The Ghost in Love (15 page)

Shaking her head at this unstoppable flow of Ben memories, German walked to the side and separated one metal cart from a large bunch there. She took the shopping list from her pocket and scanned it. Moving quickly, she could be finished and out of the store in fifteen minutes, which was perfect.

She got as far as the meat counter before being sidetracked. While trying to decide between two packages of chicken breasts—what was it Ben said about choosing chicken? What were those things he said to look for?—a colleague from the school where she taught walked over and began talking. German was drawn into a meandering enjoyable conversation about students, problems with stubborn administrators, and school life in general. She liked to talk, especially about her job.

German loved teaching, loved the energy and curiosity of her students. She loved how their impatience and enthusiasm kept her sharp and fully focused. Their reactions immediately told her when a project she'd assigned them was successful or a failure. Even when she frequently chattered on and on about it, Ben enjoyed listening to her school talk because she wore her affection and hope for the students on her sleeve. She spoke of the talented ones as if they were full-fledged artists, although they were only twelve years old. Even so, she believed that if they stuck with it, some of them could be professional artists when they grew up.

Although they were very different women, Ben felt that there were certain similarities between German Landis and Dominique Bertaux. Dominique had been sincerely satisfied with the rewards of everyday life, and German was, too. German didn't expect or believe that life held great things in store for her—which was fine—and neither had Dominique. Dominique had once compared her life to a beach after a storm: rarely was any treasure tossed up on shore
there, but if you were a fan or collector of driftwood, bottle glass, or the variety of odd and surprising things that had been adrift in the ocean a long time, then you frequently found useful objects there to take home and appreciate. When German heard that anecdote, she nodded eagerly. She agreed with the analogy and told Ben that hearing it made her like Dominique even more. She could not imagine what it had been like for him when his girlfriend died, especially under those terrible circumstances.

“Excuse me?”

German was facing her colleague and hadn't noticed the woman approaching. On hearing the question, she turned and saw Danielle Voyles standing nearby, staring at her.

“Oh, hello.” German introduced Danielle to her colleague. Then the three women stood there awkwardly in silence, each waiting for the others to speak.

Danielle had on a black cap pulled way down to cover most of the wound on the side of her head. She wore a black velour jogging suit and brand-new white sneakers. She looked sporty and at ease. But she wasn't at ease, as German was about to discover. With hesitant eyes but a resolute voice, she asked if it would be possible for them to talk alone for a few minutes. The coworker from school said good-bye and pushed her cart away toward the frozen-food aisle.

“I'm sorry to interrupt your conversation, but this is very important.”

“It's no problem. How did you find me?”

“I looked you up in the phone book. You have such an unusual name that it was easy to remember. Then I went to your house. Your landlord said she saw you walking towards the market with a shopping basket, so I took a chance and came here.”

German smiled sympathetically. “You went to a lot of trouble.”

“Because we're
in
a lot of trouble.”

As far as German knew, this woman had tricked her yesterday by pretending Ben was invisible when they visited her apartment. Still, when Danielle spoke now, German believed what she said. The fear that framed her voice was convincing.

“What trouble? What do you mean?”

“A man came to see me today. He looked like some kind of bum. He said his name was Stewart Parrish and that he knew you and your boyfriend.”

“I don't know anybody by that name. Parrish? No.”

“He said you'd probably say that. He told me to give this to you if you did.” Danielle extended her arm toward German and opened her hand so the other woman could see what it held.

Usually at least once in a person's childhood we lose an object that at the time is invaluable and irreplaceable to us, although it is worthless to others. Many people remember that lost article for the rest of their lives. Whether it was a lucky pocketknife, a transparent plastic bracelet given to you by your father, a toy you had longed for and never expected to receive, but there it was under the tree on Christmas . . . it makes no difference what it was. If we describe it to others and explain why it was so important, even those who love us smile indulgently because to them it sounds like a trivial thing to lose. Kid stuff. But it is not. Those who forget about this object have lost a valuable, perhaps even crucial memory. Because something central to our younger self resided in that thing. When we lost it, for whatever reason, a part of us shifted permanently.

German Landis's lost object was a red stone. On one side of it was a clumsily painted picture of a clown face in bright yellow. One glimpse and you knew that an untalented child had painted it.

When she was very young, German was way too tall, klutzy, and
plain as a potato. She wore boys' dungarees and T-shirts most of the time because they fit her better than girls' clothes. Besides, dresses made her self-conscious of her long, long legs. One cruel, clever classmate nicknamed her “Praying Mantis Landis” because she was so tall and thin and liked green jeans. At least once a day someone at school called her that name, always with a thick coating of disdain and derision on his or her voice. German was smart, sensitive, and talkative, although as a girl she had few friends to gab with. At that age she wanted nothing more from life than to either be accepted or shorter. If neither was possible, then she just wanted to fit in better than she did, despite her basketball-player height and big hands and feet.

Like every other girl in third grade, German had a crush on Rudi Paula. The blond prince of the schoolyard, Rudi reigned supreme at kickball, punchball, burping, and jokes. He was the focal point of any gathering. Even as a child he had the world on a string, and that was just fine with the world. Every boy wanted to be Rudi's friend, and every girl dreamt of receiving a Valentine card from him on February 14. Needless to say, he ignored German. She was convinced that Rudi didn't know her name, even though they were in the same class. If he did, he probably knew her as Praying Mantis Landis and only that.

One day their teacher told the class to find a rock and bring it in because they were going to paint them during art period. German brought in a big piece of quartz. When the time came, she went to work painting a complicated picture on the quartz that she had been designing in her head the whole day. When class was over and recess began, she wasn't close to being finished and asked if she could stay inside and continue working. The teacher agreed while the other kids filed out of the room.

Rudi Paula purposely waited until he was the last to leave. While passing German's desk, he gruffly, loudly plunked his still-wet red-and-yellow stone down in front of her. “
Here
. This is for
you
,” he said, and then fled both the room and the implications of the gesture he had just made. Rudi Paula never said another word to her the rest of the school year. That summer his family moved to another town.

His stone was painted brick red and a yellow clown face was ineptly rendered on one side. For German Landis, however, it might just as well have been the Rosetta stone because of what it said to her. The only person she showed it to was her brother, who could not believe that the great Rudi Paula had actually given his glunky sister a present. Years later he wrote a song about it called “Rudi's Stone” for his band. Much to the adult German's delight, it was the only positive song in the Kidney Failure repertoire.

What Rudi's stone said to this tall, insecure girl was that she was all right. No, she was much more than all right: she was the kind of girl that Rudi Paula liked and gave presents to. It was her instant talisman: visible, tangible proof that life might turn out okay and she could end up happy. Some nights in the first year that she owned it, she fell asleep holding the stone in her hand. She kept it in a special place on one of her bookshelves. It never left her room because she was afraid of losing it. Although her parents were not privy to why a red stone was so important to her, they knew not to touch it, and they didn't.

As time passed and her life improved significantly, German would still flick her eyes over to Rudi's stone sometimes and smile, remembering the day and the exact momentous moment when he gave her his red gift of approval and hope.

Years later she looked up at the shelf one day and realized with a
start that the stone had disappeared. She asked everyone in her family if they knew where it was, but no one did.

Surprisingly, though, the loss did not cause much reaction in her. Twelve-year-old German Landis had other things on her mind. There was the daily flurry of seventh grade, which she enjoyed very much. And a new intriguing boy in the school band who played the clarinet and said he would call her up one day maybe. She had a nice group of girlfriends now who took up much of the space in her head. Truth was, Rudi's stone now symbolized the loser she was embarrassed to admit she once had been. Like the girl wearing the stupid-looking party hat while mugging for the camera in an old photograph, German acknowledged the child who had once cherished and needed the stone, but that was no longer her. So when it disappeared from her life, only a small part of her was sad; an even smaller part wondered where the stone had gone.

Twenty-two years later she lifted it out of Danielle Voyles's hand and brought it up to her face for a closer look. Yes, that was it. There was no question. After all this time she once again held Rudi's stone in her hand.

Danielle asked, “Does it mean anything to you?”

“Yes, it means a lot, actually. This man gave it to you?”

Danielle nodded, her face tight and giving away nothing.

“What did he say?”

“He wants to know where your boyfriend is.”

Despite what she held, German responded angrily, “I don't know where he is. And he's
not
my boyfriend.

“That's all? He gave you this stone and said he wanted to see my boyfriend?”

“No, that's not all. He said he had your dog and was going to kill
it. Then he was going to kill me and you, unless you tell him. He said you two met in a pizza restaurant, where you saw what he can do.”

Pilot woke
when the front door closed. A loud
clack
, a normal sound; no one was trying to hide it or sneak into the apartment. The dog did not move from his comfortable bed. He watched the door to the living room, waiting for Ben Gould to enter. Time passed and Pilot continued to wait. Perhaps the man had gone to the toilet first. That would not be surprising. The dog could never get over how many times a day human beings went to the toilet. Neither could he get over the fact that in every dwelling he had shared with humans, they set aside one entire room for the purpose of emptying their bodies. In contrast, a dog used everywhere for its toilet and never thought twice about it. When you had to go, you went. The only reason a dog permitted itself to be housebroken was the trade-off: you give me food, shelter, and a million pats on the head and I'll leave your walls and floors dry. It was the best deal going.

“Pilot? Where are you?”

The voice calling out was not so different from Gould's. The dog had just awakened, so he mistook what he heard for Ben's voice.

“I'm in here, in the living room.”

“The living room? Okay, I'll find you.”

A strange thing to say, because this was the man's own home. Why would he need to
find
the living room? Pilot sniffed the air twice and waited. He was fully awake now, his senses heightened in anticipation. A light came on in the hallway. A few moments later a man's body was silhouetted in the doorway. Now the dog could smell him. It was not Ben Gould's smell.

“Pilot? Are you in here?”

The fur rose down his back. “Who are you?”

“Ah, there you are!” came the friendly reply. The light came on in the room and Pilot saw Stewart Parrish for the first time. The man stood there smiling with his hands on his hips. “Hello!”

How did this stranger know that the dog understood and spoke human language now? How had he found this apartment? How did he know Pilot's name?

Parrish continued smiling as he walked into the living room. Pilot lifted his head and sniffed the air more carefully. This man smelled of living outdoors. But he also smelled of closed rooms full of trapped, stale air and clothes stored in boxes a long time. He smelled of cheap food: lots of potatoes and bread, processed meat, sugary drinks, and . . . there was another odor emanating from this stranger that Pilot could not identify. It was mysterious, a wholly unique aroma that baffled the dog's sense of smell.

“It's a pleasure to finally meet you.”

“How do you know who I am?”

Parrish answered eagerly, “Oh, I've been briefed. They gave me lots of information about you.”

Neither spoke after that. Pilot waited, sizing the man up. Stewart Parrish appeared content to remain silent until the dog asked another question. He wore a pinstriped suit and an orange shirt. Human beings are wrong to think dogs cannot see color. They can, but colors are less vivid to them, less defined. For example, to Pilot, the electric orange of Parrish's shirt was the orange of a dead autumn leaf.

The man walked over to Ben Gould's favorite chair and sat down in it. He looked at his trousers and energetically brushed off his lap, although, from what the dog could see, there was nothing on it. Parrish looked at everything in the room as if memorizing the details. A wisp of a smile remained on his lips while he looked. He appeared to feel completely at home there.