Albert Thelen - The Island of Second Sight

Beatrice was annoyed. She was still unaccustomed to Spanish schedules, although she ought to have been thankful that nobody observed them. How many pesetas did she earn over the years by teaching pupils who were always punctual with their payments, but hardly ever showed up on time for their lessons so that their teacher could follow her own pursuits? Day after day she came up with dire epithets to hurl at her tardy students. I myself, who had only a few pupils, cursed every one of them who, contrary to custom, arrived on time. Whoever stayed away from my classroom gave impetus to my private life.

There on the Plaza Olivar I would like to have offered Beatrice some consolation for her “vapors,” as was customary a hundred years earlier in my fatherland. But I didn’t have with me the Complete Works of Ludwig Börne. They were inside a crate in our piso on Barceló Street. The priceless “Monograph on the German Postal Snail,” Börne’s contribution to the natural history of mollusks and testaceae , could easily have blown away the clouds of her impatience.

An hour later, Pedro showed up carrying an easel and other painting gear. “One hour late,” he said glancing at the bus, which meanwhile mechanics had completely taken apart, “and obviously a couple of hours too early. That’s fine. Yuñer and Puigdengolas will still make it. They’re coming along, and they always figure on a three-hour delay.”

Yuñer and Puigdengolas — weren’t these the two painters who were introduced to us at the Count’s rooming house? Exactly. They had returned, one of them from Barcelona, the other from Paris, to capture the light of the island on their palettes in Valldemosa. The stone-deaf Yuñer was occasionally successful with subjects that eluded Puigdengolas, owing to the fact that the latter’s preoccupation with film had given him a rather different attitude toward sunlight. We were in excellent company.

Around noon the bus manager sent street urchins out to alert the scattered passengers. Just an hour more, and the bus would be repaired to the point where they could hazard a departure. But in the meantime his customers had gone so far afield, or had become involved in such gripping conversations, that we thought we would be traveling alone. Pedro, versed as he was in the ways of the local bus companies, pointed to a group of passengers who had been standing on the Plaza with kit and caboodle, waiting for the departure of a bus that was scheduled to leave one hour after our own, but which had not yet returned from Sóller. These people would now take advantage of the marvelous opportunity of leaving on schedule with our vehicle. This kind of schedule-shifting took place all day long. It was only in the evening hours that passengers were left stranded, forced to spend the night on the street and wait until the following day’s mixed-up schedule. By one o’clock the two painters had not yet arrived. Pedro gestured to the bus manager: as far as we were concerned, they could start out. The engine snarled at idle; the mechanics smiled and accepted plaudits from all sides. They were experts, after all! The jacks were carefully lowered, and everybody waited tensely for the moment when the weight of the vehicle would hit the newly replaced tire. It didn’t burst. We could get on board.

It was a glorious trip, and all the more glorious since I didn’t have to play “ Führer .” We putt-putted past all the celebrated sights, and I wasn’t required to explain a thing. Everything stood there like Creation itself, l’art pour l’art , including the clouds of dust. The mood among the passengers was excellent, especially since most of them, contrary to their expectation, sensed that they would be arriving early at the destination. Indeed they would have, if the mechanics hadn’t changed the wrong tire. At the Son Puig Estate, up in the heights, the correct tire let us know with a loud report that it was, after all, the wrong one. The manager, who was at the steering wheel, took a deep breath. The bus hit a tree and was stuck fast. We were out of danger. There was yelling and wailing, and everybody got out to inspect the damage. The driver said that he had a strange feeling all along; that tonto of a mechanic picked the wrong wheel, and he just knew that something would happen. But he said that we had him to thank that we weren’t all lying in a ditch with smashed bones. The engine was steaming again, but now it had time to cool off. Everybody tried his best to get comfortable. Pedro entertained the passengers by telling gruesome stories about trips to Valldemosa in the good old days, when it took braces of mules a whole day to reach the mountain heights. Back then there had been loud bangs, too, but they came from highwaymen with their muskets. A peasant in picturesque native get-up, who made this trip often and knew that mistakes were made all the time, took down his basket from the roof of the bus and started a picnic to which he invited everyone to partake of his tinto from Binsalem and smoked chicken. Pedro and I set to eating. Beatrice lost herself in contemplation of the landscape. Landscape is something, I said, that wouldn’t run away, whereas I had never before tasted smoked chicken. The porrón made the rounds, with each diner letting his portion stream down his gullet. This was a wine to make note of: a Binsalem.

The remainder of the journey went off without incident.

On the way, I made friends with the Mallorquins who were sitting next to me, behind me, and in front of me, as well as with those who had shared the chicken, and with Amilcar, the bus manager to whom we owed our lives because, angry as he was, he had driven our vehicle with special care. I made friends with everybody, and these were friendships made to last a lifetime. Cordiality of this kind, which is common in Spain, never disappoints. There is never another meeting, and thus there is no temptation to lend your amigo money or, in case of a literary aficionado , books. Beatrice was the only one among us who refused to dirty her hands with smoked chicken or hearty handshakes. Accordingly, she was treated with special respect. Ordinary folk can tell right away if a person has mistakenly entered a Ford jalopy instead of his own Rolls Royce.

The Street of Bitterness didn’t look as bitter as I had expected; it probably spoke only for a low-grade form of amargura . On the contrary, it seemed friendly, clean-swept, and populated with more cats than Beatrice wanted to see. A few natives, squatting in front of their doors, gave us mistrustful looks. These were progeny of the Valldemosans who made Chopin’s and Sand’s stay in the Valley of the Muza so miserable that the lovers decided to pack their valises soon after arrival. Incidentally, those two were the first tourists in the history of the island. The natives didn’t profit much from them, whereas in our own day the cash registers were already overflowing from the mobs of foreigners, especially the machine at the entry to the cloister where the famous couple devoted themselves to art, love-making, and sin. You can visit their cells. This is how they are compensating for what they did wrong. Posthumous fame is always more lucrative than fame itself.

Pedro showed us to our room right away, on the second floor. It was a dank space, stuffed with boxes, suitcases, and assorted junk. In the middle there stood a small mountain that reached almost to the ceiling, a veritable pyramid of a bed. That is to say, there was no point at the top, so I should rather call it a desert mesa made of mattresses. I shall explain everything, but not in my capacity as a Führer . No, I shall do so in accordance with the truth, which can sometimes be pleasant and is never boring when it has to do with the illustrious House of the Suredas.