Cesar Aira - Ghosts

When Elisa got up to prepare the coffee, Patri was quick to follow her into the kitchen, saying “I’ll give you a hand.” The rest of them went on talking and drinking wine. Raúl Viñas drank four glasses in the time it took the others to finish one. The result was an exquisite inebriation that went unnoticed in social situations, but sent his whole body into orbit, endowing it with a peculiar movement, shifting it to places where no one thought it was. Once they were alone, Patri asked what Elisa had meant by the quip that had gone down so well. But, my girl…. her mother began, and here the expression “my girl,” so common in the familiar speech of Chileans, so normal that even daughters sometimes use it without thinking when addressing their mothers, also took on a broader sense, which neutralized the typically Chilean connotations. The language shifted to its most abstract level, almost as if Elisa were speaking on television: But my girl, we never know what we mean, and even if we did, it wouldn’t matter. You’re always saying things don’t matter, said Patri, in a slightly reproachful tone, which, as always in their conversations, was tempered with affection. But as Elisa put the water on to boil, spooned the coffee into the pot, passed the cups to her daughter so that she could check they were clean and put them on the tray with the saucers and the little spoons, she became very serious. There were things she needed to say to her daughter, things that really did matter. They had spoken so much, half-jokingly, about the “real men” who were destined to make them happy, and they had made light of them so often, that in their respective imaginations, the subject had lost its gravity. She had to restore it, by reasoning if need be, and there was no time like the present, now, before the end of the year. How can I tell you, she said to her daughter, then stopped and thought. Patricita, I’m afraid you’re not the most observant member of the family. Come on, tell me, tell me, said her daughter, without a trace of self-pity, maintaining her characteristic reserve.

Listen, said Elisa Vicuña: Chilean men, all Chilean men, speak softly, with a slightly feminine tone of voice, don’t they? Whereas Argentinean men are always shouting out loud. I don’t know what they’ve got in their throats, but they’re like megaphones. Well, at first you can get the impression that all Argentinean men are super-virile, I mean, we can get that impression. But more careful and detailed observation reveals something else, almost the opposite, in fact. Haven’t you noticed? Patri shrugged her shoulders. Her mother went on: Think of the architect who designed this building, and the decorators who come with the owners, all the men who came this morning, for example…. Don’t tell me you haven’t noticed, Patricita: those pink silk cravats, the aftershave, those tank tops, the oohs! and ahs! In spite of everything that was on her mind, Patri couldn’t help smiling at her mother’s mimicry. Elisa went on:

Now there’s another question, and it’s closely related: the question of money. Having money is a kind of virility, the only kind that counts in Argentina . That’s why this country we have come to is so unique and strange. That’s why it has cut us off from the rest of the world, to which we belong by right as foreigners, and held us like hostages. It’s true that there is, or at least should be, another form of virility, which doesn’t depend on money. But where we are now, it’s hard to imagine; as if, to understand it, we’d have to go back in time and space, back to Chile and even further, to something before that. What is that other form of virility? Popular virility? No, because the popular is subordinate; it’s an eminently subordinate form in the hierarchy of virilities. It’s the primitive form; that is, virility independent of the state. Although in principle it might seem preferable to the popular form, the primitive form can be dangerous for us too. It could imply that women are condemned to the primitive, to savagery. And wouldn’t that be dangerous? Isn’t the state, after all, a safeguard, a kind of guarantee, which stops us disappearing altogether, even if it relegates us to the bottom of the ladder? Women, said Patri, will never disappear. That, my girl, replied her mother vigorously, is precisely what’s in doubt.

But what has all this got to do with ghosts? Patri asked her again.

Ah, ghosts…. Well, what is a ghost? I’ve been talking about Argentinean men and Chilean men, but that was just to make it clearer, the way animals are used in fables. Well, so far it’s not all that clear, said Patri. Come on, a smart girl like you…. You see, for us there are always ghosts. Subtract a Chilean man from an Argentinean, or vice versa. Or add them up. You can actually do whatever you like. The result will always be the same: a ghost.

OK, but why do they have to be gay?

Even at that critical moment, when, as she was intuitively aware, her beloved daughter’s life hung in the balance, Elisa Vicuña could not bring herself to answer with anything more than a mysterious smile, the “serious smile.”

Since the coffee was ready, and a fragrant plume of steam was rising from the spout of the pot, they went back out. Patri put the tray on the table, and Inés Viñas took charge of filling each cup. The coffee was so well brewed, so aromatic, that hardly anyone felt the need to sweeten it. Patri took a sip, and waited for it to cool. She was thinking about the conversation with her mother just before: they hadn’t come to any kind of conclusion; in fact, her doubts had multiplied. And yet the conversation had produced effects, and that was what she was thinking about as she drank her coffee. The danger, she thought, was not so much that the ghosts who were waiting for her would turn out to be a complete flop as far their virility was concerned, but that none of them would deign to talk to her, and give her the explanations she needed so badly. On second thought, however, the conversation had produced the opposite effect, since it was all about entering a state where she would no longer need anyone to look after her, or provide explanations, or even give her what her mom gave as abundantly as anyone could: love. And as she proceeded from this conclusion to a third stage in her reflections, the question of the ghosts’ real virility recovered its importance. It might seem odd that this relatively uneducated young woman, who hadn’t even finished secondary school, should entertain such elaborate thoughts. But it’s not as strange as it seems. A person might never have thought at all, might have lived as a quivering bundle of futile, momentary passions, and yet at any moment, just like that, ideas as subtle as any that have ever occurred to the greatest philosophers might dawn on him or her. This seems utterly paradoxical, but in fact it happens every day. Thought is absorbed from others, who don’t think either, but find their thoughts ready-made, and so on. This might seem to be a system spinning in a void, but not entirely; it is grounded, although it’s hard to say just how. An example might clarify the point, though only in an analogical mode: imagine one of those people who don’t think, a man whose only activity is reading novels, which for him is a purely pleasurable activity, and requires not the slightest intellectual effort; it’s simply a matter of letting the pleasure of reading carry him along. Suddenly, some gesture or sentence, not to speak of a “thought,” reveals that he is a philosopher in spite of himself. Where did he get that knowledge? From pleasure? From novels? An absurd supposition, given his reading material (if he read Thomas Mann, at least, it might be a different story). Knowledge comes through the novels, of course, but not really from them. They are not the ground; you couldn’t expect them to be. They’re suspended in the void, like everything else. But there they are, they exist: you can’t say that it’s a complete void. (With television, the argument would be harder to sustain.)