He looked me straight in the eye. “I was caught by surprise, that’s all. He’s loved her a long time, and when he proposed before, she said no. It devastated him. Then after a year of no contact she appears in Paris, arranges a ‘chance meeting,’ and they’re engaged ten days later? You must admit, that’s suspicious.” I had to agree, it was. “I feared she would hurt him again, but she seems to truly love him. It seems I was mistaken.”
“It’s natural to worry about Theo and want what’s best for him.” I stood to get Vincent more stew, and with my back turned, I said, “I did wonder if you were jealous.”
“Jealous?”
“Thinking Johanna might come between you and Theo.”
I heard him shift in his chair behind me. “Maybe. But I don’t believe that now.” I brought his bowl and took my seat again, and he added, “Rachel, when Gauguin said I was upset about the money—that’s not true. Or at least not completely true. Naturally I can’t help but think about it, but I’d never want Theo to be lonely because of me. I’m not the selfish bastard Gauguin made me out to be, and I wouldn’t want you to think I was.”
“I’m the last person to believe anything that man says,” I said with a snort, then reached across the table to take his hand. “I just want everything to be all right again, Vincent.”
“Everything will be,” he promised.
After supper, he smoked his pipe and wrote a letter to Theo, while I did some of his mending, then read a book. When the clock tinged nine, Vincent looked over at me and patted his knee; I went to him and perched myself on his lap. “Ma petite,” he said quietly, removing my hairpins so my hair fell over my shoulders, “I would like it if you stayed here tonight, instead of going back to the maison.”
“You know I can’t. The doctor said—”
“I don’t mean that. I mean, stay and sleep in the other bedroom. I’d like knowing you are here.”
He lit a candle to lead us upstairs and found me a clean nightshirt. He made sure I was settled, then kissed me before shutting the door between us. I climbed into bed and hugged my knees, listening to him move around his room, gazing at his paintings by candlelight. The golden sunflowers and green gardens whispered of happy days past and future, and I smiled to myself as I blew out the candle and burrowed under the covers. Vincent had come home. So had I.
“NO!”
Vincent’s shout rang through the house, and I threw open the door between our rooms to find him writhing in bed. With trembling hands I lit the lamp on his dressing table, then softly said his name. He sat up with a gasp, and I took him in my arms. “I’m scared, Rachel,” he said into my shoulder. “I’m so scared…”
He wouldn’t stop shaking, even when I kissed his forehead and smoothed his tousled hair. “It was only a dream, dearest.”
“What will I do, Rachel, what will I do if I wake up one day and I can’t paint anymore?”
“That won’t happen. You were painting this afternoon, weren’t you?”
“A still life, that’s all.” His voice rose. “What if I can’t paint Dr. Rey? What if I can’t paint anything else?”
“Shhh, you can, mon cher, of course you can. Please don’t excite yourself.” I held him until his breathing calmed and his grip relaxed. It was like that night of the rain, I thought, and my stomach clenched. “I’ll go downstairs and get you some water.”
“Don’t leave me.”
“Only for a moment, dearest.”
I left him the lamp and found my way in the dark. When I returned, he was clutching the sheet to his chest and staring into the empty fireplace. “Here, drink this. Now lie down and let me cover you up, you’ve kicked away all your blankets. Do you want the fire lit?”
He pulled the blanket up to his chin and shook his head. “Will you stay with me?”
“Of course, if that’s what you want.” I climbed into bed and guided his head back to my shoulder. “Nothing is going to hurt you. Go to sleep, you need your rest. Don’t be afraid anymore.”
Sleep didn’t come for me until just before dawn. “Artist’s fit”—what did that mean? What if Vincent wasn’t as well as he seemed? What if his illness returned? Every time he stirred in the night, I felt his forehead to check for fever; any time he made a sound, I held him tighter and wished the spirits away.
He was gone when I woke. I found him in the studio, sitting on a stool before another canvas, the still life from yesterday already finished and set aside. The mirror that usually hung in the bedroom was propped against some books on his worktable, and he glanced from his reflection to the picture, palette and hands smeared with the brightest of pigments, puffs of smoke drifting upward from his pipe. He was painting a self-portrait.
“Up so early, dearest?” I said.
He didn’t look away from his painting, only mumbled around his pipe stem, “I wanted to work.”
I yawned as I lit the stove and brewed coffee, yawned again as I sliced bread and fumbled in the cabinet for jam. Vincent frowned a little at the interruption of breakfast but accepted the cup of coffee and wedge of bread I gave him. I eyed him warily. “How are you feeling?” I asked. “That nightmare of yours—”
He brushed it away. “It was nothing. Just a dream.”
“Do you have bad dreams like that often?”
“Almost every night. Ever since…” He stared at the bread in his hand. “Dr. Rey says it’ll pass. He gave me bromide of potassium to take.”
“I’ll make you a bedtime tisane out of some herbs Françoise has, that’ll help too. Lemon verbena and millepertuis chase the devil away, they say.”
“Pagan superstition,” he scoffed.
“It helps, it did me a power of good when—” I stopped myself. “When I wasn’t feeling well, while you were sick.”
He waved toward the canvas and said, “Working will help more than anything.”
“Maybe you shouldn’t work today. Maybe you should rest.”
He scowled at me. “Rachel, I’m no invalid to be coddled. Good or bad, a dream is only a dream. Now stop worrying and look at my painting.”
“Vincent van Gogh, you are the stubbornest man I ever did meet,” I complained but went to the easel just the same.
This painting seemed no different, no less strong than any of the others. In it he wore his green overcoat and fur hat, like the day he left the hospital, but he’d shown himself with no beard and with eyes green as emeralds. Vivid red and searing orange divided the background, and the white bandage around his head stood out sharply against the color. He was not hiding what he’d done. If anything, he’d made the bandage more obvious, more prominent than it actually was. I’m still here, the portrait seemed to say. I’m still here, and I can still paint.
“I thought it’d be good practice before Dr. Rey poses,” he said. “What do you think?”
“Complementary colors,” I murmured. “Blue and orange, red and green.”
“Excellent. What else?”
I studied the painting more before answering. “At first it seems the colors clash, that there’s no harmony, but when you look closer, you realize there is. Your eyes are green to match the coat, and the red in your mouth matches the red in the pipe and back behind. The coat’s green, but you put blue and orange in it to match your hat and the orange at the top.”
I got a delighted smile full of teeth in response. “You’ve developed quite an eye.”
“One doesn’t have to spend much time with you to learn about colors,” I said modestly.
“I suppose not.” He tilted his head to study the painting alongside me for several minutes. When he spoke again, his voice shook. “Is that the face of a madman?”
I didn’t hesitate. “No. It’s the face of the man I love.”
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
The Doctor’s Portrait
I now intend to do a portrait of Dr. Rey and possibly other portraits as soon as I am a little used to painting again.
—Vincent to Theo, Arles, January 1889
D
id burglars break in and clean up?” I asked when I arrived at Vincent’s studio on Sunday. The empty paint tubes and dried-up pots of ink had disappeared, the floor was swept free of dust and canvas scraps, and his best armchair sat ready by the window. Vincent looked as tidy as the room, with scrubbed-clean trousers and a new artist’s smock. “Tiens, you look nice,” I said, straightening the tie of the smock and smoothing the fabric across his shoulders. “You smell nice too. Like soap instead of turpentine.”
He fidgeted under my hands and made a face. “I haven’t worn one of these since Paris. I need a long moustache to twirl and some plaster casts lying around, like a pretentious Académie ass.” I laughed and told him he looked very professional. “If Dr. Rey is happy with his portrait,” he continued, “perhaps he’ll recommend others to come. I’ll wear a smock if it means I can charge fees and earn some money.”
“We’ll give him a nice day. I’ll start some tea. I don’t suppose you have any biscuits?”
“Biscuits?” His eyes widened. “I should have biscuits?”
I laughed again. “The boulangerie’s still open, I’ll buy a tin.”
A knock announced the doctor’s arrival not long after I came back. I hurried to put the kettle on the stove and arrange biscuits on a plate, then peeked into the hall to give Vincent an encouraging smile before he opened the door. I’d left my apron in the kitchen during an earlier visit, so I tied it around my waist. Now we both looked respectable. “Good afternoon, Doctor,” I said when I met them in the studio. “Would you care for some tea?”
“Good afternoon, Mademoiselle. Yes, thank you.”
“I thought you’d like to see my latest work,” I heard Vincent say as I busied myself in the kitchen. “I made a concentrated study of complementary colors in this self-portrait.”
“Your command of your brush has not weakened at all,” Dr. Rey said.
I poured out the tea in Vincent’s best blue china cups—the only cups he had that matched—then placed everything on a tray and swept into the studio with what I hoped was a hospitable smile. “I hope you will join us, Mademoiselle,” Dr. Rey said as he accepted a cup of tea and balanced two biscuits on his saucer.
“But of course. Vincent?” I extended the tray to Vincent before setting it on the table and taking up my own tea.
Vincent probably hoped we would discuss his paintings, but instead Dr. Rey asked how he was sleeping and whether he had any nightmares. Vincent frowned and fiddled with his teacup. “Not as many as before.”
“Soon they will diminish altogether,” Dr. Rey assured him. “Dizziness?”
Vincent shook his head, and the doctor asked about his appetite. Vincent’s frown deepened, and I chimed in, “He’s been eating well, Doctor. He’s doing everything you asked him to do.” Including not sleeping with me, I added in my head.
“Excellent,” Dr. Rey pronounced. “Let’s have you come twice this next week to keep a check on the dressings, and the following week we can take the bandage off.”
“I’m in no hurry,” Vincent muttered into his tea.
“It has to come off sooner or later,” the doctor said gently. “We talked about this.” Vincent’s reply was something between a snort and a grunt.
I changed the subject. “Vincent tells me you were born in Arles,” I said to Dr. Rey, “and did your schooling in Montpellier.”
“Yes, Mademoiselle, both are correct. I’ve not actually received my full degree yet, though. I am completing my thesis soon, then I’ll go to Paris to defend it.”
“Will you move to Paris?” I asked. Vincent was still scowling, and I saw him twist his head toward the clock in the hall.
Dr. Rey smiled, and for once didn’t look so much like a doctor. “Oh no, I belong in Arles. I want to serve the people of this region, and my family is here. I am living with my parents, in fact, until I marry.”
“I’ll give you the address of my brother’s gallery in Paris, so you can call on him,” Vincent broke in. “He is acquainted with several doctors as clients.” Dr. Rey started to thank him, but he waved his hand impatiently. “Ce n’est rien. Now I’d like to begin your portrait, while the light is fine.”
As Dr. Rey took his place in the armchair and Vincent set about posing him, I hastened with the dishes to the kitchen and back so I wouldn’t miss anything. Vincent squatted, stood, backed away, came close. He had the doctor turn this way and that to test the light, move the chair, move it back. He made noises while lost in thought: “Hmmm. HMMM.” Finally he was ready. “Rachel, do you see my pipe?” I located it in a jar of brushes, where it had migrated during his cleaning. Another minute or two of hunting followed, until he realized the tobacco pouch was in his trouser pocket.
“You’re not smoking too much, are you?” Dr. Rey asked from the armchair.
“No. Hold the pose.”
Vincent picked up his palette and squeezed paint from various tubes, using his knife to blend the colors as his eyes, and mine, stole to his seated subject. Dr. Rey had the jet-black hair of a true Provençal, fashionably slicked back with an equally fashionable goatee and upturned moustache. He’d dressed for his portrait in a handsome suit of quality fabric, topped with a blue jacket trimmed in red. He was a little pudgy—someone who enjoyed home cooking and didn’t get outdoors much—but he had a pleasant way about him and wasn’t unattractive. A courteous gentleman with money: why wasn’t he married? Surely the bourgeois ladies of Arles would fall over themselves to match their daughters with a doctor. Maybe he never left the hospital long enough to meet any of them.
Dr. Rey caught me watching him. “Eyes to me,” Vincent said irritably. “I realize Mademoiselle Rachel is more pleasing to look at, but she’s not the one doing the painting.” The poor doctor blushed to his ears at this remark.
Vincent muttered aloud while he painted, sometimes to Dr. Rey, sometimes to me, sometimes to himself. “I’m showing you from torso up, which I’ve found works best for a true character study,” he’d say, or, “Damn it, that’s too much red.” At one point he stopped painting altogether and stared at the doctor. “Do you always wear a cravat?”
Dr. Rey’s hand went to his throat. “Pardon?”
“Every time I see you, you’re wearing a thick cravat. Doesn’t it choke you?”
I tried to catch Vincent’s eye—this was no way to woo a customer! But Dr. Rey smiled and said, “I’m accustomed to it.”
“I can’t remember the last time I wore a cravat like that.” Vincent dabbed his brush in his paints and kept working, only to stop again and say, “I’ll tell you what I’ve told my sister. It is not enough in life to only study. One must live. Enjoy oneself, have as many diversions as possible, fall in love.” He waved his brush emphatically. “Cast aside your books and your cravat. What good is it to heal people if you yourself need healing?”
Dr. Rey looked amused more than offended. “That is good advice. Perhaps once I have my final degree, I will have more time to find diversions, as you say.”
“Humph” was Vincent’s answer, and he painted in silence for the rest of the session.
When the portrait was completed, he signed it in bold red against the blue of the doctor’s jacket and presented it to Dr. Rey with a reminder to be careful, it wouldn’t be fully dry for a few weeks. The doctor’s face was unreadable as he examined the painting. “It’s very fine,” he said with a stiff smile and a quick glance at me. Then I knew—he didn’t like it. And he didn’t want Vincent to know.
“I’m glad it pleases you,” Vincent said with a sigh of relief. “If you know anyone who would like to have their portrait painted, perhaps your parents or one of the other doctors—”
“I will keep that in mind,” Dr. Rey said politely and consulted his pocket watch. “I should return home. Mother has the cook prepare a grand dinner on Sundays, and she’ll be wondering where I am. Thank you for an enjoyable afternoon, Vincent, Mademoiselle.”
“I’ll see you out,” Vincent said, and when
he came back to the studio, he was smiling. “That went well—perhaps this is the beginning of some commissions!” He hummed a merry tune as he wiped his brushes clean and put his paints away. I didn’t have the heart to tell him that the doctor’s portrait would probably wind up in Mother’s attic. “Why don’t I paint you next?” he asked.
“Oh, Vincent, I don’t know…”
“Don’t tell me you’re afraid!”
“I suppose I am,” I confessed. “What you said to Dr. Rey about how you peer inside people when you paint them…what would you see if you peered inside me?”
He stopped arranging his paints to look at me. “You have nothing to worry about, chérie. Please?”
It would make him so happy. “Someday soon.”
“It’ll be the most beautiful portrait I’ve ever done, I know it,” he said eagerly, rummaging again in his paint box. “I can already see it in my head. Promise me?”
“Someday soon,” I repeated. “I promise.”
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
Whispers in the Place Lamartine
Along with other young people I used to poke fun at this queer painter.
—an unidentified Arlesian,
interviewed in the 1920s
T
he next time I visited the yellow house, raised voices greeted me through the half-open door. I pushed it open and hurried into the hall. “Qu’est-ce qui se passe? What’s going on?”
Vincent and the potbellied man with him stopped arguing. “This is Monsieur Soulé, owner of the hotel next door and my landlord,” Vincent said. Monsieur Soulé looked me up and down with a grin that said he’d like to get me into one of his rooms. “He’s come to turn me out,” Vincent added.
“What!” I stared from one to the other. “Why?”
“Monsieur van Gogue owes me two months’ rent,” Monsieur Soulé replied.
“Gogh,” Vincent muttered through clenched teeth. “Damn it, I told you I have the money.” He disappeared into the kitchen, then returned with a handful of coins and bills. “Voilà, thirty francs. Now I have work to do, so good day to you.”
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