Christopher and His Kind

by Christopher Isherwood

  * * *

  Berthold Viertel appears as Friedrich Bergmann in the novelette called Prater Violet, which was published twelve years later:

  The gray bushy head, magnificent and massive as sculptured granite … the big firm chin, the grim compressed line of the mouth, the harsh furrows cutting down from the imperious nose … the head of a Roman emperor … but the eyes were the dark mocking eyes of his slave.

  I couldn’t help smiling as we shook hands, because our introduction seemed so superfluous. There are meetings which are like recognitions—this was one of them. Of course we knew each other. The name, the voice, the features were inessential, I knew that face. It was the face of a political situation, an epoch. The face of Central Europe.

  This passage really only refers to Christopher’s sense of recognition, not Viertel’s. Yet, under the circumstances, Viertel’s sense of recognition must have been much stronger and more exciting than Christopher’s. While Christopher merely recognized in Viertel “the face of Central Europe,” Viertel recognized in Christopher—from that very first moment, I believe—the exceedingly odd kind of individual his temperament required as a working companion.

  The film which Viertel had agreed to direct was to be based on a novel by the Austrian writer Ernst Lothar, called Kleine Freundin, Little Friend. It is about a small girl whose parents are becoming estranged; this makes her so unhappy that she tries to kill herself. (Which may explain why the suicide scene in The Memorial caught Viertel’s attention.) The girl’s suicide attempt is unsuccessful but it reunites the parents, the girl, and her puppy. This old-fashioned sentimental theme had been modernized but not at all desentimentalized by the introduction of Freudian symbols and dreams. (In Prater Violet, the film which is being produced is an unashamedly corny musical comedy set in pre-1914 Vienna. Christopher persuaded John van Druten, who was a master of pastiche and parody, to invent its plot for him.)

  Since Little Friend features a nymphet, the studio (Gaumont-British) had typecast Margaret Kennedy, authoress of The Constant Nymph, as its scriptwriter. My impression is that Miss Kennedy wrote an entire screenplay on her own; her name appears, above Christopher’s, on the credit list of the film. Christopher never met her. Viertel did meet her, but there seems to have been no true marriage of their minds; he later described her as “a crocodile who wept once in her life a real tear”—i.e., The Constant Nymph. Fortunately for both of them, Miss Kennedy was obliged to withdraw from their collaboration almost at once, because she had to devote herself to the production of her own play Escape Me Never! (It became a hit early in 1934, starring Elisabeth Bergner.) So Viertel had had to get himself another writer.

  Crocodile or no crocodile, a successful self-assured professional would never have suited Viertel as a working companion. He needed an amateur, an innocent, a disciple, a victim. He needed someone he could teach—“I am an old Jewish Socrates”—someone with whom he could share the guilt of creating this film, someone to whom he could truthfully say, as he said to Christopher: “I feel absolutely no shame before you; we are like two married men who meet in a whorehouse.”

  Christopher was an amateur, in both senses of the word. A lover of movies since childhood, he was also eager to learn the craft of film writing and prepared to begin at the beginning. Why shouldn’t he play the humble novice? It caused him no pain to do so, for his arrogance as a novelist was wrapped protectively around his ego. Viertel was subtle enough to understand this. He addressed the Novelist as “Master,” in the humorous tone of a fellow artist whose embarrassment mocks his sincere admiration. Meanwhile, he trained the Filmwriter with the impatient patience of a craftsman who has to make the best of a slow-witted apprentice.

  Viertel chose to regard Christopher as an innocent, and used to call him Alyosha Karamazov. Viertel fancied himself as a wise old Lucifer, and this role demanded its opposite, the young unfallen angel who still had illusions about Heaven. Lucifer benevolently despises this angel but sentimentally envies him … Christopher wasn’t an innocent but he could be infantile, which was the next best thing. He could take the pressure off crises in their film work by displaying such babylike dismay that he made Viertel laugh at him and cheer up and get a new idea.

  As a disciple, Christopher attended closely to the way Viertel talked, trying to memorize his vocabulary and mannerisms. This was part of Christopher’s instinctive functioning as a writer. He often caught himself studying someone without having been conscious that he or she was a model for a prospective fiction character. No doubt, Christopher’s show of attention flattered Viertel and deceived him; the truth was that Socrates’s opinions were of minor interest to his disciple. Christopher saw Viertel as the kind of intellectual who takes his intellectualism too seriously and thus becomes the captive of his own opinions. He could be dazzlingly witty, grotesquely comic, but never silly, never frivolous. Comparing him with Forster and Auden and Upward, and seeing the vast difference between Viertel and them, Christopher said to himself that only those who are capable of silliness can be called truly intelligent.

  When I say that Viertel needed a victim, I mean a willing victim and a victim who could thrive on victimization. My theory is that Viertel’s ideal victim could only have been a male homosexual—and not just any male homosexual but one who, like Christopher, was able to enjoy both the yang and the yin role in sex. If the relationship between Viertel and himself had been sexual, however, their collaboration wouldn’t have worked; sex would have been a complication. If the victim had been a woman, Viertel would have regarded her sexually, to some extent, even if they hadn’t been lovers. If the victim had been a heterosexual man, he would probably have hated submitting to Viertel’s will, regarding it as a humiliation and a threat to his masculinity. But Christopher didn’t think of submission in those terms; it was simply the yin role, which he enjoyed playing precisely because he knew himself equally able to play yang.

  Therefore, Christopher suffered relatively little emotional wear and tear during those weeks of work on Little Friend. I am not claiming that he always kept his awareness of the yang-yin balance; indeed, I am going to describe some occasions when he lost it. But he managed pretty well.

  From Viertel’s point of view, one of Christopher’s greatest assets was that he spoke Viertel’s native language with sufficient fluency. Viertel’s English was fluent, too, but he needed the release of being able to slip back into German when he was tired. And he loved making satirical asides to Christopher in public which no one else present was likely to understand. Best of all, Christopher was able to read his German poems. He had published two volumes of them, as well as a novel. Viertel thought of himself as a poet, first and foremost, and it was depressing for him to find himself almost without an audience in England, the land of poets. Once, when a friend told Christopher, in Viertel’s presence, that a critic had referred to him as one of the most brilliant younger English novelists, Viertel exclaimed to Christopher demandingly, like a child: “And now tell him about me!”

  Viertel’s public persona was that of a Roman emperor; but, in the intimacy of their working hours, Christopher saw him as

  an old clown, shock-headed, in his gaudy silk dressing-gown; tragi-comic, like all clowns, when you see them resting backstage after the show.

  Although he looked much older than his age, forty-eight—and had done so even as a young man, to judge from photographs—he was inspiringly vigorous and could work all day and half the night, if necessary. Nevertheless, he was a semi-invalid with a diabetic condition which caused him to eat ravenously and to suffer acute hunger pangs if he was kept waiting for meals. For the same reason, he was subject to storms of rage and black frosts of despair, from which, however, he could recover within seconds. He seemed to carry his own psychological “weather” around with him. In his company you were so powerfully aware of it that you scarcely noticed if the day was cold or warm, wet or fine.

  He was chronically lonely for his family—his wife, Salka, and their sons, Ha
ns, Peter, and Thomas. He talked about them continually and showed Christopher their latest snapshots and letters. Salka, born of a Jewish family in Poland, had come to Vienna during the 1914–18 war, as a refugee. There she met Viertel. During the early years of their marriage, they had both achieved success, she as an actress, he as a writer and stage director. They had moved from Europe to California in 1928. Their sons, said Viertel, were already becoming Americanized and beginning to regard Salka and himself as foreigners.

  Viertel described their white house with its green roof, standing amidst the subtropical vegetation of Santa Monica Canyon, three minutes’ walk from the Pacific Ocean. 165 Mabery Road—the British-sounding address became wildly exotic when Christopher tried to relate it to his idea of a canyon, a gigantic romantic ravine. He began to yearn to see this place; Viertel took it for granted that he would be visiting them there before long. (Forty years later, I am standing on the balcony of my home, looking out over the familiar little suburban valley, now so full of my own memories. There, on the street below us, is the Viertels’ former home. It is strange to think that I have lived in the canyon much longer than they did.)

  Since his arrival in the States, Viertel had directed at least eight films and several famous actors and actresses, including Paul Muni, Claudette Colbert, Charles Boyer, Tallulah Bankhead. Salka had appeared in the German-language versions of three American films. One of these was Anna Christie, in which she played Marthy. Garbo, who had made a successful debut as a talkie actress in the American version, played Anna again in German. She and Salka had become close friends. Garbo respected Salka’s wide experience and would ask her advice about possible new roles. She also wanted Salka to supervise the writing of her screenplays and used her influence to get Salka a contract with her own studio, Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer.

  That winter, Garbo’s Queen Christina—on which Salka shared the writing credit with S. N. Behrman—was being shown in London, to full houses. When it became time to send Christmas presents overseas, Christopher went with Viertel to an art-book shop in Charing Cross Road. As the shop assistant wrapped one of the books they had bought, he asked whom he should mail it to. Viertel—speaking slowly and distinctly, as if this were some unheard-of and almost unpronounceable name—replied, “Miss Greta Garbo.” The young man laughed loudly, thinking that Viertel must be pulling his leg. It was unimaginable to him that anyone could actually be on gift-giving terms with that infinitely remote, two-dimensional deity.

  “When you are with us in California, you will see her every day,” Viertel told Christopher as they left the shop. “She comes to swim and ride horseback with our boys.”

  * * *

  Those were long, long days of rapid talk and snail-slow work, in Viertel’s stuffy Knightsbridge flat, which only Auden could have made smokier and untidier. For hours, Viertel would talk of anything, everything except Little Friend—of the Reichstag fire trial, then in progress (he imitated Dimitrov defying Goering); of his productions for Die Truppe in Berlin during the 1920’s (he recited speeches from the leading roles); of the poetry of Hoelderlin; of the awful future in store for the world; of the nature of Woman. It was then that the grimly grinning, sparkling-eyed Clown surpassed himself. I’m sure he couldn’t have performed as brilliantly in the Viennese cafés of his youth. His envious colleagues would have interrupted him. Christopher never did. He only prompted.

  At last, unwillingly, they would have to come back to their task. Viertel’s attitude toward it varied continually. Sometimes he denounced it as prostitution, for which they would have to answer, in some future existence, to a Supreme Tribunal composed of Sophocles, Shakespeare, Ibsen, and Chekhov. Sometimes he saw Christopher and himself as heroic rebels against bourgeois culture: “We are breaking our heads off, fighting for Truth!” Sometimes he discovered a deep significance in the story, decided that it was even perhaps a kind of masterpiece. He philosophized over it, quoting Marx, Freud, Nietzsche, and his own elected Socrates, Karl Kraus (of whom Christopher, before meeting Viertel, had never heard). But such high moods of optimism didn’t survive the daylight. No sooner had Christopher left him than Viertel’s mind would be clouded in with doubts. And, when Christopher returned next morning, he would find that their latest draft of a scene had been unraveled by Viertel during the night, like Penelope’s weaving.

  * * *

  Now and again, Viertel touched on a sensitive area. Once, he told a story about a famous actor who decided to watch two boys having sex with each other. Viertel made it clear that the actor himself wasn’t homosexual, merely feeling bored and in the mood for any variety of freak show. The actor hired two homosexual youths. But, when they began to perform, one of them was unable to get an erection. Whereupon, the other advised him, in a stage whisper, to “pretend I’m Erich” … The point and joke of this story—as far as Christopher could guess—was that these preposterous little inverts were suggesting that one sex partner might be preferable to another; they were, in fact, behaving like heterosexuals. This was amusing because, as we know, all homosexuals are hot to go to bed with any male whomsoever. Ha, ha. “Pretend I’m Erich,” Viertel said, imitating the boy’s effeminate voice, and laughed heartily. Christopher laughed too, and felt ashamed of himself for doing so. Suppose Christopher had told a comparable story about the Jews—would Viertel have laughed? Either he would have found it completely pointless, or he would have flown into a rage, and rightly.

  On another occasion, Viertel referred to Hitler’s chief of staff, Ernst Roehm, and his notorious homosexuality. Viertel’s comment was: “To such swine we will never belong!” His tone as well as his words implied that Roehm’s swinishness consisted just as much in being a homosexual as in being a Nazi. Christopher should have challenged him on this, but he didn’t. He kept silent. Worse still, he felt himself blushing as though he were guilty. Which he was—of cowardice.

  Viertel also told him: “You are a typical mother’s son, I think. You are very repressed sexually. But you must not be. The right woman will change all that.” Could Viertel, with all his vaunted worldly wisdom, be so unperceptive? No, that was impossible. Then he must be deliberately provoking Christopher, to make him confess what he was. This, Christopher vowed to himself with cold fury, he would never do.

  * * *

  Working on Little Friend certainly helped Christopher not to brood on personal problems; nevertheless, he missed Heinz more and more. And now, in the middle of December, with the end of the screenplay in sight, the studio asked Christopher to stay on its payroll throughout the shooting of the film. Officially, he was to be its dialogue director—which meant that he was to advise Viertel on the nuances of English intonation and to do emergency rewrites if necessary. Unofficially, he was to act as a go-between if Viertel and the studio were to get into an argument. Both sides realized already that this was more than likely to happen.

  Christopher was eager to accept. From his point of view, shooting the film would be ten times as much fun as writing it. But the job would keep him in England for another two and a half to three months. He couldn’t be separated from Heinz for that much longer; Heinz would have to be brought back. How he would behave during such a long stay as Kathleen’s guest—how his demands on Christopher’s time would be tolerated by Viertel, the all-demanding—were questions which Christopher chose not to think about until they stared him in the face.

  So he began making arrangements for Heinz’s coming. He mailed Heinz money for the journey and money to show the British immigration officials as a proof that he would be able to support himself while he was in England. Christopher also sent an invitation, dictated by himself, handwritten by Kathleen, asking Heinz to come and stay with her for an unspecified period, but making no mention of Christopher.

  On January 5, 1934, Christopher went to Harwich to meet Heinz’s boat. Wystan came with him, at his request. Luckily, Heinz was arriving at a time when the school at which Wystan was then teaching was still on its Christmas holidays. Christopher would
n’t have wanted any other companion on this mission. And a curious foreboding made him unwilling to face it alone.

  When the boat arrived, Heinz was on it, enormously to Christopher’s relief. He had been dreading some last-minute hitch. He and Heinz exchanged a brief formal greeting; Christopher dared not even hug, much less kiss, lest some police spy should be watching them. “Everything will be all right,” he told Heinz, and sent him off to the passport and customs inspections.

  He and Wystan waited outside the office where the aliens had to show their passports. He wasn’t really anxious but he made himself worry a little, out of superstitiousness; overconfidence was unlucky. At the same time he remembered the ease with which Heinz had been admitted to England, when they had arrived together, last September. Meanwhile, Wystan, that positive thinker, was talking about his job and his pupils, as if this passport inspection were the merest formality, unworthy of comment. Indeed, it seemed to be so, as more and more of the aliens emerged—a few with expressions of glad relief, most of them taking it as a matter of course—and went on their way to the customs.

  But Heinz didn’t emerge. And, at last, when Christopher had begun to tremble with impatience and when his conversation with Wystan had died away because he couldn’t keep his mind on it, a man appeared at the door of the office and called his name. Wystan followed him in.

  Once inside, Christopher saw instantly that something was very wrong indeed. Heinz sat opposite his questioners, looking humiliated and resentful. He was the sullen peasant boy, despite his middle-class clothes.

  Christopher decided to play the gentleman, very superior, with a “What’s this little fuss about?” air. But it was as a gentleman that they attacked him. On their table lay Kathleen’s letter of invitation, side by side with Heinz’s passport containing that damning word Hausdiener. Why, they wanted to know, should a lady like Mrs. Isherwood, the mother of a gentleman like himself, invite a young working-class foreigner to her home? Could it be that she herself planned to employ Heinz—without a work permit and perhaps on substandard wages?