Albert Thelen - The Island of Second Sight

Two young brats, members of the Boys’ Militia in paramilitary uniforms showing genuine Mallorquin-embroidered Sacred Heart insignias with their divine shooting arrows — these two kids nudged each other and said to each other, “This is sabotage! If these people listen to him, it’s all over with God’s cause!” They screamed up to the pulpit, “Shut your trap, you old fart! It’s our turn now!”

The priest, confused as he was, made further appeals to the Lord, just as he had been taught at the seminary 60 years earlier. And lo, he had learned nothing more since then. What is more, God was apparently no longer with him. These two jerks, 13 or 14 years old, like all such little pissers the Great Hope of their Fatherland, tore him down from his pulpit, put their fists to his nose, and dragged him past the silent congregation to the Cathedral portal. The gunshots echoed down the ranks of pews. Holy Mass continued, and when it was over the Bishop blessed the Lord’s appointed executioners. In all nations and at all times, sabotage is in wartime a capital offense. During the period in question, the harried Bishop of Mallorca could scarcely keep up with all the blessings he had to perform. He blessed everything: Italian and German airplanes; Italian and German sailors; the nightly death squads; the Italian warrior Conte di Rossi; the hydrocephalic German steel helmets that not even Nazi heads could fit into; and the streets that, as in all revolutions, were renamed in the interest of posterity, whereas it seems to me that it would be smarter to memorialize heroic deeds in brain cells à la Professor Wernicke. But then again, revolutions are never smart.

The Bishop kept on blessing all kinds of things. Christians who neglected their Easter Duty were shot, including those who lost the written confirmation that was sent through the mail. Holy Mother Church prevailed. She was never as powerful as now, yet at the same time She never trembled before Her own power so much as during the Holy War on Mallorca. The killing went on out of fear. The archepiscopal prelate kept on blessing out of fear, the same Prince of the Church whom Bernanos pillories in his book on Mallorca, Les grands cimitières sous la lune . But instead of calling this man of the Church an outright criminal or a Grand Inquisitor, as I would have done, the French writer identifies him with this even more baneful appellation: Le personnage que les convenances m’obligent toujours à nommer son Excellence l’évèque-archivèque de Palma . This man was the very same fellow, His Eminence Don José, to whom my uncle in Münster had written a letter of recommendation on my behalf. When I began to notice in which direction the Mallorcan winds of danger were blowing, I fished out this handwritten missive and henceforth carried it with me at all times. It was the most helpful report card I have ever received in my whole life: Propinquus meus, oriundus ex familia vere catholica (post-1933: a-catholica) officiis catholicis semper optime satesfecit (My uncle had a marvelous way of interpreting a Catholic’s “duties”) et dignus est ut in omnibus suis studiis adiuvetur . This letter, countersigned by the exalted personage mentioned in Bernanos’ book, and with an ecclesiastical seal affixed, proved to be more effective than any bullet-proof vest. But it wasn’t the Spaniards who wanted to kill me. It was the Nazis. The two of us, Beatrice and I, were on the list of those to be executed, hand in hand as in a wedding photo.

There are times when people who don’t believe in God, and thus cannot be expected to knife their fellow men in the name of the Lord, can incur the hatred of believers and fall prey to their lust for murder. This was the situation on our island as the woeful fanatics of the faith mounted their trials of heretics. These were the same men and boys who during Holy Week, garbed in penitent robes and with their hoods pointed devoutly toward Heaven, accompanied the Blessed Sacrament through the town, gazing furtively at the pretty girls on the sidewalks while the ladies standing on the piously decorated balconies competed with one another in coquettish devotion to the Lamb of God. Do those guys with the hoods on really believe in God? Are those boys with the Sacred Heart on their shirts the same ones who have been tossing their Dads and Moms into wells and heaving stones on top? A moot question. Whoever loves God and the Fatherland but is unwilling to strangle Dad and Mom if they are against God and Fatherland — that person is unworthy to go on living beneath God’s benevolent sun. That’s why I am reluctant to judge the murderers of Mallorca. They simply made me uncomfortable.

When we went to Mamú’s house, she was in the company of several Christian Science ladies, and it was the day after Pedro’s visit with us in Génova. She would love to have embraced us both, but her age and her corpulence — the abundance of good food had caused her to gain weight, although her kidneys were in working order — prevented her from doing this. She told us that she had written us notes, sent out emissaries, and mobilized her chauffeur, all to no avail — we were unaccounted for. People on the street where we used to live said, “Those two? They were liquidated on the very first night!”

Mamú went into a panic. She was Jewish! It wasn’t the Spaniards she was afraid of, but the German agents, and… and… She didn’t dare to take a closer look at some of her ladies who, in addition to the swastika, had embroidered the Sacred Heart and the Fasces on their blouses. At the time in question, everyone carried with him his own talisman. Was my episcopal letter from Münster any better? I have long since forgiven these ladies. They loved Jesus, but also Hitler. They were just too feminine to feel otherwise.

In such surroundings, Mamú could not remain safe. I considered her household nanny, who was never devoted to Jesus but all the more fervently devoted to Hitler, as a particularly dangerous kind of domestic company. We urged her: “Mamú, get out of here!”

All the various countries had alerted their consulates. The foreigners were leaving the island in droves. The hotels were either empty or were requisitioned as prisons. Mallorca’s ideal climate was now in the service of the Holy War. There was not a drop of rain, and at all the places where earlier you could see bare-ass foreigners reclining on the beach or swimming, you now saw reclining or floating corpses, equally bare-ass. The banks closed their counters; foreign accounts were frozen. When a man named Vigoleis went to the savings bank to get some emergency cash — it wasn’t much, but it would have sufficed for six months at the Casa Inés — he was told that his money had already been withdrawn for the Holy War, and he was asked if he was perhaps not in favor of the Holy War. Vigoleis replied that he was a German, and a Catholic. The bank manager, whose office he reached by telling this series of lies, shook his hand warmly. Now we were penniless. I didn’t even have the fare for the tram to get me back to Génova, so I went there on foot. I had ceased to exist as a capitalist. Strangely enough, I still didn’t realize that I had no right to go on existing at all.

One look at me, and Beatrice understood right away that we were poor once again. Despite all the various faces that Heaven has granted me, I am unable to pretend. You only have to look at me when I am telling the truth to tell that I really ought to be lying. That’s when I blush. To quote St. Augustine, I am one of those stupid men who never have to take back anything they have spoken.

Bankruptcy! It was our old, familiar domestic affliction, one that we had almost got ourselves accustomed to. We didn’t go to pieces as a result. Worse yet was what I observed in Palma before making the trek back to Génova. I had gone to our old apartment to retrieve a few things. Our avenida was swarming with firearms, and those brandishing them were mostly young kids. The Holy War had evolved into a fracas involving adolescents. Cannons were set in place, and machine guns were aimed at exits and entryways along the entire street. I was halted repeatedly and asked to show my papers. I pulled out my episcopal letter of recommendation, and offered explanations. “Foreigner?” these squirts started asking. Yes, a Catholic from Germany. “ Heil Hitler ,” they then shouted, and let me pass. Hitler and the Pope were the two-armed General Franco’s great models. No wonder, then, that his pimply-faced minions revered them too. Moreover, the Germans had sent their special General Faupel to Madrid, where he was instructed to hold up Franco by both of his arms — which was apparently necessary. But why was there such a rattling of sabers on this particular street?