cuentos de barro - DSpace Universidad Don Bosco

el cIrco
Se azuló la noche. En medio del solar
oscuro, el circo era como una luna
desinflada. Parecía la chiche de la
noche, onde mama luz el cielo. Un
chilguete225 manchaba de norte a sur
el espacio y las gotitas zarpiaban226 el
horizonte hasta la oriya del mundo.
Mito y Lencho, los dos hermanitos,
miraban asombrados, por un juraco,
cómo aquel siñor que le decían Irineyo
Molina, se bía hecho payaso en un dos
por tres. Taba sentado en un cajón,
jumándose un puro, y con cara enojosa
de hombre. Por el hoyito se véiya bien
que le daba la luz de un carburo227 en la
cara chelosa de harina.
Abajo, junto a la goliya plisada, asomaba
el cuello prieto de su propio cuero.
Más allá, el negro Jackson sembraba
una estaca, con una almágana. A cada
golpe de juelgo, la esta ca se hundía
un jeme228 . Recostado en unos lazos
templados como cuerdas de violón,
estaba un volatín229 .
225. See Brewer 1959: 40. It was erroneously classified as the Quichua word chillpi or the South American
Spanish word chilpe, piece of old clothing or part of a dry leaf.
226. Rociar.
227. Lámpara de carburo/carbide lamp.
228. RAE: jeme. (Del lat. semis, mitad). 1. m. Distancia que hay desde la extremidad del dedo pulgar a
la del índice, separado el uno del otro todo lo posible. 3. m. Hond. Medida de longitud para plantas,
equivalente a unos doce centímetros.
229. Volatinero.
230. Golilla: SpanishDict: 1. A kind of collar, forming part of the dress of the magistrates of some superior
courts of justice in Spain. (f)
231. Geme: SpanishDict: 1. The distance from the end of the thumb to the end of the forefinger (both
extended).
137
THe cIrcuS
The night turned blue. In the middle
of the dark lot, the circus was like a
deflated moon. It seemed like the teat
of the night from which the sky nurses
light. A spatter of light stained the night
sky from north to south, and the small
drops sprinkled the horizon to the end
of the world.
Mito and Lencho, the two little
brothers, were peeping through a hole;
they were astonished at how that man
people called Irineo Molina turned into
a clown so fast. He was sitting on a box,
smoking a cigar, and with the face of an
angry man. Through the hole it could
be seen that the light of a carbide lamp
hit him on his white face, full of flour.
Beneath the fancy pleated collar 230
he showed the black neck of his own
hide. A little further, the black Jackson
pounded in a tent stake with a large
hammer. At every hit of his breath,
the stake went five inches deeper. 231 A
tightrope walker was reclining on some
stretched ropes as if they were strings
of a violin.