cuentos de barro - DSpace Universidad Don Bosco

la caSa
eMBruJaDa
La casa vieja estaba abandonada allí,
en el centro del enmontado platanar.
La breña bía ido ispiando por las
claraboyas que los temblores abrieran
para ispiar ellos. Tenía una mediagua
embruecadiza, donde hacían novenario
perpetuo los panales devotos. En los
otros tres lados, ni una puerta; apenas
un rellano de empedrado, ya perdido
entre el zacate que lambía gozoso las
paredes lisas: aquella carne de casa,
blanquiza en la escurana vegetal, con
un blancor que deja ganas de tristeza y
que infunde cariño.
Los mosquitos se prendían en el
silencio, como en un turrón. El tejado,
musgoso y renegrido, era como la
arada en un cerrito tristoso. El viento
había sembrado allí una que otra gotera
fructífera, con ráices diagua y flores
redonditas de sol, que caminaban por
el suelo y las paredes del interior. La
casa vieja taba dijunta, enderrepente.
Según algunos vecinos, aquel abandono
se debía a que laija del viejito Morán,
que vivió allí, bía muerto tisguacal . 76
38
THe HauNTeD
HouSe
The old house had been abandoned
there in the middle of the plantain
grove which was now overgrown
with weeds and brush. The invasive
vegetation inside the house, had been
spying through the skylights that the
earthquakes 74 had rended open in
the roof. The house had a gabled roof
tilted on one side. It was here where
devoted bees held a perpetual novena
worshiping around their hives. The
other three sides had no doors. There
was just a clearing with cobbled stone
paving, now lost among the high grass
that happily licked the plain walls of
the house: the white flesh of the house
contrasted with the dark vegetation. It
was a whiteness that evokes feelings of
sadness and tenderness.
The gnats grabbed onto the silence as
if it were nougat candy. The roof, mossy
and damp-stained, was like a recently
plowed field on a gloomy hill. The wind
had planted a nursing water leak in the
old roof. Water-loving roots and sunworshipping
flowers walked on the dirt
floor and climbed up the interior walls.
Suddenly, the old house was dead. 75
According to some neighbors, this
neglect happened because Tona,
old Morán’s daughter who lived
there, had died of tuberculosis.
74. A tremor, a baby earthquake.
75. Gone back to nature, ceased living. The house was strangled by the plants. It resembles Cortázar’s
“House Taken Over.”
76. Two possible interpretations: “a hermit crab” that takes someone else’s shell. Or tuberculosis.