Majorca

In 1952 amidst an onslaught of political attacks my father leased an isolated house tucked into a craggy cove called Cala Sant Vincente on the remote Mediterranean island of Majorca. The traditional Majorcan house was notable for its white brick walls, and its cool tiled terraces. Built into the rocky hillside it was surrounded by almond groves and colorful bougainvillea. The secluded house was accessible by means of a narrow goat track that twisted along for 5 km to Pollensa.

Despite the warm tropical setting, this sojourn in the Spanish sunshine was no idyll for my parents. This was a hideous time when people who had served their country under difficult circumstances were rewarded by being excluded from public service and denied employment at home, all because their perspectives were at odds with current political climate. Finding themselves unwelcome at home. Many opted to settle where life was cheap. Others were attracted by the unhurried pace of life along the coast of the Mediteranean. It was unsurprising that these these idyllic tidewater communities had attracted the likes of Robert Graves, Gertrude Stein, Anaïs Nin, and Ernest Hemingway among others.

With the Cold War encroaching, opinions were hardening and diversity was literally withering on the vine. Many of our most able experts on China, Russia and Eastern Europe were getting the cold shoulder, pressured to resign or forced into exile. In those days Foreign Service families often included an extended staff. In our case this included our German governess, and a Majorcan couple that served as our maid and butler for more than twenty years. And of course, a menagerie of dogs, birds and even a donkey. Pulling up stakes was no simple matter.

Our donkey was endlessly useful, be it hauling groceries from the village to clearing the detritus collecting under the olive groves. Maria Tina was a patient beast, but on occasion was known to kick. I do recall one instance, when she knocked me down on our dusty court yard. I was so incensed that I picked myself up, marched over to her and tried to kick her back. I soon learned to respect her space; especially her back side. Our servants, Maria and Pepe Polar would sit on the steps laughing as they watched this collision of my unstoppable energy and Maria Tina’s stubborn immovability. Eventually the donkey got used to my noisy antics and simply ignored me. I too, modified my furious assaults in the face of the unwavering resistance. Yankee determination, it seems, had no chance in the Mediterranean climate.

Majorca was a long way from Washington, where the the State Department machinations were determining my father’s future. His strenuous effort to reverse his misfortunes seemed to melt in the torpor of the Mediterranean sun. Often it took weeks to get responses to their letters. Visitors were rare and uncertainty filled the sun bleached void.

Cherries

Not only were we isolated from family and friends, but it soon became abundantly clear we were beyond the reach of modern medicine. Sometime during the spring of 1953 I developed intense stomach pains and the local doctor was consulted. After examining me the doctor declared that I had contracted polio. Happily he reported that he had procured some of the recently available antibiotic: penicillin. He promptly injected a dose into my right leg. No sooner had the penicillin begun to spread down my right leg than I went lame. This convinced him that the penicillin was working. He urged my mother to inject another dose in my left leg, but my mother was having none of it. With no other options available, she appealed to the American Embassy in Madrid and they sent a military plane to fly me to the US army hospital in Madrid. There the doctors examined me and to their horror discovered that I had been given six times the adult dose. Had they given me that second dose, I would have gone permanently lame in both legs. As it was, I was unable to walk on my right leg for several weeks. In the end the American doctors determined that the cause of my stomach ache was that I had consumed a plate of cherries including all the pits and stems. To this day, I still avoid eating cherries.

A Rising Star

The adventures and misadventures chronicled in this early period of my life are either incidents vaguely recalled or anecdotes recalled by friends and family. But this introductory chapter also serves to explain how our family came to be in such unusual circumstances. Given our unusual circumstances which inspired me to engage in ambitious escapades at such an early age.

The roots of my “wanderlust” can be traced back to my father’s stories of distant travels and remote encounters. Growing up listening to my father’s foreign adventures, it is not surprising that I too, began to cast my eyes over the horizon at such an very early age. No sooner had “Charlie” (as he was known to his friends) graduated from West Point than he packed a steamer trunk and booked passage to St. Petersberg. There he Joined the Foreign Service and spent several years mastering Russian. Several decades of increasingly difficult assignments took him across much of Central Asia and Eastern Europe.

Family

By 1950 my father was a highly regarded US Foreign Service Officer looking forward to his appointment as the first US Ambassador to Yugoslavia. That year he married Cynthia Dunn, the daughter of the American Ambassador in Rome. Cynthia had a daughter, Diana, from a prior marriage who was 7 years older and shared many of my childhood adventures. In 1951, Cynthia gave birth to a son, James Dunn Thayer – named after Cynthia’s father, Ambassador Jimmy Dunn.

Just as everything was proceeding smoothly Charlie came to the attention of Senator Joe McCarthy. At first Charlie ignored the investigation and the insistent queries coming from the House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC). But having spent most of his adult life overseas he badly underestimated the power of the Senator and HUAC. He further aggravated the situation by publicly calling McCarthy “a son of a bitch”.

Investigations followed revealing that Charlie had fathered a child. Homosexual liaisons were also alleged. Charlie returned to Washington DC to defend himself, but Senator McCarthy announced plans to hold nationally broadcast hearings. A subpoena was imminent, but the State Department declined to defend Charlie’s heretofore unblemished record. Fearing that a subpoena might turn into a nationally broadcast “witch hunt”, Charlie flew back to Munich.

Within a year, Charlie and his young family were forced out of the Foreign Service and “black-balled”. This meant that Charlie was unemployable in the United States. Cynthia was stranded abroad unable to visit her family or attend important social events. Unable to secure employment in the United States my parents reviewed their paltry finances and realized that they needed to relocate somewhere where they could subsist on next to nothing. Along with their children, they were being forced into exile and penury.

Escape to Majorca.

Fearing further retribution from Senator McCarthy they wound up their affairs and purchased a Jeep and trailer. With the Jeep and an old Buick they assembled a modest convoy and hurried south driving through Austria, Switzerland, France to Spain. After an eight hour ferry ride from Barcelona they arrived safely in Palma in the Balaeric Islands. A day later they finally arrived in Cala San Vicente, about 5 kilometers northeast of Polenća. For the next three years this was to be home.

By then Senator Joe McCarthy’s allegations had been debunked and his investigations discredited. But for many of his victims it would take years to re-establish their careers.

In Cala San Vicente, our family began to carve out a new life. The winter brought chilly nights and rough seas that ravaged the colorful fishing fleets. By day the gritty sirocco winds would blanket the islands with a fine red coat of Saharan dust.

I was beginning to acquire the rudiments of speech, albeit a melange of English, German, Spanish and Majorquin, the island patois spoken by the servants. Being a slow eater I was often banished from the dinning room, and made to “chew my cud” in ignomie. My usual strategy was to completely fill my mouth with the offending vegetable, and obstinately refuse to chew it up.

My mother insisted that I “Chew!”,
The German nursemaid encouraged me to “Kau!”.
In Majorquin, Maria urged me to “Mastica!”.
Mastica, mastica they chanted.

It wasn’t until much later that I learned to distinguish these different words as components of separate languages. As I grew more adept at multi-lingual expression I learned that all matters associated with the kitchen or that involved the villagers were communicated in the local dialect, Majorquin. With my sister and the nursemaid I spoke in German, and with the parents I spoke rudimentary English and occasionally, French. It took years to sort out the differing rhythms, vocabularies and idioms. At times I still lapse into German in conversation depending upon the subject matter.

La Casita

One day late in 1953, my sister Diana took me up into the garden where she had furnished her “Casita” (little house) to resemble a pharmacy. My mother had been given her an extensive assortment of pills designed to diagnose the presence of various illnesses common to the shores of the Mediterranean Sea.

Not having any immediate use for this trove of bottles, she gave Diana permission to use them in her “pharmacy” – under the strict admonition that she was NEVER to eat any of them. Diana was about 10 years old at the time, and dutifully agreed to the conditions. But I was only two and had never agreed to any such conditions. To safeguard her “Casita”, Diana had forbidden me to enter her little bodega thus, making the prospect of looting it irresistible.

In those days the danger posed by pills were not clearly understood, especially since medicinal cures traditionally came in the form of injections, ointments and herbal cures. Pills, as we know them today were unknown to the inhabitants of Majorca in the mid-fifties.

Diana’s colorful stash of brightly colored pills was probably the remains of a WW2 diagnostic field kit used to determine what illness the soldier had contracted. The wide assortment of colored pills corresponded to the rich array of illnesses that the patient might have contracted. After ingesting one of these pills the patient’s urine would turn the same color as the pill, signalling that the suspected malady was NOT present. After a few days the urine would return to its original color, with no ill aftereffects. But without any prior explanation the immediate effects were dramatic, especially when administered simultaneously to a sizable group of people.

Thus, the blue pill I munched down to convince the servants of their beneficial effects turned my diaper blue. Since I was tightly swaddled in a leak proof diaper, the alarming consequences went unnoticed – at first.

No doubt my elder sister had been warned that she was never to ingest any of these pills, and she has faithfully kept her promise. But that admonition had failed to impress me. Besides raiding my sister’s illicit medicinal stash sounded like a fine adventure. So it was, that I arrived in the kitchen with pockets full of multicolored pills. What better way to show off my booty than to share it with the kitchen staff?

Not being one to hoard my treasures, I returned to the Casita and plundered all the colorful pills I could find and promptly shared them with the household staff. The afternoon progressed uneventfully until the staff became increasingly uneasy. Eventually they began to share their concerns with each other.

“Really, yours is blue? Mine is orange!” It didn’t take long for them to connect this disturbing symptom to my “candies”. Word spread throughout the kitchen and eventually Pepe appeared sheepishly at my father’s study. Quite embarrassed he recounted the afternoon’s events and that he had been delegated to raise the matter with “El Senor” to see if he could help shed some light on this spontaneous outbreak of urinary discoloration.

My father immediately recognized the tell-tale signs of Jimmy’s handiwork. Indeed, when he was summoned, Jimmy cheerily recounted how happy the staff were to get these “candies”. Asked whether he had experienced any unusual after effects, Jimmy was a bit puzzled, but upon closer inspection it was found that his diapers had also turned bright blue. Happily, no one was suffering anything more serious than embarrassment. Unfortunately, I had my amateur pharmacist’s license revoked and Diana had to restock her “Casita” with less attractive wares.

All this seclusion on a desert island may sound romantic and reminiscent of Gerald Durrell’s stories of his childhood on the island of Corfu during WW2, but the reality was pretty grim for my parents. One constant danger was the abysmal level of medical knowledge and practice. In fact, my mother nearly died due to the primitive post natal care available in the island’s only hospital in Palma.

Smugglers

One memory in particular stands out. It must’ve been after my normal bedtime, because it was growing dark when Pepe took me by the hand and we ascended to a high balcony that faced out to the sea. Below us our red tiled roof spread out under the olive trees that clung to the steep slope. Pepe and my father were discussing some sort of purchase as we sat in the waning light. Time seemed to crawl as the water in the cove turned from its day time azure to a steadily darkening blue and then it dissolved into a stygian blackness. I may have fallen asleep because I remember being awoken at some point.

Pepe was busily fiddling around with one of the storm lanterns we used when the winter storms cut our electricity. A tiny butterfly of flame fluttered weakly as Pepe replaced the glass mantle. A few moments later he had the lantern burning brightly. Carrying the lantern to the seaward side of the balcony, Pepe began to swing the lantern back and forth. Every so often he would pause to peer out towards the entrance of the cove. Finally, after what seemed an age Pepe whispered something to my father, and he, too, began to scan the dark horizon. Pepe reached down and held me up so I could see over the parapet. There, near the entrance I glimpsed a tiny light bobbing frantically on the dark waves. Pepe resumed waving the lantern back and forth until it was clear that the boat had spotted our signal. Taking me by the hand we descended to the ground floor and continued down a path to the shore.

We stood there in the dark with the waves lapping at our feet for what felt like an eternity. Soon Eventually, I began to hear the noise of oar locks creaking rhythmically as a rowboat approached the beach. Someone jumped out of the craft and came up the beach. Pepe went to meet him exchanging greetings in the ubiquitous Majorquin dialect. A list of items were discussed and substitutions relayed back to my father who stood just above the surf line holding me. Money exchanged hands and assurances conveyed regarding their return a week later whereupon the sailor turned and pushed the prow of the boat back out through the combers that were surging up the beach. In the gloom of darkness the figure jumped back aboard the craft and it soon soon disappeared into the surging water. In a few minutes even the squeaking of the oarlocks was swallowed up by the sizzling hiss of the sand surging up the beach.

The following week Pepe leaned over to whisper in my father’s ear as he served dinner. Papa asked if I wanted to see what the smugglers had brought. Of course, I was not going to miss another night time adventure. This time we walked down to the beach and waited until darkness had fully engulfed us before lighting our lantern.

Knowing what to listen for, I now concentrated to discern the approaching craft amidst all the other night time sounds. And there it was: the faint rhythmic creaking of leather oarlocks and the subtle slicing of a keel over the gently lapping waves.

Once pulled up on the beach Pepe examined the goods and paid the swarthy sailors. Speaking in low majorquin voices Pepe negotiated future assignations and details of what we were anxious to procure at their next meeting. The conversation was brief as the seamen were anxious to avoid the Guarda Civil that regularly patrolled the myriad inlets and small coves. The transaction was quickly completed. One of the boatmen grasped the bow and pushed the dingy into the oncoming serf. In less than a minute the boat was swallowed by the darkness.

“What did you get Papa?”, I inquired.
“The necessities”, he replied tersely.
“What are the necessities?”
“Cigarettes, whiskey, medicine, and soft toilet paper”.

*******************************************************************************************
Much of the source material and Charles Thayer’s private papers reside in the Truman Library. These include many photographs and private letters that helped me bring the later period of his life into focus. In addition, Charles Thayer was a prolific writer who published the following books and articles based on his extensive experience in Europe and Russia:

Bears in the Caviar (1951)

Hands Across the Caviar (1953)

Unquiet Germans (1957)

Diplomat (1959)

Moscow Interlude (1962)

Guerilla (1963)

Checkpoint (1964)

He also wrote a book about his mother, Muzzy (1966).