Ghosts

by Cesar Aira

  Abel Reyes was still queuing patiently; his arms had gone numb from the weight. There were some very pretty girls in the queue, and he was watching them to pass the time. But in the most discreet way. He could truthfully have said that girls were what he liked best in the world, but he always admired them from a certain distance, held back by his pathological, adolescent shyness. He also felt that the inevitable stillness of a supermarket queue put him at a disadvantage. Movement was his natural state, albeit the movement of flight. To him, stillness seemed a temporary exception. He advanced step by step, as the train of full trolleys made its very slow way forward. Many of them were full to capacity, with what looked like provisions for a whole year. The people behind and ahead of him in the queue were talking continually. He was the only one who was silent. He couldn’t believe that the neutron bomb really existed. Here, for example, how could it eliminate people and not things, since they were so inextricably combined? In a situation like this, a supermarket queue, things were extensions of the human body. Still, since he had nothing better to do, he imagined the bomb. A silent explosion, lots of radiation. Would the harmful radiation get into the packets of food, the boxes and tins? Most likely. An analogy for death by neutron bomb occurred to him: you’re at home, listening to the radio, and a song begins to play; then you go out, and you hear the same song coming from the window of a house down the street. A block further on, a car drives past with the song playing on its radio. You catch a bus, the radio is on, and what do you hear but the same song, still going—without meaning to, you’ve practically heard it all. Everyone hears the radio (at some point during the day) and many people have it tuned in to the same station. For some reason this struck him as an exact analogy, supernaturally exact; only the effects were different. These thoughts helped him to while away the time. As usual, the trolleys just in front of him took longer than the others; the woman at the checkout even went to the bathroom and left them standing there for ten extra minutes. But everything comes to pass. Finally, it was his turn. It was a relief to put his shopping down on the metal counter. The cashier pressed the wrong buttons on the electronic register a couple of times, as she had done with almost all the clients. Every time she made a mistake she had to call the supervisor, who pushed through the hostile multitude and used a key to cancel the error. It came to forty-nine australs. Abel paid with a fifty-austral note, and the cashier asked if he didn’t have any change. He rummaged in his pockets, but of course he had no change, not a cent. The note he had given her was all the money he had brought. The cashier hesitated, looking grief-stricken. Don’t you? she asked. She stared as if urging him to check. Abel had noticed that the cashiers at this supermarket (maybe it was the same everywhere) made a huge fuss about change. They always had plenty, but they still made a fuss. In this case there was really no reason: she only had to give him one austral. He was waiting, holding the one-austral note his aunt had given him, folded in four. The cashier looked at the note. So that she could see it wasn’t hiding forty-eight others, Abel unfolded it for her. In the end she lifted the little metal clip holding down the one-austral notes in the register (there were at least two hundred), extracted one with utter disgust, ripped off the receipt and handed it over without even looking at him. He went straight for the door, forgetting his shopping, which was still on the counter. The woman behind him in the queue, who had started to pile her purchases on top of his, called out: Why did you pay for this stuff if you don’t want to take it away? Back he came, mortally embarrassed, and gathered it all up as best he could. He dropped the little loaves of bread, and various other things. By the time he got back to the site, the truck had gone, and they were waiting for him with the fire alight under the grill. His uncle and another builder, an Argentinean named Aníbal Fuentes, or Aníbal Soto (curiously, he was known by both names), who were the designated grillers, tossed the meat onto the grill, a rectangular piece of completely black wire mesh. What’s that? Viñas asked him, pointing at the bottle of bleach. It’s for Auntie Elisa, Abel replied, I’ll just take it up to her. They asked him to get some things while he was there, glasses and so on. He disappeared up the stairs. Since the architect had left, Viñas decided to close up the wooden fence, and put the chain on, but not the lock. Now, at last, they could have their lunch in peace.

  It’s strange that they hadn’t bought any wine, isn’t it? Especially since some of the men were committed wine-drinkers. But there were two reasons why the builder’s young butler hadn’t even thought of buying any: first, they didn’t drink wine at lunchtime as a rule, except occasionally on a Saturday, when as well as knocking off early they had something to celebrate, like a birthday. The second reason was that Raúl Viñas bought all the wine himself at a store in the neighborhood, where they had a special bottling system, and recycled the bottles over and over, which worked out to be very practical and cheap. He had already laid in provisions for that day, and for the next day as well. It was an extra special occasion: for a start, they were stopping work early, so they could drink their fill if they wanted to. Afterward they would be going to their respective homes to get ready for the party that night, a big family do. There was also something to celebrate, of course, because it was the end of the year. Overall it had been a memorable year, a year of work and relative prosperity; they couldn’t complain about that. It could even have been called a year of happiness, although not straight away; they would have to wait some time for that to become apparent, in retrospect. It wasn’t over yet: there were ten hours left, to be precise. So Raúl Viñas was keeping fourteen bottles of red wine cool, with a system he had invented, or rather discovered, himself. It consisted of resolutely approaching a ghost and inserting a bottle into his thorax, where it remained, supernaturally balanced. When he went back for it, say two hours later, it was cold. There were two things he hadn’t noticed, however. The first was that, during the cooling process, the wine came out of the bottles and flowed like lymph all through the bodies of the ghosts. The second was that this distillation transmuted ordinary cheap wine, fermented in cement vats, into an exquisite, matured cabernet sauvignon, which not even captains of industry could afford to drink every day. But an undiscriminating drinker like Viñas, who chilled his red wine in summer just because of the heat, wasn’t going to notice the change. Besides, he was accustomed to the wonderful wines of his country, so it seemed perfectly natural to him. And, indeed, what could be more natural than to drink the best wines, always and only the best?

  When Abel Reyes reached the top floor (curiously, climbing the stairs never seemed to cost him any effort: he let his mind wander, and before he knew it, he was there) he found his uncle’s children in the middle of their lunch. The caretaker’s apartment had been minimally fitted out, ahead of the rest of the building, to make it livable for Viñas and his family. But not much had been done, just the bare minimum. No tiles on the floor, no plaster on the ceiling, or paint on the walls; no fittings in the bathroom, or glass in the windows. But there was running water (although it hadn’t been running for long), and electricity from a precariously rigged-up cable. That was all they needed. There were two medium-sized rooms, plus the kitchen and bathroom. All the furniture was borrowed and rudimentary. The children were sitting around a homemade table, with chops and peas on their plates. They didn’t want to eat, of course. In front of Patri were four glasses, a bottle of soda water, and a carton of orange juice. She was looking severely at her half-siblings, who were looking at the glasses and whimpering. The idea w
as to make them understand that unless they ate, they wouldn’t get anything to drink. They were dying of thirst, they said. Their mother was making macaroons in the kitchen, and had switched off for the moment. Patri, being younger, had more patience; in fact, since she was still a child in some ways, she was patient to a fault, and rose to the children’s challenge, refusing to yield a drop. Trying all their options with a wicked cunning, they cried out to their mother. But Elisa didn’t respond, not just because she was in the kitchen; her mind was elsewhere. All of a sudden Patri filled the glasses with juice and soda and distributed them. The children drank eagerly. She finished her chop and peas, and had a drink as well. The baby girl, sitting by her side, wanted to leave the table. Patri picked her up and began to spoon-feed her. The others started getting rowdy. Juan Sebastián, the eldest, had eaten more than the others, but still not finished his meal. The older girl, Blanca Isabel, hadn’t even started, and was already asking for more to drink. The heat in the dining room was intense, but the light was very mild, because the window was covered with a piece of cardboard. The sun was beating on the cardboard, which was thick, but seemed to be slightly translucent. That summer light is incredibly strong.

  What could you do to cool off up there? Well, nothing. It was pure heat, perfectly real and concrete. Beyond the shadow of a doubt. And yet, if not shored up by eternities of faith, it would have crumbled to a puff of ice-dust. Having drunk a glass of soda water and juice, not so much because she was thirsty, but to set an example for the children, Patri was suddenly covered in perspiration. Blanca Isabel, who didn’t miss a thing, said, Did you go for a dip? Thinking it wouldn’t have such a spectacular effect, Patri helped herself to another glass. Feeling she had done it to taunt them, Juan Sebastián leapt to his feet and ran to the kitchen to tell his mother, who paid him no attention. They all started crying out for more to drink. You’ll have to make do with tap water, because that’s all there is left, said Patri, showing them the remaining soda. She gathered up the glasses again to make orangeade, with the dregs, in equal quantities, but only for those who would eat. They made an effort, and she even had to cut the remains of Ernesto and Blanca Isabel’s chops into little pieces. Elisa looked out and asked if they had finished. The meat, said Patri, but not the peas. Sebastián was the only one who had polished off his meal, but what a performance it had been. His mother asked him if he wanted any more. He replied with a groan: he had eaten so much, he was full, stuffed. Patri distributed the glasses. The children emptied them in the blink of an eye. She left Jacqueline on her chair and went to the kitchen to get the grapes. It’s the same every day, she said to Elisa: they just don’t want to eat. It’s because of the heat, Elisa replied, poor things. She asked Patri if she wanted to finish the peas. Echoing the children, she said she couldn’t. But wasn’t Elisa going to have anything? She hadn’t even sat down. No, she said, she wasn’t hungry. Although, in the end, she ate the plate of leftover peas, because she hated to waste them. Patri went back into the dining room with the grapes and a clean knife, with which she cut them in half and took out the seeds. Each child received one grape at a time, and Jacqueline’s took a bit longer, because she had to remove the skin as well. Luckily she was good with her hands.

  Abel went straight to the kitchen and put the bottle of bleach on the bench for his aunt. There was a big skylight in the ceiling, and at that hour of the day, the sun was shining straight into it. Elisa had covered it with a blue towel, which had been wet for a while. That might have afforded some protection from the heat, but in any case it was stifling, especially since she had been cooking. She asked Abel if he was going to stay and eat with the men. Well I’m not going to leave now, am I, he said, as if it were obvious. Have you told your mother? No, he hadn’t, why? Because she’ll be expecting you, she said. It hadn’t occurred to him. But Abel said he didn’t think she would, since he hadn’t told her about the half-holiday. She might have worked that out for herself, said Elisa. I don’t think so, I don’t think so, said Abel impatiently. His aunt didn’t really know his mother, he thought. She didn’t realize that his mother didn’t look after him the way she looked after her children, or even her nieces and nephews. Like all adolescents, he believed that any family was preferable to his own. The belief was entirely unfounded, but he held it all the same. Elisa had guessed all this, and let it pass. She asked him who they had invited for the New Year celebrations. Abel replied: his elder brother’s girlfriend and her family. And he launched into a detailed description of those potential relatives, making them out to be the epitome of all the virtues and powers. His brother’s future brother-in-law had an auto-repair shop, and Abel liked to portray him as a big shot, someone who could do just what he liked, whatever took his fancy, because he had the means. He ran through a detailed catalogue of the big shot’s properties, exaggerating outrageously. Because of some subtle bias in the subject, or subjects in general, property led on to food. Abel believed that he had very special tastes, worthy of careful study, without which they might seem a mere jumble of preferences. Elisa let him go on, but her mind soon wandered. There was no point feeling too sorry for him just because he was ugly and stupid. She made a suggestion: it would be best not to drink wine at lunch. They’re all going to end up trashed, those animals, she said. I never drink wine, said Abel, with a characteristic lack of tact (he was speaking to the wife of the biggest drunk in the family!). When Patri came in to get the grapes, they greeted each other with a kiss. She thought he was ridiculous, but was quite fond of him. They always laughed about him behind his back, because of his hair. Her hair and his were the same length, and even the same kind: slightly coarse, straight and black. When the girl went out, he chatted on and on with Elisa, until, fed up, she told him to go down, because the men would probably have started eating already.

  When they had finished the grapes, the children escaped, without shoes, and went to play in the empty swimming pool, which was in full sun. But they loved it, almost as if the pool were full and they were splashing about in cool water. The three older children were always playing make-believe adventure games, and the baby girl tagged along. She was always there, and was sometimes useful, as a victim, for example, a role that didn’t require much skill, or none at all. After various days of other scenarios, they had returned to car racing. They had a number of little plastic cars. Their childish instincts had alerted them to the silence below, where the builders had stopped working, so they ventured down the stairs to the sixth floor, and then to the fifth. The cars went down the stairs in little hands and parked in the farthest rooms. Excited to have the whole building to themselves, or at least the upper floors, the children complicated their game, leaving a car on one floor and going down to the next, then coming back up to look for it, taking unfamiliar routes. A building site was the least appropriate place for a car race (although ideal for hide and seek), and yet the adverse conditions made the game special, giving it a novel, impossible flavor, which made them forget everything else. They felt they had gone straight to the heart of truth or art. Jacqueline kept getting lost and crying. Ernesto, who was specially attached to her, went to the rescue, up or down, depending on where he was. The only interruption occurred when Abel said, Careful not to fall, and continued on his way down to the ground floor. When he was two floors below them, they began to call out “Mophead!” Then they resumed their game with the toy cars, going up and down. A breeze was blowing over those superposed platforms, but it was slight and not very refresh
ing; in any case the heat would probably begin to ease off once the sun began to go down. The light must have been changing, gradually, but it wasn’t noticeable; the brightly-colored toy cars were the light-meters in the children’s game. They went down to the third floor, but didn’t dare go any further, because they could hear the men’s voices.