FOLLOWING VINCENT
Part I
by
Christopher
Stasheff
Copyright © 2011
Ada Berkshire couldn't completely suppress her excitement as she took her first step onto the college campus. She'd known this day was coming, of course—she had been a good and studious scholar while earning her G.E.D., throughout the college entrance exams, and the registration period that followed. But it wasn't until stepping onto the grassy quadrangle that it all suddenly became real—she really was going to become a lawyer!
It was amazing how much the world had changed in only sixty years. In her native time and place—Victoria's London of 1893—women attending university were few and far between. And a woman becoming a barrister? It was right out, simply not done. But Dr. McAran needed an attorney for his organization—and to him, minor details like time and place were no excuse for a quality education. So he sent Ada forward to 1975 to earn her law degree—it was as simple as that.
Ada Berkshire was intrigued by the prospect of having to earn an undergraduate degree before she could take her law school admission test—not at all the Victorian way—and was delighted by the breadth of her course work. On her first day of class in the spring semester, she sat with a hundred fifty other students in Introduction to Art History and shared their amazement that their professor was so young—and so handsome. Ada was a very apt pupil indeed.
Then, just before spring break, he finished the history of the Impressionists and began with the Post-Impressionists. Ada listened in amazement as he told them the tragic life stories of Vincent Van Gogh and Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec.
She was even more amazed when he told the class how many paintings the two masters had managed to misplace.
"Paintings?" Angus frowned. "Don't sound like very good investments to me. Besides, haven’t all Van Gogh's canvasses been sold?"
"Only the ones that survived," Ada said. "He never seemed to think they were good enough to sell. He caromed all over Europe, from The Hague to London to Paris to Brussels, leaving a trail of discarded canvases behind him—but I suppose we should limit ourselves to the locations in which he lived after he began painting in the style we know today."
"That would make sense." Angus nodded.
Yorick leaned back in his easy chair, reminding himself that this was probably the first time Doc had heard the notion—and it was only 1956.
"I mean, I know a Van Gogh sold for half a million dollars last year," Angus said, "but surely the price can't go much higher—adjusting for inflation, of course."
Yorick thought of the seventeen-million-dollar price tag for the painting of irises in the 1990s and clamped his jaw more firmly shut.
"Five hundred thousand for an investment of some time and effort—and electricity, of course," Ada said. "I should think the profit would be substantial."
"Sure can't beat the purchase price," Yorick agreed.
Angus threw up his hands. "Alright! It's worth a try! After all, we have plenty of electricity now."
"And plenty of time," Yorick added. "Not our own personal time, of course—unless you've figured out how to give each of us more than our allotted three score and ten."
"Medicine's not my field," Angus admitted.
"I don't know how many paintings Van Gogh left behind as he moved," Ada said, "but at the rate he painted when he was in a manic mood, there could be a hundred or more."
Yorick gave a low whistle, and Angus sat up straight. "A hundred paintings, times five hundred thousand? Fifty million dollars? You're kidding!"
"Of course," Ada said, "we'll have to feed them into the market slowly—over... oh..."
"One a year?" Yorick prompted.
"For a hundred years?" Suddenly Ada wasn't at all certain this had been a good idea.
"Well, a hundred years for everyone else, a few days for us." Yorick grinned. "Helps when you can pop ahead a year every few minutes."
"Money in the bank," Angus said promptly, and with total conviction. "A million a year? Five? Fifty? Great idea, Ada! Besides, who says we have to keep it down to one a year? We could have 'discovered' a whole cache of canvases, after all." He sat forward with a gleam in his eye. "Where did Van Gogh wander?"
"Well, he did a fair amount of work living with his family in Holland—a town named Etten—then moved to Paris to live with his brother Theo, who was an art dealer and thought he could learn from the Impressionists."
Angus pursed his lips. "Theo seems to have had a level head."
"One of them had to," Yorick said.
Ada glared daggers at him. "Theo was very devoted—gave Vincent a place to sleep, saw to it that he ate, and introduced him to other painters. He was an art dealer, after all."
"So we should start looking for his paintings in Paris?"
"No," Ada said. "Theo would have taken care of all his paintings there, and after he died, his widow, Johanna, took even better care of them—and of him."
Angus's eyebrows lifted. "As devoted to Vincent as to Theo?"
"Perhaps." Ada pursed her lips. "Or perhaps devoted to Vincent for Theo's sake. Either way, she wouldn't have thrown away any paintings."
"So no salvage value there," Angus grunted, disappointed.
"Not necessarily," Ada said. "We might very well discover a Van Gogh painting for purchase in Theo's gallery that we never knew existed—ones that was bought and lost before Van Gogh became famous, and his paintings valuable." Ada spread her hands. "We simply purchase it instead."
"And change history by preventing the original buyer from owning it?" Angus scowled and shook his head. "Don't like the sound of that. No way to know how it will affect the timeline. Too many variables."
"I have considered that," Ada said, "and who's to say we weren't the original buyers? That would at least explain why such paintings—if there are any—disappeared and were never heard of again."
The room was silent for a moment.
"Or would you prefer SPITE or VETO buy them, Dr. McAran?" Ada asked. "From what you've told me, they are far less concerned with preserving the timeline that we are."
Yorick shrugged. "She's got a good point there, Doc."
Angus looked down and his eyes lost focus, a sign of his deepest concentration. He mumbled to himself, working out the cause-effect logic. "…we only buy 'em 'cause they're unknown… they're only unknown 'cause we bought 'em… not a paradox, 'cause the idea starts here, now… and explains everything else…" He looked up. "The logic works. It's possible. Worth a try, at least. But you," he pointed at Ada, "make damn sure you don't buy a known painting by mistake!"
Ada raised a hand, the picture of innocence. "My lips to God's ear, Dr. McAran—if I am at all uncertain about a canvas, I will leave it in the gallery."
"Best I can hope for, I guess," Angus grumbled. "Well, that's Paris—where did Vincent go next?"
"He traveled all over Europe, leaving a trail of abandoned paintings that he did not believe to be any good."
"Maybe he knew what he was talking about?" Yorick suggested.
"More likely depressed," Ada returned. "There's some convincing evidence he suffered from bipolar disorder—not to mention epilepsy."
"All right, I won't mention it," Angus said, "Where'd he go after Paris?"
"Arles," Yorick said, "in the south. He wanted to get warm."
Ada looked up at the Neanderthal in surprise. "I didn't know you knew anything about Van Gogh."
"Let's just say there was something about his paintings that struck a chord in me."
"More of an M.C. Escher man, myself." Angus stood and started to take off his lab coat. "At any rate, I'm off to Arles."
"I beg your pardon," Ada said. "It was my idea, and I should be the one to undertake it! It is my era, after all—only a few years before you recruited me. I know the customs, the culture. In fact, I would feel almost at home, the more so since we should begin the enterprise with an honest purchase—at the Goupil gallery, where Theo attempted his breakthrough by offering the Impressionists' work for sale—as well as a few canvases by his brother."
"No matter how much he's asking, we'll make a huge profit," Angus said with the fervor of a convert.
Yorick nodded judiciously. "Good idea, Ang. We know GRIPE will keep going for at least the next thousand years, after all."
Ada swallowed, with difficulty. "How... how much would a new Van Gogh be worth in... oh... 2453?"
"Want us to send you ahead to take care of the bidding?"
"No!" Ada said. "It's taking me long enough to adjust my assumptions to a sixty-year jump. I think you had better leave the future to those who live in it, Dr. McAran."
Angus nodded. "Which doesn't include me. So I'm off to Paris, then."
"Say, rather, that I am," Ada declared.
Angus gave her a skeptical look. "How's your French?"
"I've been to France and managed to order dinner without poisoning myself, thank you. And how," she demanded, "is yours?"
Angus turned away with a look of disgust, and Yorick said, "Congratulations, Ada. You just won yourself a free, all-expense-paid trip to turn-of-the-century Paris."
"While we’re waiting…" Angus reached down behind his armchair and drew out a painting. "…why don't you see what your art history teacher thinks of this?" He handed her one of the smaller canvases with a throttled grin.
Ada took the painting with a frown, then gasped with wonder when she looked at it. "Doctor McAran—where… where could you have found such a wondrous Van Gogh specimen?"
"You’re going to bring it back from your scavenger hunt."
Ada glared at him in outrage. "You knew from the beginning that you would agree to my project!"
"There are advantages to being able to hop ahead and see what the outcome is going to be," Angus admitted, "but you had to make your case sometime, or I never could have been persuaded—and you were quite persuasive!"
Ada scowled, trying to think through the apparent paradox.
"You’ll return day after tomorrow." Yorick stood up. "Don’t you think we had better get going?"
Ada didn’t object to the "we," as long as it included her.
Ada's stomach churned and the pavement seemed to push up against her feet; she stumbled, putting out a hand to brace herself against the wall of the alley, then looked up and realized the wall was Yorick. She snatched her hand away. "I beg your pardon."
"No need," the Neanderthal said with his usual genial smile. He hooked her hand into the crook of his elbow and stepped slowly toward the street; Ada was surprised to realize how much she appreciated the support of his arm as her queasy stomach recovered. "You did say I would become accustomed to... the sensations of time travel?"
"Nausea and wobbling? Yeah, if you do enough field work—and somehow I think you will." Yorick accompanied her out of the alley and looked around. "So this is Paris during the Belle Epoque!"
"Yes—Paris as she will never be again." Ada sighed. "I suppose, to your generation, this city was at its best during the 1920s—but to me, this is how Paris should always be!"
"Not that much of a difference, except in the clothing styles." Yorick watched a couple walk by, the woman in an ankle-length dress, the man in a suit with a derby hat and a walking stick. "Eiffel Tower hasn't changed much."
"How could it?" Ada asked. "It's only twenty years old." She stopped suddenly, frowning.
"What is it?" Yorick asked.
"We shall have to buy train tickets," Ada said. "The next item on our itinerary is his house in Arles, four years after his Parisian days!"
"Nah," Yorick said. "We'll just pop back to GRIPE headquarters. Doc can send us four years ahead—and drop us right in Arles."
"Oh." Ada settled back again, feeling foolish. "Yes. I should have thought, shouldn't I?"
"Not really," Yorick said. "Takes a little getting used to, now and then, this stealing a little time whenever we want it."
"It most certainly does," Ada agreed. She suddenly stiffened as a horrifying thought hit her. " But... however can we return? We forgot to bring a portable time machine with us!"
" 'Course we did," Yorick answered. "If we brought a portable unit, once we stepped through, it'd be left behind unattended for anyone to come along and play with. Can't have that, now can we?"
"Oh. Indeed." Relief swept Ada; she still had a lot of questions, but Yorick's confidence was reassuring. "Well… then how do we return, Mr. Thall?"
"Paris, 1888? Oh yeah, GRIPE's got a time station here."
"It does?"
"In the capital of France, when it ran a worldwide colonial empire? Of course!" Yorick smiled fondly. "Got a pretty crafty conductor, too, keeping tabs on it."
"I… see." She glanced sideways at the Neanderthal. There was something he wasn't tell her. "And just where is this time station, Mr. Thall?"
Yorick grinned. "All in good time, Miss Berkshire. All in good time."
Before Ada could question him further, Yorick stepped to the curb and flagged down a hansom cab. She stepped up beside the big man as the carriage swerved toward them. Yorick turned to her. "So… where are we going?"
"To Goupil and Company," Ada said, "to meet Theo Van Gogh."
Goupil's was tasteful if it was anything. They found themselves in a gallery with large framed paintings carefully placed on every wall. A well-dressed, graying gentleman approached them, and asked, in French, "May I be of service?"
"We wish to see Impressionist paintings," Ada said.
Not a muscle moved in the man's face, yet he somehow conveyed immense distaste and let them know, in some imponderable way, that they had just been demoted from the status of connoisseurs to that of barbarians. "Of course. If you will come this way?"
Ada glanced at Yorick, who seemed immensely amused; heartened, she followed their guide.
He stopped by a slender young man and said to them, “Madame, monsieur—may I present Monsieur Theo van Gogh."
"Pleased to meet you, monsieur." Ada extended her hand and repressed an urge to curtsy in his presence; this was Vincent Van Gogh's brother, after all, and the only reason Vincent had made it through life as far as he had.
Theo took her hand with a slight bow. "You wish to see Impressionist paintings?" At their nod, he said, "This way, please."
They glanced at one another, shrugged, and followed.
Theo led them to a corner far away from the windows, as though the manager were afraid people might see he was displaying Impressionist paintings. In that corner, though, Theo had set up quite a pleasant little gallery of his own; Ada recognized only two, but could easily guess the others were Monet, Renoir, Degas—and surely that picture of Breton women had to be an early Gaughan.
There, central to the rest, with pedestrians pushed to the edges of an open square, was Vincent's Montmartre.
Ada took a moment to experience the thrill of seeing the famous painting in person. Then she got down to business. That famous painting was strictly off limits, of course… but there still might be other eligible candidates in the gallery.
Ada had spent the previous day obsessively studying all of Van Gogh's known paintings. All of them—not just the ones known by 1975, but also the few that had resurfaced during the rest of recorded human history. By now, she knew all of the surviving paintings by sight. More importantly, she'd studied Van Gogh's style and technique. She was reasonably sure that if she came across an unknown, unsigned painting, she'd still have a good chance of recognizing the hand of Vincent Van Gogh.
Yorick strolled casually along the gallery walls, reading off titles. "Bowl with Chrysanthemums… Vase with Carnations… Geranium in a Flowerpot… Wine Bottle with Red Poppies…"
Ada almost jumped. "What did you say?"
Yorick merely gestured to the painting before him. Ada stepped over for a closer look. It was a floral still life—a green wine bottle lay on its side, spilling the little red flowers across a wooden tabletop. And there, along the base of the bottle, was painted "Vincent."
It was a Van Gogh. It was beautiful. And Ada had never, ever seen it before.
Theo stepped up eagerly. "This one draws your eye, Madame?"
Ada instantly suppressed her excitement the way that only the Victorian English could. "It does," she answered with a slow nod. "I do not know what it is, but it compels me."
"Indeed?" Theo couldn't repress the note of hope. "I have nine others by this artist. Would Madame care to see them?"
"Yes, please." Nine? she thought. Good Heavens!
Theo showed them the remaining Van Gogh paintings—which was fortunate, for many were completely unknown, and not all were signed. Theo commented knowledgeably on the artwork and the artist, never once mentioning the family relation. He couldn't completely suppress his puzzlement at his customers' preferences, though. They seemed to focus exclusively on certain canvases, while practically ignoring some of the better paintings—the ones, unbeknownst to him, that were destined for global fame.
Ada managed to identify five completely unknown Van Gogh paintings. There was a possible sixth (a rather generic landscape), but Ada couldn't be positive that she hadn't seen it before. Remembering McAran's warning, she decided to err or the side of caution.
The time agents came out of Goupil's half an hour later—it wasn't simply a matter of setting down their money and waiting for their purchases to be wrapped; they had to make appreciative noises, debate the quality of the canvasses, hem, haw, and decide which ones to take. Then, of course, there was the obligatory pretense of haggling—wouldn't want Theo to think he should have set the asking price higher. They would have been willing to pay anything, of course—but they didn't want to arouse suspicion. Finally, though, they emerged, Ada light-headed from actually meeting Theo Van Gogh—and having five of his brother's paintings in her arms besides!
Well, two—Yorick had the other three, and was still somehow managing to wave down a cab.
"Where to now?" Ada asked as she climbed inside with her packages. "How shall we return to…" Ada caught herself before she said, "GRIPE headquarters." With a nod toward the carriage driver, she finished, "…return home." And, with a mild shock, realized it was perfectly true—that cavern in the Rocky Mountains was home now.
Yorick ignored her question, pulling out his pocket-watch instead to check the time. Leaned toward the driver, he said, "Prenez-nous au Chaton Jaune, s'il vous plaît."
"Mr. Thall," Ada said, summoning all the authority a Victorian spinster could muster, "Just where are we going?"
"Miss Berkshire, we're in Montmartre, France, in 1888!" Yorick smiled like a mischievous child, and Ada was instantly suspicious. "Why not catch a cabaret while we're in town? We should arrive in plenty of time to catch the early show!"
Ada leaned back in the cushioned carriage seat, slightly troubled. To a sensible Victorian lady like herself, cabarets had a certain... reputation. Some were ostensibly legitimate theaters… supposedly… but others were only one step above a brothel.
And she wasn't sure she trusted an establishment called the 'Yellow Kitty.'
