Christopher Isherwood: A Personal memoir by John Lehmann Read Free Book Online

Gerald said, could handle the Mexicans. From my own experience of Gerald’s habits, there is not the slightest doubt in my mind that most of the money went into Gerald’s own pocket.
    I was astonished by Christopher’s trust in Gerald, though he confesses he had grave doubts from time to time; he refused to admit to himself that Gerald was capable of diddling his closest friends. I am convinced that Christopher was his dupe all along, and that the various manoeuvres of alleged Mexican agents and the promises that were made to him that the passport would arrive any minute were eyewash. It is tragic to think that one of the most generous instincts in Christopher’s character, his loyalty to his friends, was taken such cynical advantage of.
    When the Mexican conspiracy was started, Christopher’s mother insisted that he should leave Portugal and be nearer at hand in northern Europe. So they returned to Belgium, sad though Heinz was to leave all the animals and the garden life behind. I remember going to see them in Brussels at the end of September; we had not met for nearly fifteen months. I burst into his hotel bedroom, and was astonished to see Heinz lying in the big double bed and Christopher in a tiny camp-bed alongside. Heinz was not by any means a big man.
    Early in 1937, Christopher went to Paris to see Wystan off to the Spanish War, and while he was there he discussed his problems with the writer James Stern and his wife Tania, whom he had met for the first time in Sintra. Tania, a very intelligent and practical person, suggested that it would do Heinz good psychologically if he were to learn a trade, and said she knew a silversmith who would be prepared to teach him. So, after some difficulty in getting a permis deséjour for Heinz, they moved to Paris. For Christopher the special attraction was the presence in Paris of Cyril Connolly, his American first wife Jean, and his friend-disciple Tony Bower. Cyril had already declared himself a keen admirer of The Memorial , Mr Norris Changes Trains and ‘The Nowaks’.
    Christopher had not been in one of his best moods when I visited him in Brussels in September-October. I went to Brussels again, however, in January, and soon found that my fears of an obstacle having protruded itself in our friendship could be utterly discarded. We were as intimate as we had ever been, and whatever tension there had been in my imagination during the earlier visit had vanished like the morning mist. We talked and talked, all day and half the night, discussing the Heinz problem, the books and plays he was engaged on, Wystan’s imminent departure for Spain, Stephen’s marriage to Inez Pearn, and the future that now looked so rosy for New Writing with two numbers out and both successes. We went out in the evening to the bars and (mildly) debauched ourselves, still talking furiously all the time. In the morning, he gave me the typescript of ‘The North-West Passage’, in the last stages of its transformation into Lions and Shadows but not yet finished, and I retired to a café to read it. He was all keyed up to know my opinion, and I could report to him that I thought it was going to be one of his most original works.
    At the beginning of April Christopher left Brussels for London, probably on business to do with the Group Theatre. While he was at Pembroke Gardens, he managed to fall ill with an ulcerated mouth, due apparently to a tooth that had been incompletely extracted. He ran a high fever and caused his doctor considerable anxiety. While he was in bed, on 17 April, Wystan, who appears to have been delayed leaving for Spain, telephoned him from Paris. Heinz had got into some slightly mysterious trouble with the French police, by sheer bad luck. I had gone back to Austria, and Christopher wrote to me there from Luxemburg:
         
         
    I have been ill, and while I was in bed Heinz managed to get himself into difficulties with