Albert Thelen - The Island of Second Sight

In reply to her query, “by whom,” accompanied by a gesture of invitation, I could have reported truthfully: by my friend Don Pedro Sureda, el de los Verdugos y Alba Real del Tajo, thereby making an aristocratic impression right from the start, though perhaps not an impression of wealth. My pauper’s instinct urged me to say quickly, “by Don José,” and I probably meant the most recent of the Don Josés to course through my thoughts, the private physician of Ludwig Salvator of Austria.

“Don José?” Another hand gesture, this time not indicating welcome, but pleasant surprise.

Every Spanish man is named José, unless he is a Pedro or a Pablo. Hence every Spanish woman knows at least one José. Doña Carmen knew one, too. We would soon find out whether we were talking about the same one.

“Don José? You don’t say, sir…”

Instead of replying, “Yes indeed, the very same, Don José Giménez de Oliveros,” as if stung by the tax man’s flea I chose a name at random and said: Don José Montodo y Lopez Grau, or Don José Nicolao Campaña Campins, or Don José Portella de Marmolejo. I made up some beautiful-sounding name for this beautiful woman — any name at all. Perhaps it was that of my friend the art historian at Salamanca University, the one that Professor Brinckmann had recommended me to: Don José Aranda y Bustamante — which would have sounded convincing enough.

Whoever this Don José was, Doña Carmen knew him. Her eyes took on a shimmer of emotion, and in the conversation that followed it turned out that my Don José knew Doña Carmen very well indeed, and Doña Carmen — Oh good Lord, she said, how time does pass by! What woman who is not a true character will make a point of the transitoriness of time? It was, she went on, as if it were only yesterday that Don José entered her late father’s store… ah, those were the days… and the excavations he was interested in seeing, and that he visited with shovel in hand! He dug around Ibiza and Formentera searching for remains of Punic culture (Who did the digging, Don José or her father?)—“oh, and now he has sent you to me.” So my Don José was an archeologist. “How wonderful that he still remembers me!”

“Who, my dear Doña Carmen,” I said with no need to prevaricate, “would not remember you? Don José sang your praises — you should have heard him!” Doña Carmen closed her eyes, made a half turn of her head, and paused for a long moment in the melancholic pose of self-mystification.

I was a Mallorquinist, I told her, with a wide-ranging field of professional interest, though not a specialist, and most definitely not the kind of specialist who picks up a pot, and while gazing at the pot focuses on a shard, and while gazing at the shard focuses on a tiny scratch that simply must be there if… I was writing a book, I explained, and Don José had suggested looking up his friend Doña Carmen. At her shop I was sure to find material for my research, and of course I would also find Doña Carmen herself.

Doña Carmen reopened her eyes. Unfortunately, at the moment she didn’t have anything Punic or Carthaginian in stock. Don José must have been exaggerating. She had already sold all that — the foreigners were especially interested in antiques of that kind. But faience, majolica, things made on Mallorca — she waved a hand around her shop — such items she had in abundance. Vases and plates with Moorish motifs, granite vessels with leafy ornaments, fragments of mosaics — I looked to where she was pointing, but couldn’t locate what I had come here for and what my 12.50 pesetas could pay for. But I hadn’t even begun with my own type of excavation. All I had done so far was to make a few digs with the spade and push aside a bit of dirt. The hard work still lay ahead.

The things Doña Carmen was showing me weren’t useful for my research. I of course found words of praise for each single item, examined everything with the expert eye of a connoisseur, ventured certain doubts concerning authenticity, and offered certain suggestions concerning provenance. In this fashion we edged our way through her inventory, engaged all the while in animated scientific shop talk. Now I felt obliged to praise a washtub, now a rare Catalan votive picture depicting The Virgin Mary Offering Her Singlet. I clambered over cushions and rolled-up carpets, let out a connoisseur’s whistle at the sight of a little votive altar replete with burning wick floating in rancid oil in a silver-plated lamp — a priceless item—: “Spoils from the Burgundian Wars?” I stumbled over a child’s coffin that was propped up on a bidet stool. It fell to the floor with a bang. I kept on digging, and we kept on talking.

We eventually reached Doña Carmen’s living quarters. A Spanish screen served as an implied rather than an actual separation between her bedroom and the less intimate area full of bric-a-brac. Inside, she explained, I wouldn’t find anything more that was pertinent to my field of research — just ordinary, everyday objects such as a bed, a table, a few chairs…

“We mustn’t look down on everyday objects! A table, a chair, a bed — these comprise the foundations of human social interaction. If we were to remove them from our lives it would mean an end to all moral behavior. We would sink back to the level of the Neanderthals.” Besides, I went on, just look what can happen. At home we had this maid, a real peasant type, a mindless workhorse, a born-in-the-flesh milkmaid, and illiterate — which wasn’t the worst of it. Her muscles, Doña Carmen! You should see what those muscles of hers are capable of! They can destroy anything in the house that isn’t fastened down. Dinner plates? We’re down to using exclusively enamel. Doña Carmen opined that I didn’t have to tell her the rest; it was the old song about an age-old grievance. We agreed that we were dealing with a cosmic outrage of culture, or a cultural outrage of cosmic proportions. But we would never make any headway, I said, by giving this nuisance a name. My wife was getting blue in the face with her daily complaints of Na’ Maguelida this, Na’ Maguelida that, and by now our apartment furniture was in danger. The maid was dusting them to pieces. Wanton destruction of a magnitude no less severe, at times more so, than my loss of self-control, and now — I hefted a bronze wash basin in the shape of a griffin—“Doubtless Islamic influence, Ibizencan?” I asked casually, seeking to conceal my irritation. For at this moment I had finally spotted what my scavenging eyes were looking for, the very reason for this excursion: a small but very sturdy table! The Germans are fond of the saying “kill two birds with one stone,” and sometimes they even act on it. Now, intent upon applying this idea contrary to Spanish custom, I pointed into the private quarters of Doña Carmen’s bric-à-braquière . The table wasn’t large; the top measured at most two feet by three, but it had a drawer and strong legs that were roughly carved to resemble Gothic pillars. I could already see myself writing on it, eating from it, using it as a workbench, receiving guests and offering them meals at it, and killing a thousand flies on it with a single swat. And so I said to Doña Carmen: that rugged table over there is just what we need for our maid. Would she permit me…?

I moved ahead in the direction of the table, but the lady immediately blocked my path, partly with her bosom and partly with an outstretched foot: stop where you are! “Oh, I beg your pardon,” we both said to each other, Doña Carmen adding that the miserable table was not what I was looking for. She had a round one made of macacaoba with a ritual tripod base, just the thing…

“Doña Carmen, I’ll take that rustic one or none at all!” I summoned up my courage and took another step forward. Doña Carmen’s bosom retreated, taking all of Doña Carmen with it. She spread out all her fingers as if defending herself against an angry mob, and repeated, “Please, no farther!” Undaunted and intent on examining the table, I took an even more daring step in the direction of the antiquarian lady. She’s behaving quite oddly, I thought, as Doña Carmen emitted a tiny scream in inverse proportion to her corpulence, just as she might have done 40 years previous as Carmencita, fending off another kind of attack. Now, however, it was only mice that could elicit such a strange reaction — or was she convinced, once I had identified myself as a German, that I was about to violate her? Did she read books? Was she familiar with the crimes of Haarmann, Grossmann, Kürten? Hitler’s bloody ethnic mysticism? Medieval vendettas and the national uprising? That table had a spacious drawer, room enough for manuscripts, tools, bread…