Vincent was the first among us to burst into enthusiastic applause. The entire audience leaped to its feet as the actors took their bows, a chorus of male and female voices calling out their appreciation in Provençal: Osco! Osco! After a round of Bonne nuits and Joyeux Nöels, handshakes and cheek kisses, the Roulins went home to get the younger children to bed. I saw Madame Roulin’s knowing smile when Vincent took my arm, her glance from me to him and back again, and not for the first time that evening, I wished I was anything but a fille de maison.
When Vincent and I crossed the Place de la République on our way back through town, he stopped this time in front of Saint-Trophime, gazing up at the sculptures of the Last Judgment above the doorway, illuminated by streetlamps. He tilted his head and pondered them until I began to feel uncomfortable and gave his arm a tug. The Christ with his hands poised to welcome the blessed and condemn the damned had become a stranger to me, the apostles and saints terrifying judges waiting to decide my fate. But Vincent wouldn’t move away, and he surprised me by suggesting we go inside. “Into the church?” I asked. “You and me?”
“Why not? I’d like to see the crèche, and I’ve never been inside.”
“I haven’t either, but that doesn’t mean I want to go now.”
He looked at me curiously, then stared at the sculptures again. “Would you mind if I go in for a minute?” I shook my head, and he bounded up the steps.
I sat down and put my chin in my hands with a sigh: what had come over him? To pass the time, I reached into my reticule and took out my santon, examining its cunning costume and details more closely. A miller with a sack of grain. I smiled as I remembered what Vincent had said about the wheatfields and the harvest, that day in the studio before Gauguin came. What was he trying to say in choosing this particular santon?
I expected him to emerge with a scowl, grumbling about clergymen and self-righteous hypocrites, but he looked calm, his eyes shining. He didn’t comment about what he’d seen or done inside the church; he simply reached for my hands and helped me to my feet. Instead of heading toward the maison when we left the Place de la République, he turned us the other way. “Where are we going?” I asked, tugging at his arm again.
He grinned. “It’s a surprise.”
He was taking me to the café in the Place du Forum, the one in his painting. I knew it before we got there, and my excitement grew as we reached the square. I’d never been anyplace like this before, not here in Arles, not in Saint-Rémy, where there were only two cafés to speak of and neither of them fancy. Straight to the yellow awning Vincent led us, gallantly pulling out a chair at an empty table for me, seating himself opposite. The night was mild for December weather, and nearly all the chairs and tables were occupied.
I arranged my skirts and sat up straight like a lady would, not slouching, folding my hands neatly on the table. Couples around us were enjoying their own evening out, talking together and laughing. Love, not money, bound these men and women together. You could see it in their eyes, their faces, every line of their bodies. “It’s like we’ve walked into your painting,” I mused to Vincent. “It’s a whole other world.”
The waiter approached and greeted us respectfully before Vincent placed the order, “Une bouteille de vin rouge, s’il vous plaît.” After he left, Vincent whispered, “That’s the same waiter from my painting, but I don’t think he recognizes me.”
“No one would recognize either of us tonight,” I whispered back.
Vincent was still studying the waiter as he attended to the couple sitting next to us. Before I could ask Vincent what he was looking at, he held his finger to his lips and reached for the sketchbook and pencil he always carried. A half smile on his face, he drew for a few minutes, pencil scratching across the paper in quick strokes. When the waiter moved away, unaware that anyone had been watching him, Vincent handed me the sketchbook. There he was: neat buttoned waistcoat, crisp white apron, the drawing moving with the same controlled energy as the man. I laughed. “Do you always do that?”
Vincent pulled his pipe from his pocket and winked. “Only when they aren’t looking.”
We lingered on the café terrace for about an hour, maybe longer, after the waiter brought our wine. Pipe smoke curled lazily around our heads as we talked of everything and nothing, touching hands, smiling at each other under the yellow awning. I liked seeing Vincent’s smile instead of the frown that had often appeared lately. I liked the way the wine played over my tongue, rich and fruity, better stuff than what I usually drank at Madame Virginie’s. I liked having Vincent all to myself again.
The sky was clear enough to see the stars as we strolled from the Place du Forum toward the maison. Once again we passed les arènes, and I stared at the ancient amphitheater with the same awe I always felt. “Have you been inside the arena?” I asked. “There’s a beautiful view from the top. You can see all the way to the Alpilles.”
Vincent shrugged. “I went to a couple of bullfights back in April. One on Easter Sunday.”
“I was there on Easter too! What did you think?”
He grimaced. “I didn’t expect them to kill the bulls, they didn’t at the other games I went to. But the crowd was something to see, everyone dressed in such bright colors under the sun. All the pretty Arlésiennes in their fichus and caps.” He squeezed my arm. “What did you think? I can’t imagine a woman enjoying it, although many women were there.”
“Oh, I didn’t like the bull being killed either. I left after the first fight.” I’d cheered with the rest when the matador had appeared in his gay beaded costume and entered the taunting dance with the ebony-black bull. It seemed a game—the red cape, the glinting sword—until the sword plunged between the bull’s shoulder blades, and blood flowed across his back onto the sand. Dazed, he staggered in a circle and fell to his knees, then the matador finished him with a blow to the heart. The crowd erupted into wild shouts, even the women jumping up and down with glee. I wanted to leave, but Françoise grabbed my arm. “Don’t go yet,” she said. “Look.”
A picador drew near the fallen carcass, and sliced off one of the bull’s ears with a long-bladed knife before wiping it clean and handing it to the matador. I clapped my hand to my mouth; I thought I’d be sick. “Look,” Françoise insisted. A beautiful girl appeared in the arena, her pink dress cheerful, her smile unwavering. The matador put the bull’s ear in a little box and, with a graceful bow, presented the box to the girl. “The matador always gives the ear to his lady love,” Françoise explained. “Isn’t it romantic?” I thought she must be as crazy as the rest of the clapping Arlesians, and I pushed my way through the crowd down the steps to the street. I’d still been able to hear the shouts as I’d walked away.
Vincent began to hum one of the songs from the pastorale as we turned into the Rue des Ricolets, then the Rue du Bout d’Arles. Suddenly he seized me in his arms to dance me to the door of the maison, whirling me around and around as I squealed with laughter. “Stop, stop! You’re a terrible dancer!”
He did stop and laughed too. “I’ve never danced in my life.”
“One day I’ll teach you,” I said and kissed him. His answering kiss was the sort of kiss we’d shared that very first night, the sort of kiss that said he’d like to come inside with me. I wanted him to come inside with me.
He lifted my chin with his fingers. “Rachel, I—” He cleared his throat and looked away. “I—I have to get up early, so I’m afraid I must say goodnight. Gauguin and I are traveling to Montpellier to see the museum.”
It was the first time that night either of us had said Gauguin’s name. I covered a frown with my best coquettish smile, the sort of smile that said it’d be well worth his time and he’d be a fool to say no. “Not even for a half hour, are you sure?”
“Another night, I promise. Bonne nuit, Rachel. I had a wonderful time.”
“So did I, thank you for inviting me. Bonne nuit.”
He bowed, then set off down the street, still whistling the tune f
rom the pastorale.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
Rain
I think myself that Gauguin was a little out of sorts with the good town of Arles, the little yellow house where we live, and especially with me.
—Vincent to Theo, Arles, December 1888
A
nother night” became another, and another. “I tried to tell you,” Françoise said when I refused to come downstairs one evening and lay in bed with a headache. “He’s just like the rest of them.” I turned away from her to face the wall. Vincent had been about to tell me he loved me, I was certain of it. But why had he stopped himself, and why was he staying away now?
“Where’s your painter?” Jacqui asked the next night, happy to humiliate me. “He forget about you? Ohhh, I wish his friend would come back—nom de Dieu, that one just about wore me out! I walked funny after he left.” She giggled. “You know they got tossed out of a café on the Rue de la Cavalerie for fighting.”
“You’re making that up,” I said crossly.
“A girl from old Louis’ place was there and she told me. Your painter threw a glass of absinthe at the other one to start it. It took Joseph Roulin and the café owner to break them up, although I imagine what’s his name—Paul?—could make short work of that skinny mec of yours if he wanted to. He sure made short work of me.” She giggled again. I dismissed the story as one of her attempts to rile me, until one of the other girls mentioned it too, then I could only wonder. And wait.
A dismal night over a week after the pastorale, Raoul came to where I sat at the bar. “Monsieur le peintre is here, Mademoiselle, but I’m not sure I should let him in.”
Vincent stood in the pouring rain under the door lantern, soaking wet with only a tattered umbrella to cover him. He looked like a rat who’d fallen in the Rhône and crawled out again. I waved Raoul away and pulled him inside. “Vincent, what on earth are you doing out on a night like this? You’ll catch your death.”
He mumbled something I couldn’t understand as I stuffed his umbrella in the stand by the door and guided him to a table near the fire. Madame Virginie had gone to bed early, so she wasn’t there to complain about this bedraggled person messing up her clean floor. “Look how wet you are,” I scolded before fetching a towel and a small glass of brandy. “Don’t gulp it, sip it. It’ll drive the chill from your bones.” I rubbed his wet hair with the towel until it stood on end. “Going out in the rain without a hat. My goodness. Even the soldiers are staying in the barracks instead of chasing women.”
“I want an absinthe,” he said. I refused, and his jaw tightened. “I said, bring me an absinthe.”
“And I said no. That’s the last thing you need.”
He scowled, as if he’d argue with me, then his eyes flitted around the room. “Let’s go upstairs. People are watching.”
Aside from Claudette cozying up to a mec in the corner, the salon was empty. “There’s nobody here—other men have more sense than you. Let’s stay and get you dry.”
“I’m dry enough. I want to go upstairs.”
I sighed and took the empty glass from his hand. Some nights the door of my room was barely closed before his hands and mouth were everywhere and we freed ourselves from our clothes in a frenzy. Other nights were more calm, more tender, letting spark build slowly to flame. But that night, as I lit the lamp and pulled back the bedcovers, Vincent circled the room and ran his hands through his hair as if I hadn’t been there at all. “It’s cold in here,” he muttered.
“I told you we should stay by the fire. Do you want to go back downstairs?” He shook his head. “Well, then why don’t I warm you up?” I led him near the bed, slipped his suspenders off his shoulders, and started unbuttoning his shirt. My lips followed my fingers down his chest.
At first he seemed eager—head thrown back, heart pulsing beneath my touch—but then he backed away from me to gaze out the window at the dark rain. “I can’t,” he whispered as he buttoned his shirt back up.
“Vincent, what’s wrong?” I asked, scared now. “You’re acting so strange…oh, God, you found somebody else. Some other girl.” The room lurched, and I leaned against the washstand to steady myself.
“There’s nobody else, I swear. I mean…I can’t.” He turned from the window to look intently at me, face crimson.
Then I understood.
I couldn’t help but feel relieved that’s all it was, although I didn’t let it show. Men took these things so seriously; it wouldn’t do to hurt his feelings. “I’m sorry,” he mumbled. “I didn’t think it’d ever happen with you.”
I crossed the room to clasp his hands in mine. “It happens to every man once in a while, dearest, there’s no need to apologize. Is something bothering you that you’d like to talk about? Maybe that would help.”
“Theo sold two of Gauguin’s Brittany pictures for six hundred francs. A third if Gauguin will retouch it, five hundred more francs. I haven’t sold a damn thing.” He sighed to the floor, and I squeezed his fingers. “Gauguin’s also been invited to exhibit with Les Vingt in Brussels. That’s an important opportunity for him to show with other painters working in the new styles.” In a lower voice he added, “I hoped Theo would negotiate an invitation for me.”
“I’m sure he tried…”
Vincent snorted without reply.
“I’m sorry, I know you must be disappointed.”
“The only exhibition opportunity I’ve been offered is to hang some things in the Paris offices of an art journal called La Revue Indépendante.”
“Well, that’s something,” I said brightly. “Will you do it?”
He glowered. “It’s a black hole run by scoundrels. They want me to give them one of my paintings for the ‘privilege’—as if I’d do that. Theo’s pissed at me, but what’s the point? I want to have a proper exhibition next year with all the new work, in a proper gallery space. Even a café would do. Someplace where regular people will see my paintings, not just—”
“It’ll be a wonderful exhibition,” I soothed. I’d never seen him like this, and I had no notion how to make him feel better. What did I know of art dealers and exhibitions, except what he told me?
“That’s not all,” he said with another sigh. “Now that he’s earned more money, Gauguin’s thinking of leaving.”
“Why would he do that? He just got here.”
Slowly Vincent began to tell me everything, how things between him and Gauguin had changed. How intensely Gauguin disliked Arles and the Arlesians, how tired he was of the yellow house. Gauguin thought Vincent talked too much, he didn’t like the way Vincent painted, he thought Vincent too messy, on and on, day after day, a litany of complaints. The weather hadn’t helped; they’d been cramped together in the studio with no place else to go. Even the trip to Montpellier to see the museum—which Vincent had hoped would improve matters—had led to arguments, the old squabbles over this artist or that artist. “You can’t imagine what it’s been like,” Vincent kept saying, but I could. I’d seen enough, I’d heard enough to picture it all, and the thought of the yellow house as a battleground sickened me. “I know I’m not easy to live with,” Vincent said, “but I’ve tried. I have.”
I remembered Jacqui’s story. “Is it true you fought with him in a café?”
“Oh God, you heard about that?” he moaned. “I was so drunk, I didn’t mean any harm. I get so fed up with his—”
“Then why not let him go?” I asked. “He can return to Paris or wherever he pleases, and you and I can—”
Vincent shook his head. “He’ll tell everyone how much he hated being here. He’ll tell everyone it’s all my fault, and what a failure I am. I’ll be humiliated.”
I cupped his face in my hands and forced him to look at me. “You’re not a failure. Your paintings are beautiful, and someday everyone will love them as much as I do.” He snorted again and pulled his eyes away. “Can’t you invite someone else to come, one of your other painter friends?”
“Don’t you see—if Gauguin
leaves, no one else will want to come. He’ll scare them away, and that’ll end my plan to create a studio of the south. Only if he stays can it succeed.”
I swallowed what I really wanted to say to that. “Then why don’t you talk to him? Discuss it calmly, without getting upset? Or Theo could talk to him for you. Maybe you can—”
“Gauguin won’t listen to me, and I doubt he’d listen to Theo either.”
“Vincent, I’m trying to help you,” I sighed. “I’m trying to understand.”
“You can’t understand!” His voice was sharp, hateful. “How could you possibly understand?”
I dropped my hands and turned my face. “I don’t mean to be cross with you,” he said then, the sharpness gone. “My nerves are stretched so thin, I don’t know what I’m saying.” He bent his head to kiss my hurt away, and for a moment it seemed we’d end up in bed after all, until he pulled back and blurted, “Gauguin thinks I’m mad.”
“Mad? What makes you say that?”
“We painted portraits of each other. The way he painted me, the face, the expression—I look like an imbecile, or a madman. Gauguin wouldn’t be the first to think so. My own father wanted me locked up after the thing with Sien.” Vincent walked to the mirror above my washstand and stared at his reflection. “Maybe it’s true. Eight years I’ve been doing this, and what do I have to show for it except rooms full of paintings that nobody wants? Surely that’s mad, isn’t it?”
Sunflowers Page 10