Albert Thelen - The Island of Second Sight

I: “Begging your pardon, but a person is either quick-witted or he isn’t. By saying I have a ‘certain’ quick-wittedness you’re offering me the chance for a retort. Do have a seat.” I gestured toward a wooden box. The gentleman sat down.

The gentleman: “Excellent. You’re my man. Permit me to explain what I have in mind and to show you some documents. May I spread them out here on the floor?”

I: “By all means. Do what you can under the circumstances.”

The gentleman from the Reich was a member of the Party, Old Guard, Honorary Dagger, Blood League, Street-Fighting Ribbon. He also held a doctorate that, while earned under the former regime, still came in handy. He held a high position, if not the very highest, in the Executive Commission of the Hamburg branch of the National Socialist Party Foreign Service. He presented his credentials, taking his long pencil and pointing to documents as he set them down on the stone floor tiles. I began to take a liking to this fellow; he had a sense of humor. He had arrived from the embassy in Madrid where, if memory serves me correctly, a certain Count Welsceck represented the interests of the swastika.

“Well?”

“You’ll see in just a moment. I’ll take things up one step at a time.”

This he did with aplomb, displaying papers that gradually covered almost our whole living-room floor. They were looking for someone with attested verbal and written fluency, in particular someone with command of Spanish, preferably with a university education, well-mannered, confident, good conversationalist, imaginative, neat appearance, married — preferably to a Spanish woman, under no circumstances to a German. That’s the kind of person they were looking for.

“Wonderful, wonderful,” I said. “It’s an enviable man who could meet all of your qualifications. What do you have in mind for such a person?”

This person, the gentleman explained, would be put in charge of a German newspaper in Madrid. In addition, he would be sent on lecture tours throughout Spain, speaking at the German enclaves and also to audiences of Spaniards. The Consul in Palma, who like all consuls was asked to provide information, had submitted my name along with certain personal data that had been supplemented by research at the office in Hamburg. The agent took some more documents from his briefcase and passed them to me. “Here, have a look.”

I read the material slowly and with deliberate care. Apart from minor details, everything was accurate as concerned my several failed attempts at fashioning a career, although a few facts were jumbled up. It was true that I had taken theology courses in Münster, but theology was not my main field. “Good work,” I said as I placed the incriminating documents on the floor next to the other papers, “except for one thing: the Consul has neglected to inform you that I am an outspoken opponent of your Führer . I am unwilling to go along, and he knows that.”

The gentleman reached once again into his briefcase and pulled out some papers that he kept in his hand. “I’m afraid you are mistaken. As a matter of fact the Consul did report this to us, and besides, we are in possession of a political assessment of your person, provided by the authorities in your home town. They are keeping an eye on you there, too, in connection with your correspondence. Your father has already been issued a warning.”

“I’m aware of that. But that is his own business.”

“That depends. We offer no quarter.” He had decided to come over from the mainland, he explained further, to speak with me in person, since of all the candidates recommended to him I seemed the most qualified. My uncle was a bishop. I was imaginative, no question about it. This he knew from confiscated personal letters as well as from satirical poems — here a quick glance at new documents — in the collection entitled “Party Comrade Newt.” These poems were evidence of genuine talent, although it was talent that had been expended in a void. At the word “void” he again looked around him in our empty apartment. This fellow also had talent, but perhaps he didn’t have an uncle who was a bishop.

The mention of the name “Newt” made me a bit worried. I had circulated a series of rhymed satires, among them “Party Comrade Newt” with swastika, honorary dagger, and “bloody claims / to achieve the Führer ’s aims,” who behaves like a wild man and, in the final stanza, “joins up with the vultures / to honor Western culture.” Damn it all, they must have found this out! And I will be really in the soup if these guys know that I am the writer of a parody of the Horst Wessel Song.

I was poor, the Reich Commissioner continued, as the result of matters beyond my control. My wife, or the lady I was living with, was, to be sure, not Spanish, but she held Swiss citizenship, came from a well-known dynasty of scholars, and was of partly Indian ancestry…

“And if the Incas, Herr Doktor, were not of Aryan stock? That would be the end of the whole matter!”

“It is not as you might think. You would of course have to marry, not on our account, but because of the Spaniards, their society, and the Church. The Inca question will be decided by the appropriate government commission. You needn’t have any concern on that score. Who is and is not an Aryan — that is determined by the Führer .”

We agreed upon the following: I would take the position in Madrid with a starting salary of 1000 pesetas per month, free rent with furnishings of my own choosing, an advance of so-and-so-many times 1000 pesetas, all expenses to be borne by the Reich. Once a year I would be expected to travel to Hamburg to deliver a personal report, rail first-class, all expenses paid, two months vacation per year, free travel on all lines of the German National Railway, and on non-German lines 60 % discount in the form of travel vouchers. Moving expenses? They would be reimbursed, of course. We both smiled. We quickly understood where both of us stood.

“Do you have any further questions? Anything else you would like to add?”

I stood up and said very calmly, “I have only one further question. Just what gives you the nerve to come here and throw me this line of hogwash? Please leave our house at once!”

Vigoleis was courageous. How did this come about? Had he been drinking cascarilla ? Was Don Patuco exerting heroic remote control on him? This was the same Vigoleis who took it on the lam when he saw Pilar’s dagger, who ate a sumptuous final meal instead of jumping in the ocean, who handed over all his property to a half-demented auctioneer, who suffers hunger and goes on a grape diet, who doesn’t own a bed, who hasn’t finished typing out Claudius, Emperor and God , and how can he go on typing without a table to type on? And now comes the Third Reich in the shape of a man with titles, decorations, legal prerogatives, and money — heaps of money — and says to him, Vigoleis, we don’t care what you think of our Führer . It’s what you can make others think of him — that’s what we’re willing to pay you for, because we have a billion times billions. If he just would say the word, Vigoleis could name Beatrice as his secretary, his own private secretary, the kind that people have who have something to hide, and the 500 pesetas per month could easily be arranged. And this is the same Vigolo who now stands up, calmly makes a pile of the papers on the floor with his foot, and says, “Get the hell out of here!” Has he gone mad? Was he already a victim of the insular malady?

The man from the Reich remained seated, lit a cigarette, and leaned comfortably against the wall. “You have courage, too. That’s important. I shall give the Führer a personal report on our conversation. He is…”