Looking though an old notebook for an appropriate “Flashback” post (since I just got back a couple of hours ago from giving a talk at a conference in Williamsburg and was looking for an easy post — I HAVE to get a laptop, right?) I came across this story, scribbled in my college handwriting.
“Great,” I thought — I loved this one. But I thought I should look it up and make the whole citation official. Bizarrely, the only reference I could find on the Web mentioning it in any context whatsoever was attached to the colleague with whom I had dinner on Friday night (he and his spectacularly fabulous wife took me to a local joint where we had neon-colored margaritas and talked politics and home decorating). So with a toast to academic karma at it’s best, as well as with a nod towards J + T, I offer—dear readers—for your delight, the treasured tale as I transcribed it:
WOMAN DIVORCES SIAMESE TWIN TO WED HIS BROTHER
Gerda’s Gamble Shocks Officials,
By Frank Kendal
An attractive buxom blonde has just obtained a divorce from a Siamese twin in order to marry his more dashing and intelligent brother. Incredibly, Gerda Traubatov has told authorities she is determined to go ahead with the wedding despite violent objections in legal circles.
And she has made it clear that until she gets permission for the ceremony she proposes to continue her illicit sexual relationship with the twin who has now won her heart.
“Gerda Traubatov’s insistence on marrying her brother’s twin has posed a classic legal conundrum,’‘ says attorney Alton Denard Lang, writing in an international law journal.
‘‘It may well have to be resolved in Holland — at the International Court in The Hague.”
Todor and Grisha Traubatov, 41, who live in a small village near the port of Varna, Bulgaria, have been joined since birth at the bottom of their backs.
DANGEROUS
Because they share various internal organs doctors decided years ago that an operation would probably kill at least one — and possibly both — of them.
So the twins, cut off from the rest of society because of their terrible affliction, led lonely, aimless lives until they met Gerda, 38.
A visiting social worker, she was instantly struck by the plight of the brothers and within months found her compassion turning to love.
Todor was much less outgoing than his brother, but because he aroused more of her pity it was he who also captured her heart.
Todor and Gerda were married seven years ago and lived happily together until just over a year ago.
Then Gerda began to show signs of being dissatisfied with her husband, a situation that was prompted in part by her recognition over the years that her brother-in-law was much wittier and brighter than her husband.
Nor did it help the failing marriage that Grisha decided to enhance his appearance by growing a mustache, something that Gerda found particularly alluring.
Soon after the situation between herself and Todor grew worse. And when angry rows began the distraught woman turned for consolation to her sympathetic brother-in-law, Grisha.
When Gerda and Grisha became lovers, Todor discussed the matter with his wife and between them they decided a divorce was the only solution.
Not wishing the real reason for the parting to be made known, Todor allowed Gerda to divorce him for incompatibility.
And now, amazingly, by pressing ahead with her plans to marry Grisha, Gerda is taking steps that will ensure she will be beside her ex-husband the rest of her life.
“The way the twins are joined does afford them some privacy’‘ Dr. Lev Burgas said. But it must be traumatic for the poor ex-husband to know what is literally going on behind his back.”
Meanwhile, Bulgarian lawyers who have studied the dossier on the case are at a loss as to how to settle the matter.
Attorney Alton Denard Lang says they are puzzling over whether it is legal to divorce one Siamese twin — and then marry the other.
And, now that adultery in the case has been admitted, they are attempting to decide if it was condoned.
Lang declared: ‘‘It is unlikely that such rare legal points will ever have to be raised again, but they demand a ruling.
“That is why this matter will have to be taken to the highest court in the world.”
Among cases the lawyers are studying in the preparation of their briefs is that of Violet and Daisy Hilton, who were joined at the back in a very similar manner to Todor and Grisha Traubatov.
One extraordinary lesson they learned was that each could disassociate herself from the experiences and feelings of her sister — even when the sister was making love.
Violet was married to Jimmy Moore in the Texas Cotton Bowl in 1936.
And afterwards she told reporters who wanted to know what it was like having her sister along on her honeymoon: ‘‘It’s merely a matter of psychology. When the proper time comes for it, Daisy and I just get rid of each other˜mentally.”
Dr. Burgas has reported that he has discerned the same ability in the Traubatovs. But not to the same degree.
Violet, for instance, once remarked about Daisy’s many love affairs: ‘‘Sometimes I quit paying attention and didn’t know what was going on. Sometimes I read and sometimes I just took a nap. Even before that, we had learned how not to know what the other was doing unless it was our business to know.”
The Hilton twins — born in Brighton, England, in 1908 — were helped in their showbiz careers by Bob Hope, Sophie Tucker, and Harry Houdini.
In fact, it was a result of advice the master escapologist gave them that each girl taught herself to concentrate and blank the other out.
“Each learned to live in a world entirely her own — although she was linked as tightly as ever to her sister. And that it was the Traubatovs are going to have to do,’‘ said Dr. Burgas.
