Cesar Aira - Ghosts

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.