Remorseless with Victory
By Benjamin Nardolilli

I saw the ghost Ivko Boyan last night. Once again he did not say anything. Instead he took my abuse for half an hour. Once again. I suppose if he's a ghost now, he must be dead. Still he sticks his proboscis in my business. Can he rest in peace? Can he leave me alone? If he is a ghost now it is because he had not learned his lesson. I went into exile and still he chose to bother me, to bother my family. If he could not mind only his own business, he could at least have moved onto someone else.

Enough spying goes on in Rekab. People are paid to mind everyone's business. Why would Ivko do it for free? Even when we were friends at university, Ivko was always trying to make sure his enemies knew they were his enemies and that he was better than them. I told him that if he was better, then he could leave them alone. Why would the better man get into the gutter to wrestle with beggars for dimes? But Ivko liked to dance with his enemies. He liked to know where they were, what they were doing, where they would be so he could meet them.

With his friends he was not so obsessive, but with his loves, he was. I was lucky to have never been his love. Only his friend and enemy. His target in that struggle was Marina Reszpa. He played her songs on instruments he had only half-mastered. Ivko would buy her small presents to give her when she would tell him to go away. He memorized her patterns of coming and leaving her apartment, knew her family past four generations, and wrote her poems in the style of Gregor Nemric, who she was studying at the women's college. All I ever did was ask her to the harvest festival and she went with me.

Ivko was convinced we were married. But if that were the case then, he should have left us alone. Adultery was still punished with lashings in those days. At least in public. The punishment is private now, so it is probably worse. Ivko decided that we were in competition. I only went out with Marina when our other friends got together. We only danced when they were all busy dancing. We only drank tea together when our trains were late at the station. Ivko decided that the best way to respond to me was to sing louder, walk behind her to and from school, and add a violent dash of suicidal thoughts to his poems. He even would sign them with his own blood, but his pressure was too low, so like an illiterate peasant he signed them in a dark red X.

I only began to spend more time with Marina because of Ivko. She asked me to escort her everywhere because that seemed to keep Ivko away. After two weeks of me on her arm, Ivko gave up. He put away his instruments, poems, and took a different way to university, the shorter one that he had used before seeing Marina. A few years later he was cured enough to accept my invitation to the wedding with Marina. My wife did not want to see him again, but I convinced her Ivko was now serious and mature. He had joined the Party. He was an engineer's assistant. He behaved himself, but only because I made sure he had enough to drink and was asleep in the corner with my grandfather for most of the night.

Ah, Ivko Boyan! That was not why he decided to become enemies with me. And believe me, it was his decision. For a while he was friendly to me, he would have me over for a few drinks and we would talk. The conversation was not pleasant. He kept trying to start an argument with me and would end up yelling in favor of both sides once I refused to raise my voice. Eventually I had to stop going over to his apartment. His attempts at controversy and discord were too pitiful for me to take part in, and as a spectator they were too painful to watch.

Still my refusal to see him was no reason for him to stop dealing with me, of course. He married, was promoted, had his own circle of friends, but would send me letters. There was nothing substantial in any of them and they were long. I could tell they bored the censors. A few words were blocked out at the start, and eventually there were no marks, not even stray ones. They let them pass through, convinced it was a cure for insomnia that I was receiving. Ivko ranted about every little detail in his life and asked advice about questions he would already have solved by the time my letter would reach him, such as what to have for breakfast.

I tried to be cordial, but he was angry my letters were never as long. I always claimed they had been censored. I told him I had offended somebody, but not enough for prison or the camps. One day, Ivko demanded that next Monday, I meet him at the July Revolution Park, or else he would terminate our friendship. He told me he wanted to stroll our old campus together and collect what memories we could and share them with one another. I did not tell him either a definite yes or no. I resolved I would leave it to the weather.

It happened to rain that day. It was not an inconvenient drizzle. It was not a mist. It was a real downpour that came from a deeply wounded sky. Why would I go and risk pneumonia for Ivko? Even if it was only a drizzle, still I would probably not have gone out. But the rain made it easier for Ivko to understand, or so I thought. That evening I received an angry phone call from him that shook my receiver in my hand and left my palm and fingers slightly numb afterwards.

"You were supposed to meet me."

"It was raining."

"I came out."

"Did you stroll the campus?"

"I tried, but I remembered nothing. Happy times are no good to remember by yourself. Better to forget them."

"Ivko, what did you need me for?"

"What does anyone need anybody for?"

"Ivko, I am busy. I can't go out in the rain."

"Didn't we used to run in the rain all the time at university?"

"Maybe. I can't remember."

"I can. I can, because I am talking to you now."

"Ivko, I have to go to bed. I have a headache." It was a lie, but I knew that I would have one if I stayed on.

"You are horrible. No loyalty. Rekab is surrounded by enemies and you are betraying your friends."

"I betrayed nobody."

"Good night Vriktor. No wait. I hope you have a horrible night. I want your guilt to keep you awake with one eye open."

"Good night to you too." T

he phone went off and I went to bed. I had no feeling of guilt and I slept easily. Perhaps in those days, even if I was feeling guilty, it would not trouble me. My dreams were pleasant and ultimately forgettable. That was, of course, alright with me. Nothing of Ivko's threat and prediction came true. I imagine that he was the one who ended up having trouble sleeping, since he was agitated before and after the conversation on the phone. I did no pacing, no turning, no tossing, and was refreshed as usual in the morning. Little did I know that then I had been moved from Ivko's list of favorites to his list of those ripe for holy war.

It must be understood that being one of Ivko's favorites was no great pleasure. He is very demanding of his friends and family. But to be on his enemies list is absolutely dreadful. Ivko does not put his energies into his work, and he does not put it into his family. It is his enemies that bring him out of bed. He has nothing else to look forward to. Although I have never been able to step inside my accidental antagonist's head, I am sure that Ivko's dreams are a torture chamber for anyone who has ever wronged him.

Since Ivko and I had been on friendly terms, he knew my habits, and who I liked to visit from time to time. I had to stop walking and take the public trains everywhere. If I was out in the open, Ivko could trail me in his tiny Loboda car, his engine screeching and coughing behind. He would never get out, or throw things at me, instead he would honk and would make sure to turn the corner of whatever intersection I was trying to cross. Ivko would not hit me, only cause a near collision. Every time he would honk loudly until I walked to the other side. Then he would loop around and manage to catch up with me by the end of the next block. Soon, taking the train made more sense, Ivko would not dare to make a train full of people late like that.

Since gas was expensive after the war in '73, Ivko could only harass me twice a day this way. Once when we were both heading out to and then again when we were returning from work. Eventually he was arriving to work late because of waiting for me to leave my house. His manager had enough and eventually transferred him to another office across the city. Ivko of course blamed his demotion on me and began to increase his offensive efforts.

He knew I liked grapefruits, and when they were in season, he made sure to buy up as many as he could near me. I started to bribe the grocer to save a few for me. Ivko had friends in the Party, and they began to take grapefruits from the trucks making deliveries in my neighborhood. It was a ridiculous pulling of strings, but it made him happy. I suppose he could have used his drinking allies to help him hurt me or send me off to prison, but he could not harm me directly. No, Ivko could only count a slight against me as a victory when I was inconvenienced ever so slightly and absurdly.

Most wives would place the blame entirely with their husbands and tell them to apologize no matter what they had done or were accused of doing. I was fortunate enough that Marina had known him too and understood how stubborn, foolish, and full of pique Ivko could be. He was like a switch with two settings, hate and love, and even his love was fairly lukewarm. Only his hate was capable of any perfection or being ornate. Everything else was plain.

My leisure time, just like the commute to work, was also a target for Ivko. When I would go to the soccer stadium, there was a seat I would usually take about halfway between the goals. It was a good view and I would be in the shade. A stadium filled with people can get pretty hot and anything to feel cooler without having to buy watered down beer was a benefit. Ivko was never one to watch sports of any kind, but as soon as he realized where I would go every other Saturday, he followed me to the stadium.

I knew that he was there, he would wear the loudest clothes he could to announce his presence. Sometimes he would sit right across the field from me, in the seat that was the exact counterpart to mine. He had binoculars and would watch me the whole time. At first it made me nervous, but soon I grew used to it like I did with every other attempt he had made to annoy and irritate me. When Ivko realized I had all but basically ignored him, he bribed one of the attendants to give him access to my seat before the game.

With a screwdriver, he slowly loosened the pieces holding my seat together. When I came it and sat down, everything was fine and nothing felt out of place. Ivko was clever however, and knew the nature of the game that we were both going to watch. Our team was going to play the Nsticuna Thunder, our chief rivals. I like to imagine that Ivko's hatred had sent him around asking about our team, learning about the rules of soccer, giving him an excuse to immerse himself in a way of life and a form of entertainment he always considered beneath him. Ivko knew that every time a goal would be scored, there would be activity, people would yell, they would stand, they would wave flags and they would cheer or curse.

The game did not disappoint me or Ivko. Our team finally managed to tie the score near the end of the game (we lost anyways), and once there was a glimmer of hope that we could come from behind and win in overtime, the crowd was ecstatic. I was no exception. I began howling and yelling and feeling my time cheering before was not wasted. The members of our team were running circles and we imitated their joy as best we could. No one was in their seat and I was up with them too. I hugged other grown men and we jumped, danced, and threw our open palms to the wind. Then it was time to sit back down and when I did, I experienced Ivko's work. My seat split open, unable to take any more weight. I hurt my rear end, but broke nothing.

These pranks, jokes, and paranoid jabs continued. None of them were dangerous. They soon become a reminder that Ivko existed. I knew him not as a face, a phone number, or a memory. Instead I knew him through these acts of slight malice. Even though we never said anything to each other, I felt I could really step into his mind now. I saw what it could produce, and from the trap I saw the way the creator was thinking. It did not mean I could predict his moves, but it was a way of getting to know him better.

I am not a religious man, but it became something that I could be proud of when in church. It was my own little trial that I had to endure and be patient with. It was no cross to drag and bleed over, but a way for me to keep strong. When I had to go to confession with Marina and my children and talk with Father Boyan (no relation to Ivko) I made sure to tell him the latest attempt Ivko had made to try and bring me down to his level, whatever that was. Under the icons of virgins and martyrs, and the picture of his President-Excellency Vladimir Hams, Father Boyan would remind me to avoid the sin of pride, and I would ask for pre-emptive forgiveness by sayning I would probably commit the sin at the rate my enemy was going, even though I never claimed that Ivko made me feel that he had put a halo around my head.

When Ivko began to stalk my son Pavul at the university, then I decided I could no longer simply let him pester me. Now it was about my family and that I could not allow. Ivko was not hurting Pavul, but he was starting to follow him, closer and closer. Pavul was waking up in the middle of the night because someone was either calling him and then hanging up, or they were ringing the bell to his door then running away. Marina wanted me to go to the police, but since Ivko had friends in the local Party, I did not want to get into problems by complaining. I had every right to have him watched and investigated as he was doing to me, but I did not want an extra layer of surveillance on me as well. Ivko was enough.

His efforts rested on one device and machine, his automobile. Ivko had a dislike of trains and buses, and if I could keep him indoors, I knew that he would essentially be amputated. One night I tucked a small hatchet inside my coat and went out to Ivko's home. I had not been to it in many years and I was amazed to see how nice it was. He had a garden that was filled with flowers and plants that had fat shiny peppers growing on them. I could not see the grass, but it seemed that it was well kept and probably soft to the touch. I avoided the temptation to feel. There was a path of white pebbles leading from the driveway to the front door and in the moonlight they glowed like pearls.

But there in the driveway was his car. I looked around to make sure no one was following me and to see that the windows had no one in them. The windows of Ivko's house were dark and empty. I imagined that Ivko was still awake, sure that he could either hear me in the driveway, or that he could smell me. I hid behind the Laboda, and waited a few minutes and when my legs were sore I stood and took out my blade. I imagined that it sucked up all the moonlight that was on the street for its gleaming. Then I quickly hacked at the tires of the car. I would put a gash in one, and then would move onto the next. The skin was thin and soon air began to seep out. There was a hissing sound and I was afraid this would wake Ivko. I put my hatchet back under my coat and ran.

What could I do? All I had was a series of hateful coincidences, nothing that could give me evidence of a conspiracy. I did not even have the vaguest of threats from him. Yet I did not attack him, only his means to harassing me. It worked. Ivko knew who had gone after his tires, but did nothing about it. He had to spend a week repairing them and that was a week he could not follow me. Even when his car was repaired, he decided not to follow me around in it. It had become a casualty once in our war and he did not want to lose it again. He was reduced to operating on foot, which cut down on his maneuvers and he could manage an offensive only once a month. Usually this would involve newspapers and mail stolen and a dead rat placed in front of my building.

Ivko decided that we should have a truce. When Marina died, Ivko sent me flowers and attended her funeral. She had developed cancer and I think he understood how much pain I went through watching her waste away. Marina would have been surprised and probably slightly annoyed if she knew that Ivko had come to both her wedding and her funeral. He was well behaved and told me he was sorry for my loss. I could not hate him then, as he no longer hated me. He admired my choice of tombstone for her. It was a light rose color since it was her favorite, and had her name and her lifespan carved on it. Ivko said it was simple and elegant like she was. We did not become close friends again, but I no longer had to worry about being followed or my seat breaking under me. I could go out and find grapefruits again without any trouble.

After the war with Pavonia was over, I decided to go immigrate to the West and join my brother Luvig who had gone abroad after World War Two. He had taken advantage of being in a prisoner of war camp to make an escape. Truly, I did not feel oppressed by being in Rekab, but I wanted to spend my later years in a more comfortable position and having a brother abroad gave me an incredible advantage in applying to immigrate. My children understood and since they were all grown up, they had no reason to hold me back. They all asked me to send them various souvenirs back when they gathered to send me off at the airport. Ivko was there too, but said nothing. I waved and smiled at him, but he remained where he was, frowning at me with his arms folded as if nursing a betrayal.

Thoughts of my new life outside Rekab kept me busy and I did not realize that I was leaving behind an Ivko who once again considered me an enemy. For having gotten out of the country to lead a better life elsewhere, he somehow felt betrayed. I had insulted our mother country and now that I had done it, he became a zealous patriot. After a year I learned he had returned to harassing my family and was following Pavul around again, although now he was no longer a student, but a professor of chemistry. I told them to ignore him and to chase him away with a knife or bat if he got too close. When it became too much, I told Pavul to slash Ivko's tires. Pavul, knowing more about machines than me, managed to ruin Ivko's engine and destroyed his Laboda for good. After that, Ivko managed to get his friends in the postal service to read my children's mail and the letters that I sent them, but other than that, he was dormant.

There was peace for another year, and then Irina, my daughter called me to tell me that Ivko had done something truly horrible. My wife's grave had been defaced by him. Ivko had not broken it, painted it, or pushed it over. No, it was still standing, but I wished that he had sent it tumbling into many rose colored pieces. The elegant surface he had admired, he had now added to. The extra space gave him room to put his name to the tombstone. Now Marina was no longer simply a person who had lived and died, no different from anyone else. Ivko had seen to add a few letters chiseled under the birth and death dates: Beloved Wife of Ivko Boyan.

All this time I had been enemies with him he had been chiseling at me. His attacks had been indirect. They had been designed to make me think of him, to look for him, to expect him coming behind me. Now he was spreading his fingers over the past. Ivko was brining my wife into his hands, turning her into something she had spent her life trying not to be. I could not let him get away with it. He no longer deserved to be free to go after me or my children for doing nothing to him.

Knowing the peculiarities of the Rekabian mail system, especially for mail coming my own neighborhood in the States, I decided to send a letter to Ivko, knowing that it would have to pass the censor before reaching him. Especially since I was writing from abroad, it would be screened for dangerous and subversive ideas. Anything critical of the country, or in praise of the critics, would be removed and if the letter had to be completely blackened out, the recipient would then be taken in for questioning.

So I wrote to him and sent a letter:

Comrade Boyan,

I write to you to let you know everything said about Rekab is true. The news tells us nothing. The dear leader is a thief, a coward, and a murderer. The war with Pavonia was started by us. The Party runs the church, but of course since God is dead, this is no concern to us. Comrade, you must join me here abroad. Then we can finally put the pieces of Operation Ugador together. Your engineering expertise has always been helpful for the project and we need it to make sure the Prescur Bridge no longer spans the Nivko River.

As always, your loyal comrade R.D.Y.

P.S.

It was a wise move on your part to deface my wife's grave, they will never know how deep our bonds are now!

I sent the letter and since then my family and I have lived in peace. The government even cleaned up my wife's grave, believing it was a secret code for the revolutionary cell they imagined us to be a part of. My fear in sending it was that my children would become suspects. However they were never questioned since they felt that it was Ivko who knew everything about "operation buttercup."

No one knows what happened to Ivko. He disappeared and since I have seen his ghost, I know that he is dead. But officially, he is still alive, chained to a bed somewhere in the mountains. I am not sure if they tortured him to death, or he had a heart attack in the police van before they could even try to get a confession out of him. The way he comes to me every night, saying nothing but watching my every move, I think it was the later. A painful death would have his apparition wailing at me demanding justice through driving me crazy.

But he merely keeps his distance, sure that I was responsible for what happened to him. Ivko cannot harm me, or even annoy, since he cannot hold anything and his old friends are now all dead, retired, or living back in Rekab. Certainly, he does not know the details of his death and hopes that I will remember them, and if I refuse to cooperate, then I will at least be forced to think of him at least once a day and have our shared life together, good, mediocre, and bad, pass before my eyes. In this, he is succeeding, but I have a silence of my own, and hope this will someday drive him away.

——

Benjamin Nardolilli is a twenty-three-year-old writer currently living in Arlington, Virginia. His work has appeared in Houston Literary Review, Perigee Magazine, Canopic Jar, Lachryma: Modern Songs of Lament, Baker’s Dozen, Thieves Jargon, Farmhouse Magazine, Elimae, Poems Niederngasse, Gold Dust, The Delmarva Review, Underground Voices Magazine, SoMa Literary Review, Heroin Love Songs, Shakespeare’s Monkey Revue, Cantaraville, and Perspectives Magazine. In addition he was the poetry editor for West 10th Magazine at NYU and maintains a blog at mirrorsponge.blogspot.com.

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