Ghosts

by Cesar Aira

  They had disappeared over her head. The last she saw of them were their heels. She had tipped her head so far back that when she reassumed her normal posture she felt dizzy and teetered perilously on the brink, which she had approached again unawares. She turned around and headed for the stairs, intending to go up. In the darkest part of the apartment, at the front, a ghost appeared before her, moving diagonally (which seemed to be the fashion) and upward. It reached the roof before she came near and began to pass through it head first, slowly. So slowly that it seemed to stop halfway through the process (mutations within the movement transferred the velocities to other dimensions). When Patri got there, the bottom half of the ghost’s body was hanging from the concrete ceiling, like some dark, nondescript object. She climbed the stairs and went to the rear of the building again, where she had a feeling they would be gathering in greater numbers. And as it turned out, a large group was waiting for her, or seemed to be, by the edge, but outside, in empty space, bathed in the last light, against a background of intense, end-of-evening air. Within the dark visibility of that air they were waiting for her, specifically for her, because one of them called her by name. What? asked Patri, stopping three yards away.

  Don’t you want to come to our party tonight?

  If you invite me....

  That’s what we’re doing

  A silence. Patri was trying to understand what they had said. Finally she asked:

  Why me?

  She was bound to ask that. They didn’t answer. All things considered, they couldn’t. They left her to work it out for herself. There followed a somewhat longer silence.

  So?

  I’m thinking it over.

  Ah.

  There seemed to be something ironic in their attitude. They began to withdraw, without making the slightest movement, like visions affected by a shift in perspective. Nevertheless they withdrew, treating the innocent explorer to a sight that could not have been more extraordinary. As if inadvertently, they were entwined by a kind of luminous helix, enveloping them in invisible yellow. The dust on their skin was barely a hint now, a down. At the sight of those men, Patri could feel her heart contracting.... as if she were truly seeing men for the first time. Stop! cried her soul. Don’t go, ever! She wanted to see them like that for all eternity, even if eternity lasted an instant, especially if it lasted an instant. That was the only eternity she could imagine. Come, eternity, come and be the instant of my life! she exclaimed to herself.

  Of course you’ll have to be dead, said one of them.

  That doesn’t matter at all, she replied straight away, passionately. Her passion meant something apart from her words, something else, of which she was unaware. But it also meant exactly what she had said.

  They seemed to be very still as they watched her. But were they? Perhaps they were traveling at an incredible speed, traversing worlds, and she was in a position from which that movement could not be perceived. That didn’t matter either, she thought. In any case, they slid fluidly down to the next floor, leaving her there looking out into the emptiness, where the big city was, and the streets with their lights coming on.

  Since she found that spectacle uninteresting, she turned around and went back to the stairs. But when she reached the landing, she realized that she didn’t know whether to go up or down to find them again. It was as if, having accomplished their mission, they had disappeared. Anyway, there was no point chasing them up and down the stairs. It would just tire her our and make her legs hurt. You had to really watch your step on those bare cement stairs without banisters. She’d already had plenty of exercise for one day. And, with every passing minute, the exercise of going up and down was becoming more dangerous. The first dense shadows, still shot with glimmers of transparency, were occupying the building.

  A shudder ran through Patri’s body. Her legs were shaking, but not because of the stairs, or even because of the thickening darkness. She felt dazed. She went down two steps, then sat. There was something she’d been meaning to reflect on, and after sitting for a moment, she was able to give it some serious thought. Except that since she was, as her mother said, “frivolous,” she never thought seriously about anything. And in this case her frivolity was exacerbated by the subject of her would-be serious reflections, which was something quintessentially frivolous: a party.

  But in a way parties were serious and important too, she thought. They were a way of suspending life, all the serious business of life, in order to do something unimportant: and wasn’t that an important thing to do? We tend to think of time as taking place within time itself, but what about when it’s outside? It’s the same with life: normal, daily life, which can seem to be the only admissible kind, conceived within the general framework of life itself. And yet there were other possibilities, and one of them was the party: life outside life.

  Was it possible to decline an invitation to a party? Patri wondered. Leaving aside the specious argument according to which, if an invitation, like the one she had just received, came from outside life, simply to hear it was to accept, it clearly was possible to decline. People did it every day. But how many such invitations could you expect to receive in a lifetime? As well as the vertical stratification of life into layers or doors through which one could “enter” or “exit,” there was a “horizontal” or temporal axis, which measured the duration of a life. Invitations to a magic party with ghosts were obviously going to be very rare. There might be another chance, but for Patri that was beside the point. She was wondering how many such invitations there could be in eternity. That was a different question. Repetition in eternity was not a matter of probabilities, no matter how large the numbers. In eternity, as distinct from “in life” or “outside life,” this party was an absolutely unique occasion.

  All these questions came to her wrapped in another: Why not simply accept? And that was where life came back into the picture, denser than ever. Life had an annoying way of setting dates for everything, using time to hollow things out, until what had been compact became as diffuse as a cloud. For a frivolous girl like her, life should have been a solid block, a chunk of marble. Even thought could take on that quality, if the gaps between the elements of the proposition were eliminated. Frivolity is saying four is four. Seriousness is gradually deduced, fraction by tiny fraction, from such moderately useful statements as “two plus two is four,” until one arrives at “Columbus discovered America.” Frivolity is the tautological effect, produced by everything (because you can’t be selectively frivolous: it’s an all-or-nothing affair). It’s the condition of knowing it all in advance, because everything is repetition of itself, tautology, reflection. To be frivolous, then, is to go sliding over those repetitions, supported by nothing else. What else was there? For Patri, nothing.

  And yet she hadn’t lied when she had said that she was “thinking it over.” Thinking is also opening a gap, but, in her case, it was inevitable; she considered herself almost as an object of thought, someone else’s thought, of course, and someone remote at that. The ghosts put her in a position where she had to think, had to attend to thinking.

  But not because there was something to think over: as always, the decision had already been taken, automatically. Of course she would go. And they must have known she would, which is why they stuck to the essentials and dispensed with the customary practice of praising the party in advance. She would go. She didn’t even feel the need to make a list of all her reasons for going.

  The
sound of footsteps interrupted her reasoning; she couldn’t tell if they were coming from above or below. She lifted her head, but couldn’t see much; night had fallen. The voices of her family up on the terrace carried clearly, as if they were within arm’s reach. The steps sounded almost like whispers. Finally she realized that someone or something was coming up the flight of stairs immediately below the one on which she was sitting. She got to her feet, but didn’t have time to turn around and go up, as she had intended, because a shadow appeared on the landing and began to climb, apparently still unaware of her presence. It was only when that shadow reached the midpoint of the flight of stairs that the light coming in through the hazardous gaps in the flooring around the staircase allowed her to see more clearly. It was a man about thirty years old, and the best-looking man she had ever seen in her life: white T-shirt, white moccasins, cream-colored trousers with well-ironed creases, gold watch and necklace, a ring with a red stone, bulging biceps emerging from his short sleeves, a ponytail but the rest of his hair trimmed fashionably short, in a South American “pudding bowl” cut, with no sideburns, aerodynamic wrap-around sunglasses, and a cigarette in the corner of his mouth. He smiled at her languidly:

  You must be Patri.

  She couldn’t even open her mouth. She had no idea who this gentleman could be, or how he knew who she was.

  I’m Roberto.

  Roberto? she asked, as she would squirm to remember later on: it was such an impolite question, almost as bad as saying: What Roberto?

  But he wasn’t offended. He chuckled, stepped forward, took her by the arm, and up they went. Inés Viñas’s boyfriend, he said. Ah, Roberto, cried Patri, blushing so deeply that, if not for the darkness, she would have looked like a tomato—but this individual, with his sunglasses, could probably see in the dark. Am I late? No sir, I don’t think dinner has been served yet. He laughed again, and asked her please not to be so formal. Call me Roberto, he said.

  It was nine. There were various signs that dinner was imminent, including the smell of roast chicken and its effect on the guests. In the absence of a miracle, it had, predictably, turned out to be one of those oppressively hot Buenos Aires nights, exactly like the day, but without light. The children had restricted the ambit of their games and cries to the lighted area, with occasional escapes and chases into the darkness, from which they soon returned to the center of their fun. This made them more annoying than before, but also gave the whole gathering a more joyful and intimate feel, as if they were all enclosed in a room without walls. In the darkness, the red and blue toy cars looked the same. A bare light globe over the dining-room door was all the lighting they had, and all they needed. A few mosquitoes and moths traced their paths through the zones of light. Raúl Viñas remarked that one advantage of living so high up was that not many flying critters came to visit. There were none of the insects that precede a storm. The conversation continued, fluidly, in grand style. Conversation was paramount. The presence of men changed its nature, not so much because they focused on particular themes; it was more that they altered the form of the exchange, with their emphatic affirmations and deeply misguided ideas about everyday matters. Generally, the women acknowledged this difference, and appreciated it, especially since they had so few opportunities to talk all together: only at family gatherings like this one, or meetings called to resolve a particular issue, but in that case they weren’t as free to change the subject. Still, the women went on speaking amongst themselves, under cover of the general conversation, even sending each other subtle signals, which were received with little smiles here and there.

  The appearance of Roberto caused a sensation. They all agreed that he wasn’t like they had imagined him. Not that he was better or worse: different. But that was just because he had really appeared. Even Carmen and Javier, who already knew him, had imagined him differently. He seemed Argentinean, which could be explained by the fact that he was, partly; although, of course, he was far more Chilean than Argentinean. Inés looked at him with surprise when he arrived: Hadn’t he brought anything? The bottles of wine? The ice cream? But weren’t you going to bring them? he asked, looking even more surprised. There had been a misunderstanding. After all that discussion about what they should bring to the party! They had made careful, considered decisions, but then they got mixed up about who was to bring it all. Soon everyone was laughing about it. Especially Elisa Vicuña. Roberto was nice and very polite. Raúl Viñas invited him to sit down with them—him and Javier—and they started talking. He took off his dark glasses, revealing small green eyes, the eyes of a good boy. You don’t look Chilean! exclaimed Carmen, while her husband expressed the opposite opinion. There are so many kinds of Chileans! said Elisa. That’s what I always say, added Roberto.

  His arrival allowed Patri’s absence to go unnoticed. But not entirely, because when she came into the kitchen, once all the fuss of greeting the boyfriend was over, Inés, who was apologizing again to her sister-in-law for the mix-up, asked: Where have you been, kid? Just around, she replied, without going into details. Her mother glanced across at her. Who knows where she got to, off in some mysterious dream-world of her own, probably. Your boyfriend is so good-looking, Elisa said to Inés Viñas. Do you think? Oh yes!

  The table had to be taken out, so the men went to do it, or rather the brothers, since they wouldn’t let Roberto help. But the table, as it turned out, didn’t want to go through the kitchen door. They couldn’t tell if it was because alcohol and nightfall combined had befuddled them, or if there was a geometrical difficulty; in any case it proved to be difficult, indeed apparently impossible. If it went in, said Javier Viñas, it must be possible to get it out. But did it go in? asked Raúl Viñas, joking at first, but then, almost straight away, his mind was thrown into confusion by a panicky doubt, as he wondered whether the table hadn’t been put in the dining room before the walls went up. He remembered putting up those walls, but at the time, he could have sworn, they were living on the ground floor. Just then, while he was still in a daze, having got two of the legs out, he tilted the table top slightly, and it came through, to unanimous applause. They put it in what seemed like the best place, neither too far from the door (that is, the light) nor too close. Half-light is always pleasant for dining, but the heat made it even more intimate and mystical. The adults, seven if Patri was included in the count, fitted around it perfectly. They set up a low table for the children, with planks and trestles, as they generally did for more formal meals: a kind of long coffee table, like the one the builders threw together for their lunchtime barbecues downstairs. Seating was the problem. The family’s four chairs and four benches were sufficient only for the adults. The solution was to take another leaf from the builders’ book: they could go down and fetch the boxes they sat on every day at lunchtime. All three of the men went, none of them wanting to seem less polite, but also because several arms would be required. They set off joyfully, following Raúl Viñas’s torch.

  Meanwhile, Patri was busy setting the table. First she spread a pretty white table cloth, and the rest happened almost automatically: plates, forks, knives. As for the glasses, which the men had left on the floor, she had a supernatural knack for guessing who they belonged to, and she never made a mistake. In the kitchen, Iñes Viñas and her two sisters-in-law were preparing the salads, and of course chatting. The main topic was Roberto, considered from various points of view, but one in particular. The unspoken question behind all the remarks, which were magically transformed into preemptive replies,
was: How did Inés Viñas avoid getting pregnant? She seemed to be wondering too, as if she didn’t trust her own thoughts or her life.

  Elisa had put a melon into a tureen full of ice cubes, to cool it down. Inés had made an innovative suggestion: wrap it in wet newspaper first, then cover it with ice, so it would cool more quickly. The result was sensational. The green and white rind was frosted. Elisa worked out when the chickens would be done. When it came to timing, she was an expert and she liked the courses to follow one another fairly rapidly; the children were happier that way, and it meant her husband had less idle time for drinking.

  Well, now they could begin. Carmen Larraín went out to ask the men if they were ready. Of course they were, ready and waiting! Just one thing: there were no napkins. She came back to the kitchen with the message, and Patri raised a hand to her forehead: how could she have forgotten? She always did. Her mother told her to check on the children once she had put the napkins out. Meanwhile Elisa was serving the melon, with the help of Inés Viñas, placing the slices on a long platter, and covering each one with a sliver of ham. Carmen and Patri went to quiet the children down. Juan Sebastián, who had been appointed head of the table, was barking despotic orders, mainly at his siblings (he was slightly afraid of his cousins, with their disciplined air).

  The melon arrived, and the cook sat down: the meal was beginning. There were two slices each for the grownups, and one (cut in two) for the children. It wasn’t real sustenance yet, just a treat to whet the appetite. It’s important to remember that, for this family, food was not a major concern. They gave it almost no consideration. The melon was perfectly ripe; had they eaten it a day later (or a day earlier), it wouldn’t have been the same. The sweetness, with all its exquisite intensity, did not detract from the particular flavor of melon, which was not, in itself, sweet at all. And the ham was perfect too; it had a kind of salty warmth that contrasted aptly with the icy sweetness of the fruit. After the melon came the salads, and then, almost immediately, the chickens: perfectly golden, crisp, and moderately seasoned. To accompany the poultry, Raúl Viñas had put aside some bottles of aged Santa Carolina, which he bought at a good price from his favorite wine store. Chilean wines are so dry! they all said, sipping it, with a touch of nostalgia, which they reined in so as not to spoil the evening. They’re so dry, so dry! Paradoxically, that dryness filled their eyes with tears. But overall, the meal was a thoroughly joyful occasion; sometimes, in order for joy to be complete, a discreet trace of sadness is required. In any case, the children were well behaved.