Bobby occasionally came to visit, just as in peacetime. Life went on in the daytime, whereas the nights were devoted to bloodshed. Bobby had witnessed a thing or two in Valldemosa, up in the mountains of his new homeland. Doña Clara sent a message, saying that if we had nothing more to eat we should go to her place and await the end of the war in her hospedage. Where there was food for a group of twelve, two more hungry mouths wouldn’t bring about starvation. But we still had a little money, and Doña Inés’ sardine cans hadn’t been used up yet.
After several weeks, when Bobby returned telling tales of more horror, he found us emaciated. Our money was gone, our bank account was frozen, the sardine cans were empty, and the jug of oil was down to the last half-inch. For three weeks we had been living on tea, vineyard snails, and prickly pears. It was a stroke of luck that Doña Inés’ rock garden was crawling with snails, if one is willing to accept the word ‘crawling’ as referring statically to the great multiplicity, and not dynamically to the back-and-forth weaving and slithering of these tasty creatures. By day they were invisible; like the crusading gangsters, they emerged from their hiding places only at night. While all around us we could hear the death squads in action, while motorcycles roared, and while the populace of the island was getting thinned out according to the perceived degree of Christian faith, or lack of the same, the two of us searched the ground for snails using dimmed candles. One night Bobby took a snail census: he knew exactly how many there were, and figured out their marching routes and crossways. The mollusks had long since ceased being a delicacy, but now, just as in an emergency the Devil will eat flies, we hunted down our creepy-crawlies. Our Folkwang huntsman Bobby, absolutely convinced of his prowess, led me to the places where his calculations told him we could still locate the animals: four underneath that potsherd, two under that moldy cactus leaf, seven under the jagged agave, and two more down near their copulation stone. He would snatch them blindly, if our sailor neighbor hadn’t already squished them with his feet. Our neighbor, however, had done just that, and so all of a sudden we came up with no snails at all. But wait, Bobby said. Let’s not be so pessimistic. There was one more snail out there, he said, and since on occasion he was able to hear his own beard growing, we were confident that he would get on the trail of our very last snail. We had just one match left to cook our last meal. This was one of those Southern nights that are luminescent, and snail trails also glow in the dark. But after a full hour Bobby returned minus a catch, his face flushed with frustration. I went out in the garden myself to try my luck. Nothing doing. Our last snail had got the jump on us, and we couldn’t catch up.
“Well, we’ll just have to leave,” said Beatrice. Prolonged hunger can make a person irritable, and snails with prickly pear à la vinaigrette make for very sour fodder. One more week of this stimulating diet and we bleeding-heart pacifists, too, would have reached for a revolver and taken up combat against those outside who were fighting for the glory of God and filling His consecrated cemeteries. We were already benumbed. As for myself, I am willing to confess that the execution of 14 people, for whose death I was unknowingly responsible, did not deprive me of my senses. It would take too long to set forth the tragic details of a mistake that caused the Christian crusaders to commit new acts of terror. When we heard shooting in the vicinity of the Casa Inés, when we heard the screaming of women and children, my heart did not burst. It was the most awful night of my life — the night when my heart did not cease its beating.
It’s an amazing thing about any war, that after committing a few atrocities, a human being can regress to the womb of primeval atrocity.
We had eaten our next-to-last snail, and the last one had escaped, so there was no sense in our staying in Génova. The next day we went to the English Consulate and asked to be evacuated on a warship. No problem, we were told. His Majesty’s Navy stood ready to rescue anybody from this hell, no matter the nationality. “Your nationality?”
“We’re Germans.” That would be all right, we learned, but the protocol of international cooperation would require that the German Consulate stamp my passport as valid for evacuation. Beatrice, who in the meantime had become my passport-validated spouse — a stupid move that deprived her of her bullet-proof Swiss passport — and I just stared at the British official. Was he crazy? A passport stamp that would allow us to flee? From the Nazi Consul, who had already threatened us with documents from back home? I started explaining my unusual situation: I was an early emigré from Germany, but anti-Nazi. Couldn’t this man understand that it would be impossible for me to approach the German Consulate? Beatrice interrupted, asking if we might speak with the British Consul in person. We knew the gentleman; Count Kessler had maintained good relations with him. He wasn’t there; he had been called off to the interior of the island with the urgent task of rescuing British subjects from the threat of execution by reason of mistaken identity.
Doubtless this was the same kind of mistake that almost led to the execution of the Admiral of the British Mediterranean Fleet when he was seen stepping out of a jolly boat on the sandy beach at Coll de Rebassa, all alone and dressed in a white civilian tropical suit. He wanted to take a swim, and that was prohibited under pain of death; every island beach was now a death zone. A swarm of kids, armed to the teeth, let out Indian war whoops and surrounded the man. The Admiral, of middling height and slim, his features the typical English hybrid of old salt and university scholar — we later made his acquaintance on board his ship — remained as composed as Karl May’s Old Shatterhand at the martyr’s stake. “What’s wrong, fellows?” he asked. But the fellows didn’t understand English, and weren’t in a joking mood. All of them had cocked their pistols, and now they were waiting to see who would take the first shot. It was a sure thing that this spy would have to be knocked off.
They couldn’t agree among them, and that is the only reason why the Admiral wasn’t summarily blasted into the sand. They got hold of a truck, and delivered their precious booty to Manacor. His Lordship offered no resistance. He couldn’t speak Spanish, and at Manacor they took him for a kook who was pretending to be the Admiral of the Mediterranean Fleet. They were used to cases like this one: even in peacetime, people on the island pretended to be all kinds of things they weren’t, and now in the midst of a war! This was a time when army generals were being canonized and worshiped. Even so, a few of the Manacor officers were taken aback. This kook’s behavior seemed to manifest a degree of hallucination unknown in Spain. They sent for an interpreter, who after a brief conversation advised them to send this Sir, unexecuted, to Palma. If it was found out that the guy was truly a nut case and hence a spy, he could still be shot in the head.