Love Virtually (19 page)

I was with Mia yesterday evening and late into the night. It was the best time we'd had together for years. And do you know why? (This is mean, I know, but you have to hear it.) It was our best time together because at long last I was unhappy. Mia said I seemed the same as ever, the only difference being that this time I admitted I was unhappy, to myself as well as to her. And for that she's grateful. Sounds pretty sad, doesn't it?

Mia thinks that I've fallen in love with you in a peculiar way—through words. She says I can't live without you at the moment, at least not happily. And she says she can understand why. Awful, isn't it? But I love my husband too. I honestly do. I chose him, him and his children, him and my children. I wanted this family and no other, and I still do. At the time it was a tragic situation, I'll tell you about it one day. (Have you noticed I'm talking about my family without you even asking . . .) Bernhard has never let me down, and he never will. He gives me all the freedom I want, and he responds to my every need. He's a very educated, unselfish, calm, lovely man. Of course you can feel suffocated by routine over time. Sometimes things are too ordered; there aren't enough surprises. We know each other inside out, and we have no more secrets from each other. Mia said, “Perhaps what you're after is the secrecy of it all. Perhaps you've fallen in love with a hot secret.” So I said, “What should I do? I can't suddenly turn Bernhard into a hot secret too.” What do
you
think, Leo? Can I turn Bernhard into a hot secret? Can I make a hot secret out of eight years of family life?

Oh Leo, Leo, Leo. Everything's
so hard
at the moment. I'm in a bad place. I've got no drive. I've got no passion. I've got no—Leo, the one and only Leo. I don't know where all this is going. I don't want to know. I don't even care. The main thing is that you write to me again soon. Please hurry up with your break from yourself. I want to drink wine with you again. I want you to want to kiss me again. (Was that a proper sentence?) I don't need real kisses. I need the man who's sometimes so desperate to kiss me that he has to write to tell me so. I need Leo. I feel so lonely with my whisky bottle. I've had so much whisky, Leo, have you noticed? How would it be, a life together with you? Would you still be desperate to kiss me after weeks, months, years—or would it last forever? I know I shouldn't be thinking like this. I'm happily married. But at the same time I feel unhappy. I'm probably contradicting myself. You're the contradiction, Leo. Thanks for listening. Just one more whisky. Good night, Leo. I miss you so much. I would even kiss you blindfolded. I really would. Right now.

Two days later

Subject: Not a word

Eighty-six degrees, and not a word from the man on a break from himself. I realize that my email from a couple of days ago was verging on painful. Was it too much for you, Leo? Believe me, it was the whisky! The whisky and me. What's deep inside me and what the whisky dragged out.

Longingly,

Emmi

The following day

Subject: (no subject)

A southerly wind—and still I'm tossing and turning in bed. A single syllable from you would send me straight to sleep. Good night, dear man-on-a-break-from-himself.

Two days later

Subject: My last message

This is the last email I'm going to send without hearing back. What you're doing to me is so harsh, Leo! Please stop, because it's hurting like hell. You can do anything you want, anything except keep up this silence.

The next day

Subject: Counter-message

Dear Emmi,

It only took me a few hours to make a life-changing decision. But it's taken me nine days to tell you the consequences. In a few weeks' time I'll be moving to Boston for at least two years. I'm going to be running a project group at the university there. The job is extremely attractive, both academically and financially. My circumstances permit me this spontaneity— there are only a few things here I'd have to give up. Moving halfway across the world must be in the blood. I'll miss a few close friends. I'll miss my sister Adrienne. And I'll miss . . . Emmi. Yes, I'll miss her particularly.

I've also made another decision. It sounds so harsh that my fingers are trembling in anticipation of having to tell you. O.K., here it comes, after this colon: I'm going to stop our email contact. I have to get you out of my head, Emmi. You can't be the first and last thought I have each day for the rest of my life. That's sick. You're “spoken for,” you have a family, you have duties, challenges, responsibilities. You're very attached to all that, and it's the world you're happy in. This you've made perfectly clear. (With a heady cocktail of whisky and longing it's possible to write oneself into an unhappy mood, like you did in your last long email, but the very next morning it's gone.) I'm certain your husband loves you, as only someone who's spent so many years living together with a woman can. Perhaps all you're missing is a touch of extramarital adventure playing out in your head, something cosmetic to brighten up your day-to-day emotional life. That's why you're so attached to me. That's what keeps our written relationship going. But instead of enriching your life in the long term I suspect it just creates more confusion.

Now, about me. I'm thirty-six years old (so now you know). I don't intend to spend my life with a woman who's only mine in my in-box. Boston will be a fresh start. All of a sudden I have this desire to meet a woman in a frightfully conventional way again. First I'll see her, then I'll hear her voice, then I'll smell her, then maybe I'll kiss her. The backward path we took was—and is—extremely exciting, but it doesn't lead anywhere. I've got to get rid of this mental block. For months now I've seen Emmi in every beautiful woman in the street. But none of them has been able to measure up to the real one, none of them has been able to compete. Because I've hidden my real Emmi far from public view. I've cut her off, isolated her, and kept her all for myself—in my computer. And that's where she's met me after work. She's waited for me there before, after, or instead of breakfast. She's wished me good night after a long evening together. Often she's stayed up with me until dawn, beside me, in my room, in my bed, secretly tucked under the covers. But the truth is she's remained unattainable in every phase of our relationship. The images I have of her are so delicate and frail that had I seen her in the flesh, they would surely have cracked and broken. This artificially generated Emmi has seemed to me so fragile that she would have shattered if I'd ever actually touched her. Physically she's been nothing more than the air between the computer keys that I've used to create her day by day. One puff and she would have been gone. Yes, that's what it's come to, Emmi. I'm going to close my in-box, I'm going to puff at my keyboard, I'm going to close the screen down. I'm going to say good-bye.

Yours,

Leo

The following day

Subject: You call that a good-bye?

Was that your final email? I can't believe it! I hereby lose all faith in final emails. I mean, Leo, hellOO! If you want to just disappear, I'm not expecting some kind of comic tour de force. But what the hell was that, a tragic farce? That's no good-bye! How do you want me to picture you as you melodramatically blow at your keyboard? O.K., fair enough, I've been letting myself go a little. And I've started to drone on a bit. My bubbly disposition has sometimes been as heavy as a sack of cement. Yup, I've been carrying around the cumbersome baggage of our electronic mail. I've fallen just a little bit in love with Mister Anonymous, it has to be said. Neither of us has been able to get the other quite out of our head—I think we're both guilty here. But that's no reason for us go on like we're some kind of virtual Tristan and Isolde.

Off you go to Boston, then. Sever email contact with me if you like. But don't finish it like that!! That's beneath you, both stylistically and emotionally, and it's way beneath my dignity, dear friend. Puffing on the keyboard? For God's sake, Leo! What a load of crap! It makes me wonder, “Is that how the guy spoke to me the whole time?”

Please prove to me that wasn't your last email. I'd rather have something more upbeat, something surprising, a finish with a flourish, a good punch line. How about: “To round things off I suggest we meet up!” At least that would be a funny ending. (And now, if you don't mind, I'm going to go and have a good weep.)

Five hours later

Re: You call that a good-bye?

Dear Emmi,

To round things off I suggest we meet up!

Five minutes later

Re: You call that a good-bye?

You're not serious?

One minute later

Re: You call that a good-bye?

Oh yes I am. I wouldn't joke about that, Emmi.

Two minutes later

Re: You call that a good-bye?

What am I supposed to make of that? Is that a whim? Is it because I gave you the right cue? Have I turned you from a melodramatist into a satirist?

Three minutes later

Re: You call that a good-bye?

No, Emmi, it's not a whim, it's a well-thought-out proposition. You just preempted me. Let me say it again. I'd like to conclude our email relationship with a meeting. One single encounter before I move to Boston.

Fifty seconds later

Re: You call that a good-bye?

One single encounter? What do you hope to gain from that?

Three minutes later

Re: You call that a good-bye?

Insight. Relief. Catharsis. Clarity. Friendship. The solution to a personality puzzle that I created and then blew out of all proportion. A clearing of blockages. Feeling good afterward. The best antidote to the north wind. A conclusion befitting this exciting phase in our lives. The simple answer to thousands of complicated, unresolved questions. Or, as you said yourself, “At least that would be a funny ending.”

Five minutes later

Re: You call that a good-bye?

I have a feeling it might not be at all funny.

Forty-five seconds later

Re: You call that a good-bye?

That depends on us.

Two minutes later

Re: You call that a good-bye?

On us? You're on your own there, Leo. I haven't agreed to a last-minute meeting at all, and quite frankly I'm a long way from doing so right now. First I'd like to know a bit more about this “first date/last date” meeting. Where do you want to meet?

Fifty-five seconds later

Re: You call that a good-bye?

Wherever you like, Emmi.

Forty-five seconds later

Re: You call that a good-bye?

And what will we do?

Forty seconds later

Re: You call that a good-bye?

Whatever we want.

Thirty-five seconds later

Re: You call that a good-bye?

What do we want?

Thirty seconds later

Re: You call that a good-bye?

That remains to be seen.

Three minutes later

Re: You call that a good-bye?

I think I'd rather get emails from Boston. Then we don't have to wait and see whether either of us wants anything. At least I know that I want something, and I know what it is: emails from Boston.

One minute later

Re: You call that a good-bye?

Emmi, I'm not going to write you emails from Boston. I'd like to stop it, really I would. I'm convinced it would be the best thing for both of us.

Fifty seconds later

Re: You call that a good-bye?

Then how long do you intend to keep on emailing me for?

Two minutes later

Re: You call that a good-bye?

Until we meet. Unless you say you definitely don't want to. Then this would be a kind of final sentence.

One minute later

Re: You call that a good-bye?

That's blackmail, Maestro! You can put things pretty crudely sometimes: just read your last email. I'm not sure I want to meet somebody who writes things like that. Good night.

The following morning

Subject: (no subject)

Good morning, Leo! I'm DEFINITELY NOT going to meet up with you in Café Huber.

One hour later

Re:

We don't have to. But why not?

One minute later

Re:

Because it's the kind of place you meet up with coworkers or chance acquaintances.

Two minutes later

Re:

Chance acquaintances? Who could be better qualified for that than us?

Fifty seconds later

Re:

Have you maintained that attitude throughout our correspondence, beginning, middle, and end? If so, I suggest we don't have this chance, ephemeral meeting.

The following day

Subject: (no subject)

What exactly is the matter with you, Leo? Why are your emails so boorish and obstructive all of a sudden? Why are you disparaging “our story”? Are you actually
trying
to be insensitive and vicious? Is this an attempt to make your exit easier to stomach?

Two and a half hours later

Re:

I'm sorry, Emmi, I'm at my wits' end trying to get “our story” out of my head. I've already explained why I need to do it. I realize that since “Boston” my emails have sounded horribly impersonal. I hate writing like this, but I'm forcing myself to. I don't want to invest any more emotion into “our story.” I don't want to continue building things up before I let it all collapse. All I really want now is this meeting. I think it would do us both good.

Two minutes later

Re:

And what happens if we want to meet a second time?

Four minutes later

Re:

As far as I'm concerned that's not a possibility. I mean, I've already excluded it as a possibility. I want to meet just this once, to give “our story” the ending it deserves before I go to America.

Fifteen minutes later

Re:

And what would you consider that to be? Or to put another way, how would you like me to remember you after we've met: