The Island of Second Sight

by Albert Vigoleis Thelen

  One day the Consul summoned me to appear before him in his official capacity. Now completely brown, and very important as he sat there under a picture of the Führer and singing the Führer’s praises, he gave me an official pronouncement: it was his duty to monitor me in the interest of the Party, and would I kindly sign this—some document or other declaring loyalty to the Führer, unconditionally. Without hesitation I left his office. Now the Consul knew what kind of person he was dealing with. “Don’t leave out a single answer,” he once said to me. I had answered every last question of his. But I wasn’t shot on the spot, for the Consul knew what I knew—and since, to be clear about it, he was himself on the spot, he chose to be careful. All the more careful now, since during our first conversation I didn’t hide from him the fact that I came from the same region of the homeland as Joseph Goebbels, that Goebbels and I once sat together—not in school but in the closer quarters of a university literature seminar—and that, as he no doubt realized, both Goebbels and I were failed poets and philosophers. I intimated that Goebbels and I were bosom buddies. From bosom embraces to denunciation is but a single step—Hagen’s people! You don’t have to be very bright to discover that in a regime of terror nobody trusts anybody else. That is why the Nazis didn’t shoot us dozens of times. Spies never earned a penny on me or on Beatrice. We made no bones about calling the bastards bastards. And so the spies thought, “They must be spies!”

  Otherwise the new Consul was a fine fellow. The Führer handed him a billy club for “monitoring” the Germans on the island—I’ll say it in Nietzsche’s words—with a blast of trumpets and with the connivance of the sheep, the jackass, the goose and everything else that was incurably stupid and loud-mouthed and ripe for the booby hatch of the Great Modern Idea.

  Meanwhile, Martin Heidegger had added a new dimension of “submission to the fate” of his “being on hand” of existence by genuflecting before the Führer. And Thomas Mann, who had left Germany for good, sat in his villa on the shore of Lac Léman, taking good care of both of his aspects, as ter Braak put it: that of the artist and that of the bourgeois. There was quite a stir over the fact that he let his newest books appear in the S. Fischer publishing house in Berlin. With Heidegger we at least knew what the man was about. But with Thomas Mann? Few people understood, and nor did I.

  Dr. ter Braak had given up his university chair to accept an appointment in The Hague as Henri Borel’s successor as arts-and-literature editor for the prestigious newspaper Het Vaderland. He became one of the sharpest and cleverest opponents of the National Socialist doctrine of rancor, and over time earned a name for himself as a cultural philosopher. His books could no longer appear in Germany, nor could he himself—he would have been put to the sword. Busy with my Patucos and Uluas, I had forgotten that some of my translations from Dutch and Spanish, plus certain other literary jetsam, were languishing in German publishers’ desk drawers. As soon as the Führer blew reveille, the troops mobilized for the Big Clean-Up. Publishers rushed to “coordinate” themselves, and Vigoleis was either returned to the sender or, in the form of manuscript, immolated in the mini-Auschwitz of the editor’s office.

  The first volume of Thomas Mann’s Egyptian Tales was published by S. Fischer in Berlin. The book found its way to the Vaderland to be reviewed, and ter Braak sent it over to his local Amsterdam specialist for German literature, Dr. F. M. Huebner. The latter refused to review a book by a writer whose works were still appearing in Germany, but who was complaining about the Führer in foreign lands. Huebner was afraid he would be shot if he took on this prickly assignment. The Nazis gave no quarter. No one wants to get shot.

  Ter Braak found a way to get what he wanted. He remembered his German translator on Mallorca, and sent him a telegram: would you be willing to send us reviews of books by German emigrants? I telegraphed back in the affirmative. I soon received a long letter explaining all the technical details of my cooperation. Ter Braak suggested that I choose a pseudonym to avoid getting shot. I agreed. Thus I opened up a little market stand at Het Vaderland under the innocuous name “Leopold Fabrizius.” I wrote down exactly what I thought about every book and author that was sent to me. I didn’t think very much of several of these, and I said so. Writers don’t care a fig for what reviewers have to say, but publishers like to hear praise in superlatives; it makes good copy for blurbs. With certain other authors, I thought to myself, what a shame it was that the German emigration has nothing better to offer, and that some writers were being published simply because they were anti. Again and again I had to deal squarely with the problem of love for the fatherland, the homeland. How ridiculous such a feeling was, and how dangerous! Where does “the fatherland” begin? When is it synonymous with “home”? And when is it synonymous with—us?

  Deported and emigrated writers were now everywhere, sharing the fate of a Heinrich Heine, a Ludwig Börne, and a Gracias a Dios. They wrote, and they kept on writing.

  Again and again, the books I reviewed presented me with the opportunity for digressions about general human affairs. But what I wrote got interpreted politically. If I wrote that Hitler was guilty of crimes against humanity, the tritest expression of truth imaginable, I was wrong, and the editor scratched it out. Ter Braak then quickly sent me his apologies. He himself would have let it pass, but his Vaderland could not countenance any dishonoring of the head of state of a friendly nation. The Pope, too, was apparently among the infallibles, for when I was sent a novel that provoked me into making certain statements about a Concordat that drove millions of unsuspecting Catholics into the arms of the Führer, this too was excised. I’ll admit that I expressed my opinion not in clever paraphrase, but in clear language: the Holy Father was handling his Divine Lord’s monstrance as if it were a sputino, and acting with authentic Roman grandezza. It was censored out. I was told that I ought to have circumlocuted on this subject, in the style of Loyola—surely I could emulate that kind of prose. This may not have been the way for me to write, but it was definitely the way to act. Today I would no longer make such mistakes. I have learned a few things in the meantime, though not all that much.

  Until May 1940, signing on as “Leopold Fabrizius,” I kept open my stand on the Dutch Vaderland market square, sending in chronicles from Spanish, Swiss, French, and Portuguese “soil.” My comments were always edited—apparently the mesh on my muzzle was always too wide. I forgot one thing: the Third Reich was a huge market for Dutch vegetables. Mr. van Beverwijn, the colonist, having got rich on sub-humans, was of the opinion that if Holland made the Führer angry—then what was to be done with all the cauliflower? The editors had no need to censor my final book review—that was taken care of by the friendly Dutch nation itself. And since the nation in question is known for its meticulousness, no one in Holland was surprised that their whole country got censored. Vigoleis-Fabrizius, who never considered himself intelligent, thought to himself: were the Dutchmen really so stupid? No, they were no more stupid than the French or the British. It’s just that their market for vegetables was bigger than they were.

  Before Menno ter Braak could be snagged by the Nazis, he took his own life, on the day in May of 1940 when the greatest consumer of Royal Dutch vegetables completely turned the tables on his neighboring country.

  The Consul kept picking at me. Our relationship was reciprocal: I was a Leader for his tours, and yet he wanted to lead me. He was dealing with a stubborn guy, one of those who resist their own chances at happiness. He sent observers to my house, and they reported to him that I had no secrets. Everything was displayed out in the open, the poverty as well as the political opinions. So then the Consul decided to issue warnings. He waxed paternal and, while maintaining diplomatic severity, he remained almost friendly. He also outlined certain plans for me. It was a shame, he said, that I was getting nowhere with all my latent talent. My strengths ought to be put to use for the national movement in Germany. After all, the Reich was not shabby in its preferences. Now wouldn’t that be grand, I said. The
shabbiest of them all, refusing to be called shabby! My Spanish had become quite fluent, schooled as I was at tertulias, on flour sacks, and in daily converse with the Sureda family. One more reason, the Consul remarked, to place my tongue at the service of the Führer.

  Instead, my tongue as well as my pen kept active against the Führer, with the result that our notions of what constituted hunger had to be expanded. In Germany, the Consul said, people would be put in jail for what I was up to, maybe even shot, and here on the island—he was warning me. He himself refrained from taking certain measures, but fellow party members, spies, and murderers were spread over all of Spain to rein in undesirable elements. And people were getting killed.

  In our case, it began with a boycott. We suddenly noticed that our income was diminishing. The elegant people in the palaces started backing off. Had their daughters already learned enough? No, Pedro told us, but all over Palma we were rumored to be Communists. In stores we refused to buy German products, and for that we would have to pay. Communism always had to pay; the world was far from being able to afford such a luxury. Doors were getting closed at our approach. We were getting avoided like Don Juan Sureda’s pack of dogs at sundown. Vigoleis, the Catholic German, and Doña Beatriz, that snobbish product of incest between Basel and Lake Titicaca, were finally unmasked: Communists! How cleverly these types worm their way into big capitalist houses and princely palaces! How well they know how to balance on three-legged chairs, with the intent of undermining society! Was society not yet hollow enough for them? And just consider the final blow they are aiming at—Christian Science, of all things! Can such goings-on be allowed to continue? That’s what everybody was wondering, and with good reason.

  Mamú was approached with the Christian admonition to bar us from crossing her threshold. The spokesperson was Madame van Beverwijn, and behold, she now had on her side her old seneschal, the miserable renal case who was impervious to any kind of prayer, and of course all the biddies. No “heretics” must ever enter a house where the Mother Church of Christian Science installed a Bible and a squeaky little organ! Every day they are committing sins against the Führer and capitalism—out with them!

  Mamú, who liked to take charge, and who herself represented capital, even though the Royal Baking Gang was challenging her for it—Mamú was not intimidated. She wasn’t afraid of us, and she wasn’t afraid of the biddies, unless in their anger they decided to pray the stones back into her kidneys. In this regard Mamú was not so firmly convinced of the Christian motives of her clucking flock. She remained loyal to us even when we pleaded with her: “Let us depart in peace! Your house has become a place of worship, and we do not wish to make it into a scene of discord. Besides, your internal secretions are in danger. Those ladies are capable of anything.”

  “Upon my life, you stay!”

  A German lady, wearing the swastika at her bosom and claiming to be the wife of the Swedish consul, was the first to leave the bible-study group on our account. Then some others strayed off; half a dozen of them. Then a dozen decided to go pray somewhere else. They were replaced by new recruits, including some who had fled Germany and had terrible things to report about the Führer: he didn’t like Christian Science, and was persecuting them just like the Catholic Church, the PEN Club, the lodges, and the Rotarians! This came as a shock to Church Matron van Beverwijn. God was putting her to a severe test. While the pious old hags sang hymns in Mamú’s salon and quarreled over the question whether the Führer was sent by God or perhaps by the Devil, the old gentleman with the ragged white beard and a Royal Dutch signet in his buttonhole sat beneath a palm tree in the park, day-dreaming of the headhunters back on Borneo. He praised the Führer, but he was honest and, oddly, smart enough to admit that this was all in the interest of vegetables and the Royal Dutch Bank.

  Destiny is an octopus. It has many arms, and they are equipped for grasping. There was no need for the Führer to lift his own arm in order to shake the foundations of the Mother Church.

  First there arrived an anonymous letter: Mamú’s private church was stirring up unrest among the inhabitants of El Terreno. She must close her temple and desist from her blasphemous activities. Catholic Spain could not tolerate heathens. Signed: a Catholic Spaniard who reveres the Fatherland and the Church.

  This threatening letter was tendered shortly before the divine service. Mamú, who was already seated in her matriarchal chair in the midst of her devout adepts, asked me to translate the text into English, the language used by the congregation. I did this slowly and with diabolical glee, and surely not without mistakes. The Scientific quails immediately started fluttering about like a row of hens—“Heathens? Us?!” A decrepit English spinster swooned and had to be carried to the kitchen, where the cook sprayed water on her. Most of the ladies simply wept at the bitterness of it all. “Us, heathens?” Yes, I said, paganos means heathens, no doubt about it. That’s the “gentiles” of the Bible, the ones who were a thorn in Saint Paul’s side.

  Mevrouw van Beverwijn leaped up from her chair. As white as the biblical wall, she pointed directly at me and said: there he is, the low-down slanderer, the writer of that anonymous letter, Mamú’s friend! She tore the letter from my hand—a grand gesture in this place of worship. I was trembling over my whole body, but before the pious hyenas that were still conscious could pounce on me and skin me alive, in my usual cowardly way I had already fled the scene—one more bit of evidence that I was the source of the evil calumnies.

  Mamú groaned, and she, too, had to be ministered to. Auma and Beatrice assumed this duty. Everyone thought that Mamú was about to die, and she wouldn’t have a beautiful death after all, giving up the ghost here, amidst swooning old ladies. Was this a sign from God? Wasn’t it obvious that we were Communists? Out with them! Nevertheless, our Sunday roast tasted quite good.

  No sooner had the flock reassembled on the following Sunday for devotional services, when a new calamity befell the bigoted band. Calpurnia, one of the housemaids, came running to the palm tree where we were chatting with old man Beverwijn. The local pastor had arrived and wished to speak with the mistress of the house. He couldn’t be turned away. As soon as the maid made this announcement, the cassock-clad gentleman himself made his appearance. I introduced myself as a friend of the household and inquired as to the purpose of his visit. He had come to warn Mamú, and to request that she remove the church advertisement from her front door. Our pagan activities were causing ill-feeling all over the Terreno. The Spaniards, he said, had rather different ideas concerning the House of God. “I do, too,” I replied, and asked the man of the cloth to follow me into the house. Like a wolf entering a herd of sheep, this certified man of God stepped among the heathens precisely at the moment when they began intoning a hymn of praise. One lady from Geneva, who possessed more Swiss francs than musical talent but whose son was a famous constitutional lawyer, was seated at the harmonium pumping away. Devoutly out of tune, the air entered the pipes amid jarring staccatos, for every now and then the lady gave herself a shot of morphine through her dress into one of her pumping legs—she had not yet been prayed free of her addiction—whereupon God’s praises resounded anew in all registers. The saints sang away with a conviction exceeding that of the Bremen Town Musicians. Then it was quiet again: they caught sight of the man in black, plus the black-hearted Vigoleis.

  The pastor delivered his message in French, tactfully and sympathetically. He was, he explained, a tolerant man, while other clergymen were less so, and the Church authorities least tolerant of all. The tablet at the front door would have to be removed, and the meetings would have to cease. He was aware of the heathen nature of Scientism, and he was willing to commend them all to the Lord’s mercy. Praise be to Jesus Christ, he added. With my response, “To all eternity, Amen,” the noontime phantasmagoria was at an end.

  Nobody fell over dead, no one had to be resuscitated with a spray of water. And yet this was a fierce blow! God had once again sent a sign that worked out in Vigoleis’
favor. Mevrouw van Beverwijn extended her hand to me and begged my pardon. She was willing to take back her accusations, and she was going to pray for me. She said this in Dutch, whereas English was the customary language for discussing God and His Science. I was happy to reply in the same tongue. “Mevrouw,” I said, “please don’t bother. My mother has been praying for me all her life, and it’s never any use. I suggest that you pray for yourself instead. Ask your Creator to let you live long enough to see your friend Hitler start up his war, inundate your Dutch fatherland, and slaughter everyone who refuses to collaborate with the mighty Behemoth. When this happens, think of that poor fool Vigoleis on Mallorca, and think of this moment in Mamú’s house. And if you still have enough strength and enough money in your bank account to go on believing in God, then say your prayers for the Kingdom of the Netherlands!”

  “How marvelous,” said Mamú as we treated ourselves to her Sunday meal. Once again José had outdone himself—which is to say, for the first time he prepared for us the legendary, ancient Mallorquin dish called erissó, using a secret recipe long thought to have disappeared. It was a sautéd sea-urchin of such delicacy that it seemed almost like a stroke of Divine Providence to be savoring it on the day of my Christian rehabilitation. “How marvelous were those things you said in my Mother Church!” But that business about Mevrouw’s bank account—that was going a bit too far. Still, otherwise…