Every Seventh Wave (19 page)

Re:

Aren't you the daring one!

Two days later

Subject: Me first

Hello Emmi,

A warm welcome home! Please delete me from your “chart of erotic men.” I'm looking forward to tomorrow evening, 7:30, at the Italian. I'm free from all care. I'm not worried in the slightest that our meeting might go pear-shaped (unless you want to change your dessert order).

Leo

Three hours later

Re:

The new Leo: quick as lightning, fearless, famished, ready for anything!

(Thank you for your warm welcome. And I'M looking forward to it more than you!)

Four minutes later

Re:

The old Emmi: clearly back home in fine fettle!

(Thanks for “I'M” and “more”!)

The following morning

Subject: Still in good shape?

Dear Emmi,

Are we still on for this evening?

Thirty minutes later

Re:

Yes, of course we are, Leo my love. Oh, I almost forgot to tell you. Bernhard and the kids are coming too. Is that all right?

Ten minutes later

Subject: Joke!

That was a joke, Leo! A JOKE! A
JO-OKE
!

Three minutes later

Re:

I can see it's going to be a fun evening! I'd rather not send any more emails now.

See you later,

Leo

One minute later

Re:

Looking forward to seeing you!

Thirty seconds later

Re:

And me you!

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

The following morning

Subject: (no subject)

Good sleep?

Five minutes later

Re:

Didn't even get to sleep. Too many images in my head, too obsessed with looking at them over and over again. How do you feel, my love?

One minute later

Re:

I can only hope you feel the same as I do, my love.

Two minutes later

Re:

If you were to double the intensity of your feelings, then you'd feel roughly as I do, Emmi.

Three minutes later

Re:

Halve that and multiply by four, that's about how I feel! Why didn't you ask me to come up to your place?

Fifty seconds later

Re:

Because you would have said no, among other things, Emmi.

Forty seconds later

Re:

Really, would I? Did I look as though I would have said no?

One minute later

Re:

People who say no seldom look as if they'd say no before they say it. Otherwise no one would ever ask them.

Forty seconds later

Re:

Says Leo, the great understander of women, drawing from his vast and pertinent experience of such matters. And after one hundred nos, even though the women in question hadn't looked as if they'd say no at all, he's simply stopped asking the question.

Thirty seconds later

Re:

You would have said no, Emmi. Am I right?

Forty seconds later

Re:

And you wouldn't have had any objections if I'd come up to yours? Am I right, Leo?

Thirty seconds later

Re:

What makes you think that?

Forty seconds later

Re:

Someone who kisses and … erm… “hugs” like that would not have any objections.

Fifty seconds later

Re:

So concludes Emmi, man-conqueror, on the basis of innumerable taste and touch tests.

Forty seconds later

Re:

So did you want me to come up to the flat, or not?

Twenty seconds later

Re:

Of course I did.

Thirty seconds later

Re:

Well then why didn't you ask me? I would have said yes.

Really!

Thirty seconds later

Re:

Really? Shit!

Fifty seconds later

Re:

But the doorstep episode wasn't bad either, my love. I've experienced a fair few smooching-on-the-doorstep episodes in my time. (O.K., most of them were on the big screen.) Very few indeed have been as good and as long-lasting as that one. There wasn't a single boring bit. I felt as if I was seventeen all over again.

Forty seconds later

Re:

It was an overwhelming evening, Emmi!

Fifty seconds later

Re:

Yes, overwhelming, that's for sure! There's just one thing I don't understand, my love.

Thirty seconds later

Re:

What's that, my love?

Twenty seconds later

Re:

How could you? How could you? How could you?

Thirty seconds later

Re:

Out with it!

Forty seconds later

Re:

Leo, how could you leave four of those seven sensational
tortelloni asparagi e prosciutto in salsa limone
on your plate?

Fifty seconds later

Re:

I did it for you!

Thirty seconds later

Re:

You get extra points for that.

Fifty seconds later

Re:

So, Emmi love. I'm going to shut down now, close my eyes, freeze time, and dream—of it and of more besides.

Kiss!

Forty seconds later

Re:

Sleep well, my sweet! This evening I'll write whatever else I wanted to say. I return your kiss! No, I don't return it. You can have one of your own. I'm keeping the one you've given me. You don't get kisses like that every day.

Nine hours later

Subject: Something I noticed

Dear Leo,

Are you awake? I just wanted to point out that you didn't mention Bernhard once yesterday evening.

Forty seconds later

Re:

Nor did you, Emmi.

Fifty seconds later

Re:

I can keep myself under control on that front. But I'm not used to it coming from you, my love.

Eight minutes later

Re:

You may have to (or I may let you) get used to it, my love. I can learn sometimes too: Bernhard is your concern, not mine. He's your husband, not mine. When you kiss me it's your conscience, not mine. Or maybe conscience doesn't come into it at all because Bernhard knows about us … or at least should know … or should have to assume it … or should be able to imagine it … or … I don't know, I'm no longer up on your interpretation of “convenience” and openness. I've lost track. No, more than that, I've lost interest. I no longer want to have to vault a permanent hurdle by the name of Bernhard whenever I think of you. Nor do I have to crawl secretly into a hole in Pamela's presence whenever I think of you. I think of you whenever I want to, as often as I want to, and in whichever way I want to. Nothing is stopping me, no one's holding me back anymore. Do you know how liberating that is? Yesterday was like a quantum leap for me. Now I'm able to look upon you as if you were there for me and me alone, as if you'd been created especially for me, as if the Italian restaurant had been opened just for us, as if the table had been deliberately constructed so that our legs could touch underneath it, as if the yellow gorse bush had been planted outside the door to my apartment block just for us, twenty years ago, in the knowledge that it would be in bloom when we kissed and embraced twenty years later.

Seven minutes later

Re:

Your observations are spot on, my love. YESTERDAY I WAS THERE FOR YOU AND FOR YOU ALONE! And that look of yours which held me and me alone, and made everything around us disappear, that look that sees the blooming yellow gorse bush as planted for us alone, the world as created for us, please, please, please don't forget how to use it. Practice it before you sleep, practice it again when you wake up, rehearse it in the mirror. Be sparing in its application, don't waste it on anyone else, protect it from grasping hands and bright sunlight, don't subject it to any danger, be careful not to damage it in transit. And if we see each other again, then unpack it for me! Because that look, my love, it knocks me out, it drives me wild. For that look alone, it was worth waiting for emails from you for two and a half years. No one has ever looked at me like that before, Leo. Like, like, like … Leike. Yes. Just like that. That's all I wanted to say. It's meant to be a compliment, by the way, just a little one, my sweet. Did you notice?

Ten minutes later

Re:

Do you know what, Emmi my love? Let's stop for today. It can't get any more beautiful than this. And maybe it can only stay as beautiful as this if we refrain from talking about it for a night.

A big kiss!

Yours,

Leo

(And now I'm going to practice the “like, like, like Leike” look.)

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

The following evening

Subject: A question

A question for the guardian of silence: For how long were you planning to stay silent about our beautiful “us”?

Twenty minutes later

Re:

A question for the silence breaker: Where do the two of us go from here?

Three minutes later

Re:

That depends on you, Leo dear.

Fifty seconds later

Re:

Not on you, Emmi dear?

One minute later

Re:

No, my love, that's always been your big, fatal mistake, and it's been with you for a large stretch of your journey: it led you erroneously to Boston, and even survived the return journey unscathed; it quickly acclimatized and settled in properly at your side. It clings to you like a leech, Leo. Why don't you shake it off, once and for all.

Forty seconds later

Re:

What are you imagining? Am I supposed to be asking whether you'll come over this evening and stay the night?

Fifty seconds later

Re:

It's got absolutely nothing to do with what I imagine, Leo my dear, I know that already; you can't begin to imagine all the things I've been imagining, even since yesterday. But this time it's all about what YOU'RE imagining. And no, please don't ask me about this evening.

Twenty seconds later

Re:

Why not?

Forty seconds later

Re:

Because I'd have to say no.

Forty seconds later

Re:

Why would you have to?

Fifty seconds later

Re:

Because, because, because. Because I don't want you to think I want to have an affair with you. And, perhaps more importantly: because I don't want to have an affair with you! If it was just going to be an affair, we could have saved ourselves two and a half years of emails and several encyclopedias worth of words.

Thirty seconds later

Re:

If you don't want an affair, Emmi, what
do
you want?

Forty seconds later

Re:

I want you to express what YOU want!

Twenty seconds later

Re:

YOU!

One and a half minutes later

Re:

Bravo, Leo! That came quite spontaneously, straight from the gut, and there it stands, and in big letters too. But what do you mean by YOU? Reading you? Keeping you at the back of my mind? Carrying you about in my closets of feelings? Keeping you as a special point on my hand? Not losing you? Adoring you? Seeing you? Hearing you? Smelling you? Feeling you? Kissing you? Grabbing you? Pulling you to the floor? Making you pregnant? Eating you up?

One and a half minutes later

Re:

EVERYTHING YOU! (Apart from “making you pregnant,” but come to think of it, why not?)

One minute later

Re:

Nice one, Leo! At the very height of your embarrassment, you nonetheless manage to show the beginnings of a sense of humor. But seriously, who is preventing you from doing whatever you want with me? Come on, tell me, where are the two of us going to go from here?

Seven minutes later

Subject: Tell me!

Leeeeoooo! Please! Now is not the time to go all silent again!

Tell me! Write it to me! You can do it! You'll manage! Just trust yourself! You're so nearly there!

Four minutes later

Re:

O.K., if you're so determined to have what I want in writing, even though you know it already: Dear Emmi, let's … no, do you want … or, can you imagine … O.K., it's not about what you could imagine, it's about what
I
could imagine. Emmi, I can imagine that I'd like to make a go of it with you!