Albert Thelen - The Island of Second Sight

My home town was beginning to fill me with dread. Whenever I thought of Germany in the night, I found that I couldn’t sleep aright.

But now, instead of writing a book about Spain, a country I was beginning to love and to understand, I was writing one about Germany, a country I never loved and was having a harder and harder time understanding.

“ Die kleine Stadt : ‘The Little Town’ —Wouldn’t that be a good title for your book?”

“It would be excellent, if Heinrich Mann hadn’t beaten me to it. I’m just going to call it ‘ Hun-less Tombs of the Huns .’”

My outline: Hitler sends out an order that all civil marriages were to take place with patriotic trappings. The magistrate performing the ceremony must appear in his finest livery, the city hall must be suitably decorated, and the bridal couple must step forth in accordance with ancient Germanic custom, amid moon-gazing, the sacrifice of small animals, unrestrained consumption of mead, worship of the goddess Nerthus, de-braining of tribal elders by one-eyed demonic cadavers, followed by priestesses performing auguries over the mass of collected brains. Following a torchlight parade around World Ash Tree Yggdrasil, once upon a time known as Saint Irmgardis’ Linden, the wedding night was to be spent beneath the holy tree. Heidhrun, the Führer’s sacred goat, and Saerhimnir, the Führer’s sacred pig, would eat out of the wedded couple’s hands. The presiding magistrate would ride the stallion Svadilfari, the Mayor would be astride the eight-legged Sleipnir. Then the march of the mistletoe legions would resound. Prisoners of war would be displayed, and Nidhögger, the Dragon of Envy, would blast his fire against Judah. There would be a commotion in the heavens: wing-flapping Valkyries would start singing the “Horst-Wessobrunn” song. The Fenris Wolf would be on the prowl for tasty morsels, but anyone who was “coordinated” would go scot-free. In order to seal the neo-pagan wedded union, a Christian was to be slaughtered at the runic stone next to the forest spring known as the Siep, and his bones scattered to all the four corners of the globe to ward off evil spirits. Finally, a wreath would be placed at the Tomb of the Unknown Brain.

The local Gauleiter then discovers to his consternation that there is not a single Christian left in the community. The blood-wedding, for which thousands of participants were expected from near and far, is threatened with cancellation. The Jews, who might have been a fitting substitute, have already all been killed. At this moment, so very critical for the prestige of the vainglorious Reich, the bridegroom raises his arm, commands silence, points to his bride and then to himself. He makes the Sign of the Cross. He and his girl have remained Christians in secret; they have not abandoned the faith of their forefathers. There is general amazement. A rattling of shields. Ravens start crowing. And then the cry is again raised at the World Tree: “Slaughter them!” The mayor lifts the giant hammer Mjölhnir, and slays the groom, Hinnes the weaver, and the bride, Minchen the flax spinner, whose combined weekly wage is 142 marks. When the Mayor, unaccustomed to committing murder, spies the two corpses lying beneath the sacred ash tree, he is seized with terror. He lifts a hand to the back of his head and notices for the first time that his brain is gone. If he could still think, he would be thinking along these lines: “What the hell, the Führer will do my thinking for me!” But this couple here — they can’t have any children! Still, the Reich Master of Funeral Ceremonies knows just what to do. Using a hemp rope, he leads Audhumla, the Primeval Cow, to the scene and lets her lick a salty block of ice, out of which steps forth Buri, the first-born brainless Homo hitlerius .

Secondary incidents were contained within my plot, plus certain statements made by leading citizens of the town, quoted verbatim from the newspapers. The names of all the active characters are real, since it would not be possible for me to invent them so convincingly in all their self-revealing infamy. This novel of mine was finished except for the final chapter. But the ending, for the novel as well as for its heroes, came unexpectedly.

“And why are you calling it ‘ Hun-less Tombs of the Huns ?’”

“It’s meant as a purely poetic analogy to Buri. Do you remember that hilly stretch of woods north of the town, the one called ‘Süchteln Heights’? There are quite a few Hunnish tombs and so-called ‘Huns’ Beds’ up there, the sepulchral chambers of my Stone Age ancestors. But they don’t contain skeletons or urns with the remains of immolated bodies. No, these giant ‘beds’ were the ingenious invention of a town citizen with piles of money and imagination — two things that seldom occur in unison. Only it’s too bad that this finance manager never consulted a professional menhirologist, for if he had, then even the most erudite Sunday hiker would have been filled with awe at the sight of his bogus gravesites. The very same philanthropist had a sunken church named after him; all you can see is its weathervane, poking out of the surface of the lake. When I was a kid I thought a lot about those empty graves, and about that church symbolized by a barnyard cock. Such were the origins of my mystical speculations concerning the creative potential of non-being.”

“If I’ve understood you correctly, that local saint was also a fake, conjured up by your enterprising philanthropist.”

“I’m afraid not.”

“Why ‘afraid’?”

“You can look her up in hagiographies. She actually lived, and kept herself alive in the forest with snails and herbs. Like all saints she could talk with animals, but not with human beings. She kept those robber barons away from her skirt, and did a whole lot of other things besides. Someday I’ll write her biography, in mystical-mariological style, to shield her from her own sanctity. For if she had never lived, she still would have been able to perform miracles.”

“Your people will strike you dead if you take away their saint and the annual church fair devoted to her.”

“Go visit the Consul, and he’ll tell you that I’ve been condemned to death even without a biography of the Countess of Aspeln. It’s in the documents. If a person is unwilling to shed his shell like a crab, they’ll break it open for him. We’re lucky that we’re staying on this peaceful island.”

“Peaceful? What a joke! As soon as we get some money, we should buy a deadbolt lock for our entrada . I can’t forget what that Andalusian gypsy prophesied for us. It’s really frightening. And the nightmares you’ve been having recently! If only Mamú had already adopted you, and we could hide away in Miramar as American citizens! It’s all taking so long!”

In addition to our medicine book, Beatrice also owned a dream book, the text of which was almost more exciting than homeopathic diagnoses and prescriptions. She guarded it like the apple of her eye until the time arrived when, having entered her mesalliance with Vigoleis, both our sets of eyes were so overburdened that we couldn’t think of reading any books at all. Our very lives were in danger, so both books got put away.

The dream book was a personal gift from Grand Prince Alexander of Russia, who in his Paris exile wrote mystical treatises on the merging of dead souls with the Lord. He dedicated one of these works to Beatrice’s mother.

The gift was an Italian dream book from the 17th century. Its amazing treatment of symbols was along the lines of biblical exegesis: long, hard objects were not yet considered as the phallus, and soft, round, hollow ones weren’t yet the female genitalia. In other words, this was a book for the sensible interpretation of dreams — insofar as one could sensibly recall their contents. If things turned out differently anyway, it wasn’t the fault of this Venetian oneiromantic. Rather, it was owing to one’s own faulty dream life. We always came up with correct interpretations, but our dreams were all wrong. As soon as I started having the right dreams, our Italian book was a failure. Beatrice had all she could do to towel up the sweat from my body. In one of my nightmares, Sigmund Freud appeared as an angel with a flaming sword, threatening to drive me out of Paradise. Poor Freud! He was now harmless in comparison with the demons who were pursuing me in real life. The Teutonic savages in my hometown, licked forth by Audhumla from the ice block of the National Revolution, were driving this erudite Jewish pig out of house and home, and robbing me of my peaceful slumber: