The Berlin Stories

by Christopher Isherwood

  Right at the end of the letter, it all came out:

  “I was invited a few nights ago to a party at the house of Lady Klein, a leader of the English aristocracy. I met there a very beautiful and intelligent young English girl named Miss Gore-Eckersley. She is related to an English lord whose name I couldn’t quite hear — you will probably know which one I mean. We have met twice since then and had wonderful conversations about many things. I do not think I have ever met a girl who could understand my mind so well as she does —”

  “That’s a new one on me,” broke in Sally bitterly, with a short laugh: “I never suspected the boy of having a mind at all.”

  At this moment we were interrupted by Frl. Schroeder who had come, sniffing secrets, to ask if Sally would like a bath. I left them together to make the most of the occasion.

  “I can’t be angry with the fool,” said Sally, later in the day, pacing up and down the room and furiously smoking: “I just feel sorry for him in a motherly sort of way. But what on earth’ll happen to his work, if he chucks himself at these women’s heads, I can’t imagine.”

  She made another turn of the room:

  “I think if he’d been having a proper affair with another woman, and had only told me about it after it’d been going on for a long time, I’d have minded more. But this girl! Why, I don’t suppose she’s even his mistress.”

  “Obviously not,” I agreed. . . “I say, shall we have a Prairie Oyster?”

  “How marvellous you are, Chris! You always think of just the right thing. I wish I could fall in love with you. Klaus isn’t worth your little finger.”

  “I know he isn’t.”

  “The blasted cheek,” exclaimed Sally, gulping the Worcester sauce and licking her upper lip, “of his saying I adored him! . . . The worst of it is, I did!”

  That evening I went into her room and found her with pen and paper before her:

  “I’ve written about a million letters to him and torn them all up.”

  “It’s no good, Sally. Let’s go to the cinema.”

  “Right you are, Chris darling.” Sally wiped her eyes with the corner of her tiny handkerchief: “It’s no use bothering, is it?”

  “Not a bit of use.”

  “And now I jolly well will be a great actress — just to show him!”

  “That’s the spirit!”

  We went to a little cinema in the Bülowstrasse, where they were showing a film about a girl who sacrificed her stage career for the sake of a Great Love, Home, and Children. We laughed so much that we had to leave before the end.

  “I feel ever so much better now,” said Sally, as we were coming away.

  “I’m glad.”

  “Perhaps, after all, I can’t have been properly in love with him . . . What do you think?”

  “It’s rather difficult for me to say.”

  “I’ve often thought I was in love with a man, and then I found I wasn’t. But this time,” Sally’s voice was regretful, “I really did feel sure of it. . . And now, somehow, everything seems to have got a bit confused . . .”

  “Perhaps you’re suffering from shock,” I suggested.

  Sally was very pleased with this idea: “Do you know, I expect I am! . . . You know, Chris, you do understand women most marvellously: better than any man I’ve ever met. . . I’m sure that some day you’ll write the most marvellous novel which’ll sell simply millions of copies.”

  “Thank you for believing in me, Sally!”

  “Do you believe in me, too, Chris?”

  “Of course I do.”

  “No, but honestly?”

  “Well. . . I’m quite certain you’ll make a terrific success at something — only I’m not sure what it’ll be . . . I mean, there’s so many things you could do if you tried, aren’t there?”

  “I suppose there are.” Sally became thoughtful. “At least, sometimes I feel like that . . . And sometimes I feel I’m no damn’ use at anything . . . Why I can’t even keep a man faithful to me for the inside of a month.”

  “Oh, Sally, don’t let’s start all that again!”

  “All right, Chris — we won’t start all that. Let’s go and have a drink.”

  During the weeks that followed, Sally and I were together most of the day. Curled up on the sofa in the big dingy room, she smoked, drank Prairie Oysters, talked endlessly of the future. When the weather was fine, and I hadn’t any lessons to give, we strolled as far as the Wittenbergplatz and sat on a bench in the sunshine, discussing the people who went past. Everybody stared at Sally, in her canary yellow beret and shabby fur coat, like the skin of a mangy old dog.

  “I wonder,” she was fond of remarking, “what they’d say if they knew that we two old tramps were going to be the most marvellous novelist and the greatest actress in the world.”

  “They’d probably be very much surprised.”

  “I expect we shall look back on this time when we’re driving about in our Mercedes, and think: After all, it wasn’t such bad fun!”

  “It wouldn’t be such bad fun if we had that Mercedes now.”

  We talked continually about wealth, fame, huge contracts for Sally, record-breaking sales for the novels I should one day write. “I think,” said Sally, “it must be marvellous to be a novelist. You’re frightfully dreamy and unpractical and unbusinesslike, and people imagine they can fairly swindle you as much as they want — and then you sit down and write a book about them which fairly shows them what swine they all are, and it’s the most terrific success and you make pots of money.”

  “I expect the trouble with me is that I’m not quite dreamy enough . . .”

  “. . . if only I could get a really rich man as my lover. Let’s see . . . I shouldn’t want more than three thousand a year, and a flat, and a decent car. I’d do anything, just now, to get rich. If you’re rich you can afford to stand out for a really good contract; you don’t have to snap up the first offer you get. . . Of course, I’d be absolutely faithful to the man who kept me —”

  Sally said things like this very seriously and evidently believed she meant them. She was in a curious state of mind, restless and nervy. Often she flew into a temper for no special reason. She talked incessantly about getting work, but made no effort to do so. Her allowance hadn’t been stopped, so far, however, and we were living very cheaply, since Sally no longer cared to go out in the evenings or to see other people at all. Once, Fritz came to tea. I left them alone together afterwards to go and write a letter. When I came back Fritz had gone and Sally was in tears.

  “That man bores me so!” she sobbed. “I hate him! I should like to kill him!”

  But in a few minutes she was quite calm again. I started to mix the inevitable Prairie Oyster. Sally, curled up on the sofa, was thoughtfully smoking:

  “I wonder,” she said suddenly, “if I’m going to have a baby.”

  “Good God!” I nearly dropped the glass: “Do you really think you are?”

  “I don’t know. With me it’s so difficult to tell: I’m so irregular . . . I’ve felt sick sometimes. It’s probably something I’ve eaten . . .”

  “But hadn’t you better see a doctor?”

  “Oh, I suppose so.” Sally yawned listlessly. “There’s no hurry.”

  “Of course there’s a hurry! You’ll go and see a doctor tomorrow!”

  “Look here, Chris, who the hell do you think you’re ordering about? I wish now I hadn’t said anything about it at all!” Sally was on the point of bursting into tears again.

  “Oh, all right! All right!” I hastily tried to calm her. “Do just what you like. It’s no business of mine.”

  “Sorry, darling. I didn’t mean to be snappy. I’ll see how I feel in the morning. Perhaps I will go and see that doctor, after all.”

  But of course, she didn’t. Next day, indeed, she seemed much brighter: “Let’s go out this evening, Chris. I’m getting sick of this room. Let’s go and see some life!”

  “Right you are, Sally. Where would you like to go
?”

  “Let’s go to the Troika and talk to that old idiot Bobby. Perhaps he’ll stand us a drink — you never know!”

  Bobby didn’t stand us any drinks; but Sally’s suggestion proved to be a good one, nevertheless. For it was while sitting at the bar of the Troika that we first got into conversation with Clive.

  From that moment onwards we were with him almost continuously; either separately or together. I never once saw him sober. Clive told us that he drank half a bottle of whisky before breakfast, and I had no reason to disbelieve him. He often began to explain to us why he drank so much — it was because he was very unhappy. But why he was so unhappy I never found out, because Sally always interrupted to say that it was time to be going out or moving on to the next place or smoking a cigarette or having another glass of whisky. She was drinking nearly as much whisky as Clive himself. It never seemed to make her really drunk, but sometimes her eyes looked awful, as though they had been boiled. Every day the layer of make-up on her face seemed to get thicker.

  Clive was a very big man, good-looking in a heavy Roman way, and just beginning to get fat. He had about him that sad, American air of vagueness which is always attractive; doubly attractive in one who possessed so much money. He was vague, wistful, a bit lost: dimly anxious to have a good time and uncertain how to set about getting it. He seemed never to be quite sure whether he was really enjoying himself, whether what we were doing was really fun. He had constantly to be reassured. Was this the genuine article? Was this the real guaranteed

  height of a Good Time? It was? Yes, yes, of course — it was marvellous! It was great! Ha, ha, ha! His big school-boyish laugh rolled out, re-echoed, became rather forced and died away abruptly on that puzzled note of inquiry. He couldn’t venture a step without our support. Yet, even as he appealed to us, I thought I could sometimes detect odd sly flashes of sarcasm. What did he really think of us?

  Every morning, Clive sent round a hired car to fetch us to the hotel where he was staying. The chauffeur always brought with him a wonderful bouquet of flowers, ordered from the most expensive flower-shop in the Linden. One morning I had a lesson to give and arranged with Sally to join them later. On arriving at the hotel, I found that Clive and Sally had left early to fly to Dresden. There was a note from Clive, apologizing profusely and inviting me to lunch at the hotel restaurant, by myself, as his guest. But I didn’t. I was afraid of that look in the head waiter’s eye. In the evening, when Clive and Sally returned, Clive had brought me a present: it was a parcel of six silk shirts. “He wanted to get you a gold cigarette case,” Sally whispered in my ear, “but I told him shirts would be better. Yours are in such a state . . . Besides, we’ve got to go slow at present. We don’t want him to think we’re gold-diggers . . .”

  I accepted them gratefully. What else could I do? Clive had corrupted us utterly. It was understood that he was going to put up the money to launch Sally upon a stage career. He often spoke of this, in a thoroughly nice way, as though it were a very trivial matter, to be settled, without fuss, between friends. But no sooner had he touched on the subject than his attention seemed to wander off again — his thoughts were as easily distracted as those of a child. Sometimes Sally was very hard put to it, I could see, to hide her impatience, “Just leave us alone for a bit now, darling,” she would whisper to me, “Clive and I are going to talk business.” But however tactfully Sally tried to bring him to the point, she never quite succeeded. When I rejoined them, half an hour later, I would find Clive smiling and sipping his whisky; and Sally also smiling, to conceal her extreme irritation.

  “I adore him,” Sally told me, repeatedly and very solemnly, whenever we were alone together. She was intensely earnest in believing this. It was like a dogma in a newly adopted religious creed: Sally adores Clive. It was a very solemn undertaking to adore a millionaire. Sally’s features began to assume, with increasing frequency, the rapt expression of the theatrical nun. And indeed, when Clive, with his charming vagueness, gave a particularly flagrant professional beggar a twenty-mark note, we would exchange glances of genuine awe. The waste of so much good money affected us both like something inspired, a kind of miracle.

  There came an afternoon when Clive seemed more nearly sober than usual. He began to make plans. In a few days we were all three of us to leave Berlin, for good. The Orient Express would take us to Athens. Thence, we should fly to Egypt. From Egypt to Marseilles. From Marseilles, by boat to South America. Then Tahiti, Singapore, Japan. Clive pronounced the names as though they had been stations on the Wannsee railway, quite as a matter of course: he had been there already. He knew it all. His matter-of-fact boredom gradually infused reality into the preposterous conversation. After all, he could do it. I began seriously to believe that he meant to do it. With a mere gesture of his wealth, he could alter the whole course of our lives.

  What would become of us? Once we started, we should never go back. We could never leave him. Sally, of course, he would marry. I should occupy an ill-defined position: a kind of private secretary without duties. With a flash of vision, I saw myself ten years hence, in flannels and black-and-white shoes, gone heavier round the jowl and a bit glassy, pouring out a drink in the lounge of a Californian hotel.

  “Come and cast an eye at the funeral,” Clive was saying.

  “What funeral, darling?” Sally asked, patiently. This was a new kind of interruption.

  “Why, say, haven’t you noticed it!” Clive laughed. “It’s a most elegant funeral. It’s been going past for the last hour.”

  We all three went out on to the balcony of Clive’s room. Sure enough, the street below was full of people. They were burying Hermann Müller. Ranks of pale steadfast clerks, government officials, trade union secretaries — the whole drab weary pageant of Prussian Social Democracy — trudged past under their banners towards the silhouetted arches of the Brandenburger Tor, from which the long black streamers stirred slowly in an evening breeze.

  “Say, who was this guy, anyway?” asked Clive, looking down. “I guess he must have been a big swell?”

  “God knows,” Sally answered, yawning. “Look, Clive darling, isn’t it a marvellous sunset?”

  She was quite right. We had nothing to do with those Germans down there, marching, or with the dead man in the coffin, or with the words on the banners. In a few days, I thought, we shall have forfeited all kinship with ninety-nine per cent of the population of the world, with the men and women who earn their living, who insure their lives, who are anxious about the future of their children. Perhaps in the Middle Ages people felt like this, when they believed themselves to have sold their souls to the Devil. It was a curious, exhilarating, not unpleasant sensation: but, at the same time, I felt slightly scared. Yes, I said to myself, I’ve done it, now. I am lost.

  Next morning, we arrived at the hotel at the usual time. The porter eyed us, I thought, rather queerly.

  “Whom did you wish to see, Madam?”

  The question seemed so extraordinary that we both laughed.

  “Why, number 365, of course,” Sally answered. “Who did you think? Don’t you know us by this time?”

  “I’m afraid you can’t do that, Madam. The gentleman in 365 left early this morning.”

  “Left? You mean he’s gone out for the day? That’s funny! What time will he be back?”

  “He didn’t say anything about coming back, Madam. He was travelling to Budapest.”

  As we stood there goggling at him, a waiter hurried up with a note.

  “Dear Sally and Chris,” it said, “I can’t stick this darned town any longer, so am off. Hoping to see you sometime, Clive.

  “(These are in case I forgot anything.)”

  In the envelope were three hundred-mark notes. These, the fading flowers, Sally’s four pairs of shoes and two hats (bought in Dresden) and my six shirts were our total assets from Clive’s visit. At first, Sally was very angry. Then we both began to laugh:

  “Well, Chris, I’m afraid we’re not much use
as gold-diggers, are we, darling?”

  We spent most of the day discussing whether Clive’s departure was a premeditated trick. I was inclined to think it wasn’t. I imagined him leaving every new town and every new set of acquaintances in much the same sort of way. I sympathized with him, a good deal.

  Then came the question of what was to be done with the money. Sally decided to put by two hundred and fifty marks for some new clothes: fifty marks we would blow that evening.

  But blowing the fifty marks wasn’t as much fun as we’d imagined it would be. Sally felt ill and couldn’t eat the wonderful dinner we’d ordered. We were both depressed.

  “You know, Chris, I’m beginning to think that men are always going to leave me. The more I think about it, the more men I remember who have. It’s ghastly, really.”

  “I’ll never leave you, Sally.”

  “Won’t you, darling? . . . But seriously, I believe I’m a sort of Ideal Woman, if you know what I mean. I’m the sort of woman who can take men away from their wives, but I could never keep anybody for long. And that’s because I’m the type which every man imagines he wants, until he gets me; and then he finds he doesn’t really, after all.”

  “Well, you’d rather be that than the Ugly Duckling with the Heart of Gold, wouldn’t you?”

  “. . . I could kick myself, the way I behaved to Clive. I ought never to have bothered him about money, the way I did. I expect he thought I was just a common little whore, like all the others. And I really did adore him — in a way . . . If I’d married him, I’d have made a man out of him. I’d have got him to give up drinking.”