TE22 Potpourri

Manuel Baixauli

UNKNOWN

over it, how is it that we are so incredibly ugly?”

“A month later,” he said, lifting a finger, “when I had already forgotten about that letter, the young woman showed up, unannounced, at my house. I didn’t know how to say no to her.” TheMasterexplainedwherehe lived: inabig housesurrounded by fields, half an hour’s drive from Mateu’s town. “She was supposed to drive me! That was the deal. But I felt bad about it, so I told her I’d take a taxi.” Mateu said he was about to go back into town, that his car was nearby, that he could take him. The Master, without a trace of hypocrisy, accepted gratefully. Once inside the car, theMaster asked if he could smoke. Mateu said yes and lowered the windows. “It’s become impossible to smoke anywhere outside your own home,”saidtheMaster. “Ineverhavevisitors. Imovedtheretoget away from the noise, the rushing around, everything. I resolved to only do the part I like best about my job: the discovering! Discovering talent in unknowns, focusing on hidden genius. Contrary to what it may seem, now with this abundance of information, talent actually has a harder time revealing itself, because of the endless saturation, because of the speed and superficiality with which we regard everything. Talent wants slow eyes, free of prejudices, in order to be recognized. It wants 81 “How are you planning to get home?” asked Mateu.

Mateu smiled, lifting his eyebrows. The Master added, “Two months ago, I received, amid my usual tons of packages with dossiers and manuscripts to read, a letter from a young woman wanting me to visit her father’s studio. According to her, he’s a genius painter! An undiscovered genius! I should have thrown the letter out, the way I always do when there’s no reproductions enclosed. I don’t trust it. The girl was telling me about her father, a laconic individual, semi-mute, who ever since he lost his wife in a car accident that left himwith a brain injury, ever since that terrible stroke of bad luck, the poor man, on disability leave from work, spends his hours locked up at home, painting. Painting , she says, is the activity my father pours all of his energy into . According to her, he avoids any social contact, and turned the house into a studio where his work—which only she has seen—piles up. My visit, if I agree to it, would be during the painter’s daily walk, prescribed by his doctors, along a circuit of paths in his garden. He always , she wrote, takes the same route . Don’t ask me why I saved the letter, instead of crumpling it up and tossing it in the trash. I’m retired, but my curiosity remains intact. I thought about answering, asking for some images, four, five, six photos at least, before agreeing to visit his studio. Long story short: the days slip by, I didn’t answer the letter, and soon the mountain of mail buried my good intentions.”

The Master takes a sip of coffee.

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