O Sorriso do Senhor Manuel

Manuel conduzia o autocarro número 7 em Guimarães há quinze anos. Era um homem de cinquenta e dois anos, de bigode escuro e sobrancelhas grossas. As pessoas que apanhavam o autocarro todos os dias conheciam-no bem: era sempre sério, nunca sorria, nunca dizia bom dia. Não era mau homem — era simplesmente um homem que tinha esquecido como se sorri.

Manuel drove bus number 7 in Guimarães for fifteen years. He was a fifty-two-year-old man with a dark moustache and thick eyebrows. The people who took the bus every day knew him well: he was always serious, never smiled, never said good morning. He was not a bad man — he was simply a man who had forgotten how to smile.

A vida de Manuel não tinha sido fácil. A mulher tinha-o deixado seis anos atrás, os filhos moravam no estrangeiro, e ele vivia sozinho num apartamento pequeno no centro de Guimarães. Todas as manhãs acordava às cinco e meia, tomava o pequeno-almoço sozinho e ia para o trabalho sem falar com ninguém. O trabalho era o mesmo todos os dias: a mesma rota, as mesmas paragens, as mesmas caras.

Manuel's life had not been easy. His wife had left him six years ago, his children lived abroad, and he lived alone in a small flat in the centre of Guimarães. Every morning he woke up at half past five, had breakfast alone and went to work without talking to anyone. Work was the same every day: the same route, the same stops, the same faces.