Ghosts of Columbia (50 page)

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Authors: L.E. Modesitt Jr.

Tags: #Science Fiction, #Science Fiction & Fantasy, #Alternate History, #United States, #Literature & Fiction

BOOK: Ghosts of Columbia
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James immediately monopolized Llysette.
“You’re the one William is so determined to hear sing. Well, if you sing half as good as you look, we’re in for a rare treat.”
“You are too kind,” murmured Llysette politely.
“Kind? Never call a media man kind. We always want something. If you’re that
good, I’ll be badgering you to perform, and if you don’t, my commentators will be questioning the president’s judgment. Either way, we win.” He laughed, and I disliked him.
Llysette continued to listen politely.
I was seated beside the artificially red-haired Deanna Loutrec, otherwise known as Madame D—of the artificial “Madame D’s Gems” and the slogan “no one will know but your jeweler.” To my surprise, she wore but a single ring, and I would have bet it was real, for all its size and sparkle.
“So you are the mystery minister?” asked Deanna.
“Hardly—just a university professor who was once a junior subminister and who had the fortune to marry a beautiful soprano.”
“Beautiful and talented soprano’s don’t marry nobodies or no-talents,” she observed, “even handsome ones.”
Handsome? I doubted that.
“No false modesty, Minister Eschbach. You are handsome.” Deanna laughed, not quite raucously. “You’re also very off-limits. If I batted an eyelash at you, your lovely diva wouldn’t leave enough of me for a one-minute commercial.”
I almost nodded at that. Of Llysette’s determination I had no doubts.
“See? You don’t even protest.”
How could I?
After a bite of the green salad orange and amandine, I turned to Llysette, who had barely taken one small bite. “How are you feeling?”
“Nervous … I feel
tres
…” She shook her head.
“You’ll do fine.” I squeezed her knee under the table. “You will.”
Before we finished the fillets, Llysette slipped away to join Terese Stewart. Even I couldn’t eat the remainder of my dinner, and I wasn’t the one singing.
“I have persuaded one of our guests——the lovely Llysette—to sing a pair of songs for us,” the president finally announced, “and I won’t even try to pronounce the names of either song, except to say that the first one is by Mozart and the second, naturally, by a French composer. Fräulein Llysette duBoise, accompanied by Terese Stewart.”
Llysette said nothing by way of introduction, just nodded to the pianist, waited for the music, and launched into the Mozart. I’m no musician, but it seemed to me that her voice floated, soared, and yet carried a depth that was beyond depth.
The stillness between songs was absolute, the hush of an audience afraid to break a spell, the sort of hush seldom heard, especially in New Bruges, I reflected absently.
Then came the Debussy.
After the Debussy, the entire table was silent. The silence of shock, the silence of having heard something so great that all else paled. Then the staid burghers and astute politicians cheered and clapped … and clapped and cheered.
Just before Llysette sat down, Deanna turned to me. “The idiots … why did they keep her from singing for so long?”
I shrugged. “We tried. It took a while.” A while, two ghosts, and too many zombies and deaths.
Llysette eventually slipped away from the impromptu stage in the corner of the room, and I stood to seat her.
At the end of the table, as we sat, President Armstrong rose, and the clapping died. He held up his water glass—he’d never touched anything alcoholic, the rumor went. “Even if it’s water, the thought is champagne. To the greatest singer I’ve ever heard… .”
Another round of applause followed the president’s toast.
“You were wonderful,” I whispered.
“You were absolutely magnificent! Absolutely!” insisted Hartson James. “You should do a special for TransMedia.”
Llysette nodded. “You are too kind.”
“I mean it. After your Deseret engagement … perhaps something for Christmas … at least a few songs for one of the Christmas specials.”
I had the sinking feeling that he meant it, really meant it.
Somehow, we got through the rest of the dinner, and Llysette smiled politely again when the President and Frau Armstrong made their way to Llysette as we were departing.
“I meant what I said, young lady. If I were more articulate, I would have said more.” His practiced smile was warm.
“I so enjoyed your singing,” offered the strawberry blond First Lady, and I trusted the warmth in her voice more than the practiced voice of the President.
Then we were escorted back to the limousine—or another one—for the drive back to Eric and Judith’s.
Llysette almost cuddled against me in the limousine on the way through Dupont Circle and up New Bruges.
“Both of us … we wanted to sing so much, and … we sang for us … and for you, Johan.”
For me? I could sense the tears, and I just held her. What else could I do?
I kept thinking about Bruce’s pen and pencil set and about the case under the wide bed in Eric and Judith’s guest suite—and about the deadly words
psychic proliferation
.
T
he Friday after Llysette’s appearance at the Presidential Palace was the first full day we were back in Vanderbraak Centre. I dropped her off at the Music and Theatre building, as usual in our routine, and went to Samaha’s to pick up the papers that had accumulated in our absence.
I scurried through the fitful drizzle that had replaced the early-morning snow flurries, but, barely four steps into that dark emporium, I ran into the proprietor.
“Doktor Eschbach … that was some picture of your lady,” offered Louie. “And right on the front page, too. Saved a couple extras for you. Rose says we’d best go to her next recital.”
“I’ll tell her. Thank you.”
“Fancy that—one of the world’s greatest, and right here in Vanderbraak Centre.”
“You never know,” I said as kindly as I could after picking up the papers and paying Louie for the extras. My stomach twisted at the mention of the front page. Even the annual Presidential Arts Award dinner shouldn’t have made the front page—unless someone important in the capital wanted it there very badly.
“Right here,” Louie repeated.
“It does happen.” I slipped the papers under my arm and made my way out into the damp.
Back in the Stanley, I read the story before heading up to the faculty car park. I thought I’d better know what had been said. Louie had understated the press—page I, if below the fold, of the
Asten Post-Courier
, with the picture taken outside the Presidential Palace, one of the ones that didn’t show me.
FEDERAL DISTRICT (RPI). “The greatest singer I’ve ever heard”—that was how President Armstrong characterized soprano Llysette duBoise after her performance at the National Arts Awards dinner at the Presidential Palace.
“Magnificent performance,” commented honorary National Arts chair Benjamin Kubelsky. “I only wish she’d had time to do another piece by Mozart—
L’Amero e Costante
.”
DuBoise’s performance marks the return of the French soprano once hailed as the next Soderstrom, and those who heard her were unanimous in their praise… .
DuBoise had been imprisoned after the fall of France, released after the intervention of the Japanese ambassador to Vienna, and
granted asylum in Columbia. With an earned doctorate from the Sorbonne, rather than return to opera or the concert stage, she took a teaching position at Vanderbraak State University in New Bruges in 1989. Last year, she married another distinguished faculty colleague there, former Subminister for Environmental Protection, Doktor Johan Eschbach. Eschbach, a decorated pilot in the Republic Naval Air Corps and rumored to have once been a Spazi agent, was the most notable figure in the Nord scandal, when a still-undisclosed assassin wounded him and killed both his wife and son.
Sources in the capital indicate that duBoise felt she could not perform publicly in the uncertain status of an artistic refugee, but once she was granted Columbian citizenship earlier this year, the way was open for her return to the stage, and what a return it was and will be.
DuBoise is scheduled to present a demanding and full concert at the Salt Palace Concert Hall in Deseret in early December, where she will be accompanied by the noted composer, arranger, and pianist Daniel Perkins.
I shook my head. The story was nearly a duplicate of the one that had run in the Federal District’s papers, both the
Post-Courier
and the
Evening Star
, although there it had merely led off the entertainment and arts sections. Merely? More people read those than the front page.
With all the publicity, someone definitely wanted a target. That was clear. Why they did wasn’t so clear, for all the explanations.
I hadn’t even gotten inside the office before David practically swarmed over me. “Johan, the dean called over, and she was most pleased about the story.”
They both should have been. Although Llysette had gotten top billing, as she deserved, the story had mentioned both of us and suggested that Vanderbraak State University had a distinguished faculty.
“And a spy, Johan? I never would have guessed beneath that scholarly exterior.”
That was a purely political disclaimer, but I smiled. “The story noted that it was rumored I was a spy, David. I was a pilot and a subminister, however, as you know.”
David let my own political statement slide. “We shouldn’t go on rumors, I suppose.”
“No. The dean wouldn’t like it if people insisted that the rumors about her and Marinus Voorster were true.”
“Ah … no. That is true.”
“I’m glad that’s understood.” I smiled more broadly. “I need to get ready for my classes and talk to Regner and Wilhelm about what happened in the ones they took for me.”
“Of course.”
The papers in my box were mostly junk—textbook announcements and cards for perusal copies—but there was one envelope in the dean’s cream-and-green stationery.
I opened that as I walked up the stairs.
All it said was: “Bravo, Johan!”, with a scrawled “K” beneath.
Bravo for what? Having the sense to marry the woman I loved? To let her do what she had been born and trained to do? That merited congratulations?
Regner caught me opening the door to my office. “Oh, that was beautiful. Such a slap in Ferdinand’s face.”
“What?”
“Llysette’s performance. It makes him look like the uncultured barbarian he is.” Regner then glanced around the empty hallway. “About what they wrote about you…”
“I was a pilot and a subminister, Regner. I am a full-time university professor, and would like to stay as such. Let’s leave it at that.”
“As you wish, Johan.” Unfortunately, the young fellow grinned, but I didn’t want to lie outright. So I let it pass.
Nowhere could I escape the questions, not even in my environmental economics class.
“Ah … Professor Eschbach … is it true you were a spy?”
“Mister Nijkerk, you can’t believe everything that the newspapers print. I was a pilot and a subminister, and that’s enough for any faculty member.” More than enough.
“But they all wrote—”
“I believe what they wrote was that it was
rumored
that I was a spy. That is not quite the same thing,” I pointed out, trying to avoid an out-and-out lie but also not wanting it broadcast across the campus that I’d admitted to having been a spy. In my vanity, I’d rather have been classed as a Spazi covert operative, not a common run-of-the-mill spy, but they wouldn’t have known the difference. “The newspaper speculations will not assist you in discussing the impact of taxation on the consumption levels of environmentally sensitive goods. Mister Dykstra, what does the location of the Tejas oil fields have to do with the development of the current steamer technology in Columbia?”
Mister Dykstra swallowed.
After forty minutes more on the impact of transport technology on the environment, I escaped to Delft’s. I made it there before Llysette.
“Herr Doktor Eschbach, will the lady be joining you?”
“Yes, Victor.”
“Then you must have the table by the stove.”
I nodded toward the door. “Here she comes.”
Victor turned and gave a deep bow to Llysette. “I did not know, but I am pleased that it was a French soprano that the president did praise.”
“
Merci.
” Llysette smiled.
Victor ushered us to Llysette’s favorite table, and that was a good thing, because she was almost shivering from the damp cold.
“Do you know what you would like?” he asked.
“The New Ostend cheddar soup, with the green salad, and chocolate,” I ordered.
“The croissant with the salad, and the wine, the good white.”
“With pleasure. With much pleasure, mademoiselle.” Victor bowed again, as if Llysette’s presence had made his day.
“You are certainly the belle of Vanderbraak Centre,” I said with a laugh. “What did Dierk say?”
“I should apply for full professor. That is now before they forget.”
“He’s probably right. That assumes you want to keep teaching.”
“Johan. I have one paying concert.”
“So far.”
“We shall see.”
She was right about that, but she hadn’t seen the local paper.
“Here you are, prima donna of Columbia.” I passed the newspaper across the table to her.
Llysette still flushed ever so slightly. “This, it is …
tres difficile
—”
“Hard to believe? For the diva who was supposed to replace Soderstrom?”
“Long ago, that was so long ago … or it seems so.”
“
Voilà!
” Victor presented Llysette with the shimmering white Sebastopol, followed by my chocolate, and flashed another smile. He was clearly enjoying himself.
“Did anyone else say anything?”
“The dean, such a letter she wrote me.” Llysette gave a sound that was too feminine for a snort and too ironic for a sniff. “The butter, it would not melt in her mouth.”
I got the idea.
“She only told me, ‘Bravo.’” I lowered my voice slightly, not that it mattered. “David was worried that it said I’d been a spy.”
My diva smiled broadly. “Worry he should, the … weasel. He and the dean, they are similar.”
Weasel
was probably too kind a description, but I was feeling charitable and let it pass.

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