Albert Thelen - The Island of Second Sight

I threw a cloth over the cage, sat down on a crate, and began meditating. Oh Eye of God, why hast Thou cast false glances at me?

Beatrice drew in her breath through her nose and said, “What smells so strange here? Has Pedro brought in another model who never takes a bath? I won’t be able to stand this much longer.”

Pedro had outfitted one of our rooms as his studio, with his easel and a sheepskin for his models to sit on. One of his nude models was named Joan. Joan hailed from Ireland, and she had a decidedly illegal smell about her. A degenerate aristocrat who was in love with her also had evil body odor, and he asked Pedro to paint his portrait, too. — “But this time, Beatrice, it’s not Pedro’s models. It’s the typical gamey aroma of all carnivores. And just imagine, this bird can talk in three languages!” I added that he ate every day as much as three people could eat. But Beatrice was no longer listening to me.

I uncovered my present: not a gift from Heaven, but a diabolical feathered monster. And I spoke approximately as follows: “Beatrice, chérie , it was my intention to offer you a surprise with the Eye of God, but no such luck. While negotiating with the salesman I lost my concentration. The guy must have had more than 500 pots for sale, and now we have a genuine raven, Corvus corax L., but the price was the same. I didn’t let the tradesman gyp me. On the contrary, he was asking three duros for this prize specimen! I got him for just one duro, and he’s a bargain!”

“That was our last duro!”

“Darling, I know. But this was a unique opportunity. It will never come around again.”

Beatrice made no more inquiries. She didn’t even ask if I had gone mad. One glance at our table revealed that the bird had already consumed our supper. She had some leftover lice repellent, and she emptied it over the raven and covered over the cage. In a harmonious marriage, one should never quarrel over a pet raven. Besides, I quickly offered to visit Don Matías to buy a loaf of bread on credit.

Don Matías listened to my bizarre story. He suggested that I put the raven out on our balcony and dust it with wood ashes to ward off vermin. Then he gave me my loaf of bread and a handful of mice that Jaume had whacked with his dustpan. One of them was still wriggling, and Don Matías said that this one would be a special delicacy for our raven of misfortune.

He meant well. Our gallows bird didn’t touch the proffered mice. He squawked for carrion and gruel. Since he could no longer fly, we couldn’t get rid of him by releasing him to the winds. Pedro said, “Give him away! A raven still makes a marvelous gift.” —“Mamú!” I cried out. “How could we have forgotten Mamú?”

It would soon be Mamú’s birthday. I had already composed a poem for her, and now I learned it by heart. It was a very atmospheric piece, with the moon sailing like a barkentine through a sky filled with little white clouds… The raven would be a more original idea. It was, after all, the first time in my life that I would be reciting a self-created poem to a millionairess. Besides, Mamú was already spoiled by such poetizing friends as Rilke, Hofmannsthal, Werfel, and others. So I didn’t hesitate for a moment to exchange my lyrical product for the raven, which I had already substituted for the Eye of God. Beatrice gave her approval, but expressed her regret that Mamú hadn’t come into the world just a few days earlier.

Mamú was inundated with presents. Telegrams arrived from all over the world. The Christian Science ladies sang a chorale with organ accompaniment. Auma looked her luscious best, and the state prosecutor seemed ready, as always, to gobble her up. The chef prepared something in secret, while the nanny remained sour and dull even on this special jour . Then Vigoleis and Beatrice arrived with the bird. The cage was polished clean, the crooked bars were bent straight, and a pink ribbon decorated the handle on top. Fastened to the ribbon was a tag bearing the name we had hurriedly decided to give the ravenous beast: Rabindranath.

Rabindranath literally hacked the eyes out of all the other birthday gifts. Mamú wept with emotion; the tears flowed down her rather wobbly cheeks like drops of candle wax. The ladies sniffed the odor of game and garbage, and closed their Bibles with a snap. Mamú’s pekingese had a nervous breakdown.

“Vigo, my Vigolo, you marvelous fellow! A raven from A Thousand and One Nights! Tell me how you caught him!”

I gave her an account of En Xaragante and his Cyclopic chamber pot. The scientific ladies took further umbrage at this story, since they were convinced that magical chamber pots were my own invention. I gave the saga a somewhat fanciful twist, allowing myself to leave the battleground as a hero. This angered the praying biddies; they would have preferred to kill me off. Such incorrigible hypocrisy made me furious, and so I decided to go on the attack and get rid of this science once and for all. I took the birdcage and set it down right in the midst of the pagans. This raven, I explained, had unfortunately lost his three languages. Would anyone volunteer to pray at least his mother tongue back into him? In the eyes of the Lord, a bird is, after all, worth at least as much as a dog.

That hit the mark. There was a sudden rustling, as if of wings. The pious old crones departed the scene forthwith, while Rabindranath continued his inarticulate squawking. Mamú was even more grateful. The feast could begin.

Rabindranath was given a volière in the yard, and a meal such as he would never have been able to scavenge together in a natural setting: raw meat, Vienna pancake with filling, Quaker Oats, and eggs à discrétion . His feathers lost their shabbiness and turned smooth and glistening, his beak took on a polished gleam, and the whole bird, including his soul, reverted to intense, ravenish black. With Mamú’s pekingese it was a case of hostility at first sight, and nothing could be done about it. Mamú’s turtles left him cold. He never could be trained to let someone hold him on his hand. On the contrary, he became more and more ornery and pecked at any hand that was offering him something to eat. An authentic gallows bird, he was fixated on human blood.

Shortly before we left the island — Mamú had already fled — I released Rabindranath. Now, finally, he could follow his man-eating instincts, for in the meantime our island had become what Bernanos chose as the title for his book on Mallorca: The Large Cemeteries under the Moon.

Les grands cimitières sous la lune : with its funereal message that is a good title for a book in which, from the first to the last page, a mortuary mood of human slaughter prevails. Nevertheless, the title presents a slight shift in imagery. A cemetery is a place where the dead are laid to their final rest. It is a place set aside for personal liberty, where in earlier times even criminals were safe from pursuit, where one could rest in peace. On Mallorca, however, the holy war claimed so many victims that they couldn’t get buried even by adding nighttime shifts of gravediggers. They remained where they had been slaughtered, or where trucks dumped them by the thousands, day after day, as carrion for the birds.

It was likewise left to the birds to carry out the practical work of human decency, which the Church lists as the Seventh Work of Mercy that it recommends to the faithful: Bury the Dead. By letting my Rabindranath return to the skies, I partook ever so marginally in this act of divine mercy, one that had to be ignored by those who piled up corpses in the name of the Lord. Later, when evil emanations began to threaten public health, the cadavers were strewn with lime. The feathered gravediggers no doubt resented this action by the Chief of Public Hygiene, for this meant that they, too, would soon go the way of all flesh.