In the courtyard of the house, Jose Antonio, a 12-year-old boy with with very shiny black hair combed in a side parting, is sitting on a log next to the mango tree. He watches the door to the room at the back of the house. His grandmother has told him that there lives a man who doesn't like to be disturbed.
Since his father died, his mother and he moved to his grandparents' house. He has never seen this person come in or out and he is very curious about it.
Today his cousins Andrea and Carlos are coming to visit. They are on vacation and he is waiting for them to help him watch the yellow door and learn about the mystery it hides.
Hearing the doorbell ring, he runs up the steps and arrives in the large kitchen where his grandmother is cooking lunch.
"Epa José Antonio!, careful son, you almost knocked me down".
"Sorry grandmother"
"Opens the door Julian, that must be Luis, Angela and the children".
Jose Antonio runs down the hallway where on both sides are the bedrooms and arrives at the entrance hall, just as his grandfather opens the door.
The family embraces and kisses. The children are happy, it is so much fun for them to be in this house. It is a big old house.
Their grandmother tells them stories of the time when there was no electricity and they lit themselves with candles. At night they heard the footsteps of horses and wagon wheels on the cobblestone streets and when they looked out the windows they saw no one. The darkness was conducive to tales of ghosts and apparitions.
José Antonio,Andrea and Carlos run to play in the yard, which is planted with fruit trees. It is already dusk and the breeze moves the branches and leaves. The rotten mango fruits, already bitten by birds, have fallen to the ground and exhale a sweet smell and thousands of mosquitoes swirl around looking for food.
"I have to go to the bathroom, don't leave me alone." The bathroom is next to the room with the yellow door. Andrea goes in. It is the only place in the house that she does not like, it is dark and barely a light bulb illuminates it.
In a corner, on a stick almost stuck to the ceiling, is Pancho, her grandmother's old parrot, who looks at her with only one eye and moves his green and yellow wings as if he wanted to fly. Angela is afraid of him and hurries to get out.
Outside the courtyard is even darker and Carlos and Jose Antonio have approached the yellow door and have their ears glued to it.
"What are they doing there?" Andrea has approached them.
"Shhh... don't talk so loud. We heard a noise in there." Carlos speaks softly.
"What noise?" Andrea also comes closer to listen.
Thump, thump, thump, the sound repeats thump, thump,thump, every so often and then stops.
"Children get away from the door." Grandpa with his eyebrows raised and his right hand on his cane, looks at them from the kitchen.
"Come over here!. Your grandmother told you to stay away."
After dinner the children go to their rooms, but their curiosity is even greater. They don't understand why so much mystery.
"Father, have you seen the person who lives in that room?" Carlos, lying on his bed, takes the opportunity to ask him when he is going to say good night.
"Son, it is better for you to go to sleep and not keep thinking about it. Tomorrow we can talk about it.
The next morning the children meet for breakfast. They sit at the wooden table and enjoy some delicious arepas with cheese and black beans. Freshly brewed coffee is served in white porcelain cups.
Their grandparents and parents also share breakfast at the table.
When they finish eating, the parents and children go to the patio and sit on chairs to talk under the mango tree.
"Last night you asked me if I had seen the person who lives in the room. I had never seen her. Ever since I was a child, my parents forbade Angela and me to go near that door."
"That's right," said the grandmother who had approached without anyone noticing. "It's a mystery of this house. My parents were born here and their parents, that is their great-great-grandparents, built it on this land which was a farm field. There was a dry well there, which they sealed, but you could hear noises as if someone was banging on the walls".
The children who listened with their eyes fixed on the grandmother,looked at each other.
"My grandfather decided to make a room so as not to hear that sound and my grandmother told him to paint the door yellow because that color gives light and protection. The sounds continued but almost imperceptible. To avoid comments from neighbors and friends and to keep the children away, my grandmother created the story of the tenant."
"I thought so!" Jose Antonio turned to look at his parents and grandfather. "Surely there's a dead man in there!"
"Son, don't say that!" his mother scolded him.
"I think so too," was Carlos' comment. "A person was thrown into the well and what you hear are the blows he gave to the walls before he died."
The years passed, the grandparents died and so did the children's parents. The house deteriorated little by little. The walls of the courtyard cracked, almost all the roof tiles blew off one day when a strong storm hit the city. José Antonio, who refuses to leave her, with his silver hair and a cane to help him walk, crosses the courtyard lit by a huge round moon. He approaches the yellow door that still stands, and listens. That night he dies peacefully in his grandmother's room, in his nineties.
The house was sold, his heirs did not want to return there. Finally it was torn down to build a building. Nothing remains of the old colonial area.
In one of the first floor apartments of the building, a child says to his mother.
"Mom what is that thump, thump, thump, that you hear through the walls?."
"That must be the plumbing in the building." The mother approaches the bathroom where the boy is and they both listen in amazement as the sound gets louder and louder.
Traductor www.deepl.com