Albert Thelen - The Island of Second Sight

“Vigo, darling, do you know what I would just love to have, and which I think we can now afford…?”

“Wait, let me guess. You’ll see that I am capable of reading your mind. Van Dine, The Scarabs Murder Case !”

“Wrong! Higher! And in a different genre.”

Quick-witted as a born Führer , and making a sudden leap upwards from the underworld, I said, “Either Burckhardt’s Cultural History of Greece in an uncut edition, or a pair of shoes to go with your Indian dress, made by Ulua and nobody else.”

Beatrice shook her head. “You can get all of those things for me later. Now I would love to have one of those receptacles, you know, the kind with a motto printed inside and a Cyclops eye…?”

I embraced this woman whom I had so often accused of deficient imagination. “You sweet one! You want an eye? To look at, eye to eye…?”

“Not quite that kind, darling. What I’d like is an umbrella stand to put in the entrada . With a ring on top.”

“So the eye will always stay moist. Right, I understand.”

People who have an inferior conception of divinity might consider it heretical or repugnant to adorn a chamber pot with the Eye of God. One must not forget that Spaniards often take the name of the Almighty in vain, since they maintain what amounts to a personal identification with Him. Who wouldn’t be knocked flat upon a first hearing of the Spanish curse Me cago en Dios , a phrase that is best rendered by three little dots? I have heard priests shout it in heated discussion, and I am convinced that cardinals also use it. No one thinks anything of it. And after all, who thinks anything of God’s name? Just behold the state of God’s world!

“Beatrice, I shall not rest until the Eye of God looks constantly upon our entrada . And woe to whoever drenches it in tears with other means than an umbrella!”

After careful calculations we set aside five pesetas for our celestial objet d’art . We could save this up by the end of the month, but until then we would have to get by without the evil eye. As it was, things had gone badly enough for us without it for quite a long time.

Now wherever my steps took me, I was obsessed with The Eye. Or rather, since I am for the most part a sedentary fellow and spent most of my time typing my own or other people’s literature, The Eye constantly peered over my shoulder at my text — a form of intrusion that is very much to my disliking.

Alcoholics and serial killers are familiar with the sudden impulse to chug-a-lug a stiff one, the irresistible urge to squeeze somebody’s throat before they explode. Whereupon they calmly get up from where they are sitting and go hunting for a victim. Off they go to a bar or to the city park.

That is how I felt about The Eye. It was absolutely necessary that I betake myself to wherever I might find it, which is to say, where I might locate the receptacle that contained its steady glance. There were five pesetas in our drawer — not meant for a pot but for our daily bread. The Eye of God beckoned me to take the money — for the Eye of God. What if I could get one for one peseta? What if, for once in my life, I were to stoop to commercial haggling, knowing that Beatrice had fallen in love with a Cyclopean eye?

I knew well the City of Palma’s junk, trash, and plunder market, located on the Plaza del Olivar; I had already fished out a number of items from its abundant offerings. But Pedro told me that the chamber-pot dealer had his stand on the square called “Ses Enremades.” There I would be sure to find the Eye I was looking for. But, Pedro said, I should be careful. “En Xaragante” was a crook who chopped up pig cadavers to make sausage out of them. This news didn’t bother me so long as, in addition to any number of blind chamber pots, the crook in question had a seeing-eye crock he would be willing to sell me.

The sun was searing down on a tattered canopy, beneath which En Xaragante sat guarding his collection of crockery. He was very fat and poorly dressed, not at all typical for a Spaniard. The holes in his shirt revealed skin encrusted with grime or thick body hair. The man’s sombrero provided shade in places where the sun leaked through the awning. Seated on a crate with his heavy body all folded up, he was taking a nap, if this term is adequate to describe a condition accompanied by loud snoring.

Next to the sleeping man who looked like an African tribal chieftain dressed in European garb, stood a large round cage that was missing so many bars that a chicken could easily walk out of it. But the black bird sitting inside and getting roasted by the sun couldn’t escape. Profoundly reconciled to its fate, it didn’t even try. From its ebony beak to its drooping tail it was a good two feet long, and as an experienced breeder of birds I estimated its wingspan at two yards or more. It was a raven, Corvus corax , one that had seen its better days, like everything else that was offered for sale at this location. Unlike its owner, the bird was not asleep. It was unhappy. It seemed to be pestered by vermin, thirst, and a yearning for carrion, but with the wisdom that is natural to all ravens it was keeping its composure. Perhaps it was also aware that its battered wings would never again lift it into the heavens. All around this sleepy focal point lay the vessels I had come for. Fragile as they all were, En Xaragante had spread them out on a piece of canvas. The receptacles for nighttime use stood out conspicuously among the collection, like owls in broad daylight.

Destiny — once again I feel obliged to employ this pretentious term — has often pulled the chair out from under me, forcing me to look for something else to sit on. I have often had to switch residences, and thus have lived in various places in the world. Wherever I have been lucky, unlike my Vigoleis, I have found the familiar little table next to my bedside, and inside it the handy receptacle for emergencies. People who disapprove of such domestic utensils can pay for their aesthetic indignation with kidney stones. Others are grateful whenever, under protection of darkness, they can consult the convenient vessel. That’s how civilization has arranged things, and what concern is that of ours? I am familiar with the Dutch mevrouw ’s robust kamerpot , the solid ceramic vase of the German Hausfrau, and our Swiss landlady’s rustic earthenware urn, omnipresent in every one of the cantons. I am familiar with the predilections in other nations; I have held in my hand the exquisite vasosinho belonging to a delicate Portuguese menina —and I must continually agree with Vigoleis, who tends to reduce his chamber pot to its practical utility. For him, a chamber pot is a useful object so long as it conceals what it is used for.

I had never seen an umbrella stand containing the Eye of God. Would En Xaragante have one for me? More than a hundred vessels of various inviting kinds surrounded the trader and his raven. Would an eye in one of those containers open up and say to me, “Vigoleis, I see you”?

The raven lifted its glance from the contemplation of its own disheveled fate and was now watching me with its brown-on-white eye — taking, as it were, a bird’s-eye view of the proceedings — as I gingerly storked my way through its master’s crockery.

Corvus corax wasn’t the only one monitoring my cautious rummaging. Dozens of flea-market shoppers lined the edges of the crockery stand and observed my every step. I had become a focal point of public attention, and was struck with acute agoraphobia and nettle rash. Whenever this happens, I immediately undergo an inward collapse. My innards blush, while my outer complexion stays pale. And the Führer in me starts gabbing away.