The Boarding House by Toni Castillo Girona (reading e books .txt) 📖

a fairly plausible explanation could apply there in the form of lower temperatures; that was Holland, after all, and cold and windy days were more than common. She had put the central heating on that morning, and it seemed to him she was doing so every morning, in a desperate intent on warming the entire house up.
Finally, he opened his eyes and responded:
“Well, that ghost seems incapable of getting a door open without using a key, does it not?”, he smiled briefly. He waited for her to nod once again, then went on: “So, we had to lock him up”, he added, confident.
“You mean, in the room upstairs?”
“Indeed. It appears to me that's the easiest way possible, don't you think?”
She nodded for the third time that morning. Trapping a ghost was supposed to be something almost impossible, some sort of difficult task only actual experts could attempt; despite so she thought that scheme as foolish as it was feasible: to trap that ghost in its own room

. Brilliant.
“And then, what?”, she asked him.
“Still pondering that.”, he confessed.
“Well, the first idea was to keep that door closed forever, so I think it does not really matter if we have a ghost trapped in there.”
She stood up and went to the kitchen to make some more strong filtered coffee. He waited for their chat to resume toying with his empty porcelain cup. That morning the adjacent garden's door was shut. A huge old golden lamp hang from the ceiling not half a meter above his head, framing him in a small circle of light. Beyond that table, the kitchen was in almost complete darkness. He turned his head to the right, in order to catch a glimpse of her working in the kitchen. He came to think about the weirdness of it all: how delicate it seemed to be that circle of light where he was enclosed in; how it was closing in, little by little, despite it was not so early in the morning and the lamp had the same number of light bulbs on; would that mean the ghost was back? He shook his head thus ostracising that idea almost immediately; he could not allow poisonous thoughts commanding his actions. He looked up at that impressive golden lamp and saw it move slightly. She came back from the kitchen carrying another silver coffee pot: she held it by its handle using her right hand, which was covered in rugs to avoid it from getting harm. In no time she was in the light circle, smiling at him dryly. She took a seat sighting, and then put the coffee pot where the empty one had stood.
“How are we going to lock him up?”, she questioned.
He helped himself with the coffee, and after having a couple of sips he said:
“First, we have to watch his movements.”
“It is a ghost, we cannot actually see him.”
“We don't know that, and besides I did not mean to watch him

: I meant to watch his movements

.”
“Like doors opening on their own and the staircase emitting odd noises late at night?”
“Sort of.”
She nodded in silence. He looked up once again in order to check on that golden lamp. It was not moving now, not even slightly. Its stillness made him remember, though only briefly, about an old acquaintance of his whose first abroad trip had been to Liverpool; there he would buy a calendar for a present, one of those full of spectacular pictures of the city and its surroundings; that present was supposed to be for some woman or another he had never heard of; however, on one such a sad occasion, he happened to be having a beer in his acquaintance's flat – difficult to recall why -, and in his way to have a little po he saw that very same calendar still wrapped in that kind of transparent foil, resting upon a rotten wooden table, circled by rusty screws and nuts, some hammers and an old screwdriver no-one would use any more. That storeroom was full of long-time-ago forgotten things. He could not help it but get in that room and had a look at the calendar. It was completely useless. He wondered if that friend of his would be from the past, in that case maybe the calendar sill could be of some assistance. Space for daily appointments

, it said. He felt a bit depressed. It was a present due to cease its own frugal existence; just one year, or maybe a bit more in case its owner forgot about it some time past December; but that one was not only damned from the very beginning of its conception: it was even worse: no-one had used it, no-one had gazed at its gorgeous pictures, no-one had even unwrapped it: there it was, standing upon an old wooden table where only ineffectual tools laid, as if it was something to be ashamed of: an error

.
“The room's door can be locked from the outside and, if you are in there and you don't have the key, you get trapped. Is that so?”, he asked her.
She looked a bit embarrassed for a while.
“Yes.”, that was all she said.
“So that's it, then, “ he murmured, “ we have to steal the keys from him and lock the door from the outside.”
She stared at him astonished.
“How are we supposed to achieve something like that?”
For the best part of a minute he said nothing. He was still thinking about that run out calendar: on its back he saw twelve different pictures of Liverpool

, one for each year's month: The Albert Dock

, The Metropolitan Cathedral

, The Anglican Cathedral

, and among them and closer to the months belonging to the spring season Sutton Park

, and an impressive ferry crossing the Mersey River

by moonlight – though he had never heard of a Mersey Ferry

crossing the river at night at all -. Despite its proximity to the river, The Albert Dock

stood for January. When he left, his acquaintance kept drinking brutally. One month after he would be told about him being suicidal, and not long after that he would heard about his death. He had killed himself slitting his veins, surely a painful way to die. He wondered about that calendar, had he committed suicide staring at it, still wrapped in that transparent foil and crying? He could see more or less clearly how his tears would ran all his face down until reaching the calendar, which would be probably resting upon his lap in order to gaze at it whilst his wide open wrists gushed a lot of blood off its transparent foil: oddly, he would be long dead but the calendar, under its protective cover, would be completely all right despite all the blood.
“We have to wait until he fall asleep.”, he responded without looking at her.
“In case we can see him.”
“As I said, we don't know if he's invisible. Maybe he is, but maybe we can hear him breathing.”
“Do you think he is out now?”
He looked at her finally, smiling.
“I couldn't tell.”, he answered dryly.
He thought about his doctor, that good light-hearted psychiatrist, convincing him to explore the world; the best way of avoiding sad remembrances and cheer up. Bloody hell

, he said to himself, it's been just the contrary

. First it was his wife; now that old acquaintance of his and his dreadful suicide; he wondered how painful would be to slit one's veins, and how long would take to die that way. He resolved his acquaintance had had plenty of time to look at that bloody calendar whilst dying. He knew for sure sadness could shape one's life in such a terrible way that most people out there would choose death to live; in that context it was not a paradox: it was a cure

.
“We have to wait for him to arrive in his room, I'm afraid”, he said after a while.
“Hidden?”
“Exactly”, he sipped some filtered coffee and smiled at her, “maybe under his bed.”
“But first we should be sure he's out, don't you think?”
He nodded.
“How?”, she asked staring at him.
“We can go to his room now, and check if its door's locked.”
“I did not lock the door when I found out about the shower and the keys.”, she admitted. “So, it shouldn't be.”
“If he's in there.”, he added, gloomily.
“Last time that door was locked, it was early in the morning.”, she reminded him.
“You're right,” he said looking at his wristwatch. “If he's out, that door should be locked; we will wait otherwise.”
“What about the window? Do you think he could ...”, she started.
“No way, “ he cut in on her suddenly, “ he's still using keys for God's sake!”
She remained silent, giving his thoughts another opportunity to drift around.
There's no such things as ghosts

, his wife said once. Now, he had to deal with an odd one, one incapable of getting doors open without a key; one having showers irritably late at night; one being as paranoid as when it was alive; what sort of ghost could that possibly be? He had to admit it: that entire situation was far beyond anything else he could ever think of. What was it what he wanted? He had another sip of strong coffee and sighed. She helped herself with some tea; that morning the fresh fruit salad was still resting on his white plate, untouched. He was not hungry. He had had the orange juice and some ham, and that would be all for that day. So, what was the plan? Get into his room: either he would be out or he would be right there. In case the door was locked, it was more than probable he would be out. She told him so: he was a paranoid. All the time he had locked his door during the time he had spent outdoors. And, apparently, even now, he was still acting the same way. So the idea was simple: to wait for him under the bed, not making the slightest noise, and hope for the best: he was that sort of weird ghost having showers and getting doors open using a mere key, that he probably would have to take a nap. That most certainly was, he thought without any doubts. He was sure the ghost would be somehow a physical presence, though maybe invisible; anyway, he thought it would be feasible to lay down upon the carpeted floor, right under the bed, and still hear or even see some pressure upon it at the precise instant the ghost would decide to go to bed. Then they would wait until it was safe to steal the keys – which, he guessed, would be dangling from the door's keyhole -.
“Who will be? I mean, the one waiting in the room.”, she asked him.
“Me.”, he sounded as if he had made up his mind entirely.
“I see.”, she looked at him sadly and after a moment's hesitation, she said: “It can't be any dangerous, can it?”
He did not respond.
“Damn.”, she said.
He wanted that ghost trapped, stuck in that room upstairs. It is you who is wrong

, his wife said that last night, laying in her death's bed, blind. Remembrances were driving him crazy; he pitied his doctor, because now that trip to Holland had proved itself absolutely useless: instead of keeping him away from suicidal and dark thoughts, there he was: dealing with old dreadful and sad memories; thinking about death almost every now and again, and wishing to capture a ghost; an actual ghost whose limited powers were forcing him to use something as earthly as that key-pair to get doors open. So he thought about his wife all along, and if