Albert Thelen - The Island of Second Sight

By no means did these men shy away from discussion of the ultimate and eternal problems of life, of which the case of Don Fulgencio was a prime example. Besides, it was only a small step from this mysterious entrepreneur to the mystic Nun of Ávila, a step no greater than that between any case of mundane adoption to the subject of becoming a Child of God. Yet despite my profound admiration for the Spanish habit of lifting any subject at all to the level of philosophical discourse, I soon noticed that, in this respect, none of my fellow tertulia participants was quite the equal of our beloved Santa Teresa. This woman, the patron saint of all Spain and the enfant terrible of the Catholic Church, must have received the gift of philosophical intensity as a baby in her cradle. Quite simply, she was one amazing lady. Her writings, between the lines, have revealed to me a great deal concerning the Eternal Feminine, in an unchaste style tailor-made for the Vatican Index. With amazing frankness, she stirred the pot in God’s and her own convent’s kitchen and was inevitably misunderstood, especially by pious types who never looked at her original texts. Whenever I read her, I am reminded of the words of Hamann, the “Magus of the North,” who said that his mediocre mind could never imagine a creative genius as lacking genitals. My own imagination is insufficient to grasp Iberian mysticism as the pure voice of divinity.

One particular day, this fruitful subject of conversation — which, by the way, I never tried to explain to Beatrice — took a turn from abstract literary discourse and impinged directly on the life of Don Vigo, which is why I am able to report on the matter first-hand. I received a letter, the contents of which, in summary translation, were as follows:

The undersigned was in a position to make me a very favorable offer concerning the legal adoption of a child. Through his professional informants he had learned that I liked children, but also that I was a metaphysically and politically persecuted individual, disenfranchised, humiliated, and deprived if the blessings of progeny — a situation that the Church regarded as sinful and the State as unhealthy, but one that was commercially favorable to himself. He would be delighted to provide me a pathway to reconciliation. By following the precepts of common sense and accepting foreign blood, I could rectify the failures of my own blood. This pathway led to his Brokerage for Children, to which was attached an Agency for the Arrangement of Catholic Marriage. For certain personages to whom Nature had been less than kind, a natural child of one’s own could easily become a moral burden, not to mention the financial consequences, whereas an adopted child was an encumbrance only for those who refused to give credence to the saying that where there is food for two, there is enough for three, (or enough for four when there are three, or for five when there are four, etc., i.e., when there are two there is enough for five — I don’t believe in this multiplication of the loaves, since the two of us often had meals that were insufficient for one cat).

Furthermore, Spanish law guaranteed that an abandoned child, one who could well have been engendered by noble parents, would receive the patent of nobility, which is to say, that of a hidalgo (i.e., hijo de algo , “somebody’s son”). Fulgencio’s Children’s Brokerage dealt exclusively in abandoned infants, the so-called expósitos . The undersigned was now constrained, he wrote, by advancing age and the lack of personal offspring to dissolve his business. He had unfortunately failed to provide himself with children of his own, or to secure a hidalgo for the continuation of his firm. Rather than consider his own welfare, he had devoted all his efforts to the well-being of others. This statement was followed by a passage from the Epistle to the Romans — which gave me pause, since at the time in question I had just discovered Pascoaes’ Saint Paul and was immersed in Pauline lore. Apparently this broker was a connoisseur of the Bible. Upon request, the orphans he obtained fresh from the convent would be accompanied by trained nannies. A limited number of items remained in stock, and he was recommending that I make my selection soon, within the means at my disposal. The times, he continued in this hand-written missive, were indeed confusing; the State frequently discouraged the production of natural children, and besides, he was aware that I had been threatened with forced sterilization. Thus I would be well advised to act before forfeiting my right to personal adoption. If I was voluntarily refraining from adding to the human population in a world where human life was no longer the Lord’s reflection and image— well, that was strictly my own affair. Each and every one of us was master in his own house.

This letter, a calligraphic masterpiece, ended with the abbreviations still customary in Spain: s.s.q.e.s.m. , signifying that the writer was the devoted servant of the addressee, and offering a hand in friendship. This particular hand was being presented by:

Fulgencio de la Fuente y Carbonell de Lladó ,

Corredor de Niños

For the sake of caution, before entering into this pact I showed the letter to Beatrice.

“Read this, and if you then persist in thinking that the Spaniards’ sole aim in life is to kill time, I will never cease complaining about the holes in your national cheese.”

Beatrice just ignored this childish threat of mine; she was in no mood at all for instant capitulation. She took the letter and read it. I prepared my defenses, fully expecting to demolish the arguments that in just a few seconds would descend upon me and the broker’s epistle. And I say “in just a few seconds” advisedly, for although the broker’s solicitation was couched in long-winded prose, I knew that Beatrice would devour Fulgencio’s manuscript in an instant. Her eyes are not only well-practiced in reading. In addition they have a remarkable talent for digesting a reasonably narrow-set text and, with a single glance, transforming the visual image into meaningful language. She reads lines of text in just the same way as they drop out of a linotype machine. A diagram of the movements of her pupils would thus not be zigzag, but rather a steadily descending straight line. Such acuity of perception brings about an amazing rate of reading speed, but what is more, her brain keeps pace with her optical prowess. Like a mowing machine, her eyes simply slash the words down, line by line. As for myself, I read very slowly, and I prefer books in which what I am looking for is contained between the lines, books that burst out beyond the printed page and force me to stare into empty space. Thus it should be no surprise that Beatrice and I have never adopted the custom of married couples who share literary tastes and read to each other while lying together on their pilarière . In such situations, each of us has his or her own book.

If we add to Beatrice’s optical agility her elephant-like memory, we can understand how she can ingest, digest, and store up for later use enormous quantities of printed material. During this process, her psychic retina remains unaffected. All of this reading has by no means made her more stupid — oh, begging your pardon, I mean that it hasn’t made her stupid. And that, too, is a phenomenon that makes me pause and reflect. I hope that this state of affairs can continue into the indefinite future, in order that the equilibrium of our marriage, based as it is on contrast, can remain undisturbed.

As far as stupidity is concerned, I consider the type of ignorance one obtains from excessive education a great deal worse than the congenital manifestation. The latter is basically harmless, as long as it does not join that of some fellow human or other to incite a chain reaction, in which case the result can be the establishment of dangerous political regimes. I have had occasion to observe from close proximity how the minds of overeducated individuals can get squashed flat by omnivorous reading, but I failed to recognize the true danger posed by this process. What I have in mind is the German academic type who can be bamboozled by any Kaiser, any sleazy prophet, any charlatan who comes along spouting forth some gimcrack philosophy or other. For these professors, knowledge can become the blind spot of their profession, just as the concept of “God” can, even more tragically, escape the understanding of the enlightened theologians of higher journalism.