THE ARTISTS

A SCIENCE FICTION STORY

1

Evening has not yet come, but the streets have already begun to plunge into twilight. Leopold Zbarsky slowly wandered along the fence of the Central Park, now and then kicking heaps of multi-colored leaves that the wind helpfully collected on his way. He liked to watch how the leaves, like colorful holiday pennants, flew up from the blow of his boot to lie down the next moment with a new pattern on the dry grass of the lawn.

“Perhaps such observations of color spots led to the creation of impressionism, which is so valued in art,” Leo reasoned. – An artist catches and expresses in his paintings what others see, but do not realize in the surrounding reality. And then they admire the picture when it corresponds to their vision of the world. And of course, it works in completely different styles. Caricature, grotesque, abstraction – any exaggeration and transformation – can take over the mind and feelings. Classical realism is no less amazing. Take, for example, Aurelio Modileni… His portraits have turned into fetishes during two hundred years. Prices for them have grown to hundreds of thousands! And why? Dozens, hundreds of artists, masters… But only he conveys such amazing eyes, full of thoughts and feelings. It seems that they look from the canvases into the soul of a spectator.”

Leopold was fond of art history and worked in this area – he wrote articles in Art Review and Painting Today. The Modileni phenomenon was of interest to many. How did it happen that a young modest man soared so high in a short period of his short life? Could it really be the iris that he drew so detailed with his brush? Ideas were expressed in the press that he was able to convey what we intuitively read in other people’s eyes, which is why his portraits evoke so many feelings.

“P-f!” Leo snorted. “It would be nice if he painted something else besides portraits, for example, nude figures,” he mentally objected to himself. But the modest, religious and family oriented Aurelio avoided naked women even on the canvas.

The idea to draw naked women at first seemed to Leo quite clumsy in relation to Modileni. If he were an artist, he would definitely try. Perhaps the artist simply had some kind of inferiority complex: fear of the female body, uncertainty about his masculinity. Leo smirked, imagining himself in Aurelio’s shoes. The artist has so many opportunities to control the model for personal purposes. And don’t object that pure art is not connected to eroticism. It is and very much! He would not have lived as a recluse in Modileni’s place, having his talent. After all, money isn’t everything! It would be possible to continue to make money with portraits not to the detriment of the family income, but along with it, to paint nudes, so beloved by art connoisseurs. And there would be no end of girls and women willing to be drawn naked, and endless pleasures of it! And what wonderful pictures could be painted! Who of the classics did not draw nude beauties? Rembrandt, Titian, Giorgione, Botticelli, Rubens, Goya, Zorn… you name them. But imagine that you are not just admiring a sensual picture, but also reading emotions in the eyes characters. And what emotions: fear of death, thirst for revenge, passion, love. And they are all directed at you. Yes, you can give away everything for such a picture!

The thought startled Leo. Such paintings would today be worth not just hundreds of millions, but many hundreds, perhaps even billions.

No longer had he wanted to imagine how he would dispose of the beauties in Aurelio’s place. It was much more pleasant to think about how to dispose of the income from such paintings. With that amount of money, he would not have to look for beauties, he would have to fight them off. It only remained him to take the small step that separates an empty dreamer from a man of ideas, like Zbarsky – to figure out how to get at least one portrait painted by Modileni.

“It would be ideal to receive an inheritance,” thought Leo, sitting in a cozy cafe, “but that would be just a dream, and naive one.”

He didn’t want to go home. The café’s wood paneling, wall-to-wall mirrors, and the smell of rich Viennese buns filled the room with the flair of ancient Europe. Leo felt that he had to think through this unusual and disturbing thought to the end, before returning to everyday affairs.

“Who got the portraits of Modileni after his death? The family and his dealer, who had some works bought from the artist, but not sold to anyone. It’s warm! I’m coming closer…” Leo thought. “It’s not quite a dream anymore, although it’s not yet quite a reality.”

He understood where his thought of getting portraits was heading. But why just portraits?

“To become close to the Aurelio’s dealer, perhaps even… become the dealer himself… that is, to visit the past and… If he manages to get a grant to study Modileni’s work with a visit to Paris in the early twentieth century, he will simply have to convince the master to paint nude female figures! Of course, you will have to break all the rules of contact with the past, stop being an outside observer, but there is no creator of something new who has not broken the old framework, has not violated the established rules! And in general, the grain of truth that every master painted nudes. And I just have to restore it in one particular case. And the grain of truth may turn out to be a magic seed that will bring me a fabulous harvest.”

2

On a cloudy autumn morning, about a month after applying for a grant, Zbarsky was called to the National Commission on Culture in Washington. Here, on Pennsylvania Avenue, in a futuristic-style skyscraper made of intersecting geometric bodies of colored glass, he had to pass the final interview to make time travel almost accessible. Almost, since today’s event was not yet the last barrier in Leo’s path. After the selection by the Commission on Culture, the lucky recipient of the grant needed to get the approval of his candidacy in the Temporal Academy, which regulated visits to the past, of course, solely for the purpose of observation.

Despite of looking calm, Leopold did his best to suppress his inner anxiety. Previously, it would never have occurred to him to worry about a simple decision of the commission. He received a grant, and whether they gave him the go-ahead for a visit to the past or not, did not play a decisive role in his scientific work. Of course, apart from the fact that the trip itself, similar to an excursion to a well-studied, but in many respects mysterious and alluring country, would be at least a pleasant change in the research routine of a bookworm, and, as a maximum…

After Leo realized the true purpose of his aspiration to Paris of the early twentieth century, he became more and more tense each day that brought him closer to the final interview. Too high were the stakes in the secret game, which he began, but could lose even before the start.

“No, no! To hell these thoughts!” Leo reassured himself, “I’m just a good guy who strives to do the research as best as possible. Forget about everything else today!”

Finally, from the waiting room in the shape of a sphere of blue glass, he was called into an office in the form of a pink multifaceted pyramid. A commission of four, two men and two women, sat at a glass table. One of the women was quite young and attractive.

“It must be uncomfortable for women to sit at a transparent table,” Leo thought, but the young woman, as if in response to his thoughts, pulled up her skirt and crossed her legs.

“What is this, a test?” his suspicion flashed.

He decided not to look away immediately, but smiled and greeted affably,  

“At your service, ladies and gentlemen.”

Everyone introduced themselves. The young woman, Anna Cheshkova, was from the cultural department of the Temporal Academy.

“These “Timekeepers” have their own people everywhere,” Leo thought, but outwardly he liked the woman. She was thin with long slender legs, high breasts and beautiful hands, an oval, slightly elongated face framed by chestnut curls, and faintly squinted, just in his taste, green eyes. He would like to draw her naked if he could…

“Tell me, Leopold,” asked the steel-eyed man with ash-blonde hair, “Why do you need to travel to the past, is there not enough data in the present for any scientific work?”

“No, of course, there is plenty of data. But the study of art is different from a technical research. We need pure true emotions, which can only be learned by diving into the real era, real time.”

Judging by the approving nods, everyone was in agreement with his words. Anna asked, “Often the truth is born in a dispute. With which artist would you like to cross the sword of your opinion?”

“None. It makes no sense to argue with someone who was born much earlier than you and formed his views much earlier, and defeated you much earlier than you were born. But listening to, absorbing his words, interpreting them taking into account your super knowledge about the life and fate of this master, is a completely different matter.”

Questions like lunges from attacking fencers came in from all directions, but Leo parried them until the elderly professor summed it up, “Young man, you appear to be a serious researcher, and I give you my go-ahead. I like your attitude to observations, this is what we need. And let the Temporal Academy decide on security issues.”

“So far the Temporal Academy is for it! Anna said, “Think, we liked you too.”

When Leo stepped out into the yellow cubic lobby of the building, it seemed to him that Anna was already outside. He stepped up. Indeed, it was her.

“I wanted to thank you personally,” he said after a slight hesitation, but then overcame his doubts and added, “Maybe we can have lunch together? Am I breaking etiquette?”

Her gaze beamed, as in the paintings of Modileni.

“Perhaps you are not violating anything. The Cultural Commission has fulfilled its task, and I have nothing to do with the future assessment of the Temporal Academy.”

Leo invited Anna to the luxurious “Tavern”. He wanted to keep the top notch, dreaming about the possible consequences…

3

The next two weeks before the visit to the Temporal Academy flew by like a dream. Anna or Ancha, as her friends and relatives from the Czechia called her, appeared in Leo’s life. Leopold enjoyed the intimacy of the woman, her elegance and her unusual name. But the secret goals that he hid from everyone gave rise to his paranoia, and a distant corner of his mind gave rise to thought, “Beware of people from the Temporal Academy, even the most charming ones.” However, his qualities of a player going all-in as well as a professional art historian, did not allow him to be indifferent to beauty.

In addition to the sensual side of the new life, Leo constantly continued to study the artists of the early twentieth century, first of all, the main target of the trip – Modileni.

“It won’t be easy to push an artist to change dealers, and even more so, to paint nudes.”

Aurelio seemed to Leopold a burgher, mired in work, family, Sunday trips to the church and the “Maxim” restaurant. His dealer, Paul Guillaume, who managed to lure him away from his first guardian, Dr. Alexanders, found him new models – wealthy Parisians. The portraits of Modileni captivated the public so much, that the other artists’ attempts to compete with Aurelio led to their failure. This happened to the cubist Pavel Pikuss and the “heir” of the Impressionists, Enrico Mathyssen.

In Vienna, there remained a small core of the “resistance” of French painting in the person of the famous Georg Clint – the king of erotic symbolism, and his favorite students – the portrait painter Evan Schiller and the landscape painter Anselm Gidler.

Finally, the day of the test called “Instruction at the Temporal Academy” arrived. Leopold drove from New York along the highways in an electric auto car to a place in the Catskills, where the eastern section of the Temporal Fleet was located. He remembered well Ancha’s instructions.

“The Temporal Academy is a military academy for historians, and its staff are specialists in the physics of time.”

“And time is their main weapon?”

“Funny! These are idle gossips. The Temporal Officers have no weapons. It usually does not work in the Past, and is only dangerous for travelers from the Future.

“I don’t understand you well. What does “usually doesn’t work” mean?

“The fact is that the Past cannot be significantly changed. You must believe it unconditionally. The amateur argues as follows: if you kill Alexander the Great in his youth, then he will not conquer half the world. But precisely because he has already done what he has done, it is impossible to kill him in advance, but to kill a traveler from the Future – as a piece of cake.

“So, the bullet will not take down the Macedonian king?”

“No. You will simply miss, or the bullet will bounce off an invisible barrier. It has been this way many times. Checked! Every Temporal cadet knows this. It is impossible to kill the villain or save the hero.”

“And there is no hope that once this will not happen?”

“No. Not at all. Is it possible to hope that one day the sun will not rise?”

“I understand… But it can rise, remaining behind the clouds…”

“If by this you mean that small changes in the past will not affect the future, then you are right! But when staff of the Temporal Academy travel, their actions are strictly rationed, and the likelihood of change is carefully calculated… But allowing explorers like you in the Past is a recent extension of the rules, and it is applied with extreme caution. For example, if, in the Temporal Academy, they suspect that you may be interested in something or someone outside the topic of your research “Eyes in the portraits of Modileni and the emotions they evoke”, then you are guaranteed to be refused a trip.

Not for the first time, Leo wondered if Ancha was helping him out of love, or was it a trap – the nets that the Temporal Academy spread for outsiders.

Anyway, today he was especially restrained. He even drank a sedative instead of morning coffee.

Huge pine trees filled the fresh mountain air with the scent of pine needles. The location was wonderful. Leo thought it would be nice to be a graduate of the Academy and have a permanent permit for Time travel, and maybe even his own cruiser. How do they say? To be a “Temporal wolf”? But if he manages to get a picture of Modileni despite of all Time barriers, he, too, will become a “temporal wolf.” Perhaps – in a different sense, but also cool!

The appearance of the Academy was very different from Washington’s Modern. These were buildings of several floors with columns, auditoriums, halls in a style retro. All this was reassuring. Or maybe it lulled vigilance?

“Okay, forget your ideas. Now the main thing is to please the academicians, get approval for the trip and final instructions.”

“Hello, Mr. Zbarsky. I am your instructor, Major Webb,” a pleasant baritone sounded, and a middle-aged man in the dark blue uniform of a Temporal Academy officer with silver cruisers in his buttonholes entered the auditorium.

“Nice to meet you, Major Webb. I’m at your service.”

“We’ll talk for a bit… I’ll ask questions, you’ll answer, and if the Academy deems you a worthy travel candidate, I’ll instruct you… well, just explain how to behave in the past. Do you agree?”

Leopold nodded resolutely. And… it began…

Questions rained down on him, as if he were playing a blitz game. The answer – then the next question instantly… And again… And about everything…

He understood that this was a psychological test. Thanks to Ancha, he tried to answer simply and honestly, as if the interview had taken place a couple of months ago, before the idea of traveling had come to him.

After a short coffee break, Major Webb returned to the auditorium.

“Congratulations! The academy allows you to travel through time. (“Hooray, Ancha’s advice worked!”) You can go right now and stay in the past for as long as your research requires.”

Apparently the surprise on Leo’s face was so eloquent that Webb laughed.

“You are not the first to think that you need to settle some business before leaving, make orders. At the same time, people forget that when they travel, their time in the present stops. You will return to the next second after the departure, no matter how long you have been in the Past. At the same time, of course, you will physically get as much older as time you spent in the Past. It remains you only to sign the documents: consent to the transfer to Paris of the early twentieth century and back; agreement to follow the rules of the Academy; the possible consequences of their violation and, lastly, your instructions in case of death during the Temporal assignment.”

It was unexpected. Not that scary, but hard on his senses.

“I don’t mind,” he said.

“Remember, Mr. Zbarsky,” Webb added sternly, “your journey is a job that requires following the laws of the physics of Time. Their violation can lead to only one thing – the injury or death of the offender. Believe me, this is not intimidation just in case, but a warning from a more experienced colleague. You should not seriously influence the people of the past in any way, especially a famous person whose life is well studied. I mean that you can treat your object of interest, the artist Modileni, with a glass of beer, but in no case make him drunk or, say, teach him how to fly an airplane.

“Understand. I agree,” Leo confirmed.

Webb gave him a long, searching look, sighed, and pulled a piece of paper out of the folder.

“You’ll sign here, and the witnesses – there. To people are me and the commander of your Time Cruiser. Please, meet the officer…

The door opened and Ancha entered the room.

4

Leopold managed to catch his breath only in the cockpit of the Time Cruiser, reminiscent of a combination of a control panel of a starship with a Family room. This morning was full of emotions and surprises. And it looks like it didn’t end there.

“I know you have questions for me. We’ll talk a little later, but for now, remember the basics of cruiser control, in case you have to urgently return alone,” Anna said sternly.

Leo was about to ask what she meant, but remained silent and only nodded in response. He memorized the password, learned to set the coordinates of the French and American Temporal Centers, studied the control panel. It was no more difficult than controlling other electronic devices.

“Now, please, go ahead!” Ancha commanded.

In uniform, she was good at giving orders, and Leo simply obeyed.

They exited the cruiser into a large hangar, where they were greeted by employees of the French Temporal office.

“Earlier, before the creation of the international Temporal Service, we had to mask the cruiser ourselves, find housing, transport, and much more,” Anna explained, “Now everything is different: we will be provided with suitable clothes, money and taken to the apartment, already rented for us. There we’ll rest, change for the evening and go to dinner, and on the way we will discuss our plans.

“Exactly in this order and no questions before?” Leo wanted to ask, but Ancha was already signaling him with a few short squeezing of his hand, which meant, “Be silent so far!”

Ancha’s alarm clock woke him up. It turned out that nervous stress overwhelmed Leo as soon as “Monsieur and Madame Zbarsky” ended up in a small cozy apartment rented for them not far from the Grand Opera.

“I’ll surprise you again now,” Anna said.

“Go, do it! I’ve always considered you an amazing woman.”

“We are heading to the Maxim restaurant,” Ancha smiled, “Guess who else is having dinner there tonight? Quite right, the source of your interest, the artist Aurelio Modileni.”

“Amazing! How did you arrange all this?”

“After all, I’m a professional. And my specialty is Time. Let’s go!”

She put on an evening dress, he put on a tuxedo, and they headed on a carriage to the restaurant.

“Please, first – to the Place de la Concorde. We want to take a walk near the obelisk before dinner at the “Maxim”. Wait for us at the parking lot,” Ancha ordered the cab driver.

When they moved away from the carriage, Ancha turned to Leo, “We can only speak freely on walks. I’m not sure that our conversations are not being monitored. This is the flip side of a well-organized service. You probably think that my participation is also part of the surveillance operation. But it’s not. If only they knew about our relationship in New York, they would not have been sent us together. I was worried that you would start asking questions ahead of time and ruin the whole thing for yourself and for me, because I did not report my relationship with you.”

“But who will confirm this? Maybe she did reported, and everything goes according to their scenario? Well, I just need to keep some thoughts to myself. She really is an incredible assistant!”

“You probably think,” Anna continued, “What if it’s not so, and what if in fact she reported? Let me reveal you something. Something that I was silent about before leaving. Then you’ll believe that we are both at one into it. I myself am interested in Modileni. But in a different way than you. You want to study his work, but I want to get my portrait by him. This is an acceptable change of the Future, I checked: some portraits are already lost – one more, one less – there is no difference.”

Leopold could only admire the brave and determined woman. He leaned over and kissed her. It was time to go to “Maxim”.

Everything in the restaurant shone with refinement and luxury. Only wealthy people, including the most popular portrait painter in Paris, could afford to dine in it. Leopold noticed him in the company of men with cigars and glasses of champagne. “How to treat such a man with beer,” Leo smiled at Webb’s advice, but got up from the table and boldly walked towards the artist.

“Monsieur Modileni, my respect. Let me introduce myself. I am an art collector – Leopold Zbarsky. I wanted to order a portrait of my wife for you, and maybe mine too … Could I contact your dealer?”

“Good evening, Monsieur Zbarsky. A week ago it would have been easy, but not now. We parted ways with Monsieur Guillaume, and today, alas, I have no dealer, as well as no work schedule. I don’t even have canvases. How strange, a quarrel over the opinion on which side, France or Germany, Italy should fight in the Great War.”

“Yes, of course, Monsieur. Not everyone has your clarity of vision. Not only of persons, but of events.”

The plump, portly man in the tuxedo smiled at Leo’s frank compliment.

“Don’t take it as impudence, but I could offer you my services as your new dealer. Tomorrow I will provide you with best quality canvases (“It won’t be difficult to order them”), restore the work schedule (“Just to buy it from Monsieur Guillaume”) and, if you like my work, we’ll discuss the terms of further collaboration.”

“Salute, Monsieur Zbarsky!” exclaimed Modileni and raised his glass of champagne.  Providence itself sent you in our difficult time…

“I would say – sent by Time itself,” Leo smiled in response.

He invited Ancha to dance, bent to her ear and whispered:

“My first luck – I got a job as a dealer of Modileni. This is the best way in my position, and perhaps in our position, to study his views on painting.”

Unnoticed by others, she rubbed her nose against his cheek and whispered in response, “You surprised me too.”

“Wait, it’s not yet the end. We’ll be back home.”

5

The next day, Leopold and Anna, delivered the canvases promised to Modileni to his workshop. The canvas were of the highest quality, cut to standard lengths, framed and primed. Their surprise-like visit was accompanied by a “lost list” of scheduled portrait painting sessions for the next two months, redeemed from the former dealer, Monsieur Guillaume.

Aurelio was very pleased. Immersed in painting, he was far from the current concerns about materials for his work, finding clients, selling paintings, and even more so from scheduling work. How lucky he was meeting Leopold!

From a spacious studio with high ceilings and wall-to-wall windows overlooking the Tuileries Garden, he invited his new dealer and his wife into the Empire-style living room.

“Could a young artist who came to Paris eleven years ago dream of such luxury? Leo wondered, “But it seems that this is not the limit of the artist’s possibilities. Soon everyone will be convinced of this. Now, when Ancha and I are connected not only by feelings, but also by the secret goals, things will go much faster.”

After Anna yesterday’s confession, Leo began to trust her much more. Clearly, Ancha did not need the Temporal Academy to know about her plans. However, he still decided to stick to the previous course – to keep quiet about his own intentions.

In the living room, Modileni introduced his charming young wife, Jeanne, to everyone, and, while the young women chatted about trifles, he led Leopold into the office. There, on a pot-bellied bureau inlaid with gilding, there was already a prepared contract between Aurelio Modileni, a painter, and Leopold Zbarsky, an art dealer, according to which the dealer made the initial payment for the paintings, and after resale to customers received huge commissions. Unsold paintings became the property of the dealer. All that was left – to sign and notarize the contract. The contract was the first part of Leo’s plan, and the second one was the transition to the nudes. The second part should have been carefully suggested to the artist.

But carefully didn’t mean tomorrow, so without wasting a minute, Leo turned to Modileni, “I would very curious to see how female characters – Eva, Venus, Leda, Susanna and others would look in your performance.”

Modileni understood instantly, “Do you mean nude? I always wanted to try, but I was always afraid that nudity, with its accessibility, would kill my way of showing the inner world of the women characters and their feelings.”

“What if, on the contrary, it strengthens inner word and feelings of women? You will become more famous than Rembrandt, Botticelli, Rubens… Isn’t it the dream of any artist to achieve what his predecessors didn’t? To become the first… among equals… the supreme deity of modern painting!”

Modileni seemed to have fallen into a trance. His gaze wandered to infinity, his chest heaved in deep breathing.

“God forbid he is dying,” Leo got worried, but then remembered that it was not so easy, if not impossible, to change the past.

He decided to try differently, “You are familiar with the work of the Austrian psychiatrist Sigmund..?”

“Freud? Certainly! Who doesn’t know him?” Modileni nodded in assent, coming out of a trance.

“He believes,” Zbarsky continued, “that the fear of murder and the Oedipus complex forbid us what we subconsciously would like most of all. And if we become aware of it, repress these desires, then we get rid of our own weakness, inferiority and become free in our creativity.”

“I promise that I will think… I will think carefully about your words!” Modileni whispered.

“And I, in turn, will think about organizing your personal exhibition “Ancient Woman through the Eyes of a Contemporary Artist”. For it, I can offer you the first model. This is my wife, who agrees to pose from the back in the pose of Ingres’ “Great Odalisque”. Her lumbar spine is just perfect.”

6

Events snowballed over the next month.

The Austro-German troops stepped up their offensive on the Eastern Front. Dr. Alexanders died there. A revolution took place in Russia – the Tsar Nicolas the II was deposed. On the Western Front near Ypres, the German patriot artist Anselm Gidler, who volunteered for the war, was fatally gassed.

The influenza epidemic, or, as it was called, the Spanish Flu, because neutral Spain, unlike the fighting parties, did not hide its huge human losses, reached many capitals. In Paris and Vienna, the hospitals were overcrowded. In Vienna, the portrait painter Evan Schiller and his friend, also an artist, Marco Koshka, died on the same day. At the funeral, Georg Klint gave a speech, in which he paid tribute to the memory of all the dead artists, and in particular, his beloved students Schiller and Gidler.

Modileni worked tirelessly in a new field – he painted nudes. He drastically reduced the number of orders for portraits and devoted his time to a new passion. Fortunately, due to flat feet, he was not in danger of being drafted to the front. But the war and the epidemic blazed, and civilians suffered from bombing…

After the next session, Anna went to the Tuileries Garden, where she often walked around with Leo. There they could discuss their affairs freely.

“I’m starting to worry about Modileni’s shifting interests,” Anna complained.

“Why?”

“I afraid we may hurt ourselves with our pressure on the artist.”

“Major Webb didn’t say anything about art. He did not advise teaching the famous artist something usual like operate an airplane…”

“You know, it’s a figurative expression. If our influence on the past exceeds the level of permissible changes, we can cross the “border of what is permitted” – the so-called Cauchy horizon, and Time will erase, destroy us for the sake of preserving the Past.

“But why is a peaceful outcome impossible: the Past will change, and nothing bad will happen to us?”

“That is the law of the Preservation of the Past. However, the modern theorists believe, if a change in the event occurs, then no one will notice it. We will also change, and for everybody the changed event will become a new reality.”

“So we don’t have anything to worry about, do we?”

“We do and a lot! Trust me, we’ll be the first to suffer.”

“You know, I’ll talk to Modileni. Maybe we should move for a while to a quieter place: somewhere by the sea, in the south of France. Everyone at once – both families his and ours.”

“By the way, about the family. Aurelio was wondering why we still don’t have children. He asked me what’s keeping me from it?”

“And what did you answer?”

“I wanted to say that while you are the captain of the Time Cruiser, no children are permitted, but I found a simpler and more understandable explanation – women’s problems…”

Leo only tightened his grip on Anna’s arm.

“Listen,” she said thoughtfully, “I don’t feel well… Maybe I jinxed it?” Jokes with Time are dangerous, so despite hormonal drugs and a flu vaccination, malaise can be a sign of both pregnancy and the flu.”

“Ancha, my love, tell me, what should I do? How can I help you?”

“I think that a trip to South France to the seaside is a good idea. Otherwise there is nothing to help. Remember, if something bad happens to one of us, the other must immediately return home: to New York, in our time. Do you understand me? Immediately – means at once, without wasting time on conventions, funerals, collection of things. Do not think about things, pictures, documents. Everything that Time allows, will return to you in the future. Do you remember the cruiser codes?

They headed home, but on the way Ancha felt weak. Leo took the carriage, and soon they were already at home. There they were waiting for a new blow – a summons to the army: Leopold Zbarsky, 26 years old, single, childless, was called to the front.

“Honey, we need to go home urgently. Where is your contract with Modileni?”

“It is stored in the depository, in my bank.”

“That’s good. Leave it there. Let’s go.”

She got worse. On the way, she lost consciousness, and they turned to the nearest hospital. Leo also felt weak, but it was fear for Ancha. Only now did he realize how dear she was to him…

In the emergency room, the doctor measured the pulse, temperature, respiratory rate, listened to the patient’s lungs and said:

“It’s Spanish flu. We’ll do our best, but the prognosis is poor. Sorry.”

Shocked, Leo remained with Anna until the very end, which came at dawn. In the morning, remembering Ancha’s last instructions, he stopped the car and went straight to the Temporal Center, where their cruiser was hidden. Coughing and gasping, weakening with every step, he entered the building. Leo recalled the passwords and codes with difficulty, being afraid to lose consciousness…

7

Memory slowly returned to Leo. He lay in a hospital room, a dozen cables and tubes were stretching towards him. The past was like a blur. At first, he remembered that he had returned from France, Paris of the beginning of the 20th century, having escaped the war and the flu epidemic. Then, he recalled that he had studied the work of poor young Modigliani, he was at his nude exhibition in the salon of Madame Weill, organized by… who? He wanted to say, “By me!” But these were the remnants of delirium. He knew that the exhibition was organized by his namesake, Leopold Zborowski, Modigliani’s dealer.

And in general, in his head at first there was some kind of confusion. Either Modigliani seemed to him an imposing, rich and fashionable portrait painter, with an unusual technique for depicting eyes, then Leo clearly recalled that Modigliani was almost a beggar, an outcast of artistic Paris, exhausted by tuberculosis, alcohol and drugs. In his portraits eyes were only a convention. He dreamed that the first portrait of a naked woman in the pose of an Ingres’s Odalisque, Modigliani made from Leo’s girlfriend Ancha Cheshkova, but when he came to his senses, he realized that it was Khanka Zborowska, the wife of the artist’s dealer. However … who claims this? This is how Leo sees it… And in general, the portraits and nudes of Modigliani were not at all what they seemed to him in delirium, but still attractive and surprising…

When the traveler got better, an old acquaintance, Major Webb, who at one time approved his temporary transition visited him.

“How are you feeling?” the guest asked.

“I’m coming to my senses. Is this the usual state of travelers?”

“To be honest, quite unusual, and we think that you somehow crossed the Cauchy horizon, in simple terms, accidentally or deliberately tried to change the past.”

“I don’t remember anything like that,” Leo said sincerely.

“Tell me about the most famous artists of that time.”

“During my observation in Paris, Pablo Picasso and Henri Matisse were the most prominent. The object of my research – Amedeo Modigliani was… a very talented disturber of public opinion and artistic vision. I saw all these talents and a bunch of people associated with them: poets, artists, dealers, their wives and mistresses.

“And who got the artistic legacy of your ward Modigliani.”

“Zborowski, who else? When Modi died, his wife committed suicide, and his daughter was taken to Italy by his sister. Unredeemed work according to the contract remained with the dealer, who went bankrupt and sold everything he had. The collection has gone hand in hand…”

“What do you remember about the “competitors” from Vienna?”

“Gustav Klimt, the star of Austrian painting of the same time, died of an influenza epidemic. Six months later, Egon Schiele, his favorite student, died of the flu. Another of his protégés, Oskar Kokoschka, emigrated safely from Austria; and Adolf Hitler, who never became an artistic “celebrity”, returned from the war slightly wounded, abandoned his youthful passion for painting, went into politics and unleashed the World War II.

“Well, it’s good that your memories match mine. This means that the past has remained unchanged, as it should have. Fortunately, you got off lightly, which pleases everyone who approved your candidacy in the Committee of Culture. I mean those four gentlemen who gave you the go-ahead for time travel. Goodbye Leo. Get better and stay healthy. Yes, and good luck with your PhD!”