Free Lost Years by Christopher Isherwood Page A

publisher.” This suggests that Rodd had already been in trouble as the result of his dealings in pornography—maybe while he had the bookshop and was selling it under the counter. But I remember that he was prosecuted, some time after this, for publishing or distributing sex books—one of them was called
We Are Fires Unquenchable
. The judge said, “I understand, Mr. Rodd, that you also publish religious literature? I strongly advise you to stick to that line in future.”
    On January 3, Swami’s nephew Asit [Ghosh] was finally released from the army. (The circumstances of his induction and the legal proceedings which were taken to release him are described in the 1944 journal.) Asit came back to the center and stayed there for a while. Then he left for India. 4
    The Vivekananda Puja was celebrated on January 4, this year. (In 1944, it was on January 17.) The 1944 day-to-day diary mentions it, but I can find no reference to it in the journal. This puja—or rather, the breakfast puja which is the first part of it—became the only ritual worship which Christopher really enjoyed. This was chiefly because he had an important role in it—Swami had decided that he should be the one to read the Katha Upanishad aloud while Swamiji’s [ 5 ] breakfast was served. He loved doing this; indeed it was (and has remained) for him the highest imaginable act of sacred camp—a little genuine devotion, a feeling of the absurdity of himself in this role, a sense that the performance is a joke shared with Swamiji, and of course his enjoyment of the sound of his own voice—all these elements are combined in the experience. But, quite aside from this, the breakfast puja had a beautiful domestic significance as long as Sister [ 6 ] was alive and could personally pour Swamiji’s coffee during the ritual. Because Sister was (almost certainly) the only surviving person who had actually served breakfast to Swamiji while he was in the U.S. He had been a guest in her home, at the beginning of the century.
    On January 8, the day-to-day diary records that Sudhira [ 7 ] enlisted in the navy. She may actually have done this, or it may have been one of the tall stories she told Christopher. If she did really enlist, I’m pretty sure she was never called up.
    Also on the 8th, a journalist named Felton visited the center; he was doing a story for
Time
magazine in connection with a forthcoming review of the Prabhavananda—Isherwood translation of the Gita. On the 11th, he came again and sat in on Swami’s evening class; and on the 15th he sent a photographer to take pictures of Swami, Christopher, the temple, etc. [ 8 ]
    Day-to-day diary, January 19: “To Santa Monica. Saw Bill and Denny. The kite accident.”
    When Christopher arrived at Santa Monica that morning, he found Denny Fouts making a tail for a kite out of his Christmas decorations. (This sort of play project, undertaken on the spur of the moment, was characteristic of Denny.) When the kite was ready, Bill Harris and Christopher took it out on the beach to fly it. (I don’t remember that Denny was with them—perhaps there were two kites and Denny was flying the other one.) The wind was strong but notsteady. Bill and Christopher got the kite aloft, quite high over the Canyon. Then Christopher said, “We ought to tie a banner to the tail, with ‘Vernon is a big queen’ written on it!” (The point of this remark was that Vernon happened to be staying somewhere in the Canyon at that time so he would perhaps have seen the banner and been embarrassed. Christopher was being bitchy about Vernon because he still harbored a grudge against him for the failure of their life together up at Santa Barbara. In any case, jokes against Vernon were frequent in Denny’s circle.)
    Christopher had barely finished making this joke when the kite, as if to punish him for it, took a sudden dive—so sudden that he and Bill Harris