The comedian, who was secretly fat

Andrej, the secretly fat comedian was standing at the train station with his wife, Veronika. They were waiting for the train that was going to take Veronika to the city where her sister gave birth recently.

Not even Veronika knew that Andrej was fat. Andrej kept his weight carefully in secret since 2008 when he got fat as a result of a period of binge eating, which was the result of a period of intense performance anxieties. The spouses didn’t see each other naked since their son was born seven years ago.

Veronika didn’t suspect that her husband was fat, but she knew that Andrej was keeping something in secret from her. She thought that her husband had a lover, the liberated, communist wife of the local orchestra’s blind conductor. Veronika had an old-fashioned view on men, which allowed her to accept the suspected adultery. According to this view men were like infantile porks, who couldn’t help themselves when it came to food or genitals. However, Veronika didn’t wish to be confronted with the truth, because that would have put her in the unpleasant position where one has to take a position, and Veronika didn’t like to take positions, in fear of regretting them later.

‘You can go home now,’ Veronika said. ‘I will get on the train.’

She kissed Andrej’s soft, big, cold face, first on the left cheek and then on the right. Then Andrej kissed her soft, cold cheeks back. All their cheeks were kissed now.

'Don’t forget to clean his nose in the evening.' – Veronika said.

She meant the nose of their son, Levin.

'I will not forget to clean his nose in the evening.' Andrej said seriously.

In his private life he was always serious. After fifteen years of being a comedian, he was truly sick of joking. When a friend told a joke at the dinner table, he wanted to cry. He compared his situation to the gynaecologist’s who, after a long day at work, has to look at his wife’s vagina.

'It’s important for hygiene.' Veronika said. 'The nose needs to be clean.'

'I agree.' – Andrej said and he meant it.

'Bye now!'

Veronika climbed the stairs of the train, but then she heard her husband shouting after her, so she turned back.

This was what Andrej shouted after her:

‘Wait!’

Veronika waited.

Andrej stepped closer and continued shouting: ‘I forgot to tell you something!’

‘You don’t need to shout Andrej. I hear you well.’

‘I have to tell you something Veronika.’ Andrej said. He was sweating. Not only he was sweating: he was breathing heavily too.

‘So tell it!’

‘Veronika,’ Andrej said, ‘I’m fat.’

And at the moment he said it, he regretted it. He never told his dirty secret to anyone, hoping that eventually he would lose weight and leave his fatness - as a bad dream - behind. But now he said it and it felt that the spoken words made his fatness real, irreversible; that they validated and enforced a fat existence from now on, forever. How he wished he could go back in time.

Veronika felt relieved. She was worried for a second that Andrej would reveal his affair with the communist, and she would need to take a position.

‘You’re joking,’ she said.

‘Yes,’ Andrej said and nodded vigorously. ‘I was joking.’

Veronika never heard her husband making a joke before. She was never interested in humour or comedy so she never went to see Andrej’s show in the theatre.

‘Ha Ha,’ Veronika said. As far as she knew, this was the appropriate thing to say when someone made a joke.

‘Ha Ha,’ said Andrej too.

Veronika tapped her thigh uncertainly. This was what people did in movies when they laughed.

‘Ha Ha.’ she said again. For a second, she thought about adding: Hilarious!. Then she decided not to. She only said: ‘Bye now!’, and stepped in the darkness of the carriage.

Andrej sighed deeply. He adjusted his corsette and waved goodbye.