Grantville Gazette 46 gg-46

by Paula Goodlett

  Barnes spluttered for a moment, and Daniel watched him closely. He didn't know Herr Barnes very well, but he knew that he served in the SoTF Office of the President, and before that had worked in the USE State Department, and in the Department of Internal Affairs for the NUS/SoTF. He was important, at least in a small way. Clyde had once called him a simple pencil-pusher, but Barnes was also rich enough to have given Daniel a handsome advance on the work. That was not a detail that Daniel could forget so readily.

  "Well, get the painting, then," Barnes said, snapping his fingers as if everyone around would jump at his order. "Get it, and I'll prove it to you. Where'd you hide it, Block?"

  Daniel was about to answer, but the sting of Frau Rice's sharp nails digging into his arm silenced him. Frau Rice was a very nice lady once you got to know her, but when she grabbed your arm and gave you a sharp, friendly reminder to "shut the hell up," you listened.

  "Sergeant Tipton," Ella Lou said, "I'm sorry, but you will not take Daniel or anything else from my home until you have produced a legal search warrant. Didn't the laws of West Virginia come through the Ring of Fire?"

  Tipton nodded grudgingly. "Yes, ma'am, they did, but I don't require a warrant to take someone in for questioning."

  "Fair enough, but you need one to see the painting, and until you do, I see no reason for Daniel to go anywhere with you, at least not without an attorney present."

  Sergeant Tipton sighed. "Ma'am, I-"

  "Sergeant, when you return with a warrant, we will be happy to oblige you. In the meantime, you should go." Ella Lou smiled and looked at Barnes. "And please take this pompous twit with you, or I will press some charges of my own."

  Warner Barnes' face ruffled as if it had feathers, but the sergeant nodded at Clyde, turned, and held the door for Barnes, who stomped out in a huff. Tipton walked back outside to the squad car with Barnes following, talking angrily to him. Tipton nodded twice, spoke briefly, and drove off, leaving Barnes staring after him.

  Ella Lou held a wry smile on her face until Tipton drove off down the street.

  Daniel allowed himself to breathe. "Thank you, Frau Rice. For a minute there, I thought they might-"

  "That jackass," Ella Lou said, still staring through the screen door.

  The others peered out. Barnes was speaking to a woman across the street, pointing at the house. While they watched, two other people stopped to listen, turning to look at the house as well.

  "Show me the painting," Ella Lou snapped. She crossed the foyer and slammed the front door, turning to glare at Daniel and Clyde. "Now!"

  Silently, Clyde pulled the painting from the hall closet and displayed it so that his mother could get the full view of it from the light coming through the front windows. She stared at it for a long moment in silence.

  Daniel found himself smiling wistfully as he surveyed his work. What a waste of a fine painting. Despite Herr Barnes' overreaction, Daniel felt that it was a terrific piece-probably his finest work. He had used the Impressionist broken color technique, leaving brush strokes unblended throughout the composition-strokes that defined the girl's lips and the small dimples in her cheeks, the curvature of her hips and the gentle swell of her thighs. The whole effect was bold, new, and fresh, something the likes of which few in the world had ever seen, at least outside the confines of Grantville.

  It was true that a lot of up-time books had been reproduced and knowledge disseminated throughout Europe since the arrival of these Americans. But high-quality, full-color images of the great works from Picasso, Renoir, Dali, Monet, and Cezannehad been seen only by a lucky few. Perhaps Rubens had seen these things; perhaps he would understand why Daniel had made the choices that he had made, the decision to paint the girl in this manner. But I will not apologize for my art. I will not-

  "Daniel." Frau Rice's tone was calm but strained. She looked at him. "You will not wait for the police to return with a warrant. When the boys return from school, and Sofia returns from work, you will take this painting down to the station and explain yourself. I'm sure this can still be resolved without. . without too much fuss."

  "But. . I tell you truthfully, Frau Rice, the girl was never naked in your house. She was wearing a bikini, and I never, ever touched her. It was innocent."

  "Yes, I don't doubt that. And yet," she said, her voice rising, her breath short and agitated, "here she lies, naked. And I don't care if you obscured her. . her. . I don't care. There she is, naked. She's just a child, Daniel. Underage. You will go and you will explain, and you will tell Warner Barnes that you're sorry."

  "I will not apologize for my art."

  "You will apologize," Ella Lou Rice said, stamping her foot. "You will. . or are you no longer a guest in my home?"

  All was silent. Daniel stood there, staring down at the old woman whose expression had turned from support to sincere disappointment. He looked at Nina then Clyde; both of them stood there, speechless, waiting for him to say the next word. What should he say? What choice did he have?

  There were two options that lay before him. Do as Frau Rice bid and go to the police and apologize to Herr Barnes. Or, as soon as his son and wife returned, gather their things and leave, go to some other place and try to make a name for himself with all that he had learned in Grantville. To France, perhaps, where great artistic movements like Impressionism and Surrealism would, in time, rise and give the world such gifts as only God himself could inspire. Yes, leaving would be a good thing to do.

  But, would it? Who was to say that he and his family would receive a warm reception anywhere else? The styles and techniques that he was experimenting with would be just as strange and, perhaps, unwelcome in France right now as they were here in Germany. Leaving would, in effect, mean accepting defeat. And that would make the historians right to have discarded him on that ash heap of history, as the up-timers sometimes liked to say. What kind of message would it send to his son, who was happy and comfortable in his new life in Grantville, and who was beginning to show some artistic talent of his own?

  I will not apologize for my art. And yet. .

  "Okay, Frau Rice," he said finally, "I will go to the station. And I will try to make them understand."

  "And you will apologize?"

  "Ja," he said, sighing heavily. "Ja."

  Nina had helped Daniel wrap the painting in his drape and pin it securely to the stretchers. He'd considered taking his wife, Sofia, with him, but thought it might make him appear to need her protection-and he couldn't stand the thought of her hearing some of the things Barnes was saying about him. So, at Ella Lou's insistence, Clyde walked over with him. "For your protection," Ella Lou said, and Daniel knew it was true. If she was sending Clyde along to make sure he really went, she'd have said so. Though Daniel wondered if she might still have her doubts.

  They walked in silence for a few minutes before Clyde said, "You sure you don't want me to call up a lawyer to go with you?"

  "No," Daniel said. "I can speak for myself. I will explain, and they will understand."

  Clyde replied with a doubtful, "Hmph."

  "You don't think. . is it possible I could be charged with a crime?"

  "Aw, I don't know." Clyde kicked a small rock off the sidewalk, scowling at it.

  "Your mother, she is very angry with me?"

  Clyde nodded.

  "Even my wife. . she has always supported me, but the painting is not to her liking either."

  "Well, it's not what folks are used to."

  "What's the use of a painting that looks like every other painting?"

  Clyde shrugged and shook his head, and both men were silent for a long time. It was an uncomfortable silence that had Daniel looking around anxiously, wishing he were anywhere else. But there was really nothing more to talk about, and this was not the time or the place for casual conversation. So he kept silent until they reached the station.

  Once they arrived, Clyde settled onto one of the chairs in the waiting room while Daniel announced himself to the watch
sergeant.

  Before Clyde was finished telling Daniel again to come get him if he thought he needed a lawyer, Sergeant Tipton entered the waiting room.

  Tipton's gaze turned immediately to the painting Daniel carried. "That it?"

  "Yes. I will show it to you, and then I would like to explain."

  A few minutes later, Daniel stood in the back of a room with a handful of people clustered around the painting: Tipton, one of the down-time sergeants, another officer that Daniel didn't recognize, and Vera Mae Markins, the department's clerk. Their comments ranged from "What the hell?" to "That's just disgusting," to Vera Mae's timid, "I kinda like it."

  The others turned and stared at her. "Well," she said, "the colors are pretty. And the way the girl looks vulnerable but also. . sort of powerful. You know?"

  Daniel beamed at her. She was the first person to see even a hint of what he'd tried to portray.

  The officer, whose nametag read "Schultz," hissed and said, "It's the ugliest thing I've ever seen. It doesn't even look like a real woman." Schultz sneered at Daniel. "You have seen a woman before, haven't you? A real one?"

  "Thank you for the art critique, Schultz," Tipton said, and herded them all out of the room. He sighed and turned back to the painting.

  "What was the purpose of that?" Daniel said.

  "I'm trying to understand what I'm looking at."

  Daniel started to explain his vision and his technique, but Tipton held his hand up. "Look, no offense, Block, but I want an assessment from. . well, I guess from someone who isn't you, but who knows something about art."

  "Oh, yes," Daniel said. "Of course. You should speak with Elaine O'Meara. She has taught me much about the history of art from your time."

  "She's seen this painting?"

  "No. You see, it wasn't finished."

  "Perfect," Tipton said. "Have a seat, this won't take long."

  Daniel waited while Tipton spoke to Elaine on the phone, and then with the watch sergeant, who'd stopped to inform him that Barnes was there. He told the sergeant to have Barnes bring his daughter in. "I think we ought to hear from everyone on this, don't you?" he said to Daniel, clearly not expecting an answer. He offered Daniel some coffee and then said he'd be back shortly, leaving Daniel to wait in silence, staring at his torn, ruined painting.

  He found himself questioning many of his choices-tints, brush strokes, the placement of the girl's arm, the precise lines of the monster reaching up toward her. But still, he found that he believed in the painting. Believed that it was good-perhaps even great. It pained him more than he would have imagined that no one else could see what he saw in it.

  Soon, Tipton was ushering Elaine into the room, who came in bearing two heavy books that he recognized immediately. They were "coffee table books," she called them, containing a huge number of colorful images of up-time art. He found himself staring at them as she set them on the table. Even after handling them for months, the books still enchanted him with the secrets and the beauty they held.

  "Now, Block," Tipton said, breaking Daniel free of his trance, "not a word."

  Daniel nodded and turned to watch Elaine as she examined the painting. She was silent for several minutes, and Daniel became ever more nervous. At least she wasn't expressing horror or disgust, but if she didn't like it. .

  Finally, she turned to Tipton. "Sergeant, what is it that you want from me?"

  "Some kind of, ah, assessment of its artistic merits?"

  She frowned. "I thought Warner was claiming some kind of inappropriate behavior. Which is absurd, I might add."

  "Well, yes," Tipton said. "But. . to be frank, I think he's just mad about the painting being so. . unusual. And, well, there's the nudity."

  Elaine rolled her eyes. "The nudity? I admit she's on the young side by our standards, but nudes are extremely common in art-of our time as well as theirs. And this isn't exactly Playboy."

  "Playboy?" Daniel said.

  Tipton and Elaine exchanged smiles.

  "Never mind," Elaine said. "Here, let me. ." She began flipping through the books, stopping now and then to show Tipton a picture of a painting. Picasso for the girl, Monet and Van Gogh for the brush strokes, Cezanne and Gaugin for some of the colors, and a few others she thought seemed similar. "You see what he's done? All these different styles that won't be developed for maybe two or three hundred years, some of them-he's blended them together in this seamless way. And the result? Well," she paused and looked apologetically at Daniel, "to be honest, I can't stand Picasso, but setting that aside, it's impossible to deny that the painting is quite magnificent. It represents an enormous and important development in art for this new timeline." She reached out and very gently touched the frayed edges of the torn canvas. "Such a tragedy!"

  Daniel felt an enormous wave of relief wash over him. His painting was truly good. Elaine would not lie about something like this; she genuinely believed it was good-no, better!Important. Worthy, perhaps, of note by history. If only it hadn't been destroyed. But, perhaps now, there might be more. Much more.

  Tipton started to speak again, but was interrupted by a knock on the door. Mikayla Barnes was there, and her father was demanding to be heard. Tipton winced, but told the officer to send them in.

  Mikayla stalked through the door, looking sulky and bored. Her father followed, his mouth opening for another round of shouting.

  "You!" Tipton said, pointing at Barnes. "Quiet!"

  "I-"

  "Quiet, or I'll have you removed."

  Barnes closed his mouth, pressing his lips together furiously and folding his arms.

  "Now, Mikayla, I'd like you to take a look at this painting," Tipton said, pointing toward Daniel's work.

  "Eeeuwww!"

  Daniel grimaced, Elaine smirked, and Barnes started to speak.

  "Quiet!" Tipton said, pointing once again at Barnes.

  Mikayla moved closer to the painting and smiled. "Is this why daddy's freaking out? I mean, I think it's ugly, but. . I guess it's kind of cool."

  "Cool?" Tipton said.

  "Yeah, I mean, it's not what I was expecting."

  "You didn't see it while he was painting it? Or give him any suggestions?"

  She shook her head. "Daddy said he was a master artist, so, you know. I thought it would look like one of those paintings in the books they have at the library."

  "What were you expecting the painting to look like?"

  She frowned, turned to Elaine, and started to speak before noticing the books, one of which lay open on the table. "Oh, hang on," she said, and started flipping through pages. She stopped at last, turned the book toward Tipton, and said, "Sorta like this, I guess."

  Tipton gaped.

  Elaine moved over to look at the picture and her eyes widened. "Oh, my!" she said.

  Daniel leaned forward. It was a painting by French Romantic artist Eugene Delacroix of a woman lounging on a bed that was hung with luxurious drapes. She wore silk stockings-and nothing more. He shrugged. "It's beautiful, yes," he said. "But a bit dull, don't you think? A bit lifeless?" He looked up at Elaine, who was holding her hand over her mouth.

  Tipton looked at Elaine. "Is he serious?"

  "What?" Barnes said. "What is it?" He stepped away from the wall and looked at the book, before exploding. "What? What in hell? For Pete's sake, Mikayla! What on earth has gotten into you?"

  "It's pretty!" she said, slouching into a pout.

  "It's pornography!"

  "Actually-" Elaine started.

  "You stay the hell out of it!" Barnes shouted.

  "Now, that's enough," Tipton said, putting up his hands to silence them. "Look, Mikayla, I apologize for being indelicate, but I need to know right now. Did you pose in the nude for Mr. Block?"

  Mikayla's face puckered in disgust. "No, sir."

  "What were you wearing?"

  She looked at her father, who stood there with his arms crossed and his face beet red.

  Daniel felt like chuckling as he looked at the
man's burning cheeks, wondering what pigment would do them justice on canvas. It reminded him of one of those up-time cartoon videos Benjamin and Stefan liked watching, where steam rolled out of a man's ears.

  "Answer him!" Barnes said.

  "A bikini," she whispered.

  "For God's sake, why?" her father asked.

  Mikayla shrugged. "I don't know. I found it in the dresser where mom keeps her old clothes. I guess it was hers when she was younger. I tried it on and. . I mean, it was a little big on me, but it looked nice. And then I got to thinking about home, you know, about West Virginia, how I missed the pool at Grandma and Grandpa Furbee's, where Carla and Brad and me and the rest of the kids used to swim. I got a little homesick, I guess, and then I decided that was what I wanted to wear for the sitting. To, like, remind me of home."

  Yes, exactly! Daniel wanted to say, but he kept silent. Couldn't they understand what Mikayla was really saying? Couldn't they see? These up-timers were smart in many, many ways, but so many of them lacked any sense of symbolism. When she had removed her robe and stood there in her bikini, he understood immediately what Mikayla was trying to say. He could see it in her eyes. She wasn't trying to be lascivious or lewd or a "slut," as the up-timers might say. No. The bikini represented that last bit of connection to the world that she had left behind, a life that had been ripped away from her. She would never say it out loud, probably didn't know how to say it, but she felt vulnerable and. . naked in this new world that she had been forced to live in. And Daniel had painted her that way. Couldn't they see?

  Tipton nodded. "And at any time, did you ever take the bikini off while you were there?"

  "No, sir!"

  "I don't care whether my daughter was naked or not," Barnes said. "I want this son of a bitch placed under-"

  "Now, you stop right there!" Tipton said, stepping toward Barnes. "I've heard enough out of you. If you don't like this painting, fine. You've destroyed it, so that's done. As far as I can see, there's been no crime committed here. Next time you want to commission a portrait, be a little more specific about what you're looking for-from the artist and from your girl. Now, you go on home, and let this be an end to it."