Ghosts (New Directions Paperbook)

In the heart of Buenos Aires, a colossal luxury apartment building stands on the precipice of completion, its concrete skeleton reaching skyward, its promise of opulence still a whisper in the wind. Yet, within its unfinished walls, life thrives in an unexpected corner. High on the roof, nestled amidst the construction dust and the panoramic views of the city, lives the Chilean Viñas family: Raúl, the night watchman; Elisa, his resourceful wife; their four small children; and Elisa's pensive fifteen-year-old daughter, Patri. It is New Year's Eve, a day poised between the old and the new, and the air hums with the anticipation of celebration and the subtle, persistent presence of the uncanny.

The family moves through their makeshift home, a space of exposed pipes and temporary partitions, preparing for their annual feast. Bottles of wine are cooled with an ingenious method, tucked into the very torsos of the building's other inhabitants: the ghosts. These are no ethereal wisps, but corporeal, if translucent, beings - naked, dust-covered men, pot-bellied and often engaged in mundane activities, floating through floors and walls as if gravity were a mere suggestion. To the Viñas family, these specters are a normalized nuisance, a peculiar aspect of their temporary dwelling, much like a leaky faucet or a missing banister. The wealthy future residents, touring their soon-to-be abodes, remain utterly oblivious to the silent, naked figures who share the space.

As the day unwinds, the focus of this liminal world shifts to Patri. While her siblings scamper about, largely indifferent to the ghostly company, Patri finds herself increasingly drawn to them. There is a quiet intensity in her gaze as she observes their strange routines, their silent camaraderie. Her questions about their existence deepen, becoming more heartfelt, reflecting a burgeoning curiosity that borders on fascination. She sees them not as frightening apparitions, but as figures of a different, perhaps freer, existence within the rigid confines of the unfinished architecture.

The ghosts, in turn, seem to acknowledge her, their silent gazes lingering. They are planning their own midnight feast, a shadowy counterpoint to the boisterous celebration the Viñas family intends. Elisa, ever watchful, begins to sense a subtle, unsettling shift in her daughter. The casual acceptance of the supernatural in their lives, usually a matter of course, now carries a sharper edge of foreboding. She perceives a dangerous attraction stirring within Patri, an emotional pull towards the spectral realm that threatens to sever her from the living.

As dusk descends and the city lights begin to glitter, the building itself seems to breathe, a colossal entity straddling the line between the built and the unbuilt, the real and the imagined. The philosophical musings that occasionally surface, like whispers in the concrete, ponder the very nature of construction and non-building, of dreams projected onto steel and glass. For Patri, this suspended state of the building mirrors her own, poised on the brink of adulthood, navigating the uncanny reality of her life as an exile, a Chilean adrift in Buenos Aires.

The climax of the night arrives with the stroke of midnight. As the New Year's fireworks erupt across the city, painting fleeting masterpieces in the sky, the ghosts extend their silent invitation to Patri. They beckon her to join their feast, a spectral gathering on the very edge of the parabolic dish crowning the edifice, a sharp metallic rim where no bird would dare to perch. Elisa, recognizing the perilous allure, understands that her daughter's life, her very being, hangs in a delicate balance. The choice, both terrifying and profoundly personal, is now Patri's alone to make.