Every Seventh Wave Read online

2) You write: “I didn’t want to take a single piece of you away from your husband.” Can’t you see that this is exactly the sort of archconservative statement I resent. It’s utterly degrading. I am not some sort of commodity, the possession of one man that cannot be passed over to another. I OWN MYSELF, Leo, nobody else does. You can’t “take me away” from anyone, and no husband in the entire world would ever be able to “keep” me. I’M the only person who can “keep” me or “take me away” from anyone else. Sometimes I give myself away, sometimes I give myself up. But only rarely. And not to just anyone.

  3) You’re still fixed on the term “happily married.” Have the developments in my life over the past year completely passed you by? Have I not talked about it enough? Do I not refer to it all the time?

  4) Which brings me neatly to your sententious question, laden as it is with strict Catholic optimism: “Are you giving your marriage another chance?” Am I giving our marriage another chance?—I could give you a good answer to that, my love! But I’m going to keep it to myself for the moment. All I want to say for today is: for God’s sake, Leo, I really don’t care about marriage as an institution! It’s just a construct for those who’ve bought into it to cling to if they feel they’re losing their footing. It’s the individuals who count. Bernhard is important to me. Bernhard and the children. I feel I have a duty there, I still do. Whether or not this harbors “future prospects” remains to be seen.

  5) I’m hoping for a more exciting question from you tomorrow!!! We only have six nights to go, my love.

  6) Enjoy your evening. I’m off to the cinema.

  The following evening

  Subject: O.K., exciting

  Hello Emmi,

  My question is: “How was the cinema, what did you see?” Only joking! My real question: “Do you sometimes think about having sex with me?”

  Ten minutes later

  Re:

  Thank you for that, Leo! You asked that one for my sake, didn’t you? You know how much I go for those questions. You only seem to be exercised by such matters when you’re in the company of your bottle-shaped mates from Bordeaux. But I have to say, Leo, I’m thrilled that you’re behaving as if sex wasn’t a taboo subject, even when we’re sober. And for that you’ve earned yourself an honest response: “No, I don’t sometimes think about sex with you!” I’d love to ask you the same question back, but oddly enough the thought of your soon-to-be-arriving synchronized girlfriend “Pam” has just got in the way. So as far as sex is concerned, I think I’ll leave it there with my conservative correspondent, Leo “Either-Or” Leike.

  Kiss-kiss,

  Emmi

  Thirty seconds later

  Subject: Pamela

  Very strange. All it takes is for you to write the word “sex,” probably wearing your stripy socks, and I need to down two glasses of whisky. Sadly my question for you today isn’t nearly as tantalizing. Here it is: “What does Pamela know about us?” (Note: I’ve written “Pamela.” So I’m expecting an equally serious answer.)

  One minute later

  Re:

  Nothing!

  Two minutes later

  Re:

  What, nothing at all? Are you being serious?

  Ten minutes later

  Subject: (no subject)

  Dear Leo,

  I hope you agree that “Nothing!” can’t be everything, I mean, that can’t be your whole answer. My question was an attempt to establish WHY it is that “Pam” knows what she knows about us, and if it’s the case that she knows nothing, WHY in the world does she not? Well, that’s obvious: because you haven’t told her anything. But WHY NOT? That’s my question for today. (No, not tomorrow’s, today’s!) And I’m telling you now: if you don’t volunteer the answer, I’ll fly up to flat 15 and extract it from you personally. I need it, I need to know, and I need to go and share it with my therapist first thing tomorrow.

  One minute later

  Re:

  I have you here before me, Emmi! Whenever you demand something (from me) with such urgency, you look me straight in the face and your eyes are transformed into greenish yellow arrows. You could stab somebody to death with a look like that.

  Forty seconds later

  Re:

  That’s a good observation! And before I leap at you with bared teeth, I’ll blink three times. One. Two. Two and a quarter. Two and a half … I’m waiting, Leo!

  Ten minutes later

  Re:

  I didn’t tell Pamela anything about us in Boston because I considered our “us” to be a closed matter. And after Boston I didn’t tell her anything about us because I hadn’t told her anything about us in Boston. I couldn’t start in the middle. Either you tell crazy stories like ours from the beginning or not at all.

  One minute later

  Re:

  You could have brought her up to speed.

  Forty seconds later

  Re:

  True.

  Fifty seconds later

  Re:

  But it wouldn’t have been worth it, because you wanted to bring this whole “crazy” business with me to an end (or rather, not begin it all over again) as quickly as possible.

  Thirty seconds later

  Re:

  No.

  Twenty seconds later

  Re:

  What do you mean, “No”?

  Thirty seconds later

  Re:

  Your conclusion is wrong.

  Forty seconds later

  Re:

  Then please give me a correct one!

  Two minutes later

  Subject: (no subject)

  No, Leo, not tomorrow! (Watch out, I’m about to leap!)

  Three minutes later

  Re:

  I didn’t tell her anything about us because she wouldn’t have understood. And if she had understood, then it wouldn’t have been the truth. It’s impossible to understand the truth about us, you see. I basically don’t understand it myself.

  Thirty seconds later

  Re:

  Come on, Leo, of course you understand it. In fact you understand it extremely well. You understand it well enough to keep it to yourself. You don’t want to make “Pam” feel insecure.

  Forty seconds later

  Re:

  Perhaps.

  One minute later

  Re:

  But it wouldn’t be a good idea to begin a relationship with a woman carrying a secret about a crazy story with someone else, Leo my love.

  Fifty seconds later

  Re:

  The secret is safely hidden away, Emmi dear.

  Two minutes later

  Re:

  Of course, your closets full of feelings. Stuff Emmi into one of them. Shut the door. Turn the key as far as it goes. Set the temperature inside to minus twenty. Done. And make sure you defrost it every few months. Good night. It’s cold, I’m getting under the covers.

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  The following evening

  Subject: My question

  Dear Emmi,

  Are we not going to ask each other a question today? Is the game over? Are you pissed off? (Three question marks, one question—rules as interpreted by Emmi Rothner.)

  Two hours later

  Subject: My question

  What is the truth about us, Leo?

  Fifteen minutes later

  Re:

  The truth about us? You’ve got a family that you’re very fond of, a husband who loves you, and a marriage that’s still salvageable. And I’ve got a relationship that I can build on. Each of us has—a future. It’s just that we don’t have one together. Viewed realistically, dear Emmi, that’s the truth about us.

  Three minutes later

  Re:

  I detest you when you’re being realistic!

  And by the way, what you’ve just said is not the truth ABOUT us, it’s the truth WITHOUT us. And believe it or not, Leo, I knew it already! It’s been embedded in every fifth email I’ve had from you ove
r the past two years. Right, I’m off out. I’m going for dinner with Philip. Philip? He’s a web designer, young, single, makes me laugh. He adores me and I’m in the mood, not for him especially, but for his adoration. That’s the truth about Philip and me. If your question for tomorrow were to be “How was your evening with Philip?” I can answer that today, right now in fact: it was very laid-back. I hope you enjoy your evening.

  Emmi

  Six hours later

  Re:

  Hello Emmi, it’s four o’clock and I can’t get to sleep. My question for the day now dawning: “Are we going to see each other one more time?”

  That morning

  Subject: What for?

  Dear Leo,

  Isn’t it a bit late to be asking a question like that? Barely two weeks ago you were fixed on a radical anti-meeting course, you were totally against it. And I quote: “I somehow can’t imagine that a ‘final’ meeting would be a good idea if neither of us can imagine what might happen.” Why now? You’re not suddenly imagining that “something” might happen after all, are you? If I’ve done my sums correctly, Leo, “we” only have three days until “Pam” arrives. Three days to discover a strikingly different truth about us from the one you insist is “realistic.” A truth that probably wouldn’t go down too well with your girlfriend from Boston, who knows nothing about us, and therefore mustn’t find out anything about us. So we have two evenings left for a secret assignation. But why, Leo? What for? Yes, I think that will be my question for today, you could call it my third-last question: WHAT FOR?

  Twenty minutes later

  Re:

  We don’t have to meet in the evening, Emmi. I was thinking more of an hour or two one afternoon in a café.

  Thirty seconds later

  Re:

  Oh, I see. Yes. Of course. Leo! Nice. What for?

  Forty seconds later

  Re:

  So I can see you one more time.

  Thirty seconds later

  Re:

  What would you get out of it?

  Fifty seconds later

  Re:

  A good feeling.

  Seven minutes later

  Re:

  I’m delighted for you, but that would be the opposite of how I’d feel. Seeing you: fine. Seeing you “one more time,” one last time: shit! We’ve been seeing each other “for the last time” for a year and a half now, Leo! We’ve been saying goodbye for a year and a half. It seems as though we’ve got to know each other just so that we can say good-bye. I can’t do this anymore, Leo. I’m saturated with good-byes, I’m sick of good-byes, I’m damaged by good-byes. Please, just go. Send me your Systems Manager: at least I can always count on him to email back within ten seconds with his crisp little greeting. But just stop it with your endless good-byes. And don’t now give me that humiliating feeling that you can’t think of anything nicer than seeing me “one last time.”

  Nine minutes later

  Re:

  I didn’t say “one last time,” I said “one more time.” And even that sounds more dramatic in an email than it is. You wouldn’t find it humiliating face-to-face. In any case, you could never be lost to me. I have so much of you within me. I’ve always considered that to be an asset. Every sensory impression of Emmi is a bonus. For me, saying good-bye to you means no longer thinking of you, and no longer feeling anything. Believe me, I’m nowhere near saying good-bye.

  Five minutes later

  Re:

  What perfect landing conditions for the woman with whom you’re going to spend the rest of your life! Poor Pamela! Thank God she knows nothing of your sensory impressions of Emmi. Just don’t show her the keys to your closets of feelings, Leo dear, whatever you do. That would hurt her deeply.

  Twelve minutes later

  Re:

  You can’t cheat with feelings alone, Emmi my love. It is only when you act on your feelings, and thereby cause someone to suffer that you’ve done something wrong. And another thing: you really don’t have to be sorry for Pamela. My feelings for you don’t detract from those I have for her. The two have nothing to do with each other. They aren’t in competition. You are quite a different person from her. I do not have a fixed allocation of feelings that have to be distributed among the different people who mean something to me in different ways. Every person who is important to me stands for themselves and occupies their own place within me. I cannot believe it’s any different with you.

  Fifteen minutes later

  Subject: Cheating

  Dear Leo,

  1) You don’t have to say “person,” why not say “woman”? I know who you’re talking about.

  2) What do you mean by “acting on your feelings”? You act on your feelings by feeling them. If anything, cheating is hiding in an exchange of feelings the feelings (you feel) for someone else. But take some comfort, Leo, I’ve only known this since I’ve been having therapy. I cheated on Bernhard with you, not that particular night, but in the three hundred nights that preceded it. But those times are over. Now he knows everything about you and me. He even knows my “truth about us.” It might only be half the truth, but it’s my half. And I’m not ashamed of it.

  3) Of course I could congratulate you and show my admiration for the fact that, whatever the size of your heart, there seems to be space enough in it for several closets full of feelings for various different women. But unfortunately I’m thirty-five years old, I’ve lived through a fair bit, and I don’t mind saying that this whole business is quite simple. You—yes, even you—like keeping several women in your heart. Better still, you’d like as many (interesting) women as possible to keep you in their hearts. Of course they’re all soooooo very different from each other. Each of them is “something quite special.” Each stands on her own. And that’s no surprise, Leo, because you’re the one who makes each of them stand alone. When you think of one, you forget all the others. If you open one closetful of feelings, all the others remain firmly locked.

  4) I’m different. My feelings aren’t parallel. My feelings are linear. And my love is linear. One after the other. But only ever one at a time. At the moment it’s, er, let’s say it’s Philip. I love the way he smells of Abercrombie & Fitch.

  5) Right, now I’m going to shut down and I’m not booting up again until tomorrow morning. Have a nice third-last afternoon, third-last evening, third-last night, Leo. I hope you sleep better.

  Emmi

  Five hours later

  Subject: Shocking track record

  Dear Emmi,

  a) I’m bored when I’m sober.

  b) I have no sense of humor, even when I’ve drunk something.

  c) I’ve been practicing evasive answers for two years.

  d) When I feel, I cheat (specifically: you with Pamela, Pamela with you, and both of you with me).

  e) In every fifth email I give you subtle reminders that you and I are both “spoken for,” and thus have no future together.

  f) I’ve been saying good-bye to you for two years.

  g) My powers of attraction are finite. There’s absolutely no need for you to see me again.

  h) My life motto is objectionable: “I’d like as many (interesting) women as possible to keep me in their hearts.” (Can I make a confession, Emmi? I’ll take the uninteresting ones too. Just so long as there are as many as possible.)

  i) I’m a man.

  j) But I don’t smell of that Evercrumby and Fish thingummy.

  k) And so to my penultimate question: WHY ARE YOU STILL WRITING TO ME?

  The following morning

  Re:

  Because I have to answer your penultimate question. Because that’s the way the game goes. Because I’m not going to give up so close to the end. Because I never give up. Because I can’t lose. Because I don’t want to lose. Because I don’t want to lose you.

  Five minutes later

  Subject: And apart from that

  And apart from that you write really sweet emails.

  Som
etimes.

  And it’s not often that you’re humorless and boring at the same time.

  Three minutes later

  Subject: What’s more

  O.K. I never found you boring! (Apart from when you write about what you and “Pam” have in common.) And looks aren’t everything, Leo. That used to be one of your refrains, remember?

  Seven minutes later

  Subject: O.K., O.K.

  All right, all right, all right, so you are good-looking! We know that, everyone knows that! Has that satisfied your vanity?

  One hour later

  Subject: (no subject)

  Fine, Leo, just give it all a little time to sink in.

  Two hours later

  Subject: My penultimate question

  Maybe what you’re waiting for is my penultimate question.

  Here it comes: Are we actually going to stop the day after tomorrow, or will we keep writing to each other? I mean, from time to time, when one of us feels like it? We could still say good-bye to each other to make it official, also for “Pam”’s sake, so that things are clear-cut as far as she’s concerned.

  Oh, but hang on, you’re “nowhere near” saying good-bye to me; you’re just going to put your feelings on ice for awhile. Whatever. Are we going to keep writing? Or would you rather not be disturbed from now on, from “Pam” on, shall we say? Just tell me, and I’ll stop looking in my in-box. Or I’ll disconnect from the Internet. No, that wouldn’t work, I’ve got seven new clients who want me to design their websites—they’d prefer me to do my work online. Whatever. Are we going to keep writing, Leo? Could you do it despite “Pam”? It could be anytime. But are we still going to write?

  Ten minutes later

  Re:

  Dear Emmi,

  Yes, let’s. On the condition that you mentioned in your third sentence, “when one of us feels like it.” I’m going to be honest with you, Emmi. I can’t say whether I’ll feel like it, when I’ll feel like it, how often I’ll feel like it. And if I do feel like it, whether it’s a good thing that I actually do it. Never wait for an email from me, please! If one does come, then I felt like it. If it doesn’t then maybe I did feel like it, but thought better of it. The converse is also true. We mustn’t ever again go mad in expectation of email, or find ourselves feverishly drafting replies. Write to me, Emmi, if you feel like it. And if I feel like it, I’ll write back.