Free Love Virtually by Daniel Glattauer Page A

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
    Three days later
    Subject: Break over!
    Dear Emmi,
    We’ve now had a three-day break from emailing. I think we can slowly resume our correspondence. I hope you have a good day at work. I’m thinking of you a lot, in the mornings, in the afternoons, in the evenings, at night, in the periods in between and just before and after—and also during.
    Love,
    Leo
    Ten minutes later
    Re: Break over!
    M (Ma-Mae-Maes-Maest . . .) Dear Leo,
    YOU might have had a break from emailing, but I haven’t! I’ve been hard at work watching you take your email break. And I’ve been waiting for you to finish your email break. I’ve been getting quite impatient. But it’s been worth it. Here you are again, and you’re thinking of me. That’s nice. Are you well? Do you have the time and the inclination for a glass of wine with me later on this evening? Not together, of course. I mean you and your fantasy Emmi. And me and my virtual Leo. And we can write to each other a bit while we’re at it.
    Do you like the idea?
    Eight minutes later
    Re: Break over!
    Yes, Emmi, let’s do that. Is your B. (Be, Ber, Bern, Bernh), is your husband out in the evening?
    Three minutes later
    Re: Break over!
    You just love asking me questions like that, don’t you? It always sounds a bit like you want to punish me for being happily married. No, Bernhard is at home in the evening. He’ll either be in his study preparing work for tomorrow. Or he’ll be sitting on his sofa reading. Or he’ll be asleep in his bed. He’s usually asleep by midnight. Is that a good enough answer?
    Six minutes later
    Re: Break over!
    Yes, perfectly adequate, thank you! Whenever you talk about your husband, Emmi, it always sounds as if you want to prove that you can lead separate and independent lives, if, or although, or precisely because, you’re married. You don’t write “in the study,” but “in HIS study.” He doesn’t sit “on our sofa,” but “on HIS sofa.” He doesn’t even lie “in our bed,” but “in HIS bed.”
    Four minutes later
    Re: Break over!
    Dear Leo,
    You’re not going to believe this, but at our house we really do have our own studies, our own sofas and yes, even our own beds. You see, funnily enough we also have our own lives.
    Does that shock you?
    Twenty-five seconds later
    Re: Break over!
    Why do you live together then?
    Eighteen minutes later
    Re: Break over!
    You’re so sweet, Leo! You’re as naive as a twenty-year-old. We don’t pin “Keep Out” signs to our study doors, our sofas are not for “authorized personnel only.” Our beds don’t carry the warning “Beware—it bites!” Each of us has our own domain, but we’re also very welcome to enter each other’s. As you and I put it only recently, we’re welcome to “intrude into each other’s private life.” So now you’ve found out a bit more about my marriage.
    Thirty seconds later
    Re: Break over!
    And how old are the children?
    Thirty-five minutes later
    Re: Break over!
    Fiona is sixteen, Jonas eleven. And “my Bernhard” is considerably older than I am. So, my dear Leo, that brings us to the end of your lesson about my family. If it’s all the same to you, I’d rather leave the children out of our exchanges. A few months ago you said you found talking to me was like a kind of “Marlene therapy.” (Of course I don’t know whether that’s still the case—perhaps you could let me know one of these days!) For me writing to you and reading your emails is like non-family time. It’s a little island