The Ghost

reverse and backed out of the garage. Then I adjusted the mirrors, switched on the headlights and the windscreen wipers, engaged drive, and headed for the gate. As I passed the guard post, the scene on the little satellite navigation monitor swung pleasingly, as if I were playing on an arcade game, and then the red arrow settled over the center of the yellow path. I was away.
    There was something oddly soothing about driving along and seeing all the little paths and streams, neatly labeled, appear at the top of the screen and then scroll down before disappearing off the bottom. It made me feel as if the world were a safe and tamed place, its every feature tagged and measured and stored in some celestial control room, where softly spoken angels kept a benign vigil on the travelers below.
    In two hundred yards, instructed the woman, turn right.
    In fifty yards, turn right.
    And then, Turn right.
    The solitary demonstrator was huddled in his hut, reading a newspaper. He stood as he saw me at the junction and came out into the sleet. I noticed he had a car parked nearby, a big old Volkswagen camper van, and I wondered why he didn’t shelter in that. As I swung right, I got a good look at his gaunt gray face. He was immobile and expressionless, taking no more notice of the drenching rain than if he had been a carved wooden figure outside a drugstore. I pressed my foot on the accelerator and headed toward Edgartown, enjoying the slight sense of adventure that always comes from driving in a foreign country. My disembodied guide was silent for the next four miles or so, and I had forgotten all about her until, as I reached the outskirts of the town, she started up again.
    In two hundred yards, turn left. Her voice made me jump.
    In fifty yards, turn left.
    Turn left, she repeated, when we reached the junction.
    Now she was beginning to get on my nerves.
    “I’m sorry,” I muttered and took a right toward Main Street.
    Turn around when possible.
    “This is getting ridiculous,” I said out loud and pulled over. I pressed various buttons on the navigator’s console, with the aim of shutting it down. The screen changed and offered me a menu. I can’t remember all the options. one was ENTER A NEW DESTINATION . I think another was RETURN TO HOME ADDRESS . And a third—the one highlighted—was REMEMBER PREVIOUS DESTINATION .
    I stared at it for a while, as the potential implications slowly filtered into my brain. Cautiously, I pressed SELECT .
    The screen went blank. The device was obviously malfunctioning.
    I turned off the engine and hunted around for the instructions. I even braved the sleet and opened up the back of the Ford to see if they’d been left there. I returned empty-handed and turned on the ignition. Once again the navigation system lit up. As it went through its start-up routine, communicating with its mother ship, I put the car into gear and headed down the hill.
    Turn around when possible.
    I tapped the steering wheel with my forefingers. For the first time in my life I was confronted with the true meaning of the word “predestination.” I had just passed the Victorian whaling church. Before me the hill dipped toward the harbor. A few white masts were faintly visible through the dirty lace curtain of rain. I was not far from my old hotel—from the girl in the white mobcap, and the sailing prints, and old Captain John Coffin staring sternly from the wall. It was eight o’clock. There was no traffic on the road. The sidewalks were deserted. I carried on down the slope, past all the empty shops with their cheery closed-for-the-winter-see-you-next-year!! notices.
    Turn around when possible.
    Wearily, I surrendered to fate. I flicked the indicator and turned into a little street of houses—Summer Street, I think it was called, inappropriately enough—and braked. The rain pounded on the roof of the Ford; the windscreen wiper thudded back and forth. A small black-and-white terrier was defecating in the gutter, with an expression of intense concentration on its ancient wise face. Its owner, too thickly swaddled against the wet and cold for me to tell either age or sex, turned clumsily to look at me, like a spaceman maneuvering himself on a lunar walk. In one hand was a pooperscooper, in the other a white plastic scrotum of dog’s crap. I quickly reversed back out into Main Street, swinging the wheel so hard I briefly mounted the curb. With a thrilling screech of tire, I set off back up the hill. The arrow