Christopher and His Kind by Christopher Isherwood Page A

vastly enjoyed this new aspect of himself and began to play up to it. No doubt he realized that these naïve young men who marveled at his wig, his courtly mannerisms, and his police record were unconsciously becoming his accomplices. They were making him acceptable in circles which he had never entered before—the circles of modern bohemia, which would welcome him because of his shady past, not in spite of it. Not all bohemians are poor. Gerald could look forward to establishing fresh contacts which might be advantageous.
    (This reminds me of a charming young man who was briefly welcomed into those same circles because he admitted frankly to being a cat burglar and seemed therefore “pure in heart,” according to the Lane-Layard creed. The homes of some of his admirers were subsequently burgled, but nothing was proved against him.)
    Gerald therefore didn’t really mind when he found that his new friends were referring to him as “a most incredible old crook”; although he would always protest, for form’s sake. On one occasion, a fellow Hamilton connoisseur remarked to Christopher, “It seems that Gerald has had a moral lapse”; to which Christopher replied, “Gerald having a moral lapse is like someone falling off a footstool at the bottom of the Grand Canyon.” Christopher was pleased with this mot and repeated it to Gerald, who giggled, wriggled, and exclaimed, “Really!”
    Aside from Gerald’s temperamental extravagance, which drove him to run up bills he knew he couldn’t possibly pay, his wrongdoing seems to have been almost entirely related to his role as a go-between. If you wanted to sell a stolen painting to a collector who didn’t mind enjoying it in private, to smuggle arms into a foreign country, to steal a contract away from a rival firm, to be decorated with a medal of honor which you had done nothing to deserve, to get your criminal dossier extracted from the archives, then Gerald was delighted to try to help you, and he quite often succeeded. All such transactions involved bribery in one form or another. And then there were Gerald’s operational expenses. And certain unforeseen obstacles which arose—probably with Gerald’s assistance—and had to be overcome, at considerable cost. All in all, a great deal of money would pass from hand to hand. The hands in the middle were Gerald’s, and they were sticky … Of course, in so-called legitimate business, there is a phrase to describe and justify what Gerald did; it is called taking a commission. And if, in order to practice his trade, Gerald had to hobnob with buyable chiefs of police, bloodthirsty bishops, stool pigeons, double agents, blackmailers, hatchet men, secretaries and mistresses of politicians, millionairesses even more ruthless than the husbands they had survived—well, that is what’s called being a man of the world.
    Like all deeply dishonest people, he made the relatively honest look hypocritical and cowardly. Only a saint could have remained in contact with him and not been contaminated. And, by associating with him, you incurred some responsibility, even if it was only one tenth of one percent, for the really vile things which many of his associates had undoubtedly done. I remember a man, he was connected with French counterespionage, whom Christopher met through Gerald; he had the most evil face I have ever seen in my life.
    Gerald didn’t look evil, but, beneath his amiable surface, he was an icy cynic. He took it for granted that everybody would grab and cheat if he dared. His cynicism made him astonishingly hostile toward people of whom he was taking some advantage; at unguarded moments, he would speak of them with brutal contempt. In Christopher’s case, Gerald’s cynicism was justified. He would certainly have let Gerald tempt him into serious lawbreaking if he hadn’t been so cautious by nature.
    Looking back on