The World in the Evening

by Christopher Isherwood

  ‘And since then? Somehow or other—in some way that I don’t in the least understand—the bog is being drained. I feel this. In fact, I know it. I don’t try to explain to myself what is happening to me, yet. I’m just thankful. It’s a sort of miracle.

  ‘That’s why I can sincerely say I hope you’re happy, wherever you are. (I imagine you’ve gone back home?) Because I’m happy, and in a way I don’t think I’ve ever been before, in my whole life. It’s quite different from the way I was happy with Elizabeth. All I can say about it is: I feel free. Of course I’m not physically free right now; lying in this sweaty bed and smelling like a garbage-dump inside this cast and reading till my eyes ache. But I know that everything’s going to be all right. And I’m not miserable and dreary and scared, any more.

  ‘I would like to prove this to you. I wish I could see you again, even if it’s only for an hour or two. Would you consider it—I mean, of course, after we’ve been respectably divorced and don’t need a chaperone? Maybe you’d rather not; but I doubt that, because you were never one to bear grudges. I’m quite certain, at least, that you don’t hate me. You’re not the hating kind.

  ‘It’s very late now, and my hand has gotten tired writing all this stuff. I do hope you don’t tear this letter up as soon as you see who it’s from. I’ll just have to rely on that proverbial female curiosity. Which reminds me that my male curiosity has a couple of dozen questions it would like to ask you, some day.

  ‘Remember, if there’s anything you want that I can give you, you’ve only to name it.

  ‘Eagerly looking forward to being able to sign myself

  ‘your ex-husband

  ‘Stephen.’

  PART THREE

  A BEGINNING

  1

  AS CHARLES KENNEDY had predicted, I got out of the cast in ten weeks, almost to the day. After that, I had a brace on my leg and walked with crutches for nearly three months. From the crutches and the brace, I graduated to a stick and a limp. I was still limping slightly at the time of Pearl Harbor.

  I was in New York by then, having moved up there in the middle of October, and I didn’t return to Dolgelly until late in January, 1942. The immediate reasons for my visit were two postcards, one from Sarah and the other from Charles. Charles’s card told me that Bob was coming home on what was almost certainly his last leave before being sent overseas. Sarah wrote: ‘Gerda has some wonderful news. Won’t you come down and share it with us? And, as usual, your tiresome old Aunt has a concern which needs your guidance.’

  Sarah met me at the station. ‘Why, I declare,’ she exclaimed, when she had looked me up and down after our greetings, ‘you’ve put on a little weight, I do believe! And the leg doesn’t pain you any more, I hope?’

  ‘Not a bit. It’s better than new … But, Aunt Sarah, what’s all this about Gerda?’

  ‘Why, Stephen—can’t you guess?’ Sarah smiled teasingly up at me. I remembered how, when I was a boy, she used to love making me drag some piece of news out of her, little by little.

  ‘It’s something to do with Peter?’

  Sarah nodded delightedly.

  ‘She’s had news of him?’

  ‘She’s had news from him!’

  ‘And he’s all right?’

  ‘Very much so!’

  ‘You mean it wasn’t true what Gerda feared—they never did send him to Germany?’

  ‘Oh yes, they sent him. He wasn’t spared that. And I’m afraid it must have been a terrible experience.’

  ‘But the Nazis haven’t discovered who he is?’

  ‘Indeed they discovered! And they put him into a camp—one of the worst ones—under sentence of death—’

  ‘But in that case, how can he—Oh, you mean he’s escaped?’

  ‘Yes! Wasn’t it marvellous of him? He must be a most resourceful young man, mustn’t he? We don’t know exactly how he did it, yet. His letter doesn’t go into details—out of prudence, no doubt. Gerda thinks it’s probably because there may be others who hope to use the same means.’

  ‘But, if he’s back in France, won’t he have to hide? He must be in great danger still.’

  ‘Ah, but he isn’t in France! He writes from Switzerland.’

  ‘Switzerland? Goodness—that’s wonderful! Then he’s really safe. Gerda must be very happy.’

  ‘Stephen dearest, I can tell you, she’s like a changed person! Lately, you know, I’d been greatly worried about her. She was brave as always, but she seemed to be losing faith. I really began to fear that she’d give way to some wasting sickness. And now —you should see her! Well, you will, of course, in the morning. Not tonight, because she’s gone into Philadelphia—’ By this time, we had descended the station steps and gotten into a taxi. As we drove off, Sarah switched to another subject without even pausing to draw breath, the way she often did when she was happy and excited. ‘I never come by here without thinking of your dreadful accident. I’ve warned everybody I know to be careful on that crossing. And we’ve been petitioning the authorities to put up a traffic light. I very much doubt if they’ll do it now, though, in spite of their promises. I’m afraid this War is going to be used as an excuse for all kinds of procrastination and penny-pinching.’

  Sarah then went on to tell me about the effects of the War on Dolgelly. At the time of that false report of the bombing of San Francisco which was spread around soon after the news of Pearl Harbor, she had overheard a lady in the drugstore remark comfortably: ‘Well, I guess we can take it, if the British can.’ ‘I felt sorely tempted to remind her,’ said Sarah, ‘that England is not three thousand miles wide.’ Old Mrs Yale had been afraid to let the young Japanese student who lodged with her go out to his classes in Philadelphia or even leave the house at all before dark, for fear he would be lynched. ‘She was getting all ready to defend him with her life,’ Sarah told me, gaily. ‘Poor dear silly woman! So much courage at her age, and not one particle of sense!’ At length, after Mrs Yale had kept up her precautions for a couple of weeks, the driver of the bus on which the Japanese had ridden into town every morning had asked her where he was, saying, ‘I kind of miss that smile of his. He’s always got a smile for everyone. He hasn’t been sick, I hope?’

  And then, only a short while ago, Sarah told me, the District Attorney’s office had issued a new set of regulations for enemy aliens. These regulations, literally applied, would have confined Gerda to a tiny area around Tawelfan which didn’t even include the post-office, the movie theatre or the nearest store, not to mention the Meeting House. ‘As soon as ever we got word of this,’ said Sarah, ‘Emily Bradbury and I put on our war-bonnets and were off to Philadelphia on the next train. We made such a clamour that the D.A. saw us himself, and I have to admit that he was just as charming as he could be. Poor man, I really believe he was somewhat afraid of us! He lifted nearly all of the restrictions at once, and apologized for our trouble. So I told him: ‘Never mind. If we sometimes make a mess of bureaucracy in this country, it’s only because we’re not used to it, thank Goodness.’ That made him laugh. And what do you think, Stephen, he actually invited us to lunch with him!’

  ‘So now Gerda can go where she likes?’ I asked.

  ‘Yes; anywhere within the Philadelphia area. And even to New York, if she just calls the office and tells them in advance. But, of course, we weren’t only thinking of her when we went to see the D.A. There are many others in the same situation. And this was really more a question of principle, as far as Gerda was concerned. You see, she’ll most likely be leaving us soon, anyway. She naturally wants to join Peter as soon as she can.’

  ‘Where would they meet?’

  ‘Well, that would depend on circumstances, of course. She might be able to get through to Switzerland, legally or otherwise. Or Peter might be able to get out. I’ve begged her to do nothing rash and she’s promised, but I’m sure she’ll forget all about that when the time comes, bless her heart … In any case, she feels she should go to Portugal for a start, and then consider
the next step to be taken from there.’

  ‘But that’s impossible these days, surely?’

  ‘Not quite impossible, no. There’s someone in the State Department who is willing to consider her case on what they called “compassionate grounds”—I always think that’s such a beautiful phrase—’

  ‘But how in the world did you get this person interested?’

  Sarah smiled slyly. ‘Well, you see, I was once able to do a little favour to an old servant of his, whom he valued because of family associations. It was nothing at all, really, but as somebody—it couldn’t have been Emerson, could it?—once said, it’s the truly distinguished who are most capable of gratitude. And this particular person—I don’t think I ought to mention his name, even to you—is very distinguished indeed. If he says Gerda may go, she will go.’

  ‘Well, that’s fine. Tell me, how long did you have to twist his arm before he started feeling so grateful?’

  ‘Oh Stephen,’ exclaimed Sarah, laughing, ‘you always make me out to be such a terrible bully! And sometimes I’m afraid I am. But, you know there’s so many people in this life who just refuse to admit to their own goodness of heart. It’s as if they were positively ashamed of it. They get quite angry with you, sometimes, if you show them you know how kind and helpful they really are. So then you just have to be firm with them. They’re usually glad that you were, in the end.’

  Bob Wood came around to Tawelfan with the car to pick me up, shortly before supper. He was in his Navy uniform. He grinned at me with the embarrassment almost any serviceman feels on first meeting a friend who has known him only in civilian clothes.

  ‘Man, it’s real sharp!’ I said.

  ‘This old thing?’ Bob shrugged his shoulders, putting on a mock-blasé voice. ‘It’s just something I slip into to be comfortable, around the house. I’m almost ashamed to go out on the street in it. One sees such dreadful common people wearing them, nowadays.’ He laughed and punched my arm. ‘Christ, I’m glad to see you, you bastard! Charles is tickled to death, too. He’s been cooking all afternoon. He says his patients can rot, tonight. He’s staying home.’

  I had been to their house often, during my convalescence. It was on the opposite side of the valley, just below the woods; a dramatically angled modern building of redwood and glass. The living-room was cantilevered out from the hillside so that one end of it looked like the bridge of a ship, with an outside gallery that was at least thirty feet above the ground. Bob used to do handstands on the rail of this gallery when he had had a few drinks.

  Charles came out of the kitchen to welcome me, wearing a woman’s apron over his trousers. On his huge body, it looked almost as small as a fig-leaf. ‘Make yourself at home,’ he said, ‘while I put the finishing touches to the ragoût d’agneau Navarin. Bob—the Martinis.’

  While Bob fixed the drinks, I walked over to the big bookcase. I had gotten into the habit of doing this on previous visits, and I knew the arrangement of one particular shelf by heart, now; if anything so haphazard could be called an arrangement. Chandler’s Introduction to Parasitology, Robin’s La Pensée Grecque, Tender is the Night, Wolcott’s Animal Biology, Bloch’s Le Marquis de Sade, Benedict’s Patterns of Culture, Der Zauberberg, The World in the Evening, The Collected Stories of Elizabeth Rydal, A Garden with Animals, As Birds Do, Mother, Letters in a Bottle, and The Faded Carpet in the rare British first edition.

  I had spotted them the very first time I came to the house, and asked: ‘I’d no idea you were a Rydal fan, Charles?’

  ‘Oh, indeed I was!’ (I noticed the tense.) ‘A raging fan … And, talking of that, when are you going to publish the letters?’

  ‘Letters?’ I had very nearly been caught, but managed to look blank. ‘What letters?’

  ‘Elizabeth’s letters,’ Charles had said, looking me straight in the eye. ‘She wrote letters, didn’t she? Most people do.’

  ‘But how did you know I was thinking of publishing them?’

  ‘Aren’t you?’

  ‘Well, maybe.’

  Charles had grinned. ‘I told you I was an inquisitive bastard.’

  ‘You certainly keep your eyes open,’ I’d said, remembering the evening of Bob’s picture-show when I’d passed out, and wondering uneasily what Charles had been doing in the room after I lost consciousness.

  ‘That’s our Charles,’ Bob had put in, as if to confirm my suspicions, ‘The one-man F.B.I.’

  ‘Well,’ I’d told Charles, ‘I don’t know if I’ll publish them or not. Not yet, at any rate. I might get them all sorted out and leave them some place, in some library. I couldn’t publish all of them, anyhow.’

  ‘You know,’ Charles had said, ‘you and Elizabeth were great figures in my young life. When I went to Europe in 1936, I actually made a pilgrimage to the Schwarzsee and saw the house you used to live in.’

  ‘You didn’t!’

  ‘I most certainly did! I even discovered three people who remembered you quite well. Your cook, and the hotel manager, and a man at the post-office. Your cook adored you both. She said it was so cute, the way the young gentleman used to try to fix meals and kept burning his fingers.’

  ‘But, Charles, why in the world haven’t you ever told me this before?’

  ‘I thought you’d probably hate talking about it … Besides, I only talk about something when I want to ask questions. And I only ask questions when I don’t know.’

  At supper, which we ate late after at least six Martinis, we drank Bob’s health.

  ‘Do you know, Steve,’ said Bob, ‘this is nearly our fourth anniversary? Charles never remembers things like that.’

  ‘I do too,’ said Charles. ‘But it wasn’t till March.’

  ‘It was February,’ said Bob, ‘and I can prove it. By March we were in Baltimore.’

  ‘Maybe you’re right. Okay—so it was February.’

  ‘Did I ever tell you, Steve, how Charles and I met?’

  ‘No, you didn’t.’

  ‘Bob,’ said Charles, ‘that’s a very intimate confidence.’

  ‘So what? Steve’s a very intimate friend—aren’t you, Steve? Well, it was like this. Charles was down in Florida, at Miami, on vacation. And he went into a restaurant and proceeded to get drunk at the bar—really plastered. In fact, I’ve never seen him so drunk since. And who do you think was in that bar? Little old me.’

  ‘Ogling me,’ said Charles.

  ‘That’s a Goddam lie. I was ignoring you with well-bred disgust, and wondering what made a nice guy like you turn yourself into such a slob.’

  ‘Be that as it may—’ said Charles. ‘He somehow slithered and crawled along that bar, which was full of people, until he popped up right under my elbow.’

  ‘Whereupon,’ said Bob, ‘he grabbed my arm and informed me that we were going to drink together until I was as stinking as he was.’

  ‘And did you object?’

  ‘I did not. Because, being well brought up, I didn’t wish to create a public scene.’

  ‘There was a scene, however. Quite a considerable scene.’

  ‘And who started it?’

  ‘I started it. I freely admit that.’ Charles and Bob had their eyes on me, their audience, throughout this dialogue, like comedians in an act. ‘I started it by asking a very simple question. I asked, “Can you swim?” That’s a simple question, isn’t it, Stephen?’

  ‘It’s simple, all right,’ I said; ‘but whatever made you ask it?’

  ‘You see, Steve,’ Bob interrupted, ‘it was like this. I was wearing civvies—I was still in the Service—it was my last month—but I had a pass, and that was okay. So when Charles asked me what I did, I told him the truth. I said, “I’m in the Navy.” And he asked “Can you swim?” And I said, “Yes.” And he said, “I don’t believe it.” And I said, “Well, don’t.” And he said, “I’m going to find out if you can swim or not.”’

  ‘You’re missing the whole point of the story,’ Charles interrupted. ‘You see, Stephen, this restaur
ant was built around a patio, and in the middle of the patio was a swimming-pool. And this swimming-pool was floodlit … I hear they have a lot of those floodlit pools in California. You must have seen one, haven’t you?’

  ‘I have indeed,’ I said.

  ‘What’s the joke, Steve?’ Bob asked. ‘Why are you grinning?’

  ‘Never mind,’ I said. ‘Go on with the story.’

  ‘You’ve seen them on a fine night,’ said Charles, ‘when there’s a little chill in the air, and the water’s been warmed, and it steams? Then you know exactly how I felt. That pool looked so inviting, but—what do you think?—those bastards had put up a sign saying “No swimming allowed after sunset”. It was then, Stephen, that I decided to conduct a small experiment, with Bob as its guinea-pig.’

  ‘If that pool looked so good to you,’ said Bob. ‘why didn’t you just up and jump into it yourself?’

  ‘Ah,’ said Charles, ‘that’s where you fail to follow the extraordinary subtleties of the intoxicated mind. I knew I could swim. But I still hoped that maybe you were bluffing, and couldn’t. Because, don’t you see, if you hadn’t been able to swim, it would have been all right to throw you in the pool? They’d forgotten to include that on their lousy sign. It was only the swimming that was forbidden.’

  ‘That was a good point,’ I said. ‘You could have argued that in court.’

  ‘I meant to. I’d have taken it to the Supreme Court, if necessary.’

  ‘So what happened next?’ I asked.

  ‘Why,’ said Bob, ‘this big ape picks me up in his arms and starts out of the bar, making for the pool, so he could dunk me. Then, of course, all hell broke loose. The bartender vaulted clear over the bar with some kind of a Stone Age club—which surprised me, because I’d thought this was a real refined place—and a couple of other guys grabbed Charles’s arms and tried to get me away from him. Only, Charles can be awful strong when he’s in an obstinate mood—’