But who is to blame for all this pain? I will leave this question unanswered, for I do not want to blaspheme.

Addendum I (March 8, 1989)

Still twenty-six days to go… Now I live in two parallel time structures, in two incompatible streams: one creeps at snail’s pace, and the other rushes headlong like mad. The demands on my time are mounting at MIT, and I will have to take care not to slip. But our time is hardly advancing at all. The two streams are tearing me apart—too fast and too slow at the same time.

Addendum II (March 8, 1989)

My love, I would like to tell you about the last glimpse I got of Chicago, from the plane, on my way back to Boston two days ago. My plane took off around four o’clock in the afternoon. It was very cold, proverbially windy, and overcast. It snowed intermittently the entire day. The clouds were low, and the plane soon went through them, reaching for the bright winter sky. I felt cheated out of seeing Chicago from the air. But exactly when we were above the city, the clouds beneath us cleared and the afternoon sun projected into the lake the long shadows of skyscrapers lined up along the Lake Shore Drive. The shadows stood stark and jagged on the wide swath of ice and snow that the unrelenting wind pushed up against the shore. The Sears and Hancock Towers looked almost ominous in this light—giants among giants in awkward armor. The long column of dark and clumsy prisms stood in defense of the hinterland, where many a small building huddled in the wind’s shadow. From my fickle vantage point, Chicago appeared united against the common enemy.

Addendum III (March 9, 1989)

Your reference to my “almost Persian and womanly” eyes touched me deeply. Of course, I immediately thought of Prince Ling, who took to wearing a ferocious mask because his enemies were not afraid of him in battle. For this and many other reasons, I felt very proud of your choice of words.

Addendum IV (March 9, 1989)

A minute ago I met the dark-haired woman from MIT who was embarrassed by our uninhibited performance at La Piccola Venezia. Remember? She was there with her boyfriend, also from MIT. I forgot her name. Anyway, we found ourselves at two sides of an empty corridor, walking toward each other, so there was no way for her to avoid me. Hands deep in my pockets, even whistling for a brief moment, I walked nonchalantly toward her. My suit of armor glistened in the poorly lit corridor. She slunk along the wall. When I greeted her, she produced a small but friendly smile, and a barely audible hello. The ugly side of this story is that I almost enjoyed her predicament. To wit: I am not favorably inclined toward those who tend to be embarrassed by something as beautiful as love between two human beings, no matter who the protagonists may be (including recent alumnae and teachers).

Addendum V (March 9, 1989)

As you can see, I am with you most of the time. Quite literally, too. I hope that I will soon learn how to allocate my time in such a way that I can accomplish a thing or two besides writing to you. I cannot focus on anything else. At this moment the situation is quite out of control: after every “interruption,” I find myself running back to my room to add a few words to this monster-letter, or just to reread something I had written before. A classical example of monomania.

When I am at home, I listen only to the Gyütö monks from Tibet. Everything else tires me. The tantric chants help me live in a kind of vacuum—with you, but still without a thought. Pure and unadulterated waiting, waiting without a remainder, waiting for the sake of waiting, waiting as such…

But, it crosses my mind in a flash, this is such a wrong way to live one’s life. One ought to be able to live from minute to minute, from day to day. One ought to be able to just live. I am almost ashamed of my inability to conceive of life without you, let alone to live a life without you. Damnation: there are so many things I still have to learn.

This brings me back to the Buddhist parable about a man, two tigers, a vine, two mice, and a strawberry. I suppose you remember reading it one evening at my place. Now that the strawberry is also gone, I will have to reach deeper, much deeper. Fractile strawberries must be strewn along this marvelous path. Buddha be praised!

Addendum VI (March 11, 1989)

Yesterday evening I went to Cafe Sushi for a quick dinner. I feel at home there. The waiter from Hong Kong was there, too, and he asked me whether you had already left. We chatted a little bit. He consoled me with a few words to the effect that you will be back soon. All this was very soothing. But when I left the place and started walking home, I felt an ever sharper need for you. Soon I started chanting your name. By the time I got home I was quite lost. The need was quite painful. I started feeling feverish. So, I brushed my teeth and went directly to bed. It was not yet nine o’clock, but I could not face anything else except the bed. I kept repeating your name, which gradually turned into a pleading moan. The accumulated sorrow finally broke out, and I started crying. I cried myself to sleep, like an infant.

I am somewhat ashamed of all this, of my apparent weakness, but not enough to hide it from you. Besides, I like Persian stories about princes and princesses, and I especially like the fact that I am displaying all the symptoms of love-sickness characteristic of enamored princes who, for one reason or another, cannot get to those they love so passionately. In some strange way, I am enjoying myself in direct proportion to my pain. But the real reason I am writing about my predicament in gory detail is that I am carefully preparing the ground for a few additional words about the events yesterday evening—about something that I certainly do not associate with being unhappy and crying: I got an enormous erection. Imagine this situation: I am dying from grief, sobbing, and all of a sudden I feel this thing nudging its way between my legs—like an ingratiating puppy eager to console its distraught master. In retrospect, this strikes me as very funny.

Addendum VII (March 12, 1989)

There was much excitement last night in my immediate neighborhood. Around midnight I was woken by shouting, banging and clanging, and crying right outside my door. It sounded very much like a garbage truck being unloaded on my doormat. By the time I came to the door and surveyed the scene through the peephole, the dramatic effects had subsided considerably. Having been designed for other purposes, the peephole afforded a rather poor view of the world. I could see my next-door neighbor—a dentist who likes to rebuild racing car engines in his living room—talking in a booming voice to a woman lounging on the floor, her legs still in his apartment. The woman’s position suggested the method whereby she got there, as well as the sounds that woke me up. He was saying things like, “Don’t you dare come into my apartment,” and “Get your fucking feet out of my doorway,” and “Stay there and I will bring your keys,” and “Don’t move a fucking muscle before I come back.” She would occasionally say a few soothing words, but she spoke so softly that I could not understand a thing. At some point the fellow went in, presumably to fetch the keys. But, as soon as he disappeared from the scene, the woman got up—very nimbly, I must say—and went straight in. I expected an avalanche of abuse, but everything was quiet. A minute or so later they appeared at the door. He was helping her with her coat. They were silent. Then they embraced. He started saying something in a pleading, inarticulate voice. Then he started crying, sobbing. And then they returned to his apartment, still embraced, and they slammed the door behind them. That was it for the night. The show was over. Laughing my head off, I returned to my bed. I felt quite cold.

The moral of this story is that it is very instructive, and maybe even sobering, to see the effects of love on others. No doubt there is a little bit of truth in the classic notion that love is a form of temporary insanity.

Addendum VIII (March 13, 1989)

Twenty-one day to go… Again, is it only or still three weeks to go? I am not sure. It has been too long already. I feel like a survivor of something indescribable.

I go to sleep ever earlier. I sleep longer and longer. Sleeping is the oldest avoidance mechanism, too. Nevertheless, I end up in my office very early in the morning. Mornings are comparatively easy. Evenings are so hard. Nights are horrible, unbearable. I do my best to avoid them altogether.

Addendum IX (March 14, 1989)

I think I should add a few words about my letters to you and my notes about you. You should know that this is not something that I do as a matter of course. True, there are a few traces of my love-affairs in my personal notes, but they are very few and far between. There are some love-letters I have written in the past, but they are very rare. The avalanche you have experienced in small part is unprecedented. I have never loved anyone else with such intensity and such devotion. I have never felt such a strong need to express my love, to understand it, and to nurture it. My love for you is in so many respects new and fresh. For that reason I experience it as my first love.

Dearest woman, you are indeed special. There is not a trace of exaggeration in my words. If there is a mismatch between my feelings and my words, it is always in the other direction: my words so painfully fail to express what I feel for you. In part this is attributable to my poor skill, but in part this is because our language, our human language, is so much better endowed on the side of hatred than on the side of love. We are all punished for our inability to express love and happiness that so few ever experience in such a great measure as we do now. My dearest woman, I long to express what I feel for you to the point of pain…

Addendum X (March 14, 1989)

I am going about my various duties, from room to room, propelled by so much love that I do not mind or even feel any of the impediments I may encounter. Everything is fine with me, because you exist, because you are. The warmth of your being is my fuel, my shield, my sword, my very soul. You are everything, and through you I am, too. Through you I grow, and we spread from room to room to room, invading the entire world. My lady, we are the biggest of lovers.

Addendum XI (March 15, 1989)

Between meetings, I rushed to my room for a brief moment to kiss your belly, to slobber your ears, to blow into your rosebud, to pick your nose, to caress your inner thighs, to tickle your navel, to nibble at your nipples, to pinch your ass, to suck your thumbs, to sniff at your armpits, to scratch your back up and down your spine, to lick the soles of your feet, to stick my fingers into your mouth, to bite your lips… But I must rush along. I love you, dear woman. I love you so much.

Addendum XII (March 16, 1989)

Looking back over this letter, I find it somewhat too lascivious for my taste, or perhaps for my “standard” mood. My feelings toward you are dominated by tenderness—including its many physical forms, of course. In connection with you, the notion of sheer physical desire is outright repulsive to me. Although I may feel somewhat raw toward you at times, I feel uneasy when I see traces of such feelings on paper because they tend to stand out too much in relation to the context of great tenderness I feel for you. Put differently, the form my letters to you have taken tends to isolate, and thus to accentuate, different episodes of desire a bit too much. I hope this makes sense to you. I also hope that you will forgive me for occasional lapses into obscenity.

Addendum XIII (March 16, 1989)

My love for you has effectively destroyed my nearly perfect self-sufficiency, that is, my ability to focus all of my needs into a domain that I can control without a remainder. My freedom was almost complete, albeit largely negative—freedom from, rather than for. Marko provided practically the only bridge to the world, the only contact with need and thus with pain.

The bond created by our love, wonderful as it is, has brought back the need. In addition, our separation has created a need of tremendous proportions. These days I have become a creature of pure need—need that cannot be satisfied, need as such, need sans phrase. Although I have occasionally suffered much while you were here, that suffering could always be removed at your will. It was sufficient for me to spend a few minutes with you for the need to vanish. Miraculously, I would come back to life by holding you tight, by letting you hold me tight.

True, your letters and your calls serve a similar rôle in this period. I know you feel the same about my letters and our telephone conversations. Our communications are literally soothing. While we are on the phone, for example, the universe is humming along without a glitch. The healing effect of our “encounters” lasts for a day or so, and then the need reasserts itself anew. It seems that the immensity of the void is becoming more and more oppressive after each respite. Its blackness is ever harder to endure because it has been witnessed too many times. Even a small pain can become unendurable if it is encountered over and over again.

I need you! My need is clawing at my entrails like a hungry animal. It refuses to continue listening to reason. It cannot. It does not plead any more. It demands. My need has become wild. Without you I will go mad. Without you nothing makes any sense.

Addendum XIV (March 17, 1989)

You are the very center of the world I inhabit. You are the sweetest of bitches that has ever roamed this planet. You are my light and my darkness. You are everything this universe has to offer. You are love itself—vibrant, fresh, succulent. Dearest woman, dearest woman, I am running out of words that can give you an idea, a bare idea, of how I feel about you. All my words are mere shadows of my feelings for you. So, when I say “I love you,” you must add and elaborate and embroider as much as you possibly can, you must exaggerate the meaning of my words to the point of making them outrageous and ridiculous, you must strain every muscle and nerve to make my words more powerful and potent. For without your help my words will remain small and inconsequential, mere shadows…

Addendum XV (March 19, 1989)

There are so many things to tell you, my love, and there is so much time to tell it in, but the words become so wooden when they are spoken over such a horrible distance. Both in space and in time, the distance oppresses me like a debilitating illness. My words limp and stumble because I cannot touch you, hold you. Even the most laconic whisper, “I love you,” could tell you so much more about me and you if I could only grind it slowly into your ear while holding your breasts from behind. And you could respond by simply closing your eyes, leaning your head backward, and resting it on my shoulder and my neck. We would be one, and yet not a word would be needed. Perhaps all you would feel like adding would be a barely audible moan, “Mmmmm.” Sweet woman, do not be surprised if I turn deaf and mute when you come back to me.

Addendum XVI (March 20, 1989)

Now that I have stolen a few minutes to write you a word or two, the only thing I am able to do is sit and stare at the screen. My mind is pitilessly blank. My horizons have shrunk to the size of a shoe. And it is already time to return to my quotidian chores. But, mind you, without these chores I would go mad in less than a week. My chores are the only anchor to reality…

Addendum XVII (March 21, 1989)

Goodbye, my love. I find it so difficult to tear myself from you, but I must. It is time to finish writing. My greatest love, there will be no end to our glory. There will be no end to our love.