Every Seventh Wave (14 page)

But beware the seventh wave! That's the unpredictable one. For a long time it's inconspicuous, it goes along with the monotonous sequence, blends in with its predecessors. But then sometimes it breaks free. It's only ever that one, the seventh wave. Because it is reckless, artless, rebellious, clearing everything in its path, re-creating everything. It has no past, only a now. And afterward everything is different. Is it better or worse? Only those who have been swept up by this wave, those who have had the courage to face it, to be pulled along in its wake, can make that judgment.

I've been sitting here counting the waves for more than an hour, watching what happens to every seventh one. None of them has broken away yet. But I'm on vacation, I am patient, I can wait. I'm not going to give up hope! Here where I am on the west coast, a warm, strong southerly wind is blowing.

Emmi

Five days later

Subject: Back?

Hello Emmi,

Thanks for your sea-mail. So? Has it done its breaking-thepattern thing, the seventh wave? Have you let it sweep you up?

Love,

Leo

Three days later

Subject: Every seventh wave

There was something about your story that rang a bell, so I did some research into the seventh wave, Emmi dear. The one-time convict Henri Charrière described it in his autobiographical novel
Papillon
. After he was transported to Devil's Island off the coast of French Guiana, he spent weeks observing the sea and noticed that every seventh wave was higher than the others. He used one of those seventh waves—he called it “Lisette”—to drift out to sea on his raft made of bags of coconuts, and thereby made his escape.

But what I wanted to say, in fact, was that I miss you, Emmi.

One day later

Subject: (no subject)

And, in fact, you must have got back some time ago. Are you?

Six days later

Subject: Dead calm

Dear Emmi,

I just want to know if everything's all right. You don't have to write back if you don't feel like it. Just write to say that you don't feel like writing to me, if you don't feel like it. And on the off chance that you
do
feel like it, then write! It would make me happy, delighted even! There are no waves here, not the first six. And certainly not the seventh. The sea is calm. It sparkles like a mirror, the sun is dazzling. I'm not waiting for anything. Everything is here, everything is taking its course. No change in sight. Dead calm. Please, Emmi, just a few words from you, at the least.

Leo

Three days later

Re:

Everything's fine, Leo! I'll write more in a few days. I've been making plans.

Emmi

Eight days later

Subject: A fresh start

Dear Leo,

Bernhard and I are trying to make another go of it. We had a nice, even quite harmonious vacation together. Like they used to be. Well, similar. No, quite different in fact, whatever. We know what we mean to each other. We know what we have together. We know that it's not everything. But now we also know that it doesn't have to be everything. It seems that one person cannot give another everything. Of course you could spend your entire life waiting for someone to come along who could give you everything. You get that wonderful, bewitching, stirring “everything-illusion” that makes your heart pound, that makes it bearable to live with chronic deficiencies, until the illusion is spent. Then all you feel is the deficiency. I've had enough of that feeling. I don't want it anymore. I'm no longer striving for an ideal. I just want to make the best of a good thing, that's enough to make me happy.

I'm going to move back home, to Bernhard. He's going to be away quite a lot over the next year or so, he's got some big concert tours coming up. He's very sought after now on an international level. The children are going to need me. (Or do I need the children? Can I still think of them as children? Well, whatever.) I'm going to keep my little flat as a retreat for my “me” time.

So what of the two of us, Leo? I've thought about it a lot. I've spoken to Bernhard about it too, whether you like it or not. He knows how important you are to me. He knows we've met briefly on a few occasions. He knows that I like you, yes, even on a normal level, physically, unvirtually, with real hands and feet. He knows that I could have imagined everything possible with you. And he knows that I
did
imagine everything possible with you. He also knows that I still rely on your words, and he knows that I have an insatiable need to write to you. Yes, he knows that we're still writing to each other. He just doesn't know WHAT we're writing to each other. And I'm not going to tell him because it has nothing to do with him, only with us and no one else. But I'd like to think that even if he did know what we wrote to each other about and the kinds of exchanges we have, he'd find it all perfectly reasonable. I no longer want to deceive him with my unfulfilled longings, my “everything-illusions.” I want to end this isolation from you, Leo. I want what you've been wanting all along, if you're honest with yourself: I want—and now I'm dying to know whether I'll be able to get it out—I want, I want, I want … us to remain friends. (Did it!) Correspondents. Do you understand? No more pounding hearts. No more tummy aches. No more yearning. No trembling. No hoping. No wishing. No waiting. All I want are emails from my friend Leo. And if I don't get them, my world won't come to an end. That's what I want! No more weekly Armageddons. Do you understand?

Lots of love,

Emmi

Ten minutes later

Re:

The seventh wave did get you after all!

Four minutes later

Re:

No, Leo, on the contrary. It failed to materialize. I waited for a week. It didn't come. And shall I tell you why? Because it doesn't exist. It was just an “everything-illusion.” I don't believe in it. I don't need waves; I don't need the first six, and I definitely don't need the seventh. I'd rather stick with Leo Leike: “The sea is calm. It sparkles like a mirror, the sun is dazzling. I'm not waiting for anything. Everything is here, everything is taking its course. No change in sight. Dead calm.” I could live with that. At least it would mean a better night's sleep.

Three minutes later

Re:

I wouldn't set your expectations too high, Emmi. You have to be the right type for calm waters. For some, dead calm is inner peace, for others it's the doldrums.

Two minutes later

Re:

You write as though you're the doldrums type, my friend.

One minute later

Re:

I was actually thinking of you, my friend.

Two minutes later

Re:

That's most considerate of you, Leo. But maybe in the whole scheme of things you should be thinking of yourself instead. Of you and (“…”). And while we're on the subject, you've been living a whole new life for the past ten weeks, a new life with someone else. But you haven't told me a single thing about it. Not a peep about your relationship! BUT A LOYAL PEN PAL HAS THE RIGHT TO KNOW!

Have a nice evening,

Emmi

Five minutes later

Re:

You ask too much of me, Emmi. You probably don't have a clue HOW MUCH YOU ASK OF ME!

Leo

Four days later

Re:

Too much, clearly!

Three days later

Re:

Come on, Leo, pull yourself together, make an effort. Tell me about you and Pamela. Please, please, please! How is she? How do you find living together? Has she settled in? Does she feel at home in flat 15? Does she have muesli for breakfast, or oily tuna sandwiches? Does she sleep on the right or the left, on her tummy or on her back? How's her job going? Does she talk about her colleagues? What do you do on the weekend? How do you spend your evenings? Does she wear tanga briefs or big Boston bloomers? How often do you have sex? Who initiates it? Who stops first, and why? What's her handicap? (I'm referring to her golf.) What else do you do? Does she like Wiener schnitzel and apple strudel? What are her hobbies? Pole-vaulting? What shoes does she wear? (Other than the tan-colored ones from Boston.) How long does it take her to blow-dry her blond hair? What language do you talk to each other in? Does she write you emails in English or German? Are you very much in love with her?

The following day

Re:

For breakfast she drinks old Boston white coffee with lots of hot water, milk, and sugar, but without the coffee. And she eats bread (no butter) and jam made from Wachau apricots. She sleeps on her right cheek and never dreams about work, thank God. But that's not what you're really interested in. Am I right? So let's get straight to the climax: How often do we have sex? All the time, Emmi, it's nonstop, I'm telling you! We usually start early in the morning (both at the same time) and don't stop, say, for a week. It's really quite hard writing platonic emails to Emmi on the side. So your question about her underwear is irrelevant. And in our rare breaks from sex she blow-dries her knee-length flowing blond hair.

Have a nice afternoon, dear pen pal!

Leo

Eight minutes later

Re:

That was quite a good answer, Leo. It had a certain pizzazz! See, you can still do it if you try! Have a nice afternoon yourself. I'm off to buy some trousers. With Jonas, unfortunately. For Jonas, in fact! Fashion is so unfair: the people who need the new trousers don't want them (Jonas). The people who want new trousers don't need them (me). P.S. I still don't know whether you two write emails to each other in English or German.

Five hours later

Re:

Neither.

The following day

Re:

Russian?

Ten hours later

Re:

We don't write emails. We use the phone.

Three minutes later

Re:

Oh!!!!

Five days later

Subject: Hello Leo!

You obviously find a straightforward correspondence without any titillating subtexts a little too dreary, am I right?

Two days later

Subject: Hello Emmi!

That's where you're wrong, Emmi dear. Now that I know your world won't come to an end if I don't write to you, I'm not online so much. This is the reason for the long pauses. I beg your forgiveness, and for a little patience too.

Three minutes later

Re:

Don't tell me the only reason you wrote to me for two whole years was to stop my world coming to an end?

Eight minutes later

Re:

I'm astonished that I've managed to survive another entire week without your staggering attempts to turn an argument on its head, my love!

And I'm going to answer your first question with a question of my own: You're finding the dead calm a touch boring, am I right?

Four minutes later

Re:

No, Leo, you're wrong. You're monumentally wrong! I'm totally relaxed, enjoying the quiet, my inner peace, and fettuccine with a crayfish and almond sauce. I've already put on twenty pounds. (Well, two at least.) So, are you very much in love with her?

One minute later

Re:

Why does that bother you so much, dear pen pal?

Fifty seconds later

Re:

It doesn't bother me, I'm merely interested. Am I not allowed to be interested anymore in my pen pal's most basic emotional states?

Forty seconds later

Re:

What if I said, “Yes, I am very much in love with her!”?

Thirty seconds later

Re:

I'd say: “I'm delighted for you! For both of you!”

Forty seconds later

Re:

The delight wouldn't sound sincere.

Fifty seconds later

Re:

My dear friend, you don't need to waste your time worrying about whether my delight sounds sincere! So: are you very much in love with her?

Two minutes later

Re:

Those are Emmi-ish interrogation methods, my dear! You're not going to get an answer out of me that way.

But I'd be happy to go for a coffee again sometime and discuss those things which stir us, in spite of the dead calm.

One minute later

Re:

You want to meet up?

Three minutes later

Re:

Yes, why not? We're friends.

Two minutes later

Re:

And what will you say to “Pam”?

Fifty seconds later

Re:

Nothing at all.

Thirty seconds later

Re:

Why not?

Fifty seconds later

Re:

Because she doesn't know anything about us, as you know.

One minute later

Re:

I do indeed. But what is there not to know now? What mustn't she know? That we're pen pals?

Two minutes later

Re:

That there's a woman who asks me questions like that, and I answer them.

Fifty seconds later

Re:

But you're not answering them.

One and a half minutes later

Re:

Emmi, why do you think I've been sitting here at my computer for more than half an hour?

Thirty seconds later

Re:

Good question. Why have you?

Fifty seconds later

Re:

To correspond with you.

One minute later

Re:

True. “Pam” wouldn't understand. She'd say: “Why don't you just phone each other? You could save so much time.”

Forty seconds later

Re:

True. And if you said things like that I could hang up without compunction.

Fifty seconds later

Re:

True. Emails are more forbearing than telephones. Luckily!

Forty seconds later

Re:

True. And with email you're also spending time together between messages.

Thirty seconds later

Re:

True. That's the danger.

Forty seconds later

Re:

True. And the addictive part as well.

Fifty seconds