The Ghost in Love Read online

  ALSO BY JONATHAN CARROLL

  The Land of Laughs

  Voice of Our Shadow

  Bones of the Moon

  Sleeping in Flame

  A Child Across the Sky

  Black Cocktail

  Outside the Dog Museum

  After Silence

  From the Teeth of Angels

  The Panic Hand

  Kissing the Beehive

  The Marriage of Sticks

  The Wooden Sea

  White Apples

  Glass Soup

  THE GHOST IN LOVE

  JONATHAN CARROLL

  Sarah Crichton Books

  FARRAR, STRAUS AND GIROUX

  18 West 18th Street, New York 10011

  Copyright © 2008 by Jonathan Carroll

  All rights reserved

  Distributed in Canada by Douglas & McIntyre Ltd.

  Printed in the United States of America

  First edition, 2008

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Carroll, Jonathan, 1949–

  The ghost in love / by Jonathan Carroll.—1st ed.

  p. cm.

  “Sarah Crichton Books.”

  ISBN-13: 978-0-374-16186-6 (alk. paper)

  ISBN-10: 0-374-16186-0 (alk. paper)

  I. Title.

  PS3553.A7646G58 2008

  813'.54—dc22

  2008007877

  Designed by Gretchen Achilles

  www.fsgbooks.com

  1 3 5 7 9 10 8 6 4 2

  With hand on heart, a deep bow to

  Richard Parks and Joe del Tufo

  THE GHOST IN LOVE

  ONE

  The ghost was in love with a woman named German Landis. Just hearing that arresting, peculiar name would have made the ghost’s heart flutter if it had had one. She was coming over in less than an hour, so it was hurrying now to make everything ready. The ghost was a very good cook, sometimes a great one. If it’d spent more time at it or had more interest in the subject, it would have been exceptional.

  From its large bed in a corner of the kitchen a mixed-breed, black-and-oatmeal-colored dog watched with great interest as the ghost prepared the meal. This mutt was the only reason that German Landis was coming here today. His name was Pilot, after a poem the woman loved about a Seeing Eye dog.

  Suddenly sensing something, the ghost stopped what it was doing and eyeballed the dog. Peevishly, it demanded “What?”

  Pilot shook his head. “Nothing. I was only watching you work.”

  “Liar. That is not the only thing. I know what you were thinking: that I’m an idiot to be doing this.”

  Embarrassed, the dog turned away and began furiously biting one of its rear paws.

  “Don’t do that. Look at me. You think I’m nuts, don’t you?”

  Pilot said nothing and kept biting his foot.

  “Don’t you?”

  “Yes, I think you’re nuts, but I also think it’s very sweet. I only wish she could see what you’re doing for her.”

  Resigned, the ghost shrugged and sighed. “It helps when I cook. When my mind is focused, I don’t get so frustrated.”

  “I understand.”

  “No, you do not. How could you? You’re only a dog.”

  The dog rolled his eyes. “Idiot.”

  “Quadruped.”

  They had a cordial relationship. Like Icelandic or Finnish, “Dog” is spoken by very few. Only dogs and dead people understand the language. When Pilot wanted to talk, he either had to get in a quick chat with whatever canine he happened to meet on the street when he was taken out for a walk three times a day, or he spoke with this ghost—who, by attrition, knew more about Pilot now than any dog had ever known. There aren’t that many human ghosts in the land of the living, so this one was equally happy for the dog’s company.

  Pilot asked, “I keep meaning to ask: Where did you get your name?”

  The cook purposely ignored the dog’s question and continued preparing the meal. When it needed an ingredient, it closed its eyes and held out an open hand. A moment later the thing materialized in the middle of its palm: a jungle-green lime, a small pile of red cayenne pepper, or particularly rare saffron from Sri Lanka. Pilot watched, absorbed, never tiring of this amazing feat.

  “What if you imagined an elephant? Would it appear in your hand too?”

  Dicing onions now almost faster than the eye could see, the ghost grinned. “If I had a big enough hand, yes.”

  “And all you’d have to do to make that elephant appear is imagine it?”

  “Oh, no, it’s much more complicated than that. When a person dies, then they’re taught the real structure of things. Not only how they look or feel, but the essence of what they really are. Once you have that understanding, it’s easy to make things.”

  Pilot considered this and said, “Then, why don’t you just recreate her? That way, you wouldn’t have to fret about her so much anymore. You’d have your own version of her right here.”

  The ghost looked at the dog as if he had just farted loudly. “You’ll understand how dumb that suggestion is after you die.”

  Fifteen blocks away, a woman was walking down the street carrying a large letter “D.” If you were to see this image in a magazine or television advertisement, you’d smile and think, That’s a catchy picture. The woman was pleasant looking but not memorable. Her best features were her sloe eyes, which were sexy, full of humor, and intelligent. Otherwise she had even features that fit well together, although her nose was a little small for her face. She was aware of that and often self-consciously touched her nose when she knew she was being observed. What people remembered most about her was not the nose but how very tall she was: an almost six-foot-tall woman holding a big blue letter “D.” The only things she had in her pockets now were one key, a bunch of dog treats, and a small toy Formula One racing car. Her father had given her the toy fifteen years ago as a good luck charm when she left home for college. She genuinely believed it had some kind of good juju. Treasuring it, she had always kept the small object close by. But she was about to give it away to someone she both loved and disliked. Because he really needed any help he could get now to change the way his life was going. She knew he didn’t believe in “powers” or talismans, so she planned on hiding it somewhere in his apartment when he wasn’t looking. Hopefully just the toy’s aura near him would help.

  She wore jeans, a gray sweatshirt with ST. OLAF COLLEGE written in yellow letters across the chest, and scuffed brown hiking boots. The boots made her taller. Funnily enough, her height never bothered her: the nose, yes, and sometimes her name. The name and the nose, but never the height, because everyone on both sides of her family was tall. She grew up in the midst of a bunch of blond human trees. Midwesterners, Minnesotans, they ate huge meals three times a day. The men wore size thirteen or fourteen shoes and the women’s feet weren’t much smaller. All of the children in the family had unusual names. Her parents loved to read, especially the Bible, classic German literature, and Swedish folktales, which was where they had harvested the names for their children. Her brother was Enos, she was German, and her sister was named Pernilla. As soon as it was legally possible, Enos changed his name to Guy and would answer to nothing else. He joined a punk band called Kidney Failure, all of which left his parents speechless and disheartened.

  German Landis was a schoolteacher who taught art to twelve-and thirteen-year-olds. The letter “D” she carried now was part of an upcoming assignment for them. Because she was both genial and enthusiastic, she was a first-rate teacher. Kids liked Ms. Landis because she clearly liked them. They felt that affection the moment they entered her classroom every day. Colleagues were always commenting about how much laughter came out
of German’s classroom. Her enthusiasm for the students’ creations was genuine. On one wall of her apartment was a large bulletin board covered with Polaroid photographs that she’d taken over the years of her kids’ work. She often spent evenings looking through art books. The next day she would plop one or more of these books down on the desk in front of a student and point to specific illustrations she thought they should see. Some days the class wouldn’t work at all. They would go to the city museum for a show she thought they should see. Or a film that had significance to what they were doing. Sometimes they would just sit around talking about what mattered to them. German always thought of these days as intermissions, and almost as important as the work-days. When grilled by the students about her life, German talked about growing up in cold Minnesota, her love of auto racing, her dog, Pilot, and her not-so-long-ago boyfriend, Ben. But the students now knew not to ask questions about ex-boyfriend Ben.

  She fell in love easily but walked away just as easily from a relationship when it went bad. Some men—and there had been many of them—thought this showed she was coldhearted, but they were wrong. German Landis simply didn’t understand people who moped. Life was too interesting to choose suffering. Although she got a big kick out of him, she thought her brother, Guy, was goofy for spending his life writing songs only about things that either stank or sucked. In response, he drew a picture of what her gravestone would look like if he designed it: a big yellow smiley face on it and the words I LIKE BEING DEAD!

  Little did either of them know that she would like it when her time came to die, years later. German Landis would move into death as she’d moved into new schools, relationships, or phases of her life: full speed ahead, hopes ahoy, heart filled like a sail with reasonable optimism and a belief that the gods were fundamentally benevolent, no matter where she was.

  Shifting the heavy metal letter from one hand to the other, she grimaced thinking what was about to happen. Whenever German went to Ben’s place these days to pick up Pilot, there was almost always trouble. They’d argue about big things and small. Sometimes there were valid reasons for these disagreements; usually they occurred only because these two people were in the same room together. Yet, even after all the weird and bad things he had done and said, in the first few seconds whenever they met now, she welled up with a powerful longing to kiss him and touch him and hold both his hands tightly as she’d done so many glad times before.

  They had had it—they’d found it, found each other, and it had worked like no other relationship she had ever experienced. But now it was broken and reduced to this: sharing a dog and worrying that every time they spoke to each other there would be some kind of clash. One night at the end, right before she moved out of his apartment, German sat naked in the living room holding her talisman toy car tightly in her lap. Eyes closed, she whispered again and again, “Please change this. Make it get better. Please.”

  They had been so much in love, equally and passionately. Like a spider web that you walk into, it is not so easy to get all the tendrils of real love off after you have passed through it.

  Early in their relationship, they had seen the Cary Grant film The Awful Truth, about a couple that splits up but, by sharing custody of their dog, reconcile because of their abiding love. Neither German nor Ben liked the movie. But now it stuck on the walls of both their heads like a glowing Post-it note because some of the story had come to pass for them.

  They had contact now only because of the dog. Both regarded Pilot as their adopted child and friend. Ben had given it to German on their third date. He had gone to the town animal shelter and asked to see whatever dog had been there the longest. He had to repeat that request three times before the attendants believed him. The whole thing was German’s idea. It was the first of many of her ideas that effortlessly touched Benjamin Gould in the middle of his soul. Several days earlier, she’d said she was going to buy a dog that no one wanted. She was going to the dog pound soon and, sight unseen, buy whichever dog had lived there longer than any of the others.

  “But what if it’s a skeez?” Ben asked half-seriously. “What if it’s got a terrible personality and dread diseases?”

  She giggled. “I’ll take it to a veterinarian. Skeez and disease are okay. I just want to give it some kind of nice life before it dies.”

  “And if it’s ferocious? What if you get a biter?” Ben asked these questions but was joking. He was already a convert.

  At the animal shelter they took him to see a dog they’d named Methuselah because it had lived there so long. Methuselah did not lift its head from the floor when the stranger stopped in front of its cage and peered in. Ben saw nothing but entry-level dog. If it had any extras, he sure didn’t see them. There was not one thing special about this animal. No soulful sensitive eyes. No puppy’s adorable, rollicking enthusiasm. It did no tricks. If it had a shtick, cute wasn’t part of it. All the employees at the shelter could say about this uninteresting mixed breed was that it was housebroken, quiet, and never caused trouble. No wonder any prospective owners had rejected it. Every single sign indicated this bland mutt was nothing but a dud.

  Although he had little money, Ben Gould bought Methuselah the dud. The dog had to be coaxed from its cage and out onto the street again for literally the first time in months. It did not look at all happy. Ben had no way of knowing that he’d bought a skeptic and a fatalist that didn’t believe anything good came of anything good. At the time of its adoption, Methuselah was past middle age. It had lived a difficult life but not a bad one. It had had three previous owners, all of them forgettable. On occasion it had been kicked and beaten. Once it had been struck a glancing blow by a passing truck. It survived, limping for weeks afterward, but it survived. When picked up by the dogcatcher, it was relieved more than anything else. At the time it had been living on the street for three months. From past experience it did not trust human beings, but it was hungry and cold and knew they were able to remedy that. What the dog did not know was that if it was taken to the wrong kind of animal shelter, it would be killed after a short time.

  But it was lucky. In fact this dog’s great turn of life luck began the day it entered this particular haven. The place was funded entirely by a rich childless couple who loved animals above everything else in the world and visited it frequently. As a result, none of the stray animals brought there was ever euthanized. The cages were always spotlessly clean and warm. There was ample food and even rawhide chew bones, which Methuselah found disgusting and ignored.

  It ate and slept and watched for the next three months—a great career move, because it was missing a miserably cold and snowy winter outside. It did not know what this place was, but so long as it was fed and left in peace, then it was an adequate home. One of the joys of being a dog is that they have no concept of the word “future.” Everything is right now, and if right now happens to be a warm floor and a full stomach, then life is good.

  Who was this man pulling on its leash? Where were they going? They had walked many blocks through blinding, blowing snow. Methuselah was old enough that the bitter cold pierced his bones and joints. Back home in the warmth of the animal shelter, the dog could go outside whenever he wanted but rarely did in mean weather like this.

  “We’re almost there,” the man said sympathetically. But dogs do not understand human language, so this meant nothing to the now wretched animal. All he knew was that he was cold and lost, and life had just turned hard again after that pleasant respite in the shelter.

  They were two blocks from German Landis’s building when it happened. After looking both ways, Ben stepped off the sidewalk into the street. Slipping on the snow, he lost his balance. Arms windmilling, he began to fall backward. Startled by this sudden wild movement, Methuselah leapt away and jerked hard on the leash. The man tried to stop his fall while at the same time keeping the dog from bolting out into the street and being hit by a car. As a result of his body going in so many directions at once, Ben fell much harder than he might have
if he’d just gone down from the slip. The back of his head hit the stone curb hard with a loud, thick thud, bounced, and then hit it again just as hard.

  He must have blacked out then, because the next thing he knew, he was on his back looking up into the concerned faces of four people, including a policeman who held the dog’s leash.

  “He opened his eyes!”

  “He’s okay.”

  “Don’t touch him, though. Don’t move him till the ambulance gets here.”

  Across the street, the ghost stood in the snow watching this, utterly confounded. A moment later it fizzled and flickered like a sick television set and disappeared. Methuselah was the only one to see it, but ghosts are nothing new to dogs so the animal didn’t react. He only hunkered down into himself and shivered some more.

  The Angel of Death looked at the ghost of Benjamin Gould and shook his head. “What more can I tell you? They’ve gotten very clever.”

  They were at a table in a crummy turnpike restaurant near Wallingford, Connecticut. The Angel of Death was nothing special to look at: it had manifested itself today as a plate of someone’s finished meal of bacon and eggs. Egg yolk was smeared across the white plate. Inside this smear were scattered bread crumbs.

  It was midnight and the restaurant was almost empty. The waitress stood outside sharing a cigarette with the cook. She was in no hurry to clear the table. Having found the Angel of Death here, the ghost of Benjamin Gould had manifested itself as a fat black fly now sitting in the egg yolk.

  The plate said, “When Gould hit his head on the curb, he was supposed to die. You know the routine: cracked skull, intercranial bleeding, and death. But it didn’t happen.

  “To oversimplify, think of it as a massive virus that had infected our computer system. Afterwards, a whole bunch of similar glitches popped up across the grid and we knew we were under attack. Our tech guys are working on it. They’ll figure it out.”