Free The Berlin Stories by Christopher Isherwood Page A

more, I asked you here this evening to witness what I may call my Conf essio Fidei. In an hour’s time, I am due to speak at a meeting held to protest against the exploitation of the Chinese peasantry. I hope you’ll do me the honour of coming.”
    “Need you ask?”
    The meeting was to be held in Neukölln. Arthur insisted on taking a taxi all the way. He was in an extravagant mood.
    “I feel,” he remarked, “that I shall look back on this evening as one of the turning-points of my career.”
    He was visibly nervous and kept fingering his bunch of papers. Occasionally he cast an unhappy glance out of the taxi window, as though he would have liked to ask the driver to stop.
    “I should think your career has had a good many turning-points,” I said, to distract his thoughts.
    Arthur brightened at once at the implied flattery.
    “It has, William. It has, indeed. If my life were going to end tonight ( which I sincerely hope it won’t) I could truthfully say: ‘At any rate, I have lived….’ I wish you had known me in the old days, in Paris, just before the War. I had my own car and an apartment on the Bois. It was one of the show places of its kind. The bedroom I designed myself, all in crimson and black. My collection of whips was probably unique.” Arthur sighed. “Mine is a sensitive nature. I react immediately to my surroundings. When the sun shines on me, I expand. To see me at my best, you must see me in my proper setting. A good table. A good cellar. Art. Music. Beautiful things. Charming and witty society. Then I begin to sparkle. I am transformed.”
    The taxi stopped. Arthur fussily paid the driver, and we passed through a large beer-garden, now dark and empty, into a deserted restaurant, where an elderly waiter informed us that the meeting was being held upstairs. “Not the first door,” he added. “That’s the Skittles Club.”
    “Oh dear,” exclaimed Arthur. “I’m afraid we must be very late.”
    He was right. The meeting had already begun. As we climbed the broad rickety staircase, we could hear the voice of a speaker echoing down the long shabby corridor. Two powerfully built youths wearing hammer-and-sickle armlets kept guard at the double doors. Arthur whispered a hurried explanation, and they let us pass. He pressed my hand nervously. “I’ll see you later, then.” I sat down on the nearest available chair.
    The hall was large and cold. Decorated in tawdry baroque, it might have been built about thirty years ago and not repainted since. On the ceiling, an immense pink, blue and gold design of cherubim, roses and clouds was peeled and patched with damp. Round the walls were draped scarlet banners with white lettering: “Arbeiterfront gegen Fascismus und Krieg.”
    “Wir fordern Arbeit und Brot.”
    “Arbeiter aller Länder, vereinigt euch.”
    The speaker sat at a long table on the stage facing the audience. Behind them, a tattered backcloth represented a forest glade. There were two Chinese, a girl who was taking shorthand notes, a gaunt man with fuzzy hair who propped his head in his hands, as if listening to music. In front of them, dangerously near the edge of the platform, stood a short, broad-shouldered, red-haired man, waving a piece of paper at us like a flag.
    “Those are the figures, comrades. You’ve heard them. They speak for themselves, don’t they? I needn’t say any more. Tomorrow you’ll see them in print in the Welt am Abend. It’s no good looking for them in the capitalist Press, because they won’t be there. The bosses will keep them out of their newspapers, because, if they were published, they might upset the stock exchanges. Wouldn’t that be a pity? Never mind. The workers will read them. The workers will know what to think of them. Let’s send a message to our comrades in China: The workers of the German Communist Party protest against the outrages of the Japanese murderers. The workers demand assistance for the hundreds of thousands of Chinese