Lost Years

by Christopher Isherwood

  Their reunion was friendly but cagey and polite. Ian was married now, to a girl he had known a long time; she was an American named Elizabeth—I think that Christopher had met her, after he arrived in the States. When Ian announced his marriage in a letter to Christopher, Ian said of her that she was the only person who really deserved to have him—no, I can’t have got that correctly, but it was the sense of whatever phrase he used, meaning that she had waited longer than anybody else. And now they had a son.

  Christopher didn’t feel guilty in Ian’s presence, but he did feel somewhat intimidated by him. For Ian was doubly a hero. As a conscientious objector, he had gone to Africa with the Friends’ Ambulance Unit, where he had narrowly missed being killed. (Nik Alderson, his beautiful young lover whom Christopher succeeded, had been in the same unit and had been killed by a bomb.) Later, Ian had lost his pacifist convictions, joined the army and been ordered—because of his classical education—to act as a liaison officer with the Greek guerillas, fighting behind the German lines in Greece. “How did you get there,” Christopher asked Ian respectfully, “did you jump with a parachute?” “I was dropped,” Ian answered, casually, yet with a certain note of reprimand, as if correcting an error in phraseology by Christopher. He was no longer pretty but rather beautiful; he looked austere and repressed. He told Christopher, “I can’t see that you’ve changed in the least.” This too sounded like a reprimand, as though Ian were telling him that he was uncured and perhaps incurable. But all this was below the surface. Their conversation was largely literary, and Ian was polite about Prater Violet and enthusiastic about writing in general. He didn’t appear to feel that he’d outgrown the taste for it. They also exchanged several nervous jokes, at which Ian laughed in the way which used to charm Christopher. But there was no communication and couldn’t have been any, unless they had taken off their clothes. Which—as Ian kept signalling, rather too insistently—was absolutely absolutely absolutely out of the question.

  On March 12, Christopher saw Gerald Hamilton again for lunch lunch—one of the props of Gerald’s newly rediscovered Catholicism, Monsignor Barton-Brown, was with him—and Edward and Hilda Upward again for supper. In between these meals, he was reunited with Eric Falk. Like Ian, Eric found Christopher’s appearance unchanged, but he chose a much more pleasing way of saying so; “My God!” he cried, “have you made a pact with the Devil?” Christopher, not surprisingly, decided that Eric had changed very much, for the better. (He later told Olive Mangeot that he had seen in Eric’s face something he had never seen there before—real goodness.) Not being in with the Devil had cost poor Eric something, however; he already looked like an old man, bald and wrinkled.

  On March 13, Christopher went to Cheltenham, to stay with Olive Mangeot. She was living there with Hilda [Hauser] and Hilda’s granddaughter, whom they had named Amber because that was her color. During the war, Hilda’s daughter Phyllis had gone out dancing a lot with American soldiers. A black G.I. had raped her, outside a dance hall. Phyllis was prepared to go to the base and identify the man. But, as she was on her way there, the American officer who was escorting her told her that the wartime punishment for rape was death. So, when Phyllis was confronted with the lineup, she said she couldn’t recognize the rapist. (No doubt this was what the officer had hoped she would say, and the reason why he had told her about the death penalty.)

  Phyllis had the baby but she also had a violent revulsion against it—maybe its appearance triggered a delayed shock reaction to the rape, maybe she hadn’t expected it to be so obviously Negroid; Amber looked far less than half white. Phyllis refused to have anything to do with her. It seemed that Amber had been lucky. Instead of a whining, complaining, self-centered mother, she had got an adoring fat dimpled grandmother who was a marvellous cook—not to mention a charming home and an equally adoring “great aunt,” Olive.

  Hilda herself didn’t seem to have changed one bit since the old days at 21 Cresswell Place. (In Lions and Shadows, she is called “Rose.”) Altogether, this was a very happy family, with Olive contributing just a faint breath of communistic priggishness—only a breath, because priggishness was so deeply against Olive’s nature. Olive and Christopher didn’t get into any political arguments during his visit, but he was obliged to refuse to contribute to some party fund and tell her he couldn’t support the party in any way, as long as it sanctioned the disgraceful treatment of homosexuals in Russia.

  Another not entirely convincing communist, Sally Bowles now become Jean Cockburn, was either staying in the house or living nearby (I forget which) with her daughter Sarah. Christopher found Jean also very little changed in looks, though much in manner; she was a bit of a red bore, until you got her off the party line. Gerald Hamilton had told Christopher that Jean had once said of Claud [Cockburn], Sarah’s father: “He’s the only man in the world I couldn’t possibly go to bed with.” But that was long, long ago, before the Spanish Civil War and Jean’s political enlightenment and her stay in Madrid, where she was said to have shown remarkable courage during the bombardments.

  On March 14, Olive Mangeot and Christopher had lunch with Wogan Philipps and his wife Cristina. Wogan had once been married to Rosamond Lehmann. He was a handsome powerfully built man, quite wealthy, with a charmingly open, enthusiastic temperament. He had been wounded in the Spanish Civil War, while driving an ambulance (I think). He and Cristina had a farm somewhere in the neighborhood. Like many farmers at this period, they were employing prisoners of war, German or Italian, to help out. From the point of view of the prisoner, such a job was extremely desirable; he got paid for it and he didn’t have to go back at night to the prison camp if his employer would give him room and board.

  Wogan and Cristina told Christopher at lunch that they had been employing a young German POW (whom I’ll call Kurt; I forget his real name). They had become very fond of Kurt; he was a good worker, always cheerful, simple, innocent, sweet natured, a typical German peasant boy—or that was how he had seemed to them. Then, a short while ago, the camp authorities had ordered Kurt to leave the farm and return to them. When Wogan protested, he was told that they had discovered that Kurt had a very bad record; as a member of the S.S., he had taken part in a massacre of civilians, somewhere in Russia. The camp authorities told Wogan that it wasn’t their job to try war criminals; their position was simply that farm work outside the camp was a privilege only to be granted to prisoners of good character. Kurt obviously didn’t deserve this privilege, so Wogan would have to pick someone else. Wogan had answered that he and Cristina couldn’t believe this about Kurt; they had got to know him well, he was incapable of such a crime, there must be some mistake. All right, the authorities had told him, if that’s how you feel, you may be present at Kurt’s hearing; he will be given every opportunity to prove he’s innocent.

  The hearing had been set for that afternoon. Wogan asked Christopher to come with him to the camp, saying that the hearing would be in German, which he didn’t understand well; he wanted Christopher to translate for him when necessary.

  When Christopher first saw Kurt, he appeared to be exactly as Wogan had described him, a sturdy smallish peasant youth with a pretty face and apple cheeks, innocent and healthy. If there was any slyness about him, it would be merely sexual, Christopher thought; he would probably be good at slipping noiselessly out of his room at night and sliding into someone’s bed. At the moment, he looked subdued and sad, as was only natural, but not guilty or anxious.

  The examiner had come down from London. He was an Englishman but he spoke German fluently. He impressed Christopher as being a real expert at his job. He talked quietly, he didn’t bully, he made no show of moral indignation—if anything, he seemed faintly amused, though his face remained unsmiling. Obviously, he had studied Kurt’s case in the minutest detail. He asked Kurt if he had ever been a member of the S.S. Kurt admitted that he had, but added that he hadn’t volunteered for it, he had been drafted. “Where were you inducted?” the examiner asked. “In Dresden.”
(I’m using names that come into my head; I don’t remember the actual ones.) “Where was the barracks that you had to report to?” “On the Wilhelmstrasse.” “You’re quite sure?” “Yes, I am sure.” “Because that was where they took the volunteers. Draftees went to the barracks on the Kaiserplatz.” Thus the examination proceeded, step by step. The examiner appeared to know every move Kurt had made; every lie he had told. It became steadily more obvious that the accusation against him was true. Kurt denied everything at first. Then he turned sullen. Two or three times, his face showed a glimpse of rage, like a defiant, cornered animal. There were no tears, no appeals to Wogan for his sympathy. When the hearing was over, he went out of the room without looking at anybody. Wogan was shaken and upset. Even Christopher had become involved. He felt he had witnessed something ugly and terrible, an unmasking. Just for a moment, the fact of the massacre—and of Kurt’s part in it—seemed obscenely present, right there in the room. And yet nothing much had actually happened. The authorities had proved their case, but Kurt would almost certainly never be punished; he was one among thousands. To be shocked that a boy who looked like Kurt could have done such a thing—that was sheer sentimentality. Why shouldn’t a murderer be pretty? All that had been demonstrated here was a hideous but homely truth: that most of us live quite comfortably with the memory of our vilest acts; and that, if they are discovered, we are angry and humiliated, we curse our stupidity and are heartily sorry—that we got caught.

  On March 15–16, there was a tremendous gale; to Christopher, it seemed the most violent he had ever been in. On the 16th, he went with Olive and Jean to the movies. Being out on the streets was quite dangerous, for tiles were being blown off roofs and, once, a large shop sign came crashing down, close to them. Inside the cinema, the noise of the storm was so loud that it distracted your attention from the screen; it even began to seem possible that the building itself might be in danger. Olive was scared. To make her laugh, Christopher said, “Try to pretend it’s only an air raid.”

  The storm brought floods which closed roads and railway lines, thus preventing Christopher from going to Stratford to see Beatrix Lehmann, who was appearing there in the Shakespeare season. That uncanny chameleon was playing Viola, Portia and the Nurse in Romeo and Juliet on successive nights.26 Instead, Christopher went directly back to Wyberslegh, on March 17.

  I have few memories of this second visit, although it was nearly as long as Christopher’s first—exactly four weeks. One memory is of a session with Mr. Symonds, the family lawyer, about the drawing up of a formal deed making over the Marple and Wyberslegh estates to Richard; this was at Mr. Symonds’s office in Stockport on March 24. Symonds told Kathleen and Christopher—Richard, I’m nearly sure, wasn’t present—that Christopher’s gift of the estates to Richard couldn’t be regarded as absolutely unconditional, because there was always the possibility that Christopher might have a child who would claim a share. In such an event, said Mr. Symonds, the child’s claim might well be upheld by the court. It was typical legal teasing—Symonds positively smacked his lips as he spoke—and Christopher was delighted to be able to shut him up. “There is no possibility,” he said, “of my having a child.” And he went on to tell them all about the median bar, and Dr. Gorfain’s surgery and his consequent sterilization. It seems obvious to me now that Christopher hadn’t told Kathleen about this earlier because he knew instinctively that it would upset her. If so, it was extra unkind of him to do it in Mr. Symonds’s presence. His motive was spite against them both, as representatives of the heterosexual majority. How dared they assume that he should want to have a child, anyway? Nevertheless, the violence of Kathleen’s reaction took him by surprise. She seemed to regard Christopher’s sterilization as a crime quite equal to that of abortion, and she cast all the blame for it on poor Dr. Gorfain. “He ought to be put in prison!” she exclaimed. When Christopher was alone with her on the way home, he tried to talk her out of her indignation—why in the world should she expect him, a well-adjusted homosexual, to switch to women in his old age? What did it matter if he was sterilized or not? To which Kathleen answered, with an obstinate pout which made her look for a moment like a young girl: “But I want grandchildren!” At seventy-eight, with one foot in the tomb, she could say this—without the slightest consideration for the wishes of the two sons she professed to love! But, of course, this wasn’t Kathleen speaking, it was the matriarch-cunt, deaf to all decency, demanding that its gross fleshy will be done. Christopher gasped at it, awed and amazed and disgusted. There was nothing more to be said. . . . The deed was signed later, on March 28.

  Another memory is of some conversations Christopher had with Mitty Monkhouse, while they were out on walks, around the back of Lyme Park and over Whaley Moor. Alone together for the first time in their lives, the two became intimate at once. Even the landscape made them feel close to each other, for they were both children of these damp sad beautiful dark hills—“moor born,” in fact. As for the difference in their ages, about seven years, it meant very little now that Mitty was into her thirties. And she evidently needed a confidant.

  She told Christopher that she was in love with a man much older than herself This man loved her too. But he was married and his wife wouldn’t divorce him. Furthermore, his health was very bad; he couldn’t expect to last long. Mitty was urging him to come away and live with her. He was tempted, but still refused to do this because he feared he would only make her unhappy—first, by involving her in a scandal, then by dying and leaving her alone. Mitty’s choice of such an old lover suggested a hang-up on her father, Allan. Which was ironical, because Allan was the most drastic of puritans. He had once forbidden a young man the house because he had playfully kissed Rachel goodnight. And now Mitty had found herself a father substitute whom Allan would have condemned as the vilest sort of seducer and emotional blackmailer!

  I don’t think Mitty needed Christopher’s advice. She had already made up her mind that she wanted to be with her lover, whatever might come of it. But Christopher’s sympathy pleased and impressed her greatly. Perhaps it surprised her too; she knew he had never been married and may have supposed him to be frigid or pure or both. Christopher soon found himself confessing to Mitty that he knew a great deal about the hazards and problems of unlawful sexual unions, from his personal experience. This intrigued her, of course. She wanted details—still, apparently, not guessing that he was homosexual. Christopher then began to get cagey, which I now regret, because his caution prevented him from introducing Caskey to her on his next visit to England and thus becoming really intimate with her. After these walks and talks on the moors, they seldom saw each other again. I never knew, or have forgotten, if Mitty and her lover ever did go off together.

  I don’t think there was much snow during this visit, because Christopher went for many walks. He and Kathleen shopped in Manchester and saw movies. Christopher also arranged to have his books (which he had left at Pembroke Gardens in 1939 and which Kathleen had brought to Wyberslegh) crated and shipped over to the U.S.

  On April 14 he returned to London and went to stay with John Lehmann. John gave a party for him next day—Cecil Beaton, Rose Macaulay, V. S. Pritchett, William Plomer, Rosamond Lehmann and Ian Scott-Kilvert were among those who came to it.27

  On April 16, Christopher went to an exhibition of tapestry at the Victoria and Albert Museum. He was astonished to recognize one of the pieces as being identical with the Gobelins piece which had hung in the drawing room at Marple Hall. He wondered if it could possibly be the same, on loan from the museum in the North to which it had been sold. But the curator whom he asked explained to him that the Gobelins state factory in the seventeenth century had turned out many copies of each design. Christopher in his ignorance had supposed that every piece of tapestry must be an “original.”

  In the evening, Christopher went with Jack Hewit to see Webster’s The White Devil. I think of this as having been one of the most remarkable productions of a non-Shakespearian Elizabethan
play I have ever seen—but I can remember hardly any details. My overall impression is of roughhouse lust and gleeful cruelty. The miming of the lust would probably seem nothing unusual, nowadays. But there must have been something truly memorable in Flamineo’s glee and ferocious laughter, after he has tricked his sister Vittoria and her waiting woman into trying to kill him with pistols which have no bullets in them.28 I also remember Vittoria literally spitting in Flamineo’s face—which was strangely exhilarating.

  Christopher and Jack Hewit had supper afterwards with Tony Hyndman. This must have been the first time that Tony and Christopher had met, since the war. My memories of Tony are disarranged, but I’m fairly sure that he and Stephen Spender were now no longer on speaking terms. Stephen had told Christopher that Tony was drinking heavily and that he was somehow involved with criminals. (Do I remember that Stephen’s house had been robbed and that he suspected that Tony knew who had done it?) Tony had been to Australia, as stage manager of a theatrical company, I believe, and had made a mess of the job.

  Anyhow, Christopher’s meeting with Tony was certainly a happy one. They had been on the best of terms when Christopher left for the United States and nothing had happened to disturb their relationship in absence. Tony looked hardly any older and he was cheerful and affectionate as always. Christopher still found him attractive, but I don’t think they had sex together that night or indeed until Christopher came back to England in 1948.29