Christopher and His Kind (31 page)

June 26.
Yesterday, at last, it happened.

Coming back from a lunch party in Estoril, we found the envelope from the German Consulate on the hall table. Heinz is to report some time in the near future to get his orders for military service.

At present, my only reaction is a fierce warm sick feeling. My thoughts scamper round inside my head like scared hens.

What on earth shall we do? To go to the Consulate means, most likely, getting the passport confiscated. To bolt seems equally futile. Can Gerald help us? I doubt it.

June 29.
We went to see Dr. B.S., the famous Lisbon lawyer. A large round-faced man, with round glasses and round, cold, not unkindly eyes. No, he said, he was sorry—it was all quite hopeless: Heinz couldn't possibly be naturalized without doing his military service first. “The best advice I can give him is to return to Germany.”

I came out into the street feeling stunned. It was absurd, of course, to be so upset. What else had I expected? But, of course, secretly, I'd been hoping. Back to lunch at the T.'s. Mrs. T. was extremely kind; Mr. T. a bit uncomfortable—why
shouldn't
Heinz go back? Everything seemed to be slipping away down into a bottomless black drain. It is an awful moment when the absolute confidence of childhood—“Nanny'd never let that happen to
me
”—is shaken. I was probably in a high fever. So absolutely doomed did I feel, wandering up and down the hot sunlit streets, that it even seemed strange that we were still allowed at liberty. Going into the post-office, I tried to send a telegram to Gerald, but no words would come. We ordered ginger beer but couldn't drink it. Later we did telegraph.

That evening, we interviewed Olavo, who was very elastic and bright. He waved the difficulty aside. He would make all enquiries, be responsible for everything. We were not to worry. Heinz couldn't be extradited. He, Olavo, would prevent it. We returned home soothed.

The next day, Kathleen's ship docked at Lisbon. This is from her diary:

Christopher came on board and all was well as he managed all the getting through the customs and the tipping and had a taxi waiting. It was all winding roads with trees through great wide stretches of country and the castle at the top of Sintra dominating the view … And then the Villa Alecrim do Norte. It seemed all rather Italian. And the two Portuguese maids did too … Steps from the front door descend to the cheerful little colour-washed sitting-room. Away and away miles and miles of wild open undulating country, away to blue hills, changing lights, a train winding across the country … otherwise, the bees buzzing over the flowers and perfect stillness (but for the maids, who chatter and do not work much).

Poor Christopher. One of the usual upheavals has just arisen again, re Heinz and the possibility of conscription … C, after supper, to telephone to Hamilton in Brussels, who it is supposed could assist over changing Heinz's nationality … My room all white and green, and that marvellous open view, like one used to get at Wyberslegh. It is all most attractive.

The diary continues with descriptions of sightseeing tours taken with Christopher and of meetings between Kathleen and members of the British colony in Lisbon. Kathleen was welcomed warmly by them, as an elderly lady of distinction. Her presence at Alecrim do Norte made the Christopher–Heinz relationship suddenly respectable, as Christopher had foreseen that it would. There are, however, very few references to Heinz in Kathleen's diary. Here is the only extensive one:

July 4.
A lovely day again, enjoyed sitting in the pretty little sitting-room, opening on to the gay little garden and the wide ever-changing view. Heinz in and out with the chickens. Anna in attendance with food, and Christopher too. It is really the most domestic life they have had and now it is all threatened … Fairly encouraging but necessarily expensive news from Gerald Hamilton … Heinz joined us for tea. He does not speak unless spoken to. In some way difficult to explain
how
or
why,
he tones in with Christopher's life wonderfully well. They divide everything and every evening Heinz makes up “our accounts” and asks C just what he has spent during the day; and their personal and household expenditure is all entered. If
only
there wasn't this constant worry, on Heinz's account, over their plans.

Meanwhile, in his diary, Christopher was writing about Kathleen:

It is amazing—the barrier, even now, between us. Mostly of shyness. But, in getting older, she seems to have got heavier and harder. I'd imagined myself falling on her neck, appealing to her to forget and forgive the past, to regard Heinz as her son—but all that, in her presence, seems merely ridiculous. She is infinitely more broadminded, more reasonable, than she was in the old days—I like talking to her, in fact I talk to her better and more amusingly than to anyone else; but the ice is never really broken. To Heinz she is pleasant, gracious, chatty. She treats him—in a perfectly nice way—like one of the servants.

*   *   *

Kathleen left Portugal on July 10, for England. That same day, Heinz went to stay briefly with an English couple who were relatives of the landlady. This move had been arranged by Christopher in a mood of panic. By now, he had almost persuaded himself that the Nazis at the consulate would take the trouble to kidnap Heinz and put him on board a German ship. He had written in his diary: “Every time the doorbell rings, we jump out of our skins.” Meanwhile, as the neglected chickens ran about the garden in confusion, telegrams and telephone calls darted back and forth between Christopher and Gerald, producing nothing but promises that Heinz would somehow get his problems solved before too long.

However, a few days later, sanity reappeared in the person of William Robson-Scott. He was touring Portugal and paid a visit to Christopher, whom he had known since the Berlin days. There was something toughly resilient in William's makeup. He could bend before storms without breaking. His hair was short and vigorous, like grass clinging to the edge of a cliff. He laughed with nervous violence, turning red in the face and pressing his hands between his knees. Temperamentally mild and polite, he stated his opinions almost apologetically, but with fearless frankness. When the occasion demanded, he would become imperious in an old-fashioned British way, brushing difficulties aside like insects. (Christopher borrowed some of William's mannerisms for the character called Peter Wilkinson, Otto Nowak's lover, in
Goodbye to Berlin.
In real life, William and Otto never even met.)

When the Nazis came into power, William was teaching at the University of Berlin. The daily confrontation between him and his students must have been ironically comic. Here was a roomful of young Germans being lectured to by a seemingly typical representative of the ruling class of England—Germany's natural ally, according to
Mein Kampf.
It was to be presumed that he regarded himself as belonging to a master race born to rule the “lesser breeds without the Law.” Hitler admired this attitude and taught his followers to imitate it. However, William's students soon became aware that their professor, far from being an ally, regarded Nazi Germans as the very lowest of the lesser breeds. William made this clear to them, in his nonchalant style, over and over again. Some of the students were outraged and walked out of the classroom. Complaints were made to the university authorities. These reached the ears of an older Englishman, a colleague of William's in the English department. This Englishman was a joker. When told that William ought to be dismissed, he said: “I wouldn't do that, if I were you. Might create international tension. You see, the fact is, the fellow's a cousin of the King of England.” Incredibly enough, the Germans believed this. William suddenly found himself being treated with mysterious respect. Later, he discovered the joke. So did the Germans. They were not amused. William had to resign.

William could offer Christopher no practical advice, but his mere presence was immensely reassuring. Christopher simply couldn't picture kidnappers arriving to carry off Heinz, now that William was on the premises. And, if they did come, William would refuse to acknowledge their existence. “Nonsense!” he would snort, and they would disappear like a disease which has been un-thought by a Christian Science practitioner.

Through William, Christopher met his friends James Stern the writer and his wife, Tania. The Sterns wanted to rent a house and spend several months in the neighborhood. Christopher was immediately drawn to both of them and it was agreed that they should share Alecrim do Norte with him and Heinz.

Christopher found Jimmy Stern sympathetic because he was a hypochondriac like himself (though with far more reason); because he grumbled and was humorous and skinny and Irish; because his brainy worried face was strangely appealing; because he had been a steeplechase rider in Ireland, a bartender in Germany, and a cattle farmer on the South African veldt; because he was terrified of snakes and had been bitten by one (he implied that it had followed him around patiently until his attention was distracted by watching a rare bird); because he had written a book of extraordinary short stories, called
The Heartless Land.

As for Tania, she was one of the most unaffected, straightforward, sensible, and warmhearted women Christopher had ever encountered. She was also one of the most beautiful: small, dark-haired, dark-eyed, and with a body as beautiful as her face. She was a physical-culture expert and taught a system of exercises invented by herself. When she looked at you, she seemed aware of all the faults of posture which betrayed your inner tensions; but you never felt that she found them repulsive or even absurd. She was ready to help you correct them, if you wanted her to.

Tania was a German who had lived for some time in Paris before she married Jimmy. She had two brothers who were Communists and who had barely managed to escape from Nazi Germany. She herself had no fear of the Nazis when they were no longer on their home ground. She suggested going with Heinz to their consulate and demanding to know exactly what would happen to him if he refused to obey their conscription order. She was sure that there was nothing they could do, except threaten. “But what if they take his passport away?” Christopher asked. “We won't bring it with us,” said Tania, laughing. Her plan seemed outrageously daring and yet practical. Christopher was three quarters convinced by her assurance. Besides, his anxiety ached for the relief of a showdown—to know something, anything, definite after all these months. Heinz, who adored Tania, would have gone with her fearlessly. However, Jimmy, quite rightly I think, refused to allow her to get herself involved.

Christopher asked himself: Why shouldn't
I
go with Heinz to the consulate? He had to answer: I am afraid. Not of those officials, but of how he would behave. He was afraid of being questioned about his relations with Heinz, of losing his nerve, of being reduced to impotent rage, of being unable to play the scene through to a finish. That was why he had let Frl. Pohly go with Heinz to the consulate at Las Palmas for him. He couldn't forget that confrontation at Harwich.

Sometimes, Jimmy would shut himself up in his room for a whole day or more, seeing nobody but Tania. But his sensitive nerves and spells of melancholy created no tension in the household. Christopher wrote in his diary: “Jimmy's jumpiness is quite without venom towards the outside world. He is much too busy hating his father to have any malice left over for us.” And Tania took everything in her stride. She devoted herself to Jimmy yet found sufficient time to be with Christopher and Heinz and also very efficiently managed the housekeeping. This seemed—in the short run at least—a perfectly workable arrangement and I believe that—had the run been long—they might all have lived together in harmony for months or even years.

*   *   *

On July 18, Franco started the revolt in Morocco which spread at once to Spain itself and became the Civil War.

July 28.
Here I am, on the granite verandah of Dr. Olavo's house in the Beira Alta, looking out over the vines and olive woods of the Mondego Valley. Behind those mountains, across the Spanish frontier, they are fighting.

We have sat up each night until past two o'clock listening to the wireless—and although the news was better yesterday, it doesn't seem at all certain yet that the Fascists will be beaten.

Not that Dr. Olavo doubts this for an instant. He stabs an accusing finger, swallows his Madeira, springs to his feet: “Never shall they win! Never! I understand the mentality of these generals. Ah, these butchers, these monsters, these analphabetics—they would dare to assault the noble great-hearted generous Spirit of Democracy—very well, I defy them!”

Certainly he defies them. He is astonishingly incautious. From this house you can see the property of his brother, the former minister of war, who was murdered during the putsch which put the present regime into power. And yet Olavo is not merely free, his opinions are tolerated; he even has an important post in the civil administration. As I told him, he's lucky not to be living in Italy or Germany.

Forster to Christopher, July 30:

I am rattled by the news from Spain this evening and feel I am saying farewell to you and Heinz. You know those feelings and can discount them: the last parting is never when or as one supposes. I had been planning to come to Portugal in the autumn. Now all seems impossible.

This nightmare that everything almost went right! I know that you have it over the Communist failure in Germany. As a matter of fact, one's activities (and inactivities) must have been doomed for many years. I'd throw in my hand if all these metaphors weren't nonsense: there's nowhere to throw one's hand to.

Dear me, Amsterdam was good. We often talk of it. I can't believe it was only last year—two big wars since, two operations on myself, and so on, place it on another planet.