Portraits from another Europe

He was steadily looking at himself in front of a mirror of sorrow but he did not recognise his image, strange for him and for everybody in that crowded room of that famous museum. He kept looking at his reflection for a while; he was a thirty-years-old shadow in front of visitors, beside two dwarfs and the “master”. Someone was talking near them and me. I cannot remember if that happened in the past or in the future.

The infanta Margarita, Felipe IV’s daughter, was in front of us; her heavy blond hair smelt strongly, I could see her face…: you seem unfriendly, stupid tourist.

-Was someone talking?

Now, in the dusty atmosphere, the cleaner is sweeping Diego Velazquez’s room, in the Prado Museum, Madrid. Year: 2007.

Sometimes, the room is bursting with people, noises and sweats…, sometimes, the room is empty and nobody sees the canvas, I hate short sentences, busy foreigner.

-Who’s talking?

7 a.m. The museum is still closed; the cleaner has 20 minutes left to finish his task. He needs to arrive at the black mirror… twenty two steps plus ten. Someone is talking in front of the king’s reflection. A blond Menina dressed with a brilliant royal gown, a deformed dwarf with a dark suit or a horrible assistant without face?

The picture can tell stories about artists and frozen figures with eternal yearnings, about captive souls and shadows. Now and again, the oil paintings can sing legends and secrets. The colours have so many names because they can mix ad infinitum.

He has always been looking at the false mirror, inside the picture. The artist is painting us, painting the cleaner throughout the ages. Someone is talking about past times and ghosts, spectres and spectators…, someone talked leaden sounds, silently. The cleaner can listen to them, every morning, previously to open the museum old doors.

-Who are you?

Before dying, the cleaner had seen a bewitched figure emerging from the picture, as a shadow waiting for him and for you too. Afterwards, Diego Velazquez’s room was quiet and I went out looking for my own ghosts… Twenty two steps plus ten

Again, someone is talking. Who?