Albert Thelen - The Island of Second Sight

When I started poking fun at this petty-bourgeois genealogical nonsense, Mamú assured me that T’uang’s pedigree was absolutely authentic. It was not something cobbled together by some clever professional researcher, and that was why she rejected the idea of coupling T’uang with the pekingese pooch owned by the Commissioner of the Immigration Police. This man had been pestering her for a whole year with his genealogical ambition: he wanted offspring with T’uang’s bloodline! Mamú humored him all the while, and eventually refused to allow his canine bastard to enter her house. I knew all this. The Police Commissioner visited Mamú often. He was a flamboyant fellow who, apart from his own love life, was wholly absorbed by the amorous affairs of his four-legged pets. He was bound and determined to soften up Mamú for a copulation deal. Whenever he came for a visit, his chauffeur waited outside with the rejected bride. Don Fulano did Mamú certain favors with regard to her non-Spanish domestics. And now, with a regularity dictated by the estrus cycle of his pekingese bitch, he was courting Mamú. As a policeman, he knew fully well that the quarry was bound to fall into his trap eventually.

Mamú indignantly refused his first proposition, pressing T’uang protectively to her bosom as if to say, “My poor little doggie, they want to make you mate!” Her entire household shared her repugnance at such an idea, including the members of the pagan coterie, whose profound concern for the heavenly purity of T’uang’s behavior arose from the fact that it was a miraculous dog that had permitted them to erect their Ark of the Covenant in Mamú’s house.

Then the two of us arrived with our own rather different life-and-death emergency, and Mamú, filled with dire premonitions, clapped her hands. T’uang came waddling toward her, was taken up into her lap, and learned of the calamity about to befall his aristocratic lineage. This occurred with a great deal of cuddling and Viennese sentimentality, but also with Viennese sang froid. In the presence of witnesses, and in unequivocal language, the doggie was informed that he would have to commit a sin against his pedigree. Upon being told the identity of the dubious young lady who for the longest time had been awaiting his advances, T’uang looked into Mamú’s eyes with the languid expression of his noble race, and gave his nose a twist exceeding the one which he had inherited. Fortunately Mamú overlooked the despair that spoke through her darling’s eyes. She turned to the state’s attorney and asked him to get in touch immediately with the Police Commissioner.

The fortress had been conquered. The mob that was raging in the Land of Poets and Thinkers was demanding its victims here on the island, too. And we, all of us, approved of the betrayal of T’uang’s loins.

The Man of Power arrived at Mamu’s house, desperate but thrilled. His cadilla , he explained, was not receptive; it would be a while yet, and could he then reach Mamú by phone? It was agreed that, if possible, he would call one day in advance, since Madame would have to make certain preparations. The latter consisted exclusively in my plan to ask Bobby, the Folkwang School artist, to be on hand to make a photographic record of the proceedings.

Pollution Day fell on a Sunday. At an early hour we left with Bobby for El Terreno. We made ourselves comfortable beneath the park palm tree and waited for the Mother Church to finish its service. Mamú dismissed the ladies; under no circumstances were they to hang around for secular chit-chat, as they normally did. Auma, too, was asked to leave. Mamú suggested that she and her state’s attorney visit the park at Belver Castle, a refuge that was, in any case, too sparse of foliage to permit any double wedding.

We had an excellent meal; Mamú’s exchequer was once again solvent. T’uang was served beef bouillon with sliced-ham crèpes, and as always he was permitted to lick the blood from the edge of the carving board. The conversation at table centered on remote subjects. Not a single one of the diners dared to make the kind of off-color comment that is so common at wedding feasts. Beatrice and I were filled with reserved expectancy, just as if we ourselves were the ones who would soon be introduced to the greatest of Nature’s mysteries. Our insular fate was to stand or fall with T’uang’s stamina and acceptance of contamination.

The Commissioner was announced, and Mamú asked that he be shown in. Never in history has a happier father carried a more reluctant bridal daughter in his arms. As this Power Man bent down to kiss Mamú’s hand, all we could see was a patch of glistening canine fur with darker streaks. But this sight sufficed to make us comprehend Mamú’s qualms about the imminent wedding ceremony. Even a non-cynologist would be forced to conclude that Túang’s bride had worm-holes in her family tree. Her parents had not been consistently kept on a leash. T’uang himself, despite his royal lineage in the Empire of Central Europe, would be unable to guide this blood in more suitable directions. Only Dr. Baruch from America, another friend of Mamú’s, could have provided the proper advice, as one might expect from a professional diplomat. I came to admire this gentleman when he was the U.S. Ambassador in Portugal, and we were in a position to observe his behavior quite closely.

During Hitler’s War, Portugal was germanophile, and opposed to America. Dr. Baruch had a difficult task, although the worst was already over. He was a Jew, but that doesn’t bother the Portuguese. They are too dignified for such an attitude, and besides, they have never forgotten that, since the expulsion of the Children of Israel, their intellectual achievements have declined.

Dr. Baruch was already an elderly gentleman when in February 1945 he presented his credentials at the Necessidades , with a large white flower in his buttonhole. The Portuguese were less than impressed by his chrysanthemum. The title “Dr.” is not worth much in a country where anyone who has attended a university can expect to be addressed as Senhor Doutor . If Dr. Baruch had been of noble lineage, a Baron, Count, Prince, or some other kind of top-to-bottom decadent blue-blood, he would sooner have found favor with the descendants of the fabled Portuguese tribal chieftain Luso. Yet this American was cleverer than all the citizens of Portugal. He knew just what caliber of artillery he should deploy on the banks of the River Tejo. I saw him a few times. He reminded me very much of Count Keyserling, with whom he shared his given name. But Dr. Herman Baruch wished to remind people of a much more significant personage, and he singled out no less a figure than Jesus Christ. With the aid of a whispering campaign, he began circulating the legend of his descendancy: the origins of his fleshly nature were to be found, he claimed, in Jesus of Nazareth, by way of Mary, and further, along theologically very confusing genealogical paths through the House of David, and further still in the scrolls of pedigree to Heli and Matthat, Levi and Nathan, and finally to Baruch, son of Neria, the magnanimous companion, fellow sufferer, and biographer of the prophet Jeremiah.

This biblified story made the rounds in the aristocratic salons and tearooms, the Casas de Châ , and became clearer in the telling. Jesus came more and more into focus, while Baruch got increasingly blurred. By the time my Portuguese friend Belita ticked off the list of Adam’s progeny down to Dr. Herman Baruch, behold: the diplomat had lifted his other leg up out of the morass of the Old Testament and now stood securely with both feet on the firm ground of the New. His ancient ancestor was a brother of Christ! As a devout lady from Belita’s circle of friends told me, anyone who attended a garden party at the American Embassy and shook Baruch’s hand was actually reaching across two thousand years and shaking the hand of Jesus Christ. When I gave the lady an incredulous look, she snapped at me and asked if I doubted what she had just told me. I replied that I was convinced that with God nothing was impossible, but — and suddenly a number of people started looking at me. As a friend and translator of the national genius Pascoaes, I enjoyed certain privileges, and thus I could utter things for which other persons, even princes and kings, would get tossed off the premises. — But did we in fact know that Jesus and his brother ever shook hands? Maybe they weren’t even on speaking terms. Hostile brothers: it’s a popular motif in the Bible…