The Ghost in Love (29 page)

Standing behind her, Pilot asked, “What? What do you mean?”

“I mean it's
locked
. It won't open.” She tried it again so the dog could see for himself.

“That makes no sense. It was just open. It had to be—I came out of there.”

“Well, it's not anymore. One of them must have locked it from the inside.”

“Why would they do that? Ben asked me to come out here and get you.”

“Maybe Ling locked it.”

“Makes no sense.”

“You already said that.”

They looked at each other. Then German thought, I'm having this conversation with a
dog
.

From the other side of the door, someone started singing.

“That's Ben.”

Another voice joined in, a voice that sounded exactly like Ben's, but there was no question two voices were singing in Danielle's apartment now and not just one. Having lived with Ben, both German and Pilot knew how much he loved to sing. As a boy, his Russian grandfather had entertained him for years with beloved stories about his childhood in the countryside near Omsk. How in those mortally cold Siberian winters, people had little to amuse themselves with when the January wind was monstrous and the temperature outside was forty below zero. Traditionally, families and visitors gathered around the kitchen table because it was in the warmest room in the house. There they sang Russian folk songs. The custom of transcendent a cappella singing grew out of that and came to be known worldwide as Russian table music.

When Ben was eleven, his grandfather took him to the Bushnell in Hartford, Connecticut, to hear the famous Russian choir Peresvet sing a medley of these songs. The thing he remembered most about that night was how almost everyone in the audience seemed to know each song by heart. Many people, including his grandfather, hummed or sang along with the performers. The applause after each song was thunderous.

Once when little Ben was sick in bed a long time with a serious case of chicken pox and bored out of his mind, his grandfather visited on several consecutive afternoons and sang/taught him some of these songs. The boy's favorite was called “The Young Man Has Flown Like a Bird,” because in that dreary time he always pictured himself as the young man flying up from this sickbed and out the window into a healthy world. Years later, when Ben encountered the paintings of
Marc Chagall for the first time, they reminded him of those days in bed, slowly learning the long Russian words to that song.

And now he was singing it again. It's what Ling had requested they do before it happened. That's what she wanted to be doing
while
it happened. To her, there was no more perfect way to leave.

She said to him, “Do you remember ‘The Young Man Has Flown Like a Bird'?”

“Yes, I do.” In the dark two feet away from her, he closed his eyes and called up the memory of the song and of his grandfather teaching it to him.

“Can we sing that song now, Ben? Can we sing it while—”

“Yes, Ling, absolutely.”

“Thank you. That'll make it easier for me. I'm over here, Ben. In case you can't find me in this dark, I'm right here. I'll keep talking until you find me.”

Moments later she felt fingers touch her and then once again he took hold of her shoulders. Ling wasn't frightened by what was about to happen to her, only sad. She must give him everything now. Then she would be gone forever and the unexpectedly large number of things she had grown to like about being human would be taken away from her.

The saddest thing of all was losing German. You obviously can't miss someone if you no longer exist. But Ling was convinced that somehow, somewhere, wherever her atoms went after Ben was finished, they would still miss German Landis. The ghost had known from the beginning that nothing could ever develop between them. Yet, now that everything was about to end for her, Ling indulged one last time in the fanciful idea that perhaps some kind of new magic would surface one day that would have made it happen.

“Just so you know, Ben, I'm in love with German.”

He chuckled and said, “You have good taste.”

“No, I mean I really
love
her. If it were possible I would have taken her away from you. That sounds ludicrous but it's true.”

“Okay.” Someday he would tell German that a lesbian ghost had once been in love with her.

“Do you think it's funny?”

“No, Ling, I think it's wonderful. German is the most lovable person in the world. I meant it when I said you have good taste.”

She said, “I always wondered if I loved her because I'm you or because I'm me.”

Ben asked quietly, “Aren't they the same thing?”

Ling ran a hand through her hair. “Yes, I guess they are. That's one of the things I hated most about this: I'm only part of you. There's no real separate me
in
me. Everything I am is only some Benjamin Gould leftover. A part you never used in your lifetime, recycled into a ghost named Ling. Wouldn't it shock the world to know that's all that ghosts are: leftovers?

“Enough of this. I'm ready now, Ben. Can we sing?”

Outside in the hall, Pilot asked, “What are they singing?”

“A Russian song. Ben sang it once for me.”

“What's Russian?”

German kept forgetting she was talking to a dog. “It's a language.”

“Humans have more than one language?”

“Uh, yes, Pilot.”

“Interesting. Because dogs only have one.”

“But you're speaking to me now in human language.”

Pilot looked up at her. “No I'm not. I'm speaking dog.”

German wasn't having it. “Right now you're speaking dog to me?”

“Yes.”

“But I'm speaking English, uh,
human
, to you.”

“No you're not. You're speaking dog.”

“No I'm not, Pilot. I'm speaking English.”

“What's English?”

Before their conversation deteriorated further, the singing stopped on the other side of the door. That sudden silence stopped their bickering. German leaned forward, thinking she might hear better if she was closer. She put a hand on the doorknob to steady herself and this time it turned with no resistance. “The door's open.”

“Go in.”

She wasn't so sure. “You think that's a good idea?”

“Why stay out here?” Pilot moved around her and walked in. German followed. Ben was sitting on the yellow couch.

She saw him and asked, “Where are Ling and Danielle?”

Ben said, “Ling is gone. She won't be back. Danielle's—” He lifted his hand off the armrest as if about to illustrate something. Instead he made a sour face and left the hand dangling in the air.

“What's happening, Ben? Will you please explain all this now?”

He nodded. “You need to meet someone first.

“In my life there have only been two people I genuinely hated, because both of them traumatized me for different reasons. One was a boss I had named Parrish. The other was an old girlfriend named—”

“Alayne,” German interrupted.

“Alayne Stewart, that's right. You remembered.”

“I remember everything, Ben. Both good and bad.”

He smiled, remembering how good her memory was. “That's right—you do. The odd thing is I'd forgotten Parrish's last name over the years because I only remembered him as the Jerk: Carl the Jerk. Carl Parrish, the jerk. Alayne Stewart and Carl Parrish. Stewart—Parrish. Do you remember
that
name, German?”

“No.”

“But you remember
him
.”

The bum in the orange shirt walked out of Danielle's kitchen eating a peanut butter sandwich and holding a can of Dr Pepper. He sat down on the couch next to Ben as if it were no big deal and continued eating.

Both German and Pilot moved back, the dog growling. They looked at Ben as though he were nuts to remain sitting next to that madman.

“Don't worry, he's harmless now, right?” Ben looked at Parrish for confirmation and slapped the man on the arm. The bum nodded and took another big bite of the peanut butter sandwich on white bread with the crusts cut off.

“You don't have to worry about Stewart anymore. He's been declawed.”

“Please, Ben, please—tell me what's going on. What
is
all this?”

He nodded understanding at her confusion. “I created Stewart Parrish, right down to that orange shirt he's wearing. I'll tell you how: My unconscious tossed many things that have scared me my whole life into a big bowl.” His hands described a large circle in front of him. “It stirred them around till all that poison was mixed together. Then it slid the mix into the oven, which is my
head
”—Ben touched his forehead—“and baked it at a low temperature for years. Then recently it took Stewart Parrish out of this oven and he was ready to go and scare everyone.”

Of course, German didn't understand. How could she from this bizarre explanation? Her face pleaded to know
What are you talking about?
—which made sense, because Ben hadn't understood, either, until only a little earlier. It was obviously time for him to show her and not tell.

From out in the hall a white verz walked into the apartment. The animal went unhurriedly over to Stewart Parrish. The man in the colorful shirt bent down and offered the verz what was left of his
sandwich. The animal stretched forward and opened its mouth. It ate the sandwich, then Parrish's arm, and then the rest of the man. This happened rapidly, silently, and fluidly. The verz appeared to inhale the man as if in one long breath. It did not chew and it did not swallow. When Parrish was gone, the white animal walked over to Ben and into his right leg. It simply entered his leg and disappeared.

Even Pilot was impressed. The dog had seen verzes all his life but thought they originated in some remote verz place, helped humans in trouble, and then returned to wherever again until the next time they were needed. Sort of like fire trucks returning to the firehouse. Pilot never once imagined
humans
created verzes. Sensational! In hindsight, though, the idea made sense, because the only time the white creatures appeared was when people were in a fix and needed help.

German stood stiffly holding her right elbow in her left hand, her right hand flat across her nose and mouth. Incredulous. Her eyes skittered from Ben to Pilot to the space on the couch where Stewart Parrish had sat eating peanut butter moments before.

“German, are you listening? Can you hear me?” Ben tried to make his voice like a hand shaking her gently awake.
“German?”

Her panicky eyes still jumped back and forth, but for a few seconds they stopped on Ben and stayed.

He licked his lips and spoke slowly. “Remember when I fell down in the snow last winter and hit my head? Well, I
died
when that happened. Or I was
supposed
to die, but I didn't.”

Hand still pressed against her face, German said through the fingers, “I know. Ling told me that.”

“Okay. And you already know about some of the strange things that have been happening to me since then. Danielle said the same sort of stuff has been happening to her since her accident.”

“I know that too, Ben.”

He wanted to touch her now, to hold her hand tightly while he told her the most important thing. “Ling was me. Stewart Parrish was me. The verzes are me. Everything, all the craziness that's been happening, has come from me. A part of me, or because of me . . . all of it—I am to blame.”

“Why?” German asked.

The simplicity of her question took him off guard. That one word struck him like a punch in the chest. He could feel his mind stumbling backward, reaching out for anything to grab onto and regain its balance.

Why?
Did she mean why him? Or why this insane turn of events? He did not know the answer to either. He knew only a few things now. He knew he was alive when he should have been dead. He knew he loved German Landis more than ever before. He knew all of the impossible things that had happened recently stemmed from his having miraculously survived the fall in the snow.

“I don't know why, German. I'm trying to figure it all out as fast as I can, but it's hard. I could lie to you but I won't, not anymore. You don't deserve lies.”

She pointed to his leg. He knew what she meant: How did a verz walk into your leg and disappear—after eating Stewart Parrish?

“What about that, Ben? Do you know what
that
just was?” Before he could answer, she asked another question. “And do you know why we're suddenly able to understand our dog when he talks to us? Or a ghost materializes, or—”

“Yes, I do.”

“You do?”

Pilot asked, “You
do
?”

“Yes, I do.”

Even though she knew
very well what she saw, German had to ask. “What is that?”

Ben smiled at her. “You know better than anyone what it is. You've been talking about them for as long as I've known you.”

“It's a Ferrari. It's a Formula One Ferrari!” She bent forward to get a closer look at the gleaming machine. “I've never seen one in person.”

“Would you like me to introduce you?”

“I don't believe it. It's real. It's a real one.”

A red-and-yellow Ferrari Formula One racing car was parked on the street in front of Ben's apartment building. Multicolored sponsor advertisements were stuck all over the body. It looked like some kind of enormous spotted water bug.

Ben said, “It goes from zero to a hundred miles an hour in three seconds. But what I think is even more impressive is that it decelerates from a hundred eighty miles an hour to zero in four seconds.”

“
Four
seconds? I didn't know that.” Nevertheless German knew a great deal about Formula One racing because her father and brother back in Minnesota had always been big fans of the sport. She'd spent
many satisfying childhood Sundays watching these metal monsters on TV as they whizzed around racetracks in exotic places worldwide: Monte Carlo. Kuala Lumpur. Melbourne. Zero to one hundred miles an hour in three seconds. One-two-three.