The Magician

by Colm Toibin

  He spoke slowly so that Isherwood could take in every word.

  “Now, could you and your friend, my son-in-law, whatever he is called, be on your best behavior when the journalist and the photographer get here? Could you make an effort to behave like normal people?”

  Isherwood looked puzzled.

  “Do you get my point?” Thomas asked in English. He poked Isherwood gently in the chest.

  The expression on Isherwood’s face darkened; he moved quickly away and chatted to Elisabeth.

  Thomas was fascinated by the change in both Isherwood and Auden when the journalist and the photographer came. There were no more jokes or smirking glances. They stood up straight. Even their suits seemed to have become less wrinkled and their ties less eccentric. He could see, as they were all gathered for a group shot, that these two were used to being photographed and appreciated the experience. Publicity appeared to make them more agreeable, more settled, less mischievous.

  The magazine wanted a formal picture of the family. They all posed accordingly, Auden and Erika as young husband and wife, Klaus and Elisabeth as a devoted and contented son and daughter, and Thomas and Katia as model parents.

  The photographer asked them to share a joke and they duly obliged. And then he asked Thomas to stand up and place himself at the center as the paterfamilias, so that, with Isherwood included, he had three on the sofa to his right and three on low stools to his left. Many photographs were taken as they were all encouraged to look relaxed.

  When the reporter asked them what relationship Isherwood had with the family, Erika replied under her breath that he was their pimp.

  In his study, they photographed Thomas’s desk, but although they glanced at the Hofmann painting of the naked youths hanging on the wall, they did not ask about it. Such a picture would hardly enhance the image of stability and harmony that he wished to display. Instead, photos were taken of Thomas’s record collection and his walking sticks and the medals and awards he had received.

  Thomas let the reporter know, as the photographer listened and took more pictures, that he was seeking American citizenship. He spoke of how pleasant he found Princeton and how often he traveled to New York with his wife and daughter to go to classical concerts. He spoke enthusiastically of the literary evenings that they organized in Princeton, but emphasized his own personal discipline and the need, which he had long had, to spend the entire morning working alone in his study.

  He did not demur when the journalist suggested that he was the most important anti-fascist writer and speaker in the world today, but insisted that what he sought in America was peace so that he could write more novels and stories, even though he knew that he had other duties as well, now that so many of his fellow countrymen were in danger and so much was at stake. But he would not get involved in party politics, he stressed. His task was to remain distant from many arguments so that he could make the most important argument of all, the one that simply proposed freedom and firmly insisted on democracy. That would for him be the only argument worth winning, he said.

  He was glad when this was over that he had kept the door of his study closed. He did not want Klaus or his two guests listening to talk that sounded pompous and self-important even to himself. But he knew this article would be read in Washington, D.C., as well as in Princeton and New York, and he had reason to be taken seriously in Washington.

  He liked how earnest the reporter was. He was relieved at being in the presence of someone who did not bathe every remark in irony or mockery, as Auden did, egged on by his friend Isherwood, and did not exude a permanent aura of nervous petulance, as his son did. It was as though he were speaking to students at Princeton, many of whom were earnest and thoughtful too, all of whom were respectful. With this reporter, also, he did not feel that he had to be on his guard. The questions were easy; there were no traps set. Thus, it was not hard to present himself judiciously for the consumption of Americans.

  When they returned to the drawing room, Katia and Elisabeth were no longer there. Klaus, Erika, Auden and Isherwood were engaged in a spirited discussion about something, but when they saw him with the photographer and the reporter, they began to laugh uproariously. He would be glad, he thought, when the two Englishmen left for New York.

  They had to wait until the reporter and photographer left, since the two men from the magazine had been told that Auden, as a dutiful husband, was staying in Princeton with his wife, while Isherwood was a guest. They had insisted that the happy extended family was looking forward to supper together, followed perhaps by some literary readings.

  They would therefore remain until it was fully safe, Auden whispered, as the journalist and photographer departed.

  Thomas went to his study, telling Katia, whom he met in the hallway, that he would not need to say any farewells. When he heard the guests taking their leave, however, he went to a front window and saw them getting into the car. Erika was going to drive them to the station. Even as they closed the doors and shouted out goodbyes, he could see that they were laughing at something. It was not far-fetched, he thought, to believe that the object of their laughter was not only the entire charade of family life that they had just been engaged in, but him, their host. He might find himself comic too, he thought, were he to visit. Instead, he was resigned to return to his study and find the silence more soothing than usual now that his guests had departed.

  * * *

  When a month had gone by and he had heard nothing more from the visa and immigration office, he told Katia that he was worried about it.

  “I have been dealing with that,” she said.

  “With the woman who thinks that Czechoslovakia is on the sea?”

  “I have had nothing to do with her. I went to see the president himself. I gathered up some ammunition before I went. I called to renew my old acquaintance with Einstein. And I discovered that he too has been pushed around by that woman. And, with his blessing, I went to the president’s office, unannounced, and demanded to see Dr. Dodds. When they asked me why I wanted to see him, I said I was on urgent business representing both Albert Einstein and Thomas Mann.”

  “Did he see you?”

  “They insisted he was away. So I said I would wait until he returned. And they said that he was away for some days, and so I told them to contact him by telephone. And they kept me waiting for about an hour until I informed them of the gravest consequences for the president and indeed for Princeton University itself if President Dodds was not informed forthwith that I was waiting to speak to him. And after a lot of scurrying around, one of his assistants arrived on the scene. A young man in a suit who introduced himself as Mr. Lawrence Stewart. And he led me into an office and I explained what I wanted.”

  “ ‘I’m afraid,’ Mr. Stewart told me, ‘that Princeton has to live within the rules.’ ”

  Katia, who had been sitting down at the dining room table, stood up and pointed at Thomas, thus adding to the drama of her story, as though he were Mr. Lawrence Stewart, and she an even more formidable version of herself.

  “ ‘Mr. Stewart,’ I said, ‘I am representing Albert Einstein and Thomas Mann. Do you know who they are?’ ”

  “ ‘Yes, Frau Mann.’ ”

  “ ‘Now, do you have a better suit than the one you are wearing?’ ”

  “ ‘I’m not sure what you mean.’ ”

  “ ‘And do you have a good barber?’ ”

  “ ‘Frau Mann, I cannot see why you are asking me this.’ ”

  “ ‘Well, I will explain. You should go home and put on your better suit and also get a proper haircut because a journalist and photographer from Life magazine will shortly come to Princeton to write about you and photograph you as the man who is making the lives of Albert Einstein and Thomas Mann a misery in America. Do you have a wife and children?’ ”

  “ ‘Yes, I do.’ ”

  “ ‘They will not be proud of you when they see the article. The photographer and the report
er were with us recently, and it would just take one call from me for them to return and pounce on you. Just one call!’ ”

  “Did you actually say ‘pounce’?” Thomas asked her.

  “Yes, I practiced my speech with Einstein’s secretary, a Miss Bruce.”

  “And what happened next?”

  “This Mr. Lawrence Stewart asked me to come back the next day when one of his colleagues would be there. And I agreed. And so I returned the next day and they could not have been more polite. From now on, visa inquires all come to me and to Miss Bruce. We deal directly with the president’s office and with no one else, and soon application forms will come for us for citizenship and the most you will have to do is sign them. Miss Bruce and I have checked every detail thoroughly. Last week, I was even invited into the president’s office to meet him.”

  “So, it is all settled, then?”

  “Except for one thing,” she said. “Einstein had been kept awake at night by the whole business and now is very relieved. He hugged me. And then he said that if I was ever thinking of getting divorced then I should keep him in mind.”

  “He proposed to you?”

  “Well, almost. Miss Bruce was in the room for that part so he implied that rather than saying it out loud. But when she left, he moved closer and whispered in my ear that since I had solved this problem so efficiently, perhaps we could also make some other arrangement, one that would suit both of us, if I understood what he meant. And then he looked into my eyes. And then he winked at me. I think he is a real genius.”

  “E equals old goat,” Thomas said.

  “Yes, that is what I thought too on my way home.”

  “We must have him to supper. I’m sure I would enjoy his company again. And since we are to have that old goat Borgese in the family, it would be good to meet another, so we can prepare.”

  “Yes, I think Einstein is lonely. And we might have Miss Bruce too. She is passionate about literature. She has read your Buddenbrooks three times, she says, and longs to meet you. But it would be best, I think, not to leave me alone with Einstein for too long. He is very sweet. But the family has enough problems.”

  “Without you running away with a scientist?”

  “Where would we go?” Katia asked, as if she were already contemplating a future in the wider world. “But perhaps we should not think about such matters until all our documents are in order. I did quite like Einstein’s mustache and his eyes, but, for me, his hair is too untidy. The first thing I would do is have him tidy his hair.”

  She crossed the room and kissed Thomas affectionately on the cheek before making her way out of the room.

  Chapter 11 Sweden, 1939

  In the weeks before the war broke out, Thomas, accompanied by Katia and Erika, gave lectures and interviews in Holland and then in Sweden. The audiences and journalists, and even the waiters in restaurants and the hotel staff, were light and almost jolly. Hitler’s name was in the headlines, but so it had been for the past decade. Despite his initial misgivings, Thomas was glad that they had come back to Europe for this short trip.

  In his mind, he went through where each member of the family was. Elisabeth was safe in Princeton, waiting for her wedding, Klaus was still in New York, trying to raise funds for his magazine. And the other children were being looked after: Michael and Gret, his fiancée, had visas for America; he hoped also to get visas for Monika and her husband. When he returned, he would set to work getting papers for Golo and also for Heinrich and Nelly, whom Heinrich had married, so they could leave France. Katia’s parents, having lost their house and their paintings, their precious ceramics and all their money, were finally safe in Zürich. Her brothers had left Germany, Klaus going to Japan to be a conductor with the Imperial Orchestra. Klaus Heuser, who wrote to Thomas regularly, was now in Dutch India working for a trading company and had no intention, he said, of returning to Germany as long as the Nazis were in power.

  Between events, Thomas had enjoyed the August sunshine on the beach at Noordwijk in Holland, savoring the shallow water and the long tides, working on an introduction to a new translation of Anna Karenina. Now, from the vantage point of this luxury hotel at Saltsjöbaden in Sweden, the only ominous sign, he felt, was a seasonal chill wind from the sea as the sun was going down.

  The previous evening, over supper, he and Katia had discussed the possibility with Erika of moving from Princeton to Los Angeles. They had found the winter hard in Princeton and felt isolated there.

  “Surely Los Angeles is the most isolated place on earth!” Erika said.

  “We liked it when we were there,” Katia said. “I dream of waking in the morning and seeing only sunshine. And we saw so many foreigners when we were there, so we would not stand out as much. In Princeton, people respond to me as if I were personally threatening to undermine the American way of life.”

  “Do you really want to go where the German writers and composers are living?” Erika asked. “And Brecht is there. You hate Brecht.”

  “I hope to have a house with walls high enough to keep him out,” Thomas said. “But I would not mind hearing German voices.”

  As the end of August approached, they did not believe that war was imminent; nonetheless, they followed the news closely. After breakfast, which they each had in their room, they waited downstairs for the foreign newspapers to arrive. While they had to labor over the French, they managed to work out what the headlines said. The English papers tended to be a few days out of date, but there was nothing in any of them that suggested immediate war.

  “But there is a crisis,” Erika said. “Look at the papers. There is a crisis.”

  “There has been a crisis since 1933,” Katia said.

  Thomas, as usual, wrote in the mornings, and enjoyed a long lunch with Katia and Erika and then a walk on the beach.

  When Katia came to his room to tell him that war had broken out, Thomas was sure it was not true. He telephoned Bermann, his publisher, who was in Stockholm. Bermann confirmed what Katia had said. By this time, Erika had come to Thomas’s room.

  “We have to get back to America,” she said.

  Thomas realized they could quickly find that they were trapped in Sweden.

  On hotel notepaper, Thomas wrote out a telegram to be sent to Agnes Meyer in Washington, D.C., asking her to telephone him. He also prepared another for the Knopfs in New York asking for their help. When he called to reception to have the telegrams sent, there was no reply. Erika offered to deliver them personally to the front desk and wait until they had been dispatched.

  Thomas called Bermann again and suggested that he contact the Swedish government asking that they offer Thomas urgent assistance to return to the United States.

  He began to panic only when the hotel informed him some hours later that his telegrams were still in a batch of others waiting to be sent. They had assured Erika that they had gone out. When he tried to telephone Washington, the hotel said that international lines were down.

  He went to the front desk a number of times to insist that his telegrams be treated as urgent. Soon there were many people hovering in the lobby and more and more guests demanding attention at the front desk. The hotel manager stood apart, severely issuing instructions, putting his hand up to signal that he could not be approached by anyone except the hotel staff. Thomas saw porters with an air of concern carrying suitcases and trunks to waiting cars outside.

  As the day passed and the air of frenzy remained in the lobby, the rest of the hotel operated as if nothing had changed. Meals were on time. In the evening the orchestra played some light waltzes and gypsy music before dinner and then romantic tunes afterwards.

  His breakfast was brought to his room in the morning at the appointed time, the eggs cooked as he had requested, his coffee freshly made, the napkin crisply folded, the waiter placing the tray carefully on the table near the window so that he would have a view of the salt flats, and then bowing politely, his uniform perfect and his demeanor unhurried, his blondness almos
t exquisite in the rich morning light.

  Waiting for news, they continued to have lunch and dinner together at the same table close to the windows and away from the orchestra. In Thomas’s room before they descended to the dining room, Katia and he went over what other calls they might attempt to make, or what further telegrams they would try to send. Katia had found a hotel porter who spoke German and he translated the Swedish newspapers for her.

  “It will be total war,” she said. “Nowhere in Europe will be safe.”

  He wondered if Katia and Erika blamed him for taking them on this trip. He had been misled by the surface of life, which had seemed to him, for the moment, stable. He had been warning others about Hitler’s intentions, but he had not imagined war would come so soon, despite all the signs. Thus, while he had been busy taking a stroll or reading, or having a drink before dinner with Katia and Erika, men in uniforms with maps in front of them and murder in their eyes had been planning invasions. There was nothing secret about what they aimed to do; they had given interviews that made everything clear, so clear indeed that he himself had managed to pretend that it was not about to happen.

  Once back in Princeton, if they managed to return, he would use every connection that he had made to get the members of his family still in Europe across the Atlantic. How they would live, or where, or what they would do, he would think about when they were safely home.

  He spoke by phone to a diplomat in Stockholm who Bermann had located. He was assured that he would be helped in every way possible to leave Sweden. He should be ready to depart at short notice.

  Katia stayed with Erika in her room and waited for a call. They had their visas for the United States; all they would need was a flight from Malmö and then a berth, perhaps from Southampton in England.

  Thomas stood with a forced ease in the lobby of the hotel, keeping close to the front desk and listening in case a call came or a telegram arrived, aware also that it was essential that no one sensed his panic.