Albert Thelen - The Island of Second Sight

Pedro’s father Don Juan had become a beggar overnight, ripe for a lucrative squatting-place in front of the cathedral. This fact, in and of itself, is nothing original. Most of the island aristocrats suffered the same fate, and all of them bore it with the unbowed dignity of a Spanish grandee, one of whose traditions is never to impede the progress of degeneration. Don Juan Sureda became a pauper in exemplary fashion, displaying more imagination than one might expect from a denizen of Iberia.

Don Juan was the landlord of the former cloister. His father had held the same position, and the tradition went back through many generations of fathers to the moment when it turns murky and becomes a playing field for historians. Back then, what is today the Cartuja was still a royal palace, headquarters of the Kings of Mallorca, founded around the year 1320 by Sancho I, who suffered from asthma. The next to occupy the fresh-air castle was Don Martín I of Aragón, likewise Mallorcan King, which he ceded in 1399 to the Carthusian monks as a charterhouse. The regulations of Saint Bruno “Hard Fist” stipulated that each monk was to prepare his own meals in his cell, and so the monumental palace kitchen was remodeled into a chapel. Where previously people baked and fried, they now prayed and fasted. In 1835 the monks were driven out. Pedro’s grandfather returned the ruins of the Chapel of the Hair-Shirted Brothers to its secular purpose. But in place of a kitchen — there wasn’t much left to eat in the house anyway — he had a ballroom erected on the premises. Anyone can dance anytime, and pray anywhere.

The cells were rented out, and among the tenants were Chopin and George Sand. In the House of Sureda, they say that it was some mercenary French woman who first came up with the idea of displaying, for an entrance fee, the cells where the consumptive composer linked the name and the person of his girlfriend, the enterprising “literary cow” (Nietzsche), to his own greater immortality. Tradition does not reveal exactly which cells they lived in, but that is unimportant. History, with its pronounced instinct for local accuracy, will always find a solution to such problems, as it did with the exact location of the Garden of Eden. All you need to do is announce to the foreigners in a firm voice, “And here, ladies and gentlemen, you see the cells in which Chopin and George Sand…” The tourist will start sniffing, and sensitive as he is to fine fragrances, he will capture the fleeting scent of fleurs d’amour permeating the walls that formerly kept the pious brothers healthy by exuding the smell of garlic. “We,” Pedro told us, “were always proud to show the historic cells without asking a centimo. But Jacobo”—Pedro’s brother, whom I hope to bring on stage before a finis operis closes the door of my recollections in my own face—“Jacobo once charged a duro to take a look at the place, thereby dishonoring the name of Sureda once and for all. Papá would have shown him the door, if he hadn’t already been standing outside. And because Jacobo was already out in the world and got around a lot, he knew that back in Valldemosa things could work out in an emergency, even without charging a duro. And there has surely been no shortage of emergencies.”

This was the time when Papá started laying plans for all kinds of emergencies.

When Don Juan went bankrupt and his banker alerted him with the customary local tardiness, his reaction was not to feel knocked down by a feather — or rather, he did feel that way, but only by his surprise that things had kept going for so long. Even the banker couldn’t explain how the calamity had happened. In such cases, nobody really knows whom to blame. I myself was convinced that the family must have arrived at beggary in the most honest and proper way. Pedro informed me that Papá’s lively imagination played a role in the process, since it wasn’t only gambling and women that had undermined his fortune. Don Juan let himself be robbed in style. He kept silent in style when told that his own majordomo had cooked the house’s books and built himself a country estate with the proceeds—“Oh, what’s the difference?” I admire this kind of attitude, one that leaves the big hole unmended and lets the little hole grow bigger, and you gradually get poor without sacrificing your self-esteem.

Later, at Pascoaes’ palace in Portugal, I learned what it means to live in style in an expensive abode. The person in charge was the aforementioned prehistoric mistress of the house, whose true age was undocumented, and which I can best convey by describing her diamond ring. It was an heirloom, and she had worn it day and night since childhood. The stones were worn down to the metal setting. This was her perpetual calendar, with the pages torn away one by one. The sight of this ring on this hand had the same overpowering effect as the sight of the armchair in which the poet Pascoaes sat and wrote, and in which he still sits and writes. The arms were completely ragged, the polished wood peeked forth from behind the desiccated horsehair chair-back, making it appear like the tonsure on a mystic’s head.

One day I was a witness as a distraught daughter and a distraught son announced to their mother that 100 contos were missing from their safe. 1 conto de reis = 1000 escudos. “A hundred contos ?” asked the old dame. “Children, are you sure you counted correctly?” The children had done so, with the help of the family’s completely honest financial manager. The money was gone. Doña Carlota burst out laughing and said, “Well now, make a note of this: if Doña Mariola (a wealthy friend who lived on a nearby wine-producing estate) got such news she would faint dead away. And with good reason, because then she would be broke! I can afford a loss such as this one. Ask Americo to bring the car. I’m going over to tell Doña Mariola in person, and I’ll ask her what it would be like if such a thing happened to her.” Before leaving she snuck into my study to ask me what I would do if I discovered that someone had robbed me of 100 contos . After duly congratulating her on her sudden loss, I said, “Dear, revered Senhora Doña Carlota, on the island of Mallorca I lost my house and all my possessions. What are 100 contos to me? And my friend Don Juan Sureda Bimer of the House of Verdugo, as a Vasconcellos an ancestral relative of your own family, lost very, very much more than a few measly contos , namely an entire palace, and still he didn’t fall over in a faint. True nobility comes into its own when the foundation starts to crumble.”

“You lost everything on Mallorca? Everything?”

“Everything, minha Senhora !”

“Then it’s too bad that you didn’t steal the 100 contos !” And with that, she left to avoid being outdone by her own reputation. In the evening I gave her a long, drawn-out account of the subject at hand.

Don Juan’s splenetic temperament and Doña Pilar’s passion for art, a trait that her husband shared with her, not as a practicing painter but as a connoisseur, hastened their financial demise. Matters were not helped by their tradition of holding large parties, though this was nothing out of the ordinary: a palace is just the place for large receptions. Things begin to get doubtful, however, if, an hour before your guests are expected, you tell your majordomo that the two of you are going out to catch some fresh air for a few minutes and will return in good time, and that the Princess will give him further orders. Everyone knows how strenuous the preparations are for such a feast, particularly if you are dependent on a passel of servants who, though carefully trained, are yet Spanish servants with idiosyncratic notions concerning party-giving and the following of orders. Doña Pilar had to take care of all the preparations herself. Everything was all ready except for the sheep cheese from Mahón — it didn’t taste as piquant as usual, and perhaps the chef was forced to substitute a Mallorquin variety. Oh well, one cannot be everywhere all the time, especially if you are a painter. The servants were aware of this, too, so then our Princess went out the door on her somewhat bent-over grandee’s arm.