I turned away, trying to pretend that I was interested in the restaurant's decor. I had been feeling like a frog, and suddenly I was a princess again.
I want to believe what you're saying, I thought to myself. It won't change anything, but at least I won't feel so weak, so incapable.
"I apologize for my outburst," I said.
He smiled, signa
led to the waiter, and paid the check.
On the way back to the car, I became confused again. Maybe it was the sun--but no, it was autumn, and the sun was weak. Perhaps the old man--but he disappeared a while ago.
All this was so new to me. Life takes us by surprise and orders us to move toward the unknown--even when we don't want to and when we think we don't need to.
I tried to concentrate on the scenery, but I couldn't focus on the olive groves, the village atop the mountain, the chapel with the old man at the gate. All of it was so unfamiliar.
I remembered how much I'd drunk the day before and the song he had sung:
Las tardecitas de Buenos Aires tienen este no se...
Que se yo?
Viste, sali de tu casa, por Arenales...
Why sing of the nights of Buenos Aires, when we were in Bilbao? I didn't live on a street called Arenales. What had gotten into him?
"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 familiar with--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.
I'm going crazy, I told myself. I must be an alcoholic, drinking so much two days in a row. He knows all the tricks. He's controlling me, leading me along with his sweetness.
"I admire the battle you are waging with your heart," he had said at the restaurant.
But he was wrong. Because I had fought with my heart and defeated it long ago. I was certainly not going to become passionate about something that was impossible. I knew my limits; I knew how much suffering I could bear.
"Say something," I demanded, as we walked back to the car.
"What?"
"Anything. Talk to me."
So he began to tell me about the visions of the Virgin Mary at Fatima. I don't know why he came up with that, but the story of the three shepherds who had spoken to the Virgin distracted me.
My heart relaxed. Yes, I know my limits, and I know how to stay in control.
WE ARRIVED AT NIGHT in a fog so dense we could hardly see where we were. I could make out only a small plaza, a lamppost, some medieval houses barely illuminated by the yellow light, and a well.
"The fog!" he exclaimed.
I couldn't understand why he was so excited.