Albert Thelen - The Island of Second Sight

Struggle. Extremely rapid calculation of the expense. Vainglory, despair, thumb-twiddling, thumbs stuck in armpits, a recital of all of his future bride’s scandalous liaisons, an engagement trip to the “Stork”… and then he asked me to start writing.

Reply from Berlin, by telegram. Agreed. Cigogne . The one who had to travel the longer distance should set the date.

Vigoleis rubbed his hands. If book publishers could only be as far-sighted as this movie actress, his literary production would long since be a financial success.

Having consented to this huge expense — there was no backing down — my pinchgut client wanted to board ship that very evening, and asked me to send a telegram. “Wait, my good man,” I cried. He mustn’t go traveling just as he was, thinking that he could head straight for the Stork Hotel and, once at the Stork, directly into the lady’s nest. Fine, but not in the kind of underpants I presumed he was wearing. Didn’t he know that Catherine the Great once had a prince of the realm lashed to death for approaching her in that fashion — Catherine, who never behaved like that otherwise? Silberstern objected to my meddling in his laundry matters, but he went out anyway and bought a few pair of fancy underduds. As a millionaire, I told him, he mustn’t appear at the hotel in such a shabby suit; he wasn’t rich enough for that kind of reverse snobbery, so he would have to find a tailor. He agreed and said that he already knew a tailor, quite inexpensive, 60 pesetas with extras. Perfect, I said. But Palma had a sastre for just such cases as his: Bauzá, on the Plaza Cort, where Spanish generals had their work done — and also Count Kessler.

“The Count? You’re making this up! Prove it!”

This I could readily do. I had paid the tailor’s bill myself to save Kessler a trip downtown. 500 pesetas, the receipt signed by Paquita, beautiful Angelita’s even more beautiful sister, who manned the cash register at Bauzá.

Dressed in new threads from head to toe, Adelfried set off for Zurich. But he was unable to put off his old Adam, whereas for me this was the crux of the matter all along. As a result, the meeting at the Stork was the expected fiasco. Silberstern had no more hair to tear out; he would have wrung his hands if he hadn’t returned as a dead man.

Vengeance was mine, as with Pilar and Hedwig Courths-Mahler.

I gradually learned some, but not all, of the details of the encounter in Zurich, where the upper crust likes to gather. Silberstern stopped at the modest Hotel zur Krone, on the shores of the Limmat; the actress stayed at the Baur au Lac with some friends from the cinema. There was no opportunity for showing off new underwear. The meeting took place in the lobby of the Stork, and this bird showed no particular interest in bringing the two together. “Did you at least pay the lady’s travel expenses?”—“Unfortunately yes, Herr Doktor, and promptly, too.” What else could I expect of my client? “And did you get your money’s worth otherwise, too? Little girls?” Zurich, he explained, had its own hidden sources of pleasure — rather expensive, though, since the Swiss government refuses to subsidize regular joy houses. That pushes up the prices! So nothing of that sort — too expensive.

One day after this leave-taking, he left for Barcelona. The trip was uneventful as far as Paris, but then some “elements” took their seats in his compartment, and to him they looked more than suspicious. They started whispering in German, and they began looking at him with glances aimed more at the Jew than at his snazzy Bauzá suit. He was overcome with Dachau panic. Spies! They’ll grab you and string you up — racial defilement! — or they’ll just toss you off the train! This was the time when Jews were getting found who had fallen out of trains all over the world. Silberstern knew this. Clumsy non-gymnast that he was, Silberstern snuck out of the compartment, and as the train slowed down a bit, at the risk of his life, he stepped outside and spent the night on the step. His expensive Bauzá hat went flying off. Some French Widow Jensen probably found it later next to the tracks somewhere between Clermont-Ferrand and Port-Bou. Adelfried was wearing his old hat when he returned from his trip and said, “Take dictation!”

So I started writing again. This time it was a letter to Nina’s titled beau in Lisbon, the gentleman whose ancestral line would stand or fall with him — a detail I was of course unaware of at the time. He replied with the courtoisie of all Portuguese gentlemen: he would be happy to be of service. No, Portugal was not yet producing educational films, but Nina’s friend should come over anyway and bring his colleague. He, the conde, marquêz , and barão , could be of assistance at all the preliminary discussions, capital transactions, etc. German experts, he wrote, were much in demand.

Silberstern had located a buddy with whom he now started planning a business venture. It was going to bring in millions, and — pure coincidence — it had to do with the cinema. This colleague, an educational-film expert from Berlin, was living in exile on Mallorca. He had made a name for himself, and it meant nothing that I had never heard of him. Bobby knew him, Beatrice knew him, everybody knew him. Silberstern’s star was rising again.

Millions got transferred from Madrid to Lisbon. The correspondence grew to huge proportions, and it was complicated. I could have learned a lot from it, but didn’t. Items of furniture were also sent to Portugal, since only death could separate Silberstern from his brass bedstead. Too much had happened, and not happened, to keep him off of his special pilarière . Like Mamú, he traveled with his own bed.

Whenever we ran out of centimos and I put the touch on Silberstern, he generously lent me money — up to 50 pesetas without an I.O.U., but only as a favor to me, and never even to his best friend. He always got it back to the last centimo. Honesty, this miser had discovered, was another one of Vigoleis’ pathetic qualities. But now I owed him the postage for a letter I sent abroad, and for weeks I had forgotten to pay up the pittance.

When Mr. Silberstern took leave of us—“This time for good,” he said — he mentioned that there was a small sum that needed taking care of. An ineffable shudder went through me. I thought — truly, dear reader, I actually thought — that the skinflint would now pull out his bulging wallet, remove an envelope, and hand it to me, and that Vigoleis, who doesn’t understand money and thus needs it all the more, would accept it with an obviously embarrassed smile. And I imagined that when Silberstern was finally gone, when the man I had derided, mocked, and ridiculed daily, the man who was driven into profligate expense, the one I had almost killed on the rail line between Clermont-Ferrand and Port-Bou! When this guy was gone — that is, as soon as he departed from our door — Vigoleis would open the envelope and collapse in shame: a check for 100,000 pesetas for services rendered in the court cases of Silberstern vs. Third Reich, Silberstern vs. Nina, Silberstern vs. diverse bordello madams, vs., vs., and vs. Vigoleis.

Silberstern was now reaching into his pocket. Vigoleis, having suddenly recovered, stammered, “Oh, but Mr. Silberstern, that’s too, too kind of you! What I did was such a small matter…” This accursed brother of his brothers said, “Ah, but you mustn’t say that, Herr Doktor. In business affairs, there is no such thing as a small matter. And as you know from our long-term collaboration, I can be quite meticulous. It has to do…” Meanwhile he had yanked out one of his greasy penciled notes. “Ah yes, it has to do with the postage for a letter sent abroad.”