Ghosts of Columbia

by L. E. Modesitt Jr.

  The video showed the same clip of a flushed Llysette taking a bow with Perkins and then one of the interview clips with Llysette speaking.

  “The beauty of the music will last when we are gone… . Many of the people, they are friendly.”

  The video went back to a group of three around a low table in a studio setting designed to resemble a sitting room. A blond man sat with a redheaded woman on his right and a brunette on his left.

  “She sounds like a woman who has her heart in the right place,” commented the redhead.

  “She probably does,” answered the man. “What’s more interesting is that she insisted on paying for the transportation of the flowers and that the donations of the flowers be anonymous.”

  “Does she have any children?” asked the brunette.

  “No … her marriage to Minister Eschbach is her first, and they’ve been married only about a year.” The blond announcer paused. “For those of you who only know that she’s a high-paid diva and sings beautifully, you might also be interested to know that she spent several years in an Austrian prison. Reportedly she was tortured before she was released.”

  “So … you’re saying, Daniel, that this is one singer who isn’t just an image and a pretty face?”

  “Does it sound that way?” asked the smiling blond man.

  “No. She sounds like quite a lady. Have you heard her?”

  “Last night. She and Perkins are wonderful. You’re going tonight?”

  “I already was, but after hearing all this, I really wouldn’t miss it.”

  “You won’t regret it. Now … we’ll be right back with a heartwarming story on the Heber City playground.”

  With that, the video cut to another smiling Saint family and a sickeningly perky jingle. I switched stations, then turned the videolink off.

  The story on Llysette was planted, so firmly I could smell the odor of manure seeping from the silent video set. I hadn’t checked the station, but I would have bet that it was the one owned by First Counselor Cannon.

  The story was pitched to women, in a sickening way, and even cleverly suggested that Llysette was both to be admired and pitied—admired because of her pluck and talent and pitied because of her childlessness.

  I almost wanted to retch. How many other stories were out there—ones I hadn’t seen? And why? Was this a crash effort in humanizing the former enemies? Or something else?

  The silence about the intruder was deafening. No one had wired, and there was nothing on the videolink news or in either paper.

  I felt isolated.

  The bedroom door opened, and Llysette stepped out, eyes squinting even in the indirect light of the cloudy late morning.

  “Johan … how you can chirp like the bird so early, that I do not know.”

  “Heredity. You should see my Aunt Anna.”

  “Toute la famille?”

  “Not all. My father was more like you.” I glanced toward the window. “I was about to order something to eat.”

  “Another meal in this room … non … that will not do.”

  “That’s fine. Do you want me to wire Jensen and find another restaurant?”

  “Non … the bird in the cage will I be.” She sighed. “But the cage downstairs, du moins. I will not be long.”

  Her definition of long was another comparative I let go, especially since I also needed to shower and to get dressed. First, I did fix Llysette a cup of chocolate, before I climbed into the shower. The hot water felt good, and despite the chocolate I’d had, my stomach was growling by the time we stepped into the elevator.

  The lobby was more crowded, but no one gave us more than a passing glance, and a tall blond waiter escorted us to a corner booth in the Refuge—not the same one we’d had before, but a corner booth that was relatively isolated, and I got hot and steaming nonpowdered chocolate, which I sipped most gratefully.

  The family at the long table nearest our corner of the Refuge kept looking at us. I tried to concentrate on whatever a Deseret skillet was—a concoction of red potatoes, various peppers, eggs, and slabs of ham all served in a miniature cast-iron skillet set on a wooden holder or plate.

  “That’s her … know it is … saw her on the link.”

  “Must be her bodyguard with her… .”

  I winced at that.

  “Her husband … say he was a spy once.”

  “… looks pleasant enough.”

  I felt like glaring but didn’t.

  “Do you expect a spy to look like a Lamanite, Ellie?”

  “A spy you do not look like.” Llysette’s eyes twinkled, and she raised her water glass. “Even when you are spying.”

  I decided to eat more and eavesdrop less.

  The Saturday afternoon master class was nearly a repeat of the Friday one, except the students were more nervous and Joanne Axley gave Llysette a more glowing introduction.

  Afterward, several of them clustered around.

  “… will you be back to give more recitals here?”

  “I must be asked,” said Llysette politely. “The arrangements are made years before, at times. This was not planned.”

  I’d almost forgotten that.

  “You were so good… .”

  Llysette nodded toward Joanne Axley, who stood talking to a redheaded young man. “Your professor, she is very wise. You are fortunate.”

  The slightest frown crossed the student’s forehead.

  “So easy it is,” Llysette continued, an edge to her voice, “to forget. Do you know of Madame Rocza?”

  “Ah … no, Miss duBoise. Is she a singer?”

  Llysette shook her head. “She taught many of the best when they were young. Now … some, they scarcely know her. Do not do that.” She smiled politely.

  “Ah … thank you.”

  “You are welcome.”

  Joanne Axley slipped over toward Llysette as the conference room emptied. “I overheard your words to Bronwin,” she said to Llysette with a small laugh. “I appreciate the thought, but I don’t know if she’ll listen.”

  “The students, they are dense.”

  I could vouch for that.

  “Weren’t we all?” asked Axley.

  Somehow I doubted that either of them had been. I had been, and I knew it, and I’d had to learn far too much the hard way. My only grace in that department was that I knew I’d been dense and spoiled—and fortunate enough to survive both.

  After the master class, we walked eastward, through the light and chilly gusting breeze. I glanced ahead toward a large building taking up an entire block. “Zion Mercantile” was spelled out in shimmering bronze letters.

  “Shall we?” I asked.

  “Mais out.”

  The first stop was the dress section.

  Llysette frowned at the long-sleeved, almost dowdy, dress on the mannequin, then went to the next one—equally conservative, with another ankle-length skirt. Her eyes went to the shoppers.

  A tall, graying redhead passed us, her camel overcoat open to show a high-necked cream silk blouse and dark woolen trousers. With her was a younger woman, also a redhead. After them came a stocky blonde, with a wide, if pretty, face and sparkling blue eyes. Each hand grasped a child’s hand—both blond and blue-eyed like their mother—and neither boy was over five or six. The mother wore a blue turtlenecked blouse, also of silk, and a skirt that reached nearly to her ankles. Under the skirt I could see blue leather boots. All three women had their hair in French braids. In fact, most of the women in Deseret had long, braided hair, I realized.

  Silk blouses? They didn’t look synthetic, unless the Saints’ synthetic fibres were far better than those of Columbia. Then, the Saints had developed a silk industry early in south Deseret.

  I followed Llysette into the coat department, where a well-dressed and gray-haired woman stood with three girls who looked to be of secondary school age. All four had their hair braided, and the girls tried on coats.

  Llysette picked up several coats, among them a dark gree
n woolen one.

  “That looks nice.”

  “At least, you do not tell me when I sing that it is nice.”

  I winced. Llysette hated the word nice, but I didn’t always remember.

  She handed me her coat and tried on the green, then walked over to the flat mirror on the wall before shaking her head. I handed her back her coat and returned the green one to the rack.

  The next stop was lingerie, and I tried not to frown at the filmy garments in every shade of the rainbow. While the coats and dresses had been solid and conservative, not even the theatre district of Philadelphia showed undergarments like some of the Zion Mercantile offerings.

  Llysette saw my face, clearly, and a wide smile crossed her lips as she lifted a black lace teddy from a rack. “This one … you would like?”

  I could feel myself flushing.

  “Oui… .”

  I had to grin.

  “About some things, Johan, Dutch you are still.”

  She was probably right about that, too, and I wasn’t sure whether I was relieved or disappointed that she didn’t buy any of the lingerie. Nor anything else except a small jar of a body cream. All in all, we spent nearly an hour roaming through the store, and I spent as much time thinking as looking.

  The store bothered me, and I wasn’t sure why, exactly. There hadn’t been more than a handful of men anywhere, and the women in the store were well dressed and well groomed, and a number of them were smiling. Not exactly what I would have expected in a rigid theocracy.

  “Johan?”

  “Oh … sorry. I was just thinking.”

  “We can go. I have found nothing that I could not do without absoluement.”

  As we walked slowly back to the Lion Inn, toward a sun low in the sky, with the wind ruffling my hair, I watched the people even more closely. A woman with braided blonde hair coiled into a knot at the back of her neck walked with an older white-haired and bearded man. Neither looked at the other. She wore a long camel coat, as did he. Two women in short wool jackets and ankle-length skirts shepherded six children, all fresh-faced and scrubbed, in the direction of the Temple park. A young man, clean-shaven, strode briskly past us.

  “Downstairs or upstairs?” I asked when he stepped into the inn’s lobby.

  Llysette shrugged.

  “Are you hungry? Pasta? Soup?”

  “To finish the concerts, that is what I wish.” She marched toward the elevator.

  I followed but said nothing until the couple with the three children exited at the fourth floor. “Are you angry with me?”

  “Mais non … I am angry with this place.” .

  “It is different. It—”

  “Did you not see?”

  “What? That there weren’t any women by themselves, unless they had children?”

  “You did see,” she answered with that tone that indicated that what she meant was perfectly obvious.

  With a slight cling, the elevator stopped at the sixth floor.

  “You’re angry that the only place you’re getting a chance to sing is one where women are treated this way.” I paused, then decided against pointing out that the women I’d seen hadn’t seemed depressed or oppressed. It could have been that I wasn’t seeing those women.

  “I cannot sing in France. It is no more. I cannot sing in Columbia, except to make … someone look good.” She left the elevator with a shake of her head. “These things … I must wait. Tonight, I will sing.”

  “Did I do something?” What had I missed?

  “It is not you.”

  I wondered, but she did smile, and I opened the door. A large stack of cards lay on the small side table under the mirror—more, I supposed, from flowers sent to Llysette.

  With my diva’s touchiness, I tried to remain in the background, guessing at the pasta she wanted for dinner and making the arrangements, fielding Jensen’s wirecall to notify Llysette that a limousine would be waiting to avoid problems.

  The Browning limousine, with Heber at the wheel, was waiting, and we rode silently the long block to the underground entrance.

  “Thank you.” I opened the door for Llysette one-handed, her gown in the bag I carried in the other.

  “You’re welcome,” answered the driver.

  We followed another functionary in a green coat up the ramps.

  “How do you feel?”

  Llysette didn’t answer, and I didn’t press. Once she wanted me out of her dressing room, I went to find Jensen. He wasn’t in the corner office, but I tracked him to a lower level where he was talking to three men in gray jumpsuits carrying tools and wearing equipment belts.

  When he saw me, he turned and hurried over.

  “No matter how you plan, some technical thing always goes wrong in a concert hall.” He laughed. “What can I do for you, Minister Eschbach?”

  “I wondered if anyone has found out anything about the man who tried to attack Llysette last night.”

  “No. We haven’t heard anything much. One of the … security types … said something about his being zombied.” He shrugged. “I just don’t know.” After a pause, he added, “We’ve put on another fifty guards, half in plainclothes, and the city police have doubled their patrols in the area around the complex.”

  “Is there any other reason to worry?” I asked pleasantly. “Besides last night?”

  “Not that I know of.” He glanced back toward the workmen.

  “I won’t keep you.”

  I decided to remain backstage, but I positioned my stool a little differently—where I could watch the approach area to Llysette’s dressing room, and the stage. That meant I would see Llysette performing from the side and behind.

  Despite the dimming lights and the chimes, the concert was even later in starting than the previous two nights. Saints seemed to have this proclivity to be somewhat tardy. I had peeked earlier, and the hall was going to be standing room only. It made me wish that Llysette were getting a percentage of the tickets, because someone was going to make quite a stash.

  With the lights down, the notes rose from the Steinbach, and Llysette’s, and Carolynne’s, voice shimmered out of the light and into the darkened space. I could almost imagine the notes lighting the darkness.

  The Handel was good, the Mozart better, and the Debussy extraordinary.

  Again, I kept out of the way at intermission.

  The second half was every bit as good as, if not better than, the night before. Llysette’s voice seemed at times to rip my heart from my chest and at others to coax tears from me—or from a statue.

  If I’d thought the applause the previous two nights had been thunderous, I’d been mistaken. The stolid Saints stood and clapped and clapped and clapped, and clapped some more.

  Llysette and Dan Perkins finally capitulated and did a second encore—another Perkins song, simpler, but it didn’t matter to the crowd. They stood and cheered and clapped, and they kept doing it.

  Llysette deserved it—more than deserved it—both for what she’d endured to get there and for the sheer artistry of what she had delivered.

  I met her at the back of the stage. “You were wonderful. More wonderful than before.”

  “My head, you will turn, but you love me.”

  “You were wonderful,” added Dan Perkins. “And I’m not married to you.”

  At that she did flush, and the blush hadn’t quite cleared when the admirers began to appear.

  After several anonymous well-wishers, a familiar face appeared.

  “You were wonderful.” Joanne Axley smiled at Llysette, then turned to Dan Perkins. “You were right.”

  “Magnificent,” added the short man with the Deseret University voice professor.

  “I wish more of my students could have heard you,” added Axley.

  “They should listen to you,” said Llysette. “I told them all those things which you—”

  “Thank you.” Joanne Axley and her husband slipped away.

  Was she upset? I wasn’t certain. I just st
ood back of Llysette’s shoulder and surveyed the small crowd lining up to say a few words to either Perkins or Llysette.

  “I’m sorry about Joanne,” Perkins said quietly.

  “I would be upset, were I her,” answered Llysette quietly. “She has sung here?”

  “A number of times, but she’s never moved people the way you did.”

  “That is sad.”

  A heavyset woman with white hair stepped up. “You remind me of that Norwegian. You were wonderful. Are you any relation?”

  “Thank you. I do not think so. All my family, they come from France.”

  “Magnifique, mademoiselle, magnifique!” That was the thin man with a trimmed mustache. “Claude Ruelle, the former French ambassador here in Deseret. After the Fall … I stayed. You, you have brought back all that vanished.” With a few more words along those lines, and a sad smile, he was gone.

  Counselor Cannon appeared at the very end of the line of well-wishers, and he bowed to Llysette. “You have sung magnificently, and your warmth and charitable nature will do much for all of us. Thank you.” The voice and eyes were warm, but I still didn’t trust him.

  Beside him were two other men I hadn’t met before. The dark-haired one bowed to Llysette, marginally. “You were outstanding.” The other nodded.

  “Thank you.”

  “Might we have a word with you, Minister Eschbach?” asked Cannon.

  “Ah … of course.”

  Llysette raised an eyebrow. “I will be changing.”

  “I’m sure I won’t be long.”

  She slipped toward the dressing room, not quite in step with Dan Perkins, and I watched for a moment.

  “Minister Eschbach?”

  “Oh, I’m sorry. You were saying?”

  “She is truly amazing,” said the First Counselor. “You must be very proud of her.”

  The idea behind Cannon’s words nagged at me. Was all of Deseret like that? Llysette was amazing and I certainly respected and admired her and loved her, but it really wasn’t my place to be proud. Her parents should have been proud, but I hadn’t done anything to create her talents or determination or to give her the will to succeed.