When Lukas was old enough, he left. Shielded by the brim of a hat, supplied by a pack of provisions, guided with his hand on his sheepdog’s head. He walked until he found the artist’s bridge, the one the teacher once spoke about at school. He found a bench near one foot of the stone arch, his ears soothed by sounds of moving water and voices. From the bag he took out his father’s paints, the blank pages he passed on.
For weeks and months he painted amongst the greatest budding artists of the city, poor ordinary folk who aspired to greatness. He listened to the passing voices, painted the faces he heard. His colors became precise, his shapes blurred, his strokes swift and sure. One day a young couple stopped by the bench and spotted the man running his hands over a blank canvas. A sheepdog lay at his feet, bushy tail pounding the earth. The artist wore large sunglasses to protect his face from the noonday sun,
“Would you care to paint my portrait?” the young woman asked.
He looked up in her general direction, and his face softened at the shyness of her request.
“Yes,” he told her. “Stand wherever you like, however you wish. Only, make sure to keep talking.”
So the woman stood, her back to the water and her face towards the artist, leaning back against the stone railings of the ancient bridge to better accentuate the toning of her arms.
The artist retained the smile as he worked. His stained fingers swirled on the surface of his flat canvas as if he were chasing the choreography of a spider that wove its web between the notes of songbirds and the howls of wolves. When he finished he sat back, pushed the canvas away from him, and refused her money.
“But it is so good,” the woman protested. He had added a rose in her hair—a hint for her undeveloped sense of smell. Her lover arched an eyebrow, surprised that his future surprise of a bouquet in a shopping bag was perhaps too obvious.
She was so pleased that she stooped her head and kissed Lukas’s cheek, a sister’s kiss, a friend’s. He was so shocked that his fingers darted up to touch her hands, and he dislodged his glasses and knocked them from his nose. His secret was revealed: eyeless sockets, a mutation from birth. Hence he would become famous as the blind man who sat at the bridge and painted portraits of people he never saw, guided only by their voices.
But the happiness had blinded him and he did not even notice if his face frightened the couple away.
"Angreek87"
No comments:
Post a Comment