Читать книгу After Eden - Harold J. Recinos - Страница 15

woke up to hop the subway

downtown to get lost in an

art museum to look at oils

that imagined the unfinished

work of God, stroll the rooms

with creaky floors the grey world

doesn’t visit, stare at the Picasso

using colors and lines to trick my

eyes, until a word jumped up to

say something about the beginning

of things. I wanted to find somebody

to tell of an old woman on the block

living on the ground floor of Lefty’s

building who painted at night. She

must have had a special set of eyes

to see things in the dark, to have the

night come to her like water rushing

down a steep hill, then capture on a

canvas details thrown her way by

whispered ghostly streets. I looked

for the associate curator of the cubist

wing, while repeating a few lines in my

head about having him come down to

the barrio to have a look at the paintings

this Abuela boxed and placed in a room

with a window facing the Westchester

Avenue. I found him talking casually

about Goya, Picasso, Orozco, Caravaggio,

and Manet in a near empty room, a small

voice in me said what the hell you can’t lose

anything inviting the curator to visit the

block to talk with an old painter woman

about art—so I did.