Christopher and His Kind

by Christopher Isherwood

  Francis, on the other hand, seemed far more at home than he had been in Germany. He still drank a great deal, but he got up early and was busy all day long. He was never bored. He flew often into rages—with Erwin or with his boy employees, or with the men who were building the house—but these cost him no loss of energy and were immediately forgotten. Once, when Francis was screaming at someone in Christopher’s presence, Christopher was suddenly possessed by the hysteria of the scene. He had a cigarette in his mouth and, involuntarily, he inhaled its smoke. This was the first time he had ever inhaled—he didn’t know he knew how to—although he had been a smoker for ten years. The lift of the intoxication made him feel as though he were levitating; for an instant, he almost lost consciousness. After this, he began to inhale regularly and thus became a nicotine addict for the next thirty years.

  Christopher got very little work done on his novel during their stay. The writing he did was mostly in his diary, where he describes his inability to write, with gloomy relish. If the sun shines, he is too lazy. If it rains, he is too depressed. Or else he is disturbed by the noise made by the boys and the domestic animals and the gramophone. Or he is suffering from diarrhea or worried by rectal bleeding.

  I have utterly no inducements to stop staring at my shoes. Eat an orange? I have already exceeded my ration. Turkish delight? There isn’t any. A glass of bottled water? Well, it’s all I have. But I can’t open the bottle. The boys have started playing that gramophone. I have finished my only detective novel: The Greek Coffin Mystery. All those energetic Americans. They are an example to me. I must pull myself together. I must write. If I don’t, I’m lost.

  The chief effect of Christopher’s effort to write was to make him hostile to the non-writers—that is, to everybody else on the island. They were all making his task harder for him, simply by being there—all, with the possible exception of Heinz.

  Heinz had become very much at home on St. Nicholas. After the first few days, he had stopped complaining about the food. Christopher notes sourly that Heinz was “quite uncanny” at being able to get along with the boys and the workmen. They had “interminable” conversations by means of pocket dictionaries, and soon they were exchanging Greek and German words. Heinz had private jokes with each one of them. He knew instinctively when to pinch their cheeks. They shook their fingers in each other’s faces, laughing and exclaiming: “Ah na na, ah na na!” over and over again. From time to time, they would utter whoops of joy.

  Nevertheless, Heinz and Christopher shared a tent; at least a fragment of their daily life was lived apart from the others. And when Christopher was in a mood to make the best of the situation, he would dwell on this aspect of it:

  Bathed early for the first time. A perfect deep blue morning. Our tent is very nice, with the looking glass and the suitcase on a wooden box and the table for my typewriter, with the wire gadget Heinz has made for holding papers. We have our own oranges and marmalade. I should like to live with Heinz in this tent always.

  Heinz is my one support. He makes everything tolerable. When he swims he says “Zack!” “Zack!” like the crocodile in Peter Pan.

  Occasionally they spent a whole day alone together, rowing and sailing, or scrambling up the nearest of the coastal mountains. Three times, Christopher took a holiday from the island and went by train with Heinz to Athens. There they saw the sights, including what Heinz persisted in calling the “Micropolis,” and enjoyed the food at a French restaurant and the comfort of a good hotel. It was a treat to make love without the interruptions common on St. Nicholas, where one of the boys or the builders was apt to stick his head into the tent at any moment.

  July 8. I’ve had enough of this.

  I’m tired of writing this discreet literary little journal, with one eye on the landscape and the other on the Hogarth Press. Let’s be frank.

  (Idea for a novel or story: a diary which begins very literary, chatty, amusing. In the middle, the diarist makes an admission which changes the whole significance of what he has been describing.)

  I am potentially jealous of everybody on the island—of everybody to whom Heinz makes himself in the slightest degree agreeable.

  Christopher admits that he has been jealous of Erwin (who very possibly had been to bed with Heinz in Berlin, before Christopher met him), of Tasso (who was quite capable of going to bed with any human being and with many sorts of animal), and of Mitso, Francis’s chauffeur, as he was grandly called. Mitso was a good-looking young man. He had a wife and children in the nearby mainland village, but sometimes he spent nights on the island with the most attractive of the builders—so it was probable that he fancied Heinz as well. Christopher had once vented his jealousy of Mitso by making a hypocritical scene with him about a rabbit he had caught and put in a wooden packing case. (The boys were often horribly cruel to animals, but this rabbit seemed quite happy, munching grass.)

  I took the case and smashed it, letting the rabbit out, shouting in German (for Erwin’s benefit), “Next time you torture animals don’t let me see it!” I then threw the packing case at Mitso. This caused a great sensation among the builders. They couldn’t understand it.

  Christopher continues to describe the situation on July 8 as follows:

  Today, Heinz announced his intention of going rabbit-shooting with Mitso. At supper, realizing that I was cross about the proposed shooting-expedition, he was awkward, embarrassed, inclined to be sulky. Several times he snatched my spoon because he wanted to use it himself.

  “You seem to be in such a hurry, this evening,” I said. “I’m not in a bit of a hurry,” said Heinz, and added, with the perception of cruelty, “I wasn’t thinking about the shooting at all. It’s you who were thinking about it, and hoping I shouldn’t go.”

  Now he’s with Mitso, and I know that, either tonight when he comes back or tomorrow morning, I shall have to crawl, pocket my pride, overlook his stupid clownish rudeness, because I simply daren’t bring things to an issue. The discovery of my jealousy would put a weapon into his hands. I wonder if he dislikes me already, finds my demands upon his time boring and wearisome. And if I am jealous here, what shall I be in a big city where there will be men and women who will really want to take him away from me?

  There is only one protection for me. The only happiness, or indeed sanity, is in a core of detachment. I am eaten up with jealousy and devoured by boredom. I wait in vain to hear Heinz’s whistling drawing nearer or the sound of him spitting out the mucus from his squashed nose.

  * * *

  This sounds like the prelude to a crisis. But—such is the power of inertia—Christopher and Heinz remained on St. Nicholas for nearly two more months.

  During that period, one of the boys stole money and fled to Athens; another boy raped a duck. An effort was made to kill the rats which swarmed over the inhabited part of the island; they ate all the poison, but there wasn’t enough of it. One evening, a boatful of fishermen landed uninvited and began cooking their fish. They shouted for wine. There was nothing to do but give it to them and join in a party lasting till dawn. Francis and Erwin spent most evenings drinking out of doors at a small kitchen table. They would sit there through the downpour of a thunderstorm, covering their drinks with their hands but not caring that they themselves were soaked to the skin.

  Meanwhile, despite delays caused by saint’s days and orgies and the damage done when the builders carelessly used too much dynamite in blasting for stone, the house got built, and was ready to be painted and have its floors paved. Set in the wall over the front door, there was a fragment of an inscription from the tomb of Seti I at Luxor. Francis had found it lying on the ground there and had smuggled it out of Egypt. So now he was saying he could tell his visitors that his home was three thousand years old.

  Christopher seldom was able to talk to Francis alone. He was either with Erwin or the boys, or he was arguing with the builders about the house. If he was alone, he was often too drunk to make sense. His manner with Christopher was always polite
, even when they had a domestic argument. On one occasion, Christopher protested because the boy whose job it was to wash the plates after meals had sores on his hands, probably of syphilitic origin. Francis treated this exhibition of “fussiness” with good humor. Christopher said that he and Heinz would wash up themselves but that, if they did, they ought to be charged less for their board. To which Francis replied, through Erwin, that Christopher might stay on without paying anything, as his guest, but that there could be no question, on principle, of allowing him to pay less. Heinz wasn’t included in this invitation; Francis was still hostile to him, regarding him as a servant who was living with the gentlefolk, under false pretenses.

  August 14. Things are bad with Heinz. For days he’s been sulky or prepared to sulk. The slightest word sets him off. To the workmen he’s as pleasant as he knows how. I’m very patient, but patience is wrong, even cowardly. I’ve probably got into the position of being the sink down which his bad moods drain off. We all have such a sink but I don’t want to be it. I must seriously face the idea of leaving him.

  August 16. We started talking in the morning, a fatal trick. Heinz became sullen, as he always does when I talk personalities. Finally he said that it would be better if we parted and he returned to Berlin. I asked him to reconsider it till after lunch. After lunch I talked to him again and shed tears, and finally he said: Well, all right, I’ll stay with you, but we’ll go to Paris at once. Since then we haven’t spoken to each other. My own feelings and his are both in such a muddle that it’s better not. He is quite astonishingly muddle-headed, a confusion of resentments. I suppose we shall have to part, but it shan’t be till I want to. I must leave him, as I left Otto, in my own time.

  When someone told Christopher he was a monster—it happened now and then—he would protest, and feel secretly flattered. The word sounds rather romantic. But here I am confronted by the reality of Christopher’s monster behavior—his tears followed by cold calculation—and it shocks me, it hurts my self-esteem, even after all these years! The more reason for recording it.

  From August 24 to August 28 they were in Athens, celebrating Christopher’s birthday. His only comment is that the weekend was “nice” and that “I spent my birthday very pleasantly, chiefly in bed.” This, however, was merely an armistice.

  September 6. About lunchtime, in our tent, I deliberately raked the embers of a row which Heinz and I had three days ago, over the boat. It was so simple, like draughts. I moved. Heinz moved. I moved. Until Heinz had preposterously demanded that I should buy him a boat. “No, of course I won’t.” “You won’t?” “No.” “Then I shall go to Berlin.” I shrugged my shoulders.

  Our departure was semi-secret. I didn’t want Erwin’s attempts at reconciliation or the workmen’s demonstrations. We were rowed away from the island just after sunset. We spent the night in the hotel at Chalkis.

  I suppose Christopher did at least say goodbye to Francis, who would certainly never have attempted a reconciliation or even politely urged them to stay. He was lonely, amidst this crowd of employees and hangers-on. (He told Stephen Spender, who visited him in 1936, that not one of his boys had heard of Homer.) But his pride prevented him from admitting to his loneliness. All he probably said to Christopher was: “Have a nice journey, lovey.”

  If Christopher and Heinz didn’t say goodbye to Erwin on this occasion, they were fated never to do so. Erwin returned to Germany several years later. Someone told me that he was arrested by the Nazis and died in a concentration camp, but I haven’t been able to confirm this. I only know that he is dead now.

  September 7. We came to Athens by the early train. I’d counted on cashing a check with a friend of Francis, but he wasn’t in Athens. So it was only possible to raise enough money for Heinz’s ticket to Berlin. He was to have left this evening. But we arrived too late at lunchtime to book a sleeping-berth for him. After lunch, Heinz said: “If you give me six thousand drachmas, I’ll stay with you.” I said: “Certainly not. I’m not going to buy you.” So we went back to the travel bureau. All the sleeping-berths were booked. “It’s a portent,” I said.

  So Heinz has said he’ll come with me on the steamer to Marseille, starting from here on the 9th. He’s sitting about with a face like death and won’t speak. I shall have to get rid of him as soon as I’m in Paris.

  Heinz sulked until they sailed and continued to sulk during the voyage, which took them through the Corinth canal and between the Lipari Islands and gigantic Stromboli, which they saw at dawn, smoking heavily. They were never alone together because they shared a cabin with four others. On deck, Heinz talked to a Swiss and Christopher to an Englishman, George Thomson, the translator of Greek classics.

  Arriving at Marseilles on September 13, they wandered through the Old Port, down streets of stairs, and had their hats snatched by whores who were trying to entice them into the houses. When they advanced, the girls retreated; when they walked away, the girls advanced. At last, Christopher and Heinz gave up and walked away hatless. This adventure made them laugh together. Peace was instantly declared between them. Instead of parting next day in Paris, they spent a couple of weeks in the suburb of Meudon:

  Once again, the French are preparing to say: Ils ne passeront pas. War is in the air. But we had our tiny room with the double bed and our ping-pong and meals, and were happy.

  On September 30, Christopher took Heinz over to England. They stayed at Kathleen’s house. The diary narrative breaks off here with the remark: “The atmosphere is chilly but polite.”

  The chill was largely of Christopher’s creation. He had told Kathleen that he and Heinz had met for the first time in France, only a few days earlier. This was because he didn’t want her to know that Heinz had been with him in Greece and that they had been together for a long while in Germany. But, having told this silly lie, he had let drop—with a carelessness which was part of his aggression toward her—several references to things Heinz had done while they were on St. Nicholas. Kathleen hadn’t commented on this, but she was hurt that he had lied to her. She had realized instantly that Heinz was a working-class boy and she treated him as such—though with such a faint nuance of patronage that Heinz was unaware of it and thought her kind and liked her. Christopher detected every microscopic slight and raged inwardly.

  Heinz’s tourist permit to stay in England expired and he went back to Germany. I am sure that he did this unwillingly. He and Christopher were on the best of terms again and he had thoroughly enjoyed himself in London, where several of Christopher’s friends had been charming to him; Beatrix Lehmann and Humphrey Spender in particular. I am not so sure how Christopher felt. The strain of having to live with Heinz under Kathleen’s eye spoiled much of his pleasure. Also he wanted to be alone for a while, free from the necessary friction of their relationship, to get on with his writing. He hated letting Heinz return to Berlin. Hitler was making warlike moves; he had just withdrawn from the League of Nations. But even the pessimists agreed that he wasn’t ready to risk actual war yet. So Christopher resolved to get some more money somehow and to find a way of bringing Heinz over to England for a much longer period, perhaps for keeps.

  NINE

  One morning in the middle of October, just after Heinz’s departure, Christopher got a telephone call from Jean Ross. I have no verbatim record of what she said. The best I can do is to report it in the style of Sally Bowles—which will be anachronistic, for Jean was now beginning to shed her Sally Bowles persona. Her way of expressing herself already showed the influence of her new London friends—left-wingers who were humorous but dedicated, sexually permissive but politically dogmatic.

  “Chris darling, I’ve just met this absolutely marvelous man. He’s simply brilliant. I adore him … No, you swine—we most certainly do not! He’s old—at least sixty, I should think. I mean, I adore his mind … You see, he’s an Austrian, only he’s a director in Hollywood. He’s come here to direct a film … And, darling, this is what’s so marvelous—he wants you to write it! …
Well, no, as a matter of fact, he didn’t know who you were. But he’s got to find a writer at once, and I’ve told him about you, how you’re an absolute genius only a bit unrecognized, so far. He seems really quite interested. He wants to read something you’ve written … Yes, I know you’re terribly busy with your novel but, after all, it can wait, can’t it—I mean, you can just dash this thing off and then you’ll be filthy rich … But, Chris, I promised him you would! Look, won’t you at least send him a copy of your last novel—I never can remember its name … Yes, of course I’ve got one—I treasure it—only I lent it to someone and I’ve forgotten who … You won’t? You old brute! Well, I’ll tell you what—let’s make a bargain, shall we? If I buy a copy myself, and you get this job—will you give me half your first week’s salary?”

  “It’s a deal!” Christopher told her, laughing. He had long since lost faith in Jean’s many moneymaking schemes. He dismissed this conversation from his mind.

  Two days later, Jean called him again, breathless: “Darling—I bought your book and I gave it to him and”—here her voice became hushed with amazement—“he thinks it’s good!”

  What had actually happened was that the director, Berthold Viertel, leafed casually through The Memorial until he came to the scene in which Edward Blake tries unsuccessfully to kill himself. (A friend had once described his own suicide attempt to Christopher. This scene was based upon it.) Having read it, Viertel declared: “This I find clearly genial”—pronouncing the word as English but meaning it as the German genial, “gifted with genius.” And that was that. Viertel read no further. Christopher, already as good as hired sight unseen, was invited to come for an interview.

  (After performing this momentous act of introduction, with all its short- and long-term consequences for Christopher, Jean seems to have disappeared temporarily from his life. Perhaps she went abroad somewhere. I can’t remember if Christopher kept his promise to give her half of his first week’s salary. I am pretty sure that she would have held him to it. I hope she did.)