…from a River, they call.
“What was that song you were singing yesterday?” I asked.
“Balada para un loco” he said. “Why do you ask about it now?
“I don’t know.”
But I had a reason: I knew he’d sung the song as a kind of snare. He’d made me memorize the words, just as I would memorize course work for an examination. He could have sung a song I was familiarwith—but he’d chosen one I’d never heard before.
It was a trap. Later, if I heard the song played on the radio or at a club, I’d think of him, of Bilbao, and of a time in my life when autumn turned to spring. I’d recall the excitement, the adventure, and the child who was reborn out of God knows where.
That’s what he was thinking. He was wise, experienced; he knew how to woo the woman he wanted.
If you’ve read the book, this is one of my favorite line. Wooing is overrated now. Anything done and said out of the ordinary makes you raise an eyebrow and go, “And you’re doing that because…?”
Jaded, perhaps.
Or just cynical.
You were into the downloading of a song, the perfect detailed description of that was and the ever reminder of our signs.
Bound to blow in my face the next time.
Are you going to make me fall in love with you again?
