Munchausen Marriage - Part III
I never stopped to think what married life would be like with Werner Forman. I really didn’t know my partner very well, and from the beginning I could sense that things were going to grow stranger and more confusing with each day.
THIS IS PART 3 of a TEN-PART STORY
Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 | Part 7 | Part 8 | Part 9 | Part 10
I eventually learned that if Werner didn’t have meetings with publishers on a particular day, he’d most often head over to Portobello market in search of treasures. There he’d wander for hours. But I never, in the eight years of our relationship, learned why he refused to put any of those treasures on display, why he kept them hidden away in tumbling towers of boxes like so many crazy old infirm relatives locked up and languishing in back bedrooms of grand old apartments.
There was a similar craziness in the way Werner handled people who came to visit. Every so often we would give dinner parties, usually inviting his publishers or editors or a friend or two of mine. I wasn’t much of a cook and my repertoire was pretty slim; I knew how to fry up onions, boil an egg, make a hamburger, but that was about it. I had one basic dish, consisting of ground meat, that I put together for dinner parties, but mostly we counted on ample quantities of booze to mask my culinary inadequacies. On the day leading up to the party, Werner and I would work as a team to get things ready, dusting, vacuuming, shopping for food, laying out glasses and silverware, preparing hors d'oeuvres and veggies and batches of rice. He seemed every bit as enthusiastic as I was, willing to run last minute trips to the shops for items I’d forgotten or to spend a couple of hours on flower arrangements. When the guests arrived, he’d greet them one by one, saying, “Hullo, hullo,” in his gruff voice, shaking hands, helping them off with their coats.
But no sooner were they all assembled than he’d put on his own coat and slip out the door, a mysterious-looking man in dark clothes with a book (probably) hidden in one of the pockets and a face filled with purpose.
The guests were usually too polite to ask where the hell he’d gone, but there was quiet murmuring and consternation followed by a large consumption of wine and whiskey. The weird thing was, most of these people were connections of Werner’s, not mine. If we hadn’t all gotten drunk to the point where everything seemed hilarious, it would have been extremely awkward.
Image: Askar Abayev
What was even more awkward was that, at the end of the evening, around midnight when the guests were in the hallway, putting on their coats, the front door would fly open and in would sail Werner, smiling and shaking hands with everyone and saying he hoped they’d had a good time. If someone asked where he’d been, his smile would deepen and he’d say in a sing-song voice, “Oh, I couldn’t possibly tell you zat.”
He certainly wouldn’t tell me, no matter how much I begged him, and after the first few dinner parties, I gave up asking. By now Werner’s behavior was impinging on all my friendships and I was beginning to suffer.
Cover Image: Andrew Gook