I joined him at the mirror and touched his shoulder. “You must be patient, mon cher. I know it’s hard, but—”
“I’ve been patient!” He stepped away to pace the room, gesturing wildly as he spoke. “I’ve worked and waited…I gave up everything to do this. I could have become a successful art dealer like Theo and had a normal life, but I gave it up and now look at me! Thirty-five and supported by my younger brother. I’m a failure, and I’m a burden to Theo.” He added under his breath, “It’s like goddamn Paris all over again,” and felt his empty pockets with a frown.
I gave him a cigarette and matches from the supply I kept for customers. He inhaled deeply and blew out a cloud of smoke with a whoosh that was mostly a sigh. His hand was shaking. “Theo believes in you and wants to help you,” I said. “What does he say about selling your paintings?”
Another long drag on the cigarette. Another whoosh. “What you say: be patient. Collectors are only now investing in the Impressionists, and public opinion is even slower to embrace new artists. Theo says the tide will turn.”
“There, you see? I’d listen to him instead of Gauguin. What does Gauguin know?”
He stubbed out the cigarette with impatient fingers. “I don’t know how much longer I can do this, Rachel. Sometimes I know exactly what I want and feel I can do it forever, other times I think it will be the death of me. But I can’t stop. I can do without everything else—money, people, even God—but I can’t do without my painting. Even if someday it kills me.”
I reached for him, and he held me like a drowning man clinging to a flimsy raft in a typhoon, his face damp against my neck. “Forget about Gauguin, forget about everything,” I whispered and pressed myself close. If only Gauguin would leave. The frightened man in my arms was not the man I’d met in the Place Lamartine garden, who’d laughed and smiled and been so hopeful in his yellow house. Gauguin was ruining everything.
“Stay with me tonight,” I said. “You need your rest—I’ll look after you.”
His voice rumbled in my ear. “I’ve been enough bother.”
“You’re no bother, dearest. I want you to stay.”
He smiled for the first time when I brought him a fleecy wool blanket, and he chuckled when I joked that he should borrow one of my nightdresses. But when I got ready for bed and prepared to blow out the lamp, he shook his head and said, “Leave it burning.” I turned it as low as it would go, then climbed in beside him, tucking the covers into a cocoon around us. He curled up against me and pillowed his head on my breast like a child. “Everything will be fine, my love,” I told him and kissed the top of his head. “You’ll see.”
He closed his eyes with a little sigh and went to sleep, but I lay awake, stroking his hair with light fingers as my thoughts wandered to unfamiliar places. What had he been like as a boy? Had his mother held him like this in the dark of the night, when storms had raged and the world had frightened him? I imagined him reading books while the other children played, or lounging alone in the grass, searching for pictures in the clouds. I wished I had known him then, or sometime before thirty-five years had marked his face with the lines barely visible in the lamplight.
Outside the rain continued to fall. When the oil in the lamp was almost gone, I leaned over and extinguished the flame.
CHAPTER TWELVE
23 December 1888
Our arguments are terribly electric, sometimes we come out of them with our heads as exhausted as a used electric battery.
—Vincent to Theo,
Arles, late December 1888
E
verything fine now. He’s not leaving.
I frowned at Vincent’s hastily scrawled note—two lines, that was all—and threw it in the fireplace. Every day I’d waited for some word that Gauguin had hopped the train to Paris, never to be seen in Arles again. Every night I’d waited for Vincent to come back to me, but he hadn’t. What was Gauguin trying to do, staying when he hated Arles so much? Did he envy Vincent’s talent even though he was the one selling paintings, did he find some perverse satisfaction in preying on Vincent’s fears? Why couldn’t Vincent see him for what he was?
I heard nothing more for over a week. “Here comes your painter!” Jacqui called from the doorway one night, and I dashed to the threshold in time to see Vincent and Gauguin disappear inside old Louis’ place up the street. Jacqui burst into laughter; I burst into tears and ran upstairs. Louis’ girls prowled his salon clad in see-through peignoirs, Louis’ girls did anything you paid them to do, no matter how disgusting. Maybe he was only there to drink, I told myself as I held the santon he’d given me to my chest, maybe he was only sketching for his brothel picture. A girl braver than I would have marched next door to find out, but I cried myself to sleep and nightmares of Vincent making love to someone else.
Sunday, December 23. For three days it’d been raining again, and with the coming holiday, business that night was slow. That morning Madame Virginie had set up the Christmas crèche in her parlor, and all the girls but me had gathered around it to light candles and sing songs. The cook had been baking all day to prepare for our Christmas Eve feast, and smells of ginger and vanilla filled the maison. Françoise tried to cheer me up by giving me an early Christmas gift—another santon from the man in the Place de la République, this one a laundress—and she tried to make me laugh by saying, “We make more money than she does.”
The frigid north wind blew open the door with a bang, and from habit I turned to look. Vincent and Gauguin. I stared at them from the bar, not moving a muscle until Gauguin waved me over and placed an order for drinks. He greeted me as if nothing was amiss, but Vincent frowned with his head bent and didn’t speak.
“Mademoiselle Rachel,” Gauguin said when I returned with the tray and took a seat between them, “I have news that will break your heart. I’m leaving. I’m going back to Paris.”
I glanced at Vincent, who was preparing his absinthe and acting as if he’d been by himself. “Oh, that’s too bad. Why?”
Gauguin slowly dripped water into his own absinthe glass. “Maybe I’ll return to Brittany, perhaps Martinique or even Tahiti. Vincent’s brother sold some pictures for me, so I might be able to afford it. Eleven hundred francs. It’s about damn time.” He stirred his drink and announced, “I think we need a toast. First, to me and my future endeavors.”
I raised my glass of wine but didn’t say a word. Vincent ignored the toast altogether.
“Second, to Theo van Gogh and his future bride, Johanna Bonger, whose engagement we learned about this morning.”
“Oh!” I gasped and turned to Vincent. “Theo’s engaged!”
“Yes,” Vincent muttered, his first word of the evening.
“Aren’t you happy for your brother? Do you not like the girl?”
“I’ve never met her,” Vincent said, still mumbling. “She’s the sister of a friend of ours. She’s Dutch.”
Gauguin jumped in. “A nice, educated girl with spirit, according to Theo. The perfect wife for a young art dealer on his way up.”
“That’s wonderful news,” I said to Vincent with an encouraging smile. “You should be glad for them.” I tried to take his hand, but he shook me off without reply.
“I’ll tell you what his problem is,” Gauguin snapped. “He thinks once Theo marries and has a wife to support, then children, there won’t be any money left for him. And it scares the hell out of him because his work’s not selling.”
Vincent glared at him. “Fuck off, Gauguin.”
“It’s the truth, isn’t it? Theo’s been supporting me too while I’m here, but now he’s sold some work for me, I don’t need his money. But you—you haven’t sold anything.”
“I said, fuck off. You haven’t a goddamn idea what you’re talking about.” The eyes of the two men locked, and a tense electricity crackled between them.
I almost suggested to Vincent right then that we go upstairs. In my room we could talk everything over, he could calm down, I could help him see that
his brother’s marriage was nothing to envy, nothing to fear. But I didn’t. Instead I turned to Gauguin and tried to sound cheerful as I said, “Tell us about your plans for Paris.”
“A little of this, a lot of that,” he said airily. “I’ve missed the Paris girls. Nothing like them anyplace else, except maybe in the tropics.”
“Don’t you have a wife waiting for you in Denmark?” Vincent sneered.
Gauguin ignored him and slipped his hand under the table to stroke my thigh. “You know, Mademoiselle Rachel, my gin-gerheaded friend has been most selfish, keeping you to himself. Seems he’s forgotten the lessons of Christian charity from his preacher days. How about a little…going-away present?”
Vincent looked like he was about to explode. “Oh, you,” I said with pretend playfulness and swatted Gauguin away. “Jacqui can keep you plenty entertained, you don’t need me.”
“I mean it.” The hand migrated back to my leg and inched up the hem of my skirt. “That little preview I got at the house whetted my appetite. Or how about one last collaboration, Vincent, my friend? We could take turns and make her very happy—”
“Get your fucking hands off her!” Vincent shouted, leaping from his chair as I leaped from mine. He pulled me to his side, and we were both shaking: me with revulsion, him with rage. Everyone in the room was staring, and Raoul moved in from the doorway.
Gauguin raised his hands in sarcastic surrender. “Apologies, mon ami, I had no idea the lady was spoken for.” He looked at us curiously, first Vincent, then me, then Vincent again. “Wait—are you in love with her? Is the clergyman’s son actually in love with a fille de maison?” He howled with laughter and slapped his knee. “Here I thought you just liked screwing her! Mijnheer van Gogh, whatever would your mother say? Your brother picks a virgin, you pick a whore!” Vincent’s fingers dug into my hip, and I tightened my grip on his shoulder.
Gauguin reached into his pocket and slammed coins on the table. “Here’s two francs to make up for my inexcusable rudeness in propositioning your girl. Take her upstairs and do whatever you want with her. As hot as she is under that skirt, I’m sure she’ll let you.” He leered at me as tears of shame filled my eyes.
“I don’t need your fucking money,” Vincent snarled, snatching up the two francs and hurling them at Gauguin. They clattered on the wooden floor.
“Why not? She feel sorry for you and give it for free?”
Jacqui appeared and draped her arm around Gauguin’s shoulder. “You should have asked me, Paul. I’d show you boys a fine time you’d never forget.”
“I bet,” Gauguin said, smacking her bottom before pulling her onto his lap and making her giggle. “What color garters are you wearing tonight, lovely?”
She twitched her dress at him. “Why don’t you take a peek and find out?”
“Let’s go upstairs, Vincent,” I said under my breath and urged him toward the staircase.
“Did you hear that, mon ami?” Gauguin asked as Jacqui giggled harder. “Your little lady is ready and waiting! You sure you don’t want my money? Or can’t you—ahem—keep up your end of the bargain?”
“Why can’t you leave him alone?” I cried. “You’re jealous because his paintings are better than yours—you’re nothing but a parasite!”
“Jealous, eh? Parasite, eh?” Gauguin pushed Jacqui away to stand and take a step toward me. “Someone needs to teach you some manners, my girl.”
Vincent stepped between us, and his voice was ice. “If you touch her, I swear to God I will kill you, you bastard.”
I waited for Gauguin to charge at him, waited for a fight, but Gauguin backed away. “Stay here with your two-bit whore then, Brigadier, I’m getting my things and finding a hotel. I’m going to Paris tomorrow, I don’t want to be in this blasted hellhole one more day. You and your goddamn brother can both fuck off!”
With that he strode toward the door, but before he could reach it, Vincent flung an empty glass across the salon at Gauguin’s back. He barely missed, and the glass shattered against the wall. Then Gauguin did charge at Vincent, gripping him by the shoulders and shaking him until his teeth rattled. “Let him go!” I shrieked and tried to throw myself between them, but Gauguin shoved me aside. I fell to the ground with a cry, smacking my shoulder on the hard floor.
Bellowing like an enraged bull, Vincent seized the absinthe bottle and made to hit Gauguin over the head as Jacqui screamed curses and I screamed for him to stop. Joseph Roulin came running from upstairs and jumped in with Raoul to break them up, Raoul taking hold of Gauguin and Roulin wresting the bottle from Vincent’s hand. Madame Virginie ran in from her parlor and screeched like a vengeful spirit, “Get them out of here! Out! Out!”
“Let me go, damn it!” Gauguin yelled, but Raoul was far stronger, and Gauguin wasn’t going anywhere except outside. He settled for shouting at Vincent as Raoul hustled him out the door. “Fucking failure! Madman! The world will know!”
“Please let me go, Roulin,” Vincent said. I’m sure we all thought he’d chase after Gauguin, but instead he knelt beside me and asked if I was hurt.
I shook my head, although I knew I’d have an ugly bruise. “Don’t listen to him,” I pleaded and put my arms around his neck. “He’s not worth it.”
“Get him out of here,” Madame Virginie ordered Roulin, still glaring at Vincent. She glared at me too, as if all this had been my fault.
“Come on, Vincent, my friend,” Roulin said in his booming voice. “Best we get you home.” Vincent meekly followed him, turning at the door to look at me one last time.
I started to go with them, but Françoise took my arm. She’d come downstairs with Roulin at all the shouting. “There’s nothing else you can do, Rachel. Let’s get you cleaned up.” She scowled at the still-staring customers. “What are you all looking at?”
“Something else is going to happen. What if Gauguin goes after him? What if—”
“Raoul’s taking Gauguin to a hotel, and Joseph’s with Vincent. They’ll sleep it off, and if we’re lucky that Gauguin really will leave tomorrow. On the first damn train.”
I followed Françoise up the stairs, as meekly as Vincent had followed Roulin. I let her help me into my nightdress and wipe my face, fuss over the yellowing spot on my shoulder. She tucked me in, put a glass of water by my bed, told me that everything would be all right. I nodded and dutifully pulled the blanket around my chin, but I kept seeing Vincent’s eyes when he’d looked back from the doorway. Haunted. Sad. Like an animal caught in a trap.
“Don’t worry,” Françoise said and blew out the lamp. “Everything will sort itself out in the morning.”
I couldn’t have been sleeping very long when a persistent knock startled me awake. Wincing at my sore shoulder, I reached for my shawl and hurried to the door. It was Françoise again, her face white, asking that I come downstairs right away. “Vincent is here,” she said. “He wants to see you. He—”
Before she could finish, I was padding on bare feet down the hall, past the clock on the landing, down the stairs. 11:30, the clock said, only 11:30. A few customers remained in the salon, waiting their turn with the girls, but no one was talking, no one was saying a word. Vincent stood silent and alone in the center of the room, and when I reached the bottom of the stairs, he slowly walked toward me.
Never, not even that night of the rain, had he looked like this. A ghost of his own self, paler than ever under a black beret. Since when did he wear a beret? Was it Gauguin’s? Only when he came closer did I notice the paint-stained rag wrapped around his head—closer still, and I realized the thick red trickling down his neck and shoulder was not red paint.
This can’t be real. It’s a dream. I must wake up.
He was near enough for me to smell the blood now, a sticky, sweet smell that dizzied me.
What should I do?
I should have taken him in my arms, I should have called for help, but I couldn’t speak, I couldn’t move. His eyes held me rooted to the spot. His hand reached out to t
ake mine, raise it and open it so that my palm faced upward. All of it so slow, so gentle, as if we had been alone together in my room or the yellow house and this had been just another caress, just another night.
He lifted his other hand, where he clutched something in his fist, wrapped in newspaper. He pressed it into my palm and closed my fingers over it, something moist and cold, never once taking his gaze from my face. “Tu te souviendras de moi,” he said, his voice hollow.
You will remember me.
He released my hand and backed away a few steps, watching, waiting. I stared at my fingers, smeared with blood, the packet in my hand smeared with blood, and nausea washed over me. Part of me wanted to fling whatever he’d given me far away, but another part of me…
Don’t look. Don’t look.
I opened my hand and unfolded the paper. The rest was darkness.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
Nightmares
I’m standing in the avenue of poplars at the Alyscamps.
The mistral is blowing, and the red leaves falling from the trees are bathing me in a crimson shower. Red leaves everywhere—covering the ground, spilling from ancient coffins. The wind whistles in my ears, and in the bell tower of Saint-Honorat a fiery light shines through the shadows. La lanterne des morts—beckoning to all who see it, leading the way to the underworld.
Vincent is there.
He’s walking up the road toward the chapel, pipe in his mouth, canvas slung over his back. I call his name, but he can’t hear me over the wind’s ceaseless howling. Over and over I cry out, but he keeps walking…slowly, steadily…every footstep taking him farther from me.
He’s almost reached the light.
I start to run after him, faster and faster, still calling his name.
Never stopping.
I wasn’t in the Alyscamps. A cold morning sun poured through the window of my own room, and I lay in my own bed. Someone slept in my chair, keeping watch over me. It was only a dream. He was there. He’d been there all along.
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