Love Virtually (5 page)

Enjoy this lovely spring day,

Leo

Ten minutes later

Re: Shame

I've just remembered—what's happened to our recognition game? Don't you want to do it anymore? Should I be worrying about your bleary-eyed plush bar squeeze? What about the day after tomorrow, Sunday, March 25, from 3 p.m. in Café Huber? It'll be really busy. Let's do it!

Emmi

Twenty minutes later

Re: Shame

Of course, dear Emmi. I look forward to picking you out. But I've already got this weekend planned. Tomorrow I'm off to Prague for three days—just “for pleasure,” so to speak. But how about indulging in our parlor game next Sunday?

One minute later

Re: Shame

Prague? Who with?

Two minutes later

Re: Shame

No, Emmi, just don't.

Thirty-five minutes later

Re: Shame

O.K., do what you like (or don't like). But don't come running to me afterward with your love problems! Prague is just perfect for love problems, especially at the end of March: everything's gray, and at night you have anemic dumplings and dark beer in some pub that's wood-paneled in the darkest shade of brown imaginable, watched over by an underemployed, depressive waiter whose reason for living stopped with Brezhnev's state visit. It's all over after that. Why don't you go to Rome instead?

It's almost summer there. I'd fly to Rome with you.

So our game will have to wait a while longer. On Monday I'm going skiing for a week. I don't mind telling you who I'm going with, my trusted correspondent: with one husband and two children (but no chipmunks!). The neighbors are going to look after Wurlitzer. Wurlitzer is our overweight tomcat. He looks just like a jukebox, but he always plays the same tune. And he hates skiers, which is why he's staying at home.

Have a lovely evening.

Emmi

Five hours later

Re: Shame

Are you home yet, or are you still hanging out in that plush bar?

Night-night,

Emmi

Four minutes later

Re: Shame

I'm back home. I've been waiting for Emmi to check up on me. Now I can go to bed in peace. I'm off early in the morning, so I hope you and your family have a good week's skiing. Good night. Read you soon!

Leo

Three minutes later

Re: Shame

Are you wearing pajamas?

Good night,

E

Two minutes later

Re: Shame

Do you sleep naked, by any chance? Good night, Leo.

Four minutes later

Re: Shame

Hey there, Mr. Leo, that was really quite erotic. I didn't think you were up to it. I've no desire to dispel the prickling tension that's emerging between us, so I'd better not ask what your pajamas are like. Good night then, and have a nice time in Prague!

Fifty seconds later

Re: Shame

Well,
do
you sleep naked?

One minute later

Re: Shame

He really wants to know! For the purposes of your fantasy world, my dear Leo, let's say it depends on who I'm sleeping with. Hope you two have a nice time in Prague!

Emmi

Two minutes later

Re: Shame

You three, you mean! I'm going with an old friend of mine and her partner.

Leo

P.S. I'm shutting down now.

Five days later

Subject: (no subject)

Dear Emmi,

Are you online there, skiing?

Best wishes, Leo

P.S. You were right about Prague—my two chums decided to split up. But it would have been worse in Rome.

Three days later

Subject: (no subject)

Dear Emmi,

It's high time you came back. I'm missing being under email surveillance. Evenings hanging around in plush bars are no fun at all right now.

One day later

Subject: (no subject)

Just so you've got three messages from me in your in-box.

All the best,

Leo

P.S. Yesterday I bought a new pair of pajamas especially for you, or at least with you in mind.

Three hours later

Subject: (no subject)

Are you not writing to me?

Two hours later

Subject: (no subject)

Can't you write to me anymore, or don't you want to write?

Two and a half hours later

Subject: (no subject)

I can change the pajamas if that's the problem.

Forty minutes later

Re:

Oh Leo, you're so sweet!! But there's no point in us carrying on like this. This is so far removed from real life. My skiing holiday: now that was real life. It might not have been the best, but it was good enough and I have to confess I wouldn't want it any other way. So that's how it is, and however it is, it's fine by me. The kids got on my nerves a bit, but that's what kids are for. Besides, they're not mine, and every now and again they reproach me for that. But the trip went pretty much O.K. (I've already said that, haven't I?)

Let's be honest with each other, Leo: as far as you're concerned I'm just a fantasy image. The only real thing about me is a few letters that you, with all your language psychology, might be able to bring together into some kind of harmonious whole. To you I'm like telephone sex, only without the sex or the telephone. Computer sex then, but again, without the sex or the downloadable images. And for me you're just a bit of fun, a way for me to refresh my flirting skills. You allow me to do the one thing I've been missing: I can experience the first stages of an affair (without really having to have an affair). But we two beauties are already on the second or third stage of an affair that cannot happen. So I think it's about time we stopped where we are. Otherwise the whole thing will become ridiculous. We're not fifteen anymore, even if I'm much closer to it than you are, but either way we're not, and there's nothing we can do about that.

There's something else I want to say, Leo. Throughout the whole of our family skiing trip, which was irritating at times, but overall darned nice, peaceful, harmonious, funny, even romantic, I couldn't help thinking of a certain snow bear called Leo Leike, whom I've never met. That's just not right. It's actually pretty sick, don't you think?

Shouldn't we just call it a day? asks Emmi.

Five minutes later

Re:

One other thing: shame about your friends. You're right:

Rome would probably have been hellish.

Two minutes later

Re:

So what are your new pajamas like?

The next day

Subject: Meeting up

Dear Emmi,

Can't we at least play our “recognition game”? Maybe after that we'll find it a little easier to break off our “affair that cannot happen.” Even if I stop writing to you and waiting for your emails, Emmi, it doesn't mean I won't be thinking of you. That would be so shabby and calculating. Let's still do our experiment! What do you think?

All the best,

Leo

P.S. I can't describe my new pajamas; you'd have to see them and feel them.

An hour and a half later

Re: Meeting up

Next Sunday between 3 and 5 p.m. at Café Huber?

Best wishes,

Emmi

P.S. Leo, Leo, what you said about the pajamas, “you'd have to see them and feel them,” that's what I call a come-on. If it hadn't been you writing, I might even have said it was a particularly blatant come-on!

Fifty minutes later

Re: Meeting up

That sounds good! But we can't turn up exactly at three and leave the café at five on the dot. And we mustn't look for each other too obviously. Most important of all, don't do anything so conspicuous that it might give the game away. If you do identify me, you mustn't get carried away and then rush up to me and say, “You're Leo Leike, aren't you?” We really should give ourselves the opportunity to
not
recognize each other. Don't you agree?

Eight minutes later

Re: Meeting up

Yes, yes, yes, have no fear, Mr. Language Professor, I won't come too near. And to avoid further confusion, I suggest we have an email embargo until Sunday. We can write to each other again afterward, O.K.?

Forty seconds later

Re: Meeting up

O.K.

Thirty seconds later

Re: Meeting up

Which doesn't mean that you should stay out late every night between now and then, boozing in some plush bar.

Twenty-five seconds later

Re: Meeting up

Of course I won't! Anyway, it's only fun if Emmi Rothner takes me to task on an hourly basis for the very possibility that I might be.

Twenty seconds later

Re: Meeting up

O.K., you've reassured me. Till Sunday then!

Thirty seconds later

Re: Meeting up

Until Sunday!

Forty seconds later

Re: Meeting up

Don't forget to brush your teeth.

Twenty-five seconds later

Re: Meeting up

You always have to have the last word, don't you, Emmi?

Thirty-five seconds later

Re: Meeting up

Generally, yes. But if you answer again now, I'll let you have it.

Forty minutes later

Re: Meeting up

A footnote to my pajamas. I wrote, “You'd have to see them and feel them.” You replied that this would be a blatant come-on had anybody else written it. I wish to object. I demand that in future you credit my blatant come-ons as just that, as blatant as the next man's. Allow me to be as blatant as I am. Back to the point: you really have to feel my pajamas, they're sensational. Give me your address and I'll send a sample. (Is that blatant too?) Good night!

Two days later

Subject: Discipline

I take my hat off to you, Emmi, you've really got discipline!

See you the day after tomorrow, Café Huber.

Yours,

Leo

Three days later

Subject: (no subject)

Hi Leo, were you there?

Five minutes later

Re:

Of course I was!

Fifty minutes later

Re:

Shit! I was afraid of that.

Thirty seconds later

Re:

What were you afraid of, Emmi?

Two minutes later

Re:

Every man who could conceivably have been Leo Leike was a total no-no. To look at, I mean. I'm sorry, that might sound a little harsh, but I'm telling it like it is. Seriously Leo, were you really at Café Huber between three and five yesterday? And I don't mean hidden away in the bathroom or entrenched in some building across the road, but actually at the bar or in the lounge, standing or sitting, squatting or kneeling, whatever?

One minute later

Re:

Yes Emmi, I really was there. Which of the men did you think might have been Leo Leike, if I may ask?

Twelve minutes later

Re:

Dear Leo,

I don't feel comfortable about going into details. But tell me you weren't that—how can I put it?—stocky gentleman, well, stunted really, with all-over body hair that looked like a Brillo pad? He was wearing a T-shirt that was once white and had a mauve ski sweater tied around his waist, standing at one end of the bar drinking a Campari or some other red concoction. I mean, if that
was
you, all I can say is this: to each his own. I'm sure there are plenty of women who would find a guy like that utterly fascinating and irresistibly attractive. I've no doubt that one day you'll find a woman to spend the rest of your life with. But I have to be frank: you wouldn't be my type, I'm sorry to say.

Eighteen minutes later

Re:

Dear Emmi,

All respect to your disarming and revealing honesty. But “not offending people” is not one of your strengths. It's quite clear that looks really are your highest priority. You're behaving as if your future love life depended on how physically attractive you find your email friend. But first let me reassure you that the hairy beast at the bar and I are not one and the same person. But go ahead, feel free to continue with the descriptions—who else might I have been? And second, a related question: If I'm one of the “no-no's,” does that signal the end of our correspondence?

Thirteen minutes later

Re:

No, Leo, we can go on emailing each other with abandon, of course. You know me: I'm prone to wild exaggeration. I'm getting all excited, and I don't want my flow interrupted. The fact is, I didn't see a single man at the café yesterday I thought could be even half as exciting as the way you write to me. And that's exactly what I was afraid of. Not one of those dreary Sunday afternoon faces in Café Huber came remotely close to the way you write to me: shy and attentive on the one hand, on the other sure-footed and forthright, charmingly snow-bearish and once in a while even sensual, but always uncannily sensitive.

Five minutes later

Re:

Really, not one? Perhaps you just missed me.

Eight minutes later

Re:

Dear Leo,

You've given me renewed hope. But sadly I don't think I've overlooked anyone who didn't deserve to be overlooked. I found the two pierced freaks sitting at the third table on the left quite sweet. But they couldn't have been more than twenty. There was an interesting-looking guy, maybe the only interesting-looking guy, standing with one of those leggy blond angel-vamp model types at the bar toward the back on the right. They were holding hands, and he only had eyes for her. Then there was another quite nice-looking man—looked like a rowing champ, built like a yield sign—but he had an unfortunate moronic grin. No Leo, that definitely wasn't you! So who else was there? Lawn-mowing and gardening enthusiasts, men who collect beer mats and have shares in breweries, guys in dark suits with briefcases, do-it-yourself fanatics with fingers that look like they've been mutilated in a wrench. Guys who go windsurfing, with childishly dreamy faces, permanent kids, in other words. But not one charismatic man to be seen. Hence my bold question: which of these was my language psychologist? Which one was my Leo Leike? Did I lose him to Café Huber on this fateful Sunday afternoon?