Her friend sneaked her into her iaia’s home. She was surprised that it was in El Canal, in one of the very old buildings with blackened façades. That first impression was nothing in comparison with what she saw at the end of a terrazzo passage that didn’t seem to fit with the peeling, discolored wallpaper. The grandmother—an obese old woman who smelled of burned eggplant—was floating, motionless in a corner of the room by the curtain rail. She had her back turned to them and was looking out into the street. They crept across the room until they were directly below the grandmother. Her thighs were so fat that from underneath all they could see were rolls of flab. The soles of her small, perfectly formed feet were like those of a child that has been flattened by the weight above. She started to shiver, and Tamara spat out something defiant, possibly spiteful. They backed out of the room, their eyes fixed on the grandmother. When they were halfway across, her friend bumped into a rocking chair. The grandmother turned around and looked at them unsmilingly, as though they were pieces of furniture. Tamara blushed bright red.

That afternoon, sitting in the park, her friend explained that the old woman floated because she was full of gas. “A gas that comes from the center of the earth.” She refrained from asking how the iaia managed to cook the best baked rice in the whole city. Perhaps they had put the kitchen appliances on the ceiling. She was sorry not to have insisted on seeing the rest of the house, but on the other hand the idea of staying much longer in that place where everything was so grimy and stank of dried fish wasn’t appealing.