Prater Violet

 

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Contents

Title Page

Copyright Notice

Dedication

Begin Reading

Books by Christopher Isherwood

Copyright

 

TO RENÉ BLANC-ROOS

 

 

“MR. ISHERWOOD?”

“Speaking.”

“Mr. Christopher Isherwood?”

“That's me.”

“You know, we've been trying to contact you ever since yesterday afternoon.” The voice at the other end of the wire was a bit reproachful.

“I was out.”

“You were out?” (Not altogether convinced.)

“Yes.”

“Oh … I see…” (A pause, to consider this. Then, suddenly suspicious.) “That's funny, though … Your number was always engaged. All the time.”

“Who are you?” I asked, my tone getting an edge on it.

“Imperial Bulldog.”

“I beg your pardon?”

“Imperial Bulldog Pictures. I'm speaking for Mr. Chatsworth.… By the way, were you in Blackpool any time during 1930?”

“There must be some mistake…” I got ready to hang up on him. “I've never been to Blackpool in my life.”

“Splendid!” The voice uttered a brisk little business laugh. “Then you never saw a show called
Prater Violet?
”

“Never. But what's that got to do with…?”

“It folded up after three nights. But Mr. Chatsworth likes the music, and he thinks we can use most of the lyrics.… Your agent says you know all about Vienna.”

“Vienna? I was only there once. For a week.”

“Only a week?” The voice became quite peevish. “But that's impossible, surely? We were given to understand you'd
lived
there.”

“He must have meant Berlin.”

“Oh, Berlin? Well, that's pretty much the same kind of set-up, isn't it? Mr. Chatsworth wanted someone with the continental touch. I understand you speak German? That'll come in handy. We're getting Friedrich Bergmann over from Vienna, to direct.”

“Oh.”

“Friedrich Bergmann, you know.”

“Never heard of him.”

“That's funny. He's worked in Berlin a lot, too. Weren't you in pictures, over there?”

“I've never been in pictures anywhere.”

“You haven't?” For a moment, the voice was audibly dismayed. Then it brightened. “Oh, well … It'll be all the same to Mr. Chatsworth, I imagine. He often uses writers who haven't had any experience. If I were you, I wouldn't worry…”

“Look here,” I interrupted, “what is it that makes you think I have the very slightest interest in taking this job at all?”

“Oh … Well, you see, Mr. Isherwood, I'm afraid that's not my department.…” The voice began to speak very rapidly and to grow fainter. “No doubt Mr. Katz will be talking things over with your agent. I'm sure we'll be able to come to some arrangement. I'll keep in touch with you. Good-bye…”

“I say, wait a minute.…”

He was off the line. I jiggled the phone for a moment, stupidly, with vague indignation. Then I picked up the directory, found Imperial Bulldog's number, dialed the first letter, stopped. I walked across to the dining-room door. My mother and my younger brother, Richard, were still sitting at breakfast. I stood just inside the doorway and lit a cigarette, not looking at them, very casual.

“Was that Stephen?” my mother asked. She generally knew when I needed a cue line.

“No.” I blew out a lot of smoke, frowning at the mantelpiece clock. “Only some movie people.”

“Movie people!” Richard put down his cup with a clatter. “Oh, Christopher! How exciting!”

This made me frown harder.

After a suitable pause, my mother asked, with extreme tact, “Did they want you to write something?”

“Apparently,” I drawled, almost too bored to speak.

“Oh, Christopher, how thrilling that sounds! What's the film going to be about? Or mustn't you tell us?”

“I didn't ask.”

“Oh, I see.… When are you going to start?”

“I'm not. I turned it down.”

“You turned it down? Oh … What a pity!”

“Well, practically…”

“Why? Didn't they offer you enough money?”

“We didn't talk about money,” I told Richard, with a slight suggestion of reproof.

“No, of course you wouldn't. Your agent does all that, doesn't he? He'll know how to squeeze the last drop out of them. How much shall you ask for?”

“I've told you once. I refused to do it.”

There was another pause. Then my mother said, in her most carefully conversational manner, “Really, the films nowadays seem to get stupider and stupider. No wonder they can't persuade any good writers to come and work for them, no matter what they offer.”

I didn't answer. I felt my frown relax a little.

“I expect they'll be calling you again in a few minutes,” said Richard, hopefully.

“Why on earth should they?”

“Well, they must want you awfully badly, or they wouldn't have rung up so early in the morning. Besides, movie people never take ‘no' for an answer, do they?”

“I dare say they're trying the next one on their list already.” I yawned, rather unconvincingly. “Ah, well, I suppose I'd better go and wrestle with chapter eleven.”

“I do admire the way you take everything so calmly,” Richard said, with that utter lack of sarcasm which sometimes makes his remarks sound like lines from Sophocles. “If it was me, I know I'd be so excited I wouldn't be able to write a word all day.”

I mumbled, “See you later,” yawned again, stretched myself, and began a turn toward the door, which was checked by my own unwillingness, leaving me facing the sideboard. I started to fiddle with the key of the spoon drawer, locking, unlocking, locking. Then I blew my nose.

“Have another cup of tea before you go?” my mother asked, after watching this performance with a faint smile.

“Oh, do, Christopher! It's still scalding hot.”

Without answering, I sat down in my chair at the table. The morning paper still lay where I had let it fall, half an hour ago, crumpled and limp, as if bled of its news. Germany's withdrawal from the League was still the favorite topic. An expert predicted a preventive war against Hitler some time next year, when the Maginot Line would be impregnable. Goebbels told the German people that their vote on November the twelfth would be either Yes or Yes. Governor Ruby Laffoon of Kentucky had given a colonel's commission to Mae West.

“Cousin Edith's dentist,” said my mother, as she passed me the teacup, “seems to be quite convinced Hitler's going to invade Austria soon.”

“Oh, indeed?” I took a big sip of tea and sat back, feeling suddenly in a very good humor. “Well, no doubt the
dental
profession has sources of information denied to the rest of us. But I must say, in my ignorance, I entirely fail to see how…”

I was off. My mother poured fresh cups of tea for Richard and herself. They exchanged milk and sugar with smiling pantomime and settled back comfortably in their chairs, like people in a restaurant when the orchestra strikes up a tune which everybody knows by heart.

Within ten minutes, I had set up and knocked down every argument the dentist could possibly have been expected to produce, and many that he couldn't. I used a lot of my favorite words: Gauleiter, solidarity, démarche, dialectic, Gleichschaltung, infiltration, Anschluss, realism, tranche, cadre. Then, after pausing to light another cigarette and get my breath, I started to sketch, none too briefly, the history of National Socialism since the Munich Putsch.

The telephone rang.

“What a bore!” said Richard, politely. “That stupid thing always interrupts just when you're telling us something interesting. Don't let's answer it. They'll soon get tired.…”

I had jumped up, nearly knocking over my chair, and was out in the hall already, grabbing for the instrument.

“Hullo…” I gasped.

There was no answer. But I could hear that the receiver was off at the other end—distant voices, seemingly in a violent argument, with a background of wireless music.

“Hullo?” I repeated.

The voices moved away a little.

“Hullo!” I yelled.

Perhaps they heard me. The sounds of talking and music were suddenly cut right out, as though a hand had covered the mouthpiece.

“To hell with you all,” I told them.

The mouthpiece was uncovered long enough for me to hear a man's voice, with a thick, growling foreign accent, say, “It's all too idiotic for words.”

“Hullo!” I yelled. “Hullo! Hullo! Hullo! Hullo! Hullo!”

“Wait,” said the foreign voice, very curt, as if speaking to a nagging child.

“I bloody well won't wait!” I shouted at him. And this sounded so silly that I started to laugh.

The hand came off the mouthpiece again, releasing a rush of talk and music which sounded as though it had been dammed up during the interval, it was so loud.

“Hullo,” said the foreign voice, rapidly and impatiently. “Hullo, hullo!”

“Hullo?”

“Hullo? Here Dr. Bergmann.”

“Good morning, Dr. Bergmann.”

“Yes? Good morning. Hullo? Hullo, I would like to speak to Mr. Isherwood, please, at once.”

“Speaking.”

“Mr. Kreestoffer Ischervood…” Dr. Bergmann said this with great care and emphasis. He must have been reading the name from a notebook.

“Here I am.”

“Ja, ja…”
Bergmann was obviously nearing the end of his patience. “I wish to speak to Mr. Isherwood personally. Please bring him.”

“I'm Christopher Isherwood,” I said, in German. “It was me talking to you all the time.”

“Ah—
you
are Mr. Isherwood! Marvelous! Why did you not say so at once? And you speak my language? Bravo!
Endlich ein vernuenftiger Mensch!
You cannot imagine how I am glad to hear your voice! Tell me, my dear friend, can you come to me immediately?”

I turned cautious at once. “You mean, today?”

“I mean now, as immediately as possible, this instant.”

“I'm awfully busy this morning…” I began, hesitantly. But Dr. Bergmann cut me short with a sigh which was nearer to a loud, long groan.

“It's too stupid. Terrible. I give up.”

“I think I could manage this afternoon, perhaps.…”

Bergmann disregarded this completely. “Hopeless,” he muttered to himself. “All alone in this damned idiotic city. Nobody understands a single word. Terrible. Nothing to do.”

“Couldn't you,” I suggested, “come here?”

“No, no. Nothing to do. Never mind. It's all too difficult.
Scheusslich.
”

There was a pause of extreme tension. I sucked my lip. I thought of chapter eleven. I felt myself weakening. Oh, damn the man!

At length, I asked unwillingly, “Where are you?”

I heard him turn to someone, and growl belligerently, “Where am I?” There was an answer I couldn't catch. Then Bergmann's growl, “Don't understand a word. You tell him.”

A new voice, reassuringly Cockney:

“Hullo, sir. This is Cowan's Hotel, in Bishopsgate. We're just across from the station. You can't miss it.”

“Thanks,” I said. “I'll be right along. Good-b——”

I heard Bergmann's hasty, “Moment! Moment!” After what sounded like a brief but furious struggle, he got possession of the instrument and emitted a deep, snorting breath. “Tell me, my friend, when will you be here?”