Auster, Man in the Dark #3

When was the first time you saw her?

April fourth, nineteen fifty-five –- at two-thirty in the afternoon.

For real?

For real.

Where were you?

Broadway. Broadway and One Hundred-fifteenth Street, walking uptown on my way to Butler Library. Sonia went to Juilliard, which was near Columbia at the time, and she was walking downtown. I must have spotted her about half a block away, probably because she was wearing a red coat –- red jumps out at you, especially on a city street, with nothing but drab bricks and stones in the background. So I catch sight of the red coat coming toward me, and then I see that the person wearing the coat is a short girl with dark hair. […] Her head is bobbing around a little bit, as if she’s humming to herself, and that there’s a certain bounce to her step, a lightness in the way she moves, and I say to myself, This girl is happy, happy to be alive and walking down the street in the crisp, sun-drenched air of early spring. A few seconds later, her face begins to acquire more definition, and I see that she’s wearing bright red lipstick, and then, as the distance between us continues to narrow, I simultaneously absorb two important facts. One: that she is indeed humming to herself –- a Mozart aria, I think, but can’t be certain –- and not only is she humming, she has the voice of a real singer. Two: that she’s sublimely attractive, perhaps even beautiful, and that my heart is about to stop beating.

Paul Auster, Man in the Dark