Ghosts of Columbia (61 page)

Read Ghosts of Columbia Online

Authors: L.E. Modesitt Jr.

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

BOOK: Ghosts of Columbia
5.7Mb size Format: txt, pdf, ePub
Then … there had to be others who needed a disruption, like deGaulle, or Ferdinand. I hoped the Danites and the others were up to containing anything along those lines.
Jillian blotted her forehead.
“He’s invested a lot in this?”
“Not in the concert, but in the recordings.”
“Llysette will sing well.”
“He says she is the only one who can do justice to his art songs.” She swallowed.
I patted her shoulder, just once. “She says he’s the only one that understands the music and the piano enough to let her sing her best.” Llysette hadn’t actually said it, but I understood that was how she felt. Llysette didn’t have to say it, not to me.
Either my words or gesture triggered the slightest frown.
“I wish I could play for her.” I laughed ruefully. “But I’ve got as much musical talent as a frog. It’s hard to watch her, to be able to appreciate it, and to add nothing.”
“You have done a great deal, Dan says. Weren’t you an important government official?”
“It’s not quite the same,” I protested.
“You love her … almost more than time and eternity.” Her words were not quite a question.
I nodded.
“That makes it hard. Very hard,” she said.
We understood, sitting there as the hall filled, each of us wishing for the best for someone we could do little to help. I’d liked Jillian from the moment I’d seen her—almost like the sister I’d never had, and never would.
The stage remained empty until nearly ten minutes past eight, when the doors to the hall were closed and the lights dimmed. The house wasn’t quite filled, but close to it.
My eyes took in the suspended microphones, and I swallowed.
Then two figures stepped forward and bowed. The applause was polite, modest, but certainly not overwhelming.
First there was a light, but florid, aria by Handel—light for Llysette, anyway,
Lusinghe piu care.
After a brief silence, the applause was strong, much stronger. Then came the Mozart,
Exultate Jubilate.
Llysette’s voice intertwined with the notes from the piano yet remained separate, floated yet dropped inside my head, separated me almost from breathing. I
wasn’t the only one, because when she finished there was a gasp from the entire audience. The applause was thunderous, or close to it.
During the applause, more Saints filed in, filling many of the remaining seats.
Then came the Debussy aria, Lia’s air from
L’Enfant du Prodigue
, and there wasn’t any doubt about the volume of the applause. A few more listeners straggled in, and I began to wonder about Saint punctuality.
All in all, by intermission I was sweating, and the hall was still slightly chill. Beside me, Jillian was equally damp, and her teeth fretted on the linen handkerchief clutched in her hands. Then I understood. The Perkins pieces were after the intermission.
“They’re better,” I offered.
“What?” Her eyes weren’t really focused.
“Dan’s pieces. They’re every bit as good as the last Strauss and the Mozart. They could be better. You’ll have to see.”
She offered a faint smile and went back to worrying the linen.
I tried to listen to the whispers and low voices around us, despite wondering whether I really wanted to know what they were saying.
“… heard Rysanek once … said she was the greatest. Not anymore … and I’ll bet we haven’t heard the best yet… .”
“I don’t understand. Where did she come from? Why is she here?”
“Don’t fret, Jefferson. Just enjoy the music. You won’t hear this again, not when the rest of the world finds out.”
“… get tickets for your folks?”
“Never heard Debussy sung like that, and Debussy never did either, poor man.
My guts were tight, and I wished I had something to chew on. I wanted to go backstage, but that was the last thing Llysette needed.
Finally, I stood up, just before my seat, to stretch my legs. I looked at Jillian, but she didn’t even glance up.
Then the lights flashed, and people began to file back into the hall, and I sat down.
Jillian fretted with her handkerchief again and twisted in her seat, her eyes downcast.
The first song after intermission was from Puccini’s
La Boheme,
in Italian about Paris, and then came a short and humorous Wolf piece,
Mausfallen spruchlein,
before Llysette launched into the three Perkins pieces.
They got another resounding ovation, and she completed the concert with
An die Nacht.
The last piece wasn’t the end, though, not after the audience kept applauding and standing and screaming.
Jillian and I just stood with them. I think we were both numb, in the way that you get when the emotional overload is too great to feel any more.
Finally, the audience sat, and Perkins settled himself at the piano.
The encore had to be partly Carolynne’s, although only two of us would have known that as Llysette finished and as the applause and cacophony cascaded around me.
Jillian and I didn’t speak. What could we have said that wouldn’t have been banal after the performance of our spouses?
Bright lights surrounded Llysette’s dressing room, and I had to ease around the crowd, but I wasn’t getting very far.
“There’s Minister Eschbach!” boomed a voice, and Jacob Jensen and his driver, Heber, pushed aside some of the well-wishers and their bouquets of flowers—just flowers; apparently chocolates weren’t
de rigueur
in Deseret—and escorted me behind the videolinkers and their lights, all focused on Llysette.
“Fräulein duBoise, why did you wait so long to return to the stage?”
“For many years I had no country. A person who has no country has few choices. I am happy now in Columbia. I will perform so long as people wish to hear.”
“Some people have said your husband was a spy, and that he still might be.”
“Mon cher
… he is a very good professor, and he was a war hero, and he is a good man. He is no spy.” She offered a wide and sparkling smile, and I thought she had seen me.
“But do you know if he once was a spy?”
Llysette smiled. “You do not like my words, then you should ask Johan. He is there.” She gestured toward me.
I had to give one of the young linkers credit. He dodged around Heber and had the videocamera in my face.
“It’s said you were a spy. Is it true?”
“I don’t think it’s any great secret that I once was employed by the Sedition Prevention Service—that was a long time ago. I was also once a military pilot, and a government minister, and my family was killed, and I was wounded for that service.” I forced a smile. “But all of that was a long time ago, and I’m a professor of environmental studies married to one of the greatest singers of the age. She’s your story. You’ll see a lot of retired officials. There’s only one of her.”
Surprisingly, the young fellow smiled and turned the camera back toward Llysette.
“You’ve sung in two national capitals in less than a month after years of no public performances. How did this happen?”
“Doktor Perkins. He sent a student to a clinic. There I sang one of his songs. He sent me arrangements.” Llysette shrugged. “He is a great composer, and his student led to the concert.”
“Is there any message behind your concert, Miss duBoise?”
“Message?” Llysette laughed. “The beauty of the music will last when we are gone.”
“How do you like Deseret?”
“Many of the people, they are friendly. I have not seen much. I have prepared for the concert.”
“That’s enough!” announced a bass voice, and the lights dimmed, and the media scuffled away, slowly.
Blinking in the comparative gloom, I stepped forward and hugged my wife, gently, then kissed her cheek.
“Magnifique!”
I whispered. “And that’s understating it.”
A few steps away, Dan Perkins was hugging Jillian. Her eyes were wet. After a moment, they stepped toward us.
“There aren’t many nights … like this.” His voice barely carried over the noise of another group that seemed headed toward us and the mutterings of the departing videolinkers.
“Non.”
Llysette squared her shoulders. “But twice more we must perform.”
Perkins nodded, then grinned. “We’d better enjoy it.”
“Here they are!” boomed the bass voice again, which I finally attached to a blocky man not much taller than my shoulder who gestured toward an older man at the head of the new group.
“This is the First Counselor, the Most Honorable J. Press Cannon.” The bassvoiced man gestured.
First Counselor Cannon had white hair and beard, a cherubic face marred slightly by childhood acne that had never totally healed, and warm bluish-brown eyes. He inclined his head. “You were absolutely superb, Miss duBoise.”
His voice was full and concerned, and I distrusted him on sight. He was the kind of man who was always honest, forthright, supportive, and able to use all three traits to his own advantage to be deadlier than most villains.
“I thank you.”
“Don’t thank me. I’m thanking you for an experience that comes all too infrequently, if ever.”
Llysette flushed.
He turned to me. “You have had some experience with the media, I notice.”
“Me?” I shook my head.
Cannon laughed. “Minister Eschbach, someday we’ll talk.” He turned back to Llysette. “Unlike your president, I have heard many singers. I’ve never heard one like you.” He shook his head. “We have been truly doubly blessed with your presence. I will be here tomorrow and Saturday.” With a last cherubic smile he nodded, and he and his entourage marched off like some religious band ready for another revival.
Eventually, most drifted away, and Llysette changed back into the simple dress. I eased her performance gown into the bag.
The Danites, and there were four now, escorted us both back to the Lion Inn, right from the dressing room. One carried the half-dozen bouquets that had been pressed upon Llysette.
Outside the concert hall, a dozen people stood in the swirling snowflakes that weren’t sticking to the sidewalk or the street.
“Miss duBoise … please … would you please sign my program?” The girl barely came to my shoulder. “Please?”
I fumbled in my pocket and found a pen, not one of Bruce’s set, and extended it to her.
Llysette smiled and asked, “Do you sing?”
“After hearing you … I … I’m afraid to try.”
“So was I once, when I heard Tebaldi. Learn to sing, child.”
The girl looked down, then slipped away.
A white-haired woman eased a book toward Llysette—open to a picture of a much younger Llysette duBoise. “I never thought … You’re better than all of them, and I’ve heard them all.”
“You are kind.” I could see the moistness in my diva’s eyes as she signed the picture, moistness that glistened in the reflections of the street glow throwers.
When the woman closed the book, I caught the title—
Prima Donnas: Past and Future.
Llysette signed all fifteen programs, with a kind word and a smile for each. But she was silent, withdrawn deeply into herself, as we walked the last half-block to the Lion Inn and took the elevator up to the suite.
The Danites followed silently, and I wondered why, half-musingly, still in a detached state myself, until we reached our door.
“Miss duBoise? The flowers, ma’am?” asked the Danite who had carried them all the way from the dressing room.
We both looked at the flowers held by the Saint. What could Llysette do with them?
Finally, she took the one bouquet with the pale white roses, barely more than buds, and looked at the young Danite. “Have you a wife?”
He nodded.
“And the others?”
“Some do, Miss duBoise.”
Llysette smiled. “I cannot have too many flowers around me. Perhaps you could take them … if you would wish … for all of you, and for watching out for us.”
“Thank you.” A momentary smile cracked the pale face under the blond hair.
“We thank you,” she said.
After they left, I closed the door and took Llysette’s coat, then hung up her gown.
She stood almost where I had left her, in the sitting room area, staring blankly in the general direction of the windows.
“Johan … you have not said much.”
I shook my head, and my eyes burned again. “What could I say? I’ve never heard … no one had ever heard …” I looked into her green eyes, saw the pride and the incredible pain. “I don’t have the words. I feel anything I say is so little to
describe how you sang.” What could I have said that would have been adequate to describe that incredible performance?

Other books

Corporate Seduction by A.C. Arthur
Controlled Cravings by Christin Lovell
Sapphire: New Horizons by Heather Brooks
Hymn by Graham Masterton
Sweet Surrender by Banks, Maya
What Matters Most by Malori, Reana