by Colm Toibin
“The minute I saw a man called Christopher Isherwood,” she said, “I knew he was for me. He is small, English, a writer and homosexual. I enticed him into a corner in some bar that Klaus favors in Amsterdam and I immediately came to the point. And I presumed that he would just say yes. But to my horror, Isherwood said no, and mentioned his boyfriend or his mother or both as impediments. And then he offered to contact his friend, who is even more famous and more English and more homosexual. He is called Auden. And this Auden said he would be delighted to marry me. So I put on my best suit and flew to England and he was so sweet if slightly hard to understand. And not only am I married, but I am English, so everyone has to pay even more attention to me now.”
“Will we be seeing your husband?” Katia asked.
“I am not sure that he grows in soil that is not English,” Erika replied.
When Erika informed her family that Christopher Isherwood delighted in being known as “the pimp” for his services to her, they warned Monika that, since she too was about to become stateless, then she would also have to find a husband of the English persuasion.
“They don’t wash,” Elisabeth said. “There is no English word for soap.”
“You will have to marry Isherwood,” Michael told her, “if he will have you. He wouldn’t have Erika.”
“He longed for me,” Erika said. “But the circumstances were not right.”
“The Magician,” Monika said, “is going to make us all into Czechs.”
“I think I would prefer to be Danish,” Elisabeth said.
“Or Brazilian, like my grandmother,” Monika added.
“If Uncle Heinrich has his way, we will all be Russian,” Michael said.
“Why can’t we be Swiss?” Monika asked.
“Because the Swiss don’t give citizenship to just anyone,” Thomas said. “In fact, they give it to no one, least of all Germans fleeing Hitler.”
“Is that what we are?” Michael asked.
“Wake up, my boy,” Erika said. “Hitler is looking at your file as we speak. He sees a nasty, spotty, petulant youth.”
She made a theatrical grimace and stretched her arms out towards Michael as though to attack him. And then she followed him around the table.
* * *
They tried to make the rented house overlooking the lake in Küsnacht feel like their own. It wasn’t simply that the candelabra they placed on the dining room table came from his grandmother’s house in Lübeck, or that the 143-volume Weimarer Sophienausgabe edition of Goethe’s works was on his bookshelves. Rather, Katia had a way of creating intimate, comfortable corners and then larger, more impressive spaces. She had done this everywhere they had been, in Sanary as much as in Munich.
He began to dream about the other houses where he had lived. In each dream he was himself, now. Through some mysterious arrangement, he had been allowed back for a brief time to wander in the emptied-out rooms. In Lübeck, he saw where the piano had been, where his mother’s dressing table once was, how the oil painting of the woman on the stairwell had been removed, leaving a raw mark on the wallpaper.
He walked through his grandmother’s house on Mengstrasse in the sure knowledge that it would one day be his.
But in the other house, the house on Poschingerstrasse in Munich, there was, in another dream that came often, no one in the rooms, and no furniture, no books, no paintings. He had come back to find something that had been left behind. It was vital that it be retrieved. It was night and he had to make his way by touch. He grew more distressed when he could not remember what it was he should take with him. And when he began to worry that he would be found here, he heard stomping feet on the stairs and shouts and he was arrested and led away helplessly out of the house to a military car that made its way at speed through the streets of Munich.
* * *
In the spring of 1935 when he and Einstein were offered honorary doctorates from Harvard, he presumed that Katia would be too worried about the fate of her parents in Munich to want to travel far. On the days when her father was determined to pack up what they could and depart, Katia’s mother became uncertain. And on the days when her mother called, it was to say that her husband, in turn, had changed his mind. Since they did not run a Jewish business, they were not under orders to close. They were private people, she said, and they continued to be reassured by Winifred Wagner that they would be protected. And they had never liked Switzerland, she said. Why would anyone want to go to Switzerland?
But despite her worry about her parents, Katia insisted that he should accept the doctorate.
“At a time like this, we need allies,” she said. “And it will help me sleep knowing that Harvard is on our side.”
The ship was more comfortable than he had expected, the journey smoother. He amused himself watching American movies in the small cinema, and he avoided other passengers.
Alfred Knopf, his American publisher, made an enormous fuss when the ship docked, demanding, to the surprise of the other passengers, that journalists be allowed on board to do interviews with the great man and that Thomas and Katia be given special treatment by the authorities.
At the Harvard event there were six thousand people. Einstein seemed delighted that the cheering for the writer was, to his ears, louder than that for the scientist.
“That is as it should be,” he said. “If it was otherwise, there would be chaos.”
Thomas wondered what he meant, but was too distracted by admirers wanting books signed to think any further about it. Over lunch and later during drinks before dinner, he noticed that Einstein was trying to make Katia laugh.
“He is funnier than Charlie Chaplin,” she said. “I was so worried that he would want to talk about science. My father has some theory on his theory, but I’m afraid that I have forgotten what it is. He will never forgive me.”
“Who?”
“My father. He said that if only Einstein would listen to him, things would be different.”
Thomas was ready to say that this was typical of the Pringsheims, but he did not want to take from the sweetness of the occasion.
They had many invitations to stay at grand houses that lay between Boston and New York, but all their plans had to change when an invitation came to dine at the White House. Since he was to meet Roosevelt, Thomas had to decide what view on Germany he would share with him. Perhaps, he thought, he could have most influence if he spoke to the president about what was facing the Jews in Germany, and how many Jewish people had no choice but to seek refuge elsewhere. He wondered if America could still become a safe haven for them. But he should be careful not to let the president feel that he represented any particular group, or that he was here to lobby him or hector him.
One day in New York, Katia picked up the phone in their room to find someone from the Washington Post looking for Thomas. He knew that the German embassy was monitoring his movements. In the few interviews he had given, he had said as little as possible, insisting that he wanted only to talk about literature. He did not wish to be caught off guard so shook his head when Katia held the receiver out.
“I’m afraid he is not giving any interviews,” Katia said in her best English.
He saw her frowning and then heard her replying in German to whoever was on the line. She was apologizing profusely.
“She is the owner of the Washington Post,” Katia said, putting her hand over the receiver. “She says she has been trying to contact you. Her name is Agnes Meyer. She speaks German.”
He remembered receiving a note at Harvard from someone of that name, but he had replied to no one.
“What shall I do?” Katia asked.
“What does she want?”
Before he could advise her not to, Katia asked the woman on the line what she wanted. From where he sat, Thomas could hear this Agnes roaring.
“Either I hang up, or you speak to her,” Katia said, once more with her hand over the receiver.
When Thomas took the call, the woman was hurling abu
se at Katia, whom she thought was a secretary.
“You were speaking to my wife,” Thomas said.
There was silence for a while, and then Agnes Meyer welcomed him to America and claimed immediately that his invitation to the White House had been her idea.
“He needs to know about the middle ground,” she said. “Up to now he sees Nazis, whom he doesn’t like, and malcontents, whom he likes even less. I assured him that you would take a fresh line on the whole matter. We are being so vilified in Washington.”
“We?”
“Germans.”
“Quite rightly, perhaps,” Thomas said.
“This is not what the president will want to hear,” she replied.
He did not like her tone.
“Who are you?” he asked.
“I am Agnes Meyer, the wife of Eugene Meyer, the owner of the Washington Post.”
“And what is the reason for your call?”
“Do not speak to me in that way,” she said.
“Perhaps if you answer my question?”
“I am calling to say that we should meet in Washington, where I am now. I will not be at the dinner, which will be an intimate affair. I am calling because there are two things you need to know. One, Roosevelt will be in power for a very long time. Two, I will be very useful to you.”
“Thank you.”
“When I see your schedule, I will add a meeting with me in our Crescent Place house. It will be a private meeting. Now I must go. Thank you for your time and give my regards to your lady wife.”
* * *
The White House was smaller than he had imagined. The side entrance to which they were directed was not imposing. In one of the drawing rooms, with wallpaper that he judged too colorful and curtains that were like something in a theater, he found Mrs. Roosevelt and a few other guests, all of whom wished to ask him and Katia about their journey and their plans to return to Europe.
He tried out his English, but was more comfortable when the translator took over.
In the dining room, they were joined by the president, wheeled in by a male assistant. He was wearing a velvet dinner jacket and seemed to be pleased to see them.
“Europeans find me strange,” he said. “I am both president and prime minister. But I mean no harm.”
Over a very ordinary dinner, the president asked no questions, but made many wry comments. He was as amused as his wife at the news that the Manns had been telephoned by Agnes Meyer.
“In person, she is fearsome,” he said. “But down a telephone line, she is an opera singer.”
“We had to sit through an opera recently,” Mrs. Roosevelt said, “so the president is still haunted by the terror of it all.”
After dinner, they were taken to watch a movie, and then, as the president pleaded urgent matters as an excuse to be wheeled away, his wife showed them his study.
Thomas had presumed that there would be a one-to-one discussion between him and the president at some point, a time when they might speak about Germany, but obviously this was not something the president wanted.
The next day, Agnes Meyer assured him that this was the Roosevelts’ way of being friendly.
“They do this for very few people,” she said. “The less they say and the plainer the food, the more they like you. And the fact that they invited no one of any importance is a sign they trust you. You see, I told them to trust you. The First Lady wished to get the measure of you, and my understanding is that she actually liked your reserve. In Harvard, they found you stuffy, but the Roosevelts are more perceptive. You see, they both approved of your wife, and that means a lot to them. They are, more than anything, family people.”
Thomas hardly knew what to say in reply.
“At any time, you can send me a sign,” she went on, “and I will open doors in America for you. The Knopfs know only a slice of New York. They deal in books. They have no real influence. If you don’t send me a sign, I will know when the time is right and I will send you one.”
“A sign to say what?”
“That you must settle in America. In the meantime, you must do something urgent about your command of English.”
* * *
Thomas returned from the United States still having made no public statement against the regime. When Erika saw how strong his determination remained not to make life unduly difficult for Bermann, his German publisher, by denouncing Hitler, she wrote to him, suggesting that it was time he made his position clear and emphasizing how little she cared for Bermann.
“She doesn’t understand the precarious position of your parents,” Thomas said to Katia.
“With Klaus and Erika and Heinrich in full flight,” Katia said, “any damage that could be done has been done. Your speaking out would hardly matter to them. But it’s time in any case that they left Germany.”
“My speaking out would matter to Erika, it seems.”
“It would matter to us all.”
When Thomas issued a statement in support of Bermann, who was under fire from the émigrés for continuing as a publisher within Germany, Erika wrote to him in a tone of controlled rage.
Probably you will be very angry with me because of this letter. I am prepared for that, and I know what I am doing. This friendly time is predestined to separate people. Your relation to Dr. Bermann and his publishing house is indestructible—you seem to be ready to sacrifice everything for it. In that case, if it is a sacrifice for you that I, slowly but surely, will be lost for you—then just never mind. For me it is sad and terrible.
When he showed the letter to Katia, Thomas presumed that she would have much to say about the many ways in which Erika, since the day she was born, had attempted to control their lives. But Katia said nothing.
He was aware that the shunning of him that Erika threatened would possibly become widely known. He knew also from Alfred Knopf that the reading public in the United States were coming to see him as the most significant German writer alive, and one who was in exile because of his opposition to Hitler. It would not be easy to explain his silence to them.
Up to now, he had seen himself as exceptional, and that was why he had not wanted to join the dissidents. But more than anything else, he had been afraid. This was something that Katia understood, but not Erika nor Klaus nor Heinrich either. They did not understand timidity. For them there was only clarity. But this, Thomas believed, was a time of clarity just for the brave few; for the rest, it was a time of confusion. And he belonged to the rest in a way that did not, now, make him feel proud. He presented himself to the world as a man of principle, but instead, he thought, he was weak.
When a telegram arrived from Klaus adding fuel to Erika’s fire, Thomas went for a walk by the lake on his own. It was so typical of Klaus to wait until Erika had sent her letter! He was inclined to write to both of them to suggest, since they were so astute, that they add up the amount of money they had received from him during their time in exile.
What irritated him more than anything was the knowledge that Erika and Klaus were right.
He was working each day on the next volume of his long work based on the story of Joseph in the Old Testament; he still felt that there would be readers for such a book, even as the sound of warmongering became shriller in Germany. Once he spoke out against the regime, however, he would lose his German readers. The words he was writing would lie dead on the page. They would depend on translators. And he would be forever on the Nazi blacklist, and Katia’s parents would be hounded by them further. But as he faced towards home, he told himself that this was happening to all the other writers, and to many other people.
He had been loyal to his publisher; he had wanted to keep his German readership. He had prevaricated and delayed. He had tried not to think about what he should do. He lived in dread of facing the fact that Germany was lost to him already. If he spoke out, he would have no choice.
Of course he would denounce Hitler! But doing so at the behest of his daughter, with all the family watching
him, made him feel powerless. If only Erika could be quiet, then he would act.
Katia wrote to Erika expressing sorrow at her tone; she was careful not to distance herself from Thomas as she emphasized how hurt they both were that Erika would write to her father in this way. Thomas himself composed a gentle, appeasing letter to Erika some days later saying that the day might dawn when he would speak out.
The two letters served only to exasperate Erika further.
He watched from his study window as Katia, standing in the drive, was handed the post a few mornings later. As he saw her opening a letter and reading it with a frown on her face, he knew it was from Erika. He was surprised that Katia did not come immediately to his study to show it to him. At lunch, they discussed the events of the day without any reference to Erika. It was only later when he came in search of Katia, asking if she would accompany him on his afternoon stroll, that she showed him not just the letter, which was filled with acrimony, but a draft of a statement that she herself, in her old-fashioned handwriting, had prepared for him to issue: a statement denouncing the Nazis.
“Have you all turned against me?” he asked.
“There is no rush,” she said. “And what I have here is merely an outline. I am sure you will do it better yourself. There is nothing in this that you do not think.”
“Does Erika decide for me?” he asked.
“No, I do,” she replied.
“Do you agree with her letter?”
“I have no interest in her letter. I read it quickly this morning. I have already forgotten what was in it.”
His statement, published some days later in the Neue Zürcher Zeitung, while roundly denouncing the regime, lacked any real sharpness. It had been written with Katia looking over his shoulder.
At first, his statement was mainly ignored. He received a warm note from Heinrich congratulating him on his stance, but no one else got in touch, nor was he threatened in any way by the regime. The Nazis had, he supposed, more important things to do. The only real consequence of his letter was that Bonn University rescinded his honorary doctorate.