Christopher and His Kind

by Christopher Isherwood

  Erica Spender was a German girl with a somewhat boyish attractiveness. She was full of temperament, fun, and aggression and made tactlessly frank remarks. She regarded the Christopher–Heinz relationship with an amused horror. Once she said to Christopher: “When I see the two of you walking down the street together, buttoned up in your overcoats, I think: My God, they must bore each other to death, how can they bear it?” He didn’t take offense, for her interest in them was at least genuine. The three of them became friends.

  * * *

  When Christopher was a child, he had thought of Copenhagen as the capital of Hans Andersen Land. As an adult, he was still under Andersen’s spell. (In conversation, he even maintained, more than half seriously, that “The Little Mermaid” is a more profound and true-to-life tragedy than Madame Bovary or Anna Karenina.) But, now that he was actually in Copenhagen, he saw it merely as the capital of Denmark. Its connection with Andersen seemed to be only through relics and historical landmarks. Maybe if Christopher had been alone and had had a love affair with a young Dane, he would have rediscovered the Andersen magic, sparkling somewhere deep down in the modern boy’s collective unconscious.

  From a practical point of view, Copenhagen was a good place for them to live. German was a second language there; all educated people spoke it to some extent, so Heinz was less of a foreigner. The foodstuffs—butter, milk, eggs, fish, and meat—were extraordinarily appetizing, and now Christopher and Heinz could cook for themselves. The city was clean, and bright with blond Scandinavian heads. That particular winter happened to be mild; there were many days of sunshine. It was only when icy rain or snow gusts drove down the Classensgade that Christopher felt the awful melancholia of the North.

  At the beginning of November, Auden sent Christopher the manuscript of a play called The Chase. He had developed it from an earlier play written by the two of them, The Enemies of a Bishop. Auden asked for suggestions and Christopher was eager to make them, especially since The Chase was almost certainly going to be produced by Rupert Doone’s Group Theatre. The Group Theatre had already produced Auden’s The Dance of Death in February of that year, with Doone himself in the leading role.

  During the weeks that followed, Christopher’s correspondence with Wystan about the play became a collaboration. Christopher outlined some new scenes and some revisions of existing scenes. A few he wrote himself, others he asked Wystan to write. Wystan always enjoyed being set such tasks; they were a challenge to his immense creative powers. I can’t remember that he ever refused or ever failed to produce what had been asked for.

  Christopher’s diary, November 24:

  Every day I go out to buy the milk, sneaking round the corner to look at the posters. Krigs Fare (War Danger) and so forth. The Danish papers take a sadistic delight in exaggerating every new alarming report.

  Why am I in such an awful funk? Partly of course because I don’t want to die. Much more because I dread the Army itself—like going back to school again—and I dread leaving Heinz. But it is the waiting which is so awful. The little money I have would stop if war were declared. We should never be allowed to stay here. In the end, I know, I should have to return to England.

  Heinz said to me this morning, “You seem to have no interest for anything any more. You’re making me as miserable as you are yourself. If war comes, it’ll come.”

  There was, in fact, no major political crisis in Europe just then. But Christopher and all his fellow worriers in that war-doomed period were like patients with a terminal disease—apt to become acutely aware of their condition from time to time, even if there were no symptoms of it to remind them.

  His diary entry continues:

  I have failed to do my duty. My place is in England with the Communists. I am a deserter and a potential traitor.

  A letter from Edward Upward, earlier that year, reveals that Christopher has written to Olive Mangeot in the same tone:

  Olive showed me your letter in which you said something about being silently judged. Of course that’s all trash, because—though Marx may not have said it—each of us helps the revolution best by using his own weapons. And your best weapon is obviously writing. It’s my misfortune that I have to fight as a fifth-rate teacher.

  A religious devotee sometimes cultivates moral scruples and tells them to his father confessor, who dismisses them as a form of self-regard which is essentially hypocritical. Christopher seems to have been cultivating political scruples in the same manner. Edward, like a wise confessor, calls them “trash.” I think that Christopher was merely homesick for his friends in England, both Communist and non-Communist. Much more candid and revealing is his statement that he is a potential traitor—in other words, that he suspects himself of not belonging to the Communist side as wholeheartedly as he pretends to.

  * * *

  On November 30, Christopher went over to Malmö, where he had been invited to give a lecture on “My Experiences in an English Film Studio.” When the ferry from Denmark docked, Christopher was greeted by a party of hospitable Swedes who at once began sympathizing with him. How miserable it must be for him, they said, to live in Copenhagen. Doubtless he hadn’t had a square meal or a real drink since his arrival there; the Danes understood nothing about pleasure. They rushed him into a restaurant and stuffed him with Swedish delicacies, washed down by full-strength Swedish punch. Finding himself at length standing dazed and unsteady on a platform, he was at first scared; never before had he tried to lecture when drunk. Then he realized that most of the audience was drunk, too. He laughed at them. They laughed back at him, and applauded. The lecture was a success. Afterwards, they paid him their highest compliment, telling him that he wasn’t like the ordinary Englishman.

  * * *

  The year 1935 came in dark with new worries. Christopher had found that he would have to pay Danish income tax. Also, the Danish police suspected Christopher of being a “political” writer—refusing, however, to say exactly what they meant by “political.” It seemed clear that he and Heinz wouldn’t be allowed to stay in the country indefinitely, even if they should want to do so.

  But then, on January 10, Auden arrived—by airplane. He had got Faber and Faber, his publishers, to advance the money for his ticket on the ground that this was to be a business discussion. Wonderful, unpredictable Wystan! Christopher was hugely impressed. Flying still seemed an act of daring to him. He didn’t venture to try it himself for another two years.

  Together, they worked through the play, making minor alterations. They had now agreed to call it Where Is Francis? Its final title, The Dog beneath the Skin, was suggested later, by Rupert Doone.

  Wystan was the best possible cure for Christopher’s depression. His presence demanded entertainment and intellectual response. By entertaining him, Christopher automatically became a better version of himself; he cheered himself up. This must have made poor Heinz’s life more cheerful too.

  * * *

  On February 7, Christopher sent Kathleen a postcard, asking her to get in touch with his press-cuttings agency and warn them to be on the lookout for reviews of Mr. Norris Changes Trains, which the Hogarth Press would be publishing soon.

  Christopher had asked Kathleen to do him other such favors from time to time. But this was something much more; it was the inauguration of a new relationship between them. Henceforward, Kathleen, with Richard as her assistant, would be Christopher’s London representative. During the next few years, she would be continually writing letters and making phone calls to editors and publishers. She would also badger those who had failed to keep promises or follow up leads—including, quite often, Christopher’s official literary agent. Christopher rewarded her occasionally by telling her that she was worth ten agents put together. His excuse to himself for loading her with all this work was that she enjoyed it. Probably she did, for she was thus able to have a share in his life.

  * * *

  Christopher to Kathleen, February 11:

  Here we skate but are sad. Very so
on, compulsory military service will be reintroduced in Germany. What is Heinz to do? If he goes back, he becomes part of the machine and won’t be allowed out again for the next five years, perhaps longer. If he doesn’t, he is an exile for the rest of Hitler’s stay and that may mean a lifetime. He is horrified at the thought of going. In Germany he has only his old grandmother, who will soon die, two married aunts, and his father, who didn’t bring him up and whom he never sees.

  If he stays with me he must make some kind of life for himself. He wants to live in the country and keep animals. But where?

  In 1938, his passport will expire. He will have to get another nationality somehow, I suppose, but this is fearfully difficult and takes a great deal of time.

  Christopher to Kathleen, February 26:

  Lately, I have been seriously thinking of emigrating to South Africa! South Africa is undoubtedly the best dominion for Germans. And Heinz might gradually turn into a Boer and from a Boer into a Briton. Also, if we had a couple of acres of land there and a cottage, it could be in his name and give him a kind of status.

  Even his father now frankly advises him not to return, so his conscience is becoming easier on the subject.

  Stephen Spender to Christopher, March 7:

  You will know by now that your novel is highly praised in the Telegraph and the Statesman and the Spectator. I also saw the Woolfs last night and Leonard told me that he had just arranged for a second printing.

  I am terribly sorry for you and Heinz about this German conscription. Leonard says now that a war is inevitable, as the world has got into the vicious rearmament circle of 1912. Morgan Forster also has given up hope of there being peace.

  Why don’t you go to America? I think I would emigrate now, if I thought I could write about anything if I were away from Europe. I somehow feel that you would be able to write there, perhaps even better than in England.

  I think all a writer can do, the only completely revolutionary attitude for him today, is to try and create standards which are really civilized.

  Christopher to Kathleen, March 12:

  Mr. Norris is certainly getting more appreciation than The Memorial, though I can’t say that I find any of the critics particularly intelligent in their remarks. I am much shocked at the callousness with which they all completely ignore the tragedy at the end. They seem to find German politics just one long laugh.

  How curious of Uncle Henry not to like the book. I’d felt certain that it was just the Dickens aspect of Mr. Norris which would have appealed to him. Indeed, I feel that Mr. Norris, far from being modern in conception, is almost too faithful to the English Comic Tradition that one gets so sick of hearing about. This is obviously what pleased Compton Mackenzie.

  (What Henry had chiefly objected to was Christopher’s use of the name Bradshaw for his Narrator. According to Henry’s social mystique, Isherwood was a mere tradesman’s name while Bradshaw epitomized the family’s claim to aristocratic status and historical importance. Therefore, Christopher had committed sacrilege by dragging William Bradshaw down into the company of criminals and proletarians. No doubt, Henry also deplored the coarseness of the novel’s humor—not because it shocked him personally, but because it might shock the titled ladies whose friendship he so greatly valued.)

  Another psychological surprise is the attitude of Mr. Norris himself. Now that the book is out, he has forgotten all feelings of injury. He eagerly searches the press for reviews and notes successes with proprietary pride: “We got a very good notice in the Telegraph,” etc!

  Yesterday I got the following telegram: “Very glad indeed to meet fascinating Mr. Norris. Sincere congratulations. Viertel.”

  Christopher’s next letter to Kathleen—his last from Copenhagen—refers to Hitler’s official declaration of March 16 denouncing the clauses of the Versailles Treaty which agreed to German disarmament and proclaiming the immediate introduction of conscription:

  As soon as Heinz has been formally called up and has formally refused to return to that madhouse, he becomes, of course, from the Nazi point of view, a criminal. So he must get another nationality, either by adoption or by settling in some foreign country. Adoption would probably be the easier, if one could find the right sort of people to undertake it. Failing that, some nationality which can be bought outright.

  This is Christopher’s first mention to Kathleen of the possibility that Heinz might change his nationality by purchase. Gerald Hamilton must have suggested it.

  Gerald was then in Brussels, and it was to Brussels that Christopher and Heinz went first, after leaving Denmark on April 13.

  Christopher to Stephen, from 44 Avenue Longchamps, April 19:

  Brussels seems very lively after Copenhagen. It is raffish and shabby, with dark monkeyish errand boys and great slow Flamands with faces like bits of raw meat. And there are kiosks and queer dives and the Host is carried to the dying through the streets with people kneeling as it goes by. Also there is the Manneken-Pis, the stone pissing fountain of which you’ll have seen photos. You can buy brass reproductions of it in all shops, with a rubber tube and bulb attached, to squirt water at your friends. All this rather goes to one’s head after the endless twilight winter in our attractive but terrible flat. I feel delivered from all kinds of vague suffocating apprehensions.

  Also, of course, there is Gerald, in the pink of health and parted forever from his wig. He hasn’t changed in the least.

  About Heinz and conscription. I have thought the whole thing over, all ways, for weeks. But, look here, surely the fact that one is taking on responsibility isn’t in itself an argument one way or the other? There would be just as much responsibility (or more) in sending him back to Germany. Suppose the war came before he’d finished serving and suppose he was killed; who’d be responsible then? And, looking at it from the moral standpoint, isn’t it much less defensible to go and lick their boots now, when you’ve every intention of deserting them later? My plans are to leave Europe as soon as possible for a country where Heinz can settle down and work. And, in the meanwhile, if he is called up, to do everything possible to avoid giving a direct No, employing dummy medical reports and similar devices. This all sounds rather desperate, perhaps. But I don’t feel that way about it; at least, not just now. I believe, in my place, you’d do much the same.

  (This sounds as if Stephen must have written to Christopher, pointing out that, by encouraging Heinz not to return to Germany, he was making himself responsible for Heinz’s whole future. This letter of Stephen’s has been lost, if indeed it ever existed. Anyhow, the above can also be read as part of a continuing dialogue which Christopher was having with his own conscience.)

  * * *

  At the end of April, Christopher visited London, leaving Heinz in Brussels. He returned on May 12. Next day, they crossed the frontier to Rotterdam, because Heinz’s permit to stay in Belgium had to be renewed by a Belgian consulate abroad. The Belgians refused to grant the permit. Germans were not popular with them, especially when they had no very convincing reason for wanting to live in Belgium. Christopher and Heinz weren’t unduly dismayed, however. They agreed that they would just as soon live in Holland.

  On May 20, Christopher wrote to Kathleen from Amsterdam, telling her that they had taken a room at Emmastraat 24. This was where Heinz had stayed while Christopher was finishing work on Little Friend. They got on well with their landlady, a German who had married a Dutchman.

  Christopher felt very much at home in Amsterdam. It was a place of comfort for a worrier, because it created a snug, smug atmosphere of security—never mind how false. A bitterly humorous refugee later told him that the Dutch were convinced they would never be invaded because, as they said, “We can flood the whole country” and “A queen is on the throne.”

  What does “Amsterdam” evoke for me now? The staircase of a seventeenth-century house, so steep that you can touch the steps above you with your chin, while climbing; the smell of canal water in the summer sun, gamy but pleasing; the crowds
of wind-reddened cyclists, Christopher and Heinz amongst them, pedaling across the flat land, below the level of the sea they are going to swim in and the dunes of Zandvoort where they will make love. What I can’t recall is the taste of milk chocolate eaten between gulps of beer. Christopher was fond of the combination in those days, especially when drunk. Now I can’t even bring myself to try it.

  * * *

  Joe Ackerley, whom Christopher must have met by this time, had just begun editing the art and book pages of The Listener. He invited Christopher to become one of his reviewers. Christopher gladly accepted, not only because he needed the extra money but because this was another challenge, like film writing. Between 1935 and 1937, he reviewed about thirty-five books. He asked Joe to send him, whenever possible, contemporary autobiographies by people who weren’t celebrities—a horse trainer, for example, or a prison doctor, or an ordinary seaman. These required no special knowledge and no research; you judged them purely on the basis of their contents. Such a book is probably the only book which its author or authoress will ever write. It is thus, in a sense, a masterpiece, the definitive statement about an individual life. It will, nearly always, have something in it which can be sincerely praised—a moment of artless frankness, a warmth of innocent joy, an anecdote so incredible that it could never have been invented.

  When, however, Christopher was obliged to write about the work of his literary colleagues, he found himself becoming either overpolite or demurely bitchy. His tone always rang a little false.

  * * *

  Forster to Christopher, May 11:

  Have now read Mr. Norris twice and have much admiration and enjoyment. I liked it less the first time because it is not altogether my sort of book—dwells on the contradictions rather than the complexities of character, and seems to reveal people facet by facet whereas The Memorial if my memory serves tackled strata. However, I got over that and managed to read what you’ve written, I think.