Christopher and His Kind

by Christopher Isherwood

  * * *

  Next morning, the lawyer left Brussels by car for Trier, as he had promised. That night he returned, alone.

  He told Christopher that he had duly met Heinz at the hotel. Heinz had assured him that he hadn’t been questioned, hadn’t aroused anybody’s curiosity. They had gone to the consulate and got the visa. Then, just as they were about to start on their return journey, some Gestapo agents had appeared. They had asked to see Heinz’s papers and had then taken him away with them. They had told the lawyer that Heinz was under arrest as a draft evader. Before leaving Trier, the lawyer had consulted a German lawyer and engaged him to defend Heinz at his forthcoming trial.

  * * *

  A day or two after the arrest, the German lawyer came from Trier to Brussels to discuss the tactics of Heinz’s defense. He was a Nazi Party member in good standing and had the boundless cynicism of one who is determined to survive under any conceivable political conditions. Christopher, in his present hyper-emotional state, found a strange relief in talking to him, because he seemed utterly incapable of sympathy.

  Heinz was now in four kinds of potential trouble: He had attempted to change his nationality. (This could almost certainly be concealed from the prosecution.)

  He had consorted with a number of prominent anti-Nazis, most of them Jews. (This could probably be concealed or, at worst, excused as having been Christopher’s fault.)

  He had been guilty of homosexual acts. (This couldn’t be concealed, since Heinz had already confessed to them, but it might be partially excused, if the defense was properly handled.)

  He had disregarded the draft call in Portugal. (This couldn’t be concealed or excused.)

  Before their parting in Luxembourg, Christopher had said to Heinz: “Just suppose that something goes wrong and you get arrested, you’re to put all the blame on me. Tell them I seduced you. Tell them about our having sex together. Stick to that. Don’t show any interest in politics, or they’ll suspect you of staying away from Germany because you’re anti-Nazi. Make them believe that you’re completely stupid.” And this was what Heinz, with considerable cunning and nerve, had managed to do.

  Christopher and the German lawyer fully agreed that Christopher’s character must be blackened at the trial in order to whiten Heinz’s. Christopher must be represented to the court, in his absence, as a totally debauched creature, too effete to be anti-Nazi even, who had seduced this silly German boy at an early age and had persuaded him to leave Germany and live abroad with him by giving him large sums of money. What sexual act had they performed together? Obviously, they must have done something; otherwise, Christopher’s association with Heinz might seem inexplicable to the police and therefore, perhaps, suspicious in some other way. The German lawyer proposed to reduce Heinz’s guilt to a minimum by having him confess only to the least of all punishable sexual acts. He was to say that he and Christopher had had “eine ausgesprochene Sucht zur wechselseitigen Onanie”—“a pronounced addiction to reciprocal onanism.” This was the name which their love was to dare to speak, in the face of its enemies! The German lawyer’s tone was matter-of-fact; to him this was merely legal phraseology. Gerald Hamilton, who was present, appeared genuinely embarrassed and murmured, “Well, really!” Christopher laughed out loud, because, yes, it was funny—and laughter was the only alternative to futile screaming hate.

  * * *

  Christopher’s diary, May 26:

  Unbelievable as it seems, it’s just a fortnight since I said goodbye to Heinz at the Luxembourg railway-station.

  How have I got through the time? It’s difficult to say. To those who find themselves in a situation like mine, I can’t recommend masturbation too highly. Judiciously practised, it dulls your feelings almost completely. Only, if you do it too much, you feel more miserable than ever.

  At first, I didn’t think about Heinz at all. Or tried not to. I felt like a house in which one room, the biggest, is locked up. Then, very cautiously, I allowed myself to think of him in little doses—five minutes at a time. Then I had a good cry and felt better. But it is very hard to cry, when you know in advance that crying will do you good.

  The most painful is to remember him with animals. I think of him stroking a rabbit, giving a new-born chicken its first drink of water, playing with Teddy. That’s the worst. At meal-times I remember him, too, and wonder what he’s eating. It’s so monstrous to think of him locked in that stone room—so unnatural. I see him, for some reason, dressed rather smartly, in his best suit, sitting on the edge of his hard narrow bed, staring dully at his shoes. I don’t imagine him fidgeting or pacing the cell or beating the door with his fists. He’ll take it all quite fatalistically—just as he took our parting.

  Meanwhile, I sit alone in a nice back-bedroom of the Hotel du Vallon, listening to the wireless which never stops playing in the courtyard below, and thinking: Now I must pull myself together. I must work.

  My book is three quarters finished. The weather is stifling.

  In Christopher’s diary there is no mention of his more secret reactions. These were caused by his frustration, which demanded a responsible villain. He had no difficulty in finding one.

  There was an incident to which his mind kept returning. On the night of May 13, after the lawyer had arrived back from Trier with the news of Heinz’s arrest, Christopher had gone to his own room, wanting to be by himself. Almost at once, a boy—one of Gerald’s friends—knocked on his door. Christopher was in no mood to talk and he made this clear. But the boy, though obviously embarrassed, wouldn’t go away. At length he confessed that Gerald had told him Christopher mustn’t be left alone, lest he should do something “dreadful.”

  The more Christopher thought about Gerald’s behavior on this occasion, the more peculiar—and the more sinister—it seemed. The voice of his suspicion whispered: “Gerald knows you far too well to imagine that you’d ever commit suicide. Then what made him get into that sudden panic? There’s only one explanation: he felt guilty! Remember that Irish Catholic background of his. He’s still superstitious, still afraid of hell-fire. He must have done something which made him feel that, if you’d killed yourself that night, your blood would have been on his head … Now that he realizes you aren’t going to do it, he’s stopped worrying.”

  Suppose that there had never been any negotiations with Mexico. Suppose that the passport—which, the lawyer claimed, had at last arrived and was waiting for Heinz whenever he returned to Brussels—didn’t exist at all. Suppose that the man who had represented himself as a member of the Mexican legation was just an accomplice of Gerald and the lawyer. Suppose that the two of them had planned from the beginning to avoid a showdown by getting Heinz arrested and sent back to Germany. Suppose that the Englishwoman who called in the police at the café in Paris was another accomplice. Suppose that whoever stole Heinz’s identity card had been bribed to do it, and also the girls at the hotel who spoke against him. Suppose that Gerald had come to Luxembourg on May 4 to arrange for the police there to expel Heinz and tip off the Gestapo in Trier to be on the lookout for his arrival. Suppose—

  Christopher would go on like this to himself until he ended by having to admit that his suspicions were mere fantasies. Nevertheless, against all reason, he continued to feel that Gerald—but not the lawyer—was somehow guilty. This, in itself, was unreasonable; either the two of them must have been partners in the crime, or they were both innocent. But Christopher was relying on his intuition, not his intellect, as he always ultimately did. His intuition told him that the lawyer was too prudent, too conventional to join in such a hazardous conspiracy; especially when the reward was no more than a half share, presumably, of the thousand pounds, minus considerable payments for accomplices and other items.

  And surely only an innocent man could have the thick skin and the emotional stupidity to say what the lawyer said to Christopher, just a few days after Heinz’s arrest: “Mr. Isherwood, we’re both men of the world—frankly, don’t you think you’re well out of thi
s? After all, you’ve done everything you could for Heinz. And he has caused you and your mother a great deal of trouble and expense.”

  The lawyer further demonstrated the thickness of his skin during a visit which he paid Kathleen in London on May 20. He began—according to Kathleen’s diary—by deploring Heinz’s indiscretion in bringing Christopher’s name into the case. The lawyer, of course, knew perfectly well that Heinz had only done what Christopher had told him to do. He was lying to Kathleen because, I suppose, he thought it would please her to hear Heinz blamed. Kathleen might well have been pleased, if she hadn’t known that he was lying; she had already been told the true facts by Christopher. Unaware of his blunder, the lawyer went on to make a bigger one. He told Kathleen that he wished Christopher would get rid of his present set of friends; they were a great handicap to him in his career, despite all his cleverness. Kathleen doesn’t comment on this in her diary, but she must have resented the lawyer’s tone extremely. Here was this (from her point of view) “shady” little person talking to her as though he were Cousin Graham! And what impudence to criticize Christopher’s “present set” when he himself was one of them!

  When Christopher said to himself that Gerald was somehow guilty, what he actually meant was that Gerald was capable of this crime. Gerald’s dishonesty wasn’t prudent, it was pathological. There was no question, in his case, of the sum at stake being too small, or of the risk of losing a friend too great. He would betray a friend without hesitation and immediately feel terrified of being found out and punished for it, in this and the next world. Christopher was forced to believe him technically innocent. And Heinz, when they discussed the question many years later, believed him innocent too. Yet the fantasy-making part of Christopher’s mind harbored, from that time onward, a resolve. If Christopher was able to be present at Gerald’s deathbed, he would kneel beside it and ask, “Gerald, did you do it?” If Gerald answered, “Yes,” Christopher would forgive him; if “No,” Christopher would believe him but would feel subtly disappointed. I can’t understand the intent of this fantasy, unless it was that he loved Gerald and would want to give him a sort of going-away present. But when Gerald did die, in 1970, Christopher was elsewhere.

  Arising out of the imagined question to Gerald, there was another which Christopher now began to ask himself. Am I guilty? Did I do all I might have done to save Heinz? He thought how Brian Howard, for example, would have behaved. Instead of becoming helpless with misery and obeying the lawyer’s instructions, Brian would have risked taking Heinz with him on the Brussels train. And, if Brian hadn’t had Christopher’s luck at the Belgian frontier, he would have fought to the very end—demanding to see the British consul, telephoning the Foreign Office, throwing himself at the Grand Duchess’s feet. How noble Brian’s recklessness seemed! Why had Christopher failed to rise to the occasion? I’m not a man of action, he said to himself. But it wasn’t quite as simple as that.

  * * *

  Meanwhile, he worked on Lions and Shadows, finishing that draft of it. William Robson-Scott came to stay with him at the Hotel du Vallon. Christopher felt so grateful for the moral support which William’s mere presence gave him that he dedicated the book to William when it was published.

  Heinz’s trial was held in the middle of June. Christopher’s name appeared in the transcript of the proceedings, incorrectly spelled. “The English citizen Ischervood, who unfortunately cannot be brought to justice,” was accused of having committed reciprocal onanism with the prisoner in fourteen foreign countries and in the German Reich. The judge observed that, since he was ignorant of the various penalties for the prisoner’s crime in these other countries, he would have to punish him according to German law. This remark may or may not have been meant as a joke, but its tone does suggest that the attitude of the court was relatively unhysterical, un-Nazi. Heinz got what was in those days considered a light sentence: six months in prison, to be followed by a year of labor service for the state and two years in the Army.

  During the trial, Christopher had been mercifully ignorant of the greatest danger which had threatened Heinz. Instead of being sentenced to a fixed term in a regular prison, Heinz might easily have been sentenced to an indefinite term in a concentration camp, as many homosexuals were. In camp, Heinz would have been treated as an outcast of the Reich who differed from a Jew only in having to wear a pink triangle on his clothes instead of a yellow star. Like the Jews, homosexuals were often put into “liquidation” units, in which they were given less food and more work than other prisoners. Thus, thousands of them died.

  After Heinz had been sentenced, all Christopher could do for him was to send him letters so discreetly worded that they were no more than tokens and to provide him, through the German lawyer, with cigarettes and with food that was better than the regulation prison fare. There was no hope, now, of the two of them being able to see each other before 1941, when Heinz finished his military service, and very little hope that he would be allowed to leave Germany, even then.

  * * *

  In July, Christopher was living at Kathleen’s house in London. He had been hired to work on a screenplay based on a story by Carl Zuckmayer. I remember almost nothing about it, except that it was set in Austria. Ludwig Berger was to direct it.

  Since the dialogue was being written in English, one of their first problems was: What kind of British dialect is the best equivalent to the speech of Austrian peasants? Should there, for example, be a suggestion of West Country, or Yorkshire, or Highland Scots? The question was referred to the producer, Alexander Korda. Berger asked him, in German: “What do the peasants speak?” and received the lapidary answer: “Little.”

  The film was never made.

  * * *

  In August, Wystan and Christopher went to Dover together and stayed there until the middle of September. They had rooms in a house on the harbor, 9 East Cliff. The gulls which nested in the cliff face behind the house kept up a frantic squawking. Christopher found it cheerful and absurd, but Wystan called it “sad like work” in the poem about Dover which he wrote during their visit. It was then that Christopher finished the final draft of Lions and Shadows and they wrote the first draft of their new play, On the Frontier. In a sense, it was about the Heinz situation: lovers who are separated by a frontier. But when Wystan wanted to write a ballad describing Christopher’s life with Heinz and their parting, Christopher objected absolutely. Having read “Miss Gee,” Christopher hated to imagine his private tragedy being retold in the heartless comic style of the Auden ballads. Nothing that Wystan said could convince him that this one would be different. A year or so later, Christopher withdrew his veto, fearing that he might have aborted a masterpiece. Wystan, however, said he had now forgotten all his ideas for it.

  Dover’s chief charm for Christopher was that it was a place of transit: channel steamers coming and going, travelers arriving and departing, all of them in a hurry. He watched them and felt relaxed because he wasn’t in a hurry and didn’t have anywhere to go. These anxious people seemed to belong to another life—the life he had been leading up to the time of Heinz’s arrest.

  * * *

  Earlier that summer, Faber and Faber and Random House—the British and American publishers of their plays and Auden’s poems—had offered them a contract to write a travel book about any Asian country or countries they chose to visit. (Maybe this idea had been suggested to the publishers by the pseudo-Asian setting of F6!) Wystan and Christopher would probably have chosen China anyway, because of its exotic appeal. If they had hesitated at all, it was because mere sightseeing seemed dilettante and escapist in the crisis atmosphere of the late thirties. Then their minds had been made up for them by the Japanese Army. It had invaded southward from Peking in early July and had attacked Shanghai a month later. China had now become one of the world’s decisive battlegrounds. And, unlike Spain, it wasn’t already crowded with star literary observers. (How could one compete with Hemingway and Malraux?) “We’ll have a war all of our very own,�
� said Wystan. They planned to leave England toward the end of the year.

  * * *

  From Christopher’s diary, October–November:

  Heinz is always the last person I think of at night, the first in the morning.

  Never to forget Heinz. Never to cease to be grateful to him for every moment of our five years together.

  I suppose it isn’t so much Heinz himself I miss as that part of myself which only existed in his company.

  I had better face it. I shall never see him again. And perhaps this is the best for us both.

  What should I feel, now, if, by some miracle, Heinz was let out of Germany? Great joy, of course. But also (I must be absolutely frank) I should be a little bit doubtful; for what, really, have I to offer him? Not even a proper home or a place in any kind of social scheme.

  There are times—in publishers’ offices, at cocktail parties—when the little patent leather devil of success whispers in my ear: “He travels furthest who travels alone!” I wish I could accept this or any other consolation, however base.

  This existence in London is having a curious and bad effect on me. I am getting ludicrously ambitious. I want to be known, flattered, talked about; to see my name in the papers. And, the worst of it is, I can. It’s all so cheap and easy.

  Here, alone, I am at any rate stronger. I want, above all, to be strong—to give protection like a tree. This isn’t mere conceit. It is part of my deepest nature.

  In this mirror of a diary, Christopher reveals a few frank glimpses of himself. The rest is posing.