Every Seventh Wave by Daniel Glattauer Page A

yourself for. And me, I don’t have anything to reproach you for either, unfortunately. I really don’t. You can’t reproach a mind. You’re not palpable, Mr. Leike, you’re not tangible. You’re not real. You’re just my wife’s fantasy, an illusion of unlimited emotional happiness, an other-worldly rapture, a utopia of love, but all built out of words. I’m impotent against this; all I can do is wait until fate is merciful and turns you at last into a being of flesh and blood, a man with contours, with strengths and weaknesses, something to aim at. Only when my wife can see you as she sees me, as someone vulnerable, an imperfect creation, an example of that flawed being which is man; only when you have met face-to-face will your superiority vanish. Only then can I compete with you on an equal footing, Mr. Leike. Only then can I fight for Emma.
    My wife once wrote to you, “Leo, please don’t force me to open my family album.” But now I find myself obliged to do it in her stead. When we met, Emma was twenty-three and I was her piano teacher at the Academy of Music, fourteen years her senior, happily married and the father of two delightful children. A car accident destroyed our family—our three-year-old was traumatized, the elder one badly injured. I suffered permanent injuries, and the children’s mother, my wife Johanna, died. Without the piano I would have fallen apart. But music when it’s played is life itself—nothing can remain dead forever. If you’re a musician and you play music, you live out memories as if they were happening now. Music helped me pull myself back together. And then there were my pupils, there was a distraction, there was a job to do, there was meaning. And then, out of the blue, there was Emma. This lively, sparkling, sassy, gorgeous young woman began—all by herself—to pick up the pieces of our life, without expecting anything in return. Extraordinary people like her are put onto this Earth to counter sadness. They are few and far between. I don’t know how I deserved it, but suddenly she was there by my side. The children ran straight to her, and I fell head over heels in love with her.
    What about her? Mr. Leike, I bet you’re wondering, “But what about Emma?” Did she, this 23-year-old student, fall equally in love with this sorrowful old knight, soon to be forty, who was being kept together by little more than keys and notes? I can’t answer this question, not to you, nor even to myself. How much was it down to her admiration for my music? (I was very successful at the time, an acclaimed pianist.) How much was pity, sympathy, a desire to help, the capacity to be there through the bad times? How much did I remind her of her father, who left her when she was so young? How much of it was her doting on my sweet Fiona and little, golden Jonas? To what extent was it my own euphoria reflected in her, to what extent did she love my boundless love for her, rather than love me? How much did she relish the certainty that I would never be unfaithful, a guaranteed lifetime of dependability, the assurance of my eternal loyalty? Please believe me, Mr. Leike, I would never have dared get close to her if I had not felt that her feelings for me were as strong as mine for her. It was obvious that she felt drawn to me and the children; she wanted to be part of our world, an influential part, a definitive part, the center. Two years later we got married. That was eight years ago. (I’m sorry, I’ve just ruined your game of hide-and-seek: the “Emmi” you know is thirty-four years young.) Not a day passed without my astonishment at having this vital young beauty at my side. And every day I waited in trepidation for “it” to happen, for a younger man to appear, one of the many who have admired and idolized her. And Emma would say, “Bernhard, I’ve fallen in love with somebody else.