Their Promised Land

by Ian Buruma

  The night before Bernard’s Wagnerian reverie, he had dinner with Douglas Cooper, the art collector, who had been given a new government job interrogating downed German pilots when they were found alive, or collecting documents from their corpses when they were not. It was a morbid task that he evidently loathed, but Bernard finds Cooper much improved by his “various adventures—and he is no longer so pansy. By Jove, he can take his liquor.”

  One night at the end of May, Bernard goes to the cinema (“the flicks”) in Bangor with the Roman Catholic padre, named Chamberlain. They watch a newsreel of Italian soldiers surrendering to the British in Abyssinia. The Italians under the command of the Duke of Aosta march past a British guard of honor with white flags unfurled. “This,” Bernard writes, “was the only front where the war was conducted in any way on honourable and gentlemanly terms.” But then, as he notes with amusement, the duke was an Old Etonian, keen on fox hunting.

  In the same letter—and this is really the point—Bernard comes back to his religious feelings. He observes how he gravitates in most of his army units toward the Catholic priests, “who in every case have been such human people.” But in the following paragraph he mentions a visit out of the blue by the Jewish chaplain for Northern Ireland, who, “seeing my curious name on some list, sought me out. He was a curious bearded gentleman with a foreign accent who told me that he was experiencing great difficulties in seeking out his flock as so many would not acknowledge their true origin.”

  Not being one of those, Bernard later pays a return visit to the rabbi, mostly out of courtesy, it seems. He clearly preferred the company of the Catholic padre. But when the padre asks Bernard in August to “read the lesson,” he declines, telling him “that it would hardly be right and proper for me to do so and informed him why.”

  Win replies that she is glad he has met so many “kindred spirits,” suggesting that she has failed to do so herself. But this was not entirely true, as we shall see. Music was the closest thing for her to spirituality. She would sometimes perform in a church, as this fascinating passage in a letter written in the early and still very fearsome period of the war reveals. Here she is, on December 9, 1940:

  This afternoon I played through the first 3 movements of the Handel Sonata in the church with the organist—there wasn’t time for more because of the blackout . . . I am more frightened than ever now that I have discovered that I have to sit in the choir opposite the vicar throughout the service, & stand right in the centre under the Screen to play. My fiddle sounded grand in the empty church tonight & I love playing with the organ, but the organist kept slowing down sentimentally at the end of phrases as though it were a hymn.

  This passage, as well as Bernard’s musings over The Flying Dutchman, made me think about the strange love affair between German Jews and Wagner’s music. The love, despite Wagner’s admiration for Mendelssohn and his friendship with Hermann Levi, who conducted the first performance of Wagner’s Parsifal, was unrequited, of course. But Wagner’s music gave Jews an opportunity to feel a spiritual affinity with German culture, even reveling in their being German, without pretending to be Christian. Worshipping at the altar of Bayreuth was enough.

  In the spring of 1941, Win found her perfect musical match. She joined the Newbury String Players, a chamber orchestra of accomplished amateur musicians founded by Gerald Finzi, the British composer who was most famous for his cantata Dies Natalis, written in 1939. This deeply spiritual work was set to the words of Thomas Traherne, a seventeenth-century poet and writer of religious texts. Finzi, a handsome man with thick dark hair, was a collector of rare editions of English poetry and a devoted grower of English apples. The English countryside inspired his music. He adored the poetry of William Wordsworth. Ralph Vaughan Williams was the best man at Finzi’s wedding to Joy Black, an artist who helped to found the Newbury String Players. Finzi was as English as could be, his music steeped in the Anglican tradition. He was also the son of a German mother and Italian father, both of them Orthodox Jews.

  Win describes the Finzis at length in a letter of May 20, 1941:

  Yesterday, I went to tea to the Finzis—such nice people. They have built themselves a beautiful house on the site of an old farmhouse. It is modern & artistic & very practical. One room, which they call the Book Room is entirely lined with books from floor to ceiling; it has windows all round looking out over [the] heavenly Berkshire landscape from every angle . . . Finzi has his own study, containing yet another piano and hundreds more books, immediately over the Book Room . . . Mrs Finzi, besides being very decorative and charming, is a very clever artist . . . Finzi’s own special hobby is fruit, of which he has planted a great deal. We talked about many interesting things, education, music, books. I thoroughly enjoyed my visit. I should love you to meet them—they would be a couple after your own heart.

  She might as well have been describing the Schlegels in E. M. Forster’s novel Howards End, the family of intellectuals with a foreign name, contrasted by Forster with the Wilcoxes, who are very English philistines. Finzi’s family background is not touched upon in Win’s letter, nor the fact that the house she described so lovingly was also a refuge for many German and Czech Jews. I’m not sure why she doesn’t mention any of this. But in the Finzis, I think, Win had found kindred spirits, not unlike her own relatives in Kassel, but without the ponderous attitudes she found so disconcertingly foreign. Finzi never converted, so far as I know. But he certainly broke with his parents’ Orthodox faith. Win never had any belief to break away from. Music was their shared faith, music and England. Finzi was English in the same way Win was. There would have been nothing incongruous to either of them about composing a cantata celebrating the Nativity in the Christian tradition, or playing the violin in a village church to the accompaniment of an organ, or indeed having the tallest Christmas tree.

  —

  In the spring of 1941, when Win was going around town halls, churches, and army camps with the Newbury String Players to boost the morale of the home front, British cities were still being battered by German bombs: Coventry received another Blitz in April, after being almost wiped out in November 1940. The night of April 16 was especially devastating in London. Defying Bernard’s anxious advice to stay away, Win arrived at Paddington station the following day:

  We descended from our train—only 5 minutes behind time—upon a carpet of crushed glass, and we spent the whole day wading about in broken glass. Selfridges has been badly gutted by oil bombs, & I am told that Maples got it very badly . . . There is a big crater near Marble Arch, another at Goodge Street, and the damage everywhere is terrific. The Globe Theatre (Dear Brutus)* is gutted. In spite of everything, London life proceeds quite normally—no one referred to the Blitz—and I was deeply impressed. The trains at Paddington were running in and out dead on time, and there was no confusion . . . We lunched sumptuously at the Cumberland, complete with band, & we saw an excellent show—Diversion No. 2.* Edith Evans was superb. One felt almost ashamed to be pleasure-seeking in battle-scarred London, but I was glad to be there, & my admiration was unbounded for all those Londoners—shop girls—actresses—taxi drivers—everyone—who paraded for duty as quietly and normally as ever after such a hell of a night.

  One bonus of the war was the proliferation of culture in Britain and for the troops overseas. Free concerts, superb radio, educational programs, cheap editions of good books, films, many of them deliberately patriotic but of surprising quality, were taking high culture into places where it had barely been glimpsed before. Win’s efforts with the violin were part of a much larger enterprise that continued under the first Labour government after the war, to bring culture to the people. I am exaggerating a little here, but Britain was slowly being turned into a nation of Schlegels, at least for a while.

  And yet Win’s own children were often a disappointment to her. Only Hilary and Wendy even came close to her high musical expectations. That John had pretty much given up on the piano
in favor of practicing conjuring tricks distressed her. It shouldn’t have. One of my earliest childhood memories of St. Mary Woodlands, only about twenty minutes away from Kintbury by car, is of John smiling at my childish wonder as he pulled colored handkerchiefs out of a black hat. Although never more than an average actor (but a superb storyteller), he loved to entertain and insisted on others entertaining him in turn, which could be a burden for a young nephew eager to impress. John lived for the theater. He was mesmerized as a child by the cinema organ that would rise in lurid lights before the movie began and then go full blast. The moment the theater goes dark and the curtain goes up never lost its magic for him.

  Bernard and Win were aware of John’s artistic talents early on. How could they not be? For putting on shows with the family and friends, spending hours applying stage makeup to his sisters, turning Mount Pleasant into a rehearsal space and film studio, painting sets and lighting stages—these were the things he was good at and that made him happy. That is why he sometimes flew into rages when others refused to take his productions as seriously as he did; they were blocking his vision. This worried his parents. They wanted him to be more like other boys. There was no future in John’s “hobbies.” His lack of interest in anything but his artistic “obsession” was seen for a while as a character defect.

  Bernard on January 19, 1941: “It is difficult to know how to help [John] become less egocentric, but it is all bound up with his inability to shine at things normal boys of his age can manage. Add to this a sort of spinelessness & inertia and you have most of his troubles laid bare.”

  Win on January 21: “I agree with you in your assessment of John; it is his spinelessness & lack of interest in anything intelligent or serious that worries me most.” On July 19: “I think John needs to be encouraged to do something serious for England at his age, even if it entails a sacrifice—the better worth doing.”

  What she meant was some wholesome outdoor work for a local farmer, helping to bring in the harvest, or some such thing. Instead, John was entirely preoccupied with the “Kintbury Follies,” a variety show that he planned to put on at the Village Hall in Inkpen, near Kintbury. Win on May 28: “Next holidays are going to be a nightmare. [John] ought really to have been Walter’s son, & then they could have enthused over their amateur theatricals together, but it is not much in my line, & nobody will be allowed to think and breathe anything else, & there won’t be a corner of the house that is tenable!”

  This is extraordinary to read now. I grew up on stories from my mother about the Kintbury Follies as a kind of legendary beginning of John’s career. Everyone took part in these productions in one way or another, even the grandmothers, and so did Win and Laura. Once success came to him, no one was a more devoted supporter than Win. And in fact, despite Win’s complaints and Bernard’s worries about John’s spinelessness, they were quite quick to reconcile themselves to his artistic aspirations. Such ambitions often end in failure, of course. They couldn’t have dreamed that John would one day become a famous film director, especially at a time when the outcome of the war, and with it their fate as a family, was still deeply uncertain.

  That John was unfit for the conventional life of a British boarding school was clear. They just didn’t know what to do about it. It must have been terribly disappointing to them that he couldn’t follow in his father’s footsteps, be a keen sportsman, and show the schoolboy spirit that expressed their ideal of Englishness. This was particularly distressing to Win, who saw Bernard as the epitome of that ideal. But, alas, John was more like her, a dreamer, quite lacking in self-confidence, except in the life of his imagination, which he could shape and control, on stage or on film.

  Bernard was perhaps quicker to understand him than was Win. Without quite realizing it, he put his finger on one aspect of John’s troubles at school. He wrote on July 30, 1941, “I don’t think he is exaggerating his situation at [Uppingham] but am not quite sure what the ‘old trouble’ is—antisemitic or what? . . . In some young people, such as Ben, who I believe suffered similarly at school, it leads to finding a sanctuary in music if there is the ability . . . If only this war were over one might reorganize John’s career and further his artistic ambitions and talent.”

  I am almost sure he was not implying that John and Ben shared a sexual orientation. True awareness of that came much later. But for all his jovial, rugger-playing, public schoolboyish exterior, Bernard was remarkably acute in the assessment of his son’s predicament.

  I have in front of me what is perhaps the first newspaper review of John’s career. It appeared in one of the local Berkshire papers. A show was held at the Village Hall at Inkpen in aid of Wings for Victory, a campaign to get citizens to invest in war bonds. The paper notes, “The second half of the programme took the form of a variety show arranged by Mr. John Schlesinger. Amongst those taking part were: Marjorie Carter, John and Roger Schlesinger . . . Susan Schlesinger, Jane Spickernell . . . and Wendy Schlesinger. The variety show was an excellent performance by all the artists taking part and Mr. John Schlesinger is to be congratulated for arranging such a fine show. Thanks are also due to him for the excellent scenery and stage lighting effects.” John not only wrote, directed, and designed the show. He played both male and female parts as well.

  In the same column, a mention is made of the splendid performance at the same Village Hall of the Newbury String Players under their conductor, Mr. Gerald Finzi, playing an old English symphony, followed by Suk’s Meditation on a Chorale and a Vivaldi concerto.

  Bernard on September 10: “I am so glad the show was a success . . . John must be bucked & so must you after all your cooperation & effort to help things run well. Let us hope that John’s persistence displayed in his theatricals will take him to the right goal in life. He will have to choose his career very carefully.”

  —

  Bernard and Win missed one another awfully, a sentiment they expressed in every letter they wrote. But as long as Bernard was posted somewhere in the British Isles, Win could at least visit him from time to time, taking trains, and even planes when he was in Northern Ireland, with her violin and a suitcase with her evening dresses. They could write letters in the expectation that they would arrive in a few days. They could even telephone. The news she dreaded most of all was something she had already anticipated in 1940; that he would be “packed off to the East,” out of reach, God knows where and exposed to what dangers.

  The order came in February 1942. He was as disturbed by it as she was, but expressed this with the forced cheerfulness and slightly clichéd prose that he usually adopted when he felt things most profoundly. His last letter in England was written on February 12 from a pub called the Red Lion in Hatfield, Hertfordshire:

  I am sitting in one now deserted & rather shambly room, with memories of your dear self still haunting it. Oh the partings. A dark cloud passed over the sun as your train steamed out this morning. I fear it may stay below the horizon for some considerable time for that is my rather gloomy vista whenever you are away from me. Eventually, however, I feel convinced that the sun will shine again, we shall all be reunited . . . and live happily ever after like all the good story books.

  Her letter, now addressed on the envelope to Lt. Colonel B. E. Schlesinger, is sent two days later:

  My dearest beloved—I wonder so much where you are & how you are faring, & where you are bound for? My thoughts are with you ceaselessly, while I try to picture the unknown. It is very terrible to have a part of oneself so cut off that you know not where they are, nor whither they are bound . . . It is only a week ago today since we laughed together chez Messrs Potash and Perlmutter,* since we met N. at the Conservative Club, lunched at Prunier’s & dined at the Berkeley, & already it seems like a dream; and one has returned to a world of gnawing anxiety. I pray to God constantly for you, my darling, & for our poor hard-pressed country.

  Seven

  EMPIRE

  For more than a month, st
raddling March and April 1942, Bernard was on board a ship transporting soldiers and nurses, many of whom, he later related to Win, ended up getting married to one another—it was a long trip. Neither Bernard nor Win had any idea where he was bound. The destination was a closely held military secret. Bernard’s messages would arrive in Kintbury in envelopes stamped “Received from H.M. ships” and “passed by censors.”

  Letters would normally take at least a month to reach the other side, if they arrived at all, even once Bernard had landed at his final destination, a situation that would last until near the end of the war. This didn’t prevent them from writing almost every day. Some were long letters sent by airmail, all of them carefully numbered, and some were “airgraphs,” a technique developed by the Kodak company whereby short letters were photographed and sent on microfilm. These would normally go quicker. Everything had to pass through military censorship, which made Win nervous about Bernard’s more amorous effusions.

  Bernard’s fairly cushy job en route was to look after the health of the officers on board. The rest of his time was spent reading and dining, as well as playing poker and deck tennis. That he passed along the coast of Africa seems clear from his descriptions of palm trees on the horizon and the sight of “a primitive bark canoe being skilfully paddled by a coal black native wearing only something around his middle as seems customary.”

  In the last week of March he is ashore in a “very pleasant port,” where “people are most hospitable” and “all the clubs have thrown open their doors and made us honorary members during our fleeting visit.” One of Bernard’s habits in any new place was to find the nearest squash court. Several old friends from his time in Northern Ireland happened to be in the same port city, one of whom, after spending some time there, “looks almost as black as the natives who provide the labour and service everywhere.” As though to make sure he is not misunderstood, Bernard has penciled in the words “from the sun” after “black.” Subsequent letters make it clear that the port city in question was Cape Town in South Africa.