Christopher and His Kind (14 page)

What struck you, when you saw Gerald and Chris together, was a kind of family resemblance which was psychological rather than physical. It was expressed in certain gestures and intonations—carefully unemphatic, fastidiously understated. They stood side by side and looked at you like a pair of smiling conspirators. William Plomer somehow caught the effect they produced—on Christopher, at any rate—when he said, “I like their dry eyes and voices.”

*   *   *

Christopher had met William Plomer through Stephen Spender, who had previously introduced him to some of Plomer's poems and his stories about South Africa and Japan. Christopher admired the work and soon he began to admire Plomer himself even more. He was a big man with big round glasses and the look of a benign muscular owl. His descriptions of people were witty and exact; once, he called someone “an art lout.” He seemed to take everything lightly. Then, beneath the malice and fun, you became aware of an extraordinary strength—a strength which lent itself to others; it was hard to feel depressed or sorry for yourself in his presence. You also became aware that his fun was that of a person who was capable of intense private suffering. Therefore, it would never seem trivial under any circumstances. He would have been wonderful in a lifeboat with the survivors of a shipwreck. Ten years later, it would be said of him that he was an ideal companion in an air raid.

On September 14, Christopher wrote a postcard to Stephen—who must have been out of town for a day or two:

Yesterday evening, Plomer and I visited an opium-den. Today he is taking me to see E. M. Forster. I shall spend the entire morning making-up.

I have only the dimmest memory of the alleged opium den. I think it was a pub somewhere in the dockland area, frequented by local Chinese and visiting Asian seamen. Plomer liked to keep the outskirts of his life hidden in an intriguing fog of mystery; now and then he would guide you through the fog to one of his haunts, with the casualness of a habitué. No doubt, opium was obtainable there, but I am sure that he and Christopher didn't smoke any … By “making-up” I suppose Christopher merely meant that he would try in every way to look and be at his best for this tremendous encounter.

It
was
tremendous for Christopher. Forster was the only living writer whom he would have described as his master. In other people's books he found examples of style which he wanted to imitate and learn from. In Forster he found a key to the whole art of writing. The Zen masters of archery—of whom, in those days, Christopher had never heard—start by teaching you the mental attitude with which you must pick up the bow. A Forster novel taught Christopher the mental attitude with which he must pick up the pen.

Plomer had been able to arrange this meeting because Forster had read
The Memorial
—at his suggestion, probably—and had liked it, at least well enough to be curious about its author. (Thenceforward, Christopher was fond of saying, “My literary career is over—I don't give a damn for the Nobel Prize or the Order of Merit—
I've been praised by Forster!”
Nevertheless, Christopher's confidence in his own talent easily survived the several later occasions when Forster definitely didn't like one of his other books or when he praised books by writers whom Christopher found worthless.)

Forster must have been favorably impressed by Christopher; otherwise, he wouldn't have gone on seeing him. And Christopher made a good disciple; like most arrogant people, he loved to bow down unconditionally from time to time. No doubt he gazed at Forster with devoted eyes and set himself to entertain him with tales of Berlin and the boy world, judiciously spiced with expressions of social concern—for he must have been aware from the start that he had to deal with a moralist.

Forster never changed much in appearance until he became stooped and feeble in his late eighties. He was then fifty-three but he always looked younger than his age. And he never ceased to be babylike. His light blue eyes behind his spectacles were like those of a baby who remembers his previous incarnation and is more amused than dismayed to find himself reborn in new surroundings. He had a baby's vulnerability, which is also the invulnerability of a creature whom one dare not harm. He seemed to be swaddled, babylike, in his ill-fitting suit rather than wearing it. A baby with a mustache? Well, if a baby
could
have a mustache, it would surely be like his was, wispy and soft … Nevertheless, behind that charming, unalarming exterior, was the moralist; and those baby eyes looked very deep into you. When they disapproved, they could be stern. They made Christopher feel false and tricky and embarrassed. He reacted to his embarrassment by trying to keep Forster amused. Thirty-eight years later, a friend who was present at the last meeting between them made the comment: “Mr. Forster laughs at you as if you were the village idiot.”

I suppose that this first meeting took place in Forster's flat, and that, on the wall of its living room, there hung Eric Kennington's pastel portrait of T. E. Lawrence's bodyguard, quarrelsome little Mahmas, with his fierce eyes and naked dagger. This was the original of one of the illustrations to the privately printed edition of
Seven Pillars of Wisdom.
Lawrence had given copies of the book away to his friends, including Forster. Christopher left the flat clasping this magic volume, which Forster had lent him.

*   *   *

Toward the end of Christopher's visit to London, his long-impending showdown with Stephen Spender took place. Stephen gives an account of this in
World within World.
He writes that Christopher showed irritation with him so clearly, when they were together at a party, that he went to visit Christopher next day and suggested that they should see nothing, or very little, of each other when they returned to Berlin. Christopher replied in “accents of ironic correctitude” that he wasn't aware of any strain between them. At this point, I have a memory of my own. Stephen, annoyed by Christopher's evasiveness, exclaimed, “If we're going to part, at least let's part like men.” To which Christopher replied, with a bitchy smile, “But, Stephen, we
aren't
men.” I can only assume that Stephen's challenge caught him unprepared and that he was playing for time to prepare a self-justifying case. Later that day, he wrote Stephen a letter. Stephen paraphrases it as follows:

If I returned to Berlin he would not do so, that my life was poison to him, that I lived on publicity, that I was intolerably indiscreet, etc.

Stephen thinks that Christopher was annoyed because he had reached London before Christopher and had told their mutual friends all Christopher's favorite stories, including several which he didn't want to have broadcast indiscriminately. This is true, no doubt. But Christopher's deeper motive in quarreling with Stephen was to get him out of Berlin altogether. I don't think he consciously knew this at the time. It is obvious to me now. Christopher regarded Berlin as his territory. He was actually becoming afraid that Stephen would scoop him by writing Berlin stories of his own and rushing them into print!

Stephen and Christopher met again and made up their quarrel even before Christopher returned to Berlin. Now that Christopher knew that Stephen wouldn't be coming back there, he was eager for a truce. He needed Stephen's friendship fully as much as Stephen needed his. Christopher tended to make friends with his moral superiors. It was only with Stephen that he had faults in common—which was relaxing and created a special kind of intimacy, when it didn't provoke competition.

*   *   *

From the middle of August onward, Christopher had begun work on what was to be the very first draft of his fiction about Berlin. This was a short story or the outline for a novel; its subject matter was Jean's adventures combined with Christopher's encounters with the Nowaks. It was as crude as his first drafts always were. But it accomplished the enormous feat of making this shapeless blob of potential material emerge “out of the everywhere into here.”

He dictated the draft to Richard. This was a supreme act of intimacy. It is immeasurably more embarrassing for a writer to invent crudely in someone else's presence than to confide to him the most shameful personal revelations. He could have done it with no one else he knew. I think Richard himself valued this intimacy. He patiently wrote the whole thing out in longhand, only regretting that he couldn't typewrite, because it made the dictation slower. They worked mostly in the mornings and had finished in about four weeks.

Their collaboration brought a feeling of subdued excitement into the household. Something—no matter exactly what—was going on upstairs, behind Christopher's closed door. Elizabeth the cook was aware of it. Nanny the house parlormaid was part of it. She, who had been nurse to both brothers in succession, now rejoiced that she was once more allowed to join in their games; she brought them cups of tea and answered the telephone, telling callers that they couldn't be disturbed. As for Kathleen, what mattered to her was that Christopher was functioning as a writer
under her roof;
this was a solid respectable fact which she could report to her friends. Kathleen felt a need—though she would never have acknowledged it—to reassure herself by looking at Christopher through the eyes of the outside world. In this connection, the few good reviews of
The Memorial
were like references and Christopher's newly acquired literary colleagues were like sponsors who guaranteed his competence. Thanks to them, Christopher the Writer had now begun to seem real to Kathleen; before them, he had never quite existed. (Wystan, Edward, and Stephen didn't and would never count as Christopher's colleagues, from Kathleen's point of view; they were merely school friends.)

Christopher found Kathleen's attitude ridiculous; but he himself was enjoying his enhanced status. It was fun to be both the self-exiled mysterious “Man from Berlin” and the socially welcome novelist whose next book was “awaited,” even if not very anxiously, in Bloomsbury circles. However, a Man from Berlin should be talked about rather than seen—the mystery is solved by overexposure. And a next book is best awaited in its author's absence. Christopher left England again on September 30.

SEVEN

From Forster, October 12, 1932:

Dear Isherwood—we do drop “Mr.,” don't we? I was very glad to have “All the Conspirators.” I don't like it as much as “The Memorial,” but that is not the point, and there are things in it I do like very much … I hope you found your friend better than the news suggested. It is an awful worry, that illness at this time of the year. I'm very sorry you've got this on you, and annoyed with Life generally for being so often
just
wrong. Again and again the wonderful chariot seems ready to move …

The people Forster approved of were those who were capable of devotion to a friend and of suffering when he was sick or in trouble. Forster took it for granted that Christopher was such a person. Christopher tried hard to live up to this image of himself. But Forster's faith in him would often make him feel guilty of coldheartedness.

Edward Upward reported:

Back today from lunch with Richard and Ma. I noted that she hadn't yet heard of Heinz and I said nothing to enlighten her. But even if I had I don't think she would have protested—it's quite astonishing how you have educated that woman. I foresee a time when, like the son who was sent to Australia for stealing, you will be able to do nothing wrong.

Otto had had the power to make Christopher jealous and anxious. Heinz didn't yet have this power. While Christopher was in London, he had never worried that Heinz might leave him; so he had never felt the need to talk about Heinz to Kathleen. He was already closer to Heinz than he had ever been to Otto, but their relationship wasn't painful. This he was learning to be grateful for—as he told Stephen Spender:

In the old days I was obsessed with the idea of a
high tension!, extreme danger!
relationship, which gave off ten-foot sparks and electrocuted everyone in the neighborhood. Now I see that there's something to be said for decency and a little mutual consideration and pleasantness. Thanks to Heinz.

Christopher's tone is ironically apologetic. He is aware that his love life has ceased to be gossip-worthy. Christopher himself was a keen matchmaker for his friends; but he quickly lost interest if the match turned out to be harmonious.

*   *   *

On November 3, Christopher wrote to Stephen, who was now in Spain:

Here we are very wet and chilly. And this morning Berlin has woken up to find a general strike of trams, buses, and U-bahn. Nobody seems to know how long it will last. Probably till after the elections, I should think, on Sunday. Nazis and Communists are assisting each other on the strike pickets.

The Nazis had forced themselves into this uneasy temporary alliance because they couldn't let the Communists take credit for being the sole supporters of the striking transport workers, just before an election. The strike resulted in widespread public violence against strikebreakers and others. Christopher himself got a glimpse of it, which he describes in
Goodbye to Berlin:
a young man being attacked on the street by a gang of Nazis returning from a political rally. The Nazis were carrying rolled banners with spikes on their ends. They stabbed the young man in the face and left him with one eye probably blinded. Half a dozen policemen stood a few yards away, ignoring the incident.

Christopher goes on to tell Stephen that Gerald Hamilton has been to Coburg to be present at the wedding of the eldest son of the Crown Prince of Sweden and Princess Sybilla of Coburg. During the marriage sermon the preacher said: “A people which has deprived its from-God-appointed rulers of employment must not wonder if the Heavenly Powers condemn its working classes to unemployment also.” This was a graceful reference to the various deposed royal persons who were in the congregation. One of these was the exiled Tsar Ferdinand of Bulgaria, with whom Gerald was staying. The tsar was fond of Gerald and bestowed various decorations on him, from time to time, which he later sold … Gerald, who seemed able to change worlds without the least discomfort, had descended from these aristocratic heights to Berlin and his proletarian boyfriend, an actor who was just then appearing in Gorki's
The Lower Depths.
Christopher describes the boyfriend as being “more Communist than Lenin.” He used to reprove Gerald for counterrevolutionary laxity and self-indulgence.