Friday 16 December 2011

Christopher

Christopher Hitchens died today, and he would be pleased with the obituaries appearing in the most prominent and important newspapers and magazines on both sides of the Atlantic. He always liked attention. If there is an after-life, which he didn't believe in, he must be enjoying this moment. I hope he is.

He was a good friend until he betrayed our great mutual pal, Sidney Blumenthal, during the Clinton-Lewinsky hearings in 1998. His actions might have led to Sidney being tried for perjury and jailed. What kind of person does that to a best friend?

We knew we would miss his wit, charm and blinding (often intimidating) brilliance, but his act of betrayal was so egregious that many of us could never forgive or trust him again. To his dying day he could never explain why he acted as he did. I have heard that right afterwards he told his wife, "I just made the biggest mistake of my life," but that is something we will never know. He certainly never did anything later to indicate any regrets about his actions.

We met Christopher and his first wife Eleni Meleagrou just after they moved to Washington in the early 1980's. They lived in a tiny house in a shady part of Capitol Hill in those days, but they always gave interesting dinner parties for which Eleni cooked up wonderful food. At one of those parties we met Sidney and Jackie Blumenthal, who became, and still are, close friends.

After Eleni gave birth to their first child, Alexander, we gave them our changing table and other nursery items and Sid and Jackie gave them toys that had belonged to their boys.

Christopher was a loving but rather perplexed father. I remember him sitting in our living room and declaring he had no idea what he could offer his son: "He'll ask if I want to play football (soccer) and I'll have to say no. He'll ask if I want to watch sports on TV and I'll have to say not interested. He'll want me to teach him to drive and I'll have to say I don't know how."

I have a clear memory of him in our kitchen trying to soothe a crying baby Alexander by tempting him with strained bananas: "Try these yummy bananas, darling, yum-yum," said the man who could recite most of Hamlet from memory.

He left Eleni while she was expecting their second child and just as his star, and income, were beginning to rise in the United States. He had fallen in love with Carol Blue, who always wore black. Some of us formed a support group for Eleni until she found her equilibrium again, and in time we came to accept and like Carol, who clearly worshiped Christopher. They were married by the same rabbi who married Marilyn Monroe and Arthur Miller. Carol wore a black suit.

Christopher was a conscientious father to his children with Eleni, taking them on weekends and trying to cook for them. Jackie Blumenthal taught him how to make bacon in the microwave, which he declared to be life-changing because he wouldn't have to cope with a frying pan.

When our daughter Nina was attending Skidmore College, Christopher was invited to speak there. The faculty arranged an exclusive dinner for him beforehand. Christopher asked that Nina, whom he had known since she was a little girl, be invited to that dinner and spent the entire time talking to her about her studies while the faculty sat slack-jawed around them. He declined his meal, saying he never ate before a speaking engagement. Of course that did not apply to drinks, of which he had quite a few.

We have many fond memories of Christopher: brunches that started at 11 am and went on until 9:30 pm; his plummy voice narrating John's 50th birthday video; being excited, but pretending not to be, when he was invited to the British Embassy to meet Princess Diana and Prince Charles; dancing the hora at the Bar Mitzvah of Sid Blumenthal's son; posing in his daughter's pink-flowered bonnet at our Easter lunch; his crushes on Margaret Thatcher and Jean Kirkpatrick (whom he called "the cat"); his game of replacing the word "heart" with the word "dick" in songs and book titles, as in "The Dick of the Matter," "Unchain my Dick," "Dickbreak Hotel, "Don't Go Breaking my Dick."

When someone who was once a great friend dies, you don't forget the things that caused the break in your relationship, but you begin to recall the good times you had together, too. We could have had so many more if it weren't for that one unforgivable act of betrayal. And for what?