海角大神

Love letters on my laptop

Our marriage began with a courtship in Times New Roman.

I find the love letters exactly where I left them: in a folder in an old Hotmail account. Years ago, I named that folder 鈥淗ome.鈥�

I must have weeded those e-mails out of my main inbox on a not-very-busy morning in Harare, Zimbabwe, sitting in front of a clunky desktop computer in the thatched round cottage that was our first home together.

鈥淗ome鈥� is not a big folder. We got married six months after we met. Three of those months we spent mostly together: first in Zimbabwe, where he lived, and then in Paris, where I was working. That didn鈥檛 leave much time for writing each other heartfelt missives of love and longing.

And yet. Quickly I scroll through the subject lines. The door to my office is open. I can hear my husband clanking the lid down on a saucepan. 鈥淧lump Pigeons,鈥� reads one of them 鈥� oh yes, I remember. 鈥淐orrection to Clarity.鈥� 鈥淟ots of PSes.鈥�

I used to buy phone cards to call my soon-to-be-husband in Harare every night after my editing shift at a French news agency was over. I鈥檇 wait my turn in line outside the phone booths near the Sacr茅-Coeur, then tap +263 (the calling code for Zimbabwe), and hold my breath for the connection.

I think I did most of the talking.

Those 鈥淧Ses鈥� were things he hadn鈥檛 had a chance to say during five-minute, $15 conversations.

He calls now from the kitchen. 鈥淲hat do you put on the potatoes?鈥�

I direct him to the turmeric and turn back to my laptop.

There it is, right at the bottom of the list, dated July 28, 2000. The first message he ever sent me. I鈥檇 landed in Paris a day earlier, back from the reporting trip that my editor certainly hadn鈥檛 intended to become a matchmaking mission.

I skim through the message, grinning again at the way the man I would marry 鈥� whose precise writing I still love 鈥� poked fun at his 鈥減onderous prose.鈥�

Now that I try to count those e-mails, my cursor slipping up and down, I see that there are more than 40 of them.

Each one was crafted thoughtfully, every single word weighed before he pressed Send. In contrast, my messages to him were news briefs, three- or four-paragraph replies banged out at the end of my shift.

I did not have a computer in the tiny flat I rented, with its view that stretched out as far as the Tour Montparnasse. I had to read his messages quickly, reviewing the passages I鈥檇 managed to memorize on the metro ride home.

There is a wail from a bedroom. The wooden beads that our 3-year-old daughter is threading have slipped off the string. 鈥淢ummy is busy,鈥� I hear my husband say.

My mother鈥檚 love letters are in the bottom of a low chest of drawers by her bed. They are written on thick cream Basildon Bond paper in my father鈥檚 strong hand. Years ago, Mum must have decided to store them all in one place, just as I did. Hers are tied together, not in a virtual file but with a thin piece of ribbon.

She keeps them near to the flat burgundy box that holds her jewelry from the 1960s: a glittery brooch, the broken-off buckle from a belt.

My mother likes to be able to hold her letters. When I started to e-mail her from university, she said she preferred 鈥渓etters I can take out of my handbag.鈥�

I think about her words now as I stare at my love letters, neatly stacked by date and time in an electronic cupboard. Would I prefer them to have been written on paper?

I don鈥檛 think so. I might have mislaid them in a move or ruined them with water from a knocked-over cup. Online, they are as pristine as they were the day they were written.

Still, I鈥檓 not taking any chances. I select each message in turn and press Forward to send it to another e-mail account. No harm in having backup copies.

I close my laptop and get up from the desk. The spinach is ready. All I need to do is to mix in a bit of cheese, some stock, and two eggs and then slide the whole thing under the broiler.

Supper for four. That鈥檚 what my husband鈥檚 prose, painstakingly tapped out in Times New Roman, has led to.

鈥淚 found Dad鈥檚 love letters to me,鈥� I announce a little later, serving spoon in hand.

My husband snorts, secretly pleased. 鈥淒id you actually keep those things?鈥�

Sam, age 11, looks up from editing photos of his puppy. He鈥檚 not yet at the age of drafting love letters. Nor is he far enough into teenagerhood to find the idea of his parents having a life before him totally uninteresting.

I look at him. At some point, he, too, will live and love online.

鈥淥ne day I鈥檒l e-mail you a line or two so you can see it on your screen,鈥� I say.