Christopher and His Kind (11 page)

During their separation, Christopher had made peace with Kathleen by default. She was a passive fortress and he had stopped attacking her. What was the use? She was impregnable, anyway. They had exchanged a few letters, in which their differences were never referred to.

The day after Christopher's arrival, Kathleen wrote in her diary: “We sat talking in my room till nearly one
A.M.
It was almost as it used to be long ago.” But, a day or two later, she had become anxious:

Fear the state of things is worse than ever and he looks so far from well, in a way he is glad to be back but is restless and not happy, and absorbed in Otto who is more a cause of misery than happiness.

It seems extraordinary to me, now, that Christopher would have so far exposed himself as to let her see that Otto was “a cause of misery” to him—thus admitting to a failure in his homosexual life and confirming her prejudice against it. Even in his late twenties, he still had a childlike urge to confide in her which he seemingly couldn't control.

On March 14, Jonathan Cape turned down
The Memorial,
firmly and politely: “I realize that there is a risk in letting you go, as you may make a connection elsewhere which will endure. It certainly should be published.”

The rejection of your second novel—quite a common experience—is more painful than any number of rejections of your first; at least, Christopher found it so. As long as no publisher had accepted a book by him, he could regard all publishers as the Others, mere merchants whose literary judgment was worth nothing, except money. But Jonathan Cape couldn't be thus dismissed. He had shown himself to be a man of rare taste, a non-merchant and other than the Others, when he had accepted
All the Conspirators
after two publishers had rejected it. Christopher's self-confidence was shaken.

In the event of a refusal by Cape, Stephen Spender had advised Christopher to leave the novel with Curtis Brown, the literary agents, and let them try to place it elsewhere. He now met with a representative of Curtis Brown and was given an expensive lunch, from which he rose with his hopes irrationally raised.

Meanwhile, Stephen was loyally awaiting him in Berlin. Christopher wrote telling Stephen to “hold the fort a little longer.” Holding the fort evidently included coping with some kind of trouble which Otto had got himself into. Kathleen records that Stephen wired back: “All well Otto.” Christopher returned to Germany on March 21.

*   *   *

In June or early July, Christopher, Stephen, and Otto went to Sellin on Ruegen Island for a summer holiday. Here Wystan joined them, rather unwillingly. Unlike Christopher, who felt indecent until he was darkly sunburned, Wystan had no use for the beach and the sea. His white-skinned body, when exposed, became painfully pink. He preferred rainy weather. During much of the day, he shut himself up in his bedroom with the blinds pulled down, ignored the summer, and wrote. I suppose he was working on
The Orators.

Stephen was writing too, though he spent much of his time out of doors, keeping Christopher and Otto company. He was recording their holiday with his camera. This had an automatic shutter release, so Stephen himself wasn't necessarily excluded from the record. In a recent letter to me, he recalls that:

with a masturbatory camera designed for narcissists I took—or it took—the most famous photograph in the history of the world, of
US THREE.

Stephen, in the middle, has his arms around Wystan and Christopher and an expression on his face which suggests an off-duty Jesus relaxing with “these little ones.” Christopher, compared with the others, is such a very little one that he looks as if he is standing in a hole.

Stephen also took pictures of Otto—some absurd, some animally beautiful: Otto in a loincloth, strumming on a guitar and pretending to be an Hawaiian boy; Otto caught unconsciously taking the pose of a Michelangelo nude on the Sistine Chapel ceiling. How delighted Otto would have been to know that in 1974 several of these pictures would be displayed, as part of a television documentary, before an estimated five million British viewers! And how delightedly—and wrongly—Stephen, Wystan, and Christopher would have assumed, on the basis of this single fact, that the England of the nineteen-seventies would be an earthly paradise of love and liberty.

All in all, this Ruegen visit wasn't a success. Wystan soon returned to England. Christopher and Otto squabbled, because Otto spent his evenings dancing with beach girls at the local casino and didn't come home until the small hours. On the last day, Christopher cut his toe on a sharp bit of tin while wading into the sea. The cut festered and he was a semi-cripple for several weeks after his return to Berlin.

Meanwhile, Stephen had been in Salzburg. When he wrote that he would like to rejoin Christopher and asked if there was a room free for him, Christopher replied:

I think I could find you something cheaper two doors away. I think it is better if we don't all live right on top of each other, don't you? I believe that was partly the trouble at Ruegen. Anyhow I'm resolved not to live with Otto again for a long time. Because, these last days, when he's been in to see me for quite short periods, have been absolutely wonderful …

This is the first indication that Stephen has been getting on Christopher's nerves. Christopher only mentions Otto because he is embarrassed to have to admit that he doesn't want Stephen living in the same apartment with him. Stephen took the hint. Instead of returning to Berlin, he went back to London.

*   *   *

Curtis Brown had been unable to find a publisher for
The Memorial;
it had been rejected by three more of them, Davies, Secker, and Duckworth. Stephen now took the manuscript personally to John Lehmann, who was managing the Hogarth Press for Leonard and Virginia Woolf. Stephen had already praised
The Memorial
to Lehmann as one of the masterpieces of their generation. Stephen's extravagant enthusiasm could sometimes be a danger to its object, but Lehmann wasn't deterred. He read the manuscript, decided that he liked it very much, and promised Stephen to do everything he could to persuade the Woolfs that they must publish it. When Christopher heard this news, he felt ashamed of himself for having rebuffed Stephen and wrote to him warmly, thanking him for all his efforts on behalf of
The Memorial:
“If the Hogarth do take it, it will be entirely because of you.”

Not long after this, Christopher reported to Stephen:

I had a letter from Curtis Brown to say that the Hogarth wants to read All the Conspirators before deciding about The Memorial. I'm afraid that'll be its deathblow, but am writing to my mother to forward a copy. If you are writing to Lehmann do implore him not to be put off by the Conspirators. Tell him I'll write my next book in
any
style they like—even that of Hatter's Castle.

(This was A. J. Cronin's first novel. Christopher hadn't read it yet; he despised it simply because it was a bestseller. When he did read it later, he was surprised to find that it moved him.)

If the Hogarth (or Blackwell or the Universal Press or the Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge, for that matter) would only take my novel I feel I could put up with anything that's billed to happen to me this winter … There is always the possibility of the Prussian government being overthrown next Sunday by the Nazis and all foreigners expelled.

(Christopher liked to play the front-line alarmist for the benefit of stay-at-home civilians; he was apt to forget that Stephen had been in the front line too. He refers to a referendum which was to be held on August 2, to decide the fate of the Bruening administration. On this occasion, it was saved; but, in any case, there was no real danger of a Nazi takeover that year.)

Jean talks of going to America in the winter. Hamilton has openly declared for Russia. Otto is a champion athlete.

(Jean never did go to America. She may have got the idea of doing so from an American whom she and Christopher had recently met, the original of Clive in
Goodbye to Berlin.
Like Clive, the American thrilled them by inviting them to come with him to the States and then dashed their hopes by leaving Berlin abruptly, without saying goodbye.

Gerald Hamilton, in
Mr. Norris and I,
writes that “I was in touch with the leading German Communists, who alone, as a political party, represented my point of view on social matters.” That summer, he had been making speeches on his favorite reform projects at meetings sponsored by the Communists. The London
Times
heard of this and told him to resign from his job with them. So Gerald decided to look to the Left for a new paymaster. He must have “declared for Russia” by making some sort of statement to the press.

I forget what kind of “champion athlete” Otto had become. Probably he had joined a local sports club and won a few races. His bursts of energy were always brief.)

*   *   *

In August, Christopher met Klaus Mann, Thomas Mann's eldest son; this was his first contact with a member of that family. Klaus and Christopher took to each other from the start. They were to become intimate friends who seldom saw each other, for Klaus was always on the move.

Like most other people who knew Klaus, Christopher supposed that it couldn't be easy for him, as a writer, to be his father's son. But Klaus was evidently able to accept Thomas, Nobel Prize and all; he didn't waste his life shivering enviously in that huge paternal shadow. Nor did he affect the grandeur and alienated gloom of so many European literary men. His manner was easy, lively, witty; yet he was capable of caring deeply about his friends and the causes he believed in, and of fighting on their behalf. Christopher found this combination lovable. At the same time, far down beneath Klaus's brightness, courage, apparent freedom from self-pity, there was an obstinate drive toward self-destruction. Christopher didn't become fully aware of it until shortly before Klaus's suicide in 1949.

*   *   *

On September 2, Stephen, who was still in London, phoned Kathleen to tell her that the Hogarth Press had accepted
The Memorial.
He must have wanted to let her have the pleasure of telegraphing the news to Christopher, which was truly considerate of him. Christopher was delighted, of course. But he soon managed to find grounds for renewed anxiety—in the devaluation of the British pound. Late in September, he wrote to Stephen:

I have heard nothing more of
The Memorial.
Can it be that they are backing out of it owing to this crisis? All things are possible. The pound was at 15 but is better today. I am living chiefly on what I earn by going for morning walks with a German-American boy who says Yep and No, Sir.

A few days after this, Christopher reports that the German-American boy, in the midst of some game, has

stuck a pointed stick into my eyelid about a millimetre from my eye. I am bathing the wound now and eating grapes supplied by Frl. Thurau, who really is the world's best landlady.

A standard tableau—played many times previously and often to be replayed: Christopher sensually enjoying his role of martyr-invalid.

Germany is pretty bloody. This Revolution-Next-Week atmosphere has stopped being quite such a joke and somehow the feeling that nothing really will happen only makes it worse. I think everybody everywhere is being ground slowly down by an enormous tool. I feel myself getting smaller and smaller … Gisa leaves tonight for Paris. She would like you to write to her and will send me or us both her address. It seems strange that that household has come to an end.

Thus Gisa Soloweitschik, like Natalia Landauer, made a fortunate exit from the Berlin scene before the coming of Hitler. She settled with her parents in France, where she married a Frenchman. Gisa and her husband were still there after the war. Stephen kept in touch with her, but Christopher failed to do so.

This job lasts till the end of October or possibly November. And then? Well, there is perhaps a vacancy in Hamilton's new “Anglo-American News Agency,” which looks like being a pretty good hive of Bolshevik crooks … Did you say you had Mirsky's book on Lenin? I should be awfully grateful if you'd send it sometime.

I am depressed, but only up to a point. I spend most of the day laughing with Hamilton over his classic struggles with the bailiff.

The visits of the bailiff were due to Gerald's loss of his job with
The Times.
This had automatically put an end to his credit. His creditors were now trying to repossess the furniture and other valuables which he hadn't paid for—that is to say, almost everything in his flat. I can't remember if the “Anglo-American News Agency” ever actually came into being. Gerald obviously had to have a Communist-front organization of some sort, or at least a plan for one, before he could appeal to the Communist Party for financial help.

But the German Communists depended largely on Russian money, and here Gerald found himself up against hard-nosed professionals instead of the greedy, gullible amateurs he was used to. The Russians demanded results, and they were slow payers even after they had got them. According to Gerald, the German party officials often had to wait months for their salaries to come through. As Gerald's financial disappointment in the party grew, he became more and more critical of it. Through his eyes, Christopher began to see its seamy side—its private feuds, its inefficiency, its bewildered efforts to follow the changing tactics dictated by Moscow.

Christopher took it for granted that the Communists saw right through Gerald; that they valued him merely as a gentlemanly go-between whose appearance and fine manners would be helpful in their dealings with the gentlemen of the opposition. Still, Christopher couldn't help feeling sentimentally shocked that the Party of the Workers could thus forget its proletarian ethics and stoop to use this unclean instrument.