Christopher and His Kind (26 page)

The construction is fine and Margot was a complete surprise to me. It's marvellous too the way you've maintained standards of right and wrong and yet left Norris an endearing person. And you've made him both silly and witty, like a character in Congreve. He's awfully good.

The necessity of combining knowingness and honesty in William renders him more of a problem, for in art these are uneasy bedfellows. However, you bring him through pretty well. I was a little worried in Switzerland to what extent he was paying his employer's way with the Baron. Did he go the whole hog or turn a pig-skin cheek? I don't the least mind, but feel that in the first case he would violate the fastidiousness and in the second the integrity of his character.

Actually, the novel makes it clear that, by the time they start for Switzerland, the Baron no longer finds William sexually attractive. So there is no question of their going to bed together, even if William would have agreed to it. Forster must surely have realized this. It now seems to me that the concern he expresses about William's integrity is really a concern about Christopher's own character. Seeing certain weaknesses in it, Forster administers an oblique, affectionately gentle, but nevertheless earnest warning.

*   *   *

At the end of May, Christopher went alone to Brussels for the weekend, as the guest of Gerald Hamilton. Gerald wanted Christopher to help him revise the manuscript of an autobiography which he had written. It was to be called
As Young as Sophocles
—a title taken from a passage in William Johnson Cory's poem, “Academus”:

I'll borrow life, and not grow old,

And nightingales and trees

Shall keep me, though the veins be cold,

As young as Sophocles.

And when I may no longer live

They'll say, who know the truth,

He gave whate'er he had to give

To freedom and to youth.

It was characteristic of Gerald's peculiar kind of vanity that he was able, in all seriousness, to apply the last four of these lines to himself.

During that weekend, he took Christopher to lunch with a millionaire, one of his prospective client-victims. Being in the presence of great wealth went to his head like alcohol. He sparkled with epigrams. Although the millionaire spoke quite fluent English, Gerald insisted on talking French, his favorite language. Referring to the capitalist system, he said gaily,
“Je proteste mais j'en profite.”

Because of Heinz, Christopher was now more deeply involved with Gerald than ever before. Gerald was the only person he knew who could get the permits Heinz needed and perhaps help him change his nationality. Gerald was then “working on” (as he put it) Heinz's permit to live in Belgium, but he admitted that it might take several more months of negotiation with the police. This was Christopher's incentive to help Gerald with his autobiography.

Christopher wasn't irked or humiliated by their involvement, for he really liked Gerald. With him, you never had to pretend. Gerald inhabited a world into which Christopher had barely peeped; one might call it “real,” for it was without hypocrisy, its ends and means were frankly criminal. It was a world in which appalling things could happen to you as a matter of course; ruin, prison, even murder, were its occupational accidents. Gerald had suffered some of these but he was still determined to remain in it and survive. Christopher was sometimes shocked and repelled by the glimpses he got of this world. Nevertheless, Gerald's example encouraged him to live his own life more boldly.

*   *   *

It must have been in May that Erika, Thomas Mann's eldest daughter, arrived in Amsterdam with her cabaret company, Die Pfeffermuehle (The Peppermill). Its sketches were mostly satirical and anti-Nazi. It had already performed with success in other countries bordering on Germany where German was understood. Through Klaus Mann, who was also in Amsterdam at that time, Christopher met Erika, a slim dark-eyed handsome woman of about his own age. On the stage, she had the air of a political leader rather than of a performer, confronting the Fascist foe with scornful humor and beautiful poise and courage. Also in the company was the unforgettable actress Therese Giehse. My most vivid memory of her is in a scene in which she nursed the globe of the world on her lap like a sick child and crooned weirdly over it.

One day, Erika said to Christopher with an embarrassed laugh: “I have something rather personal to ask you—will you marry me?” She had been told that the Nazis were about to take away her German citizenship, since she was now a public enemy of the Third Reich. By marrying an Englishman, she could become a British subject instantaneously.

Christopher felt honored, excited, amused—and reluctantly said no. The reason, as he vaguely phrased it to Erika, was that “it would cause difficulties with my family.” This was true, in a sense. Kathleen, who still obstinately hoped for grandchildren produced in wedlock, would have been horrified by such a marriage of convenience. If Christopher had been feeling aggressive toward her just then, it might have pleased him to cross her. But he wasn't, and anyhow he had stronger motives for refusing Erika. One of these was that he was afraid of compromising Heinz, who might well have been exposed to the ensuing publicity and branded by the Nazis as the minion of the husband of their enemy. I don't think Christopher was mistaken, here.

His other motive was far less reasonable but as strong—his rooted horror of marriage. To him, it was the sacrament of the Others; the supreme affirmation of their dictatorship. Even when his heterosexual friends got married, Christopher found their action slightly distasteful. When his basically homosexual friends got married—declaring that they were really bisexual, or that they wanted children, or that their wife was “someone who understands”—Christopher expressed sympathy but felt disgust. Later, many of these would start having sex with men on the side, while still maintaining that marriage alone is meaningful and that homosexuality is immature—i.e., disreputable, dangerous, and illegal … However, I must admit that Christopher himself was behaving immaturely when he shrank from marrying Erika lest somebody, somewhere, might suspect him of trying to pass as a heterosexual.

Christopher suggested that he should write to Auden, explain the situation, and ask if he was willing. Erika agreed. Auden wired back: “Delighted.” When the telegram arrived, Christopher felt a little envious. Sir Wystan had won the glory of a knight-errant who rescues the lady from the monster. Nevertheless, he never seriously regretted his own decision.

No time was wasted. Erika went over to England and was married to Wystan at Ledbury, Herefordshire, because it was near the Downs School, where he was then teaching. On June 15, the very day of the wedding, Goebbels—unaware that the joke was on him—solemnly announced that Erika was no longer a German.

(In 1939, not long after their arrival in the United States, Wystan and Christopher visited Thomas and Katia Mann, who were then living at Princeton with Erika, Klaus, and some of their other children. A photographer from
Time
happened to be present. Thomas asked Wystan and Christopher to pose with them for a group portrait. “I know Mr. Auden's your son-in-law,” said the photographer, “but Mr. Isherwood—what's his relation to your family?” Thomas's prompt reply made everybody laugh but the photographer, who didn't understand German: “Family pimp.”)

*   *   *

In a letter to Kathleen, June 21, Christopher tells her that he has started a novel, the day before:

I hope it's going to be really good. Not so superficial as Norris and yet, in its own way, funnier. Its hero is a sort of van der Lubbe, an embodiment of the madness and hysteria of our time. He is the type of ideal liar who no longer has the least notion that he isn't telling the truth. I think I can make him rather heroic.

Christopher had been planning this novel for some time. He had decided to call it
Paul Is Alone.
Here is an outline of its action, put together from various notes in his diary:

Part One: Ambrose [Francis] is living on the island of St. Nicholas. One night, Paul makes a dramatic appearance there by swimming across from the mainland. He is in a state of near-collapse from hunger. Ambrose has him fed and given a place to sleep.

Paul proves to be an efficient cook. He takes charge of the kitchen, bosses the Greek boys around, and serves excellent meals. He tries to impress Ambrose by playing the mystery man. He admits that he has no money but won't say how he got to Greece. He calls himself Paul von Hartmann and claims to be a German baron. He mentions several Englishmen of titled families as being his friends. From his descriptions of them, Ambrose realizes that he must indeed know them. But Ambrose is more puzzled than impressed, because Paul speaks English like a native and with a slight Cockney accent. Ambrose later finds that Paul's German is also that of a native, but educated, upper-class.

Within a few days, a charming, good-natured, unaffected young German turns up. His name is Fritz. He tells Ambrose that he has been wandering around Greece, after escaping from Germany, where he was arrested by the Nazis as a Communist. At first, Paul tries to become Fritz's special friend. But soon Fritz is so popular with Ambrose and the Greeks that Paul gets jealous of him. Paul steals a ring belonging to Ambrose and makes it appear that Fritz stole it. So Ambrose sends Fritz away.

Then an English friend of Ambrose arrives to stay. He at once recognizes Paul as a waiter from a club to which he belongs in London. Paul was dismissed from the club for theft. The Englishmen he has claimed as his friends were, in fact, members of the club; Paul only knew them by waiting on them. He has come to Greece as a steward on a tourist-liner and jumped ship. Paul is utterly humiliated when the Englishman tells this to Ambrose. He leaves the island at once.

Part Two: Paul is back in London, down and out. An Austrian film-director named Bergmann [Viertel] meets Paul while he is strolling the streets at night, is amused by his talk and concerned about his half-starved condition and therefore brings him home. Bergmann's wife Magda immediately takes a strong interest in Paul which, at first, is motherly.

Paul plays up to both of them by becoming what he senses they want him to be—a thief and a liar who is nevertheless romantically innocent. He tells them that he is British, of Anglo-German parentage; that he has posed as a German baron (his German mother was merely upper-class and unhappily married to a working-class Englishman); that he has been a waiter; that he has stolen from his employers and from Ambrose. He implies that he is unable to stop stealing or lying; he needs the Bergmanns' help.

Bergmann and Magda, who are the real innocents in this situation, are eager to help him. Since Paul speaks German and is also efficient and quick to learn, Bergmann hires him as a secretary-assistant. Sometimes Paul goes with him to the studio where Bergmann is directing his film; sometimes Paul works for Magda at their apartment.

Magda fancies herself as a psychologist. She believes that she can cure Paul of his kleptomania by showing him love and trust. She begins giving him jobs which involve him in handling their money. At first, he proves worthy of her trust; he also responds to her love, as long as it is motherly. But, when she tries to seduce him, he is repelled and embarrassed—all the more so because he is homosexual. He runs away, taking a large sum of money with him.

Part Three: Paul is staying at a hotel in the Canary Islands. Thanks to the Bergmanns' money, he is well-dressed and temporarily well-off. He poses as a film-actor who will shortly appear in his first starring role—under a new name which he isn't at liberty to tell until the studio is ready to start its publicity-campaign for him. He makes this sound convincing by his descriptions of life in the studio as he has seen it while working with Bergmann.

Meanwhile, stressing the German side of his ancestry, he makes friends with several Germans who are living in the islands. One of these, a young schoolmaster, is the leader of a Nazi group. Paul falls in love with him and becomes his disciple—although he has expressed violent anti-Nazi views while living with the Jewish Bergmanns.

The schoolmaster and Paul climb the Pico on Tenerife. That night, at the rest hut, the schoolmaster preaches Hitlerism to him with Nordic ruthlessness. This scene ends in a sex-act. Paul is now so infatuated that he agrees to spy on one of the German residents who is a professed Nazi but whom the schoolmaster suspects of being a traitor.

Paul cultivates the friendship of this man until he is trusted by him. When news comes that Hitler has killed Roehm, the man says delightedly that this will mean the downfall of the Nazi regime. Paul reports his words to the schoolmaster and the rest of the Nazi group. They go to the man's house and beat him up so badly that he isn't expected to live. Paul, terrified, leaves by the next ship. It happens to be going to Denmark.

Part Four: In Copenhagen, Paul marries a German-Jewish girl whose passport is about to expire, in order to give her British nationality. She is a Communist and this earns him the respect and trust of the other Communists in the city. He goes to live with the girl and her lover, who is also a German Communist.

Paul pretends to have worked with the Communists in Germany at the time of Hitler's coming to power. He tells, as his own adventures, the stories Fritz told him on St. Nicholas. Since Fritz was from Munich and the girl and her lover are from Berlin, Paul runs very little risk of being found out.

Then the lover goes back to Germany on a mission to the Communist underground. Time passes. He doesn't return. It is nearly certain that he has been caught.

And now Paul becomes the victim of his own fantasies and lies. He can't resist making the grand gesture—volunteering to go into Germany himself and find out what has happened to the lover. The other Communists agree to this, believing that Paul is an experienced activist and that he has as good a chance of surviving as any of them, if not a better. Whereas, of course, he has almost no chance; he has never even been in Germany before.