His parents heralded the second Vincent’s arrival as a miracle—or so they were sure to tell him every year on his birthday, though he was never quite sure that he believed them. He was Vincent Wilhem, that was all—not the same one who died, but then again, who could be sure? Perhaps he was the same; perhaps the Vincent Wilhem who died was the Vincent Wilhem who lived; perhaps there were never two of them. His birthday was a death day, a time to celebrate a life and death that were, he understood from the earliest age, in many ways the same.
It is built into the very foundation of him: a wonder, a sensation he can never shake, the vague but sometimes nearly positive sense that he is already dead. He is a ghost in a human’s skin. There are days that it feels like only a part of him has died, while the rest of him went on to live; other days it feels like all of him has died, and then a different him was born. And some days it feels like there has only been death, death, and always death, with no life to follow.
Every Sunday until he was almost ten years old, he went to the cemetery to look at the grave with his name on it. The whole family—his parents, Theo, Anna, Elisabeth, Wil, and he—would put on their worn black clothes and make their way out the rectory and around the back in a mournful group to the cemetery, where, if it was warm enough for her to clip them from her garden, his mother would stop at the creaking iron gate and hand each of them a small cluster of flowers.
Every Sunday, he’d hear his mother crying at the grave of Vincent Wilhem, and he’d hold back the impulse to cry out to her, “Mama! I’m here!” His mother knelt by the foot of the grave, her skirts growing even darker by the knees, and she clasped her hands before her and closed her eyes, her shoulders shaking with sobs that never failed to come. The five children stood behind her, their father next to them but with his mind in a far-off place. Only once, Vincent had cried out to her, and his father had put a large hand firmly on his shoulder. “It is not advisable,” his father said simply, “to disturb a mother’s grief.”
The tiny little gravestone spoke Vincent’s name, and the words of Luke 18, “Suffer little children to come unto me, and forbid them not: for such is the kingdom of God.” It was a quote that his father did not preach on but that they all knew by heart, a warning from a far-off place that had the power, at times, to make Vincent feel as if there were a hand tightening around his throat. He went over the page where the quote resided in his own copy of the Great Book so many times that he could picture the entire paragraph in his mind, but he was always perplexed by the meaning. Did Jesus really want the children dead when they came to Him? Vincent pictured a kingdom of tiny dead children, babies dressed in colorful nightdresses, tiny hands stuck in perfect tiny mouths, while groups of perfectly clean and proper older children in neckties and dresses lay together on clouds, all of them languishing under the golden throne of God, and he wondered if he should desire to join them. If this was the kingdom of God, a land of dead and frolicking children, what kind of kingdom was the one where his feet were presently standing, the low branches of the willow tree bending over his head?
Who was this Vincent Wilhem whom his mother cried for, and who hushed his father as he stood behind her, his large hand placed gently on her back and his head bowed? Vincent imagined himself as a dead baby, caressed by a silken bassinet in the Kingdom of God, bathed in the light of his parents’ perfect and everlasting and unshakable love. Was his mother crying for what was dead, or for what was alive? Could there even be such a separation? He never knew.
He was always happy when they left for home, so close but so far that it seemed an apparition. When they finally turned from the grave, it was like a curtain was being drawn over something he truly did not want to see.
How could a person who never lived have so much power? Vincent wondered, lying on his back in bed at night after a scolding, Theo sleeping soundly next to him under the checkered quilt. He imagined the look on his father’s face when he shook his fist at him. There was a moment, he was sure, when his father ceased to see him—it was a clearing in his eyes, a sharpening—when his eyes would harden to a tiny pinpoint and he was no longer seeing him as he stood before him, but the ghost of him as he lay under the ground.
His father never said so; if he thought of Vincent’s dead brother when he looked at him, he did not say. His mother, however, would frequently conjure the dead Vincent when she was upset with him, holding fast to his arm and reminding him of who the dead baby would have been: The first Vincent would have been obedient, and quiet, and ever-loving, and why not the second? How could he be so full of hate when the Vincent before him would have been so full of love? Always, then, she would repent. Almost as soon as the words had left her mouth, she would pull the living Vincent close, holding him fiercely, apologizing, insisting that she loved him and that he was special, so special, and that he was all that mattered to her. “You’re mine, you’re mine,” she would say, and rock him back and forth. At times she held him so close that he was afraid she’d break a bone.
Did he provoke his parents so he could make them see him? It is possible. Often it seems to him that his whole life has been an attempt to find someone who can see him, his blood and veins and his beating heart, the recesses of his bowels and the aching of his groin, all of him so terribly alive, so terribly unseen.
It reached a point where he was sure that he hated his dead brother, Vincent. He walked by the cemetery every day and felt that little grave calling to him; he squeezed his eyes shut and looked the other way. He loathed that grave, that stone, that body lying there, that life that had cursed him before he could even speak. Such confusion at that grave on those gray Sundays, standing on that damp cemetery ground beneath that willow tree! He loved his brother; he hated him; he was not his brother; they were one and the same. Baby Vincent was alive, he was dead—no, it was the other way around—Vincent Wilhem was alive and blessed, the baby was blessed and dead. He pictured the baby, his tiny body tucked in a box somewhere below their feet, his miniature hands permanently and for all eternity crossed in a perfect prayer, perfectly pious in death.
* * *
It is nearly dark now, a band of shrinking light on the horizon. His thin coat is still damp, and he thinks it might make him warmer to take it off altogether. Instead, he pulls it tighter around him and blows into his hands. It wasn’t advisable (he hears his father’s voice say the word) to leave the farmer’s barn just as it was getting dark. But he couldn’t face the man’s kindness again. Eventually he would have had to answer for himself. And what sort of answer could he give? He knows how he looks, a mirage appearing on the horizon in rags and with darkened face, a shuffling shape moving slowly, inadequately dressed, improbably thin, across a stark landscape. He knows how he looks, how he seems; it is what people have been telling him his whole life.
He walks on, beginning to feel hungry again. He shouldn’t have eaten that stew; it is when he doesn’t eat that he feels the least hunger.
His knapsack over his shoulder, he moves down the road, trying to hear the sound of his footsteps over the voices in his mind. Who are you where are you going how did you get here. You are not the same any longer.
1879
September 8, 7:00 p.m.
Petit Wasmes, the Borinage
Dear Theo,
I am having trouble writing to you. My thoughts are loud but disorderly; I write through a cloud of sadness and fury. You are not the same any longer, I keep hearing your voice say, and then a thousand other words jump in. I approach the desk with my pen and paper again and again, tearing up start after start to this letter.
When we last saw each other—that is, before your recent August visit—it was soon before I left Brussels for the Borinage; I expect you remember how excited I was, after all that failed study in Amsterdam and useless training in Brussels, to finally be on my way to mining country. It was December 18, just nine months ago, when I finally arrived by train from the capital, the fare paid with the last money Father had given me when we parted the
week before. For most of the ride, the view from my window was of a long procession of fields and peasant cottages, the sky over all of them gray and uniform. I sat back in my seat and let the scenery soothe me, trying to let my eyes lose focus. Remember I told you about this technique for seeing when we were boys in Zundert? It is a way to become aware of the grandness and the breadth of the scenery; when I relax my eyes this way, the landscape grows and I can see all corners of whatever is before me—I can pay attention to the great sweep of where I am rather than to the specific details. It calms me, to pull back this way, allowing me to feel as if I am not myself but simply a pair of eyes, free to see things as they really are.
I was having trouble remaining calm. For days before I left Brussels I barely slept, waking nearly every hour with a knot in my gut, the feeling that I was late for something. It was a feeling not unlike how I felt as a child on the days leading up to Christmas, but with a heavier weight to it, not pure anticipation, but anticipation tinged with fear. It was the trip I had been waiting for, it felt like for my whole life, and here I was finally on the train, the distance shrinking between me and mining country.
The train car was paneled with dark wood, the air thick with cigar smoke coming from a gentleman across the aisle. It had the feel of someone’s living room, warm and close, and was somehow pleasant despite being packed with people facing forward, many of them nodding off or chatting with the person next to them. From where I sat I could see the peaks of hats over the seats in front of me, round shapes and summits of felt and feathers sticking up over the lines of the chair backs. The winter sun streamed in through the windows; a few people had propped their coats against the glass to keep out the glare, but where the rays streamed in, I could see the cigar smoke rising through the light in slow, twisting waves. I remembered afternoons in the front room at the parsonage, watching specks of dust float up and travel through the angles of the setting sun, trying to trace the lines they made to make shapes and pictures. It was hot on the train, though the window was cold to the touch. I had stripped down to my shirtsleeves.
I relaxed my eyes and saw the expanse of the country we were passing through. Two figures walked across a long field, one figure taller than the other, both of them in long black coats, tiny houses in the background on either side of them. I imagined that those two figures were the two of us, and then I thought of you treading the floors of the Goupil gallery in Paris, that place where I was no longer wanted. I saw you, your mustache freshly combed, your shoes polished and gleaming, smiling while you shook hands with a woman in a long dark dress, the familiar images surrounding you in gilded frames on the walls. It was a strange feeling, but in that moment I told myself we were both doing what we were meant to do.
The entry to mining country was marked by black pyramids of earth on the horizon and a layer of thick dark coal smoke that covered the light of the sky. The pyramids were perfectly shaped, clearly man-made, bringing to my mind the image of Egypt as we saw it in picture books as boys, yet even from a distance I could tell that these pyramids were less solid than stone. I turned to the man next to me, who had been silent since we pulled away from Brussels. “Black Egypt,” I said. This was the phrase that came to mind.
The man turned his watery eyes to me. He was brawny, tough and leathery, wearing a thick coat that could have been made from burlap and which must have been uncomfortably hot.
He grunted in approval. “Got that right.”
“What are the pyramids made of?” I asked him.
The man looked at me with surprise. “Coal slag,” he said, and then: “I suppose you’ve not been here before.”
I shook my head. I told him I was to be the new lay preacher in the Wasmes area, feeling a surge of excitement and doubt. I couldn’t believe it, Theo, it seemed so surreal—after a year of failed study for the theological degree in Amsterdam and then sitting through those dreaded, useless evangelical training sessions in that school in Brussels, wondering desperately why I needed to know Greek in order to bring the Gospel to those who needed it most, there I was! At long last, on my way to a new land, equipped with nothing but my two hands and the book in my knapsack. I felt that I was on a path I had chosen, despite the maneuvering Father had to do to get me there; this might sound silly to you, but I was so much happier on that train than I ever had been traveling back to work at Goupil’s.
The man, though, made a noise like a snort in response to my statement, the sound someone makes when they don’t believe a word you’ve said, or when they want to laugh but don’t want anyone to hear. I looked at him to discover what he meant.
“Forgive me,” the man said. “I’ve lived in this place a long, long time.”
I got off the train in Wasmes and watched it pull away, curve round the track, and disappear. As soon as it was gone, a boy in a dark cap, tall boots, and tweed trousers and jacket stepped out onto the track with a shovel and began to tamp down the dirt that the train had displaced. I was the only person to disembark, and when the train was gone, the boy and I were the only people in the station. I pulled my coat tight around me; it was colder than it had been in Brussels.
I asked the boy on the tracks how I should get to Petit Wasmes, and the boy pointed in the direction of the only slag pyramid that could be seen from there, great and towering and black. His breath came out of him in short white clouds. “Follow the coal,” he said. I left him there with his shovel, wondering how many times a day the boy performed this labor, smoothing out the tracks for the next train to come through and deposit its one passenger. Noble, thankless work, to be sure.
I think I told you some about Wasmes, where the train let me off, when you were here, but I don’t think you were listening. I will tell you again: Wasmes is made up of a few streets of redbrick buildings streaked with dirt, cobblestones, a church, a meeting house, a prison with crumbling bricks. It is the home of the mine administration, the foremen and managers, so close to the miners but a world away. The miners live in villages at the bottom of a long hill down from Wasmes, and they rarely make the climb up to the town. As I walked through Wasmes that first time, I noticed the strange vacancy of everything—only a few people crossed the streets and no one noticed me, the curtains were pulled in most windows, and flowers crumbled in hanging window boxes. The haze of coal smoke made it seem as if night were falling; the black was so thick, I felt I could take hold of it with my hand and pull free a piece. What light there was came through the thick black in slices and arrows, and I thought of Heaven, of all things that cannot be understood, hidden from mortals behind a cover of impenetrable smoke.
My knapsack over my shoulder, I made my way to the house of one Jean-Baptiste Denis. The regional evangelical committee, on which sat Pastor Pieterszen, whom I had gotten to know in Brussels, had secured me lodging in the Denis home—perhaps Father told you this? Jean-Baptiste Denis is a baker, and one of the most fortunate men in the congregation of Petit Wasmes. His house is the only brick building in town, and sits at the crest of the hill leading down into the mining village.
At the house, Madame Denis was waiting outside for me, in a scarf and knitted wool hat, dusting soot out of the door frame. When she saw me, she clapped her hands and exclaimed, “Monsieur Vincent! You are here!” I was stunned at her warmth, never having received such a greeting from our mother and father, or perhaps anyone else ever before. Madame Denis is a large woman with glowing red cheeks, and her brown dress under her apron was marked by a purple flowered print. I wanted to fall right into her arms, but I restrained myself, giving her a tip of my hat instead. “You must be Madame Denis.”
She curtsied and replied, “So I must!” sweeping her arm across her body and smiling. “Welcome! We have been looking forward to your arrival. How were your travels? Did you come too terribly far?”
I assured her the trip was just fine but that I was relieved to have arrived. “Well, we’re relieved you’re here, too!” she declared, and with a gesture of her arm invited me into the house
. “Come on in,” she said. “Welcome to your new home!”
Inside the house the air was warm and thick with the smell of baking bread, a most welcome and delicious smell. Madame Denis removed her scarf and hat and hung them on a peg by the door; then she led me through the large kitchen-bakery, lined with wooden shelves packed with jars of all sizes, all touched with a fine film of flour and containing all number of ingredients. I glimpsed a stack of wooden mixing bowls piled high in the sink, a hook with a handful of different-colored aprons by the door, and a fire burning in the hearth on the other side of the room. Outside the kitchen, we went through a hallway and climbed a short set of stairs to a room that she declared was mine, a small space under the eaves with a drastically slanted ceiling. I entered the room so timidly, I was almost on my toes; I could not have imagined anything more suitable. It reminded me immediately of the room where our sisters used to sleep in the house in Zundert, their neatly made beds under the slanting ceiling, and I thought of the giggles we used to hear coming from there at night when we lay in our bed, do you remember? In the room at the Denis house that was to be mine, there were also two beds pushed into either corner of the room, which had no door, only the stairs leading back down to the kitchen. Small wooden tables sat next to each bed, and wooden chests at the base of each bed. Against the wall there was a handsome chest of drawers. The wallpaper that lined the walls was a floral pattern, but it was tasteful and not oppressive.
“I hope it’s all right,” said Madame Denis, behind me, watching me take in the room. “You will be sharing this room with our son Alard. That’s his bed there”—she gestured to the bed in the far corner, neatly made. “He is eight, and he’s a good boy. Very quiet and thoughtful, he’s the wisest man in the house.” She smiled and winked at me. “Or perhaps he was, now that you are here.” She added, “He will be no trouble to you, I am sure, none at all.”
The Season of Migration Page 2