like even less than tomatoes. “Rotgut!” was my contribution to a conversation being conducted in French. I turned as red as a tomato. The dying Mamú heard me. And with queenly politesse she said to me in German, “Just what are you doing? Expectorating on my lawn? What’s the matter? Don’t you like that tomato brew either? Or did it just go down the wrong way?”

“No, not that,” I stammered, my face redder than ever. Madame la fille’s eyes stabbed me to the quick. I wasn’t the first boche , she said, whose barbaric palate never got beyond choucroute . Now this was a dastardly affront. What would Baron von Martersteig do in a situation like this? Would he draw his sword? Bow politely and leave the scene? I myself haven’t much of a sense of etiquette, and what little I have isn’t much help with tomato-juice cocktails. So all I could do was blush and remain silent.

Mamú, now turning to Auma, continued, “So that’s how he behaves on his first visit? Auma darling, he’s priceless! I thank you from the bottom of my heart for bringing such a splendid fellow to my house to brighten up my last days!” Then she spread her moribund arms and called out, “Don Vigolo, come and give me a hug! I, too, think those cocktails taste like spew!” Bedazzled and maladroit, I bent down to the expiring dowager and received a kiss on the mouth that tasted of the apothecary shop. Her arms clung to me. The Ninth Symphony! “Embraced by millions”!

“You priceless fellow— goldiges Mannerl! ” Mamú, the American millionaire, preferred to speak Viennese German. For years she had held court in Vienna at the side of her famous spouse, who sported a Hungarian noble title in addition to Mamú’s checkbook. He was the scion of a lineage that included princes as well as counts. Mamú’s own bloodline was princely enough. Her forebears had used the intimate du with the Austrian Emperor Franz Joseph.