Sunflowers (10 page)

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 from 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?”

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.