Albert Thelen - The Island of Second Sight

Every once in a while the hunchback beggar gave us his company. Someone had told him of our difficulties, and now he offered us advice on getting by and reaching a ripe old age in Spain with no money. Beatrice usually moved one bench away, but the outcast didn’t seem to mind. He was, he said, probably just a trace too bug-ridden for her, but that was simply part and parcel of his earthly sojourn, loved and sanctioned by the Dear Lord. He had stretched out his hand for alms in many countries, but nowhere were people so generous as in Spain. Not even at the portal of St. Peter’s in Rome did the blessings flow as copiously. I admired the crooked little man’s broad culture, which he couldn’t possibly have gathered in piece by piece as with his income from charitable sources. But I was unsuccessful in prying into his past life; he deflected all my inquiries in that direction. Some people thought he was a defrocked priest, or a monk escaped from a mendicant order. Both surmises can lead to further surmises: let’s imagine this high-shouldered fellow going into business for himself, placing an ad in the diocesan newspaper: “I hereby notify all devout charitable donors that, upon completion of thorough schooling in the exercise of the vow of poverty, and following faithful execution of the humble beggar’s calling under auspices of the Mendicant Order of St. Francis (certified by the Holy See since 1210), I have now placed myself on my own two bare feet. Whoever wishes to demonstrate mercy toward his neighbor may now do so toward me! Eliminate the middleman! Bigger indulgences! On request, mediation with the Devil himself! Man spricht deutsch. On parle français , etc. Praise be to the Lord Jesus! Porfirio, Beggar of Strictest Observance.”

Every time Porfirio returned to the cathedral portal after a brief chat, I had to slap and shake the fleas out of my clothes. We had sworn off insect powder as a superfluous luxury. Beatrice didn’t want anything to do with this man whom God had stricken with a hump on his back. But I kept trying to serve as advocate for this Beggar Prince who now, after twenty years, was repaying my intercession by helping me to liven up my narrative at a point when, following the anarchistic count’s failure, nothing else was going on.

With a single brush stroke I shall now depict this Minorite’s earthly demise. On a certain day he was found dead, lying on a heap of rags in his room. The coroner determined that he had perished of starvation. But during the post mortem, the doctor also made the surprising discovery that the man’s hunchback was artificial, a kind of leather rucksack that could be fastened on with a strap. Inside there were banknotes, stock certificates, and promissory notes from many different countries, having a combined value in the millions of pesetas. Papers in his possession revealed that he was a German citizen, whereupon the German Consul instantly confiscated all his belongings, attaching the estate before the Spanish authorities could say a word in their own interest. As usual, the latter bureaucrats were tardy, but they were eventually able to push aside the peremptory German executor. Seeing that no heirs came forward, they raked in millions for themselves.

There was said to be a bundle of manuscript pages in his fake hunchback as well, notes written down by this bogus beggar, whose lame leg was likewise of the removable kind. I was very interested in getting a look at those notes, as was the writer George Bernanos. But nobody got hold of them. The case was the subject of lively discussion in the island’s literary circles. Each one of us contributed in no small measure to the legend that now began to be woven around this shabby millionaire in his moth-eaten duds. Was he a priest? A monk? Later another beggar turned up, one with a genuine hunchback, to which he pinned a medical certificate verifying its authenticity. But just as birds will peck at vomit, this guy’s colleagues lit into the cripple and banished him from the sacred portal.

I may have contributed a total of five pesetas to the millions in Porfirio’s leather sack. As you can see, he has stretched out the thread of my tale to a point where a simple reach into his hump could have sufficed to save us from our grape cure. But then I could write finis operis and “happy ending” at the close of this very chapter. The fact is that, on my isle of second sight, one seldom looked in the right drawer. For this reason, Vigoleis cannot yet fade away among the nameless thousands for whom Mallorca serves as a world-renowned source of official stamps on picture postcards, sent to loved ones back home.

In the final chapter of Book One I stated that a certain day began like all other days, but I failed to mention that it would end like no other day before it. I could make the same assertion here at the opening of this chapter, which also will bring a Book to its close. But I shall refrain from doing so to avoid repeating myself. This day, too, began like all others and ended like none before.

As on every morning, we took breakfast in the pensión , this time in the company of two artists from the mainland, about whom more in due course. I consider the two of us more important, at a moment when our straits are so dire that our existence could be regarded as an utter failure. Our harmonious closet-marriage was able to withstand the temptations of the outlandish pilarière ; now it was being put to a financial test, one that I called the “duro test” after the five-peseta coin of that name. The word duro means “hard, tough, heavy, difficult”; it can also mean “cruel” or even “heartless.” We could already see ourselves as artists’ models, assisting in the creation of an eternal monument to our doom: Vigoleis sketched by the jittery brush of the half-blind count, once again putting away his potato peeler for a while in the interest of art, with the intention of crucifying our hero on his easel as a boozer or a Teamster Henschel, as in Hauptmann’s famous play. And he would depict Beatrice, larger than life in Sappho’s diaphanous robes, painted in oil on a charcoal ground by an even more famous practitioner of genre painting. I have in mind no less a master than Baron Antonio Jean Gros, whose Sappho , by a macabre coincidence, resembles Beatrice. The fact that he sought and found his death in the Seine can only recommend him more warmly for our purposes.

On the morning in question, I saw the connection quite clearly. We went to the post office — no money — and then we started our climb to the cathedral, each of us holding a book and a single grape. On the way we ran into our waiter Antonio—“ olá !” How were we, he asked, and were we still living at the palace anarchist’s? Yes, but how much longer, we really couldn’t say. Antonio asked some more; his sympathy with our plight was genuine. He felt somewhat responsible, for — and now came a confession — he had intended to send word to Beatrice in Basel that Don Helvecio was not mortally ill but just getting bored with a querida . But Antonio’s wife had persuaded him not to get mixed up in other people’s business. Now he regretted this omission. We explained our situation to him in graphic detail. Oh my, he commented, we must be able to get help somewhere, caramba ! This just couldn’t go on, just let him take care of things! First of all, it was a luxury to be staying on at the pensión with that newfangled revolutionary. He knew of a cheaper shelter outside the city, in some ways just the proper place, though in other ways not, but one couldn’t afford to be choosy when one’s money-bag can’t hold its seam. He was friends with the owner, and would even vouch for us on the matter of rent. Then he would ask around in his club whether anyone had a daughter eager to be taught a language — French, English, Italian, maybe even German—“just be patient, my friends, and don’t make any hasty moves!” With a handshake we promised this fine gentleman not to do anything that might obstruct, let alone foil, his plans. We should get our things ready. Around seven or eight he would come to the pensión . If we were lucky, we could on this very day blow the fanfare for the great removal. Antonio smiled with his thin lips, which he was able to press together in a straight line, causing even the most grandly titled of club members to cower in respect.