Every Seventh Wave

by Daniel Glattauer

  We also talked a lot about you, Leo. But I’ll only tell you what we said if you really want to know. (The fact that you’ll obviously want to know means that we’ll stay in email contact. That’s my cunning plan!) I don’t want to put any pressure on you, but my therapist is convinced that you’re very good for me. She says: “I really don’t understand why you spend so much money on sessions with me. You get it all for nothing with your Leo Leike. So why don’t you do yourself a favor and make more of an effort with him!” So I’m doing myself a favor and making more of an effort with you, Leo dear. And you’re extremely welcome to make a bit more of an effort with me in return.

  Good night.

  The following evening

  Subject: (no subject)

  Dear Emmi,

  I’m flattered your psychotherapist thinks I’m capable of replacing her. (“For nothing” would be too cheap, of course, but I’d make you an excellent offer.) And naturally I’m delighted that she, at least, is convinced I’m good for you. But would you be so kind as to ask her whether she can give me assurances that you’re good for me too?

  Lots of love,

  Leo

  One hour later

  Re:

  She’s only thinking about my well-being, Leo, not yours. If you don’t know what’s good for you and want to find out, you’ll have to get your own therapist. I highly recommend it, by the way, but you’d probably think it too extravagant.

  Have a nice evening,

  Emmi

  P.S.: Oh, by the way, Leo, I’d love to hear how you are. Can’t you tell me anything? Won’t you drop a few hints, at least?

  Please!!

  Half an hour later

  Re:

  Hint 1: I’ve had a cold for three weeks.

  Hint 2: I’ve only got three more weeks on my own.

  Hint 3: Pamela (“Pam”) is coming. And staying.

  Ten minutes later

  Re:

  Well, that’s a surprise! Congratulations, Leo, and richly deserved! (I’m referring to “Pam,” of course, not the cold.)

  Best regards,

  Emmi

  Five minutes later

  Re:

  I’m reminded of the question we asked each other some months back, but never answered. It was: Did anything change as a result of our meeting? For my part, yes! Ever since I’ve been able to picture your face when reading your messages, I can guess much more quickly the mood you’re in when you write to me, and what your words actually mean when they quite definitely mean something different from what they say on the screen. I can see your lips as they release the words. I can picture your eyes avoiding mine, giving a commentary to what’s happening. Just now you wrote, “Well, that’s a surprise! Congratulations, Leo, and richly deserved!” What you actually meant was, “Well, that’s a disappointment! But it’s your own fault, Leo, you obviously don’t deserve anything better.” Jokingly, you added in parentheses, “I’m referring to ‘Pam,’ of course, not the cold.” A bitter and twisted comment that I read as, “Better to have a cold for three weeks than that ‘Pam’ for the rest of your life!” Am I right?

  Three minutes later

  Re:

  No, Leo—I may at times be bitter, but I’m not twisted. I’m sure “Pam” is an amazing woman, and I’m sure she’s a good thing for you, better than hay fever any day. Could you send me a photograph of her?

  One minute later

  Re:

  No, Emmi.

  Thirty seconds later

  Re:

  Why not?

  Two minutes later

  Re:

  Because I don’t know what you could possibly want with it. Because it should make no difference to you what she looks like. Because I don’t want you comparing your appearance to hers. Because I’m tired. Because I’m going to bed now.

  Good night, Emmi.

  One minute later

  Re:

  You sound sulky and irritable, Leo. Why? 1) Am I getting on your nerves? 2) Aren’t you happy? 3) Or don’t you have a photograph of her?

  Twenty seconds later

  Re:

  No.

  Yes I am.

  Yes I do.

  Good night!

  CHAPTER TEN

  The following evening

  Subject: Apology

  Sorry if I was surly. I’m not going through my best phase at the moment. I’ll be in touch.

  Love,

  Leo

  Two hours later

  Re:

  No problem. Get in touch again whenever you feel like it.

  You don’t have to be at your best. I’d be quite happy with second best.

  Emmi

  Three days later

  Subject: My mood

  Dear Emmi,

  Why is it that for the last three days I’ve had this (sometimes really agonizing) feeling that you’re waiting impatiently for me to explain just why I’m not at my best at the moment?

  Four hours later

  Re:

  Probably because you’re desperate to explain it. If you are desperate, just get on with it, stop beating around the bush.

  Ten minutes later

  Re:

  No, Emmi. I’m not at all desperate to explain it! I can’t explain it to you, you see, because I can’t even explain it to myself. Paradoxically, however, I feel as if I owe you an explanation. Can you explain that?

  Eight minutes later

  Re:

  No idea, Leo. Perhaps you’ve become paranoid, perhaps you feel you have to explain whatever phase you’re going through. (A new trait, by the way.) If you like, I can ask my therapist if she’s come across any decent phase-explanation-paranoia specialists.

  A suggestion to help you relax: I’m not asking you to explain why you aren’t “at your best at the moment.” I already know.

  Three minutes later

  Re:

  Terrific, Emmi. Go on, explain it to me then, please!

  Twenty minutes later

  Re:

  You’re agitated about “… ,” O.K., about Pamela. You were her guest in Boston. She was your guest after Boston. Or you switched between roles of host and guest in London or wherever else you happened to be. But now the geographical and romantic parameters of the relationship have changed. She’s coming to live with you. A long-distance relationship will become a close relationship. Meaning everyday life for two people in their own four walls rather than full board at some boutique hotel. Cleaning windows and rehanging washed curtains rather than gazing out wistfully upon an expanse of fairy-tale landscape. By the way, she’s not just coming to you. She’s coming because of you. She’s coming for you. She’s counting on you. You’re taking all the responsibility. And the thought of that is stressing you out. You fear the uncertainty, the deflating feeling that all of a sudden everything could be different between you. Your anxiety is perfectly understandable, and justifiably so, Leo. You can’t possibly be “at your best” at the moment. How could you then describe the phase of life you’re now approaching, what would that say about your future?

  You’ll work it out between you somehow, I’m sure of it! Lots of love, and have a nice evening,

  Emmi

  Seven hours later

  Subject: Dearest diary

  Hello Emmi,

  You’ll be asleep by now. I’m guessing it’s two or three in the morning. I’ve been off the drink for a while, so I can’t take it. This is only my third glass and everything looks blurry. O.K., I admit it’s a large glass. The wine is 13.5 percent, it says so on the label, it’s in my head already, the remaining 86 or 87 percent is still in the bottle. I’m going to drink it now, there’s no alcohol left in it. It’s all in my head. But it is the second bottle, if I’m going to be honest.

  Emmi, I’ve got something I need to tell you, you’re the only woman I write to, you’re the only woman I write to, who I write to about how I write, how I am, how I feel. In fact you’re my diary, but you don’t keep still like a dia
ry. You’re not as patient. You’re always interfering, you retaliate, you contradict me, you confuse me. You’re a diary with a face, body, and shape. You think I can’t see you, you think I can’t feel you. Wrong. Wrong. How wrong. When I write to you I bring you very close to me. It’s always been like that. And ever since I’ve known you “personally,” you know, since we sat opposite each other, since then—thank God nobody has taken my pulse—since then … I’ve never told you, I never wanted to, what’s the point? You’re married, he loves you. He made a big mistake, he kept quiet. The biggest mistake, in fact. But you have to forgive him. You belong to your family, and I’m not saying that because I’ve got conservative values, because I haven’t got conservative values … well, maybe my values are a bit conservative, but I’m not conservative, not at all. Where were we? That’s right, Emmi, you belong to your family, because that’s precisely where you belong, in your family. And I belong to Pamela, or she to me, doesn’t matter. No, no, I’m not going to send you a photograph of her. I won’t do it, I’d find it too … I’d be subjecting her to too much scrutiny, do you understand me, Emmi, why would I do that? She’s different from you, Emmi. But she loves me and we’ve made a decision, we’ll be happy, we suit each other well, we have a future, take my word for it. Can I write that to you? Are you cross with me?

  You and me, Emmi, we ought to have stopped all this long ago. This is no way to keep a diary, it’s intolerable. You’re always looking at me—you would write you’re always looking at me so, so, so … And I can see you looking at me when you say so, so, so. It doesn’t matter what I say, it doesn’t matter if I shut up for as long as I like, you’re still looking at me with your eyes/words. Every letter of your every word winks at me so, so, so, like so, like so, like so. Every syllable carries your gaze.

  Emmi, Emmi, what a bad winter that was. No Merry Christmas or Happy New Year from Emmi Rothner. I really thought it was over. After that night, you wrote THE END. That night, and then THE END—not the end, but THE END—well, that was too much. I wrote you off. Everything vanished, nothing was left. No diary. No day. It was a horribly empty time, let me tell you. But Pamela loves me, of that I am sure.

  Emmi, let me ask you, do you remember that night? We ought not to have done it. You were so angry, so bitter, so sad and yet so, so, so … Your breath on my face, in my eyes, it got under my skin. Could intimacy ever get more intimate? How often I had dreamed of that, always the same images. To be in such a close embrace and then to be turned to stone forever … And to feel nothing but your breath.

  But I’d better stop writing now. I’m slightly drunk, the wine is strong, with or without the alcohol. Fifteen nights to go, Emmi, I’ve counted them, then Pamela’s here. Then my new life will start, you say “phase,” I say life. But I don’t have conservative values, or just a bit. Your life is Bernhard and the children. Don’t cut yourself off. People who live their lives in phases lose the span, the scope, the meaning of the whole. They live in limp, meaningless little bits. In the end they miss out on everything. Cheers!

  And now, what the heck, now I’m going to give you a kiss, my dear diary. Don’t look at me like that!!! And please excuse emails like this. I’m not at my best at the moment, not even second best. And I’m slightly drunk. Not very, but slightly. So. Full stop. Finish. Send. The end, not THE END, just the end.

  Yours,

  Leo

  The following morning

  Subject: Fourteen nights to go

  Dear Leo,

  Your drunken outpourings are quite something! That was more than a flood of words, it was a proper torrent. You always let so much swirl about together. And yet sometimes when your closets burst open and your words are soaked in red wine, you can be quite the philosopher. Your observations about conservatism and life phases—the old teachers could learn something from those. I don’t know how to begin to respond. I don’t even know whether I should begin to respond. Is it worth it, for fourteen nights? I’ll have to ask my therapist. And you, you can get all that alcohol out of your head!

  Lots of love,

  Your ever-interfering diary

  Nine hours later

  Re: Our schedule

  Good evening Leo,

  Have the words on the screen stopped swimming? (Can you see my face in them?) If so, I have the following question, in my capacity as diary, concerning our schedule for the next two weeks (which could well be our last): What shall we do?

  1) Shall we do nothing, so that you can prepare for the arrival of “Pam” in peace? (And I quote: “But she loves me and we’ve made a decision, we’ll be happy, we suit each other well.” Incidental comment from Emmi: what a great decision!)

  2) Shall we keep writing to each other, as if there’s never been anything between you and your diary (and for that reason alone there never could be)? And our correspondence will cease the moment the plane lands from Boston, so that you can concentrate on the rest of your life, while I plunge into the next phase of mine or repeat the preceding one because my performance in it was mediocre?

  3) Or shall we meet one more time? You know, one of our notorious final meetings. Because, because, because … because nothing. Just because. What did we call it last summer?—“A fitting conclusion.” Shall we conclude this once and for all? I don’t think there’ll ever be a better opportunity.

  The following evening

  Subject: Thirteen nights to go

  Hi Leo,

  I see that you have opted for 1) without even consulting your diary. Or are you still thinking about it? Or are you just sober and silent? Come on, tell me!

  Emmi

  Two hours later

  Re:

  Sober, silent, and entirely at a loss.

  Ten minutes later

  Re:

  If you’re sober, drink. If you’re silent, say something. If you’re at a loss, ask me. That’s what your diary is for.

  Five minutes later

  Re:

  What should I be asking you?

  Six minutes later

  Re:

  Preferably ask me whatever it is that you want to know. And if you’re at a loss to the extent that you don’t know what you should ask because you haven’t a clue what you want to know, then ask me something else. (I learned how to construct sentences like that from you!)

  Three minutes later

  Re:

  O.K., Emmi. What are you wearing?

  One minute later

  Re:

  Well done, Leo! Considering you haven’t a clue what you want to know, that was a good, perfectly valid, and—one might even say—burning question!

  Fifty seconds later

  Re:

  Thank you. (I learned these questions from you!) So what are you wearing right now?

  Five minutes later

  Re:

  What are you expecting me to say? Nothing? Or rather: “Nothing!”? I hope you can live with the sad truth: I’m wearing a gray flannel pajama top. I’ve lost the bottoms that go with it, so I’ve replaced them with a light blue pair which keep falling down because the elastic’s gone. But I feel sorry for them because they’re on their own now. One foggy November night, the top that matches them went on ahead, in the washing machine at 195 degrees. To spare myself the sight of my pajama combo, I’m also wearing a coffee-bean brown terry-cloth bathrobe from Eduscho. Does that make you feel better in yourself?

  Fifteen minutes later

  Re:

  And if we do meet again, Emmi, what do you imagine might happen?

  Three minutes later

  Re:

  There you go, you see? This last question shows a marked improvement on the previous one. You must have been inspired by my outfit.

  Two minutes later

  Re:

  Go on, what do you imagine might happen?

  Eight minutes later

  Re:

  You can say “will,” Leo, you don’t have to keep forcing yourself to say “might.” I realize you’re far from
wanting to meet me a fourth time. And I do understand that completely. With “Pam” just around the corner, I expect you’re terrified of another nighttime sex attack from me, which you might not want to have to fend off. (You’re not the only one who likes the conditional tense!) But I can put your mind at rest: that’s not what I imagine “might” happen this time, dear Leo.

  One minute later

  Re:

  So what then?

  Fifty seconds later

  Re:

  The way you imagine it.

  Thirty seconds later

  Re:

  But I’m not imagining anything, Emmi, at least not anything in particular.

  Twenty seconds later

  Re:

  That’s just what I’m imagining too.

  Fifty seconds later

  Re:

  I don’t know, dear Emmi. If I’m being honest, I somehow can’t imagine that a “final” meeting would be a good idea if neither of us can imagine what might happen. I think we ought to stick to writing. That way we can allow ourselves to be more expansive with our imaginations.

  Forty seconds later

  Re:

  There you go again, dear Leo. Now you’re not coming across as the least bit clueless. Or silent. But still sober, unfortunately. I don’t think I’ll ever get used to that. Good night, sleep well. I’m shutting down now.

  Thirty seconds later

  Re:

  Good night, Emmi.

  The following evening

  Subject: Twelve nights to go

  Hi Leo,

  My therapist has explicitly and emphatically advised me not to meet you in this current phase (which is neither your best nor my second best). Have you two been talking?

  Two hours later

  Subject: Am I right?

  You’re there. Am I right?

  And you read my email. Am I right?

  You just don’t know what to say anymore. Am I right?

  Because you don’t have a clue what to do with me. Am I right?