by G. L. Lack
In the modern world of electronics, anything is possible. Take the little matter of duplicating Old Master paintings, for instance....
* * * *
The old man heard the world pass by behind him. His knees had become almost accustomed to the shiny plastic tiles with the passing of the years, although the only truly familiar thing was the matt surface of the concrete slabs he had been allowed to retain as his canvas.
Glancing up from his chalks he could have seen the reflections of passers-by in the lower part of the store window. The old, the middle aged, and the young sometimes paused to look over his hunched back. He heard them all; knew their voices. Especially the young; they changed least.
“Look!”
“Look, Daddy!”
“What’s he doing?”
One of his favourite pictures was simple, a rectangle with the lower half green and the upper half blue; in the sky an airliner and wisps of cirrus cloud.
“Look, Daddy. A rocket with wings.”
“That’s how they used to be. I remember my grandfather talking about them. You must have seen them on your history-screens.”
“What’s that white stuff, Daddy?”
Pause.
“Cloud, I suppose. They used to allow it once upon a time—even on air-lanes.”
Clouds. The old man remembered the last of them; curling wisps of cirrus like the hair of a woman grey before her time; stratus, dirty, low, and ominous; and great cumulus clouds, towering billowing white castles. Now they were controlled, coralled, and herded like cattle, or just false cumulus puffed up at night for irrigation purposes, with no blue backdrop.
He remembered rain too. Coming unexpectedly, or continuously, sometimes ruthlessly, swamping the pavements, fusing his chalk pictures into an abstract puddle.
Another picture was that of a pink rose. A pink seen nowhere else in the city. Not quite the flesh pink that is obscene in a flower. Not even the pink of the chalk he used. The concrete slab altered its tone, gave it new texture. Were roses like it growing anywhere?
Around mid-day he would doze. The sun at its zenith beat down from a cloudless sky on the square. Traffic diminished. Pedestrians sought shade. The pigeons came into their own in the muted hour, cooing softly.
Occasionally his eyes flickered open. He saw the bright splashing of the fountains reflected in the windows of the store. And the lions crouching.
He was on the north side of Trafalgar Square, London.
* * * *
Ross Trafford was the senior technician of Public Art Galleries (S.E. Section). Under him was a team of electronic engineers, skilled, competent, and unimaginative. From his city office he directed operations and dealt with all calls from the area. The morning of Tuesday, 12th May, 2096, promised to be typical of his routine.
Arriving at the office at 9.30 he switched on the playback and listened to the messages which had been abstracted from incoming tapes by his assistants. This resume prior to the giving of detailed communications conveyed the overall picture.
“Guildford—Reynolds over-aging. Watford—Picasso-blue too modest. Maidenhead—background prominent. Harrow—Constable greens rather fresh. Picasso—blues modest. Canterbury—Leonardo da Vinci erratic. Brighton —Matisse....”
He listened on, noting common defects, choosing the engineers he would send.
The list droned to an end. He jabbed his thumb on the external communicator. “Select the Picasso’s,” he ordered.
“Damn the Picasso’s,” he thought. The machines were moody and it was difficult to suit the styles requested. Basically it was the fault of the artist of course. He could always fall back on the idea which the National Director had suggested and have several machines each for a particular period, the Blue, Pink, Negro, Cubist, and Expressionist. To have a single model to produce all styles did however present a challenge and although he was past the stage of becoming excited by correcting details himself, it was good for the young and enthusiastic members of the team.
He listened carefully to the individual reports on the Picasso’s. Their faults were similar and he decided to send the same pair of engineers to each, Samus and Cater. They had alleviated many of the earlier troubles and would like to be in at the perfection of the machines.
By 10.30 he had heard all the reports except the erratic Leonardo. All the teams were out and since this seemed an isolated case he would go. himself. It was a nice day for a flip over the downs. It was always a nice day but today he felt like some fresh country air.
Normally it was a trip of a few minutes from the roof-deck. This morning he took it easily, watching the white sails of the yachts in the estuary.
“An erratic Leonardo. Unusual. Probably something quite simple, a weakened coil or a sticking fuse. Just a little disturbing, though.” It nagged at the back of his mind, taking away some of the pleasure from the morning.
Disturbing because the first dollar in the slot reproduction machine had been a Leonardo da Vinci. A dollar in the slot and Space! a perfect Mona Lisa for the sun lounge wall. Another coin in and one for the Amatt’s, they like Art. And while we’re at it one for Uncle Jo’s birthday.
That was several years ago in the early commercial days. Now all the famous and most of the lesser known painters were available. With the inevitable development of the variable reproducer where the operator could select any work of a painter, the prototype Leonardo da Vinci became redundant and now stood in the Science Museum turning out daily dozens of Mona Lisas for inquisitive schoolchildren.
Trafford dropped down slowly over Canterbury and landed gently as a bird on the roof-deck of what in the twentieth century had been the cathedral. The flat deck structure flying over the roof gave the building a somewhat incongruous architectural appearance. However in this age of uniformity it was the policy to retain a few buildings of interest, often ecclesiastical. The resulting atmosphere inside was deemed to compensate for the odd exterior. If the Clow Plan was adopted then such buildings would be completely encased in a rectangular box giving a contemporary simpleness of line. Paradoxically it was one of the newest of cathedrals, Coventry, which had been the subject of the experiment. It was so designed that one could walk around the inside walls of the new structure at different levels and view the highlighted features of the original. At the opening the crowds had been enormous and the early scenes of mass hysteria of a semi-religious nature were in the eyes of the government best forgotten.
The lift fell smoothly to ground level and Ross Trafford stood in the nave looking along the lines of cubic steel and plastic reproducers, each with its viewing screen.
Acilia Clow, the Curator, was waiting to greet him. She was a niece of Edard Clow, deviser of the Clow Plan.
“Ross. You have come in person. To what do we owe the honour—or are all the mechanics off ?”
Trafford smiled at the young curator. With her severe straight smock and short tightly curled hair she was typical of the rising generation of women, many in positions of responsibility by the age of twenty-five, giving their husbands time for research.
“It is a nice day,” he shrugged, “and it is always a pleasure to visit the Canterbury Gallery.”
“Even if we seem to have trouble at least once a week?”
“Who doesn’t?”
“You are surprised it’s the Leonardo?” Her voice was sharp.
Again he shrugged his shoulders, smiling. She noticed the faint lines of anxiety on his brow.
They walked the length of the ground floor between the rows of machines. A few visitors wandered around, idly pressing buttons to view the collections. Occasionally the whirr of smooth machinery followed by a click indicated that someone had worked a reproducer.
The Leonardo da Vinci was finished in pale buff plastic. Automatically Trafford selected the Mona Lisa; pressed the viewing button. The painting came on the screen in all its perfectness. Against the background of misty blue mountains rising above a rocky plain crossed by a winding river the woman smiled her ageless smile. Her long tresses drawn back from her wide face fell to cover her shoulders, meeting the dark gathered dress. The right arm was crossed below her bosom with hand resting casually on her left wrist.
“Now for a copy.”
Acilia inserted a dummy token and pressed the button. The machinery slipped into motion, whirring as softly as brushwork. Ross Trafford’s ears, attuned to the delicate mechanism, heard the changing patterns and the slipping of the painting into the aging chamber. Forty-five seconds later a click told him that the picture was framed. He pulled the rake handle at the base of the machine and the completed painting emerged enclosed in a transparent carrying case.
At a quick glance the picture appeared perfect. Ross Trafford raised his eyebrows slightly in a question.
“Give it a full run-through if you like,” said Acilia shortly, “but I have already done so with various selections. Come to the office. The staff have mounted them for you.”
* * * *
They sat in easy chairs facing an inspection screen, drinking coffee. Acilia pressed the control by her side. The first picture flashed into view: the Mona Lisa.
“I’ll show a selection quickly. Say if you want me to hold one.”
Virgin And Child With Saint Anne.
The Virgin Of The Rocks.
The Annunciation.
Bacchus.
St. John The Baptist.
La Belle Ferronniere.
Then several unfinished canvasses and cartoons followed.
Trafford’s experienced eye examined them clinically. As far as he could tell with normal lighting and the naked eye they were perfect. Was Acilia imagining things of was there something she was withholding from him?
“I’ll run the next batch through.”
Again he could see no fault.
Six selections passed before him. On the last showing he asked Acilia to re-select one or two, then dismissed them immediately. By that time he felt saturated with Florentine art and was thoroughly irritated. She looked at him with a worried expression, mouth slightly open as if to frame a question. He was annoyed. It had happened before. Young dedicated curators became over-saturated, hypercritical. Some had too much imagination. He wondered whether to recommend her for a month’s vacation, but decided to let it ride for a time.
“All satisfactory,” he said crisply. “Let me know if anything develops.”
He left quickly and once aloft cruised for an hour watching the sails of the yachts on the blue Thames. They soothed his nerves.
* * * *
Three weeks went by with no reports from the Canterbury Gallery. This was not so unusual, but the complete silence disturbed him. Was it that Acilia felt that she would not report minor defects and so incur his disapproval if they turned out to be trivial or non-existent? Once this had happened at Guildford. By the time the engineers had been informed the paintings were so far below standard that it had been necessary to recall them and offer replacements. A major art scandal was only just averted.
He wondered why it played so much on his mind. Was it that he was concerned with the standard of the Leonardo’s? Or the status and welfare of his staff? He, a man in his middle forties, living alone and confirmed in bachelor habits since his marriage had broken up over twenty years ago, was, he had to admit when the position was analysed, really worrying about the girl. Was it the fondness of a father or . . . ? At first the alternative shook him. And although he found no answer to his questions he began to accept that his concern was based on love of some kind.
One night he had a dream. This too was alien to his pattern of life. He was flying eastwards along the estuary with the yachts flittering below like butterflies. Suddenly the power-unit failed and he was dropping like a stone. At the last moment when fear was cold steel in his stomach, his descent slowed and he landed on the springy turf of an unspoiled down. He looked around, being no longer in the machine. In fact it was not to be seen.
He stood in a shallow fold. To his left the chalk hill stood out sharply against the sky, smooth and rounded as a girl’s breast. He trembled at the adolescent thought. Ahead and slightly below him was a track rutted down to the solid chalk. He took the track which led along a dry valley. Shortly, past a spur, he saw that the grassy down gave way to more wooded country through which there was a lane. A girl carrying a basket under her arm was tripping along. He was hidden from her view by a thorn bush.
The girl had a scarf of filmy material over her head. As she drew level with the bush she turned towards where he was. The girl was Acilia. He was transfixed and his tongue was unable to call. She moved away and within seconds another girl came along. She too was dressed the same way and turned towards the bush. Again it was Acilia.
This was repeated four times. It was on the fifth occasion that he realised something more strange than just the recurring was taking place. The face of the fifth girl was Acilia, yet it was not quite her. And the sixth more so. And the seventh. By the eleventh or so (he had lost count and was numb with a kind of fear) the face was not hers yet was familiar. Twice more and it changed subtly until the face wore the enigmatic smile with which he was so familiar.
He woke in a cold sweat, thinking of the stupid tricks the primeval layers of the brain could still play in sleep. The dream itself was forgotten.
* * * *
The daily routine was normal at first. The reports were brief. No Picasso’s. There was a slight case of under-aging with Canaletto’s in three galleries. It was strange how the same defect occurred in several places simultaneously. One of these days he must study the problem. It was no doubt something to do with the personal touches of the mechanics and was a trait to be eradicated ruthlessly.
It was also, he thought, no coincidence that he had never known or heard of any difficulties with a Van Gogh. This confirmed his belief that the artist was a man ahead of his time.
There was no report from Canterbury.
At lunch time he strolled from the office for a brief spell. His steps took him to Trafalgar Square. As usual at this time of day it was almost deserted. The old pavement artist was hunched by his slabs. He paused to look at the crude mechanical drawings; the aeroplanes, the clouds, the rose.
The old man was dozing, snoring gently in harmony with the cooing of the pigeons. Behind the tattered cloak he could see the skeleton chalkings of a picture partly begun. Just a few grey lines. The framework of a cartoon. The rude beginnings of a head; face still blank. Imitation of a master. Mentally Trafford tried to fill in the detail. He shook his head smiling.
He wandered across the square to sit down beneath one of the striped sunshades of an outside café and ordered an iced lemon. The cool liquid was like nectar. Most people were inside away from the scorching sun. Only a few tourists sat drinking idly; almost silent.
At the back of his mind was a nagging yet forgotten thought. He tried to direct his brain towards it. He relaxed, decided to re-live the day’s events in a logical stream to fill the insistent missing gap. It had been an uneventful morning. The one difference from everyday routine was his stroll to the square and even that he did occasionally. It was when he pictured again the framework of the head sketched by the old man, that the stream paused almost imperceptibly. A girl’s face ... He re-cast his thoughts. Somehow a woman was involved, yet whom had he seen recently? No one in particular. Even his secretaries preferred to use tape and he went days scarcely seeing them. Where, outside the normal scheme of things, had a woman’s face been so important as to stick in his memory ?
Again the thought nagged at him. He finished his drink quickly and crossed to the north side of the square. The old man was working. Trafford looked over the hunched shoulders. The old twisted fingers were slowly but confidently filling in the details of the face. The beginnings of a smile, ghostly but enigmatic were coming to life.
Almost at once his dream became a memory and he called it to mind as if thinking over again the action of a film. The procession of faces which gradually changed from Acilia’s... gradually changed ,.. merged...
He almost ran back to the office, and dialled the lift to the roof deck.
* * * *
Canterbury Gallery was nearly as devoid of visitors as Trafalgar Square had been. The coolness of the interior was such a contrast from the blazing sun outside that it struck him physically, like diving into water. He burst into the curator’s office. There was no one there. The other rooms of the administrative section were deserted too.
For a few seconds he paused, thinking that he had been following some foolish whim; then he saw the pilot light of the viewing room glowing a dull red.
He slid the doors aside to find himself in darkness save for the light cast by the lamp of the inspection screen. Ahead he could discern the silhouette of Acilia sitting in one of the viewing chairs. She was pushing the picture control button rapidly sending illuminated copies of the Mona Lisa across the screen, the images merging like the frames of a cine film.
Each portrait was slightly different to the previous one. Her eyes closed slightly, the enigmatic expression became almost gay; three-quarter face became full-face and with the movement the face was unexpectedly thinner and the eyebrows more pronounced. Gaiety replaced a certain severity and her whole being from near-laughter to the soft falling of hair over the shoulders lived up to the beauty which her eyes had promised for nearly six centuries.
Behind her the winding river flowed gently from the mist-shrouded mountains.
“Stop! Stop!” Trafford heard himself shouting.
He threw on the light switches. The image was relegated to vague shadows.
“Acilia!”
She looked at him coolly, showing no surprise.
“Stop playing with freaks,” he snapped. “Why haven’t you sent for corrections to be made ?”
“Corrections!” She flung the word back in his face as if it were a palette full of black oils. “And ruin the machine? Don’t you see it’s developing the picture, making it alive, vital?”
“Stop this . . .” he grasped for an adequate word. “This heresy.”
She stood hands on hips staring straight at him; through him.
“Stop staring!” How many times had he repeated the word as though she were an erring child.
“What will you do?” she asked slowly. “No. Don’t tell me, I know.”
She turned her back, then swung round.
“Must it be so ? Why not let it continue ?”
One generation does not understand the reply of another and he remained silent.
“Why not let it continue?” she repeated.
Quickly he slid the doors back and was at the telephone. “Send the transporter in and remove the Leonardo immediately !”
“Ross, please?” She pulled at his sleeve.
“Don’t be foolish, Acilia. The machine is faulty. It must be destroyed.”
* * * *
The mobile platform rolled smoothly along the aisles between the rows of reproducers. Two white-coated operators swung the jib over the Leonardo da Vinci and lowered a magnetic plate. Bodily the whole unit was lifted and within seconds was being taken away.
Trafford supervised the removal to the breaker’s yard personally. The machine was placed on a steel block and a great hammer came down on it at the same time as heat was applied. The operators turned the wreckage like a slab of butter until all that remained was a cubic foot of fused metal and plastic.
Next day when the sun was high in the sky his steps took him once more to Trafalgar Square. Heat shimmered from the pavements. Tourists sipped cool drinks idly under the sunshades of the outside cafes. Pigeons cooed.
Outside the store was a road transporter. By its side two sun-tanned workmen wearing straw hats, singlets, and cotton trousers, Were levering up the concrete paving slabs.
He had only to look at them to receive a reply to his unasked question.
“The old man died yesterday afternoon. They found him lying here.” The labourer tapped a plastic tile with his boot.
As Trafford turned away the last slab was thrown into the vehicle. Amid the puff of chalk dust and before the slab cracked he saw an enigmatic smile that had lasted for but one day.