Missão / Mission

Chegava sempre à mesma hora.

Colocava a banqueta e a tela no mesmo sítio, sempre. Sentava-se, tirava os pincéis. Começava a misturar as tintas. Rodava um pouco a tela – talvez para melhor a ajustar à luz.

Parava e esperava.

E, depois, quase sempre à mesma hora, pintava durante mais ou menos 15 minutos.

No início eram pinceladas largas, depois começaram a ser mais minuciosas.

Poisava os pincéis, arrumava-os, às tintas, ficava um pouco ali, imagino que a deixar os traços do dia secarem.

Pegava então por fim na tela, na maleta e na banqueta. Levanta-se, para voltar no dia seguinte, à mesma hora.

Mas houve um dia que não voltou. No dia seguinte e no outro e no outro também não.

Parecia ter cumprido a sua missão, mas qual ela era, eu nunca saberia.

Marta tinha chegado a casa havia pouco tempo, chovia lá fora, não parecia temporal, apenas aquela chuva que bate baixinho na janela e nos embala a preguiça.

Ouviu bater à porta.

Lá estava um homem – que achava já ter visto antes, mas não sabia onde.

Na mão trazia uma tela que lhe entregou. “É para ti, quero que te vejas como eu te vejo.”

Na tela viu o seu rosto, mas ao mesmo tempo um rosto que nunca tinha visto antes ao espelho.

Olhou para ele e sorriu.

E então ele desapareceu.

***

He always arrived at the same time.

He would place the stool and the canvas in the same place, always. He sat, pulled the brushes. Then would begin to mix the paints. Turn the canvas a bit - perhaps to better adjust to the light.

He stopped and waited.

And then, almost at the same time, he painted for about 15 minutes.

First there were broad brushstrokes, then they began to be more thorough.

He would lay down the brushes, arrange them, the paints, and would stay there for a bit, I imagine he was waiting for the traces of the day to dry up.

Then finally he picked the canvas, the suitcase and the stool. He got up, just to go back the next day, same time.

But then there was a day that he did not return. The next day and the next and the next either.

He seemed to have accomplished his mission, but what that was, I would never know.

Marta had arrived home a little time ago, it rained outside, it didn’t seemed like a storm, only the rain hitting the window softly, cradling her laziness.

She heard knocking.

At the door it was a man – who she thought she had seen before but did not know where.

He was holding a canvas that he gave her. "It's for you, I want you see yourself as I see you."

On the painting she saw her face, but at the same time a face that she had never seen in a mirror before.

She looked at him and smiled.

And then he disappeared.