“You see, Baby…” Zwingli opted for the English language to explain how his plan had developed. He was great at developing plans, that I knew. He was a veritable genius at envisioning things on a grand scale, but with the details of implementation he was an utter failure. He could hold his own with women in the plural, but with individual women he invariably went on the skids. He began his explanation plainly and soberly, with just a touch of impishness. But soon he donned the verbal cloak of man of the future, so much so that we were no longer anything but an audience for him, an amorphous crowd to be fed a big line and eventually, against our will and instinct, to be talked into agreeing with him totally. “You see…,” and we truly saw. That is the amazing thing about people with such oratorical gifts. For a little while, we can actually be won over by their prestidigitation. We follow with our own eyes as the buxom lady is sawn in half in her wooden box.
Back in Cologne I had observed Zwingli in superb form. After a lecture by Professor Brinkmann, we returned to my room to discuss a scholarly problem mentioned by that distinguished art historian. Zwingli knew almost all the art museums in Europe, having shepherded around rich people from the States, and especially from South America, as a tourist guide. His “Tours of the Old World Galleries,” which he had organized for groups of seldom more than twelve and with the help of various travel bureaus, were well known and very popular. Over the years they netted him quite a thick wad, which he promptly squandered on women or gave away to struggling artists who acknowledged his kindness with gifts of their own work. His private collection, called “Works of Neglected Genius,” was respectable. Where it ever ended up the devil only knows. The knowledge of art history he amassed in this fashion would be the envy of any university doctoral candidate, as was also true of the instructional material he collected for himself. Whenever he stayed for more than a couple of months in a university town, he would sign up for courses in art history and write down reams of commentary and analysis in preparation for the time when he, too, would be a Professor of Art History. That was his life’s ambition, and he took as his model the great inventor of the discipline, his own distant relative and ancestor Jacob Burckhardt.
But, still, and yet… Whichever opening qualifier we might choose, the fact remains that Zwingli never got his longed-for professorship. The reason was that he applied for it in the wrong field. For not only was he an extraordinary, fully informed, and much-sought-after cicerone in Old-World Collections. He likewise commanded the most astonishing expertise, down to the nicest details of filigree, in the bedrooms of the same metropolises through which he guided so many wealthy devotees of art and beauty. And the art and beauty he got to observe in such places, whose price of admission was usually quite considerable, was not in all cases free of contamination. Because Zwingli never would praise or show a work of art that he didn’t know beforehand, he soon fell victim to certain intérieurs that he admired so much on the canvases of the French Impressionists.
Here over coffee and ensaimadas, and wearing his shirt of historical hue, standing before two exhausted victims who meant the world to him — here he spread out before us a congeries of projects that would affect our future on the island. To wit: he was planning, with the aid of an American millionaire, to establish an International Institute of Fine Arts, and he wanted us as collaborators. He had already worked out all the details. It was to be an enterprise of such imposing proportions that these days not even Unesco could bring into being. I shall return to this project presently, when I describe the nucleus of the establishment on the Calla Caltrava, where it threatened to degenerate into a lupanar and where art verily became impoverished. But as for the immediate future, i.e., what we were to do once we rose from this improvised breakfast table — not one word! It was possible that he had talked over this trivial matter with his sister while my own hands had been otherwise occupied.
“I intend to establish, as an adjunct to the Institute, an academy for the selection and training of nude models. Beautiful bodies are not sufficient for a painter; they must know how to utilize their anatomy, and this they will learn at our academy. I also intend to mount a campaign against the prejudice that nude models meet up with practically everywhere. Down here you can’t even get a prostitute to sit for you. Women of all classes will soon regard it as a personal and professional honor to be listed in my files with all their anatomical and aesthetic qualifications and idiosyncrasies!”
“And you, you sly old lecher-in-law,” I could not resist interjecting, “you’ll be the meat inspector for your international model-selection bureau. You have a practiced eye and an excellent grasp of womanhood — just as long as they don’t have you by the…”
“Not just a good grasp, my dear Vigoleis! Women are a full half of my life…”
“Sure. The half that lies below the belly-button. And with you, no matter how a mathematician or a geometer might object to the phrase, with you that is the greater half. The other half of you has other preoccupations — art, for example, or at least the visual kind of art. And maybe the Hotel Príncipe Alfonso. Or was that a vehicle from your private motor pool that drove us up the ramp here?”
How rude of me, in light of that classy transportation and the clever style of breakfast, to express doubts about the way he divided up his interests. Zwingli no doubt was about to floor me with a snappy rejoinder. But before he could come out with it, we all heard a noise coming from behind the door that had led me to the enchanting darkroom. This was the prelude to a brand new episode. We didn’t have a revolving stage, and we could already hear the preparations going on backstage for the ensuing scene, but this only heightened our suspense. From two sources of knowledge — from Vigoleis himself who experienced the drama as co-actor, and from my superior perspective as narrator — I am aware of what is about to happen. Otherwise I would now be pressing my hands to my heart, just as I did following the shock I felt in the sleeping girl’s bedchamber. And already I had to steel myself for a new set of confusions. The door opened, and in came…
During the intervening years I have frequently recounted my Iberian adventures in the presence of friends. People have said that I am a brilliant, indeed a peerless story-teller, the master of a rapidly expiring craft. Strictly speaking, there is no such thing as human achievement, just as there is no true human guilt. Rather, we all act at all times in ways that, mysteriously, have been planned out for us. Thus, without fear of sounding pompous, I surely may be permitted here to display in its best light this particular facet of my talents, one which, by the way, never really compensates for my chronic blockheadedness. I practice this art and heaven-sent skill of mine in an era when its specialists can manage to earn a living at it only on the island of Ibiza. What is more, I am very particular about the circumstances under which I practice my craft. The setting for my performances is by no means always ideal. This is how I imagine the optimum surroundings: a comfortable easy chair, but one that doesn’t shift my center of gravity so far back that my ungainly body is unable to rise for climactic moments. A bottle of wine, some candy in a bowl—“No, thank you, I still haven’t taken up smoking”—good ventilation, and a small circle of friends. Women? If possible, and if they are pretty, all the better.
I commence with a few introductory remarks, then with rapid strokes I sketch out the setting and add some people. At this point, while still offering a preliminary overview, I can easily get sidetracked. It often happens that an apparently tangential matter can become the main topic, simply because this or that aspect of the subject, some quirk or other that I had barely noticed up till now, suddenly engages my own attention so urgently that it subsequently turns into a complete, unified story. If I sense that my listeners are falling under my narrative spell, then this has a doubly energizing effect. I lose sight of my normal self and begin to embody all the roles that I intend to present in my tale. I turn into a young girl carrying a jar of oil on her head, or an ancient crone surrounded by a cloud of dust and moths that have eaten away the majestic robe she wanted to show off for me. Or I’m a man with an enormous hat, riding with ridiculous boots and spurs astride a puny jackass, a character who was none other than my own self — I mean the man, though in another tale I star as the ass.