Ghosts

by Cesar Aira

  Her soliloquy was interrupted by a feeling she often had, the semi-epileptic impression that someone was passing behind her. There was no one behind her in the kitchen, and no room anyway, but through the open door she could see a band of ten ghosts watching her from the terrace, between the apartment and the stairs. What were those floury clowns doing there, she wondered crossly. She didn’t like it when they interrupted her conversations with an intimate friend, all the more intimate for being in her mind and nowhere else. (Elisa didn’t know it, but a few months earlier, a horrific derailment in Concepción had claimed her friend’s life.) Anyway, it wasn’t their normal time. Were they going to start showing up around the clock? Or was there something special happening because it was the last day of the year? That could have explained why they were staring at her with their round eyes open wide in their stupid faces. As if they had something to propose to her. It was odd, because they were meant to be seen rather than to see. And since she was in the relatively dark interior of the kitchen, she may not have been visible from outside. But she couldn’t be sure about that, because even if the shadows hid everything else, her thick, twelve-diopter spectacles could reflect or condense enough light to make them visible (she had been caught out like that before): two shining circles, like the eyes of an owl suspended in the night. In any case, she could see them, and that must have been their way of watching. But was she really seeing them, or was it a waking dream? Ah, that was another question. Seeing ten naked men with their dicks dangling while washing clothes in the kitchen wasn’t exactly the most realistic experience. Although for a married woman like her, the scene had a special significance, not a promise but a confirmation: men were all the same in the end. They had nothing to hide. It wasn’t just that all men had the same bits; they also had the same value. Which was, admittedly, considerable, but it was shared out among a multitude that was almost beyond the grasp of the imagination, like the idea of “everyone.” The only thing that bothered her was the bad influence the ghosts might have on her children, particularly on her frivolous elder daughter. Since Patri was given to building castles in the air, certain chimerical spectacles could lead her to the utterly misguided belief that reality is everywhere. It was just as well that the family would soon be leaving the building site. They would have left already, if her husband had listened to her. Meanwhile those jerks were still staring at her. Or was it the other way round? She turned away and went on with the washing, trying to concentrate; what with the distraction she’d probably gone and put in too much bleach. She was always doing that.

  She was nearly finished when the apparition of Patri at her side gave her a start. Heavens, I didn’t see you come in, she said, to hide her agitation. A little sleep and look at me, said Patri, displaying her arms, shoulders and neck, covered with sweat. They spent a moment complaining about the heat. Hey, I’d like to have a shower, said Patri, if that’s OK with you. Of course, said her mother; I’m just about finished anyway, see. Just wait till I rinse this out.... there.... just the sight of that cold water running.... I’ll have a shower, too, after.... and this one.... there we go. She turned off the faucet. All yours; careful not to wake the kids. They had to take all these precautions because when water was coming out of one faucet, it wouldn’t come out of another, and if they turned on two at once it didn’t come out of either. It was something they had discovered simply by living there. No doubt some problem with the plumbing, or rather with the general design of the building, which would have disastrous consequences for its occupants later on. Raúl Viñas felt it was best not to tell the architect. Why did he need to know? So he could get uptight about it? The Chilean builder regarded the problem as insoluble, so what was the point? As for them, they managed all right, turning off one faucet before they opened another, politely asking permission. It wouldn’t be so simple when the apartments were occupied, but they would be gone by then. Patri went to the bathroom and turned on the shower. Elisa heard the beatific murmur of the water. She took the buckets full of rinsed and wrung-out washing and went out to where she had strung up a line on the terrace, in front of the big frame for the games room and the pool. The sun’s force was brutal, even though it had begun to go down. The clothes would be dry in a flash, she thought. Pity there wasn’t the slightest breeze. The ghosts were still hanging around. They had scattered now, but there were more of them. Some were sitting on the sharp edges of the parabolic dish, as they liked to do; it was a bit of a shock to see them there, but of course they didn’t feel the sharp edge. And even to say they were sitting was a fiction as Elisa could tell by the way they were “seated” all around the edge, even on the bottom, that is, upside down. Perhaps because there was something different about them at that hour of the day, she was vaguely troubled, for the first time, by a serious concern: they were like men, and you couldn’t help seeing them as such; but there was also the possibility of seeing them as real men, while knowing they were images. As she hung out the washing, it struck her that with so many men available, the key was to choose the right one. But how? She discussed it with her imaginary friend. It’s not that there’s a shortage of men, she said, with a chuckle that was imaginary too, but they’re never there when you need them. The sun was already making her feel faint and giving her a headache, so she finished hanging out the washing and went straight back inside without even glancing at those creatures, leaving the dining room door slightly ajar in the hope that some air would flow through. She went to the bedroom to have a look: Raúl Viñas was sleeping soundly, the two little one as well. She half-closed that door too, and switched on the television, with the sound down low. Patri came out of the bathroom with wet hair, fresh and smiling. Do you feel better now? Sure, see the difference? I could have spent hours under that shower. Well, when we fill up the pool, you can splash around in it all day long, huh? Has it started already? asked Patri. I don’t know, I just put it on; OK, let’s see, it’s about to start, I think.

  There was a soap opera that they watched at six. They loved the story, although, since they weren’t completely stupid, they realized how bad it was. But that didn’t really matter, as long as they didn’t lose the thread, and, surprisingly, they never did. Women lived in a world of stories, according to Elisa, surrounded, smothered, submerged by fascinating stories. Mother and daughter had watched a good many soap operas over the years and could safely say that they were all the same, but they didn’t regret having watched them. The plots always revolved around pregnancy and money. The link between the two themes was a woman who became wealthy, immensely wealthy, the better to scorn the man who had got her pregnant when she was poor. The charm lay in the incongruous balance between the superfluous and the important. With the benefit of her experience, Elisa could easily dismiss the questions of money as secondary and concentrate on the rest. Moving from the relative to the absolute, if only in fiction, made her happy. (For her daughter it was very different, although equally enjoyable.) Almost every evening at that time, they would sit down, just the two of them, in front of the television, to watch the story of young Esmeralda, who had risen from being a slave, held in secret on an anachronistic plantation in Costa Rica, to owning vast oilfields on the Arabian peninsula. They discussed the issues as they arose in the story. Elisa would try to point out certain things to her daughter, who obstinately refused to see them, or would only see them from her own point of view. It was a little one-student school, in which practically nothing was learned, although you never can
tell. The question of pregnancy, for example, was more complex than it might have seemed at first. Elisa had got pregnant with Patri when she was as old as Patri was now. The father, so she said, was the best man in the world. He had disappeared from her life, like most childhood memories. That was the problem with men: they weren’t definitive, they weren’t right. But Mom, objected Patri, I’m going to find the right man in the end, like Esmeralda, I hope. In the end, yes, in the end, said Elisa emphatically, in the end.... maybe. But not before. And when you think about it, what’s a pregnancy? She pointed to the screen: Do you suppose that actress was really pregnant when all this was happening in the story? Of course not. You have to be very careful not to mix up truth and lies, reality and fiction. Yeah, but you really got pregnant, didn’t you? Or were you just an image, a hypothesis? Elisa laughed. It was true, in a way; that was what she had been. Amazingly her adolescent daughter had touched on a very deep truth, and yet, at the same time—there’s always another side to things—it was a truth composed of silences and suppositions. For example, she had never confessed the identity of “the best man in the world” to her parents. They had made an incorrect supposition. In fact, she thought, during a commercial break between chapters of the soap opera, she had made an incorrect supposition herself. Because later, a few years later, Raúl Viñas had appeared in her life, and everything had changed.

  There you go, said Patri, as if she had hit on the most convincing argument: Isn’t he the right one? Her mother replied with a smile. All her friends and acquaintances knew what a loving couple Elisa and her husband were, a real example. For just that reason, there was something elusive about their love. If her daughter found that disconcerting, well, she was sorry, but there was nothing she could do. Some things took time to understand. And Elisa was as quick as anyone to recognize her husband’s faults, such as his fondness for drink. It was no more justifiable than any other vice, but Elisa came up with good explanations for it. For example, that by drinking glass after glass of wine, in interminable sessions, Raúl Viñas was gathering momentum in his quest for the infinite. It was like swallowing the sea, as they say, and what was wrong with that? It might be terrible to have that kind of thirst, but for those who don’t, it’s a magnificent spectacle. And another thing: Raúl Viñas was one the few happy men left on earth, or at least in Chile, where they would have stayed if Elisa Vicuña’s opinions had carried any weight. Happiness always brings happiness, and plenitude, in its wake.

  But we’re poor, look at how we live, Patri replied, pointing to the stifling, cramped, unfinished apartment. But that doesn’t matter, girl, why should that matter? We’re healthy aren’t we, we have enough to eat, and beautiful children playing happily, and loving relatives and friends? You are so optimistic, said Patri, with the expression of someone confronting an utter impossibility. Her mother was laughing. Don’t you see, girl. I’ve been lucky. It’s not funny, Mom. But I’m not joking, sweetie. The thing is to find a real man, even if he has all the faults in the world. A real man. A real man. She repeated the phrase mechanically as their conversation languished—the story was beginning again. In all the splendor of her incredible beauty, the heroine signed the papers that would make her the legal owner of the Palace of Versailles, which the socialist government of France had sold to raise money for the development of advanced technology. This is so absurd, said Patri under her breath. Just like our lives, said her mother, who hadn’t taken her eyes off the screen. A number of typical soap-opera clues had led them to suspect that the heroine’s lover, a Japanese magnate whom she had supposed dead after a crash landing in the Azores, was about to reappear, and both of them knew that when he did, when he opened the door.... they would cry.

  It must have been around seven, the soap opera had finished on a note of suspense, relating, of course to Esmeralda’s reproductive system (if she could be said to have one since, in a sense, she was an exquisite and luxurious reproductive system), and they had switched off the television, when they heard a din rising from below. Someone’s coming, said Elisa, announcing only one of the possibilities, although it was rather early for the guests to start arriving. But as the old saying goes: “Evening’s guests arrive by day.” If they do, she remarked, they’ll get a splendid reception, with half the family asleep. Within seconds she recognized the voices of the children, who didn’t even give them time to get up from their chairs: Juan Sebastián came running in shouting: Look what Aunty Inés brought me, one for each of us, this one’s mine, etc. etc. With urgent sign language Elisa implored him to lower the volume. It was as if the kid had a megaphone in his mouth. Can’t you see the others are sleeping? Yeah, yeah, OK, he conceded impatiently; but they had to understand, he was thinking about the presents. He had already put four toy cars on the table; they were made of plastic and all the same, down to the color: red. Blanca Isabel came in like a whirlwind and pounced. This one’s mine! They started shouting again, inevitably. The eldest child had of course taken the initiative of opening the packet. Each of them seized a car; although the cars were identical, there was an obvious advantage in being able to choose while the other two children were asleep. What a surprise they would get, poor suckers, when they found they could only choose between the two remaining toy cars, which where indistinguishable from the others! Juan Sebastián and Blanca Isabel reveled in their triumph. Elisa went to the door, which had been left wide open, and waited for her sister-in-law, who, influenced somehow by the soap opera’s delaying tactics, or simply because the children had come rocketing up, seemed to take forever to appear. Elisa’s curiosity was particularly piqued because her sister-in-law had arranged to come with her boyfriend, who still hadn’t met the family. If he had come too, it was odd that she couldn’t hear them talking. Or maybe they had stopped to look at the apartments? Maybe she had come early to help, and he’d be turning up later.

  At last the extraordinary Inés Viñas made her appearance. Predictably, she had climbed the stairs at a leisurely pace and wasn’t even out of breath. Are you on your own? said Elisa as soon as she saw her. Roberto’s coming later, dear, I came early to give you a hand. But you didn’t need to bother, etc. etc. They gave each other a kiss without interrupting their conversation. You couldn’t find two more typical Chilean women. And seeing them together, it was striking the way they realized the type, almost to the point of caricature. The coincidence was especially notable because they were so physically different. Inés Viñas was quite short and petite. Her skin had a more olive tone; her hair was a shinier black, and her cheeks were sunken (while Elisa Vicuña’s were round and somewhat childlike). She was quite pretty and rather flamboyant, within the demure limits imposed by her family and nationality. She was wearing stylish white sandals, an Indian skirt and a blue cotton tee shirt. And long earrings. You look really well. Not as well as you. No you do, really. Come off it, can’t you tell I had a cough? What do you mean, a cough? Like I said, one of these days I’m going to catch pneumonia. She’s so funny this girl, she kills me! Hi Patri! Patri was extraordinarily Chilean too. Seeing the three of them together made it even more noticeable. You washed your hair? See how awful mine is? Come on, mine’s much worse. I told you to be quiet, you kids! The older children wanted to make off with the toy cars that belonged to the others. No, said Elisa Vicuña, You leave them there. Oh, poor things, said Inés Viñas, I’ll wrap them up again. No, don’t, this little devil ripped the paper. It was already ripped, shrieked the boy. Are
they asleep? asked the guest lowering her voice, which, since she was Chilean, was already very soft. Your brother too, said Elisa. The three of them put on highly stylized laughing expressions. They found it seriously funny. Still napping at seven! All right, off you go, said Elisa. Silly of me, wasn’t it. Four exactly the same. I didn’t know what to get them. You shouldn’t have bothered, dear. It wasn’t much of a bother: the same thing for all four! Inés dear, it’s perfect. Before I forget, I brought something for you too, Patricita. For me?! Listen, Elisa, Roberto is going to bring some bottles of wine.... That’s too kind! But you don’t have to, you know, I’m not a little girl any more. Look, it’s just something small. Patri removed the gift with great care from the little paper envelope: it was a bracelet of colored beads. Her pleasure and gratitude soared to indescribable heights. She put it on straight away, and it looked very nice on her. What a cute bracelet! They moved on to more general topics. How about this heat? said Inés Viñas. It doesn’t let up, does it? asked and confirmed her sister-in-law. There must be a bit of breeze here, though. Don’t you believe it. Isn’t there? Well, yes, but only sometimes. That was understandable. What I can’t understand, said Inés, is why you came to live in this birdcage. They laughed.