Love at First Sight - Part V
In the late sixties, a photographer showed up at our family home to photograph my parents’ art collection. From the balcony of our living room, I saw a slim, graceful man dancing around an art piece, his thick hair winged out from his head in chaotic waves. I hadn’t yet seen the man’s face, but already I was in love.
THIS IS PART 5 of a SIX-PART STORY
Image: Louis Eclipx Hansel
I spent a week in a strange nether world where I wasn’t able to eat or sleep or do anything but watch the news. Kind of like being stuck way up high in a tree and refusing help to climb down. Without word from Werner, my soul was crushed and I was as empty as if I didn’t exist. But then, a week into the crisis, things began to shift.
One morning I woke up and felt hopeful for no particular reason -- the news hadn’t changed, Czechoslovakia was still shut down, and there was still no word from Werner. But as the day progressed, my mood lightened which made me think now I was really going crazy. For the past week I had barely eaten; but that night, around ten-thirty, I suddenly became ravenous. We had no food in the house, so I ran to the nearest pub and bought up all their sandwiches. Then I went home and waited.
I had no idea what I was waiting for. But I knew something was about to happen, and couldn’t stop pacing the flat. Then, at one o’clock that morning, the phone rang and it was Werner. He was in Vienna. Safe. Later, when we compared notes, it turned out that that whole day, as my mood slowly brightened, he’d been traveling by train toward the border, which he crossed exactly at ten-thirty, the same moment I ran to the pub for sandwiches. (He was able to do this because he had a valid exit visa.) So there was definitely some weird serendipity between us. It was agreed that I’d travel to Vienna to meet him, which I did by train, standing in the aisle, smoking one cigarette after the next, surrounded by people like me rushing to Vienna to reconnect with loved ones who’d managed to get out of Czechoslovakia.
Image: Jonathan Borba
Werner had very little luggage, maybe just one suitcase. He didn’t look as though he’d been through an ordeal, but then this was a man who’d experienced serious trauma at the hands of the Germans in WWII, so who knew how difficult his flight to and across the border had been for him.
There was also the matter, which I wouldn’t hone in on for the next year or two, of Werner’s telling tall tales (a form of Munchausen’s syndrome?), dramatic stories in which he played the hero, escaping prison camps or surviving knife attacks, making it hard to discern what was true and what wasn’t.
But back then, leaving Prague with one suitcase (and, as it turned out, leaving his unwell, elderly father whom he would never see again, behind him), he knew he had to make a choice. He met me at the train station in Vienna and we had a joyous reunion. We did not discuss his immediate plans. In fact, there was no discussion of what would happen next till after we flew to London a few days later and were going through passport control.
Cover photo: Werner Forman