Albert Thelen - The Island of Second Sight

“Don Joaquín” “Don Vigoleis!”

Like all of the foreigners, we enjoyed playing Spanish. Before we could shake hands, the Captain tried to hide from me what he had just bought in the store. Instead of the gratings of a green cheese, he had bought an entire sapsago. So apparently he wasn’t worse off financially. Presumably Hindenburg had finally yielded to his pestering about the pension for his war injury.

“Have you heard the news?”

I was startled, because I hadn’t heard. But instinctively I assumed it had to do with his enemy Robert Graves. For Beatrice and me, it would be a blow if anything had happened to him. Probably got in a fight and smashed his writing hand! Oh ye Muses, preserve Robert Graves until he has finished I, Claudius !

“Hitler has taken over. Germany has ceased to be what it was. Heads are already rolling!”

With God and with history, nothing is impossible. Nevertheless, I was stunned.

“Thunder and lightning, Herr Hauptmann! What a grand opportunity for you! The uprising of the Browns changes the entire strategic situation overnight.”

Martersteig gave me a twinkle with his healthy eye. Then he cocked his other eye and started sparkling at me with that one, too. He asked stiffly if my intention was to insult him.

Not on your life, I replied. I was merely thinking of his monkey army and his years-long difficulties with recruitment. Now he wouldn’t have to pound his impressment drum in the jungle. His conscription commissars would no longer have to use bananas to lure the recruits down from the trees, for now, “from the Adige to the Belt, from the Meuse to the Memel,” he could count on mobilizing an abundance of material for his long-tailed regiments. Whereupon the Captain completely lost his composure, hissed an unkind word, hunched himself upright in military fashion, and said with contempt, “I forbid you to insult my monkeys by means of a comparison that you probably mean to be witty! It’s Germany itself that is at stake! The mob is crushing everything that has been built up over generations. A mere corporal…!”

We stood there for a long time debating the coup d’état that claimed to be none, but which for that same reason was all the more dangerous. We parted in disagreement. Both of us rejected the new political style; both of us refused to accept the new myth that, in the absence of Jews, made us into “Jew-influenced Aryans.” Martersteig rejected such a notion by reason of his Prussian military attitudes, myself on the basis of my Quixotic, all-too-human nature. Which is to say, my cowardice. Something in me shied away from wringing the neck of a Jew, from forcing him into a condition of non-existence, as my fatherland’s new political program was demanding of every loyal citizen. And although he had been trained to kill, the Captain wasn’t fond of this idea, either. But his refusal was only his way of avoiding getting his hands dirty. Once again, this time with certain questions on his mind, he approached his General and Field Marshal Hindenburg. Was Hindenburg suddenly no longer just a slob?

Beatrice connected this piece of news with Martersteig’s enemy, precisely because I had heard it from the Captain’s mouth. Had something happened to Graves? Had he left the island? What a blow that would be to my typewriter! After all, what was of any importance to Martersteig besides his apes and his enemy?

This enemy had approached me. In the German shop, he had been told that I would definitely be available to type a manuscript. In our doorway stood a tall man with rugged features, squinting eyes, and a dark tan. A lock of hair hung across his face. He was wearing a colorful checked shirt, an even more colorful shawl, and an odd straw hat. Was I the person he was looking for? he asked. I confessed that I was indeed that person. The man spoke English. My first thought was: Arsenio, drug dealing, U-boat captain, they’re pulling a job and need a stooge, and they’ve found me. But even before this pirate uttered some phony name, I knew exactly in whose presence I had the honor of standing: Robert von Ranke Graves, the enemy, the lord of 115 volts and 7 watts. One flick of his bison-like brows, and all of Deyá is plunged in darkness! Has he come here to hook me into his shady business?

There are many different ways to introduce yourself to your fellow human beings. None has ever impressed me as much as the technique used by my friend’s enemy. He said, “Graves,” and then he said in German, “ Strich drunter !” This was a spoken visiting card — and what a card it was! How picayune by comparison is Burckhardt with ck-dt, or Meier with an E, or Vigoleis with his Victorian V! “Graves, Goodbye to All That ”! Such an introduction precludes any mistaken identity. One knows immediately whom one is dealing with. Voltaire, too, preferred clarity in personal introductions. This great enemy of the Church and baiter of the Jesuits had his own private house-Jesuit named Adam. When introducing him to his guests he would say, “ C’ést le Père Adam, mais il n’est pas le premier homme du monde .” It’s a simple matter for people who are known for their books. “T. Mann, Royal Highness ! Heinrich Mann, Loyal Subject ! Klaus Mann, Mephisto ! Or Vigoleis, Vigoleis — but for that, this book would have to be already published.

Was Graves collecting witnesses against the Captain? A trial? Why doesn’t the man just dispatch him with a stab in the neck? It was a clever move of Graves’s, one that I recognized as such too late, to begin his visit on a literary mission with a literary allusion. He had not come as a bully. He had written a new book, whose title would probably be I, Claudius, Emperor and God . Would I have the time and the willingness to type out his manuscript? This sounded peaceful enough, and it was a paying job.

Robert Graves’ handwriting was rather difficult to decipher. He asked me to read aloud a few lines. I was only moderately successful; I would have failed any school exam. But the enemy was not as petty as Martersteig made him out to be. I could, he said, take my time to get used to his script, and anything I couldn’t figure out I should leave blank. I wasn’t to add anything of my own, for that would cost him time when it came to reading proof. Did I have a decent typewriter? “Brand new!” Could he please take a look at it so he could check out the font size? It was, I said, still at the factory, with a Spanish teclado . I was having the German umlauts and the Dutch “ij” installed. Wasn’t that a quick-witted lie on my part? I hadn’t the courage to show this dashing writer my rickety Diamant-Juwel.

We quickly reached an agreement concerning my wage. I named a rather large amount, and Graves found it acceptable. He would let me buy the paper myself, and he asked if he should hand over some money for that purpose. The writer reached into a pocket and came forth with a sheaf of bills. My eyes darted from their sockets. Did this writer-colleague of mine spend his free time as a highway robber? Was he dealing in drugs? Was Goodbye to All That the source for this heap of dough? For such a wad I would gladly say “goodbye” to all of my own past life. He was as trustful as they come. One further sign of a great man: he left his manuscript package with me, a stranger! It was the sole extant copy.

On his way out he asked me whether I knew Deyá, where he lived. A pleasant artist colony like Worpswede — I should come out for a visit. Well, yes, I told him, I had been out to that swallows’ nest for visits with Three Little Clouds and the German Captain von… What—? Did I know that fellow, too? But who didn’t know him? Graves added in Spanish as a farewell greeting, “ No pinta mucho! ”—Martersteig wasn’t worth very much. Neither of us ever mentioned his name again.