Christopher and His Kind Read Free

Now he must be worthy of the occasion. He must respond recklessly. He must leave for Amsterdam at once and see Bubi before he sailed.
    Meanwhile, the police, not wanting to go away empty-handed, were checking up on Wystan’s friend. They asked for his identity papers—and, alas, his papers were not in order. (Boys would say, “My papers aren’t in order,” and “My stomach isn’t in order,” in the same plaintive tone, as though both were ailments.) The police soon made him admit that he was a fugitive from a reform school. Then they took him off with them.
    As soon as they were gone, Christopher showed Wystan the letter and Wystan agreed to come to Amsterdam too, although he wasn’t feeling kindly toward Bubi, who was indirectly to blame for his friend’s arrest. When they left Rothehuette, the innkeeper was still friendly, despite the scandal of having had the police on his premises. He said to Wystan, with a tolerant grin, “I expect a lot of things happen in Berlin which we wouldn’t understand.”
    In Amsterdam, they ran into Bubi almost at once; he was going into the post office to see if Christopher had sent him a letter. Bubi’s astonishment and delight were all that Christopher had hoped for. Even more gratifying, after their first joyful embraces, was his sudden sadness: “We have so little time left, to be together.” Bubi was a true German in his enjoyment of emotional partings. He turned this short reunion with Christopher into a continuous farewell; they went for farewell walks, ate farewell meals, drank farewell toasts, made farewell love. Then the day came for Bubi’s ship to sail. His eyes brimmed with tears of heartfelt pity for the lonely Wanderer, as he wrung Christopher’s and Wystan’s hands, saying, “Who knows if we shall ever meet again!”
    (They did meet again, many times, in many different places. When Christopher next saw Bubi he was in Berlin, about three years later. Christopher found it very odd to be able to chatter away to him in German—odd and a little saddening, because the collapse of their language barrier had buried the magic image of the German Boy. Bubi seemed an entirely different person, not at all vulnerable, amusingly sly. Christopher felt wonderfully at ease with him and absolutely uninfatuated.)
    *   *   *
    Christopher and Wystan stayed on an extra day in Amsterdam, before Christopher went back to England. They were both in the highest spirits. It was such a relief and happiness to be alone with each other. They took a trip through the canals and the harbor in a tourist launch, deep in an exchange of private jargon and jokes, barely conscious of their surroundings. On disembarking, all the passengers were asked to sign a guest book. Beside their two signatures, Wystan wrote a quotation from Ilya Ehrenburg’s poem about the Russian Revolution:
    Read about us and marvel!
    You did not live in our time—be sorry!
    *   *   *
    In August, Christopher left London for a remote seaside village where he had been engaged to tutor a small boy or at least keep him occupied during his school holidays. While Christopher was there, he had his first—and last—complete sex experience with a woman. After dark, in that tiny place, there was nothing social to do but play cards, get drunk, or make love. They were both drunk. She was five or six years older than he was, easygoing, stylish, humorous. She had been married. She liked sex but wasn’t in the least desperate to get it. He started kissing her without bothering about what it might lead to. When she responded, he was surprised and amused to find how easily he could relate his usual holds and movements to this unusual partner. He felt curiosity and the fun of playing a new game. He also felt a lust which was largely narcissistic; she had told him how attractive he was and now he was excited by himself