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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 th
at 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?”
“Oh, in about an hour.”
“An hour? That is very long. How will you come?”
“By Underground.”
“Would it not be better to take a taxi?”
“No, it wouldn’t,” I answered firmly, as I mentally reckoned up the cost of a fare from Kensington to Liverpool Street Station: “No better.”
“Why would it not be better?”
“It would be just as slow as the Underground. All the traffic, you know.”
“Ah, the traffic. Terrible.” A deep, deep snort, as of a dying whale about to sink to the bottom of the ocean forever.
“Don’t worry,” I told him cheerfully. I felt quite kindly toward him, now that I had won my point about the taxi. “I’ll be with you very soon.”
Bergmann groaned faintly. I knew that he didn’t believe me.
“Good-bye, my friend.”
“Auf Wiedersehen … No, I can’t say that, can I? I haven’t seen you yet.”
But he had hung up on me already.
“Was that the movie people again?” Richard asked, as I looked into the dining room.
“No. Well, yes, in a way. Tell you everything later. I’ve got to rush. Oh, and Mummy, I might be a little late for lunch.…”
* * *
COWAN’S HOTEL was not just across from the station. No place ever is, when they tell you that. I arrived in a bad temper, having been twice misdirected and once nearly knocked down by a bus. Also, I was out of breath. Despite my resolve to take Bergmann calmly, I had run all the way from the Underground.
It was quite a small place. The porter was standing at the door, as I came panting up. Evidently he’d been on the lookout for me.
“It’s Mr. Usherwood, isn’t it? The Doctor’ll be glad to see you. He’s been having a lot of vexation. Arrived a day before he was expected. Some mistake. No one to meet him at the boat. Trouble with his passport. Trouble with the Customs. Lost a suitcase. A regular mix-up. It happens that way, sometimes.”
“Where is he now? Upstairs?”
“No, sir. Just popped out for some cigarettes. Didn’t seem to fancy what we had. You get to like those continental kinds, I suppose, if you’re used to them. They’re milder.”
“All right. I’ll wait.”
“If you’ll excuse me, you’d better go after him. You know what foreign gentlemen are, being strange to the city. They’ll lose themselves in the middle of Trafalgar Square. Not that I won’t say we wouldn’t be the same, in their place. I’m sure I don’t know what’s become of him. He’s been gone above twenty minutes already.”
“Which way?”
“Round the corner, to your left. Three doors down. You’ll be sure to catch him.”
“What does he look like?”
My question seemed to amuse the porter. “Oh, you’ll know him all right when you see him, sir. You couldn’t mistake him in a million.”
The girl at the little tobacconist’s was equally chatty. There was no need for me to try to describe Dr. Bergmann. His visit had made a great impression.
“Quite a character, isn’t he?” she giggled. “Asked me what I thought about, being here all day long. I don’t have much time to think, I told him.… Then we got to talking about dreams.”
Bergmann had told her of a doctor, somewhere abroad, who said that your dreams don’t mean what you think they mean. He had seemed to regard this as a great scientific discovery, which had amused the girl and made her feel somewhat superior, because she’d always known that. She had a book at home which used to belong to her aunt. It was called The Queen of Sheba’s Dream Dictionary, and it had been written long before this foreign doctor was born.
“It�
�s ever so interesting. Suppose you dream of sausages—that’s a quarrel. Unless you’re eating them. Then it’s love, or good health, the same as sneezing and mushrooms. The other night, I dreamed I was taking off my stockings and, sure enough, the very next morning, my brother sent me a postal order for five and six. Of course, they don’t always come true like that. Not at once…”
Here I managed to interrupt, and ask her if she knew where Bergmann had gone.
He had wanted some magazine or other, she told me. So she’d sent him over to Mitchell’s. It was down at the other end of the street. I couldn’t miss it.
“And you’d better take him his cigarettes,” she added. “He left them lying here on the counter.”
Mitchell’s, also, remembered the foreign gentleman, but less favorably than the girl at the tobacconist’s. There seemed to have been a bit of an argument. Bergmann had asked for The New World-Stage, and had become quite indignant when the boy naturally supposed it was a theatrical magazine, and had offered him The Stage or The Era instead. “Hopeless. Nothing to do,” I could imagine him groaning. At length, he had condescended to explain that The New World-Stage was about politics, and in German. The boy had advised him to try the bookstall inside the station.
It was at this point that I lost my head. The whole business was degenerating into a man-hunt, and I could only run, like a bloodhound, from clue to clue. It wasn’t until I had arrived, gasping, in front of the bookstall that I realized how silly I’d been. The bookstall attendants were much too busy to have noticed anybody with a foreign accent; there had probably been several, anyway, within the past half hour. I glanced wildly around, accosted two likely looking strangers, who regarded me with insulted suspicion, and then hurried back to the hotel.
Again, the porter was waiting for me.
“Bad luck, sir.” His manner was that of a sympathetic spectator toward the last man in an obstacle race.
“What do you mean? Isn’t he here yet?”
“Come and gone again. Wasn’t a minute after you left. ‘Where is he?’ he asks, same as you. Then the phone rings. It was a gentleman from the studio. We’d been trying to get him all morning. Wanted the Doctor to come out there, right away, as quick as he could. I said you’d be back, but he wouldn’t wait. He’s like that, sir—all impatience. So I put him in a taxi.”
Prater Violet Page 1