| Illustration by Icinori |
Skylight
by Silvina Ocampo
Translated, from the Spanish, by Suzanne Jill Levine and Katie Lateef-Jan.
Silvina Ocampo / Cielo de claraboyas
11 July 2019
The elevator gate had gold chalices with flowers and spirals of black iron foliage that would catch your eye when you were sad, watching, hypnotized by those huge snakes, the uncoiling elevator cables. It was my oldest aunt’s house, where I was taken on Saturdays to visit. Above the hall in that house with a skylight was another mysterious home, and through the glass you could see a family of feet, surrounded by halos, like saints, and the shadows of the rest of the bodies to which those feet belonged, shadows flattened like hands seen through bathwater. There were two tiny feet and three pairs of big feet, two with spiked high heels which took short steps. Trunks moved across the floor with the noise of a thunderstorm, but the family never seemed to travel. They always sat in the same bare room, unfolding newspapers while melodies flowed incessantly from the player piano, which was always stuck on the same tune. From time to time, voices bounced like balls against the floor or fell quietly onto the rug.