Every Seventh Wave (15 page)

Re:

True. Fortunately my rehab's going well. On that note: goodbye for today, my dear correspondent. Bernhard's cooking, and I'm going to go and look over his shoulder.

Take care!

Emmi

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

Eight days later

Re:

Hello Emmi, shall we meet for coffee?

Four hours later

Re:

Look what's just occurred to my pen pal Leo, quite spontaneously, after a week of dignified silence in the doldrums.

Three minutes later

Re:

I didn't want to keep you from cooking and looking over other people's shoulders, Emmi dear.

Two minutes later

Re:

No false reticence, Leo, please! Otherwise we'll invite you over for supper right away. “Pam” can come too, of course. Does she like crayfish?

One minute later

Re:

This new, jolly-commune humor is weird, even by your standards, dear Emmi. One more try: shall we meet for a coffee?

Five minutes later

Re:

My dear Leo,

Why can't you just say: “I want to … with you”? Why do you always ask: “Shall we … ?” Do you not know yourself whether you want to or not? Or are you reserving the right not to want to either in case I don't want to?

Fifty seconds later

Re:

Dear Emmi,

I want to have coffee with you. Do you want that too? If you don't want to, then I don't want to either, because I don't want to (have a coffee) with you against your will. So, shall we?

Five minutes later

Re:

Yes, let's do that, Leo. When do you suggest, and where?

Three seconds later

Re:

Tuesday or Thursday at 3 or 4 o'clock? Do you know Café Bodinger in Dreisterngasse?

Forty seconds later

Re:

Yes, I know it. A bit dingy, isn't it?

Fifty seconds later

Re:

Depends where you want to sit. Right under the big chandelier it's as bright as daylight, just like Café Huber.

Thirty seconds later

Re:

Is that where you want to sit, right under the big chandelier?

Forty seconds later

Re:

I don't care where I sit.

Twenty seconds later

Re:

But I do.

Forty seconds later

Re:

Where would you rather sit, Emmi, under the big chandelier or in a dingy corner?

Thirty seconds later

Re:

Depends who I'm with.

Twenty seconds later

Re:

With me.

Twenty seconds later

Re:

With you? I hadn't really thought about it, my love.

Thirty seconds later

Re:

Then do have a think about it, my love.

One minute later

Re:

O.K., I've thought about it now. I'd quite like to sit somewhere between the dingy seats and the table right underneath the big chandelier, where the light goes from dingy to bright daylight. Thursday at 4:30 p.m.?

Fifty seconds later

Re:

Thursday at 4:30 is perfect!

Five minutes later

Re:

So, what are you expecting from our first, second, third (!), fourth, fifth meeting?

Two minutes later

Re:

Even as every meeting we've had has been unlike its predecessors, I expect that this one will be too.

Fifty seconds later

Re:

Because we're friends now.

Thirty seconds later

Re:

Yes, maybe because of that too. And because there are parts of “us” that are painstakingly intent on bringing the idea of friendship to the table.

Five minutes later

Re:

Which do you think was our best meeting, Leo?

Fifty seconds later

Re:

The last one so far, number four.

Two minutes later

Re:

You didn't need to think long about that, did you? Is it because it was the shortest? Because it had a (relatively) clear conclusion? Because we had set the course for the future? Because “Pam” was on the doorstep?

Forty seconds later

Re:

Because of your “souvenir.”

Thirty seconds later

Re:

Oh. Do you remember, then?

Twenty seconds later

Re:

I don't need to remember. I couldn't ever forget it. It's always with me.

Forty seconds later

Re:

But you haven't said a word about it.

Thirty seconds later

Re:

Words wouldn't describe it.

Forty seconds later

Re:

But words have described everything about “us” until now.

Thirty seconds later

Re:

Not this. This is no place for words. That's why “it” is what it is.

Twenty seconds later

Re:

So you can still feel “it,” the same as before?

Twenty seconds later

Re:

And how!

Forty seconds later

Re:

That's lovely, Leo!!! (Pause. Pause. Pause.) So now we're friends again.

Thirty seconds later

Re:

Yes, dear pen pal, you can go now. You can look over Bernhard's shoulder while he cooks. Have a nice evening.

Forty seconds later

Re:

Good, dear pen pal, and you can watch “Pam” blow-drying her hair.

Have a nice evening yourself.

Thirty seconds later

Re:

She blow-dries her hair between seven and seven thirty in the morning (except for weekends).

Fifty seconds later

Re:

I didn't ask for such precise details.

Four days later

Subject: Café Bodinger

Hello Emmi, are we still on for this afternoon?

Best regards,

Leo

One hour later

Re:

Hello Leo,

Yes, of course. It's just … I have a little problem, a small logistical issue has just cropped up. But no matter. No, it isn't really a problem at all. So I'm still on for this afternoon. 4:30. See you soon!

Three minutes later

Re:

Shall we … sorry, do you want to postpone the meeting, Emmi?

Two minutes later

Re:

No, no, not at all. Everything's fine, no, it's not really a problem. See you later, pen pal! Looking forward to it!

Forty seconds later

Re:

Me too!

The following morning

Subject: Surprise guest!

Hello Leo, he likes you!

One hour later

Re:

How nice.

Forty seconds later

Re:

Are you pissed off? I didn't have any choice, Leo. His handicraft lesson was canceled and he really wanted to come along. He wanted to meet you. He wanted to see what a man who writes emails to someone (not, not “someone,” his mother) for two whole years looks like. Because, you see, he thinks what we're doing, or rather, what we're not doing is somehow perverse. To him you were like an alien, and all the more fascinating because of it. What was I supposed to do? Should I have said to him: “No, Jonas, sorry, the man from ‘Outlook,' that strange planet, is mine and mine alone”?

Ten minutes later

Re:

Yes, Emmi, I'm pissed off—really pissed off, in fact! YOU SHOULD HAVE TOLD ME you were going to bring Jonas along! I could have prepared myself for it.

Five minutes later

Re:

But then you would have backed out. And I would have been disappointed. But instead I was impressed by the way you put up such a good show, and by how attentively you listened, and how sweet you were with him. Isn't that better? Anyhow, Jonas is very taken with you.

Three minutes later

Re:

I'm sure his father will be delighted!

Eight minutes later

Re:

Please don't underestimate Bernhard, Leo. He stopped thinking of you as a rival a long time ago. We're quite clear about our relationship. Finally! We're conducting what you might call a “partnership of convenience,” however uninspiring that may sound to you. But that's how we're living together now. And we're doing fine! Because in the short or long term, every partnership has to be one of convenience—anything else would be so, so, so … inconvenient, from a partnership point of view, if you get what I mean.

Two minutes later

Re:

And I'm a newly elected member in your partnership of convenience. Would you mind sometime telling me what function I have in your arrangement of convenience? Only when it's convenient, of course. Having been responsible for the virtual care of the mother, should I now turn my attentions to the son?

One minute later

Re:

My dear Leo,

Was the hour we spent with Jonas really so awful? It was good that he set eyes on you at last, and chatted with you, believe me. He really loved your lecture on medieval torture methods. He wants to know more about it.

Seven minutes later

Re:

I'm delighted, Emmi. He's a nice boy. But if I'm honest, if I'm really, really honest, I don't think you'll understand this—no partnership-of-convenience wife with partnership-of-convenience children would understand it—I mean, it's absurd, it's presumptuous, arrogant, megalomaniac even, just my quirk, it's nutty, totally aloof, out of touch, alien. Ah well, I'll say it anyway: the fact is, I wanted to see YOU and talk to YOU, Emmi. That's why I arranged a meeting with YOU. With YOU, just the two of us.

Two minutes later

Re:

But we did see each other (much to my delight). And we can make up for the fact we didn't talk another time. Are you free sometime next week? Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday? Perhaps we could spend a little longer together?

Three hours later

Subject: Hello

Hello Leo,

Are you still looking at your datebook?

Five minutes later

Re:

I'm off to Boston next week with Pamela.

Three minutes later

Re:

Ah! I see. O.K. Hmm. I get it! Anything serious?

One minute later

Re:

It's exactly the kind of thing I'd love to have talked to you about.

Forty seconds later

Re:

Well, don't beat around the bush, just tell me! In writing!

Ten minutes later

Subject: (no subject)

Please! (Please, please, please!)

One hour later

Subject: (no subject)

O.K., don't then, be in a huff! It suits you, Leo! I love men who are in a huff. I think they're wildly erotic. They're right up there at the top of my Eros chart: men who love motor racing, men at travel shows, men in sandals, men in beer tents, and men in a huff!

Good night.

The following evening

Subject: Everything-illusion

Hello Emmi,

It's not easy to explain my situation, but I'll try anyway. Let me begin with an Emmi quote: “It seems that one person cannot give another everything.” You're right. Very smart. Very astute. Very sensible. With this rationale at the back of your mind you'll never be in danger of demanding too much from another person. And without this burden you can settle instead for simply contributing to his or her happiness. This saves energy for more difficult times. It's how people live together. It's how people get married. It's how children are brought up. It's how promises are delivered, how “partnerships of convenience” are created, consolidated, neglected, wrenched out of sleep, saved, restarted from scratch, dragged through crises, and how they pull through in the end. Major tasks! I have a great deal of respect for all that, honestly I do. Alone: I can't be, don't want to be, don't think, don't tick alone. I may be grown up and two years older than you, but I've still got IT, and I'm not (yet) prepared to abandon it, from the “everything-illusion.” The reality: “It seems that one person cannot give another everything.” My illusion: “But it should be his ambition. And he should never stop trying.”

Marlene never loved me. I would have been prepared to give her “everything,” but she was never particularly interested in what I was offering. She accepted a fraction of it out of gratitude, or maybe it was an act of mercy, but I was allowed to keep the rest for myself. All in all it was only enough for half a dozen attempts at takeoff. The landings came quickly and were extremely bumpy, especially for me.

It's different with Pamela. She loves me. She really loves me. Don't worry, Emmi, I'm not going to bore you again with details of all the things we have in common. The problem: Pamela doesn't feel happy here. She's homesick, missing her family, her friends, her colleagues, her places, her routines. She hardly lets it show, she wants to keep it secret from me, she wants to protect me because she knows it has nothing to do with me, and because she assumes that there's nothing I can do to change it.

So as a surprise I went and bought flights to Boston. She wept a year's worth of tears out of sheer joy. Since then she's been a changed woman, as if she's on some happy drug. She's seeing it as no more than a “two-week vacation,” but I can't rule out the possibility that it will turn into something else further down the line. Without saying anything to her I've arranged some interviews at German studies institutes. There may be a longer-term job opportunity for me.