The Ghost in Love by Jonathan Carroll Page A

They met at a Van Morrison concert in Dublin and later she moved with him to Mantua, Italy, when he went there to study cooking. She was charismatic, wickedly funny, and as aimless as a door swinging back and forth in the wind. Ben was never in love with her but most of the time he loved being around her. Dominique was aware of his mixed feelings for her. Yet she chose to remain with him until the next someone or something caught her fancy and she hopped that bus on its way through her life.
    Then one day Ben killed her. When they moved to Italy, he bought a brand-new Vespa motor scooter that he had been saving for for a long time. He always went too fast because it was so much fun and liberating to drive. Especially in Mantua, where the streets are ancient, windy, and narrow, and most Italian drivers consider any paved surface okay for motorized vehicles. The machine cost almost nothing to maintain, and having it allowed Ben to revel even more in his European experience. As a joke, Dominique bought him a pair of cheap fake Ray-Ban Wayfarer sunglasses to wear when he drove the scooter to complete his “Mr. Cool” image. Ironically those sunglasses were the cause of her death.
    Driving to lunch at a friend’s house in the countryside between Mantua and Bologna, they whizzed past a field full of grazing cows. Dominique cried out loudly, “Ciao, cow!” The wild way she shouted it sounded hilarious. Ben snapped his head back, laughing. In doing so, he dislodged the sunglasses from his nose. When they started to slip down, he took one hand off the handlebars and grabbed for them. That caused the scooter to swerve violently. Dominique flew off backward because she had been waving at the cows with both hands instead of holding on to Ben’s waist. The scooter wasgoing forty-five miles an hour. When she hit the road, the impact snapped her back as if it were a pencil. She died before the ambulance arrived.
    What Pilot said a few minutes before in the bedroom to convince Ben that he was telling the truth was “Ciao, cow.” No one else on earth but Ben knew that those were Dominique Bertaux’s last words before she died.
    â€œNow I have to tell you something else,” Pilot said.
    â€œSomething else? What
else
can you tell me?”
    â€œThere’s a ghost standing behind you.
Your
ghost: the ghost of you.” In a very human gesture, Pilot nodded in Ling’s direction.
    Ben turned but saw nothing. The ghost looked at the dog as if it had gone mad.
    â€œShow yourself, Ling.”
    Shocked, the ghost adamantly shook its head no and crossed its arms over its chest for emphasis. The dog had no authority to order it to do this, even if the animal did have the ability to speak to humans now.
    â€œI’m not asking, Ling. I’m
telling
you; it’s an order. Show yourself.” Pilot’s voice was querulous and demanding. He spoke in English, so Ben understood everything that was going on.
    The ghost thought, All right, if the dog wants to play things this way, then I can too.
    Behind Ben, a new voice spoke from the darkness. “And who gave you the authority, Pilot? I’m supposed to show myself, which breaks every rule in the book, because a
dog
tells me to?” Whoever was in that darkness spoke clearly, their words precise and un-emotional.
    How often do we recognize our own voice when we hear itplayed back to us on a tape recorder? Too high or too low, it’s almost never the familiar one we hear from inside when we speak. This happened to Ben Gould now on hearing the ghost speak in his own voice. He simply did not recognize it.
    Pilot looked at Ben, waiting for a reaction. But after a few moments it was obvious that he didn’t recognize the voice. The dog turned back to the ghost and said to it, “Stanley gave me the authority.”
    Whoever was in the dark gasped and then said, “
Stanley
told you that I should show myself? You actually met