IV.

The film people were dispersed into three camps. The main camp was near a small town named Umanak, but because there were currently too many ice floes in the bay for the sea planes to land safely there, there was a second camp at Igloswid where Udet, his engineer and the camera man responsible for the air plane footage were staying, and a third at Nuljarfik where the director, Arnold Fanck, was residing. Igloswid was a hundred kilometres away from Umanak, and apparently the main method of communication had consisted of Udet, before his sickness, flying to pick up the mailbag hung up by Fanck on a large pole using a hook and a line like an angler. Udet's assistant pilot, Schrieck, was also capable of doing that but drew the line at any of the stunts required for filming, which was where Mitch was supposed to come in.

The Terrier wasn't a seaplane, unlike Udet's machines, but the area around Umanak was full of hills and mountains. However, Umanak did boast of a hospital with a landing platform on its roof, and that was where Mitch was supposed to land. The sky was clear enough that Stasi could discern the settlement and the hospital from far away. Her biggest surprise about Greenland so far had been that the ice they'd passed wasn't just white or grey; when Mitch dove deeper, she could spot grottos mirroring the sea in pink, green, blue and violet colors, and there was a shade of pale green weaving in and out of the landmass which must have given it its name.

"Well, I'll be damned," the Berlin ghost said, sounding impressed.

"If that's your point in coming here," Stasi replied. Covering for herself, she added, directed at Mitch, as if continuing the sentence, "Impressing me with the scenery, than it's mission achieved, all the way."

The smell outside that hit them as soon as they emerged from the plane on the roof of the hospital was less pleasant. Whale oil, if Stasi wasn't mistaken. She'd smelled it only once before in her life, but once had been enough. Then there were the sounds of barking dogs, a lot of them, and in between shouts from the two men who must have raced upstairs to the hospital roof within the last few minutes. One was a local, an Eskimo, though Stasi had also heard the term "Inuit" used, and the other couldn't have looked more like an Austrian if he'd shown up with Lederhosen. "Ein Ösi," noted the ghost with distaste. "Just like - never mind."

"You're the Americans Paul Kohner sent?" the Austrian in question asked in strongly accented English. He gave his name as Hans Schneeberger, while the Inuit with him seemed to bear the unlikely name of Tobias. After Mitch had introduced the two of them as Mr. and Mrs. Sorley, Schneeberger exhaled in relief. "Thank God you're here. Dr. Fanck has been going bonkers. And now Tommy's on the loose, too. I don't suppose either of you has any experience with polar bears?"

While they were still highly wired from the flight, Stasi knew it was just a matter of time before exhaustion would catch up with them, and they'd crash, so her rational mind told her to ask to be shown their quarters first, then sleep. Her instinct, on the other hand, perked up at the word "polar bear". She wondered whether or not to pretend the Countess had grown up with polar bears for pets in Siberia.

"I take it Tommy is the bear?" Mitch asked in the meantime, without answering the question, while Stasi added: "I don't suppose he's British?"

"Nah, straight from Hamburg," the Austrian returned. "We had a hell of a time getting the permits to transport three bears to Greenland, and we had to swear not to let them ever get together with the locals. If we don't get Tommy back, he'll have to be shot."

Mitch swung his arms to get some movement back after all those hours of sitting. "Any reason why you needed to import bears to begin with? Aren't there enough around here?"

"Yeah, sure. And we'd spend the rest of the year trying to get just one good shot with them doing what they're supposed to. If you've got scenes to film where an polar bear swims on shore to raid the tents where all your heroes sleep in, you want that bear under control."

"Well," Stasi pointed out, "it doesn't sound like he's under your control now, but it just so happens you're in luck. I'm an expert at taming bears. It's in my Russian blood."

"No way," the ghost complained. "You're not going to get mauled by a bear here before you get me to bloody Leni Riefenstahl."

It was the first time he revealed more about just what he wanted from this trip in practical terms. Stasi couldn't see the connection between "getting justice" and meeting the leading lady, but it occurred to her that delaying this desire would lead him to, either inadvertently or deliberately, tell her more. Besides, she really wanted to have a go at the bear.

"Are you sure, darling?" Mitch asked, and she smiled at him.

"I'm sure I want to try."

As soon as they'd left the hospital, it was obvious where all the barking came from. Large packs of dogs were circling the building and filling the streets, such as they were. They looked, and sounded, extremely hungry.
"Of course they are," Tobias said, and pointed to the leather jacket Mitchell was wearing. "They can also smell this. Don't get near them. They'll try to eat it."

"They always try with the leather husks for the camera equipment", Schneeberger agreed. "Look, you don't have to..."

"So if you don't get mauled by a bear, you'll get mauled by dogs," the ghost commented. "Great. Look, doll, it's your life, but you really need to help me with my unfinished business first."

Stasi decided then and there that enough was enough. She'd learned to be firm with ghosts early on in her life; if you weren't, they could literally overwhelm you.

"I don't need to do anything," she declared haughtily. "Favors are just that, favors."

The two men who'd come to welcome them looked confused. Mitch didn't, though. Mitch looked as if he'd just realized something, and he frowned. Something in Stasi twitched. There hadn't been any reason not to tell him about the ghost once they were up in the air at the latest, no reason save for silly game playing and that odd need to prove to herself she could still do it, that loving him hadn't changed her so much as to rob of her of that most quintessential survivor trait: being able to blithely lie not just to strangers and enemies, but to those closest to you.

"Well," Mitch drawled, "I'm beat. You do as you like, but if I get anywhere near a bear right now, I'll be bear dinner, so I'll sleep a few hours." Addressing Tobias, he added: "Care to show me our quarters?"

"Surely," Schneeberger protested while his companion nodded, "you're not leaving the lady alone in a dangerous situation?"

"The lady can handle herself," Mitch replied. "I trust her."

And he did, Stasi knew. That was the enticing, infuriating trouble that had contributed to allowing herself to stay instead of leave after their first adventure together. He knew she was a liar by profession and inclination, and yet, and yet.

"I promise to be kind to the bear, darling," she said out loud, and Mitch gave her a crooked smile.

"I know you will."

The ghost remained suspiciously silent.

A great many of the dogs followed Mitch and Tobias, but this still left plenty to howl behind Stasi while Schneeberger guided her to the part of the bay where Tommy the polar bear had gotten loose. She tried not to let it get to her. Roaming, hungry dogs worried her far more than bears; she couldn't forget the winter of the last war year, when there'd been so much poverty, famine and illness that they'd started to attack the sick and the very young.

But that had been another life time. Another person, who'd not been Stasi at all. She painted a smile on her face and listened to Schneeberger explain how the bears were supposed to be safe in an improvised compound which was formed by cliffs from three sides, with the open sea providing the fourth, and there a net made of wires reaching down to the ground had been preventing the bears from swimming away.

"But Tommy simply dug beneath the net, and that was that. I mean, we were still lucky because Tobias was able to drive him back to the coast, but now he's outside the compound, and, well. Even Dr. Fanck doesn't want that much realism for the 'polar bear raids the tents of the camp' scene. What we need to do is lure Tommy back to his cage. Somehow. So far, he's been unimpressed by meat and noise. Say, are you really Russian, gnädige Frau? Because I'd have sworn that's a bit of an Hungarian accent you have."

Bloody Austrians, Stasi thought. They'd know. Though as loud as the dogs were, it was a wonder they even understood each other's words, never mind accents.

"My governess was Hungarian," she said sweetly and in German. "Dear Piroshka. Those were the days."

Despite the barks and howls, she could now hear some human voices yelling and cajoling, while the smell of whale oil and fish grew stronger, and soon she saw a small crowd around a cliff where an evidently unimpressed ice bear had placed himself. The people evidently kept a safe distance, and Tommy the bear saw no reason to pay attention to their antics. Most of them were men, but there were two women as well. Schneeberger, spotting one of them, came to a halt.

"Excuse me," he hastily said to Stasi. "I'll have to report to Dr. Fanck that his new pilot has arrived. Stay here, I'll be with you again shortly."

From the way he quickly strode off in the other direction, it didn't take a genius to conclude it had been the sight of the brunette woman who'd spotted him as well, and now stood with folded arms while Stasi came closer, that had caused him to suddenly remember his message priorities.

"Are you the American pilot?" the woman asked in English. Her accent was so strong that Stasi would have felt over the top using it, and she didn't believe there was such a thing as too much ham as a rule. On the other hand, everything else about the woman felt down to earth. She wore warm, sensible trousers, a knitted hat to cover her head in the cold that Stasi envied, a jacket, and no make-up, so Stasi assumed she was either someone's wife or part of the film crew behind the camera, not in front of it. Her question was interesting. Alma Gilchrist Segura, Stasi's current employer and friend, not only co-owned Gilchrist Aviation together with Mitch, she was also an aviatrix, but that was still so rare no one in the US would have instinctively assumed an unknown pilot could be female instead of male, and while Stasi had left Europe behind years ago, she had no reason to believe it was different there.

"Not me," she said in German. "But I brought him along. I'm the bear expert."
Why hadn't she said, "I'm his wife"? Because it had yet to feel completely real, or because it felt all too real, and she preferred artifice?

The woman laughed. "Have at it. Nobody's slept the last few nights with Tommy on the prowl, and it's starting to show on camera, mark my word."

"I thought the director is famous for his realism," Stasi said, readjusting her guess as to who the woman might be. "Isn't the movie supposed to be about people stranded on the pole, or something like that? Hollow-eyed looks should help with that."

"But not puffy eyes," her new acquaintance said seriously. "That's just not aesthetic. Now I'm perfectly willing to get on a calving iceberg for Fanck, but there's no way I'll let myself be photographed looking like a swollen, sniffling baby."

The ghost, who until now had been silent and only partly manifested, suddenly grew so tense that he was almost tangible. "It's her," he said, with a disbelieving voice. Until now, Stasi had assumed that since he'd made such a big deal of needing to get to the film set in general and to Leni Riefenstahl in particular, he'd already known her and thus would recognize her on sight, but apparently not.

"I'd better start with my project then," she said lightly. "Excuse me."

Moving away, starting to make a wide circle around the bear, she heard the ghost protest that they needed to stick with Riefenstahl, because he wanted to possess her. "And this helps you get justice for your death how?" Stasi asked. "Or is it a last wish you had? One can take fan adoration too far, you know."

As she'd hoped, this provoked him into finally coming clean about what he hadn't told her yet. "Adoration my ass. I've never even seen her in the flicks! Look, it's not about her, it's about who she has access to. Those thugs showing up at the dance hall where I got killed, they acted on orders. The lawyer my folks and the other joint plaintiffs hired tried to prove that, and he even got the guy in question on the stand. Made him sweat, too. But that bastard judge then - well, he got away scot free, bloody Hitler did. And now he's the new chancellor, since January, would you believe that! Anyway, the thing is, I've been trailing him ever since. Tried to spook him first, but that didn't work, and then I tried to get into someone around him, but they all feel like someone sealed them off, if you know what I mean. So I figured I needed someone outside of his circle whom he still let come close. And wouldn't you know, some months ago he gets a letter from this actress about how she's seen him speak and he's the greatest, future of Germany and what not, and hey, he loves movies. And people swooning over him. So basically, he's going to meet her once she gets back from shooting on the ice. And whatever it is that seals off the people around him to me, she doesn't have it. So I figure this is my one chance. Possess her, shoot him as soon as he shows up for that meeting, and then move on at last."

Stasi hadn't been in Germany for many years. There'd been something in the news this year about yet another head of government there - the third or fourth in three years, but not much, and she'd been paying even less attention. On the other hand, she dimly recalled someone named Hitler making an aborted attempt at a coup back when she had been in Germany last, but it had been a very provincial affair, limited to the capital of Bavaria, and getting only sniggers of derision in Berlin where she'd been staying. In any case, bad news or not, she didn't enable possession without consent as a rule. On the other hand, she was too experienced to immediately tell the dead man that he'd have to revise his idea of what getting justice for his death should entail. Ghosts were like any other clients. You had to lead them on as long as you could if you wanted to get something out of them.

"Look," she said, "I sympathize, truly I do, though right now, I couldn't channel a wailing waif, let alone an adult. I think the flight is catching up with me. But as long as this bear is loose, I wouldn't dare to sleep anymore than these people do. So why don't you help me there first?"

"Help you how?" the ghost asked warily.

"Animals can sense ghosts," Stasi explained. "Trust me, they can. And if the ghosts are aggressive, they give chase. Manifest yourself around the bear, drive him into the cage, and we're good."

The ghost grumbled something about not being a circus artist, but eventually, he complied. Stasi couldn't resist the chance to make a big production out of it. She danced around the cliff to the bewildered astonishment of the film people and loudly sang a few Czech songs she declared to be Russian bear lullabies while the ghost first yelled at Tommy the bear and then, emboldened, pulled at his fur. Tommy first shook his head left and right, which Stasi timed the rhythm of her lullabies to, and the finally got up from his cliff, going downwards. Among the gasps of the film crew, he first trotted, then raced in the direction of his old cage. At some point, the ghost forgot he was invulnerable now and ran as well, only to be overtaken by Tommy who demonstrated bears were incredibly fast and proceeded right through the dead man. When the cage door slammed down behind the bear, everyone clapped and whooped. Stasi took a bow, then curtsied for good measure.

"By god, you're a genius!" the returned Schneeberger cried.

"She's certainly something," Leni Riefenstahl commented, not hostile, but somewhat jaundiced. Stasi couldn't tell whether the undertone in the actress' voice was scepticism or approval.
"You've got some training as a dancer, haven't you?" Leni Riefenstahl asked her. "I'm a dancer myself, so I can tell."

"Oh, I'm just a humble amateur," Stasi demurred. "In everything."

The other woman smiled thinly. "There is nothing amateur about this level of showmanship, Miss...?"

"Mrs. Sorley," Schneeberger interjected hastily, "time to show you to your quarters, yes? You must be really exhausted by now."

She actually was, and didn't find it hard to produce a timely yawn, barely hidden behind a hastily raised hand.

"See you later, then," the actress said. Invisible to her, the ghost nodded eagerly.