The Blue Tile Painter – Part 1: Cobalt Blue

"No," said Rafael.

"I haven't asked anything yet."

"You were going to ask if it could be faster."

Ines laughed, caught out. She was thirty-three, an architect with a clipboard and a schedule, standing in a small studio in Porto where hundreds of white tiles dried on racks like little windows. The smell of clay and mineral paint hung in the warm air. At the long table, Rafael, thirty-six, with blue-stained fingers and a pencil tucked in his dark curls, bent over a single tile with a brush as fine as an eyelash.

"The facade has four thousand tiles," she said. "We lose the scaffolding in March."

"Then you should have started in March last year." He did not look up. "Come and watch. If you understand it, you will stop asking."

She pulled up a stool. He showed her how cobalt looks grey before the kiln and glows deep blue after. How one hesitant stroke ruins a petal. How his grandmother's pattern book, soft with age, held the original design for her building.

"You copy a hundred-year-old painter," said Ines.

"I keep him company."

She came back the next day, and the next. Without noticing, she stopped carrying the clipboard. She started bringing pastries from the corner bakery, and he started saving her a stool.

On Friday he finished a long run of tiles and sat back, flexing his hand. "Done for today."

"Your hand is cramping."

"A little."

She took it without thinking and pressed her thumbs into his palm. He went very still. Neither of them spoke.

"Is this all right?" she asked quietly.

"It is very all right," said Rafael. "Come up to the roof. There is wine and a view."

Continue the story: Part 2 – The Kiln.

Continue the story: Part 2 – The Kiln.