The problem was not the job, mamita linda. You know how I felt when, after two months without news, the phone rang and that voice – which sounded like an angel of the Lord – announced to me: “Dear Mr. Rodriguez, you have been chosen for the position”. To this day, I don't know what pleased me more – that they had hired me, or that at last someone was talking to me with respect – but you must remember the scream I let out as soon as they hung up on the other end of the line, the scare I gave you because you thought someone had died, and the long hug that followed in the kitchen while I told you the good news. That day everything tasted like glory and I even asked you for seconds.
No, mamita linda. The city was not the problem either. I do not deny that it is ugly, really ugly, and that people here seem to live only because the alternative is to die. In the mornings, traffic clogs the city's arteries, and emergency calls and the wailing of police sirens dominate the night. There are times when the air tastes like plastic and you cannot see the hills; they tell me it is because of so many cars, so many city dwellers who want to show off their engines even if they dye the sky brown. I wish that I could tell you that the rain helps to clean this place a little, but in the news they say it is acidic and I don't want to know more about that. No wonder you left here.
And before you even think about it, the problem wasn't the people at the law firm either. Yes, the job pays little and there are days when it's more boring than watching laundry dry, but it is what it is. They still won't let me handle my own cases, let alone be a partner in the firm, but I'm learning. At least I'll leave here with enough experience to manage on my own. My dad says that adversity builds character, and believe me, I'm going to get plenty of character here: with so many screams, fights and dramas, I can tell when I have to take the blame for things that are not my fault and duck so they won't cut my head off.
The problem, Mom, was the ghost. When I saw the ad on the internet – “apartment for rent” – I didn't think twice: the place was twenty minutes from the office, and the rent was surprisingly cheap for the area. I didn't have many other options either, because I had little money to spare and desperately needed a place to stay, so I called the number in the ad. The landlady was a short, temperamental and unfriendly woman; she met me that same day to show me the apartment.
“I ask for two months' rent in advance for the deposit,” she told me very seriously. “No parties, pets, whores, smoking or working from home. Oh, and the other room is haunted.”
This surprise annoyed me: I have nothing against ghosts, zombies, vampires or other undead, but it certainly would have been nice if the ad had clearly stated that I was to share the apartment. Anyway, I didn't want to be rude and, after some thought, I decided that having a supernatural entity for a roomie wouldn't be so bad – at least it would make my rent cheaper.
I signed the lease, paid the deposit and was soon alone in my new residence. I devoted that first afternoon to soaking it all in: as old as this part of town was, the building and my apartment were very well preserved. The walls, though they were bare concrete, had some charm in their austerity; a few paintings or potted plants would be enough to make them feel truly homey. The furniture was also very old and worn from what undoubtedly had been generations of tenants, but it didn't look like it was going to break; the living room chair squeaked a bit when I sat down and the dining room table had some scratches and coffee stains, but none of that particularly bothered me.
The only detail that bothered me – which I somehow missed while being shown around the apartment – was a green stain on the wall of the shared bathroom. At first, I thought it was mold, but after scrubbing it, I realized that it was not an invading fungus, but a strange, slimy substance that quickly evaporated when I pulled it away from the wall. I quickly understood what it was and, very indignant, I decided to talk to the ghost as soon as he appeared in the apartment: if we were going to get along, we would have to agree on some rules, such as not leaving ectoplasm or other paranormal residues in the bathroom.
In the evening, the ghost finally returned from wherever he had been during the day. I could tell because, suddenly, I felt a terrible cold that would not go away even though I had turned on the heating. The doors of the apartment shook as if a violent wind had hit them, the windowpanes fogged up and human handprints appeared on them. The specter was undoubtedly introducing himself, so I did the same and told him I was the new tenant.
I didn't have to mention the ectoplasm stain in the bathroom to him; he apologized himself and explained – by writing on the fogged glass – that the landlady hadn't told him she had rented the place again either, so he hadn't had time to clean up. I accepted his apology and promised to keep the space clean as well; I wished to be a good roommate even if he had no bodily needs.
I must admit that any reservations I might have had about my fleshless cohabitant quickly vanished during that first night, and soon I was sitting with a cup of hot chocolate, conversing with the specter through our improvised means of communication. This way I learned that his name was Gregorio Sigüenza, who had been dead for fifty years and in life was a member of the Liga 23 de Septiembre. He had been one of the people in charge of printing and distributing the organization's pamphlets and newspapers, and at times, he was also in charge of hiding the weapons that his companions gathered to fight the army and the government.
He had no issue with telling me how he had died; for us living people, death is a sensitive subject that is not to be discussed lightly, but for the dead it is as simple as talking about the weather. He explained to me that one night, as he was returning from a clandestine meeting with potential recruits, a black car followed him. Three masked men got out and, at gunpoint, took him blindfolded to a place where they tortured him for the names of his comrades. Since he did not say anything – although he suspects that it wouldn't have mattered if he talked – they shot him twice in the head and threw his body into the sea to destroy any evidence. That is why no one ever found out who killed him and, since he never received nor will he ever receive justice, he must now remain in perpetual vigil until the end of time. “That's how the fucking government works,” he concluded.
From then on, Gregorio and I had a mostly pleasant coexistence. I think this was largely due to our first friendly encounter, but also because I am a very heavy sleeper and he always limited his scares to the common areas and the room he “inhabited.” His paranormal activity never woke me up at all.
We did occasionally have disagreements and conflicts, of course, like the time when – after a long night of drinking and smoking – I came home with a woman who Gregorio frightened away by appearing in the bathroom mirror. Sometimes I woke up thirsty in the early hours of the morning and, forgetting Gregorio's presence, I got a big scare when I saw how the dishes and vases moved by themselves in the kitchen. Apart from these incidents, sharing the apartment was not so bad. After all, on those occasions when our schedules coincided we had a good time: we talked, watched TV, and even spent time together while I cooked.
Gregorio explained to me that, although he did not have the same senses and needs as a living human being, he still enjoyed the scented steam escaping from a hot cup of coffee, the smell of food and flowers. He kindly asked me to put him in my ofrenda on Day of the Dead so he could taste some of the delicacies prepared for the deceased; I promised him I would.
After all this, Mom, you must be wondering why I mentioned that the problem was the ghost, and now I will explain: Gregorio never caused me any serious discomfort or any desire to move. The problem came with the other ghost, a nuisance by the name of Stephan.
After nearly eight months of living together, Gregorio and I had adjusted perfectly to each other's routine and habits. We'd spent a long time without having any disagreements, and I'd even introduced the specter to my living friends, who thought he was charming. But all good things come to an end, and our precious quiet ended with an ominous knock at the door. When I looked through the peephole and saw only the landlady with her arms folded, I sensed something was wrong. This I confirmed even before the old woman spoke: as soon as I touched the doorknob, it chilled me to the bone with an unnatural cold.
“There's a new tenant moving in today,” the old woman blurted out, huffing as if coming upstairs to speak to us had been an immense effort.
“What?” I stammered in disbelief, and was about to pull out the lease and – like a good lawyer – point out to the crone the flagrant breach of our agreement that this news represented. However, the old woman did not give me time to make use of my argumentative skills. She pulled out a crumpled piece of paper and handed it to me.
“You will have a new ghost in the apartment,” she said as if that somehow improved the news, and left without another word.
I stood stunned at the open door. I held out the slip of paper she had handed me and read the words scrawled in English: Stephan Hill. Professional ghost.
“Professional ghost.” So now being dead was a trade, a profession. The guy was a gringo, just to make matters worse.
In the evening, Gregorio and I discussed the situation and agreed that we had no choice but to accept the new tenant. On the one hand, my lease had no restriction preventing the landlady from allowing another supernatural entity to move in; she was fully within her rights to let another ghost haunt the apartment.
On the other hand, neither Gregorio nor I had anywhere else to go. I didn't have enough money to afford another place this good in the center of the city; it was the presence of a ghost that made my rent cheaper. For Gregorio, on the other hand, moving out was a much more complicated problem: as he explained to me, a ghost cannot leave the place where it has settled unless it is exorcised, but even if I could get someone to uproot his spectral form from our apartment, finding another house to haunt would not be easy.
“There are more and more ghosts in the city every day,” he told me. “I can feel them out there, swarming in penance. They come and keep coming from all over the country, looking for a place where they can be seen, where they won't be ignored, where they can be more than just names and faces in a “Have you seen this person?” ad. It's because of the drug war, you know: with so many dead and disappeared people, there is no place on Earth that can host so many wandering spooks.”
I understood that Gregorio could not just leave. For him, leaving the apartment would mean wandering the streets forever, transformed into the most miserable of ectoplasmic creatures: a wayward soul. In that state, he would deteriorate more and more as fewer people could see him, losing himself in the ceaseless march of years, forgotten by all until he became little more than a rumor whose mute echo would quickly be swallowed up by the noises of the metropolis.
It all became clear to me. Since I had no options at that point and I didn't want to abandon my friend to his fate either, I decided to stay and try to get along with the new ghost. After all, I had already done it once. How hard could it be to deal with another specter?
Just as the landlady said, Stephan arrived that very night, shortly past midnight. I immediately realized that his presence would be a living hell for us. The first thing that the gringo ghost did was to cause such a strong electromagnetic disturbance that several light bulbs exploded in a blinding flash. The refrigerator and the microwave oven sputtered with agony, and the television set emitted a shrill screeching sound that lingered in my ears for nearly an hour. Several ghoulish figures appeared in the glass fogged by the unearthly cold, making it clear that the new tenant was taking his job as a “professional ghost” very seriously.
After this horrid display, I introduced myself to Stephan as I had previously done with Gregorio, but got no response. A few minutes later, a message from my friend appeared in the window, confirming what I already feared: “This güey does not understand Spanish.”
Wonderful. Simply wonderful. Not only were we forced to live with an entity that would not hesitate to make the apartment uninhabitable: he also couldn't – or didn't want to – speak our language. It seemed that even being dead had not allowed him the time to learn something new.
I did not wish to seem xenophobic, so I decided to try to be tolerant with Stephan. I had learned to speak English when I was a child, although my pronunciation is not always the best, so I introduced myself anew in the language of the gringo ghost. I also took the opportunity to tell him that Gregorio and I would prefer that his paranormal activities did not threaten the integrity of the apartment, and that it would be better if they both agreed to haunt the place at fixed times so as not to disturb my sleep or the neighbors'.
But I got no answer. I asked Gregorio what was going on because he, being a ghost, could see his foreign colleague. His answer did not ease me: “He's laughing.”
From that night on, it became clear that Stephan was a spirit of chaos, vermin drawn from the jaws of hell itself: a poltergeist, as he proudly told us himself. “What a showoff,” said Gregorio. “All this pretense just to say that he likes to fuck around.”
I wish he'd stuck to screwing around. Stephan's paranormal activity, far from being merely irritating, quickly became genuinely dangerous. To my chagrin, I discovered that his skills were much stronger and more finely tuned than Gregorio's, something that the gringo loved to brag about.
One night, while I was taking a bath, Stephan manifested himself – cadaverously pale and wild-eyed – in the shower doorway. The shock made me slip and I almost cracked my skull. Another time he made the walls bleed and I had to scrub them all night before the stench attracted rats or other pests. When Gregorio and I tried to watch TV, the gringo would manipulate the signal to show us frightening and grotesque visions. He even caused a short circuit that set off the fire alarm.
Even though Gregorio and I tried to make him understand that living together was not possible if he did not cooperate, Stephan did not listen and continued to cause chaos at all hours. Our living friends stopped visiting the apartment, as Stephan would go on a rampage, causing spiders to sprout from their clothes and their food to fill with worms. He would also write threatening messages on the walls and windows, making them fear for their lives if they stayed too long in our home. Gradually, we were left alone.
Every time we confronted him – Gregorio explained to me – the gringo would shrug and, in a broken and mocking imitation of Spanish, tell his Mexican colleague that he was simply doing his job. It wasn't his fault Gregorio didn't know how to be professional.
That made me angry. Gregorio might not be the most chaotic or terrifying ghost out there, but that in no way meant he was a lesser specter. I told this to him, and confided that I was thinking of hiring in an exorcist to get rid of Stephan. Gregorio thanked me for my solidarity, but did not agree with my plan to evict the poltergeist: an exorcism, he told me, would expel any supernatural entity inhabiting the apartment. Not only would Stephan have to leave, but Gregorio would also be thrown out into the street.
“I've been here since before they built the building,” he confessed to me. “I was killed here when all this was just a construction site. I don't know any other place.”
At that moment, I felt very sorry for Gregorio. I understood that, although he died very young, in this time he was an old man who didn't know how to adapt to change, a relic of ages past who was fading away as new generations displaced him. No one cared about who he had been in life anymore; his existence was an obstacle, a stone blocking the merciless march of progress, as we would soon realize.
We were once again out of options, so we resigned ourselves to trying to mitigate Stephan's chaos so that he would not throw the apartment into pandemonium. Thanks to Gregorio – who from the astral plane took charge of anticipating and thwarting the gringo's occurrences – we managed to have a few weeks of relative tranquility.
On the second night of November, Day of the Dead, Gregorio and I remained vigilant in the room, guarding the ofrenda so that Stephan would not think of appropriating it. It is known that a dead person cannot touch what is on the altar if he has not been included in it, but I did not want to take any risks. The customs of the gringo dead are different from ours – there was no way of knowing what would happen if we left the ofrenda alone. In any case, the one photo of Gregorio I managed to get – the one of him as a missing person – was enough to let my friend enjoy the food, so I opted to give him some privacy while I got some rest.
We were interrupted by a knocking on the door; more bad news, no doubt. When I opened the door, the owner of the apartment was accompanied by two men with skin whiter than an axolotl's, dressed in flip-flops and v-neck t-shirts from which protruded pale chest hairs. One of them, a man with blond dreadlocks and ear piercings, took a long look at the apartment and the Day of the Dead altar before I could object.
“Oh, so beautiful!” Said the man in English. “Very traditional. Very authentic.”
“And you said it's definitely haunted, right?” said the other one, walking into my home and ignoring my protests. “Two ghosts! And one of them is American? It's definitely what we're looking for!”
I looked dumbfounded at the landlady. She took me aside and said:
“You're going to have to move out, because I will not be renewing your lease. From now on, this apartment will accommodate tourists. Airbnb, I think they call it. I'm giving you a month's notice, as we agreed, so you have time to pack up your stuff and move out.”
“Tourists?” I asked with annoyance. “What the hell are tourists going to do with a building as old as this?” Deep down, I already knew the answer.
“They're here for the ghosts,” the old woman bluntly told me. “In their country, ghost hunting shows, urban explorations and haunted hotels have become very popular. That's what I'm going to use the apartment for: doing business with these two.”
The old woman let the gringos have their way. The two of them giggled and squealed like high school girls whenever they sensed “paranormal activity” – even if neither Gregorio nor Stephan had done anything. Satisfied, they shook the owner's hand and left with her; they talked ceaselessly about how much cash they were going to charge and how they would promote the place.
“They didn't see us,” Gregorio lamented. “They didn't see us, even though we were here.”
“But they'll see you,” I said. ”They'll see you when the others come, when this place fills up with güeros obsessed with the supernatural. That has to count for something, right?”
No. This will never be right. Gregorio was a communist all his life, and he has remained so all his death. What worse damnation could he face than ending up as a spectacle, exploited by greedy capitalists and morbid tourists? He doesn't want to spend his eternity like that, perceived only as a luxury object, as an echo whose history and name would be just a curious fact to entertain the tenants for a while. Stephan might perhaps enjoy that – after all, he loves being the center of attention – but my friend is no carnival ghost, no tourist attraction.
That is why I'm writing this to you, Mom. I'll have to move apartments in a few more weeks. I've already found a place that, although much farther away from work – an hour if I use public transportation – fits my budget just right, and I like it enough not to complain.
As for Gregorio, I would like to ask you a big favor. Remember you said you'd turn my old room into a guest room? Ask Dad if you would both agree to have a ghost in the house, at least for the near future. I don't know how much an exorcist charges and I have to hurry up and get Gregorio out of here. I promise he won't cause any problems – at most he'll leave some ectoplasm stains on the wall just so you'll know that he's still there.