Liberation: Diaries:1970-1983

by Christopher Isherwood

  We have both registered for unemployment insurance. Also, we have had our television put on the cable; a huge improvement.

  A very nice visit to Peter and Clytie Alexander on September 30. He wants to trade one of his wax paintings for the drawing Don did of her. I feel Peter really respects Don’s work, so I almost love him.

  Swami is still not at all well. He leaves for Santa Barbara tomorrow. He will move into a rented house there and rest for at least two months. I saw him last night. He had insisted on going into the shrine that morning and chanting—I think it was because of Durga puja and some intimate memory of Maharaj which was connected with it. When he spoke of Maharaj, it was as if he had seen him only a few moments before; it was instant, not the boyhood memories of an old man. I realized, more vividly than I usually can, that, for Swami, Maharaj actually is present, quite a lot of the time. He made my eyes fill with tears.

  Just before I left, he said in his unaffected childlike way that he was hungrier than he thought, and he phoned the kitchen and asked for a lamburger to be fixed for his supper. What seems childlike is that he never apologizes for showing appetite or otherwise taking pleasure in something “worldly,” as puritans do.

  October 3. Yesterday we had to use the heating for the first time this year. The mornings are cold but the weather is warm and beautiful at midday.

  Don is terribly depressed about his work. He still hasn’t shown any paintings to Irving Blum. However he did show about ten of them to Billy Al Bengston when we had supper there on the 29th, and Billy was quite impressed by them, in his cool way. I keep urging Don to bring things to a climax by showing them to Irving; let’s at least know where he stands.

  Yesterday I drove the car to the market without paining my hand. So I’m independently mobile again, which is a blessing. As far as I can judge, it is healing; but I get occasional stabbing pains right through the palm.

  Doug Walsh came this morning to fix the garbage disposal. I had dropped a screw from the meat grinder into it. The disposal bit one of the teeth out of the screw and cracked itself in doing so, but Doug says it will be all right for a while; it is working again now.

  Doug made his trip east but could find out nothing more about his missing daughter. He now takes a grim sulky don’t-care attitude, saying that she’s either in bad trouble or dead. While he was in a small town in Illinois (maybe it was his home town) the daughter of one of his former buddies was dating a black basketball player from her high school. So Doug’s buddy called the boy on the phone and the boy apologized and said he had been telling the girl that there was no future in it; he promised not to see her again. Doug told this story to show how simply and sensibly and nonviolently these things are dealt with in the Midwest!

  October 7. Yesterday, Dr. Ashworth took the stitches out of my hand and removed the splint. The little finger is bloated and stiff and there is still a zigzag scar like a W running down from it into the palm. He says I can take the bandages off in two days’ time and wash the hand and exercise it.

  Last night, while we were having the reading at Vedanta Place, there was a big brush fire up around Montecito. At the end of the reading, Ananda announced publicly that the flames had reached Ladera Lane and that the convent was already evacuated and the temple was in great danger. “All we can do is pray,” she concluded, in her weepy Jewish voice. I was hugely irritated, because she was so obviously just calling attention to herself and her anxiety—she interrupted Asaktananda in the middle of a sentence—and had neglected to mention that there were two fire trucks standing ready to save the buildings—and anyhow as a Vedantist, how dare she pray for them to be saved? Maybe Krishna wants them burnt! Oh dear, how horribly obvious it is that the women are taking over already, now that Swami is out of the way! They think they can boss Asaktananda. They may well be wrong about that; I suspect that they are. But, when the time comes for him to take over, he will have to smack them down hard.

  Today we hear that the danger is over, but that the fire was indeed very alarming; even worse than last time.

  Much more alarming is the news that Swami doesn’t seem to be recovering. He got sick while driving up to Santa Barbara on Saturday and is now in the cottage hospital there.

  Two days ago, I got an advance copy of Kathleen and Frank. It looks very nice—but some of my writing seems to me terribly sloppy.

  Also a letter from [Richard] Simon, saying he’s leaving Methuen to start his own business. This is a big blow. Am seriously considering switching to him from Curtis Brown. But I want Don to meet him first and then to talk this over with him. It would be complicated, leaving Curtis Brown after all these years.

  An absurd letter from Glenway, enclosing a copy of the “blurb” he wrote for Kathleen and Frank and sent to Simon and Schuster. Most of it is really about himself; the rest is faint praise dressed up in verbiage. Don says Glenway is still envious of me and can’t bring himself to write anything really favorable. Some extracts:

  “It is a little masterpiece of the head and the heart. Nothing little about it, except that Kathleen wrote half.” “The subject matter: As I am a paysan parvenu, that is, a farmer’s son risen to be a high bohemian, I thought that the concentration of upper middle class life might, so to speak, alienate me. No.”

  “The style: The instant one feels any rebelliousness or boredom, the pleasure of his style takes over. How it gleams, in its bright but plain colors. What a lively movement it has, sinewy and at the same time, simple. How amusing it is, like a little friendly green snake.”

  October 13. Swami is now about to leave the hospital. He is better.

  Dr. Ashworth says that I have healed quicker than any of the three other men on whom he operated, that same day.

  October 14. Early this morning, Don had a dream which he described as being “full of love.” He and I were at a film made by Fellini. The film was intended to make you feel “as tall as a skyscraper.” The rest of the audience didn’t realize this. Only Don and I did. “We were so happy, we cried.” Fellini came over to us and bent down to peer into our faces; he knew that we were feeling what he wished us to feel and he was pleased.

  Also this morning—maybe it was after hearing Don’s dream—I dreamt I was up to my waist in the ocean and a tremendous black wave appeared, coming straight toward me. I couldn’t escape, except by deliberately waking up. It was a dream about death, but I felt quite relaxed, not frantic.

  October 21. Today is the official publication date of Kathleen and Frank in England. It is also Jack Isherwood’s birthday—I happened to notice this, this morning, while leafing through the book—as I always do for the first few weeks, when a book of mine is just out. (After that, I feel a growing disinclination to open it at all.)

  Robin French called to report that Audrey Wood, who works for his writers in New York,140 has read our Meeting by the River play and likes it very much and is eager to do something about it. Also, a man at the Lincoln Center wants to see the script of Black Girl, with a view to possible New York production. And, yesterday, Jim Bridges called us to know if he could try to set up a production deal for a film of Meeting by the River with himself as director. So things are humming!

  Meanwhile, we have met Boris Sagal, who is supposed to be going to direct “Dr. Frankenstein.” If they do it. This isn’t certain yet. First a budget has to be worked out and the studio has to see if it can find some available stars. We shall be hearing more about this fairly soon. If they do make the picture (either as T.V. or theater movie or both) it will definitely be in England and probably start in February.

  Sagal looks a bit like Jerry Lawrence. He is very pleasant, even charming, but he is definitely a second-string workhorse type of director; the type which is called in when costs have to be cut and the show gotten on the road. Meanwhile, Jim Bridges wistfully wants to direct “Frankenstein” himself. He definitely turned this idea down earlier, when we suggested it. Now, his own projects have fallen through for the time being, so he wants to get somethi
ng started. Admittedly, Jim has far more imagination than Sagal and would probably be better with the actors. Sagal might be better on practical production details and he is accustomed to work in England. Don is very much against him, and I am hardly thrilled. But I doubt if we could persuade Universal to hire Jim, anyway.

  A rather touching letter from Peter Schlesinger. He makes it clear that he and David did discuss their difficulties before parting. There is somebody else Peter is involved with, but they aren’t living together and David and Peter are still meeting and going to parties, etc. Peter is living at his studio. He says, “I’ve never lived by myself so it’s quite exciting. I read again at night in bed. Little things like that I could no longer do, we led a very busy social life and lots of smoking which also gets me down. . . . Basically though I still and always will love David. . . .” From David himself we haven’t heard anything.

  October 27. Just after Don and I had left the gym, two days ago, we saw a small man who looked a bit crazy and who limped. His hands were covered in small bags of cellophane; he was wearing them like gloves. They were very red, so they may have been burnt and therefore sensitive. But the thought struck me that maybe he had a neurotic fear of contamination. This naturally made me think of Dr. Polidori in our Frankenstein script, I said to Don: “Suppose we have an epilogue at the end of the picture? Mary has just finished telling her story and they are all about to begin the picnic. Polidori is there too; he has forgiven them. . . . Some of the picnic food is sticky, so Mary says, “Dr. Polidori, I fear you will have to take off those elegant gloves of yours, you’ll spoil them, otherwise.” And Polidori does so. They all watch him—they are still under the spell of the story and half expect to see that his hands really are crippled. Polidori realizes what they are thinking. When the gloves are off, he holds up his hands to show them that they are perfectly formed. He smiles. The others all laugh. End of picture.”

  Now—here’s the synchronicity:

  Immediately after seeing the man with the cellophane bags, we went on to Columbia Studios, where they were showing The Shooting, a Western made by Monte Hellman, who directed Two-Lane Blacktop. (It’s one of the best Westerns I’ve ever seen.) In it, Jack Nicholson plays a hired gunman who wears gloves all the time; it is said of him that he never takes them off, “even with a woman.” At the end, he and Warren Oates have a fight. Oates wants to put Nicholson out of action as a gunman, so he cripples Nicholson’s hand by beating on it with a rock!

  John Lehmann and a nice friend of his came to stay with us for the night of the 23rd. The friend’s name is Douglas Stoker. He’s a Scot from Glasgow, around thirty, big, homely, with thick glasses, rather attractive.141 John is teaching down at San Diego again. We had been dreading his visit and indeed, he was as inconsiderate as ever, allowing us to wait on him hand and foot, leaving cigarette ash all over the floors and messing up everything he touched. But it’s so marvellous now that he’s gone—that makes the visit almost worthwhile. And “friendship never ends”; even Don admits to having become fond of him, a little.

  John brought with him a review of Kathleen and Frank by C.P. Snow, in The Financial Times (October 21), beginning, “This is far and away his best work since the early Berlin novels.” (I wonder, though, if Snow has actually read anything in between!)

  As so often happens, the best came first. Since then I’ve been sent several others, in which the reviewer spends most of his time making the book sound dull. You could dig quotes out of them for a blurb, but that’s all. Roy Fuller is the most favorable, in The Listener. Stephen Spender writes one of his half-assed bitchy lukewarm putdowns, in The Sunday Telegraph. I must own, I do resent that. Why did he have to review the book at all? It is sheer aggression and envy; he is sick with it—far sicker than he knows.

  Altogether, I feel disappointed. I have to admit to myself that I had expected this book to be a real instant success—in England that is, not here. If they don’t like this they will never like anything I’ve written. Well, fuck them. It’s their loss.

  October 29. Cold, windy, beautiful weather. Yesterday we ran on the beach. I feel very well but my weight is mysteriously up to nearly 150.

  Yesterday we got a letter from David Hockney. He is coming here on November 8, travelling with Mark Lancaster, on his way to Japan and around the world. He writes, “I must admit that I am very unhappy, more unhappy than at any time in my life, and I know Peter is not happy . . . our situation seems to have deteriorated to a point where we can hardly even be friends, so I thought it a good moment to go away. I am taking Mark Lancaster . . . I just couldn’t travel to Japan alone as I’m sure I would finish up just talking to myself, and go mad.” We have written inviting both of them to stay.

  Have just called Vedanta Place and heard that Swami has had a virus infection but is better now. I am getting seriously worried about him. There’s a horrible feeling, this time, that he won’t be able to regain his strength and just keep slipping slowly downward.

  I saw him for five minutes (all that was allowed) the day before yesterday, in the late afternoon. He had come down from Santa Barbara to see the doctor and was sitting up in a chair in his room. He had been told not to sit with his legs crossed as that interferes with the circulation—what do they know about Bengali circulation, I couldn’t help thinking. Anyhow, his feet in their blue socks were down on the carpet, so I could touch them with my forehead as I prostrated. He was pleased to see me but seemed very quiet, withdrawn and deserted. I asked him if he had had any spiritual experiences and he said no—rather forlornly. “You see, Chris, I couldn’t eat anything. When you don’t eat, you can’t think. I realized for the first time what it means in the scriptures when it says, the food is Brahman.” He also told me that there were “grey waves” before his eyes when he looked at anything (this is apparently due to his cataract).

  Later: a card arrived by this morning’s post, postmarked Paris, saying that David will arrive about 5 p.m. on November 8. “Peter and I are sorting it out O.K. but I would still love to discuss things with you if possible.”

  November 11. David arrived here on the 8th and left on the evening of the 9th, for San Francisco, where he was to join Mark Lancaster and then take off for Japan, via Honolulu. The rest of their tour is Hong Kong, Bali, Bangkok, Rangoon, Calcutta, Delhi, Afghanistan (Kabul), Istanbul, Rome, London.

  David has lost a lot of weight and is really slim. He seemed quite cheerful and as full of energy as ever. He was sad that Peter wasn’t with him on the trip; just before he took off he had asked Peter again to come along and Peter had refused, saying that he must stay in London and attend the Slade regularly, or he won’t get his degree. David admitted that he had been lecturing Peter on sloth, telling him that he must work much harder; so David could hardly give Peter an argument about this.

  David told us in detail about his scenes with Peter last summer, and his own despairs and tears. But, underneath, Don and I both sensed a bland assurance that all would turn out the way David wanted it; we don’t think he understands, even now, what the fuss Peter made was all about. The Swedish boy, Eric(?),142 is really no threat, it seems; he is merely a mischief-maker and a situation queen. David says Peter isn’t in love with him. According to David, Peter merely has to work hard; then he’ll make it as an artist and all will be well. Meanwhile, Peter lives in his uncomfortable studio, where there is no bath. David’s beautiful enlarged flat is only a short walk away; a permanent temptation. David has suggested that Peter shall live there while he’s away, and we could see that David was expecting that Peter wouldn’t want to move out again by the time he returned. So all would be back to position A.

  I sound hostile, writing about this, but I’m not. Yes, David is a bit thick-skinned. He has spoilt Peter rotten and given him champagne tastes and then made fun of his extravagance. He tells stories about Peter in public which aren’t always in the best of taste; one hears the note of North Country ruthlessness. Oh yes, indeed, David is a monster in the making; before lo
ng he will be full grown. But I love him and Don loves him and he is lovable, truly lovable and wonderful and kind and generous and full of life.

  This time, he even praised one of Don’s paintings!

  Last night, I read at Vedanta Place and saw Swami. They are giving him tests to find out if his almost constant dizziness is due to bad circulation, or what. Swami seemed better than before, but he is very quiet and thin. Krishna and Len (Bhadrananda) both sleep in his room, now; Len because, as a former pharmacist’s mate, he is able to take Swami’s pulse at intervals during the night; Krishna because he jealously refuses to let anyone sleep in Swami’s room unless he himself can sleep there too! Swami complains that this overcrowding makes the room become “smelly.” He told me that he can nearly always go to sleep by feeling that Holy Mother’s feet are on his head.

  Asaktananda answered questions at the meeting. Attendance has dropped off a lot, now that people know Swami won’t be coming. A cunty fat-legged woman heckled Asaktananda, saying that she preferred “the Zen way.” (So very often, it’s the references to “woman and gold” in the Gospel which get under their skin.) Asaktananda held his own, but he became a bit sharp toned and schoolmasterish, and suddenly he seemed to be the leader of a tiny aggressive sect, out of step with everybody else, hidden in a corner on the wrong side of the freeway. And I looked at Jim Gates and the other boys and put myself in their place and felt afraid their loyalty would falter and they would soon lose heart under such a leader, and ask themselves in dismay, “Is this what I’ve given my life to?” Asaktananda is admirable, full of courage and conviction—but you don’t feel, yet, that he knows. Did I always feel that about Swami, that he knew, right from the beginning? I don’t remember. I think I did fairly soon. But then Swami could always say, “I have seen The Son of God.”