Albert Thelen - The Island of Second Sight

What a cynical attitude! Such, perhaps, is the thought that immediately occurs to a reader who has never set forth from a Clock Tower to a Cliff of Eternity with a beloved woman at his side. If I were a cynic, I would now show Beatrice pushing a wheelbarrow along the Carretera de Andraitx, with myself leaning my shoulder in harness up ahead, the barrow filled with the ruins of the piano previously destroyed by the harpy. In an earlier chapter I made allusion to the Leucadian Cliff from whence the poet Sappho leaped into the sea with her musical instrument. The wheelbarrow/piano combination would not be at all inappropriate, nor would the providential rope I was using to help pull us along. In any case, such trappings of our journey could take effect as products of my abundant creative imagination, which likes to lend biblical ramifications to a given state of affairs. Just the same, I always end up lacking a certain ingredient of talent, for otherwise we would never have foundered on our way to Porto Pí. “Your son,” the school teachers told my father repeatedly, “will never pass the class requirements.” “Well then, he’ll be a cobbler,” was the repeated reply from my father, who was a man of few words. Both superiors, teacher and father, gave me their predictions for my future. I never passed the class requirements. Unfortunately, I never became a cobbler either. God had other things in mind for me, even though he could have made out of me a good mender of soles. If now I replace the phrase “class requirements” with the word “cliff,” then my father was speaking prophetically. I have never reached goals that others have set for me, and I have been extremely wary of setting out little flags for myself. That cliff was Beatrice’s own personal fateful destination, and I went along as an also-ran. Then came the fiasco, and after that no one told us what was to become of us, not even Zwingli, who as Don Helvecio pushed us decorously into the foyer of his “Príncipe.”

Our existence was shattered. Our dream of nothingness, our plunge into the waves — all this was now wrecked on an empty stomach! We stood there in shame, and there is no need for me to explain how tired and leached out we looked in the reception area of a hotel where the cheapest attic room cost more for one night than we had on our persons. We were grubby and foul; in spite of my clean-shaven chin I felt utterly filthy. Zwingli could have done a turnabout and said to us, “My gosh, you look just terrible!”

But he, Don Helvecio, who was now once again on top of the heap, said nothing of the sort; it wasn’t his way to pay someone back in like coin. He looked elegant in his duds, the tips of his footwear were mirror-shiny, his hair lay flat and curly on his well-groomed head, there were no scatterings of dandruff, his hairbrush had done smooth work. And behold, at the tip of his right little finger the horn once again jutted out into the world, looking even longer now than back at the harbor and on the Street of Solitude. Not a trace of black under the curve of the nail, and all of his nine other nails were spotless, the result of manicures with almond oil, not even a hint of peeling cuticle. Zwingli was now the complete Swiss hôtelier much in demand, a man of the cosmopolitan world among his international clientele gathered here now for five o’clock tea. Yes, five o’clock: that’s how late it was on this Saturday afternoon in mid-September. A few weeks more and Vigoleis will celebrate his birthday. But first, let us allow him to celebrate his personal resurrection from the dead.

Zwingli — no, Don Helvecio — lifted his horny finger, and immediately they all entered the scene: tall waiters and squat waiters, a head waiter and a supervisor of waiters and then a supervisor of the supervisor of waiters. They prepared a table in the smaller dining area—“Or Beatrice, would you prefer to dine in the rotunda? That’ll be just fine.” Another flash of his pinky, and a not quite noiseless rush of personnel — not because they were ignorant of hotel protocol, but because many foreigners enjoy a genuine Spanish spectacle. And with so many Anglo-Saxons on hand to take their afternoon tea, we approved of the shift in venue. Our table would be at the far end of the room, with a fine view of the ocean (“ mare nostrum ,” Zwingli said, and he was thinking of Tacitus; as for us, we were not thinking of Tacitus). “From here the cliffs look especially steep and picturesque. Just take a gander at that one over there. Isn’t it grand? Every year it fills our coffers quite nicely.”

Yes indeed, with his magic nail Zwingli was pointing to our Leucadian Crag, thrusting up out of the waves, the one that angled out over the water ever so slightly, now gleaming with a russet tint, at its base a fringe of white foam. A shimmering column rose up above the promontory and disappeared in the haze. Our own eyes, too, could perceive only a shimmer, no doubt a symptom of our fatigue. It wasn’t until much later that we realized that we were eating our last meal within direct view of our intended place of self-execution.

“Don’t you want to spruce up a bit? A bath, maybe?”

We wanted nothing of the sort. We wanted nothing at all. We were void of all wanting. In response to further magical gesticulations of Zwingli’s nail, our table was set, gold-braided youths leaped forth, and waiters circled around us balancing viands of various kinds. Should I present a detailed description? Oddly enough I can recall precisely all the delicacies we were served, but they would be just as out of place here as they were back there at the Príncipe. Business was flourishing; hotel guests came and went, many of them greeting the eminent Don Helvecio in their best Baedeker Spanish, while Don Helvecio let it be known with disarming directness that he was busy with VIPs: we were his people, his sister and brother-in-law — no need for vagueness on this point — artists both of them, just come in from a stroll — can you imagine, in this tropical heat? They came up through Génova on their way to Bendinat Castle, and now he was helping them get presentable again. This was a merry fable, meant to entertain the British ladies who with their crooked legs never made it past the trolley stop but — who knows? — on a cool day might risk a similar hejira. Don Helvecio assured them that if they wished to try, he could place the hotel limousine at their disposal.

Was it embarrassment that made him jabber on like this? Not in the least. He even did us the honor of joining us for the meal. And what in Devil’s name did I see there on the table before him? It was a plateful of the General’s Eggs, and he dug into them with a wine chaser — Julietta’s red, in point of fact. It was obvious that he was still, or once again, linked up with a Pilar, yet with a diminished degree of devotion, for otherwise he would never have halted and derailed our funeral cortege in front of his hotel. We ate nothing.

“Dig in! All you can eat! Don’t be shy, no need for that here! You’re tourists! And you, Bice, no need to hold back. You’ve sat down to dinner with princes and kings. And I want you to come back here someday and tell Es Mestre, our head chef, all about the Colloredo-Mansfeld Castle where the last Tsar’s personal cook wielded the spoon. Mon cher Vigoló can’t hear about that often enough. But what’s eating you two…?”

The torrent of twaddle splashed on. We were silent — what was there to say? We couldn’t eat a thing. We asked for tea, waited until its temperature approximated that of our bodies, and then dunked zwieback in it. That wasn’t a proper way of dining, but then tourists and artists are quite above accepted table manners.

What was up with us? Would he have to apply thumbscrews to get it out of us? Surely we weren’t sore about that stupid business with his Pilar. And where were we living? Emmerich told him that we had moved to the Count’s house. He knew the Count well, a fine fellow, a superior anarchist, an artist almost, and with a private gallery of horrors; he intended to go visit us there, just to put a stop to all the gossip. “You know, spread around by dames. But you had already moved out, and Don Alonso didn’t know where to. Antonio didn’t know anything, either, but people saw you with him often. He’s a good guy. By now you’ve become used to Spanish ways. It happens fast — the main thing is to keep your balance. You have to start thinking in Spanish from the very first day, and then everything takes care of itself.”