Albert Thelen - The Island of Second Sight

But I’m getting ahead of the nomadic pace of the animals, which is to say, the proper sequence of events. Antonio hadn’t said a single word about where we were going. Well, yes, past the city gates to a friend’s place — but this hush-hush destination was all we learned for the moment. Rather than ask indiscreet questions, we simply let our fate hang in the palm-frond baskets. We were demoralized, and preferred to wait on whatever surprises the future had in store. We didn’t even ask each other where this man was taking us. Questions like that would only reveal a lack of trust in the fellow who had rescued us and was now our guide. So we trudged along submissively at the rear of the caravan, which left San Felio Street to turn into Borne Boulevard, followed the latter straight along, then down San Jaime past moribund palaces, farther past Santa Madalena into Olmos Street, whose elms had long since succumbed to the pestilence. Then we reached a part of town that got more and more unfamiliar to both of us. On our starvation treks we had never gone beyond the bullfight arena and the railroad station square. We left the city limits behind us and followed a road lined with almond trees, tree after tree in full blossom — in this season of the year? And without their narcotic fragrance? We already were familiar with this phenomenon, this fakery of nature that requires you to exercise your imagination a little in the opposite direction — or mobilize Beppo the tree-shaking monkey — in order to return the trees to botanical reality. This road, Antonio told us, led to Sóller, about 20 miles through fields of red earth and past eroded farms, the fincas . Martersteig had told us this and that about the little town of that name. Valldemosa, higher up in the hills, we knew from world literature. Our pack animals (I don’t know whether they were donkeys or mules; I can’t keep the hybrids apart) apparently knew exactly where they were supposed to lug our belongings, for the almocrebe had joined us at the rear and was discussing politics with Antonio.

Monarchist anarchy had given way to Republican anarchy. The latter was only a few months old in Spain, and therefore still gave rise to the fondest hopes, whose realization was being championed by the conspirators in the seven-daughtered Count’s powder room, a cause that must be fought for by every last person, without exception, that is, by anyone who has an iota of pride in being a Spaniard. Now it would be possible to toss bombs on weekdays too. Think of it: every day of the week a holiday, even for the workers! “If you’re planning on staying with us for a while,” Antonio told us, “you’ll have to start throwing bombs too. Now you know where you can get them.” At a Saharan pace, we anarchists, who hadn’t ever thrown anything more explosive than water, took up the rear of this romantic hegira. How I would have liked to mount one of the burden-free animals! But I didn’t dare to for Beatrice’s sake, who suspected that there were more fleas in those gaudy saddle blankets than in the jacket of our backpacking holy man Porfirio. As Wigalois, chevalier à la roue , it would be more fitting for me to ride to our new castle than to plod toward it through the dust. A castle? Another castle? I had no idea what was up ahead, but here on the road to Sóller we were, at the moment, on a pilgrimage toward a dreadful stench, possibly a mass grave. It reeked of corpses and carrion. Where were the enchanting fragrances of my Araby?

“The slaughterhouse,” said Antonio. “The wind is blowing the wrong way, from the Sierra del Teix. That’s unusual. You won’t have this pestilence every day.”

With five pesetas in your purse, I thought, there’s not much hope of fighting a wind from any direction. I glanced anxiously at Beatrice, who was once again getting green around the gills, just as at the meat market. When you set out on a trip, I told her, you just have to expect certain minor inconveniences; back home anyone can seal himself off hermetically — an argument Beatrice refused to buy. “Fine,” she said to our guide, “but how much longer until we get past the stink zone?”

“A quarter of an hour,” he replied, rolling another cigarette, thin as a goose quill, probably his hundredth of the day. Our almocrebe was smoking a clay pipe. The road was still dusty. Not a soul to be seen far and wide. Not only did it smell here of finality and decomposition, the world itself seemed to end at this spot. For a while we hoofed it through the very twilight of doomsday, but then the animals quickened their gait, the ropes between them stretched tight, and each donkey seemed to urge haste and pull the others along. Yet the sudden excitement proved too much: a suitcase slipped out of its girth and crashed to the ground. We stood around in a cloud of dust inspecting the damage. The almocrebe swore at the beasts; I thought he did them a grave injustice, for the entire procession had come to a halt, and the animal waited patiently for the suitcase to be cinched back in place. Then with a heya ! they started out so fast that we couldn’t keep up. They’ve got the scent of their stable, the driver told us. There was nothing holding them now. I wanted to reply that if that were so, we should be all the more grateful to them for stopping while our suitcase was picked up and refastened. But I said nothing, feeling that I wasn’t quite up to this particular Arab.

The clatter of hoofs died away, and when the dust cloud cleared we saw nothing more of our quadriga. Ravens were squatting in the olive trees, and some eagles circled overhead, made ravenous by the stench we still had in our nostrils. Up ahead we now saw a large settlement, consisting of various structures built up against or inside of each other, the whole complex dominated by a tower. It wasn’t a castle, nor was it a fortress. But it wasn’t an ordinary residence either, or any Balearic finca of the kind I had already seen. Whatever it was, the first word that entered my mind was “romantic.” Add a fiddle, take Beatrice on my arm, sing a little song about God favoring us by sending us out into the wide, wide world to the gates of this human habitation — and I was Eichendorff’s Ne’er-Do-Well all over again. It was indeed “far, far away,” but could this hostelry possibly be meant for us? With five pesetas and a hotel waiter’s verbal voucher, it’s hardly likely that we could find refuge in such an inviting shelter.

I looked around for a separate cottage, but didn’t see any. “Tired?” Antonio asked, then pointed to the tower, bent his head to one side and put his cheek in his hand, mimicking sleep. So it was true! We were at our destination, Antonio was a saint and master magician, and for once God appeared to have taken sides with the poor in spirit. And so I sang His praises with the words, “And were I to perish in this dungeon, I shall return like the phoenix! — Beatrice, we’ve finally got the long end of the stick for once! And it doesn’t smell so bad here.”

But that was a bonafide olfactory illusion. Beatrice had just enough time to voice her annoyance at my constantly referring to a God I didn’t believe in, and not only metaphorically at that, when a man strode toward us, tall and handsome, like so many men on Mallorca. This one was colorful and picturesque in the extreme, so that my attention was diverted from God to one of his most magnificent creations, one that could earn Him respect even beyond Eternity. Not to mention our respect for Antonio, for the fellow approaching us with brilliant cries of “O, o, o!” barked out like little explosions from the back of his throat — this man was Antonio’s friend, the Lord of the Manse, to assign a temporary title to the settlement we had arrived at.