Lost Years

by Christopher Isherwood

  [9 Not his real name.]

  1945

  DAY-TO-DAY diary, January 1, 1945: “Started work on my story.” What story? Perhaps an early attempt to do something with the material from the journal about Christopher’s stay at the Friends Service Committee hostel at Haverford, 1941–1942. Or perhaps another attempt to write about the character called “Paul”1 (in those days, he wasn’t yet altogether Denny Fouts) and his adventures on the Greek island, which later appeared in “Ambrose.”[2]

  On January 2, Christopher took the manuscript of Vedanta and the Western World to be published by Marcel Rodd. Evidently they were still on good terms with Rodd at the Vedanta Center. Marcel is first referred to on June 20 in the 1944 journal, when he took over the distribution of the Gita,[3] which had already been set up by the printer who printed the magazine. Christopher knew him in a sort of backstairs way, as one of Vernon’s many former admirers, and Christopher flattered himself that he could do satisfactory business with Rodd and not get cheated, despite Rodd’s character. I can’t remember that Rodd ever actually cheated the Vedanta Society, but he caused a lot of annoyance and inconvenience in later years—failing to republish but refusing to give up his rights and ignoring the letters written to him by the society’s lawyers. And for all this Christopher was responsible because he had introduced Rodd to Swami. (Though I think it was Denny who had suggested that he should do so. Denny’s advice was so often sensible but mischievous.)

  In the 1944 journal, it is said that Rodd “is terribly anxious to become a respectable publisher.” This suggests that Rodd had already been in trouble as the result of his dealings in pornography—maybe while he had the bookshop and was selling it under the counter. But I remember that he was prosecuted, some time after this, for publishing or distributing sex books—one of them was called We Are Fires Unquenchable. The judge said, “I understand, Mr. Rodd, that you also publish religious literature? I strongly advise you to stick to that line in future.”

  On January 3, Swami’s nephew Asit [Ghosh] was finally released from the army. (The circumstances of his induction and the legal proceedings which were taken to release him are described in the 1944 journal.) Asit came back to the center and stayed there for a while. Then he left for India.4

  The Vivekananda Puja was celebrated on January 4, this year. (In 1944, it was on January 17.) The 1944 day-to-day diary mentions it, but I can find no reference to it in the journal. This puja—or rather, the breakfast puja which is the first part of it—became the only ritual worship which Christopher really enjoyed. This was chiefly because he had an important role in it—Swami had decided that he should be the one to read the Katha Upanishad aloud while Swamiji’s[5] breakfast was served. He loved doing this; indeed it was (and has remained) for him the highest imaginable act of sacred camp—a little genuine devotion, a feeling of the absurdity of himself in this role, a sense that the performance is a joke shared with Swamiji, and of course his enjoyment of the sound of his own voice—all these elements are combined in the experience. But, quite aside from this, the breakfast puja had a beautiful domestic significance as long as Sister[6] was alive and could personally pour Swamiji’s coffee during the ritual. Because Sister was (almost certainly) the only surviving person who had actually served breakfast to Swamiji while he was in the U.S. He had been a guest in her home, at the beginning of the century.

  On January 8, the day-to-day diary records that Sudhira[7] enlisted in the navy. She may actually have done this, or it may have been one of the tall stories she told Christopher. If she did really enlist, I’m pretty sure she was never called up.

  Also on the 8th, a journalist named Felton visited the center; he was doing a story for Time magazine in connection with a forthcoming review of the Prabhavananda—Isherwood translation of the Gita. On the 11th, he came again and sat in on Swami’s evening class; and on the 15th he sent a photographer to take pictures of Swami, Christopher, the temple, etc.[8]

  Day-to-day diary, January 19: “To Santa Monica. Saw Bill and Denny. The kite accident.”

  When Christopher arrived at Santa Monica that morning, he found Denny Fouts making a tail for a kite out of his Christmas decorations. (This sort of play project, undertaken on the spur of the moment, was characteristic of Denny.) When the kite was ready, Bill Harris and Christopher took it out on the beach to fly it. (I don’t remember that Denny was with them—perhaps there were two kites and Denny was flying the other one.) The wind was strong but not steady. Bill and Christopher got the kite aloft, quite high over the Canyon. Then Christopher said, “We ought to tie a banner to the tail, with ‘Vernon is a big queen’ written on it!” (The point of this remark was that Vernon happened to be staying somewhere in the Canyon at that time so he would perhaps have seen the banner and been embarrassed. Christopher was being bitchy about Vernon because he still harbored a grudge against him for the failure of their life together up at Santa Barbara. In any case, jokes against Vernon were frequent in Denny’s circle.)

  Christopher had barely finished making this joke when the kite, as if to punish him for it, took a sudden dive—so sudden that he and Bill Harris had no time to save it by running toward the ocean, pulling the string. In less time than it takes to tell, the kite fell limply onto the power lines along the side of the highway. Then, as Christopher watched incredulously, the tail of the kite began to smoke, there was a flash, a dull puff of sound, like air being expelled, and two of the cables parted and fell across the road. (No doubt they were spitting sparks, but Christopher couldn’t see this from where he stood.) Cars which happened to be passing swerved wildly. Brakes squealed. Luckily, there were no collisions. The accident, though minor, was awe inspiring. It belonged in the category of disasters and was as disconcerting to watch, on its own tiny scale, as the air raids Christopher had seen in China. You felt that the order of things was being upset. (And indeed, as Christopher heard later, the electric power was cut off throughout the neighborhood.)

  Bill Harris was so horrified that he simply ran away, fearing arrest, Christopher didn’t resent this; it rather flattered his own vanity that he was left to play the man while Bill panicked like a girl. And he knew Bill would admire him for his behavior, later. Christopher was a bit scared, of course; he fully expected to be arrested. But he was also shrewd enough to know that nothing very bad would happen to him, provided that he admitted his responsibility without delay.

  Meanwhile, a crowd had gathered and the police had arrived. But the police merely took charge of the traffic; they didn’t attempt to find out who the culprit was. Christopher joined the crowd. Several people in it had undoubtedly seen him flying the kite. Christopher made up his mind to keep quiet for the time being and wait until questions were asked. But nobody asked any questions.

  Then the repair truck arrived. The repair men asked no questions, either. But one of them said: “Whoever was flying that kite, he sure as hell was lucky”—and went on to explain that, if the kite string had been wet, the person holding it would have been electrocuted. The short circuit had been caused by the tinsel ornaments in the kite tail.

  Christopher later used this incident in The World in the Evening.9

  Day-to-day diary, January 20: “Supper with Carter (Lodge), Don Forbes, Dave Eberhardt[10] and Chip.[11]” I think Chip was a boyfriend of Carter Lodge. He may well be the boy about whom I dimly remember the following story: When the boy was young, his parents were alarmed because he was so effeminate and they felt sure he would turn out to be homosexual when he grew up; he also had a wretched physique. They consulted a doctor, who advised some sort of hormone treatment. The treatment produced dramatic results; the boy became a virile youth without a trace of effeminacy, with a powerful well-made body and masculine good looks—a well-adjusted, one hundred percent homosexual.

  Don Forbes was a newscaster on radio; I think his program was sponsored by Richfield Oil. He was quite a star in the news world—maybe he had done some reporting from the battlefronts. I remember being amuse
d by a photograph of him, enshrined like an oracle amidst flags, bursting shells, whizzing planes and bombarding warships. He was handsome, temperamental and very much of an actor.

  Dave Eberhardt was [. . .] just discharged from the navy—a pale husky joli laid with a crew cut. Soon after Dave and Christopher met, Dave told Christopher that he found him “powerfully attractive.” Christopher reciprocated more than sufficiently, and they would neck whenever they were alone together, sometimes for long spells. Since they always had to do this at the apartment which Don and Dave shared—because Christopher was still living at the Vedanta Center—they never went to bed together, however; Dave thought it was too risky. When they did finally make love, years later, at the AJC Ranch, I seem to remember that it wasn’t a success.

  Dave Eberhardt was a photographer. He later took some exceedingly flattering photographs of Christopher.

  Day-to-day diary, January 21: “With Bill to Beesleys’. Saw Barrymore house.” January 21 was a Sunday. Sunday lunch with the Beesleys had become a more or less fixed engagement. John van Druten and Carter sometimes came—though Carter was secretly unwelcome because he was allergic to dogs, so the dalmatians had to be shut away somewhere during his visit. (Dodie, of course, disbelieved in his allergy—like many Britishers of her generation, she dismissed allergies as an American superstition, with the single exception of hay fever. In her opinion, Carter simply hated dogs, which was a permanent bad mark against him.)

  The Beesleys were then living in a magnificent house on a hill above Tower Road—much too big for them. It had lawns, a garden, a tennis court and a pool. I think it rented for four hundred dollars a month, which seemed huge, in those days.

  I can find no mention of Bill Harris having had lunch with the Beesleys before January 7, 1945; this was probably his second visit. The Beesleys liked him and on later occasions made opportunities for Bill and Christopher to have sex, by going out and leaving them together, or even by suggesting to Christopher, “Wouldn’t you like to take a bath?” (This suggestion wasn’t quite as shameless as it sounded, because it was a long-established custom that Christopher should be offered a bath when he came to see them. It was like offering a bath to a serviceman who is in camp. At the Vedanta Center, the bathroom was shared by several people, and an unhurried soak in a spotless tub was a real luxury for Christopher.)12

  The house which had once belonged to John Barrymore was somewhere in that neighborhood. Its most remarkable feature was a very tall totem pole in the garden. My memory is of a building like a cloister, with a row of dark small cluttered rooms which stank; the place was then unoccupied. It may have stood empty since Barrymore’s death in 1942. I remember tales of the filthy state it had been in during his later lifetime—the rooms like sties full of drunken guests snoring amidst their shit and vomit. Maybe Alec Beesley had got permission to look around the house by pretending he wanted to rent it. Or maybe they were simply trespassing.

  Day-to-day diary, January 22: “Tried to hitchhike north with Bill, and failed.” Bill Harris and Christopher waited on the Pacific Coast Highway, at the Channel Road entrance to Santa Monica Canyon, for several hours, trying without success to thumb a ride. The war was still very much on, despite increasing prospects of peace—gasoline rationing was in force and nonmilitary traffic, other than local, was greatly reduced. Bill and Christopher were presumably hoping to catch a car which would take them to Santa Barbara at least, if not to San Francisco; and these were rare.

  I find this episode (or non-episode) curious and puzzling. It doesn’t seem to belong to the style of the Bill–Christopher relationship. To set forth impulsively on an unplanned indefinite hobo trip is something which the Christopher of six years earlier might have done with Vernon Old. Their journey across the U.S. by bus was a modified version of the hobo trip—Whitman, “We Two Boys Together Clinging,” the “Song of the Open Road,” etc. The Vernon—Christopher relationship aspired to be Whitmanesque—at least, Christopher certainly felt that it was or could be. He fell in love with Vernon as an embodiment of The American Boy.

  But now, with Bill Harris, as a forty-year-old lapsed monk, Christopher is attempting a different, more mature style. Why did he suddenly decide on this boyish elopement? Was he trying to prove to Bill how young he still was? Was he running away from the Vedanta Center, or from Denny Fouts? If so, how long did he plan to remain out of town? I simply cannot remember.

  It is also possible that Christopher already knew about Pancho Moraturi, Bill’s Argentine friend, who was urging Bill to come and live with him. In this case, Christopher may have planned the trip up north as a last fling. He can’t have wanted to carry Bill off from Pancho permanently. He must have known then what became obvious to him when he was rewriting his journals a year later, that his intentions toward Bill were not and never had been really serious.

  On January 23, Christopher and Bill Harris were down in Santa Monica again. (I suppose they made these trips by bus. Christopher cycled sometimes, but only when he was alone.13 Bill was now living on La Cienega Boulevard; more about this later.) That evening, at Denny’s apartment, there was a party—Chris Wood came, and Stef Brecht ([Bertolt] Brecht’s son) and Paul Fox, a friend of Chris’s, who was a set designer and worked, appropriately enough, at Twentieth Century-Fox. Christopher and Bill spent the night in one of the back rooms of the 137 Entrada Drive building. I remember Stef, in his formal European way, nodding toward Bill and then saying politely to Christopher, “I congratulate you, he is extremely attractive.”14

  I see from the day-to-day diary that John Goodwin was also there. It is odd that I don’t have more memories of him, for he was often with Denny. My impression is that Christopher didn’t really like John but was hardly aware of this. Christopher and John were outwardly friendly. John had actually encouraged Bill to have an affair with Christopher. And Christopher himself was, not very energetically, on the make for John—John pretended to be flattered by this, but didn’t encourage him to go ahead. Nevertheless, I feel that Christopher was constantly being repelled by John’s rudeness, selfishness and arrogance. Christopher hated little rich boys in his deepest heart, no matter how talented they were, or how physically attractive.

  On January 24, the day-to-day diary records that Bill Harris “had date at Selznick.” Probably John Darrow the agent and ex-actor had arranged that Bill should see the casting director at the Selznick Studios. (John Darrow had had an affair with Bill, shortly before Christopher.) Nothing came of the interview, however.

  On January 24, it is also recorded that there was Ram Nam in the evening and that Swami returned to the center from a stay at the ashram in Santa Barbara. Christopher still showed up to take part in these ceremonies, still spent time with Swami, but almost no memories remain of his life at the center during this final period. He was obsessed by Denny’s Santa Monica world and by Bill Harris; and that is what has left its mark.

  On January 27, Christopher went with Bill and Denny to the Follies and the Burbank, two burlesque shows. Here are some notes he made, either about these performances or some others he saw at that time:

  The hard round bellies, the clutching gestures, the bumps, the grinds, the splits. The hair shaken over the face, to suggest lust and shame. The gesture of masking the eyes—as if afraid to look at her own body. The brutally aggressive forward-jerking G-string. The secret smile as the dress is loosened. The presentation of the breasts. The final sexual challenge.

  The horrible toothless old male comics. A world of triumphant women—in which the men are impotent and hideous.

  January 28: “Lunch with Beesleys. Katharine Hepburn came in. Vigil 9–10 p.m.” Hepburn lived quite close to the Beesleys. She had walked over to see them. They didn’t know her well. A link between them was the Swedish married couple who had once worked for Hepburn and now worked for the Beesleys. This man and his wife were nice looking, youngish, spotlessly clean, demure, lazy, expensive and devoted to vicious gossip. They told Dodie and Alec how eccentric, il
l-tempered and domineering Hepburn was as an employer. They claimed that she walked about in the woods naked. I myself have no memory of Hepburn at this time, except that her freckles were very prominent and that she seemed friendly and pleasant.

  January 29: “Drove with Bill to Robinsons, to leave Gitas. Spent the evening at his place.” This is a good specimen day to represent this period in Christopher’s life—with one foot in the Vedanta Center and one foot out of it. These were newly printed copies of the Gita, which Christopher was taking to Robinsons department store. (I think there was a devotee employed in their book department who was going to push the Gita.)

  The rest of the day was spent at Bill’s La Cienega apartment. It seems to me now that La Cienega was perhaps the most romantic street in Los Angeles, in those days. It had an un-American air of reticence, of unwillingness to display itself Its shops were small and unshowy; its private houses were private. Also—and this was what really appealed to Christopher—it seemed to have a bohemian, self-contained life of its own. It was a “quarter,” which didn’t make any effort to welcome outside visitors. Many of its dwellers were hidden away in odd little garden houses and shacks, within courtyards or on alleys, behind the row of buildings which lined the street. It was in one of these that Bill lived.

  I suppose Christopher was now very much aware of Bill’s impending departure and wanted to perform an act of sexual magic which would, as it were, stake out a permanent claim in Bill even after he “belonged” to Pancho. Anyhow, Christopher told Bill that he wanted to fuck him in every room of the apartment. (This probably consisted only of bedroom, living room, kitchen and bathroom.) Bill was quite willing—the idea of “staged” sex excited him. They had often talked of unusual places where one might make love. On this occasion, their only daring move was to go outside the house—the apartment being on the ground floor—and fuck one more time in the courtyard, in the rain. The neighbors may well have seen them doing this. If they did, there were no complaints. When it was over, Bill and Christopher felt very pleased with themselves and each other. Bill even went so far as to say, “You know, if you were three or four inches taller, you might quite easily be Heathcliff.” “Heathcliff” was Bill’s name for the ideal sex partner. But “Heathcliff” had to be at least a couple of inches taller than Bill.