Sunflowers

by Sheramy Bundrick

  Gauguin shrugged as he mixed his absinthe. “He’s coming along. The sunflowers he placed in my room is his best work yet.” Vincent beamed like he’d received the most extravagant compliment, not the most halfhearted, and I didn’t know what to say. Who did this Paul Gauguin think he was?

  “He needs to learn about keeping things neat and minding the money, though,” Gauguin added. “I’ve created a system so we can track our expenses and not run short before Theo’s monthly allowance arrives. I was once a stockbroker”—he gave his moustache another stroke—“so I know about money and business in a way Vincent does not.” I expected Vincent to defend himself, but instead he nodded in agreement.

  “And what do you think of Arles, Monsieur Gauguin?” I asked.

  “It’s dirtier than I expected.” He gave another shrug. “Southerners are a breed unto themselves. Can’t understand a word of their provincial patois, and all the sun makes them lazy.” He told a story about how he and Vincent had gone to buy jute canvas the day before, how slow the service at the shop had been, and how he’d had to repeat the order three times before anyone had understood. “Never have problems like that in Paris,” he concluded.

  Now I expected Vincent to defend Arles and its people, but he was gazing into his beer mug as if he hadn’t even been listening. “You’ll find us no different from anyone else once you get to know us, Monsieur,” I said, struggling to remain polite. “Besides, Arles was the greatest city in Roman Gaul when Paris was just a city of mud. Everybody knows that.”

  “Why don’t you join us for one of our painting trips, Rachel?” Vincent jumped in before Gauguin could respond. “We’re going back to the Alyscamps tomorrow.”

  An ancient cemetery south of the city, the Alyscamps was abandoned but still housed old Roman coffins and medieval Christian chapels. “Non, merci, I’d rather not.”

  Vincent probably thought I was saying no because of Gauguin. “Why? You’ve come painting with me before.”

  “It’s scary at the Alyscamps,” I said reluctantly.

  “Scary?” Vincent and Gauguin asked at once.

  “Haven’t you heard the stories? They call that bell tower on the church of Saint-Honorat la lanterne des morts—‘the light of the dead’—and they say at night a ghostly flame leads the way to the underworld.” Vincent and Gauguin exchanged looks that made my cheeks warm, but I kept on. “Ever since the railroad was built, they say the ancient dead whose graves were disturbed haunt the place.”

  Gauguin rolled his eyes. “I didn’t come here tonight to talk about southern superstitions.” He stood and my heart stopped. Please don’t ask me, please don’t ask me. “Can you recommend a good girl for me, Mademoiselle?”

  “What kind of girl do you like, sweet or fiery?”

  “Fiery,” he replied with a look that said he was undressing me in his head. “A girl who needs taming. A girl as pretty as you.”

  I gave him a look that said to leave me alone. “Ask for Jacqui, she’s fiery enough.”

  Noisily clacking his walking stick on the floor, Gauguin sauntered up to Madame Virginie while Vincent and I watched. Madame beckoned to Jacqui, who gave Gauguin her best sultry smile and let him slide his arm around her waist. As they turned to go upstairs, he groped her derrière before giving us a big grin of approval.

  “He wanted to go with you,” Vincent muttered with a glare to Gauguin’s back. “He hasn’t taken his eyes off you since we walked through the door.”

  I laughed. “I can handle mecs like him, don’t you worry about me.” Vincent snorted and frowned into his beer. “Why, you’re jealous,” I added in surprise.

  “Not exactly, but…he’s had a lot of women. Women like him.”

  I covered his hand with mine. “I think it’s sweet you’re jealous. It means you care.”

  His eyes softened. “Did you doubt it?”

  “You must doubt me, if you think I’d choose him instead of you. Come with me, mon cher, and I’ll show you that you have nothing to be jealous about.”

  Instead of taking me by the hand when we stood, Vincent put his arm around my waist as Gauguin had done with Jacqui—protectively, possessively, like he didn’t want me to get away. I did my best to assure him there was no chance of that.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  The Alyscamps

  I venture to hope that in six months, Gauguin and you and I will see that we have founded a little studio which will last.

  —Vincent to Theo, Arles, late October 1888

  I

  n the bright light of morning, I wondered if I should join Vincent and Gauguin. I didn’t want them thinking of me as a superstitious provincial bumpkin, as surely they probably did, and I didn’t like the thought of staying behind. So I sneaked into the kitchen to fill a basket with bread, sausages, and a bottle of wine, tucked a novel Vincent had given me into the basket too, and walked outside the city walls toward the Alyscamps.

  The iron gate at the cemetery’s entrance creaked unhappily when I pushed it open. Ahead stretched a long path framed by twin rows of firs and red-streaked poplars; with every breath of wind, autumn leaves flitted down to cloak the ground. The Alyscamps felt like a world unto itself, but the chimneys of the PLM railway workshops stood beyond the treetops, the faint banging of metal against metal competing with the calls of birds, a plume of smoke curling into the sky. Far down the path stood the ruined church of Saint-Honorat with its stout walls and legendary bell tower. La lanterne des morts.

  There was no sign of Vincent and Gauguin—or indeed, of anyone—and I rambled up the road looking left and right for the two painters. Stone Roman coffins stood among the trees, some gaping open, their lids broken or long since lost, others pushed onto their sides, others shut, harboring who knew what. “Don’t be a goose, it’s just a bunch of old coffins,” Françoise had said when she’d brought me here back in the spring. “I had my first kiss over by that tree. There’s nothing to be afraid of.”

  Maybe those coffins were all centuries old, maybe plenty of girls shared kisses with their beaux under the trees, but death still hung over the Alyscamps like a shadow. Back in the summer, Le Forum Républicain had reported the discovery of a body in the neighboring Canal de Craponne, that of an eighteen-year-old girl of good family who’d drowned herself, abandoned by her married lover and disgraced by pregnancy. When I read the story, I imagined the girl’s desperation as she stood on the bank and stared into the murky depth, how she must have felt when the water closed over her head. Would I ever love anyone so much to believe I couldn’t live without him? I asked myself then. Philippe had hurt me, but not enough to want to die. Did I love Vincent that much? I asked myself now, and the thought made me shiver.

  I shivered, too, remembering what day it was. Tomorrow was the feast of all saints, and soon Provençals would set places for dead relatives at a special meal, le repas des armettos, the supper of the wandering souls. Maman had taught me to put chestnuts under my pillow to satisfy the spirits, something I still did every year. Soon families would take flowers or maybe baskets of food to cemeteries to share with the dead—and here I carried just such a basket, in the oldest cemetery of Arles.

  The wind picked up, and a stray cloud masked the sun. Suddenly I couldn’t hear the sounds of the railway workshops, or any more birds. Aside from the wind, it was silent. I gritted my teeth and quickened my pace down the path. “Vincent?” I stopped and looked about. “Vincent?”

  A chill passed over me, the unmistakable sense that I was not alone, and I could swear footsteps rustled the leaves behind me. I started to run, to where I wasn’t sure, tripping over the rocks in the path and nearly dropping my basket. The wind in the trees became seductive whispers rasping out my name, Rachel, Rachel.

  I had to find him before the spirits found me.

  “Vincent!” I called. “Where are you? Answer me!”

  “C’est toi, Rachel?” Vincent appeared from behind the trees and scrambled down the high bank edging the canal. I stumbled towar
d him, and he held me tightly. “You’re shaking, what’s the matter?”

  “I couldn’t find you…I thought I heard something…I thought I lost you…”

  “Shhh, your imagination ran away with you, that’s all. I’ve not gone anywhere. Everything is fine.” The birds chirped again, and the clouds drifted away to restore the sun.

  “Where were you?” I asked when I’d composed myself.

  “Painting on the bank. Gauguin’s working there, too.” Studying my face, he added, “You did have a fright, didn’t you? Pauvre petite.”

  I banished la lanterne des morts from my mind and tried to smile. “I’m being a goose. Imagining things, like you said.”

  “I thought you weren’t coming. What have you brought?” He lifted the corner of the cloth covering my basket and peeked inside. “You’re an angel,” he murmured, then cupped his hands around his mouth and shouted for Gauguin.

  “Don’t tell him how silly I acted,” I begged, and Vincent promised he wouldn’t.

  I spread the cloth on the ground and took everything out of the basket with Vincent’s help. Gauguin joined us a few minutes later. “I don’t know what a fine girl like her’s doing with you, mon ami, but if it means we get fed…” He laughed and reached for the wine bottle.

  “I don’t know what she’s doing with me either,” Vincent said and smiled as I handed him a bit of garlic sausage and cheese, wrapped in a napkin.

  I asked how the painting was going, and Gauguin was the first to answer. “I’ve been working on a view by the canal, which I’ll finish in the studio tomorrow.” Vincent chimed in that he’d almost finished his third canvas, which led Gauguin to mumble in my direction, “He paints too fast.”

  “I do not,” Vincent said with a roll of his eyes.

  “Yes, you do,” Gauguin countered. “The way you build up the paint so thickly on the surface—it’s sloppy. You need to work more slowly, from your imagination. Don’t limit yourself to the things you can see.”

  With every sentence, Vincent’s scowl deepened. “But it’s the things I see that interest me. Nature, the things that are real. Like Daumier, like Millet.”

  “Millet? A sentimentalist. Daumier? A hack. Give me Ingres! Degas!”

  “What, those insipid ballerinas?” Vincent scoffed. “You can have them. Delacroix…now there’s a man who knew about color. Ingres had no idea about color.”

  “You have no idea about color, slapping it on with no rhyme or reason.” Gauguin made a face and imitated Vincent painting. “You must think about what you’re doing.”

  Vincent’s voice rose to the treetops. “I know exactly what I’m doing, damn it!”

  “Boys! Boys!” I clapped my hands to get their attention. “Eat your food and behave yourselves.” Vincent and Gauguin grinned awkwardly and stopped squabbling.

  After luncheon, they climbed the canal bank to work, friendly camaraderie having won the day, while I plucked the novel I’d brought from my basket. A few idlers came to dawdle along the road, among them a fresh-faced Zouave and young girl, walking arm in arm. No prostitute, from the looks of her, a nice girl who must have fibbed to somebody to be out with a soldier without a chaperone. He probably hoped to steal a kiss in one of the old chapels, and I couldn’t tell from her smile whether he’d succeed. I paid no heed to the time as the sun journeyed across the sky and I lost myself in the story I read. Until once again I had the sensation I wasn’t alone. That I was being watched.

  Vincent had come from the bank and was sitting on the ground, sketching me like the day we’d met. This time I smiled and didn’t disrupt his work. “Hold the pose,” he said. “Read your book and pretend I’m not here.” I tried, but I was so aware of his presence that I couldn’t resist glancing at him. He gave a teasing frown and motioned for me to put my head where it belonged.

  He showed me the drawing when he finished. Gone was the blowzy fille de maison of his earlier sketch, the one with mussed hair and mussed skirts who frowned in her sleep. This demure young lady’s hint of a smile said she had pleasant secrets locked inside her heart, secrets that had nothing to do with the book in her hands. Vincent knew what lay in my heart, just as I knew, without his saying it, what lay in his. Studying my portrait, seeing myself as he saw me, I hoped this Rachel—the happy, contented, so-much-in-love Rachel—was the Rachel I could always be.

  CHAPTER NINE

  Absinthe

  I have done a rough sketch of the brothel, and I quite intend to do a brothel picture.

  —Vincent to Theo, Arles, November 1888

  V

  incent and Gauguin’s painterly partnership seemed to flourish over the next few weeks. They worked together nearly every day, rising with the sun and continuing into the night with the help of the gaslamps Vincent had installed in the studio. Some evenings found them at Madame Virginie’s, although Vincent’s visits weren’t as frequent as before. He apologized and insisted it was nothing to do with me, that he was just busy. I insisted I believed him.

  Even when he did visit, things were different. Before Gauguin came, Vincent and I had been in our own world, talking over the wine and sharing things lovers share. But with Gauguin seizing attention for himself, I felt like an afterthought. They talked of art and Paris and things I knew nothing about; most of the time I sat and listened like a mute china doll. Vincent tried to draw me into the conversation, but I suspected Gauguin excluded me on purpose, thinking me too ignorant to keep up with them.

  I visited the yellow house once a few weeks after Gauguin’s arrival, and although he was out for the evening, his invisible presence was everywhere. He’d taken over half the studio with his paintings and things, and even the tidiness of the house spoke of him rather than Vincent. Vincent told me Gauguin did all the cooking and was surprisingly good at it. I hated to think of him using the same pots and pans I used, setting the table the way I always did, treating my kitchen as if it belonged to him.

  Unfortunately Gauguin returned early from wherever he’d gone that evening and strolled into Vincent’s bedroom without knocking, catching us at an embarrassing moment. I shrieked and grabbed for the blanket. “Sorry, Brigadier, thought you’d be finished,” Gauguin drawled as he crossed the room toward his own, kerosene lamp in hand. As if nothing had been going on, as if he hadn’t been the least bit sorry to see us like that.

  When Gauguin’s door shut, Vincent chuckled and tried to resume what he’d been doing, only to protest when I pushed him away. “Where are you going?”

  “Back to Madame Virginie’s.” I didn’t bother with my corset; I pulled on my chemise and dress as fast as I could. “You think I’m staying after that?”

  “It was funny, he didn’t mean to—”

  “He knew exactly what he was doing,” I hissed, not caring if Gauguin heard me through the thin wall. “Who opens a closed door without knocking? He wanted to ruin our evening.”

  Vincent sighed and leaned back against the pillows. “Well, it’s ruined now, isn’t it? You’re acting like a child.”

  “I am not. I’ve never been so humiliated, and I’d rather sleep in the street than stay here with him. Goodnight, Vincent.” I darted down the stairs, pausing at the front door to tug on my shoes and see if Vincent would come after me. He didn’t.

  The weather matched my mood as it rained for days at a time, and the waters of the Rhône churned against the stone embankments. In the quartier reservé we were safe behind the city walls, but the Place Lamartine lay vulnerable to the river’s wrath. Two years before, Françoise said, the embankments had been breached, and the square had flooded beyond the Café de la Gare. If the river invaded again…I hoped Vincent and Gauguin were taking precautions, but knowing Vincent, he was irritated that he couldn’t paint outdoors and gave the matter no thought beyond that.

  The skies cleared and the waters receded as November dragged on, and the Arlesians heaved a sigh of relief. Business at the maison picked up, the unceasing rain having kept many customers home, then Vincent an
d Gauguin made their own way back to the Rue du Bout d’Arles. I was so happy to see Vincent that I forgot all my annoyance and threw my arms around his neck. “I’m sorry about before,” he whispered in my ear, and I kissed him with an “I’m sorry, too.”

  “Two absinthes, please, Mademoiselle,” Gauguin interrupted. “And one for you.”

  I tried not to think about the last time I’d seen him, how he’d caught me naked in Vincent’s bed. “Merci, I’ll have wine,” I said, and I knew I’d turned as red as the vin rouge.

  “What kind of fille doesn’t drink absinthe?” Gauguin asked with raised eyebrow and slightest emphasis on the “fille.” “They all do in Paris.”

  “I’ve never had it,” I admitted. “Papa always said it was the devil’s drink.”

  Gauguin burst out laughing, and Vincent said, “One won’t hurt you.”

  “No, thank you,” I repeated. I saw how completely some of the other girls were controlled by la fée verte, the green fairy, and our customers too, how greedily they guzzled the absinthe and how glassy-eyed they got. It bothered me enough that Vincent was drinking it in Gauguin’s company, but I figured he wouldn’t listen if I tried to stop him.

  When I returned with our drinks and the accoutrements for preparing the absinthe, Vincent and Gauguin were deep in discussion. “I painted you the other day,” Vincent told me cheerily as he poured absinthe into his glass.

  I was about to reply when Gauguin broke in, “It’s a brothel picture.”

  “It’s a pochade,” Vincent said, “an oil sketch to work out the composition. Next I need you to pose for me so I can begin the actual painting. Maybe you can persuade other girls to pose too. It’ll be the most ambitious figure scene I’ve tried since I left Holland.”

  I frowned. “You want to put me in a brothel picture?”

  Vincent whipped a sketchbook and stub of pencil out of his pocket. He explained his idea as he drew: girls and customers talking in the salon in couples and trios, maybe some Zouaves playing cards, lots of color, lots of gaiety. The more he talked, the less I listened, and when he showed me the sketch, I refused to look. “I don’t care. I’m not doing it.”