The Season of Migration

by Nellie Hermann

  Despite the heat, he kept his hat pulled down low, not wanting to make eye contact. He chewed on his unlit pipe, then slipped it into his pocket to save it from his teeth; then, when the train still did not arrive, he took it out again to chew some more.

  After what seemed an eternity, a train approached, a plume of white smoke unfurling and then dissipating in the air. The steady chug of the engine grew louder, the snake of the train curved around the track and grew larger, the people on the platform hushed in anticipation, the fans halted in midair, and then the train carrying Vincent’s brother Theo rumbled into the station.

  Vincent had not seen his brother in eight months, though after all that had happened in mining country, it felt a lot longer than that. Years had passed in the last eight months, centuries. But there he was, Theo, stepping down from the train with his valise, looking trim and professional in a slick black suit and tie, wearing his top hat despite the heat, and instead of elation, as Vincent had always felt when glimpsing his brother, he felt trepidation. A sort of dread swept over him as he watched Theo disembark. Who was that slim young man stepping down the metal stairs in dapper polished shoes? Theo had always been thin and sickly, pasty white even in the height of summer, often bedridden with illnesses caught at school that spared most everyone else. This man, however, seemed too healthy, his dark suit fitting perfectly across his narrow shoulders. He wore his brother’s face—Vincent could see a version of that face on a young boy, his mouth smeared with the juice of plums, grinning up at him with crooked teeth—but the clothes of a man he did not know.

  Vincent peered at his brother from the far end of the platform and felt tempted to hide. Theo had not yet seen him; he could still duck through the station door and avoid whatever message Theo might be bringing. But then he caught himself in his fear and chastised himself: Theo was here! His brother, despite all, in the flesh. He ran to him, ducking around the other reuniting passengers, and called his name.

  Theo turned and saw Vincent, and his face broke into the smile that Vincent remembered, wide and goofy; Vincent’s fear flew from him. Theo took off his hat and waited for his brother to reach him. They shook hands and embraced, and Vincent clasped his brother’s thin frame and inhaled the familiar scent of him—a little sweet and a little musty, like a basket of raspberries shut in a cellar.

  Theo told him right away that he didn’t have much time. Pulling back from their embrace, he said, “I’m on my way to Paris; I have sent my luggage on ahead. They are expecting me there for work tomorrow morning, so I must catch the evening train. I’m sorry that only leaves us the afternoon.”

  Vincent, who had hoped Theo would at least spend the night, tried to hide his disappointment. The first words out of his brother’s mouth were to put a limit on their time. “Of course!” he said, trying to accompany his voice with a smile. “We’ll make the most of it.”

  Back in Vincent’s room in Cuesmes—in the house of Monsieur Frank, an evangelist, and his wife, Grace—Theo asked Vincent about the pile of sketches on the table by the bed; Vincent showed them to him one by one, kneeling by the chair where Theo sat smoking his pipe, explaining each in turn. “That’s a mining man,” he said of a drawing of an old man wearing a burlap sack and smoking a pipe; “they often wear sacking as clothing for an extra layer of warmth.” “And that’s my friend Alard,” he said of a sketch of a boy throwing a ball; “we used to share a room in the Denis house.”

  Theo was quiet; interested but reserved, asking questions but saying nearly nothing in response. Vincent chattered on, filling the silence, but all the while wondering whether something was wrong with Theo, or if perhaps this was just the way he was now. In the last year or so, Theo had become a success in the art-dealing world; perhaps along with his professional success had come a refining of personality, so all his rough edges had been permanently smoothed. In the past, their visits had been filled with gaiety and laughter; today, Theo was like a man with a terrible piece of news to unload who dared not speak it loud.

  On their way back to Mons, a walk of over an hour, they went by the disused mine La Sorcière: buildings crumpled and leaning, wooden beams jutting here and there, birds flying in and out of windows. “Theo,” Vincent asked as they moved toward the mine, “is anything wrong? I’ve been talking ever since you got here, and you have said hardly anything. Is everything all right in your life?”

  Theo, his pipe still lit, shook his head. They stood looking out over the abandoned mine. He took his pipe in his hand and held it, a twisting line of smoke rising from it. “No,” he said, “nothing is wrong. My life is good; I have everything I could ask for. I feel very lucky.”

  “Well, good!” said Vincent. “Of course I am happy to hear it.” He looked at his brother’s face. Theo was smoking his pipe again, looking at a turned-over mine cart in the field next to them, his forehead furrowed. “But you do seem gloomy. I’m not sure I’ve made you laugh once since you arrived.”

  Theo smiled. He met Vincent’s eyes. “I’m sorry,” he said. “Perhaps I’m just tired.”

  They kept walking, Vincent in front, and he pointed his arm out toward the mine and started to tell Theo about it, how the rumors held that there were people living down in the shafts, coming up for air only in the dead of night, when no one would find them. He stopped, realizing that Theo was no longer next to him, and turned around. Theo was standing a few paces back.

  “I’ve had letters from Ma and Pa,” Theo said. “They are very worried about you.”

  Vincent stared at him, silent for a moment, taking this in. “Is that why you have come, then?” he asked. “They’ve sent you to help me see the light?”

  Theo shook his head. “No,” he said, “I came because I wanted to see you for myself, and to see this place you have been living in.” He took a step closer. “But now that I do, I think that maybe our parents are right to be worried.”

  Vincent, stunned, speechless, turned and started to walk away from his brother. A thread was broken. Inside his head a dark cloud rolled in, turning all of his thoughts to black. His brother had come here on bad faith.

  “Vincent,” Theo called after him, still standing where he had been, “don’t run from me. I’m still your brother.” He started to walk after Vincent. “But come,” he called, “really, what is your plan? You have not told me what your plan is; all afternoon we’ve been talking but you haven’t said. What will you do next? You can’t stay here forever, living off Ma and Pa, you must know that.”

  The sun was sending blinding arrows of light off the quiet tracks where the mining carts had once moved. Vincent stopped walking but did not turn back.

  “It has been over a month since your dismissal,” said Theo, his voice quieter now, “isn’t that right? And what have you been doing since then?” He paused, but Vincent didn’t answer or move. “I come to visit you and you don’t say a word of what has happened; all you do is show me this place as if it is glorious. But Vincent, it is not glorious! It is a sad place, Vincent, and you no longer have a job to do here. Why do you remain? What is there here for you?”

  Vincent turned back to Theo. He could feel the blood in his face, the warmth on his cheeks familiar from whenever he exercised strenuously, particularly in the sun. He struggled to get the words out, pushing them from deep in his throat. “What would you have me do?”

  They stood face-to-face by the fence that led into the mine. The grass was overgrown and reached to their calves. “There are a million things to do!” Theo said, throwing out his hands. “So you won’t be a preacher; so you’ll try something else! It doesn’t have to mean everything. I know a man who is a successful carpenter, I’m sure he’d take you on as his apprentice. You could learn the trade of a bookkeeper, a lithographer, a baker. How about a painter? How about a businessman?”

  “A businessman?” Vincent was aghast; he couldn’t begin to attempt to argue with this. Theo smiled then, but it was a cold smile, the smile of a stranger who politely steps over a dog he do
es not like. “Well, perhaps not a businessman. But I’m just trying to say that you have choices. You’re only twenty-six; you’re young; you can still do nearly anything. But what do you gain by idling around? What do you gain by staying here, with nothing to do? You’re not seeing things straight, Vincent. This is not your home. You’re only making yourself miserable, staying here, when there is nothing here for you, as well as making our parents worry.”

  Again, their parents. Again, the burden he was for others. Vincent felt a strange sensation, his skin beginning to feel cold while the inside of him grew hotter. He steadied himself on the fence, feeling the enormous urge to run, or to crouch his body down so small, he might disappear.

  “Vincent,” Theo said, his voice grown quieter again. “I know it has been a long road that brought you here. I remember the year you spent studying for that evangelical degree in Amsterdam, I remember the training school in Brussels after that, and I know that all you’ve wanted for a long time is to bring the word of God to the poor. I can’t imagine how it must feel now that it is all over. But how can I understand if you don’t tell me about it?” He paused. “Come,” he said again, “don’t you want improvement in your life? Don’t you want more for yourself than this?”

  Theo was quiet for a long moment, looking wistfully out over the mine, as if he were looking out over a calm sea. Finally he spoke again. “I remember when we walked together to that mill at Rijswijk. So many years ago now, it feels like a lifetime. But we agreed on so many things then, remember? We wanted the same things for our lives; we felt the same passions and excitements. We promised each other we would look after each other, we would help each other along the way.” Theo paused, and sighed. “I felt so close to you then. Now”—he turned to Vincent and met his eyes, the two brothers face-to-face—“well, I fear you’ve changed so much that you’re just not the same any longer.”

  All the way back to Mons after this, Vincent did not say a word. He was walking with a stranger who wore the suit of his brother’s skin. His face was flushed with anger; he wanted to run and to weep, but he made himself accompany his brother to his train. “I’m sorry, Vincent,” Theo said on the way back. “I know what I’ve said can’t have been easy to hear. I only thought that perhaps it might do you some good to hear some of this from me, to put an end to some of your idling. And you must know I only want happiness for you.”

  He told Vincent he should go to Etten, where their parents lived, and take some advantage of the love and kindness that waited for him there. He shook his hand, covering it with both of his, and then he turned from Vincent and disappeared onto the train to Paris.

  1879

  October 4, midnight

  Cuesmes, the Borinage

  Dear Theo,

  You say I am not the same any longer. The same as who? You have known me at all the stages of my life. What can a man become if he must stay the same?

  It is an outrageous claim. Do you think you are the same as you have always been? When you sat here in my room in Cuesmes, you crossed your right leg over your left and flapped your foot up and down impatiently; I’ve never seen you do that before. When you spoke, which was rare that day, you gestured widely with your pipe in your hand, wider than you ever used to. “I saw the Paris salon last month,” you said, “Breton’s latest is a masterpiece.” On the word masterpiece, your arm swept way out across from your body, as if you were unveiling a horizon.

  When I showed you my drawings, kneeling next to you in the lamplight, I watched your face; when it was at rest, it was a frown. When we were boys, your face was open and wide; I could take your hand and lead you away and you would follow me with curiosity, never fear. How many times did you hear me say that word, masterpiece, before you began to use it? Back then, your eyes were large and open fields, but now I see only narrow lanes.

  That walk to the Rijswijk mill in The Hague, yes, you were right to think of it. That was the first time you came to visit me anywhere, the first time we had ever visited together for more than a day away from home—it was the first time I had a job, my first job at the gallery, that stormy fall of 1872. I remember my room at the Rooses’ house, the rain against the window, the wind howling against the glass and down the chimney, rattling the grates in the fireplace, and you wrapped in one of my blankets, your tousle of brown hair against my pillow. I was so excited to have you there; when I walked home from Goupil’s gallery knowing that you would be waiting for me, I felt a swell of happiness in my chest. We walked the city together when I wasn’t working, ducking into cafés to escape the rain, and I bought you cups of hot tea so you would not catch cold. You were still in school then, only fifteen, but nearly a man; back in my room, that thick red carpet under our bare feet while the world wailed outside, our shirts drying over the back of my wooden desk chair, our bodies warm underneath our two blankets, we sat up late into the night talking of all things.

  I can see you, leaning back against the pillow on the bed, listening to me tell you about Goupil’s and the prints in the gallery, your eyes ravenous for details. “I can’t wait to get started,” you said, referring to your own art career. “I am dying to get started. I wish I could trade places with you, or that Uncle would let me start right now and Pa would let me quit school.” When I described the prints to you, your mouth hung open as if I were describing succulent cuts of meat, and sometimes you even brought out your notebook and jotted notes.

  The day before you left The Hague, we went for a walk when it was just beginning to rain, and we were far away from town on a country road when it started to pour. We kept going, not knowing what else to do, ducking under tree branches for shelter, the leaves making an umbrella riddled with holes. Up ahead, there was the Rijswijk mill, a roof and warmth beckoning.

  Your hair was stuck to your forehead underneath your hat, the water dripping off the brim in streams. Then the sun came out and there was a rainbow in the distance and steam rose up off our wet clothes. We stopped in the road to admire the rainbow and noticed each other’s steam, and your face was full of glee, and you pointed at my jacket and said, “Look at you!” and giggled, and I pointed back at you and said, “And look at you!” and we laughed together, and I heard the sound of our voices and I knew that they were different from the way they used to be. Something in the world was different all of a sudden. The two of us were together again on a country road, and for a few minutes the passing of time was a marvel and a friend.

  I remember you standing in the sunshine of the Rijswijk road with steam rising off of your clothes, grinning at me; I had a vision of the boy who slept next to me all those years becoming a man, which meant that I was, too, impossible as it seemed, for there we were together. Life was beginning, it was the beginning of life, and I saw the body of my brother before me as I never quite had before, as if it were a limb that had been cut from my own body and placed before me so that I could see it clearly. I saw that you were my greatest friend and strongest ally, and that you would be there for my whole life, no matter what curves it took. I saw my love for you as if it were as visible as the mill beyond us, the sails jutting into the clearing sky.

  We walked along the canal to the old mill. The meadows were partly flooded, so that there was an effect of tonal green and silver against the rough black and grey and green of the tree trunks standing alongside them; the silhouette of the little village with its pointed spire stood against the clear sky while in the background there was a gate and a dungheap on which a flock of crows sat pecking. We spoke about books and about art, about the prints that I was working with in the gallery, about the way an artist could succeed at portraying a feeling in an image, could paint the very landscape where we stood and translate not just the beauty of it but the exact joy that we felt then, approaching that mill, the sun sparkling on the water of the canal, the sails of the mill slowly turning. We spoke of Israëls, of Maris and Mauve, whom I had gotten to meet a few times already and admired a great deal, and of Millet, whose pictures seemed to me t
o express an honesty I had rarely seen.

  Perhaps I preached more than I listened, but nonetheless I was amazed at the two of us, walking together and talking as men, agreeing on everything. The future was a bright and winding path, and we were on it together. And somewhere along the way we made a promise to each other, do you remember? We pledged to always be there for each other, to support each other, and to be each other’s companions on the road of life just as we were on that road to the mill. Do you remember this, Theo?

  We stopped when we reached the mill, our clothes damp and heavy. A man was standing in the doorway, leaning against the frame and gazing out at the landscape, smoking his pipe, watching the water soak into the land. The raindrops were lingering on every blade of grass, perfect spheres, invisibly dissolving. The man took us inside and we sat at his table and drank cups of milk and grinned at each other, the milk staining our lips, the mustaches we could just barely grow. We clinked our cups together and toasted our new pledge, our new brotherhood.

  You stayed only a few days in The Hague, and when you went home, I missed you, arriving back at the Rooses’ in another thunderstorm and hearing no one say my name. I thought of you walking the six kilometers to school from our parents’ new house, your clothes drenched, your feet soaked, your hat pressed down around your face. There was no shelter along that long road; how would you last in that weather? I worried for you, though of course you never needed me to. Though my room was warm as ever, I sat under my blanket and felt wet and cold. The first letter I ever wrote you was during one of those frequent storms. I had the feeling, after that visit, you were more than another one of our parents’ sons, more than the boy from my childhood; you were my brother.