Gesell Dome
Published in Issue #18 Translated from Spanish by Andrea G. Labinger(Excerpt from a Novel)
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One morning, the bus leaves the main road and turns into the roundabout. The entrance to the Villa. Alpine-style constructions. Tiled roofs. Real-estate offices. Farther on is the tourist information cottage. Now that the bus has slowed down, you can take in the grove on both sides of the road. For a moment you feel like you’re entering an enchanted forest. The wood and stone totem pole takes you by surprise. Some say it’s a reproduction of an Inca totem. It has the head of an eagle. Others claim that if you look carefully at the hieroglyphs, you can read a Tibetan message. At the tourist office they’ll tell you that the totem is a symbol of hospitality and advise travelers that they’ll find spiritual peace in this place. The older residents, the pioneers, those who settled here toward the end of the Second World War, Germans and Central Europeans, offer another version; they interpret the symbols and hieroglyphs differently. But they haven’t got the nerve to translate them. The totem has a function: to protect the residents from foreigners. When the newcomer’s eye meets the eagle’s, he feels intimidated. It’s a Nazi symbol, say the Villa old-timers. And they say it in a low voice, fearfully. Some say there never were any Nazis here. And when they say it, you think it’s themselves they want to convince even more than the visitors. What matters is spiritual peace. Everyone comes here, to our Villa, looking for that: spiritual peace.
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