The Last Van Gogh

by Alyson Richman

  “Papa,” I cried when I went into the garden, “Vincent is here. He’s come straight from the station….” I was having trouble breathing, having run from the back door to the far end of our backyard.

  “Take it easy, child,” Father said as he rose from his lawn chair. “What’s the matter?”

  “Vincent…,” I said in between deep breaths. “He’s returned from his visit with Theo, and he looks terrible!”

  “Where is he?” Father asked. He looked almost as alarmed as I felt.

  “He’s sitting in the parlor. I told him I would get you at once.”

  Father rubbed his eyes with his thumb and forefinger. “I just need to get a few things from my office. Go tell Vincent I’ll be there soon.”

  When I returned to the parlor he was wringing his hands together and sweating tiny droplets down his neck.

  “Father will be with you shortly,” I told him. “Would you like some tea? Perhaps a slice of cake?”

  “No. No, thank you,” he answered and his voice was clipped and anxious. “I just need to speak to your father. I had unexpected news during my trip to Paris, and I’m a bit agitated over it.”

  I nodded. My hand was still on the doorjamb when Papa arrived. He had his stethoscope around his neck and carried his black medicine bag. He went quickly to Vincent and sat down beside him.

  “Vincent,” Papa said gently, “tell me what has happened.”

  I STOOD there behind the curtain to the parlor, listening as Vincent explained to Father what had happened in Paris with Theo. I heard Papa quiet him for a moment so he could check his pulse and hear his heartbeat. Then, after Papa’s medicine bag was snapped shut, Vincent began telling his story.

  “The baby was still sick when I arrived,” he said. His voice was shaking. “I tried not to be a nuisance, but I also needed to clarify my financial situation with Theo.”

  He fell back into the sofa.

  “Theo’s been saying for some time that he might leave Goupil’s, and I hoped for some reassurance that he could still continue to support me.”

  “Yes, of course,” Father said. “That is a reasonable concern.”

  “I did not expect Jo to interrupt our conversation, but it seems she has come to resent me, or at least resent Theo’s supporting me. I was so shocked when she showed her displeasure.”

  “Well, with the baby being sick, perhaps she was just exhausted and overwhelmed,” Father suggested sympathetically. “Surely, you can understand the stress she’s under now….”

  I did not recognize the compassion in Father’s voice. It sounded strange and foreign to me.

  “She said some awful things to me, and my brother looked so helpless. He didn’t defend me. He just said nothing.” Vincent put his face into his palms. I had never seen him look so weary.

  Vincent continued, “An artist should be free to paint and not have to worry about money or where he will find his next set of paints or bolt of canvas. My brother is not only kin but also my dealer…I pay him in my work. I don’t just take from him like some leech and not compensate him.”

  “I know how talented Theo thinks you are. But he has a family now, and it’s difficult to feed a wife and child on paintings alone.”

  Vincent’s voice was cracking now. “But what will I do now?

  This stress is not good for me…it’s not good for my health, it’s not good for my painting.”

  “You need to calm down, Vincent,” Papa said. He reached for Vincent’s pulse. “Your blood pressure is high and this could bring on another attack. Let me go get you another type of tincture…it will help you relax.”

  I quickly darted back to the kitchen as Father got up from his chair. I stood there silently by the heat of the warm stove as Father opened the door to the cellar. I heard the heavy sound of his feet lumbering down the concrete stairs. He returned clutching one of his glass vials. Though I was always skeptical of Father’s homeopathic remedies, I prayed that—especially this time—one of his tinctures would work.

  THIRTY-EIGHT

  A Premonition

  I COULD think of nothing else but Vincent, frail, helpless, and alone in his room at Ravoux’s. I wanted to nurse him. I wanted to hold him. I wanted to wipe his brow and feed him warm potato soup with a silver spoon. I stopped thinking about how Father would react to a courtship between us or how it would be to be Vincent’s muse. Now all I could focus on was ensuring that his health didn’t take a turn for the worse.

  After he left our house, I remained in the kitchen, fearful that Papa would realize that I had been eavesdropping on their private conversation. I could hardly maintain my balance, however. I dropped two pot lids in a period of minutes and sliced the tip of my finger with the vegetable knife. Paul, who came into the kitchen looking for a snack, saw me wrapping myself in a bandage.

  “What have you done to yourself, Marguerite?” He leaned down and picked one of the lids up off the floor.

  He was staring at my hand now. Tiny droplets of blood were now beading through the white cloth I had tied around my finger.

  “I had an accident,” I replied, trying to appear nonchalant.

  “You had an accident? You were probably thinking of things you shouldn’t be.”

  “I don’t have time for your snide comments, Paul,” I retorted.

  “Here, take this,” he said. He gave me an additional towel to wrap around my hand, as I had already soaked through the first one.

  I sat down on a stool and lifted my finger over my head in an attempt to further stop the bleeding.

  “We should forget about our argument,” Paul said, referring to the afternoon I had come in from the rain. “Anyway, it seems Vincent’s had another relapse. We shouldn’t let this get the better of us.”

  I didn’t even register the second part of my brother’s sentence.

  “What do you mean Vincent’s had another relapse?”

  “You know as well as I how he looked when he came here this afternoon. He was a gibbering mess of nerves. He was wringing his hands; his brow was beaded with sweat. Papa had to actually give him some valerian root as a sedative.”

  I felt the color drain from my face and it wasn’t the cut in my finger that made me grow pale.

  “I know, it’s a shame,” Paul continued as if he was rather put out by it all. “I was upstairs in Papa’s studio all morning doing a self-portrait and I was rather anxious to show it to him. I think it’s my best work yet.”

  “Oh, Paul,” I said, shaking my head. I could not believe he could be speaking about himself during a time like this.

  “Well, I guess it’s unfortunate for you, too. I suspect he will not be doing any more painting of you for some time, Marguerite.”

  “You are more tragic than I suspected, Paul, if you think that is the reason for my concern.”

  He did not answer me at first. He turned to walk out of the kitchen but just before he did, he looked back and said to me: “You and I will be living here long after Vincent has gone. It would be a shame to have him come between us.”

  THIRTY-NINE

  Weakness

  THE self-portrait Paul had done that afternoon was hideous, a mess done in thick impasto. Aside from the dark palette of aubergine and black—a choice that didn’t appeal to me at all—he had also painted himself in quick, overlapping strokes as if he thought he was successfully imitating Vincent.

  “What do you think?” he asked as I walked into his room to deliver his laundry. I put down my basket. It was obvious that he wanted to hear something positive about his work.

  “It’s very dark, Paul,” I said. I was grasping for the right words that would not offend him.

  “Exactly,” he said. “I wanted to experiment with symbolism, like Vincent does.”

  I wrinkled my brow. Aside from the opaque color, I couldn’t see any use of symbolism. Still, I chose not to tell my brother that I found his painting confusing and awkward. I didn’t want to appear cruel.

  “Have you shown P
apa?” I knelt closer to the painting to see his brushstrokes.

  “No, not yet. But I will soon.”

  “Well, hopefully he’ll support the idea of art school,” I said. “You’ll be lucky if he lets you go.”

  I doubted Father would support such a venture, but I didn’t want to burst Paul’s hope for it.

  “I need to go finish the laundry,” I told him. I was desperate to come up with an excuse to leave his room. I needed some time to conceive of a plan to see Vincent again.

  My mind kept returning to the sight of him in our living room—weak and in need of comfort—perhaps taking too much of one of Papa’s tinctures alone in his room at Ravoux’s. The memories of the weeks before, ones that shone in my mind like golden halos lifted from one of Vincent’s canvases, were quickly becoming dark and muddied. I needed to find Louise-Josephine. No one else would be honest with me and no one else could give me better advice.

  SHE was busy studying railroad timetables when I found her in her room. Théophile had been circling the trains he would later be assigned. He’d roll them into the pocket of her dress so that she knew when their next meeting would occur. Louise-Josephine would go over his black circles with a red crayon. She looked up from the papers that were fanned across her bed and smiled.

  “I need to talk to you,” I said as I dragged a chair up to her side. “It’s about Vincent.”

  “Oh?” she said. Immediately her eyebrows peaked.

  “He came by today and visited Papa. I overheard their conversation, and he seems to have had a relapse.”

  Her eyes fell slightly. “About what?”

  “His trip to Paris left him feeling unsettled. His nephew is ill and his brother is under financial pressure at home and at work. He fears his brother will no longer support him.”

  Louise-Josephine shook her head. “I’m sure his feelings about you have not helped either situation.”

  I looked at her blankly.

  “Well, he’s probably trying to come to terms with whether he should pursue something with you or not. We know he’s attracted to you, his actions have already proven that….”

  I remained silent.

  “But before things get any more serious between you two, Vincent will have to decide if he is prepared for the responsibilities of a wife. Now that it seems his brother might not be able to support him, there’s extra pressure on him.”

  “But we’ve never even mentioned marriage,” I said. My voice was now straining to remain low. I did not want to let my emotions overcome me as they did in our last conversation, when I had ended up hurting Louise-Josephine by citing the differences between our two situations. But in a way my trepidation was unnecessary. Louise-Josephine was not shy in pointing it out.

  “Yes, I know…but Vincent has to realize you’re the daughter of a physician—his physician, no less—you’re not a scullery maid or a poor girl that he can have his way with and leave without any repercussions. He knows he has to act appropriately with you.”

  She cleared her throat and continued.

  “We don’t know the details of what happened back in Paris that threw him into this state. Perhaps he confessed to Theo that he was interested in marrying you. Perhaps Jo questioned whether you had a dowry because they could no longer support Vincent’s expenses and maybe this angered Vincent. Perhaps Theo was unsupportive because he feared Vincent’s relationship with you might affect his productivity.” Louise-Josephine’s eyes were shining as if she had been a sparrow on their windowsill listening in on all the details. Her imagination was spinning. “We really don’t know what happened between his brother and him. But what I am sure of is that he respects his brother greatly and doesn’t want to be on ill terms with him, and also,” she added, taking a deep breath, “that he does not want to intentionally hurt you.”

  Louise-Josephine’s words brought a shred of comfort to me. At least it made Vincent’s recent behavior make more sense.

  “But how should I proceed now that he’s in such a state?”

  Louise-Josephine looked at the window for several minutes before responding. “Perhaps another outing is in order,” she mused. “You should go tonight and visit him secretly at Ravoux’s. Speak with him, Marguerite. It’s the only way to know what he wants from you and it will be good for him to hear how much you care for him.”

  I felt faint at the prospect of another rendezvous. I wasn’t sure I felt up to it. But Louise-Josephine was right. I had few other choices.

  FORTY

  A Certain Kind of Nobility

  THIS time, I waited an extra hour just to make sure that everyone in the house was sound asleep. Everyone except Louise-Josephine, of course.

  I had spent the past several hours alone in my room, lying on my bed with my eyes planted on the ceiling. There were several tiny fissures in the plaster and I helped pass the time by imagining them as a web of thin, black vines. In my mind, I created tiny flowers to accompany them—small pink and white blooms—so that soon there was an entire imaginary garden suspended over my head.

  When it seemed as if the house had finally gone quiet, I got up from my bed and stood in front of my long dressing mirror. In the moonlight, I could see the faint outline of my body through the thin veil of my nightgown—the soft mounds of my breasts, the rose tip of each nipple. I pressed my hands flat against my abdomen and mimicked the effect of a tight corset—forcing my décolletage to pop up through the square neckline of my gown.

  The girl who first snuck into the cave was slowly vanishing. I was far more nervous this time. It was as if I could feel his presence receding. What had once been an enormous force of energy, a tornado capable of capturing a landscape in a thousand tiny brushstrokes, was now fading. A formidable spirit now breaking into thin air. This feeling was palpable. I imagined him alone in his room, his paintbrushes thrown in a corner, his slender body becoming sunken and concave, and there was nothing I could do to pass the hours until I could get to his room and help him.

  I tiptoed into Louise-Josephine’s room nearly thirty minutes later, having changed into a simple cotton dress. She was awake and sitting up in bed, obviously waiting for me.

  “You kept your hair up,” she said.

  I touched the braids on top of my head.

  “I thought it best under the circumstances,” I said.

  She looked up at me and nodded her head. “It’s good that you are going. If he is in as bad a state as you suspect, your presence can only be a comfort.”

  I smiled and took her hand. Then Louise-Josephine walked quietly to her window, slowly opening the latch and lifting the sash.

  THERE was the faint sound of crickets chirping in the flowers beds as I walked up the rue de la Sansonne. I knew Vincent had painted this winding road a few weeks earlier.

  The gate to the inn was on the right. From the street, I could see over the red wooden pickets and into a small courtyard, but I could not see directly into the building. There was an unexpected stillness to the air, as if the trees had ceased to rustle and the fireflies had hid behind bended boughs.

  I had never been inside the Ravoux Inn, but I knew from Papa’s description of Vincent’s room that they often entered through the back courtyard. Unfortunately, I hadn’t the faintest idea how I’d actually gain access to his room.

  I threaded one hand through the latch and slowly used the other one to push open the gate. The hinge made only the faintest squeak as I walked into the garden.

  The inn was completely dark except for a single room on the top floor. There, against the thick glass pane, I could see a faint flicker of a candle.

  That must be either Vincent’s room or Hirshig’s, I thought to myself. I had heard Vincent speak of the only other boarder at Ravoux’s—a Danish artist who boarded in the room adjacent to his. The Ravoux family, who resided below their tenants, were clearly sound asleep, as the ground floor was completely dark.

  I stood there trembling in the courtyard and was suddenly overcome with a sense of r
idiculousness. How could I have come out like this—in the middle of the night, no less—when I hadn’t a clue about how to let Vincent know I was here? And even worse, I didn’t have the faintest idea what I would say to him if I did get his attention.

  I was just about to turn back when I noticed a small stairway on the outside of the inn. If I was correct, it seemed to lead directly to the attic where Hirshig and Vincent slept.

  Still, there was a door at the top which I was sure would be locked. And even if it wasn’t, I would still run the risk that Monsieur Ravoux might hear me creaking up the steps.

  I had resigned myself to going home, when suddenly I saw a shadow at the window. At first I thought it was my imagination but, sure enough, it was Vincent standing by the glass.

  I heard the din of the window opening and then saw his face emerging.

  I stood there, my flesh suddenly gone cold. Had I made a terrible mistake in coming out unannounced this evening? The last time, our meeting had been romantic, but this time his head was heavy with personal problems. I suddenly worried that he might consider me a nuisance, when he obviously had so many other things on his mind.

  He looked down and saw me standing on the cold pavement. “Marguerite?” He mouthed my name, but did not utter a sound. He held his lantern out of the window, shining the glow on my face down below.

  I lifted my arm and gave him a small wave.

  He closed the window and snuffed the candle. Moments later, he appeared creeping down the outside stairs.

  He looked haggard, as though he had been tossing in his bedclothes all night. His face was lined and his hair on end. I almost didn’t recognize him, he looked so different from the wiry and energized man whom I had admired that day he first arrived at the station.

  I walked over to him and, not knowing how to comfort him, could think of nothing else but to take him in my arms.