Ghost of the White Nights

by L. E. Modesitt Jr.

  Commander Madley waited until we were outside and in the Volga before speaking. “I'm under the impression that most Russian bureaucrats don't come out and greet guests personally.” He looked at Christian.

  “I haven't been at one of these meetings before,” Christian answered, almost apologetically. “What I've heard is that most make you wait and come to them. Many are very rude.”

  “That could be because he's spent a great deal of time in either Britain or Columbia. Oh . . . his wife is a great admirer of Llysette's. They've asked us to dinner at the Imperial Yacht Club tonight. Formal attire.”

  Christian's mouth opened. “The only one in the embassy who's ever been asked there is the ambassador.”

  “It helps having a famous wife,” I suggested. “Is there somewhere that we could get something to eat—you, too, Olaf, before we go to the Ministry of Interior?”

  “There is a café not far off the Nevsky Prospekt.”

  “Let's try it.” I was glad I had roubles in my wallet.

  Olaf parked the Volga on the street, not fifty yards from the café, something impossible in any Columbian city, and we got out. I hadn't taken two steps when a wisp of white appeared before a door nailed shut with a black bar. The ghost held up her hands, as if begging, then murmured something, although murmur wasn't correct because everyone heard ghosts in their thoughts, not aloud. I didn't recognize the words, except that they were Russian. Then she dropped to her knees, as if pleading—and vanished.

  I didn't shake my head, though I felt that way, as we walked into the café.

  The small café was better than the image I had from the outside. The wooden tables were battered, but the black-and-white marble floor tiles were clean, if scarred from years of use, and the windows were wide enough to let in the icy winter light. My breath didn't quite steam, although I was perfectly comfortable in my heavy winter overcoat.

  In the end I had something I couldn't pronounce that seemed to be a cross between a potato pancake, lace potatoes, and a crepe, rolled around a stewed meat filling. It was tasty, and filling, and after paying for four meals and teas, more than half my roubles were gone.

  “I hope you two talked to Elenya,” I said after swallowing a mouthful of strong and not quite bitter Russian tea.

  “Christian did most of the talking,” Madley said.

  “What did you learn beyond the chitchat?” I asked, taking another sip of the tea.

  “Not much,” Christian said. “She's married, and she has two children. She likes working for PetroRus, and especially for Director Kulikovsky. It's been a cold winter already, with more snow than usual for November and December . . .”

  I made a note to remember that.

  “She also said something about Christian's accent being more sophisticated than other Columbians she had met,” Madley added.

  “Other than that, sir . . .”

  “I imagine she's been told to be polite and say nothing important.” I turned to the driver, who was finishing off the last crumbs of his lunch. “Olaf, you spend more time than most people in the embassy with the everyday Russian people, don't you?”

  “Most of all, I see drivers and imperial guards, and city police . . . and my neighbors.”

  “You've lived here how long?”

  “Twenty years, since I met Irenya.”

  “How are prices? For things like food, rent, that sort of thing,” I asked.

  “They are going up, every week. It was not always that way.”

  “Even petrol?”

  Olaf nodded. “But the bread is the worst. A single loaf costs twice as many roubles as it did last spring.”

  “Has this happened before? Do people talk about it?”

  “I do not remember it being quite so bad, but it has been a cold year.” He didn't quite look at me.

  “What about ghosts? Does St. Petersburg have a lot?”

  Olaf glanced toward the door, then shrugged. I understood. More than anyone wanted to talk about, it appeared.

  So I finished my tea, and since everyone else had finished before I had, I stood. “We'd better be going, I'd guess.”

  I didn't see the ghost beside the black-barred door on our way back to the black Volga sedan, even though that side of the building was in shadow from the afternoon winter sun that wasn't about to last, not with the clouds coming in from the north.

  The main Interior Ministry building was little more than two blocks east of the Neva, off the area that Olaf called the English Embankment. Like every other government building we had passed, it was of gray stone, with pastel-painted panels to add some color, but the Interior Ministry had chosen a pastel green that somehow looked sickly.

  Christian had a bit more trouble explaining who I was and why I was there, but in the end we all piled onto another not quite obsolete elevator that only took us three floors.

  According to the backgrounders, Vlasovich was the director of engineering technology for the Ministry of Interior, and it was clear that a director wasn't on the top of the bureaucratic pyramid, because he met us himself, introduced himself, and suggested that Madley and Christian wait in two very uncomfortable wooden chairs that looked even older than the building.

  Vlasovich had a far more modest office than had Kulikovsky, barely fifteen feet square, with a single window that looked out on a black-gray stone wall. When I stepped into his overlarge closet, he closed the door, then walked behind a desk that might have been new a generation before and surveyed me for a time. I just waited.

  “The famous Minister Johan Eschbach.” He shook his head. “You do not look two meters tall, like Peter the Great. You do not have the cold eyes of a Koba. You do not have the sensuous lips of a Don Juan. Yet you have made great men weep, broken more revolutionaries than the Okhrana, and swept into your arms the most beautiful diva of the century. I congratulate you.” His accent was somewhere between Brit and old Dutch with a touch of French, probably reflecting his schooling and his wife.

  “What exactly can a mere representative of his Speaker say to that?” I asked with a laugh that I hoped wasn't too forced.

  “Very little.” He dropped into his chair and gestured to the single chair across the ancient desk from him.

  As I took the seat, I noticed that the difference engine on the stand beside him was as modern as anything in Bruce's shop. “How about the esteemed and respected Dimitri Vlasovich, engineer par excellence, known for his ability to beg, borrow, steal, and adapt every engineering idea that is not walled away—and even some of those?”

  Vlasovich laughed, a deep belly laugh of the sort that everyone took to mean a truly jovial soul. To me, men who could laugh that way were twice as dangerous. “Even Pyotr Romanov would not say that to my face. To my back, but not to my face.”

  “Pardon my ignorance.” I tried to keep my tone ambivalent.

  “I want all the environmental technologies you will give us. What do you want?” Vlasovich's dark brown eyes bored into me.

  “The concessions for Columbian Dutch Petroleum to explore, extract, and transport Alaskan north-shore oil for a reasonable royalty payment.”

  A broad smile crossed the face of the director of engineering technologies. “You see? It is very simple. I say what I want. You say what you want. With PetroRus, it will take you two meetings, perhaps three, and you may get nothing. They are what you call bureaucrats, and they call themselves businessmen. I am the businessman, and they call me a bureaucrat.”

  I nodded. “So how do you propose to get what you want, and for me to get what I want?”

  “That is harder. If I say we need the technologies, the minister will approve, but he will not cross Pyotr Romanov, and Romanov will not approve unless those he trusts also approve.”

  “What you're suggesting is that if I can get PetroRus to approve of the proposition, the Interior Ministry will agree, provided the control of the environmental technologies goes to you?”

  “Ha!” That got another belly laugh. “You could be
Russian, Minister.”

  I doubted that, and doubted more that I'd want to be. “How many other obstacles are there that I don't know about?”

  “In the great land of Imperial Russia, you talk of obstacles? Your high excellency, how could one imagine such? Certainly, it is possible that our great and glorious Air Corps might be persuaded to do without fuel it could never refine . . . Yet, how would the Imperial Rocket Corps—” He broke off abruptly. “But I wander. Best you consider the obstacles you face, about which this poor functionary knows nothing. I only know that they must exist, or you would have your concession, and I would have your technologies.”

  “In everything, there is someone who would rather build a small empire and die with it than see his country prosper.” I was temporizing, but what else could I have said?

  “In the west, certainly not in great and Imperial Russia, most of those are soldiers, for they long for the days when a sword and a strong right arm would build empires. Today, in your land, it might be an aircraft, but they feel the same, whether that man is serving in an embassy or in an office in your federal district.”

  I laughed. “I won't return the favor, because I don't know enough to offer an epigram that would be both accurate and witty.”

  Vlasovich shook his head. “It is a terrible thing to be a scientist in our world. If one pursues a science that improves all the world, then one is silently condemned for not serving one's fatherland. And if one pursues a science that grants a fatherland or a motherland a great military advantage, then one must live with a troubled conscience.”

  I understood that, even if I weren't a scientist.

  “But always, I wander and ramble. You were kind to see me, Minister Eschbach, and I will do as I can.” He paused. “Have you seen the Bronze Horseman?”

  “Not yet,” I admitted, “except from across the square.”

  “You should see it up close, especially after the sun sets. At five o'clock tonight, perhaps quarter past, if you are lucky, you can see one of the ghosts of the white nights. They are said to determine Russia's future.” He smiled. “They have determined our past. That is certain.”

  “I'll see what I can do.”

  “Be careful, though.” He gave a crooked smile as he stood. “If you do not see the ghosts, you will miss much. If you concentrate on one ghost . . . you may not see the others.”

  I stood. “Thank you.”

  He watched, his face blank, as I left the small office and rejoined Commander Madley and Christian in the small reception area, where there wasn't even a receptionist.

  I didn't say anything until we were back in the Volga and Olaf was driving us through the early twilight caused by the clouds and the late afternoon, back to the embassy.

  “Sir,” ventured Christian, “how did it go?”

  “Like everything else,” I replied. “I think he'd like to see things work out, but he's not the only player.” That was safe enough.

  “There was almost no one in the building,” Madley added.

  “I'm not surprised. That's why he wants any assistance we can provide him.”

  Both actually looked surprised, but then, as I thought about it, I hadn't actually mentioned anything along those lines. I decided not to explain.

  By the time we got out of the Volga in the embassy court-yard, it was already past four-thirty.

  “Commander Madley, would you mind checking with Colonel Sudwerth to see if there's anything I should know about?”

  “Now, sir?”

  “Why not? I'll tell Olaf about tonight. I don't think you or Christian will be needed to go with us to the yacht club.”

  My tone was dry enough that the commander did smile as he answered, “I don't imagine so, sir.”

  “I'll be in the guest quarters later.”

  With a nod, Commander Madley was gone.

  I turned to Olaf. “You'll be the one driving us in the evenings as well?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “How long does it take to get to the Imperial Yacht Club?”

  “A quarter hour . . . no more.”

  “My wife and I—or rather Mademoiselle duBoise and her husband—have been invited to dinner at eight. If we are down here at twenty before the hour, will that be early enough?”

  “Yes, sir . . . at that time.”

  I checked my watch again—four forty-five. “Christian, we need to go look at the Bronze Horseman—up close.”

  “Now, sir?”

  “Now's as good a time as any.”

  “But Commander Madley . . .”

  “He doesn't need to come on a bit of sightseeing, does he?”

  “Olaf . . . if you wouldn't mind?”

  “Not at all, sir. You'll be impressed. It's good to see.”

  So we slipped back into the Volga, and Olaf drove southward and then along one of the canals—the Moika, I thought, but I could have been wrong—before following the Lvov Prospekt back toward the Neva and the Senate Square. He parked on the east side, and we got out. The darkness was almost eerie so early in the evening, and intermittent fat flakes of snow drifted out of a dark sky. Streetlights set on tall and curved iron brackets provided illumination of the square, except that they were set far enough apart that there were really patches of light and darkness, although the reflection off the snow created a more even but much dimmer secondary lighting. Even in the early evening, there were passersby scattered throughout the area.

  We walked across the carefully swept stones toward the monument. While most of the area was swept, there were sections where the snow had been piled, almost like irregular gray-white walls. Then, everything in St. Petersburg seemed to take on a certain grayness.

  The Bronze Horseman stood in the Senate Square, if I understood the translation correctly, facing the River Neva beyond the Admiralty and the English Embankment. On the back of the rearing horse was the figure of Peter the Great. Even after more than two hundred years and even in the dim light, with fat wet flakes of snow falling, I could still see—and feel—the intensity of the ancient monarch's eyes. The single block of red granite from which bronze rider and horse reared, sculpted centuries before into the shape of a cliff, seemed to take on the color of long-faded blood, not quite washed away by time or the waters that had periodically inundated St. Petersburg. I had to look to make out the snake that had been crushed by the mount's hoof, but it was there.

  As we circled the monument more closely, I could see that Vlasovich had been right. A series of ghostly figures flickered in and out of sight.

  “I haven't seen that before,” Christian offered.

  “Have you been here at twilight or early evening?”

  “No, sir.”

  “They're probably mostly older ghosts. Some might date back to the Decembrist massacre.”

  “I thought you didn't know much about Russia.”

  “I don't.” And I didn't, not any more than I'd been able to cram in reading about between teaching and everything else in the month between finding we were headed to St. Petersburg and boarding the turbo in Asten. I'd learned but a fraction of what a good agent needed to know, but I was surprised that Christian didn't know about the ghosts.

  I could see a man walking slowly from the direction of the Neva, and turned to the young diplomatic officer. “Christian . . . just walk over to the other side of the horse, please.”

  This time, he didn't question me. He just casually walked away.

  The man who had been approaching had a black wool overcoat and an equally black and well-trimmed beard. He wasted no time. “Minister Eschbach. You look like your picture. A friend said I might find you here.” His English was heavily accented, so much that I had to concentrate to catch what he said.

  “A recent acquaintance suggested I look at the Bronze Horseman at this time of day.”

  “What do you think?”

  “Magnificent,” I said. “The ghosts have been here for a time as well. Do they have a name?”

  “Some call them the g
hosts of the white nights.” He laughed. “But many ghosts are called such in St. Petersburg.”

  “That seems paradoxical. I imagine they're hard to see during the white nights.”

  He laughed, gestured toward the intermittent wet flakes of snow. “This is another kind of white night, the kind that has brought ghosts and misery to too many for too long.” He paused. “In our modern age, even ghosts are vanishing.” He laughed again. “Some have said you have detailed plans to clean up the Dnepyr . . .”

  “That is possible . . .”

  “It is also said there is a price for those plans . . . a high price for those who love Russia.”

  Trying to avoid the price issue, I smiled indulgently. “I don't operate that way. I'm looking for something that benefits everyone involved. I'm someone who wants clean rivers anywhere. I have to confess that I'm also someone who doesn't want Ferdinand to obtain any more of those rivers.” I shrugged.

  “What good will clean rivers do people who cannot enjoy them?”

  “Not much,” I admitted. “But they'll do even less good to people turned into ghosts or put in Ferdinand's work camps.” I could see his eyes narrow at the mention of ghosts, but he nodded at the work camps.

  “There is that. It is not much, but it is something. These technologies? Do they work?”

  “The majority have already been used. Some are just being adopted.”

  He nodded. “We will see.” He stopped and gestured at the massive figure of Peter the Great that loomed above us. “He thought he did what was best. For forty years there were so many ghosts in St. Petersburg that no one lived here who was not compelled to by the tzar. Those were the first ghosts of the white nights. Some say that the ghosts saved Alexander II seven times. They failed the eighth time. One cannot always rely on ghosts, even in the city of ghosts. There is a legend that the ghosts of the white nights will save the tzars and St. Petersburg. A silly legend, but comforting. Men may create ghosts, especially those who would challenge even the skies and the white nights, but ghosts create little but sadness.”

  Alexander II had been fortunate for a long time before his assassination in 1886, and Russia had been even more fortunate that he had managed to push through his great reforms in 1881, and that his reactionary son had ruled for only eight years and his even more reactionary eldest grandson for but six. “I try not to rely on ghosts, but on people.”