Christopher and His Kind (35 page)

On May 4, Gerald visited them. The lawyer had told him that there would be news from the Mexicans by the end of that week. He left again next day. The end of the week came and there was no news. Christopher continued to feel optimistic. Perhaps it was the springtime which had raised his spirits.

*   *   *

On Wednesday, May 12—the day, incidentally, of George VI's coronation—two police officials visited the Hotel Gaisser while Christopher and Heinz were still in bed. They told Heinz that he was expelled from Luxembourg and must leave immediately.

Christopher phoned the lawyer in Brussels. The lawyer showed no surprise; he was calm and reassuring. This was nothing serious. All that had happened, obviously, was that the French police had finally got around to sending their latest list of undesirables to their colleagues in Luxembourg. Heinz's expulsion was therefore just a matter of routine. Yes, he could get Heinz an emergency short-term visa for Belgium. But Heinz would have to go back into Germany first.

It was like a very matter-of-fact nightmare. Christopher listened in a daze of dismay as the lawyer explained that Heinz must take a train to Trier, because that was the nearest German city to the frontier. He must stay at such and such a hotel. The lawyer would drive down to Trier himself, next day, and get the visa for Heinz from the Belgian consulate there. That afternoon, they would drive back together to Brussels, where Christopher would be waiting for them.

Partly emerging from his daze, Christopher began to ask questions. Why couldn't the lawyer arrange to have the visa issued by the Belgian consulate in Luxembourg? Because, said the lawyer, that couldn't be put through before tomorrow and Heinz had to leave Luxembourg today. But couldn't the lawyer come down here today and do something to delay Heinz's expulsion? No, there was nothing he could do; such things were impossible to arrange at short notice. Why couldn't Christopher go with Heinz to Trier? Because, being together, they would call more attention to themselves. They might possibly be questioned. Heinz would be much less conspicuous alone. Christopher was to come straight to Brussels, and he wasn't to worry. If the lawyer's instructions were followed, everything would go smoothly.

So Christopher and Heinz packed and went to the station. They said very little. Perhaps the look in Heinz's eyes was fatalistic, not reproachful. But Christopher read a reproach in them: “You're sending me away. We shall never see each other again.” This was the final move on the chessboard, the one Christopher had never allowed himself to contemplate. At that moment, it seemed to have been inevitable from the beginning.

Then Christopher got into his own train. It was half empty and he was alone in his compartment. It approached the Belgian frontier through thick woods. Passportless rabbits were hopping about; visaless birds flew hither and thither, not even knowing which country they were in. They crossed into Belgium and back again, finding the grass and the trees no different.

The lawyer had suspected that Christopher was toying with the idea of smuggling Heinz into Belgium. His last words had been a warning: “Don't do anything silly. You'd only get Heinz into much worse trouble than he's in now.” When the train stopped at the frontier, Christopher took out his passport, ready for inspection. But no one came into the compartment. The train moved on again. For the first time in his life, he found himself entering a foreign country without official permission. If Heinz had been with him, what could the lawyer have done but accept the accomplished fact and somehow arrange for Heinz to remain in Belgium?

*   *   *

Next morning, the lawyer left Brussels by car for Trier, as he had promised. That night he returned, alone.

He told Christopher that he had duly met Heinz at the hotel. Heinz had assured him that he hadn't been questioned, hadn't aroused anybody's curiosity. They had gone to the consulate and got the visa. Then, just as they were about to start on their return journey, some Gestapo agents had appeared. They had asked to see Heinz's papers and had then taken him away with them. They had told the lawyer that Heinz was under arrest as a draft evader. Before leaving Trier, the lawyer had consulted a German lawyer and engaged him to defend Heinz at his forthcoming trial.

*   *   *

A day or two after the arrest, the German lawyer came from Trier to Brussels to discuss the tactics of Heinz's defense. He was a Nazi Party member in good standing and had the boundless cynicism of one who is determined to survive under any conceivable political conditions. Christopher, in his present hyper-emotional state, found a strange relief in talking to him, because he seemed utterly incapable of sympathy.

Heinz was now in four kinds of potential trouble: He had attempted to change his nationality. (This could almost certainly be concealed from the prosecution.)

He had consorted with a number of prominent anti-Nazis, most of them Jews. (This could probably be concealed or, at worst, excused as having been Christopher's fault.)

He had been guilty of homosexual acts. (This couldn't be concealed, since Heinz had already confessed to them, but it might be partially excused, if the defense was properly handled.)

He had disregarded the draft call in Portugal. (This couldn't be concealed or excused.)

Before their parting in Luxembourg, Christopher had said to Heinz: “Just suppose that something goes wrong and you get arrested, you're to put all the blame on me. Tell them I seduced you. Tell them about our having sex together. Stick to that. Don't show any interest in politics, or they'll suspect you of staying away from Germany because you're anti-Nazi. Make them believe that you're completely stupid.” And this was what Heinz, with considerable cunning and nerve, had managed to do.

Christopher and the German lawyer fully agreed that Christopher's character must be blackened at the trial in order to whiten Heinz's. Christopher must be represented to the court, in his absence, as a totally debauched creature, too effete to be anti-Nazi even, who had seduced this silly German boy at an early age and had persuaded him to leave Germany and live abroad with him by giving him large sums of money. What sexual act had they performed together? Obviously, they must have done
something;
otherwise, Christopher's association with Heinz might seem inexplicable to the police and therefore, perhaps, suspicious in some other way. The German lawyer proposed to reduce Heinz's guilt to a minimum by having him confess only to the least of all punishable sexual acts. He was to say that he and Christopher had had
“eine ausgesprochene Sucht zur wechselseitigen Onanie”
—“a pronounced addiction to reciprocal onanism.” This was the name which their love was to dare to speak, in the face of its enemies! The German lawyer's tone was matter-of-fact; to him this was merely legal phraseology. Gerald Hamilton, who was present, appeared genuinely embarrassed and murmured, “Well,
really!”
Christopher laughed out loud, because, yes, it
was
funny—and laughter was the only alternative to futile screaming hate.

*   *   *

Christopher's diary, May 26:

Unbelievable as it seems, it's just a fortnight since I said goodbye to Heinz at the Luxembourg railway-station.

How have I got through the time? It's difficult to say. To those who find themselves in a situation like mine, I can't recommend masturbation too highly. Judiciously practised, it dulls your feelings almost completely. Only, if you do it too much, you feel more miserable than ever.

At first, I didn't think about Heinz at all. Or tried not to. I felt like a house in which one room, the biggest, is locked up. Then, very cautiously, I allowed myself to think of him in little doses—five minutes at a time. Then I had a good cry and felt better. But it is very hard to cry, when you know in advance that crying will do you good.

The most painful is to remember him with animals. I think of him stroking a rabbit, giving a new-born chicken its first drink of water, playing with Teddy. That's the worst. At meal-times I remember him, too, and wonder what he's eating. It's so monstrous to think of him locked in that stone room—so unnatural. I see him, for some reason, dressed rather smartly, in his best suit, sitting on the edge of his hard narrow bed, staring dully at his shoes. I don't imagine him fidgeting or pacing the cell or beating the door with his fists. He'll take it all quite fatalistically—just as he took our parting.

Meanwhile, I sit alone in a nice back-bedroom of the Hotel du Vallon, listening to the wireless which never stops playing in the courtyard below, and thinking: Now I must pull myself together. I must work.

My book is three quarters finished. The weather is stifling.

In Christopher's diary there is no mention of his more secret reactions. These were caused by his frustration, which demanded a responsible villain. He had no difficulty in finding one.

There was an incident to which his mind kept returning. On the night of May 13, after the lawyer had arrived back from Trier with the news of Heinz's arrest, Christopher had gone to his own room, wanting to be by himself. Almost at once, a boy—one of Gerald's friends—knocked on his door. Christopher was in no mood to talk and he made this clear. But the boy, though obviously embarrassed, wouldn't go away. At length he confessed that Gerald had told him Christopher mustn't be left alone, lest he should do something “dreadful.”

The more Christopher thought about Gerald's behavior on this occasion, the more peculiar—and the more sinister—it seemed. The voice of his suspicion whispered: “Gerald knows you far too well to imagine that you'd ever commit suicide. Then what made him get into that sudden panic? There's only one explanation:
he felt guilty!
Remember that Irish Catholic background of his. He's still superstitious, still afraid of hell-fire. He must have done something which made him feel that, if you'd killed yourself that night, your blood would have been on his head … Now that he realizes you aren't going to do it, he's stopped worrying.”

Suppose that there had never been any negotiations with Mexico. Suppose that the passport—which, the lawyer claimed, had at last arrived and was waiting for Heinz whenever he returned to Brussels—didn't exist at all. Suppose that the man who had represented himself as a member of the Mexican legation was just an accomplice of Gerald and the lawyer. Suppose that the two of them had planned from the beginning to avoid a showdown by getting Heinz arrested and sent back to Germany. Suppose that the Englishwoman who called in the police at the café in Paris was another accomplice. Suppose that whoever stole Heinz's identity card had been bribed to do it, and also the girls at the hotel who spoke against him. Suppose that Gerald had come to Luxembourg on May 4 to arrange for the police there to expel Heinz and tip off the Gestapo in Trier to be on the lookout for his arrival. Suppose—

Christopher would go on like this to himself until he ended by having to admit that his suspicions were mere fantasies. Nevertheless, against all reason, he continued to feel that Gerald—but not the lawyer—was somehow guilty. This, in itself, was unreasonable; either the two of them must have been partners in the crime, or they were both innocent. But Christopher was relying on his intuition, not his intellect, as he always ultimately did. His intuition told him that the lawyer was too prudent, too conventional to join in such a hazardous conspiracy; especially when the reward was no more than a half share, presumably, of the thousand pounds, minus considerable payments for accomplices and other items.

And surely only an innocent man could have the thick skin and the emotional stupidity to say what the lawyer said to Christopher, just a few days after Heinz's arrest: “Mr. Isherwood, we're both men of the world—frankly, don't you think you're well out of this? After all, you've done everything you could for Heinz. And he
has
caused you and your mother a great deal of trouble and expense.”

The lawyer further demonstrated the thickness of his skin during a visit which he paid Kathleen in London on May 20. He began—according to Kathleen's diary—by deploring Heinz's indiscretion in bringing Christopher's name into the case. The lawyer, of course, knew perfectly well that Heinz had only done what Christopher had told him to do. He was lying to Kathleen because, I suppose, he thought it would please her to hear Heinz blamed. Kathleen might well have been pleased, if she hadn't known that he was lying; she had already been told the true facts by Christopher. Unaware of his blunder, the lawyer went on to make a bigger one. He told Kathleen that he wished Christopher would get rid of his present set of friends; they were a great handicap to him in his career, despite all his cleverness. Kathleen doesn't comment on this in her diary, but she must have resented the lawyer's tone extremely. Here was this (from her point of view) “shady” little person talking to her as though he were Cousin Graham! And what impudence to criticize Christopher's “present set” when he himself was one of them!

When Christopher said to himself that Gerald was somehow guilty, what he actually meant was that Gerald was
capable
of this crime. Gerald's dishonesty wasn't prudent, it was pathological. There was no question, in his case, of the sum at stake being too small, or of the risk of losing a friend too great. He would betray a friend without hesitation and immediately feel terrified of being found out and punished for it, in this and the next world. Christopher was forced to believe him technically innocent. And Heinz, when they discussed the question many years later, believed him innocent too. Yet the fantasy-making part of Christopher's mind harbored, from that time onward, a resolve. If Christopher was able to be present at Gerald's deathbed, he would kneel beside it and ask, “Gerald, did you do it?” If Gerald answered, “Yes,” Christopher would forgive him; if “No,” Christopher would believe him but would feel subtly disappointed. I can't understand the intent of this fantasy, unless it was that he loved Gerald and would want to give him a sort of going-away present. But when Gerald did die, in 1970, Christopher was elsewhere.