Albert Thelen - The Island of Second Sight

Beatrice began to practice. Every day she sat for seven hours at the instrument with a tense, contorted facial expression that was enough to cause fear and trembling. And Pilar feared and trembled. Up to now she had experienced only pianolas, and the bar ladies who would tickle the keys if you tossed them a coin. Here she encountered rather different performance standards, and the whole thing was no less weird and demeaning than watching people compare two texts in foreign languages. And all this under her own roof! No more playing up for little Argentinita’s dancing. For a while this state of affairs reunited mother and daughter — a dangerous, because unpredictable, affiliation. The brief one-acters staged in the dormitoire had little calming effect on the irritable woman. On the contrary, the wilder things went on in there — or at least appeared to go on — the nastier the lady snarled in the interim phases; she snapped at anyone who approached her. The atmosphere of jungle and cave became more and more stifling. I caught a sharp whiff of game whenever this lascivious panther strode past me amid the strains of Beatrice’s music. When will she raise her paw, extrude those claws, and tear off a strip of Vigoleis’ cowardly flesh? One day Julietta said to me, “Vigo, watch out. Mamá doesn’t like you any more. And if I were Mamá I wouldn’t like you either!”

Oh la la ! Daughters who speak their mother’s language! Vigoleis, gird on your rapier and stand your ground with weapon in hand!

Now it was impossible to remove Julietta from the streets and the Donkey Square in front of the fonda . Spies were set out to warn of Mother’s approach; that was exciting, and increased the pleasure of the forbidden dancing. The child had long ago stopped clinging to me with the affection of our military alliance in the General’s room, a bond that I had thought was a life-and-death matter between us. But pacts exist to be broken, for otherwise nobody would need to arrange them. Her mother didn’t like it when we were often together. She even made certain remarks on this score, which I interpreted as stemming from her lack of education and psychological acumen, until Julietta clued me in: Mamá was jealous.

You see? Our setup was rapidly threatening to go to wrack and ruin. Beatrice now accompanied her reluctant lady friend less and less often on her jaunts through the city. Her musical instrument had now gained the upper hand. Incidentally, the rich geezers’ mutterings didn’t bother Beatrice in the slightest. In private, this sort of thing amused us both, though I no doubt got more fun out of it than the woman directly concerned. Pilar, however, gave it her own interpretation. If, in addition, she had known that Anton Emmerich had related to us her picturesque life history, there would have been a massacre.

A new ray of hope arrived in the form of a public announcement that three of Spain’s most renowned bullfighters were coming to Palma. We decided unanimously to reserve prime seats on the shady side for the five of us. I as a neophyte — Beatrice had already been to corridas in southern France — was to be introduced to this national art by witnessing the likes of Lalanda, Ortega, and Barrera. For days we spoke of nothing else. I soon learned the entire untranslatable vocabulary. I knew that the bulls came out of the ganadieras ; I was told what cabestros are, and what a picador , a chulo , or a mono was supposed to do; that there were cowardly and “tired” bulls; and much more. Julietta latched onto me again. She was tireless in explaining and miming for me the various phases of the spectacle. Zwingli, too, began lecturing me, and for a while there he was once again in one of his elements. I had to shout Olé! every time Julietta impaled her foster father from the standing position, al quiebro . Pilar contented herself with the role of audience — a ravishing audience, by God, in her towering tortoise-shell comb, the precious silk mantilla (a gift from the prelate) cascading from it, and her ivory fan, which she wielded with a style inimitable even for a Spanish señora .

The ice was broken; on all sides jollity prevailed once more, even in the recesses of Vigoleis’ being that Beatrice’s ominous pronouncement had up to now kept under sterile quarantine. It won’t be all that bad, he thought. But then with the very first approach… Pilar sensed the onset of spring like a June bug in early March. All her nastiness melted away. Her features brightened. For an entire week Julietta was spared humiliating chastisement, and both of their noses, mother’s like daughter’s, began to sniff around like guinea pigs on a new bed of straw. Even Zwingli began peeking forth out of his bag of woes. The nail on his pinky had grown back sufficiently to require the silver thimble as protection against doubly painful breakage. It had still to achieve its full magical length, but not by much.

On commission from an illustrated magazine, I wrote a sizeable travel article on Mallorca. Zwingli provided me with source material, for up to now my familiarity with the island was pretty much restricted to a single house interior. The editors accepted my article, but requested illustrations to accompany it, preferably line drawings. For this, too, Zwingli was ready at hand: Knoll, better known by his press-artist’s name of “tiroteo,” would supply the visual material for my reportage. We decided to look him up in Barcelona, a trip of two days’ length. The travelers: Zwingli and Vigoleis. At this news Pilar hit the ceiling as if she had been gored. Her tarantella lasted the better part of an hour. She didn’t extract her dagger, although the crazed cutie flailed about with her arms, and I imagined more than once that she would reach beneath her skirt and dispatch one or the other of us. Jealousy is a passion that bids no quarter — there are no puns or witticisms in Spanish for such an overwhelming emotion. The battle is fought differently: I’ll cut your feet! I’ll slice your heels, both of you, and then see if you can traipse off to Barcelona!

Well, nobody sliced our heels. But nobody left on a trip to Barcelona, either. Julietta offered to go along with me, since she had noticed that without an expert guide I could get lost even in a tiny village. This suggestion enraged Pilar even more. I tried to calm her by proposing that the best solution would be for her and me to make the journey and leave the two siblings under Julietta’s protection. A terrifying glance shot at me from the implacable woman’s eyes. It revealed murderous intent and sexual lust at one and the same time, and it would have skewered me alive, had it not been for the mitigating effect of those long flies’ legs on her lashes.

A telegram brought our travel plans to naught. Beatrice’s mother had closed her blind eyes forever.

For a week Beatrice kept to her bed with a high fever, nursed by Pilar with rare solicitude. Pilar was good at this type of ministration, something I never would have expected of her. Zwingli remained unmoved. I got the impression that his mother’s passing simply hadn’t reached him yet, for he was anything but a cold person. Now that peace had broken out, although it was of course an armed peace, he took advantage of the new situation by cherishing his leisure. He began frequenting the Príncipe more often. In a hotel, even when business is brisk, you can always locate a bed somewhere to park your body on. He always returned from these “inspections” strengthened in body and spirit. Julietta made the streets her exclusive home; we hardly saw her any more. I myself stuck to the apartment, though still lacking the private study that Zwingli had promised me when we first arrived.

Eros was banished from the Street of Solitude, and with him the General from the other island. The oil in the frying pan, which had so often mirrored the renowned officer’s second visage, turned rancid. Only the fly in the vestibule remained the same. But since one fly resembles any other fly as a fly resembles a fly, perhaps it was a different fly after all. In Spain anything is possible.