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mean, it would explain why you write the way you do. Because then you’d look like someone who writes the way you do. I’d badly like to know what someone who writes the way you do looks like. And that would explain it.
    Speaking of explaining things: I don’t want to tell you about my husband. You’re welcome to tell me about all your girlfriends (if you’ve got any that aren’t in your in-box). I could give you some good advice; I’m brilliant at empathizing with women, because I am one, after all. But my husband . . . O.K., I’ll tell you: we have a fantastic, harmonious relationship and two children (he was kind enough to bring them with him, to spare me the pregnancies). We don’t really keep secrets from each other. I’ve told him that I’ve been emailing a “nice language psychologist.” He asked me whether I wanted to meet you. I said I didn’t. Then he said: So what’s it all about, then? I said: Nothing. He said: I see. And that was it. He didn’t ask any more questions, and I didn’t want to tell him more either. I don’t want to talk about him any further, O.K.?
    So, my dear snow bear, over to you: What do you look like? Tell me. Please!!!
    All best,
    Emmi
    The next day
    Subject: Test
    Dear Emmi,
    I’m finding it hard to resist your hot-and-cold emails. Who’s actually paying us for the time we’re whiling away here together (or not together)? And how can you fit it in with your career and your family? I assume that your two children have at least three chipmunks or similar to keep them busy. Where do you find the time for such an intense and full-on correspondence with a strange snow bear?
    So you’re dead set on knowing what I look like? O.K., here’s a suggestion. I propose a game. A crazy game, admittedly, but you ought to get to know another side of me. I bet that out of, let’s say, twenty women I could identify the one and only Emmi Rothner, whereas you’d never guess the real Leo Leike among the same number of men. Do you want to take a crack at this experiment? If you agree we’ll work out how we do it.
    Have a nice afternoon,
    Leo
    Fifty minutes later
    Re: Test
    Definitely, let’s do it! What a daredevil you are! This is what I think, but you’re not to hold it against me: I don’t think I’m going to find you at all attractive, dear Leo. Almost definitely not, as I don’t find that many men good-looking apart from a few exceptions (mainly gay). Quite the opposite—but I don’t want to go into that just now. So you think you’ll be able to recognize me straight off? In that case you must have a mental image of me already. What was it you said? “Forty-two years old, petite and bubbly, short dark hair.” Well, good luck to you if you think you’ll spot me from that! So how should we do this? Shall we send each other twenty photos, with one of ourselves among them?
    All best,
    Emmi
    Two hours later
    Re: Test
    Dear Emmi,
    I suggest that we meet in person without knowing it, i.e., we should stay in a crowd. We could go to Huber, the big café in Ergelstrasse, for example. You must know it. There’s always a very mixed crowd in there. We could choose a window of two hours—perhaps one Sunday afternoon?—when we’d both have to be there. If there’s a constant stream of people coming and going we won’t draw attention to the fact that we’re trying to suss each other out.
    As for possible disappointment on your part—if my appearance doesn’t check all the boxes—maybe even after our encounter we shouldn’t reveal what we really look like. The most interesting thing is whether and how one of us thinks we’ve recognized the other, not what we both actually look like. I’ll say it again: I don’t want to know what you look like. I just want to recognize you. And I will. What’s more, I no longer think my