Ghosts of Columbia (2 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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Outside, a half moon shone across the campus, and between the moon and the soft illumination of the glow lamps, there was more than enough light to make our way along the brick wall to the car park and the glimmering sleek lines of the Stanley,
a far cry from the early steam-carts or even the open-topped racing steamers of early in the century.
Llysette fidgeted for the minute or so that it took for the steam pressure to build. “Why you Columbians love your steamers—that I do not understand. The petrol engines are so much more convenient.”
“Columbia is a bigger country than France.” I climbed into the driver’s seat and eased the throttle open. Only two other steamers were left in the car park, and one belonged to the watch. “Internal petrol engines burn four times as much fuel for the mileage. We can’t afford to waste oil, not when Ferdinand controls most of the world’s supply, and Maximilian the rest.”
“I have heard this lecture before, Johan,” Llysette reminded me. At least she smiled.
“That’s what you get from a former subminister of Natural Resources.” I turned left at the bottom of the hill and steered around the square and toward the bridge that would take us to my house. The breeze through the steamer windows was welcome after the heat of the concert hall.
“More than merely a former subminister. Other worthwhile attributes you have, as well.” She paused. “With this event, tonight, is it wise that I should stay with you?”
“Wise? A woman has been murdered, and you want to stay alone?”
“Ah, yes, there is that. Truthfully, I had not thought of that.”
I shook my head. Sometimes Llysette never considered the obvious, but I supposed that was because, no matter what they say, sometimes singers are just unrealistic. “Why would anyone want to kill Miranda? She whined too much, but … murder?”
“Miranda, she seemed so, so helpless.” Llysette cleared her throat, and her voice firmed. “Still, there are always reasons, Johan.”
“I suppose so. I wonder if we’ll ever know.”
“That I could certainly not say.”
The breeze held that autumn evening smell of fall in New Bruges, the scent I had missed so much during my years in Columbia City, the smell that reminded me of Elspeth still. I swallowed, and for a moment my eyes burned. I kept my eyes on the narrow line of pavement for a time. Sometimes, at odd times, the old agonies reemerged.
Once across the river and up the hill, I turned the Stanley left onto the narrow lane—everyone called it Deacon’s Lane, but that name had never appeared on any sign or map that I knew of—that wound up the hill through the mortared stone walls dating back to the first Dutch settlers. The driveway was dark under the maples that still held most of their leaves, but I had left a light on between the car barn and the house.
I let Llysette out under the light, opened the barn, and parked the steamer. It was warm enough that I didn’t worry about plugging in the water tank heater.
She was waiting under the light as I walked up with her bag. I kissed her cheek and took her chin in my hand, gently, but she turned away. “You are most insistent tonight, Johan.”
“Only because you are a beautiful lady.”
A flicker of white appeared in the darkness behind her, and I tried not to stiffen as I unlocked the side door and opened it for Llysette. She touched the plate inside the side foyer, what some called the mud entrance, and the soft overhead glows went on.
“Do you want a bite to eat? There’s some steak pie in the cooler, and I think there’s still some Bajan red down in the cellar.”
“The wine, I would like that.”
I closed the side door and made my way down into the stone-walled cellar and to the racks my grandfather had built. There was still almost half a case of the red. I picked out a 1980 Sebastopol. It’s not really Bajan, but Californian, and a lot better than the New French stuff from northern Baja, but I wasn’t about to get into that argument with Llysette, and certainly not after her recital.
“No Bajan, but a Sebastopol.”
“If one must.”
“It’s not bad, especially now that Ferdinand has cut off real French wines.”
“The Austro-Hungarians, they have already ruined the vineyards. Steel vats and scientists in white coats … bah!”
I shrugged, then peeled back the foil and twisted the corkscrew. The first glass went to her and the second to me. I lifted the crystal. “To a superb performance, Doktor duBoise.”
Our glasses touched, and she drank.
“The wine is not bad.”
That was as much of a concession to a Columbian wine as I’d get from my Francophilic soprano, and I nodded and took another sip. The Sebastopol was far better than “not bad”; it was damned good.
We made our way to the sitting room off the terrace. Llysette took the padded armchair—Louis XX style, and the only mismatched piece in the room, but my mother had liked it, and my father had thrown up his hands and shrugged his wide Dutch shoulders. The rest of the room was far more practical. I sat in the burgundy leather captain’s chair, the only piece in the room that I’d brought back from Columbia City.
“Still I do not like the later Mozart.”
“You did it well, very well.”
“That is true, but …” Llysette took another long sip from her wine glass. “The later Mozart is too, too ornate, too romantic. Even Beethoven is more restrained.”
“Money has always had a voice in music.”
“Alas, yes.” She lifted her left eyebrow. “It still talks most persuasively. Two
hundred dollars—a hundred crowns—for a single song and a line on the program. I, even I, listen to such talk. It is almost what little I now make for half a month of hard work.”
“Don’t we all listen to that kind of money talk?” I laughed and got up to refill her glass. I leaned down and kissed her neck on the way back to my chair.
“It is sad, though. Gold, gold and patience, that is how the Hapsburgs have conquered Europe. My people, the good ones, left for New France, and the others …” She shrugged. “I suppose they are happy. There are no wars in Europe now.”
“Of course, a third of France is ghost-ridden and uninhabitable.”
“That will pass.” She laughed harshly. “Ferdinand always creates the ghosts to remind his enemies of his power.” Abruptly she tilted her head back and swallowed nearly all the red in one gulp. Then she looked at me. “If you please …”
I stood and refilled her glass. “Are you sure?”
“To relax after a performance, some time it takes. The wine helps. Even if it is not true French.”
Not knowing what else to say, I answered, “You sang well.”
“I did sing well. And where am I? I am singing in a cold small Dutch town in Columbia, where no one even understands what I offer, where no one can appreciate the restraint of a Fauré or the words of a Villon—”
“I do.”
“You, my dear Doktor Eschbach, are as much of a refugee as I am.”
She was right about that, but my refuge was at least the summer home of my youth.
I had one complete glass of the Sebastopol, and she drank the rest of the bottle. It was close to midnight before she could relax and eat some of the sweet rolls I had warmed up. I left the dishes in the sink. Most days, Marie would get them when she came, but she didn’t come on weekends. I decided I would worry about dirty dishes later.
At the foot of the stairs, I kissed Llysette, and her lips were warm under mine, then suddenly cold. She stepped back. I turned around in time to see another flicker of white slip toward the terrace and then vanish.
“Someone was watching. Your ghost. That … I cannot take.” Llysette straightened the low shawl collar of her recital dress. I tried not to leer, at least not too much. “Perhaps I will go home.”
“No. Not until we know more about what happened to Miranda. We’ve been over that already.”
“Then, tonight, I will sleep in the …”
“Just sleep with me. I’d feel you were safer.” I glanced toward the staircase up to my bedroom.
“Just sleep?” She arched her eyebrows, as if to imply I couldn’t just sleep with her.
“Just sleep,” I reaffirmed with a sigh. At least, I wouldn’t have to fire the steamer up and drive across to the other side of the river with the local watch running all over the township.
At the same time, I was scarcely enthused about Carolynne’s appearance, but what could I say? Carolynne never spoke to me, hadn’t since I was a boy, not since that mysterious conversation she had had with my mother … and neither would talk about it. Since I couldn’t force answers from either a ghost or my mother, I still didn’t know why.
S
ince, for a nonbeliever in a believing society, the worth of any church depends on the minister, I attended the Vanderbraak Dutch Reformed Church. Father Esterhoos at least understood the need to make theology both practical and entertaining. Besides, I’d gone there when the house had been my parents’ summer retreat from the heat of New Amsterdam. Now my mother lived with her younger sister Anna in Schenectady, when they weren’t visiting some relative or another.
When we’d spent the night together, Llysette and I usually went to church together, perhaps because Klaus Esterhoos, unlike Philippe Hague, the college chaplain, treated us more as old members or potential converts than scarlet sinners. Who knows? He could have told the deacons that saving us was worthwhile, not that I really believed that either of us could be saved.
On Sundays, we took my steamer. Although I still kept the Stanley’s thermal-electric paint polished, after more than a year the flaxen-haired children walking up the mum-lined gray stone steps to the church no longer pointed at the car as my normally bright red Stanley glided around the square toward the church. It didn’t have to be red, but that was the color when I left the thermal switch off. Without the red paint, the steamer would have appeared almost boring, a staid dowager of vehicles. That didn’t include the actual engine or the suspension or the extras, of course, just the smooth-lined and sedanlike appearance. Columbia City had taught me the value of misdirection, although what I’d learned had barely been enough to engineer my escape from my past and the intrigues of the Federal District with a whole skin.
That Sunday was different. I guided the Stanley across the one-lane stone bridge over the River Wijk and around the square toward the church. On the west side of the square, adjacent to the campus, was parked a single dull-gray, six-wheeled steamer, all
too familiar—the kind you normally saw in Columbia or the big cities like Asten or New Amsterdam, the kind the Spazis used.
“Mother of God!”
“God had no mother, not for you, Johan, you virtuous unbeliever.” Llysette’s voice was dry as she straightened the dark blue cloak around her shoulders and against the chill breeze that crossed the sunlit square, ruffling leaves on the grass by the bandstand.
“That is a Spazi steamer.”
“Spazis?” She shivered. “Are they—do you think they are at the church?”
“With the Spazis, who knows?” My own thoughts were scattered. The steamer had to have come from Schenectady or Asten. The Spazis had a regional headquarters on the naval base outside of Asten. The last time I’d been there was when I’d been the Subminister for Environment, to see if the ruins of a house from the failed English colony at Plymouth should have been saved under the new Historic Preservation Act. That poor colony had been doomed from the start, with the Dutch bribing the
Mayflower
’s captain to land in New Bruges, rather than Virginia, and with the plague among the Indians that had left the shore scattered with bones and the forests littered with ghosts. One of the women had jumped into the ocean and drowned, and her ghost supposedly still haunted the ruins.
I’d never understood why the Congress gave Natural Resources the historic preservation program or why the minister had decided it came under environmental protection, but you don’t argue with either Congress or your minister if you want to hold your position in Columbia. I hadn’t argued, not that it had helped me keep my job once newly elected Speaker Hartpence set the Congress after Minister Wattson. My background certainly hadn’t helped, not with the Speaker’s distrust of the intelligence community and not my not-hidden-enough background in it.
“You must know, Johan. You were in government. Aren’t the Spazi government?”
“Former subministers are the last to know the plans of the Sedition Prevention and Security Service.”
“Government ministers, they do not know what their own security service plans?”
“Good government ministers have to use all their contacts to discover that when they’re in office. You may recall that I haven’t exactly been in office anytime recently, and the Spazi aren’t about to go out of their way to tell an ex-minister.” And they hadn’t. Since they hadn’t, and since the only strange thing that had happened was Miranda’s death, more than a little was rotten in the Dutch woodpile, so to speak. Simple homicides didn’t trigger Spazi investigations, and that meant Miranda’s death wasn’t simple.
The bells ringing from the church tower forced my thoughts back to the mundane business of parking the Stanley.
Even before we reached the steps to the side entrance of the gray stone church, another couple joined us. Alois Er Recchus was more than rotund; he wore a long gray topcoat, a cravat of darker gray, and a square goatee, nearly pure white, and dwarfed the still ample figure of his wife. His suit was a rich dark brown, typically somber Dutch.
“Ah, Llysette. I heard that you sang so beautifully last night.” The dean of the university, Katrinka Er Recchus, smiled broadly at us above an ornate lace collar. “I did so wish to be there, but … you understand. One can only be in so many places.”
“The demands of higher office,” I murmured politely, tipping my hat to her. Out of deference to tradition I did wear a hat to church, weddings, ceremonial occasions, and when my head was cold.
“But you would so understand, Doktor Eschbach, from your past experiences in government.”
I almost missed the slight stress on the word “past.” Almost, but not quite. “I find those in Vanderbraak Centre are generally far less caught up in artificiality than people in Columbia City.” I accented the word “generally,” and received a polite smile as she turned back to Llysette.
“I do so hope you will be able to favor us with another recital before long.”
“I also, honored dean, although one must take care in ensuring the composition of a vocal program, that it is, how would you say, appropriate to the audience. I would be most pleased to know if you will be attending such a recital.”
“One would hope so, with such a distinguished visiting performer.” Dean Er Recchus glanced toward the growing clouds overhead. “I do hope the rain will hold off until this afternoon.”
The slight emphasis on “visiting” was almost lost—almost.
We nodded and continued our progress into the church. The pews were filled with the local burghers and their spouses, all in rich browns, blacks, or an occasional deep gold that verged on brown. There were more than a few wide white collars among the women.
“That woman,” murmured Llysette. “She believes herself so clever.”
“All politicians do, until we learn better.”
“A politician I am not.”
Except she was better at it than I was. While I could recognize the interplay between the two women, one quick comment was all I had managed. Sometimes I couldn’t manage that much. Perhaps that was why I had not been totally averse to the forced early retirement from the government. Still, the pension was welcome, and with the investment income from the family holdings, the scattered consulting, and the income from teaching, I was comfortable financially.
We sat down near the rear, the third pew from the back, waiting for the old organ to begin the prelude, still the recipients of covert glances from a few of the older Dutch families near the middle of the church.
I grinned at a little blonde girl who grinned back above a white-collared dress. She waved, and I returned the gesture.
“You are corrupting the young, Johan,” whispered Llysette as the organ prelude began.
“I certainly hope so. You can’t corrupt the old, not in New Bruges.”
The prelude was a variation on Beethoven’s
Ode to Joy;
at least that was what it sounded like.
I waved back to the little girl. She reminded me of Walter, although they didn’t look the slightest bit alike, except for the mischief in their eyes.
“Johan.” Llysette whispered again. “Are you enjoying yourself?”
“Immensely.”
All good things must come to an end, unfortunately. The young matron smiled pleasantly at us and turned her daughter in the pew.
“Beloved of God, we are gathered together …”
I straightened and prepared to listen to Father Esterhoos.

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