Love Virtually (8 page)

Six minutes later

Re:

You're not boring me at all, Leo. Do you want to meet up to talk about it? I might be just the right person under the circumstances. I'm on the very periphery of your life—and yet I'm also quite close to you. Just for once let's do away with all the formalities—let's meet up like good old friends.

Ten minutes later

Re:

O.K., let's. Thank you, Emmi! Shall we meet this evening?

But I should warn you, my humor's failing me again.

Three minutes later

Re:

Dear, dear Leo,

I can't this evening. How about tomorrow, around 7? At some café in the center?

Eight minutes later

Re:

The funeral's tomorrow. But 7 p.m. should be fine. I'll send you an email before 5. Then we'll arrange exactly where to meet. O.K.?

Ten minutes later

Re:

O.K., that sounds good. I'd love to be able to say something that might comfort you. But it might sound a bit like my “Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year,” so I'd better not. I'm thinking of you. I can imagine how you're feeling. I don't even dare to wish you “good night,” because I'm sure tonight won't be a good one for you. But I'll be able to offer you some support tomorrow evening.

See you soon!

Emmi (and despite the awful circumstances, I'm looking forward to seeing you!)

Five minutes later

Re:

I'm looking forward to it too!

Leo

The next day

Subject: Sorry

Dear Emmi,

I'm afraid I've got to beg off this evening. I'll tell you why tomorrow. Please don't be angry. And thanks for your support. I really appreciate it.

Best wishes,

Leo

Two hours later

Re: No problem.

Emmi

The next day

Subject: Marlene

Dear Emmi,

I spent yesterday evening with Marlene, my ex-girlfriend. She was at the funeral too. She really liked my mother, and vice versa. It was important for me to talk everything through with her. She's like a key; she can open doors to my awkward family history. She also got through to my mother in a way that I never could. Marlene was in a bit of a state yesterday. It was me who had to comfort her. But that was O.K. by me. I can't stand people feeling sorry for me. I prefer to feel sorry for someone else. (For myself too sometimes, but I'll keep that private.) I hope you're not angry with me for standing you up. I also thought: Leo, why do you have to drag in a woman who's got nothing to do with your past? And then I didn't want you to see me as I am just now. I want you to meet me when I'm in better shape. I hope you understand, Emmi. And thank you once again for your support. That was a major show of trust.

Love,

Leo

Three hours later

Re: Marlene

That's O.K.

BW,

Emmi

Five minutes later

Re: Marlene

No, nothing's O.K. when you write, “That's O.K.”! What is it, Emmi? Have I seriously offended you by canceling?

Does it feel as if I've used you (and that now you're pretty redundant)?

Two and a half hours later

Re: Marlene

No, not at all, Leo. I'm just really busy, that's why I kept it short.

Eight minutes later

Re: Marlene

I don't believe you. I know you, Emmi. In some respects, at least. It's odd, but the very idea that I might have offended you is giving me a guilty conscience, even though you know more than anyone that you'd have no right to be offended.

Four minutes later

Re: Marlene

Don't beat around the bush, dear Leo: have you got something going with Marlene again? Did you manage to comfort her, at least?

Eight minutes later

Re: Marlene

Oh, so that's it! Yes, of course. Leo Leike dares to meet up with his ex-girlfriend after his mother's funeral. Emmi Rothner, who is usually at great pains to make Mr. Leike out to be a professor of moral theology, suddenly gets a whiff of moral degeneracy. Let me throw something else into the mix, dear Emmi. I'll admit to you that six hours after having buried my mother I came within a hair's breadth of sleeping with my ex-girlfriend. I hope you're suitably shocked! Good night.

Three minutes later

Re: Marlene

Please explain to me how you can come “within a hair's breadth” of sleeping with someone. And if you came “within a hair's breadth,” why didn't you just go on and do it? That's so typically male. You probably imagined you would be able to “comfort” your stricken ex-girlfriend into bed. But at the last minute she must have realized and whispered in your ear “No Leo, it would be all wrong for us just now. It would destroy all the trust that we've rebuilt this evening.” And you thought to yourself: Damn shame, I was within a hair's breadth . . .

Fifteen minutes later

Re: Marlene

Do you know what, dear Emmi? I can hardly believe the brazenness and tenacity with which you're trying to draw explanations from me about private matters that don't concern you one bit. Or your ability to choose the most unfortunate moment to utter such tasteless comments, whose sole aim must be to reduce other people to the one thing that's always at the front of your mind: sex, sex, sex. I'm starting to wonder why you're

like that.

Eight minutes later

Re: Marlene

Dear Leo,

With the greatest respect for your loss, who's the one who boasted that he'd come to “within a hair's breadth” of sleeping with someone? Me or you? I'm sorry, Leo, I can picture the scene vividly. In the past I've experienced situations like that only too often myself, and I've got lots of friends who still experience them all the time—and suffer as a result. If with you and Marlene it was completely different, then you'll have to forgive me. But a man with your sensitivities should know that a woman with my sensitivities would feel sorely rejected after a last-minute ex-girlfriend-motivated cancellation like that. Yes indeed, Leo, I feel I've been horribly rejected by you. I'm not just anybody, not even to you.

Yours respectfully,

Emmi

The next day

Subject: Emmi

No, Emmi, you're not just anybody. If there's anyone who isn't just anybody then it's you. Not to me, at any rate. You're like a second voice inside me, accompanying me through the day. You've turned my inner monologue into a dialogue. You enrich my emotional life. You question, insist, parody, you engage me in conflict. I'm so grateful to you for your wit, your charm, for your spirit, even for your “tastelessness.”

But Emmi, you mustn't try to become my conscience! To go back to one of your favorite subjects, it should be irrelevant to you when, how, with whom, and how often I have sex. After all, I don't ask you how things are in bed with you and your Bernhard. To be honest, I'm not the slightest bit interested. It's not that I never have erotic thoughts when I think about you. But I'm keeping them well away from you; I want to spare you these thoughts. They're inside me and that's where they'll stay. We mustn't start intruding into each other's private life. It won't get us anywhere.

Exchanging a few seemingly irrelevant words with you about my mother's death has done me a world of good, Emmi. That second voice was there again, asking “my” missing questions, finding “my” answers, always breaching and overcoming my loneliness. All of a sudden I had this pressing desire to get closer to you, to have you right beside me. And if you'd had time that evening it would have happened. Everything would now be different between us. All the secrets would be gone, all the puzzles solved. We'd no sooner have met than I'd have offloaded a heavy sack full of my family burdens, and both of us would have sunk to our knees. No more magic, no more illusions. We'd have talked and talked and talked until we were all talked out. And what then? Nothing but disenchantment. How do you handle the immediacy of a meeting if you've never had any practice? How would we have looked at each other? What would we have seen in each other? How would we be writing to each other now? What would we write? Would we still be writing to each other? Emmi, I'm just afraid of losing my “second voice,” the Emmi voice. I want to keep it. I want to treat it with care. I can't live without it.

Yours,

Leo

Three hours later

Re: Emmi

Just to come back to one of my favorite subjects: I'm sorry to say IT DOES MATTER TO ME WHEN, HOW, WITH WHOM, AND HOW OFTEN YOU HAVE SEX! If I am indeed somebody's chosen “second voice,” then I should also have the right to judge (if that's what we're talking about) whether it's appropriate when, how, with whom and how often that person has sex. (I should admit I haven't until now been especially interested in the “how” bit, dear Leo. But we can catch up on that another time.) Now I'm going to leave you alone with your own voice. More tomorrow.

Kiss kiss,

Emmi

An hour and a half later

Re: Emmi

May I for once be cynical too, my dearest Emmi? Let's say the “hairy beast” in Café Huber had been me. Would it then have mattered when, how, with whom, and how often I have sex? Or, to put it another way, does it only matter to you when, how . . . and so on, because in your emails you're in search of an ideal man, and it can't be irrelevant—in spite of your marital bliss with Bernhard—when, how . . . and so on? This would confirm my theory that each of us is the fantasy voice of the other. Is this not wonderful and precious enough to leave it as it is?

The following day

Subject: First answer

Dear Leo,

Do you know what I really can't stand about you?—the words you use when you talk about my husband. “In spite of your marital bliss with Bernhard”—tell me, please, what do you mean by that crap? “Marital bliss” sounds like: “Performing one's conjugal duty by having sexual intercourse with one's partner.” I'm sure you intended it to sound like that too! Or how about: “A regular consummation of sexual intercourse, blessed by marriage, with a corresponding exchange of bodily fluids.” My dear Leo, you're mocking my marriage! I can be extremely sensitive on the subject, so please desist!

Forty-five minutes later

Re: First answer

Emmi, you can't stop talking about sex. It's pathological!

One hour later

Re: First answer

I haven't even
started
talking about sex, my friend. A few of the remarks you made yesterday are worth picking up on, for example the thing about the “erotic thoughts” where you use a double negative to say that it's not that you never have erotic thoughts about me. Typical Leo! Anyone else would have said: “Emmi, sometimes I have erotic thoughts about you!” But Leo Leike says: “Emmi, it's not that I never have erotic thoughts when I think about you.” And then you wonder why I can't stop talking about sex. It's not me who's pathological—you're the one who's so “original” with your sex talk, my dear Leo! In short, I don't buy your lofty meditations on sex. And what is our saintly Leo doing with his double-negative erotic thoughts? I quote: “I'm keeping them well away from you; I want to spare you these thoughts.” But doesn't he want to disclose them? Now Emmi's wondering what these unspeakable thoughts might be. Maybe he'll tell me a little more about them?

Twenty minutes later

Re: First answer

Oh yes, and another thing, Mr. Leo. Yesterday you wrote: “We must not start intruding into each other's private life.” I've got something to tell you: what we're doing here, the things we're talking about, they already belong to our private lives. They're private and nothing but, starting with our very first emails and steadily escalating until today. We don't write about our jobs, we don't say what our interests are, or our hobbies. We behave as if there's no such thing as culture, we completely ignore politics, and by and large we get by without even mentioning the weather.

The only thing we do, the thing that makes us forget everything else, is to intrude into each other's private life; I enter yours, and you enter mine. We could hardly have been more intrusive into each other's private life. You should start facing the fact that you're intimately acquainted with my private life, if not the part of it that you call my favorite subject. I might even say that the situation couldn't be more different.

Have a nice evening,

Emmi

An hour and a half later

Re: First answer

Dear Emmi,

Do you know what I really can't stand about
you
? Your continual “Mr. Leo,” “Maestro Leo,” “Professor Leo,” “Mr. language psychologist,” “professor of moral theology.” Do me a favor. Leave it at “Leo.” Your sarcastic messages will be just as acerbic and to the point.

Thanks for your understanding!

Leo

Ten minutes later

Re: First answer

Yuck! I don't like you today!

One minute later

Re: First answer

I don't like me either.

Thirty seconds later

Re: First answer

That was very sweet, I have to admit.

Twenty seconds later

Re: First answer

Thank you.

Fifteen seconds later

Re: First answer

My pleasure.

A minute and a half later

Re: First answer

Are you in bed yet?

Three minutes later

Re: First answer

I hardly ever go to bed before you. Night-night!

Thirty seconds later

Re: First answer

Good night.

Forty seconds later

Re: First answer

Are you thinking about your mother a lot? I wish I could help share your sadness.

Thirty seconds later

Re: First answer

You just have, dear Emmi.

Good night.

CHAPTER FOUR