Every Seventh Wave Read online

  If my math is right, you and your family have five days’ vacation left. I hope you can enjoy them undisturbed. I’ll do my bit to help by burying myself in my stacks of neglected seminar work, and won’t write to you again until you’re back. Thanks, anyway, for—your ears, your eyes, for your point of contact. For you! You’re so terribly important to me. You really, really are!

  Leo

  Three hours later

  Re:

  As it happens I do have a useful tip for you, Leo. Would you add it to your list of keywords, please?—A week on Thursday, time: 7:30 p.m., place: Ristorante Impressione, a table for two booked in the name of Emmi Rothner. I look forward to it! Please make sure you’re there, however worn away you’re feeling! Please, please, please!

  A kiss from the crypt,

  Emmi

  P.S. You were close: it was the brown-and-white bikini. I’m going to wear the green one today. And then when you see me, you’ll see me really clearly!

  Three days later

  Re: Impressione

  Hi Leo,

  You haven’t yet said whether you can come on Thursday. I don’t want to force you, I just want to know why I’m plonking myself down in the sun for an hour every day, surrounded by people in loungers. Until a week ago I used to pity them for indulging in this dull nonactivity that turns your brain to mush.

  Lots of love,

  Emmi

  P.S. Jonas “Spider-Man” Rothner sends his regards! He made a bet with me that you were a passionate hang glider and windsurfer. I put my money on you being a beachcomber, mussel picker, and stone collector.

  One day later

  Subject: Admission

  Dear Emmi,

  I didn’t want to burdwwen you with this on your vacation, but I have to admit that I’m scared about our meeting.

  Four hours later

  Re:

  Oh, Leo, you don’t have to be scared. It’ll be the sixth time we’ve met. The seventh is the one you’ll have to watch out for.

  By the way, I’m hereby modifying my personal chart of the most erotic men on Earth: racing-car enthusiasts, travel-show visitors, men in sandals, men in beer tents, sulky men, and—men who are scared.

  Until soon,

  Emmi

  Three minutes later

  Re:

  Dear Emmi,

  What are you expecting from our “Italian evening”? I know you’ll be familiar with the question, but I find it gets in the way of every meeting, particularly this one.

  Two minutes later

  Re:

  1) Antipasti di pesce

  2) Linguine al limone

  3) Panna cotta

  4) And to go with all that, before it, after it, during it, and accompanied by wine: Leo!

  5) Sitting opposite me, there to talk to, to hear his voice, to look at him with my own eyes, close enough to touch, kneecap to kneecap almost: Leo!

  (If you promise to write back straightaway without thinking too hard about it, however much that goes against your natural instincts, I’ll hang about in this smoke-box for a few more minutes.)

  One minute later

  Re:

  Are you going to behave differently from before?

  Thirty seconds later

  Re:

  You can’t ask questions like that, Leo. Who can tell? And anyway, every time we see each other it’s different.

  Forty seconds later

  Re:

  I mean because of Pamela.

  Two minutes later

  Re:

  I know exactly what you mean. And I don’t think I would behave differently toward you because of “Pam.” If I behave differently, it’s because of you. Or me. Or put another way: if you behave differently toward me, then I’ll behave differently toward you. And because up until now you’ve always behaved differently toward me, you’ll behave differently this time too, and in turn I’ll behave differently toward you. And besides, we’ve never been out for dinner together. The very fact of your eating will mean that you’re behaving differently toward me. And my reaction to that will be to eat back, that’s a promise! Do you mind if I climb back out of this crypt into the sunshine?

  Three minutes later

  Subject: May I?

  Does that mean I’m allowed back into the sunshine? O.K., I’m off. Bye, Leo. I’ll be in touch when I’m home.

  Kiss-kiss,

  Emmi

  Simultaneously

  Re:

  Of course you are. See you soon. Please write when you’re back. Much love.

  Yours,

  Leo

  Three hours later

  Subject: Nice bikini

  I like the bikini. I like you in green!

  One day later

  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 ri
ght?

  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 enc
yclopedias 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!

  Thirty seconds later

  Re:

  What do you mean by “it”?

  Forty seconds later

  Re:

  The future.

  One minute later

  Re:

  I see the “future” as feminine, and (therefore) totally unreliable. First let’s make a go of “togetherness,” I think that would be appropriate, more businesslike, very much an “it.” That would be it. Possibly. Probably.

  Forty seconds later

  Re:

  Emmi, I knew ultimately that it would all be about what YOU could imagine! And please tell me the difference between “your” togetherness and “my” affair.