If I were to yield to my drive for annihilation, I would opt for the Swiss writer’s solution, even though Vigoleis and Beatrice were not separated by family hatred, which is always more intense when money is at stake. Something else, though, was separating them from their love, which did not come to an end with Pilar. What I have in mind is the fact that their tragedy, their Spanish auto, was no less worthy of attention, although up to the very moment I write this only a single writer of the most obscure reputation has taken it up as a subject. To be more precise, this writer is right now in the process of laying it all out. Will he conquer the stages of the world? That depends on whether the audiences approve of their method of dying. When the curtain falls, audiences prefer to see the boards heaped with corpses, blood everywhere, swords skewering the heroes’ armored breasts, daggers stuck in the enemy’s ribs up to the hilt, and the avenger’s cry of “How do you like that!”
That is why I said to Beatrice that I had no intention of interfering with her gloomy plans, that I was never a spoilsport except in regard to myself, “and do you know, chérie, if I were to approve, if we actually do it, won’t that mean that we are admitting defeat? That we are the slaves of our own desires? A marriage built on egotism is corrupt and will come apart. Is that what we want? Over a bit of hot water? In a house like this one, I hesitate to speak pro domo, and I could be easily misunderstood. And imagine if I were ever to write my memoirs—how should I handle this chapter of our life? Will I have to suppress it? Will I have to pretend that we never went to the dogs, or should I try to capitalize on this autobiographical detail in the manner of great writers such as St. Augustine? If you’re thinking that this is a melancholy idea, then you have to know that such is just the way I am by nature, with or without earthly ambushes by a Pilar or dilapidated youth hostels. It’s just that nobody notices. But let me make this clear: I refuse to let my sublime disgust with life be subsumed in your low-grade taedium vitae.
“Here’s another suggestion, a splendid one, one that comes from a remote corner of my being that hasn’t yet been smothered in darkness. Let’s not rush things and spoil the handiwork of Divine Providence, which on occasion has a hard enough time of it. Let’s be real men and give it an honest chance, one last chance, or maybe two last chances since there are two of us and One of them. That’s what you call fair play, sportif. Starting today we won’t boil our drinking water any more. No more killing of germs, no more prophylactic measures. Let’s make a beggarman’s contract with fate, the kind that used to be so popular, where you sign up for a process of honest competition. There’s a legal word for it, but I’ve forgotten what it is. All right, the first step will be the intestinal one. The second will be by way of Amsterdam, and for that I’ll need a sheet of paper, an envelope, and a postage stamp (which we don’t have). On second thought, I’ll send the letter without a return address so the addresse will have to pay the postage, which he’ll gladly do when he sees Clima ideal on the cancellation, considering that it rains all the time in Amsterdam. That’s the most reliable way to send a letter, because the post office always wants to get its money. And who do you think I’m going to let the post office press a fine from? One of your victims? Your erudite brother in Basel? My uncle on Cathedral Square in Münster? My dear loved ones in Süchteln on the Niers? Wrong! I’ll write to them on some other occasion, and make their eyes leap from their sockets.
Quiet, don’t ask. I want to go on being mysterious. This idea has to ripen in me like a potato seed—when it hits daylight it will suddenly turn green. I’ll start writing, Beatrice, while you recline exhausted in body and spirit on that cot for wayward youth. It’ll be a letter to the single person who holds the little sparrow of our life in his hands, and he simply won’t let it fall from the roof. I’m going to write to Vic—or rather, to put it in the arcane and cryptic form of his little country’s titular barème: to His Excellency the Most Worthy, Highest-Born, Most Erudite Sir Victor Emmanuel van Vriesland, Esquire, Friend of the Fair Sex and Connoisseur of Fine Literature—the first writer of world renown whom Vigoleis ever sinned against before he went over, or is going over, or is about to go over, to self-pollution. For you see, Beatrice, it’s all a question of transition, of transcendence, if you prefer to hear such exalted terms from your own transcendent but not at all immanent Vigoleis. I’m going to write to Vic and apply a whole lot of pressure on him, which I’ll ask him to reapply to the very pretty lady he’s closed the film contract with, and probably some other kind of contract as well. Who besides Vriesland is capable of sculpting on the weaker sex the kind of concave relief that only the ancient Egyptians were the masters of? Over the years the carvings can get clogged up, and you have to use a rasp to clean them out. In his inimitable charming way he will make an impression on this girl and free up the money. It’ll be here next week, I swear it! Today is Thursday, by nine o’clock my letter will be on its way to Barcelona. I’m going to take it directly to the harbor so it doesn’t sit around in Palma for weeks more on our friend Don Fernando’s desk. He’s a meticulous worker, and that usually means lots of delays. Next Tuesday it’ll be in Amsterdam. By Wednesday Vic will have paid the postage due, and he’ll read it on Thursday when he wakes up from the hangover he’ll have from his scrounging maneuver. Any objections, ma chère?
None. During the course of this optimistic conversation with the pessimistic Beatrice, which found me bubbling over with self-denial, I took the typewriter out of the box that the rats had gnawed at but not succeeded in ripping open. I put it on the bidetto, rolled in a sheet of paper, typed out the date “Torre del Reloj, Thursday…,” and then came the salutation. Did I write “Dear Mr. van Vriesland,” or “Dear Victor E. van Vriesland,” or just “Dear Vic”? I can’t recall which degree of human and literary cordiality author and translator had reached at this point in their relationship.
The little machine rattled and banged, the platen with its dried-out rubber roller zipped back and forth, line followed line, and the result was a lengthy epistle. Sometimes misery loves prolixity. Inspiration usually arrives from above; materialistic thinking imagines the creation of the universe, the revelation of the Good, the True, and the Beautiful, the divine enthusiasm of poets, and hitting the jackpot as resulting from an emanation from on high, a kind of bathroom shower with tiny jets whose faucet human beings have no control over, for otherwise there would be no miracle. Here in the Sundial Tower, in this grubby flophouse and eternal trampoline, inspiration reached Vigoleis from below, from the bathroom appliance he was typing at and on. You might say that he was the recipient of subterranean effusions, tellurian impulses that a dowser could detect if he ever found his way into our cell of happiness.
Vigoleis typed away on top of the bidet. It shouldn’t surprise anyone that every word he wrote took shape under the aegis of a particular legendary animal, the horse. Bidetto means literally “little horse” “little nag,” or “pony.” One thinks immediately of the winged Pegasus, the symbol of poets the world over, the stallion that created the Hippokrene Spring on Mount Helikon with a stroke of his hoof. Right here and now, our poetizing hero was digging his spurs in the loins of his Dutch colleague, urging him to gallop forth valiantly. And behold! The fabled fountain of Berlin Film Inc. will start to flow!
For a few hours the hallowed halls resounded to the rhythmic rappings of mechanically activated revelation, without discord of any kind. Beatrice does not snore in her sleep. All the other cells were still empty. My orchestration of our bitter misery thus escaped profanation by the raucous cacophony that can arise among journeying men when they, too, run out of bread and whip out their switchblades to defend their right to the last available crust. For we must not deceive ourselves about the journeyman clientele under this celestial canopy. Not a few of the establishment’s patrons will have dastardly deeds on their record, committed while on their travels under, as the poet says, the benevolent eye of God. It’s all a matter of the distance between the Creator and His creature. The only dist
urbance was the black shadows scurrying along the top of the cell partition. From day to day the rats were getting more insolent.
Tapping a final period into the machine, Vigoleis felt his inspiration suddenly expire. The emanations stalled out completely; from below there now came forth from the mythological bathroom appliance only a faintly putrid stench. And from above, silence descended upon the young man who was daring to enter the lists with fate itself.
On this third day of alimentary fasting—already preceded by a period of moral abstinence—Vigoleis’ girl slept the sleep of total exhaustion.
The hygienic pony had done its duty well. For the first time ever, and without bucking, it had tolerated an intellectual burden on its back.
At around 7 pm I went to the harbor. I left a note explaining my departure and its urgent rationale, for otherwise Beatrice might have might have gone into shock thinking that I had taken off to do myself in all alone. March in step, but bite the dust separately—is that Vigoleis’ motto?
A vigorous walker with a length of pace like my own should take 35 to 40 minutes to get from the Clock Tower to the mailbox of the Transmediterránea Steamship Company. A more casual loping gait would require about ¾ of an hour. This hike, out and back, took me more than three hours. The letter-carrier took a long rest at the dock, then he started for home with a spring in his step, like a happy convalescent. His thoughts probably oscillated between heaven and earth; today I can easily imagine what at the time I could imagine only vaguely.
Having arrived at the olfactory barricade of the slaughterhouse, I had to break through another kind of obstruction, one that had to be overcome without holding my nose. The highway in the vicinity of the Tower was now guarded by armed men. On closer approach I saw that they had formed a cordon around the Tower premises. Searchlights were scouring the area; beams of light hit me, and just as suddenly let me disappear again. So I wasn’t their target. A few mounted men galloped away—was this perhaps a night-time military maneuver? Had they selected Arsenio’s handsomely situated fortress as the scene of their strategic exercises? And what does “handsome” mean in this context? But I have no comprehension of martial whims, and maybe it was the local firefighters responding to a false alarm. But then I heard a shout of “Alto!”
“You musn’t go any farther, get back, please!” I heard myself addressed in friendly, calm, and clear tones. Mainland Spaniards are capable of this type of command; a German armed guard could never come close to it. When a German guard gives an order, he turns as steely as his rifle. The man giving me an order here was no Mallorquin.
I cobbled together my Spanish vocabulary and explained to the carabinero that I unfortunately could not leave the area, that it was imperative for me to enter the premises—yes, the “Torre del Reloj,” for that was where I lived with my wife. I used the word “wife” as a diplomatic gesture to designate a private relationship that was none of his business in any case; if this had been a German guard I would have uttered some long bureaucratic phrase.
Instead of arresting me, the gendarme laughed. In fact, he laughed resoundingly, and I would have bet my own head that he was a high-ranking officer, although I couldn’t see his stars. He was still giggling when he called over another member of his squad to share the joke with him—“Hey, just think, this guy says he lives here with a woman—with his wife!” His colleague laughed out loud, too: “Oh sure! Who hasn’t lived in there with a woman?” But then, “Now please leave.”
It is not my habit to resist authority. I lack money for doing this, and therefore I lack the courage. What is more, I was very tired, and thus I could be excused many things. But before I acted in obedience to the command to depart, I had a brilliant idea: I named a name. Civil servants of all kinds are impressed by names, simply because they earn their bread by seeking to eliminate namelessness in the line of duty. I told them to apprise Don Arsenio of my presence; what I said was that they should contact him right away and tell him that Don Vigo, the German, the homme de lettres, was at the cordon outside, and that Arsenio should identify him.
Thank heavens, they finally understood me. Minutes later I was escorted under armed guard to the courtyard, where a turbulent act of the world stage was being performed. I don’t know who was playing what role, nor do I know who wrote the script. But it was clear that the Lord of the Manse was not a mere extra in this drama, to judge from the sweaty and jowl-shaking excitement and bossiness of his behavior (“Just you try…!”). My almocrebe was there, too, as well as a few men I had often seen ambling across the Tower courtyard—regular customers, I supposed, for Arsenio ran a café here where you could get things to eat and drink; you just clapped your hands, and the table set itself. And now they were all swearing up and down; nobody understood a word I was saying or what anybody else was saying—which swearing isn’t meant to accomplish anyway. When I appeared on the stage, Arsenio swung his hat. I didn’t catch the cue from the prompter. And then a captain of the guard came up to me.
This captain—maybe he had one more star, I’m not familiar with this brand of astronomy—greeted me politely, and in his address to me employed the French language. He was neatly combed and uniformed, ironed and polished, and I was unkempt and unshaven, and very, very tired. Oh you brigands, you who wield power, let me pass! What is the password? I want to go to bed. I’ve just sent a letter to Vic. The letter is already afloat, it’s proceeded ahead of you, you can call it predestination of the Lyon kind, everything is fitting together nicely like a worm gear. Why, if the bidet hadn’t served me as a burbling fount of artesian inspiration I would still be squatting in front of it with my machine, grasping for fitting words to open the eyes of my colleague—yes, you natty fellows, I happen to be a colleague of Monsieur Victoire de Vriesland, un homme de lettres, lui aussi.
What were these official gentlemen doing here anyway, in the calm of night? Everywhere and anywhere in the world, policemen are an embarrassment. The more innocent you are, the quicker you’ll get caught, for the true culprit knows how to pull his neck out of the sling. The sling will be pulled tight no matter what, but they never catch the real guy. But now, is it me they want to catch? Or maybe Beatrice? Or one of the ladies of the night, one of the thirty? But now there are only twenty-nine of them; we have, after all, requisitioned a bidetto for service in intellectual pursuits—we, your typical representatives of a bidet-less culture. That’s it! We are a bidet-less culture! That’s what I’ve been trying to explain to Beatrice. That’s the reason why we North People, we who get conceived to the accompaniment of the goose step and get born with trumpet fanfares, that’s why we are in such decline! A nation’s greatness…
Then the major said he had been told that I was a German, and that I had taken up lodgings with my Madame in the Clock Tower. Very well. But was this in fact the case—please understand, just a formality…? Could I provide identification? And, pardon, what was I doing at this place, since it didn’t seem as though it accepted permanent guests. Or did Señor Arsenio recently… ahem…? There was a long pause, the colonel looked over at the Giant but refrained from slapping his boot-top with his riding whip. He spoke French slowly, correctly, with no grammatical mistakes, although Beatrice probably would have counted up a dozen or more, and then added the ones I was making, and it would have been curtains for both of us. As it was, the officer and I understood each other perfectly. Of course I could prove my legitimacy; my passport was in our room—should I go get it? And if I may be permitted to inquire, what was this all about?
That was for the time being none of my business—such, in effect, was the reply, though it may have been more polite. There was a small complication. Allons. I climbed the open staircase with the sergeant in my tracks. Not one rat showed its face. They had all hidden away because the battalion had arrived with dogs in tow, and the gendarmes who weren’t standing guard were patrolling the fields with muskets at the ready. Revolution? But the King had long since been smoked out. Or was he trying to smuggle himself ba
ck in?
A carabinero was standing guard at our private chamber. He saluted his superior and gave his report. It sounded much like army headquarters, and my next thought, so close to the pilarière, was: the vice squad, as in Amsterdam on Nicolaas Beets Straat. Well then, if you want to know, we’re not really married. We’re living together in devout congress, and we’re at the end of our rope. Poor Beatrice, a mangy rat hanging from our partition wall would be better than this. The only redeeming feature of the scene was that the guard was seated on a chair.
And Beatrice was seated on our cot with her flowery peignoir, looking more exotically beautiful, more Indian than ever. Her right hand—Good Lord, how angry she must be! “What’s going on? Have you been sitting in front of the door all this time? Are they looking for somebody?”
“What’s going on? I was about to ask you the same thing. They’re turning the place upside down.”
My sense of security returned. My fatigue was gone. I should have crossed swords with the general, not chickened out as I did back in Münster when a fellow student, a member of a dueling fraternity, challenged me, and I answered him in the presence of other habitual duelers, that I was too cowardly for swordplay, and anyway not the dueling sort. My friends studying in the theology department were proud of me; they detected in this reply a proof of my enormous courage. But then I turned cowardly a second time, and didn’t even try to explain to them that I was really and truly a coward.
I handed our passports to the captain outside the door. First the document from the Weimar Republic and then the little booklet, showing official stamps from page one through to the end, issued by the Swiss Confederation. Oh, the lady has done some traveling, said the officer, and I immediately took shame at the paucity of stamps in my own passport. Everything was in order, many thanks, but could he just take a peek into our room, though he didn’t wish to disturb Madame, very sorry, he wasn’t going to ask any questions, we obviously didn’t belong here, “c’est la vie,” he was just doing his duty. He did it with a rapid, expert glance inside the cell, then he gave us a majestic salute. Surely he had the highest rank in his line of service, and without any doubt he was a man of the world. As such, and dressed in civilian clothes, he returned to the Clock Tower a few days later and made Beatrice a grand-style immoral proposition. Meanwhile the guard had gone to sleep on his chair. I let him snooze and closed the door noiselessly.
The Island of Second Sight Page 30
