Ghosts (11 page)

Elisa took the bags into the kitchen, and Carmen Larraín went with
her, asking the usual question: Did she need any help? It was customary to reply
in the negative. Raúl Viñas had suggested that they bring glasses for the first
toast. Your husband’s eyes are so red, dear, said Carmen, they’re like slices of
raw ham. Elisa laughed uproariously. Her sister-in-law was
renowned for her witticisms. In case it wasn’t obvious, she explained that he
had been celebrating with his workmates at lunchtime. Ah, well, it’s
understandable then. Of course it is! A transition: Tell me, what are you
cooking? Oh, nothing special, chicken, and the salads there, see what I bought.
Perfect, perfect, said Carmen Larraín without even looking. Who’s hungry in this
weather? Hey, what do your kids like? Everything, but they don’t eat much; don’t
make anything special for them. You’ve brought them up so well, your kids, said
Elisa Vicuña. Mine just refuse to eat. Wait till they grow a bit, dear. I guess
that’s all I can do: wait. They laughed. Patri came in, like a shadow. Her
mother asked her to take out cups for all the children and put an ice cube in
each one. The girl counted out six orange plastic cups and placed them on a tray
of gold-colored cardboard. The mothers started talking about Carmen’s
pregnancy. The experience of pregnancy was always interesting; though repeated
often enough to be envisaged by all women, it still retained an exceptional
character, which set it apart from, and above, normal repetitions. Outside, the
men were talking about oceanography: the return of the catastrophic El Niño
current. The children rushed for the cups, and were disappointed to find that
they contained only little ice cubes, and nothing to drink. Reluctant to waste
the opportunity to do something, they started shaking the cups to make a noise,
and naturally some ice came out and fell on the floor. Inés Viñas called them to
order and took them all to a tap so they could rinse off the cubes, which were
covered with dust. Even those who hadn’t dropped their ice wanted to rinse it.
I’m bringing the Coke, said Patri. Hey, Patricita, bring our glasses, don’t
forget, will you, said Raúl Viñas. She smiled: Mom brought them already. What a
good girl, remarked Javier. The heat seemed to have diminished with the approach
of night. Perhaps it hadn’t really, but at least the light was not so harsh.
Elongated shadows hung in the air above them, and the sun was sinking toward
their homeland.

The grown-ups helped themselves to two or three ice cubes
each, which they put into the good glasses. They were abundantly served with
soft drinks and wine, and began to drink immediately. What about the toast?
asked Inés Viñas. The first drink’s for thirst, said her brother Raúl. Anyway,
remarked Elisa, Roberto still hasn’t arrived. Well, said Raúl, accommodatingly,
what about we drink an interim toast? Let’s just wait for the sweat to break
out. His joke was a great success, because they had all noticed that almost as
soon as the drink went down their throats, they were wet from head to foot.
Apparently it was hotter than they had thought. Or perhaps their bodies had
dehydrated without them realizing, and now had to go through a phase of
re-adaptation. For a moment all of them, even the children, remained
still, dripping with perspiration. The climate of Buenos Aires was different; it
still had surprises like this in store, although they had been living in it for
years. Elisa went back to the kitchen to start preparing the chicken. The
children broke the spell, and began to shout and run around again. A big white
piece of paper came floating through the still air from somewhere and fell onto
the men. Javier Viñas shook it off, and then examined it. With a few precise
movements he folded it into a boat; it was a skill he had perfected. He gave it
to the children, who had never played with such a big paper boat and immediately
wanted some water to float it in. How could we get enough water? asked Carmen.
Put it in the pool, suggested Javier, and when they fill it up, it’ll float. So
they did, for a bit of fun, and since fun always finds a way to go on, the older
cousins climbed down the metal ladder into the pool, although they had been
forbidden to do so, on the pretext that the boat had fallen on its side, and
they wanted to leave it upright, waiting for the flood. Rock music emerged from
a neighboring house.

When Elisa looked out from the kitchen, Raúl Viñas seized the
opportunity to propose a first toast. He called his wife, and since there was a
general desire to formalize the little ceremony, everyone, including the
children, picked up their refilled cups and glasses. All eyes converged on the
host, who had lifted his glass and was gazing absently at the wine. We’re
waiting, said Javier. Raúl Viñas raised his eyebrows, as if he were about to
speak, yet a few seconds of silence ensued. Could he have been thinking?
Possibly, because when he finally uttered the toast, they were struck by its
aptness. He said simply, “To the year.” And they all approved. If it had been a
year of happiness, it was worth drinking to. And if not, it didn’t matter,
because the three words had a deeper or higher meaning: the prodigious gift of a
year’s time, loved and respected by all. But it
had
been a year of happiness, thought
Patri, and in that sense the toast concealed a secret, not shared by the others,
known only to them, Elisa, Raúl and Patri (the children didn’t count, although
they were an essential component of the happiness). The others were left out,
but they didn’t know. It was immediately suggested that the children should also
propose toasts, and Patri was invited to open the proceedings, as the oldest
member of the next generation, so, without much thought, she said: To my mom and
dad. Then, thinking that the last word of the sentence might lead to confusion
between her progenitor, “the best man in the world,” and Raúl Viñas, she added:
“That is, Raúl Viñas.” This was considered very fitting; the grown-ups
smiled. The children followed her example, each proposing a toast, “To my mom
and dad, that is Raúl (or Javier) Viñas,” even baby Jacqueline, who babbled it
out, parroting the words of her siblings and cousins. The adults listened
seriously right to the end, smiling a little as well. Then they knocked back the
wine. The conversations began again, with an extra degree of joy and
liveliness.

But Patri went on worrying that she had put her foot in it. She
hadn’t; on the contrary, if she had been able to read the adults’ thoughts, she
would have seen that she had their full approval. But it wasn’t what she had
said that was worrying her so much as a familiar yet troubling anxiety, which
had been mounting for a few minutes. It was like approaching the void. She left
her glass on the ground and walked over to the edge of the pool, on the bottom
of which the giant paper boat was lying, forgotten now, right in the middle, on
the dry cement. She walked all the way around the pool until she came to the
rear of the building. From there, the sunset was visible, becoming intensely
yellow and red. The sun was setting, and the year was setting. The “Year of
Happiness,” as Raúl Viñas had suggested. They had drunk the sun in one gulp, and
the originator of the toast had a special reason for doing so: it wasn’t just
that he had spent the year drinking, or even that he was going to continue from
now until midnight; the reason was that drinking allowed him to stretch time,
without in any way altering its punctuality and precision. Also, by virtue of a
curious linguistic habit, “New Year” was an instant, twelve midnight, the minute
when the sirens went off. And happiness was, precisely, an instant, not a
year.

When Patri lowered her eyes, still dazzled from looking directly at
the sun, she thought she saw human-shaped shadows flying through the
air and into the sixth floor, just below her feet. Who could they be? Her
anxiety gave way naturally to a feeling of curiosity, and she could see no
reason to suppress it. So she continued her circuit of the pool, walking along
the other side now, more quickly, heading for the stairwell. To get there she
had to pass in front of the others, who were chatting away noisily, but no one
noticed her. She went down the stairs. Although the sixth floor was empty, it
seemed different. In the several minutes or half-hour since she had
come up with Inés, the configuration of light had changed. The shadows had
thickened toward the front, and an intense yellow light was coming in from the
back, through the passageways. The perfection of the silence was accentuated by
the faint, far-sounding noise of conversation and laughter coming from
the terrace above. Paradoxically, a frightening intimation of the unknown was
creeping in from the bright side.

Stepping lightly, Patri ventured toward the back. This is not unusual.
When a woman, in a film for example, approaches a mysterious room where the
bravest spectator wouldn’t dare set foot, fear counts for nothing. In this case,
it’s true, there was no possibility of supernatural danger or any other kind
(although the gate in the fence had been left unlocked and unchained). She
reached the back landing, onto which the bedroom doors opened; the empty spaces
were outlined with strong yellow light. There was not a sound to be heard. She
went into the middle room. Somewhat dazzled, she took two steps, and two ghosts
passed her saying, “We’re in a hurry, a big hurry,” then disappeared through the
wall. She turned around, went out, and rushed into the adjoining room, so as not
to miss them. They were already passing through another wall, and their legs
seemed to be sinking into the floor. “Why?” she asked them. She went onto the
landing. One of the ghosts had turned toward her. “Why what?” “Why are you in a
hurry?” “Because of the party,” the ghost replied. They had been tracing a
downward curve through space and now they were sinking into the floor and the
base of the bathroom wall. “What party?” she asked. Before his head went under,
the slower ghost had time to reply: The Big Midnight
Feast....

Patri rushed to the stairs, realizing there was something entirely new
and unprecedented about the ghosts. In her surprise all she could do was hurry,
without stopping to think about what they had said. The novelty was precisely
that they had spoken to her, and answered her questions.

Although she hated running (and was aware that whatever disappears
will reappear), when she got down to the fifth floor, Patri ran to the place
where, according to her calculations, the ghosts should have emerged from the
ceiling (it still hadn’t dawned on her why she was hurrying), but they were
already gone. She plotted the curve approximately with her gaze, down to the
point where the floor should have swallowed them up. She hesitated for a moment,
and then, through a doorframe, saw a group of five or six go by, floating half
way between the ceiling and the floor. Although momentary, the vision struck her
as even stranger than what she had just seen, almost as if she were in the
presence of real men. She took a few steps in the passageway; on this floor
there were a number of bedrooms in a row. She could see ghosts in the next
bedroom, and in the third. “Are you going to the party too?” she asked, finally.
One of the ghosts turned his head and said, “Of course, Patri,” but a second
later they were disappearing through the wall. These ghosts were moving along a
curve as well, but it would only have been visible from above, since they were
maintaining a constant altitude. They passed briefly through the corner of the
third bedroom, and came out into the big living room at the back, which was
flooded with light. There the velocity of their movement increased. Patri got
her first good look at them, as they traced an increasingly rapid arc in front
of her. “Why did you say ‘of course’?” she asked, continuing the conversation. A
different ghost, not the one who had spoken before, asked in turn, “Who’d miss
the Big Midnight Feast?” but didn’t look at her (indeed he seemed to be facing
the opening at the back, the source of light). And when they were already
disappearing through the wall on the left, she heard one of their characteristic
peals of laughter, which, for some reason, sounded incongruous now. She wanted
to ask who was throwing the party, but was too shy. Instead she followed their
circular path all the way to the big living room at the front (corresponding to
the one at the back) where they scattered like a squadron of fighter planes.

Since she had ended up near the stairs, and various ghosts had been
following downward paths, she decided to go down to the next floor. From one
floor to the next, the light diminished. Since fewer partition walls had gone up
on the fifth floor, she could see through to the back, where some of the ghosts
were floating in empty space, beyond the edge. It wasn’t really accurate to say
that they were floating. It looked to her more like they were standing, on
something that could not be seen. She went toward them, with a sleepwalker’s
clear innocence. And they were watching her.

There was something architectural about the dusk as well. It was a
construction, not governed by chance, as one might have supposed in the case of
a meteorological phenomenon, but well thought out; or rather, it was itself a
kind of thought. The largest conceivable spaces were transformed into instants,
and under covering layers like roofs or paving stones, grids of shadows, light
and color formed. But it couldn’t be called a real construction, not in the
usual sense of the word, not as the building was real, for example. The dusk was
provisional, indifferent, subtle; its compartments of light were home to no one,
for the moment, but anyone could see their image cut out of a photograph and
stuck to the beautiful heavenly roof. Within the imaginary Great Construction,
minor, real constructions reared, gloriously useless and incomplete, provisional
too, but in their own way, hinting at permanence. And the strangest thing about
it was that all this was a time of day, or night, but really more a time of day,
and nothing else.