Albert Thelen - The Island of Second Sight

“But leave me out of this!”

“You would regret it, because you would get to play an organ even finer than the one played by Mosén Tomás of the Capilla Classica.”

“ Mon chéri, tu es maboul. Je n’ai pas le talent d’être la maitresse d’un évèque. ”

I would like to have replied that she had never experienced a temptation of this sort, even though she had lived long enough in places where Princes of the Church were conspicuous if they didn’t sleep in a double bed. But I kept silent. How could I defend myself against this siege in the French language? My French was, is now, and will forever remain barbaric, and not only as regards my accent. The failure of German-French entente is a matter that concerns the philologists more than it does the politicians. But it’s always the wrong people who try to bring about ententes — just look at the mess I got myself into by attempting to bring my child-broker down to earth from out of the clouds of mystification. I had ended up by crushing him!

“Beatrice,” I interjected, “I won’t ask you again whether this offer interests you, considering that you have your doubts about the very existence of this man’s business. I will simply go to the address we have, behind the Archepiscopal Palace, and seek out the proof in person. Perhaps I can discuss with the broker some matters that can give a new direction to our lives. On the way back I’ll visit Angelita; you can stay home and practice.”

“Go ahead! You won’t find the broker. I’ll do the shopping myself, because as soon as Angelita gazes at you with those angelic eyes of hers, you’ll lose your equilibrium, and who knows what you’ll bring home with you. It’s just that tonight I’d like once again to have a genuine meal. There are two pesetas left.”

“Don’t worry, there is only one Rabindranath, and if those aunts aren’t in the store, for our two pesetas Angelita will sell me more than we can gulp down in two whole weeks. That girl is truly an angel, and not only in name.”

“And you are truly a utopian, and not only on paper. Those aunts are always in the store.”

“If so, we would long since have starved to death. I’m on my way, and don’t forget: my ways, too, are sometimes miraculous.”

I had emerged from our theological disputation not exactly victorious. And to be truthful, I was myself beginning to doubt the existence of Fulgencio. Doubt can be the first step toward knowledge, but there was no point in worrying; the Calle Morey would provide the precise information we were looking for. On my way there I again studied the broker’s missive, which I now regarded as a kind of test for a lower-level course in psychology. Certain turns of phrase in it were formulated in a scurrilously elusive, overwrought style reminiscent of Unamuno — was this Pedro’s doing? Pedro was a master stylist, as I knew from reading his remarkable diaries.

At this point I wish to append a further detail from the broker’s letter, one that I discovered only while perusing the text more closely: our entrepreneur was offering me a monthly clothing allowance of 10 pesetas, to be paid out of a special fund for hijos de algo in cases where the adoptive father lacked the means to clothe his adoptive kid. In order to feed the kid, we could depend on a pious Vincentian foundation. But in both cases we would have to provide proof of my penury. Far from regarding this clause in the agreement as a personal affront, I thought it was quite appropriate. I may often be the victim of my own misery, but never its true cause — a state of affairs that Beatrice could corroborate if she were ever in the mood to do so. As a heavy consumer of crime novels she is aware that each and every word “will be used as evidence against her.” And as a human being among human beings, I am aware that where there is no food, there can be no kid — although the reverse is usually the case.

Perusing and meditating, I wended my way to the Calle Morey, past the Cathedral with its coloration of burnt earth, the earth of Mallorca. I quickly located the broker’s house, a mummified palace from the Moreto epoch, modified in later times and resulting, through a patina of decay, in a combined style that was not without a certain unified effect. In Spain, this crumbling and erosion of masonry under the influence of sooty time begins at the moment when the architect hands over the key to the owner, just as a living organism taking its first breath starts breathing its very last. In Portugal, such fatally creative decay — creativity, as always, considered as a form of decline — begins with the laying of the cornerstone — a fact that could lead us to even more telling analogies in the human sphere. As I grow older, again and again I see more and more clearly that the preservation of human creations is an exercise in intellectual impoverishment, a tragic admission of impotence and impossibility, a futile attempt at rescue. To avoid sinking, all we need is a slab of wood. No sign of the grand gesture arising from personal initiative: people saw things apart, they glue things together, they take a thousand shards and stick them together to remake a Madonna, and we heap praise on the clever fellows who show so much patience. As for myself, I love to watch things collapse. In the noise, the showers of ashes, and the clouds of swirling dust I can suddenly discern a gesture, witness the emergence of a word and a deed that captivate me. In such events I detect a tone that, in my enraptured state, can lead me toward the ineffable more readily than the sight of anything that is firmly grounded, supported on all sides, anchored, held fast with mortar and pitch. In the realm of language, poems by Trakl can have this effect on me. In the absence of words, gestures, or sounds, I can still sense the fantastic metamorphoses that take place amidst all the rubble.

Lost in thought, I found myself standing inside the palace courtyard. Fiery-eyed cats slunk around in the hot sun, like the demonic veiled beatas and the erotic priests in their Faustian cassocks — a dozen from among the thousands that make up the veritable feline zoo that is the City of Palma. Cats, padres , and nuns give the streets of Palma their characteristic stamp.

I had to climb three flights of stairs to reach the porche, a narrow arcade that led to a dull mahogany door with a bronze knocker in the shape of the nest of a bird of prey. To the left of the entry I spied a sign set in the sandstone masonry — behold, the salesman’s name replete with all the honorifics of his lineage. So Pedro hadn’t duped me after all! And as for Beatrice’s instinct for truly criminal machinations — why, she was deceived by too much literature! I would simply never be able to put her on a trail that began with any measure of improbability. It was humiliating to discover that my Inca maiden was proof of my contentions — not in black and white, to be sure, but in close approximation of that graphotechnical figure of speech. And just look, the sign contains more information: Corredor de niños , and beneath this, Gran surtido en ambos sexos . Of course, with a single glance Beatrice would have deciphered these words while I was still preoccupied with the cats — I, Vigoleis triumphator , who shall now read the text and translate: “Large Assortment of Both Sexes.” We know from the letter that he is already sold out, with the exception of the single item that has led me upstairs to this official sign. Underneath the sign was an enamel plaque, apparently added as an afterthought and depicting the Divine Friend of Children — nothing unusual, by the way, since nearly all Spanish households have a contract with Heaven, the least expensive Watch and Ward Society. Under the picture was the obligatory ejaculation to the immaculately conceived Mother of God: Ave María purísima sin pecado concebida . But where I expected to read further, “…pray for us,” there stood, penned out in an approximation of calligraphic hand, the words, “Please knock.” This was a discreet hint that apart from paying tribute to the Almighty, the urgent concerns of everyday commerce were to be observed here as well. And so I knocked.