Ghosts by César Aira Read Free Book Online Page A

shouldn’t have run off in the first place. Patri, who
was a model of good manners and respect, repressed a “huh!” but couldn’t quite
stifle a sigh, which made her feel immediately ashamed, although it had been as
faint as a breeze in the far heights of the sky. Elisa, who was deeply Chilean
in this as in all other respects, could perceive the subtlest shades of an
intention. So she added a comment, to compensate for the unfortunate tone of her
request—or, at least, to unhinge it and let it swing loose beyond,
where the real words are, which have no meaning or force to compel. It was
amazing, she said, that even in this heat they still had the energy to run off.
Playing excited them so much they just couldn’t get enough. It was the
equivalent of “living” for adults: you’re not going to decide to die when night
comes just because you’ve been living all day. Patri smiled. Also, they had been
up early, said her mother; and lack of sleep, which makes adults slow and
drowsy, makes kids restless. But they’d have to take a nap, or they’d be
unbearable at night. Patri couldn’t promise that she’d be able to get Juan
Sebastián to go to bed, or even his buddy Blanca Isabel. The older boy hated the
siesta. Elisa thought for a moment. She had, in fact, seen them when she was
coming upstairs with her husband. She regretted not having told them to follow
her. Each time they saw their father in that state, they thought he was sick and
about to die; she could have exploited that momentary terror and shut them away
in the dark. With a bit of an effort, they could get to sleep. If they ran off,
it was hopeless. Luckily there was no danger of them getting out into the
street. For some reason, that danger didn’t exist. There was the possibility of
a fall, from any of the floors, since the building was still a concrete frame,
with just a few internal walls in place, not all of them, by any means. But
neither mother nor daughter mentioned that possibility; it didn’t even enter
into their private reflections. They had once said that an adult was just as
likely to fall as a child; there was no difference, because the planet’s
gravitational force worked in the same way on both. It was like asking which
weighed more, a kilo of lead or a kilo of feathers. And that’s why they were
vaguely but deeply revolted by the way the owners of the apartments took such
care not to let their children approach the edges when they visited, like that
morning. If that was how they felt, why were they buying the apartments in the
first place? Why didn’t they go and live in houses at ground level? “We’re
different,” they thought, “we’re Chilean.”
    But there was an easier way to do it after all, said Elisa, and that
was to take away the toy cars. Without them, there would be no reason to remain
at large. If she knew her children, and she was sure she did, it was bound to
work. It had sometimes worked for her in the past. Patri said they would hide
them. Her mother bent down calmly (they were at the door of the little
apartment, talking in hushed voices, unnecessarily, since Viñas was sound
asleep), and picked up the cardboard box full of toys. With an expert hand, she
began to rummage through it. She knew every one of her children’s toys. “The big
yellow one, the red one, the little blue truck....” She
calculated that exactly four were currently in their possession. She even told
Patri which ones. But Patri wasn’t paying much attention. She didn’t think it
would be possible to recover all the cars, and so bring in the children. As long
as they still had one, just one, Juan Sebastián would stay awake all through the
siesta, the little devil.
    She went downstairs to the sixth floor. The quickest way to do it was
to check the floors one by one, room by room. If they heard her, they would try
to hide. She set about it systematically, but it was hard to concentrate because
the heat and the time of day had dazed her.