Lost Years

by Christopher Isherwood

  It was during a weekend at Ollie Jennings’s house that Christopher and Caskey went to have supper with the painter Matta and his wife. The evening was made memorable by one of Caskey’s outbursts. Matta, thinking no doubt that he was thus putting Christopher and Caskey at their ease, made some casual reference to the fact that he, too, had occasionally had sex with men. This enraged Caskey, who yelled, “I suppose you think there’s nothing more to homosexuality than just cocksucking?” The Mattas were scared and humiliated; they tried to placate him. This happened on May 17.

  On May 27, Christopher got two paintings by Edward Burra on approval from the British-American Art Center. They were in the same frame, back to back with glass on both sides, so that you could display them in turns. One was a still life of vegetables and/or fruit with (I think) some landscape in the background. The other I can scarcely remember. I believe it included some of Burra’s mysterious figures with masked or hidden faces. Christopher and Caskey never made up their minds to buy this and it finally went back to the gallery. They did buy a small painting of carnival figures by Obin, the Haitian artist. Selden Rodman, who had brought back a lot of pictures from Haiti, sold it to them. I forget the price, but it was stiff.

  On June 15, Christopher went to a Quaker meeting—perhaps the life he was leading gave him an appetite for it, as a contrast. He met Caroline Norment there. I wish I knew what Caroline’s impressions were of this 1947 Christopher. Did she find him as much changed as he felt himself to be from the Christopher of the Haverford hostel? They had lunch together a few days later and worked hard at being friendly, no doubt. And that was the end of it.

  On July 3, Christopher and Caskey went to stay with Horst, at his house in the country (I forget where). Horst’s friend, Jamie Caffery, was a longtime friend of Caskey’s; he had a queer uncle who then was or had recently been the U.S. Ambassador to France. Christopher liked Horst; he was handsome, well preserved, good-humored and good mannered. He had some thyroid pills which made you lose several pounds overnight; no doubt they were terribly bad for you.

  On July 11, Christopher and Caskey set out by car to visit Truman Capote. They drove to New London (which strongly reminded Christopher of the industrial architecture of Stockport and Manchester) and spent the night there. The next night they spent at New Bedford. Next day, they took the steamer across to Nantucket.

  Truman was staying with his friend Newton Arvin in a small house in the village of Siasconset. When Truman, in New York, had referred to “my friend,” Christopher and Caskey had pictured some mighty and potent brute as being the most likely kind of mate for him to have chosen. They were therefore surprised to find that Arvin was an intelligent and sensitive college professor, quite nice looking but definitely middle-aged. Arvin welcomed them hospitably and was no doubt pleased to see them, but he didn’t sparkle, didn’t get drunk, didn’t want to go to parties. When they went out visiting, he stayed home and read. Maybe this homebody character was part of what Truman, the gadabout, wanted in a friend; maybe he needed someone to come back to. (Jack Dunphy, although quite unlike Arvin physically, also avoids party going.) As for the difference in Truman’s and Arvin’s ages, that apparently appealed to Truman. When he flirted with Christopher, and he did so constantly, he would say, “You’re going to be awfully attractive when you’re a bit older—another five years, and you watch out!”

  As a host, Truman was like a masterful child leading a gang of children; he knew what he wanted, he was determined to enjoy himself, and he took it for granted that the rest of them would follow him. He never stopped to worry about his guests and whether they were enjoying themselves. And indeed it wasn’t necessary. Nearly always, Truman’s enjoyment swept them along.

  Truman leading the outdoor life of Nantucket seemed quite different from the indoor exotic Truman whom Christopher had met in New York. Without his elegant freaky town clothes he looked much less odd and much more robust. He had a squat, sturdy body, golden brown and baby smooth, with surprisingly strong arms and legs.38 He was a powerful swimmer, and he liked cycling and horseback riding.

  Several people Truman knew were staying at a house not far away—it was called Hagedorn House, I think. The host of this house party was Leo Lerman, the magazine editor, an almost classically Jewish Jew, bald, bearded, sly eyed, somewhat rabbinical in his manner, full of hostile mocking flattery, aggressive humility, shrewdness, rudeness, taste, vulgarity, wit and fun. He courted Christopher and charmed him, at first; Christopher felt at ease with his shamelessness. (Later they were to quarrel many times and never quite make it up.)

  The other people living in the house were (as far as I can deduce from the day-to-day diary) Andrew Lyndon, Harold Halma, Helmuth Roder and Fritz Mosel.39 I am pretty sure that there were at least a couple of dozen neighborhood gays who were on call when they entertained.

  Andrew Lyndon was a longtime intimate friend of Truman’s. They were both from the South; Andrew’s hometown was Macon, Georgia. He was slim, soft-spoken, brown eyed, attractively monkey faced, capable of bitchery and probably of cruelty; quite a southern belle. Harold Halma was good looking and well built and much more masculine; a weaker, nicer character. He was a photographer. Andrew worked in a bookshop. They had an apartment in New York. I don’t remember how long they had been living together, but their affair was already on the rocks—that is to say, Harold was still very much in love with Andrew but Andrew had lost interest.

  Caskey and Christopher saw Leo Lerman and his guests every day (it appears) during their stay in Nantucket. They had meals together or cycled or went swimming. (The current that swept around that part of the island made swimming exciting but safe; you could float and let yourself be carried by it, very fast and as far as you liked, without ever being taken out of your depth.)

  Almost instantly, Andrew Lyndon started to get a crush on Christopher. Christopher, as usual, was flattered and didn’t discourage him. Truman encouraged Andrew strongly, out of mischief Leo was voyeuristically entertained. Harold was jealous. Caskey wasn’t; he didn’t even resent Truman’s effort to promote the affair—knowing, no doubt, that Christopher wasn’t serious. And indeed nothing much happened between Christopher and Andrew—there was so little opportunity for them to be alone together, even for a minute. One afternoon, Truman, Andrew and Christopher went swimming in a lagoon, where boats were moored. Andrew, maybe hoping to start something, stripped off his trunks and put them on the deck of one of the boats. Truman promptly grabbed them and swam away—but not far enough to allow Andrew and Christopher any privacy. Only on the last night, when Leo gave a party and the lights were turned out so they could play hide-and-seek, did Andrew and Christopher manage to kiss and grope each other in the dark, but even this was quickly interrupted by Harold.

  Next day, July 20, Caskey and Christopher returned by steamer to New Bedford, where they had left their car, and started for Cape Cod. They arrived at Provincetown on July 21.

  Paul Cadmus and his current boyfriend George Tooker, Jared French and his wife were staying at Provincetown for the summer. So were Don Windham and Sandy Campbell. Caskey and Christopher saw all of them but not, I think, together. Maybe Paul wasn’t on speaking terms with Don and Sandy—for Sandy had been Paul’s lover and Don had taken Sandy away from him.

  All I remember of this visit are two days on the beach with Paul, Jared and George. It was a beautiful beach and quite secluded; they all swam and lay in the sun bare-ass—until suddenly a sightseeing jeep full of women would come plunging out of the woods, so fast that there was no time to cover yourself with a towel, even; all you could do was roll over on your belly and let them try not to stare at your buttocks. Another, more constant threat on this beach were the stinging flies. The New Yorkers took these as a matter of course, but they made Christopher and Caskey realize how lucky bathers are in California the (almost) Bugless.

  Jared French took a lot of nude photographs of Caskey and Christopher. When these were printed, both of them looked ridiculous�
�partly because their worst physical features (the bandiness of Caskey’s legs, the narrowness of Christopher’s shoulders) had been unintentionally emphasized; partly because they had been so stupidly posed. Considering that Jared was an artist, he was a surprisingly poor photographer. Or was he merely inhibited by a private misgiving? Having suggested taking these pictures, did he suddenly feel that he didn’t really know Caskey and Christopher well enough? This would explain an oddness which was apparent in nearly every photograph; the distance between the two figures was wrong. As a pair of lovers, Christopher and Caskey should have been closer together; as non-lovers who happened to be stark naked, they were too close. And what were they up to, why had they taken off their clothes, if not to fuck? They seemed hardly conscious of each other’s presence, dully awaiting some cue or command to move, like animals whose actions are discontinuous and unrelated. The funniest picture showed Caskey halfway up a ladder; he looked as if he had already forgotten why he had started to climb it. Christopher stood below, ignoring him, with an expression of irritable uneasiness. . . . [40] Jared apologized for the pictures and blamed the camera. Christopher and Caskey called them “hippos mating.”41

  On July 26, Caskey and Christopher drove back to New York.

  On July 30, Caskey and Christopher had lunch with Anne, one of Caskey’s two sisters. I can’t now remember if this was the sister he disliked less or more than the other; he was basically hostile to both of them. I suppose Caskey had to entertain Anne as long as she was visiting New York; this would explain why he didn’t accompany Christopher and Lincoln Kirstein on a visit to Auden and Chester [Kallman] on Fire Island that day.

  Auden had taken a house in Cherry Grove for the summer, and Christopher had already been to see him there twice, with Caskey, during June. The house, like most of the others in Cherry Grove, was just a wooden shack. Its window screens were rusted by the sea air, and, since Auden and Chester were the housekeepers, flies buzzed over unwashed dishes, uncollected garbage, unmade beds with dirty sheets and a vast litter of books and papers. Neither of them was at all interested in the ocean or the beach as such. Auden spent most of his time indoors, Chester went out chiefly to cruise the population, which was wild and barred no holds. The one little hotel was jumping. Every time the ferry boat crossed the sound from the mainland to the island, a big crowd of residents would be awaiting it, on the lookout for new faces. Guitars twanged, wolf whistles and gay repartee were exchanged. The passengers were eager for the adventures ahead; they stared boldly at strangers who had taken their fancy. This was Watteau’s Cythera brought up to date—only it was an arrival at, not an “Embarkation for.” At night, the noise from the bar could be heard all over the colony, and couples stumbled out of it and threw themselves down to screw on the sand, scarcely beyond the range of the house lights. No doubt the minority of elderly square homeowners objected strongly to all this, but at that time the only curb on sex activity was an ordinance which put the sand dunes out of bounds—not for moral reasons but because, in the hurricane of 1938(?),[42] the dunes had been the only remaining refuge when huge waves washed over that part of the island; if the dunes were to get trampled flat by would-be fuckers and another hurricane were to hit Cherry Grove, all its inhabitants might be drowned.

  Lincoln and Christopher spent the night at Auden’s house. They had to share a bed. Lincoln, for the first and only time, made a pass at Christopher—a half-joking, tentative pass, which Christopher jokingly declined. Christopher was ready to have sex with most males within reasonable age limits, and he certainly didn’t find Lincoln all that unattractive. But he hated mixing sex with giggles.

  On August 3, Caskey and Christopher were at Isa Jennings’s country house, to swim and have supper. Garbo was there, with George Schlee. Noël Coward arrived late and made a big theatrical entrance. Christopher had always been rather prejudiced against Coward—whom I don’t think he had ever properly met. He watched sourly as Coward moved with the modest graciousness of royalty among the guests. Garbo got a speech of homage which Christopher thought disgustingly phony and even the lesser lights were presented with a compliment apiece; Christopher had to admit that Coward was inventive, he found a different way of flattering each of them, and each one beamed. Just before Christopher’s turn came, he said to himself, “I wonder what kind of shit he’ll try on me.” They were introduced. Coward reacted strongly. Then, in an almost loverlike tone of shyness, he told Christopher, “It’s extraordinary—you look so much like one of the great heroes of my youth, Lawrence of Arabia!”

  Christopher often told this story later, mockingly. Yet that day was the beginning of a permanent change in his attitude to Coward. Subconsciously, Christopher started finding reasons to admire him and think him sympathetic. Which wasn’t difficult, for there are many. Christopher, that shameless flatterer, had had his ass tickled by a master, and had loved it. Characteristically, he didn’t bother to remember what compliment (if any) Coward had paid Caskey.

  Caskey and Christopher were given a ride back into town by Garbo and George Schlee. (Caskey and Christopher had come out to the country by train because their car was being repaired.) Christopher was fairly drunk and took this opportunity of attacking Garbo. He told her that her custom of addressing him as “Mr. Isherwood”—and of refusing in general to address her old acquaintances by their first names—was sheer affectation and arrogance and egomania. Did she actually think that he, Christopher, had to be kept at a distance, lest he should take some advantage of her? Was she really so paranoid? Hadn’t it ever entered her head that there were some people on this earth who didn’t give a damn about her fame or her money or even her appearance—who simply wanted to be friendly?

  I don’t remember that Garbo said anything in reply to this. She was sitting in the front seat with Schlee—a position which made it easy to ignore a backseat scolder. Christopher probably continued until he ran out of breath. Later—no doubt because he felt he had made an ass of himself—he turned his attention to the ever-silent self-effacing Schlee and began to praise Schlee’s driving in extravagant terms. (Was this done partly to bitch Caskey, whose speeding terrified Christopher whenever Christopher was sober?) Oddly enough, in retrospect, it is Christopher’s corny compliments to Schlee that I feel ashamed of, not his rebukes to Garbo.

  After that evening, Christopher didn’t see Garbo for nearly a year. But she hadn’t forgotten what he had said to her. When they next met, at Salka Viertel’s house in California, in July 1948, she gaily told Salka, “Mr. Isherwood was very cruel to me, when we were in New York”; as she said this, she arched her eyebrows in an expression of comic anguish. Obviously, she didn’t bear him any grudge. She could afford not to, for she was invulnerable, as far as he was concerned. Nothing he could possibly say could get under her skin. He, who had always found her absurd, now had to realize that she found him even absurder. Indeed, she made this quite clear at a dinner party at Salka’s about two months later, when she suddenly announced to the guests, “Mr. Isherwood has such beautiful legs!” This tribute from a senior love goddess to a queer in his mid-forties seemed farcical. Everybody laughed. Christopher laughed with them, but only he would savor Garbo’s compliment as a subtly malicious echo of Noël Coward’s. He often quoted this one too, and in the same tone of mockery—nevertheless, his ass had once again been deliciously tickled.

  On August 4, Christopher had lunch with Andrew Lyndon and Harold Halma at their apartment. Harold had to go out immediately afterwards, leaving Christopher and Andrew alone together. It was very hot. After several drinks, Andrew asked Christopher if he’d like to take a shower. This was merely a cue for both of them to undress. Christopher fucked Andrew. When it was over and they were lying naked on the bed, Harold arrived back unexpectedly early, his arms full of groceries. Maybe he had hoped to catch them, for he didn’t seem surprised. “Oh, excuse me,” he said, put down his shopping bags in the kitchen and left the apartment again. Andrew wasn’t at all dismayed. “I’m awfully glad w
e did that,” he told Christopher—who got the impression that Andrew’s seduction of him was largely a declaration of independence, addressed to Harold. Christopher put his clothes on quickly and left before Harold returned. He didn’t feel particularly guilty but he did feel embarrassed. To get caught like that—even if Harold had planned it—was humiliating and lacking in style. And Christopher liked Harold and didn’t want to cause him pain. So, three days later—having made sure that Andrew would be away for the evening—Christopher phoned Harold and asked if he might come around. Harold may have felt hostile but he agreed. They drank together and the tension eased. Christopher began making it clear that Harold attracted him. Although Christopher had an ulterior motive, he was quite sincere in this. The very fact that he had fucked Andrew made him hot to be fucked by Harold; he pictured himself submitting to it as a brutal but exciting punishment, inflicted by the injured party, this muscular sexy young man. In fucking Christopher, Harold would ejaculate the seed of jealousy out of himself and he would no longer feel excluded from the triangle. . . . However, when Christopher finally asked Harold straight out to come to bed with him and Harold refused, Christopher wasn’t greatly disappointed—for his mission was accomplished anyway; to have made the pass was as good as having let himself be screwed—he had effectively disqualified himself as a sexual menace in Harold’s eyes.