Paparazzi In His Own Backyard
Haresh Shah
It’s only once in a life time that you meet someone like FHG. The initials stand for Franz Hermann Gomfers from the little BIG town of Wachtendonk, tucked away near the Dutch border of Venlo in Germany’s lower Rhine region. He spoke only German in the Niederrhein with frequently punctuating with nicht wahr? And yet his house on Feldstrasse 29 would be bursting with smatterings of languages and the people from all around the globe. His curiosity knew no bounds, which was always topped with his patience with a common friend going back and forth between him and his new acquaintances, translating and interpreting. Something about him was fraulich, in which he would dig out all the gory and juicy details from the person and would bring him or her to a confessional mode, with the seriousness on his face that would betray earnestness even that of Herr Doktor Freud. Because he is genuinely interested in their lives and what they have to say. And yet, he was a little boy like mischievous prankster to the core. The plotter, the match maker, the eternal flirt, frequently crossing his boundary to the utter dismay of his dear Lizbeth. And then getting away with a coy and guilty but a hearty laugh, just like not so innocent Tom Sawyer.
Among hundreds other, I feel fortunate to have known him for twenty five years until the moment he checked out of this material world at the young age of 67. Madhu (Parekh) and I flew out to attend his funeral. We had the hardest time containing ourselves from breaking out in a loud laugh. It was absolutely incredible to see him lying there, down in the cold basement of the village church, decked out impeccably in his black tuxedo and all. But what I found the strangest was to see his hands neatly folded under his chest, clutching the rosary strewn around and across his waist. The rosary!! It seemed like a joke. Someone getting even with him for snubbing the church all his life. It felt so ironic and weird that I was expecting him to open one of his eyes for a split second and wink at me, and let one of his naughty smiles break out, as if saying: so ist es junge. Wenn du bist tod, bist du tod!!! – that’s how it is, when you’re dead, you’re dead. And then withdraw back into the world of the departed.
But there couldn’t be any regrets, for Franz Hermann lived his life as if every day was his last. The ultimate existentialist, living in the moment. As if everyday were an ongoing Karneval and Christmas and Sylvester. His life crammed with hordes of people. Mostly much younger than himself and many of them foreigners such as myself, Madhu and Nasim (Yar Khan). At some point it would seem to me that he had taken upon himself the mission of making us stay put in Germany, marry German women and live closer to where he was.
Comfortably affluent, he was the most unpretentious and downhome mensch, always drove Volkswagen bug up until after they introduced the Golf. But that was the extent of his luxury. Heilpraktiker (Healing Practitioner, described as an alternative and complementary health care) at the time when it wasn’t exactly in vogue. We joked with him that it was more of a hobby for him than a real profession. Plus in such a title conscious society as Germany, it afforded him the title of Herr Doktor. Gave him an excuse to get in his car every morning to drive from Wacthtendonk to Krefeld – some twenty kilometers. His physician’s sticker gave him an excuse to speed, something he loved to do and did. When coming upon a slow moving vehicle, he would say out loud in his exasperation: eure idioten! Just because they have posted a speed limit!! And then he would shake his head in disgust.
Similarly, he had no patience and or respect for authorities. So very unlike a German. It’s the afternoon of Christmas Eve, and we are stuck in the middle of traffic thick as jungle. Everyone is out doing their last minute shopping before the shops close at two. Traffic is further thrown in disarray by a police car stopped smack dab in the middle of the square, trying to give a ticket. Fuming, Franz Hermann rolls down the window, sticks his neck out and yells at the cops. What you think you’re doing? Nowhere in the world you yell at cops like that, let alone in Germany! Unless, of course your name is Franz Hermann. Would you believe, the cop got into the car and drove away?
And I still remember when he visited me in Munich and we’re in Alte Pinakothek – the art museum. On one of the glass topped display cabinets is a cardboard sign mounted on a wooden stand, which says: VORSICHT! POLIZERIALARM. Just to see if an alarm would really go off, he is about to lift it when I stop him. Ah quatsch – nonsense, there is no police alarm! He grumbles, but then lets it go. A couple of hours later, when we are sitting in a café, what does he pull out of his coat pocket and put on the table top? The sign with the stand and all. Ein geschenk – a gift! And he smiles his knowing smile. I still have it.
Uncrowned feudal lord of the grossstadt Wachtendonk, he could make things happen, such as when Madhu returned from India with his brand new bride, Uma in the tow, it was the front page news in the regional Rheinische Post.
Politically active, locally and nationally, Franz Hermann was the supporter of the liberal FDP (Free Democratic Party), and hobnobbed with big boys such as the foreign minister Hans Dietrich Genscher. Deathly afraid of flying, he never set foot on an airplane, with one noticeable exception when he flew to Turkey with Wilhelm Dünwald, then the German ambassador to Turkey, as part of his delegation. Beyond that it was in Wachtendonk that he would bring the oceans and the mountains from far away. A big opera fan, mezzo-soprano Mignon Dunn, when in Germany, she hung out at his home in the little BIG city of Wachtendonk.
After Madhu emigrated to Canada, I remained behind in Germany. Soon I too would go west. Those few months cemented our friendship and we even allowed ourselves to be called familiar Du. As with Madhu’s departure, he was sad for me to go too. But then when Playboy brought me back to Germany, we picked up the threads and let our friendship grow and flourish. It gave him boasting rights that I had returned with such a plum job and that I held an important position at none other than Germany’s top quality zeitschrift, Playboy.
Though Munich wasn’t exactly hop-skip and jump from Wachtendonk, Essen was where we printed the magazine and I maintained there a second apartment. This natural proximity allowed us to see each other and to splurge frequently and share stunde der wahrheit – many hours of the truth, with Nasim whom he had practically adopted and when Madhu came for one Christmas – just like in good old days.
Of the several girls I photographed during that phase of me hunting for Playmates, Barbara was already scheduled to be published (July 1975), while I had just done some initial tests of another Playmate candidate – a petite Eurasian beauty, half German and half Japanese, an army brat, Karen Sugimoto.
Other than the home where Franz Hermann lived with his family, he owned a summer home just a short walking distance from the main house, which everyone called Flieth – a German version of the Russian Dacha and the Czech Chalupa. A ranch style low structure cozy dwelling stood at the farthest end of the front gate and the garden path that lead you to the house fronted with a small round pond and a fountain springing out of a large millstone as its centerpiece. The property was secluded by the sheer fact of ten minutes walk from the stadtmitte, the “center” of Wachtendonk. The further privacy was lent by the high fences covered with ivy, hedges and the dense tall trees. A gentle ribbon of the river Nette flowed behind the house under the dainty wooden bridge. The grounds lit by the old fashioned romantic street lamp posts painted white. An ideal dream like location to shoot a Playmate.
When I asked Franz Hermann, he was tickled pink. Aber natürlich, he enthused. Karen and I would spend the weekend at his home. I would shoot during the day and we would visit at night. Only slight concern we had was the weather, because it’s already November. But we’re in luck and Karen is game. If it does get colder, we can always duck in and out of the house.
The only snag is – and a delicate one at that.
‘Don’t you need an assistant? I can help you with things around the house.’
This doesn’t come as a surprise, so I am prepared. I tell him that this is something that’s just not done. An outsider on the set makes every one nervous, especially it’s not fair to the girl. As much he tries to convince me that he would make his presence barely felt, seeing that I am firm, however reluctantly, he gives up. He takes us to the house, which I am quite familiar with, and goes through the motions of showing us around and then retreats back home.
‘Call, if you need anything!’ He winks at me and I see him slowly walking back to the main house like a dejected spoiled little kid.
It’s a bright sunny day and warm enough to shoot. But there is bit of chill in the air, so we are in and out of the house. Karen is a good sport and really gets into placing her natural self in the backdrop of the landscaping and blends in. We end the day with some truly beautiful shots. She has dropped her shyness and is not being as uncomfortable as she was in the photos I had shot of her in Munich.
Everyone in the office loves the shoot and the exotic Eurasian beauty of Karen. She appears as November 1975 Playmate.
●●●
Long after I have returned back to the States and am visiting Franz Hermann during one of my trips to Germany and when one evening we’re sitting around after dinner, sipping on his stash of Rheinhessen, his long time friend and the gardener Egon stops by. After we have drowned a few glasses, they begin to reminisce about the day I photographed Karen in the Flieth.
When I think back on it, I should have known better. Franz Hermann is not the kind who could have sat still at his home all those many hours when I was in his sunny Flieth taking akt photos of this gorgeous and exotic young thing. I could just imagine him sitting at home, constantly wiggling in his chair like a year old baby, crossing and uncrossing his legs back and forth, rubbing his palms, pressing his thighs together as if in pain, imagining me with Karen in his other house, focusing my lens on various tantalizing curves of her anatomy. He couldn’t just sit there and do nothing but twiddle his fingers, waiting for us to return.
‘And you remember Haresh rubbing ice cubes on her nipples?’ One of the tricks of the trade when the nipples don’t pop up on their own. And they kept at it, giggling like two teenage girls.
Would you believe he teamed up with Egon and climbed up one of the farthest and the tallest trees with his camera loaded with a long telephoto lens and zoomed in on us? Just like something Franz Hermann would do! And you know what? You can’t get mad at the man!
© Haresh Shah 2014
Illustration: Celia Rose Marks
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THE EARTHY AZTEC BEAUTY
The poster on the wall of the Mexican Consulate in Los Angeles read: So close and yet so different. And you see the difference right away as soon as you cross the border from the United States into Mexico. The Mayans and the Aztecs had long defined the country way before the Spaniards ever put foot on the continent. You see the colors of the ancient cultures in the people who call themselves Mexicans, and even more so in their beautiful women.
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