The Last Van Gogh (9 page)

I had never shown much of an interest in their purchases before, but now there was a sort of exuberance about me. I wanted to inquire what style of dress Louise-Josephine intended to sew for herself. I wanted to help her select the buttons for the bodice. And although I said nothing to either of them as they gathered their packages and slipped upstairs, I made a promise to myself that I would try to befriend Louise-Josephine.

I found myself over the next few days making more eye contact with her and smiling at her as I passed her in the hall—just what I had refrained from doing in the past.

With my brother away in Paris, I tried to reach out to this quiet, slender girl, whose life was perhaps even more difficult than mine.

TEN

Queen of the Weeping Willows

I
HAD
spent an entire childhood imagining places far away from our house in Auvers. I read all the time, as if to glean as much as I could from those leather-bound tomes about worlds other than my own. I also learned that the borders of our house had their own enchanted corners. Past our garden, far behind Father’s garden shed and the chicken coop, was a most magical place, a limestone cave half exposed by sunlight, half cloaked in leafy green ivy. In this secluded grotto in our backyard, where the ferns grew wild and the vines hung down like majestic ropes waiting to be climbed, I first realized that if I used my imagination I could escape the loneliness of being a quiet child in a dark and melancholy house.

Sometimes Paul would accompany me as I wove the wild grasses into garlands for my hair. At his request, I would crown him King of the Dogwood Trees, and myself Queen of the Weeping Willows, as we stomped over velvety moss singing imaginary songs. It was also there, in the emerald green light of our little hideaway, that I first nurtured my love of flowers. I picked the blossoms of the pink mallow bushes and the tall delicate umbrellas of the Queen Anne’s lace. I emerged from the grotto with bouquets of tiny violets in one hand and a large fern in the other, fanning myself as if I were a Grecian princess, kicking the heads off the dandelions as I danced barefoot in the grass.

I suppose back then I must have thought myself beautiful, or at least imagined myself to be. I likened myself to the heroines in my fairy tales, the princess who was bound to discover her prince; the sleepy maiden who would continue to slumber until her first kiss.

I no longer thought myself a princess as I grew into my teenage years. I pinned up my hair rather unartfully, telling myself that there was little time for vanity or personal indulgence. The sense of adventure that I had cultivated as a child had left me. Yet there were times over the years, most often when I was sitting at my piano, or digging my hands deep into the earth, that I felt my spirit return to me. It found its way back in the oddest ways; perhaps the smell of lime leaves wafting through the window or the yellow cap of a dandelion tumbling on the lawn. And every time it happened, I’d hold my breath, hoping that if I didn’t let go of the air in my lungs, somehow I would fool that feeling of sheer exhilaration into staying. That for a few hours longer, it might still remain.

By the spring that Vincent arrived, I had other distractions. My imagination had grown fat on all the novels I had read that involved romantic courtships and full-blown love affairs. If Quasimodo could find love within the shackles of his tower, then certainly I could, too. I vowed to myself that I had to convince Father that I was ready for a husband and family of my own. The possibility that I would remain in our dark, crowded house in Auvers for the rest of my life terrified me. At night, I was plagued by the image of my mother restless in her sickbed, crying out for her former life in Paris. I’d try to find solace in one of my novels, but it was futile. I would only awaken the next morning full of frustration.

I wanted to experience everything for myself rather than through the characters of my books. I wanted to do more than pinch my cheeks to give them some color. I wanted to apply lipstick and rouge as Madame Chevalier did. I wanted to wear colorful dresses. I wanted to regain that joy I had known as a child when I climbed over ivy and stuffed petals under the laces of my shoes.

And perhaps, when Vincent arrived that summer, he noticed that nascent stirring about me. He saw that I was bursting to come to life again. Twenty-one years of age, and for the first time since I was a young child, I wanted to dance in the garden and sing. The words of Louise-Josephine kept repeating in my head:
You’re the thing that has caught his eye.
Reliving the memory of those words, I could hardly suppress my urge to smile.

ELEVEN

The Cellar

“I
WILL
cure him,” I heard Father say as he gathered a wicker basket and a pair of shears. Then there was the ebullient rustle of Papa in the garden, the incessant humming, and the inexhaustible sighing. I looked out the rear door of our house and saw him kneeling on the ground, the red tuft of his goatee brushing against the tall plumes of shepherd’s purse and elderflower.

Ever since I was a little girl, I had watched him prepare his herbal medicines. When I began cultivating my various roses in the garden, he took special pains to show me where I could not plant. A few steps from our house, he had sectioned off a plot of the garden where his medicinal plants—chickweed and horsetail, cowslip and primrose, among others—grew in abundance.

Although Papa had trained as a medical doctor in Lille, he became intrigued with natural medicine after making the acquaintance of the Baron de Monestrol, a leading homeopath, while living in Paris. Papa had long considered himself a Positivist, believing that scientific knowledge was based primarily on observation. Thus, the school of homeopathy intrigued him. The fact that a substance that can cause symptoms in a healthy person can actually cure similar symptoms in a sick one, was one of the tenets of homeopathy. A small dosage of coffee crudea, for example, could alleviate insomnia. A little pill made from bee venom could reduce the swelling from a wasp bite.

Over the years, Papa began cultivating various plants and herbs in his garden to use for his tinctures. He experimented with many of his remedies on himself, and sometimes he gave his tinctures to Paul, me, and our mother in order to prove their effects. He would give us dulcamara when the weather changed from dry to wet in order to prevent colds. When Mother had trouble sleeping, he would give her a tincture of belladonna. For Paul’s recurring sore throat, he’d make a special remedy using bryum moss.

I knew that if Father were up early collecting his herbs, he would be devoting the rest of the day to making tinctures. It was a monthly event. He would gather his flowers, roots, and special leaves and then soak them in alcohol. After two weeks he would press the herb-steeped solution through a wine press and funnel the liquid into flasks. It would be only a matter of hours before he’d be asking me to gather his various supplies.

In an effort to appease him, I decided to find the necessary mason jars and empty vodka bottles in advance. I adjusted the stove’s temperature and then made my way into the root cellar, where, aside from the various bushels of apples and potatoes, Father kept all the accoutrements for making homeopathic remedies. He also kept all of Mother’s possessions from her former life in Paris there.

I am not sure why Father did not sell or give away the boxes of assorted menageries Mother once collected. Aside from the crates filled with fragile glass pieces blown in the shapes of elegant swans and giraffes, tall crystal vases, and pitchers rimmed in gold, there were other odds and ends from her dowry. Standing against one of the cellar walls was a bookcase of carved oak, as well as several rosewood pieces, a box full of Japanese porcelains, and a wardrobe full of pristine white silk petticoats, camisoles, and a French cashmere shawl.

I knew her wedding dress was stored in a cedar chest in the far corner of the basement. I purposefully avoided it when I went down there to retrieve the alcohol and jars. I did not want to try it on—or even touch the silken layers—until I knew to whom I was betrothed. I did not want to cast bad luck on myself in a childish indulgence.

Instead, I walked to the opposite side of the cellar and gathered the dark glass containers, placing them in my basket while carrying the jug of alcohol in my other arm. When I returned to the kitchen, Papa was still in the garden and I heard him intermittently talking to the chickens and Henrietta, the goat.

I had nearly finished making a quiche when he walked into the kitchen and announced: “Marguerite, I’m going to need to sterilize some glass jars for my tinctures.” He placed his basket on the pine buffet and took one of the hyssop stems to his nose. “I’ve decided to make a few remedies for Monsieur Van Gogh…I’ll be needing my supplies.”

“I thought you might be needing your mason jars, Papa, so I took the liberty of boiling them in advance.” I removed a lid from the large cast-iron pot that was boiling on the stove and showed him.

He stood there in the kitchen as the first morning rays of sunshine came through the window. Papa always looked weary in the morning, and the bluish mottling under his eyes and the golden shadows cast by the summer light made him look like a slightly bruised pear.

“What a nice surprise, Marguerite.” He lowered his head for a moment and sifted through his basket of herbs. “I am planning to make a tincture for Monsieur Van Gogh’s anxiety. A little passionflower, a little hyssop and skullcap flower…” He placed the herbs on the countertop and a flurry of tiny bellflowers dangled off their stems. “In the meantime, he’ll be taking his daily dose of my elixir and a couple doses of the mugwort.”

“Yes, Papa,” I responded softly. “If it works for you, I’m sure it will for Monsieur Van Gogh.”

Father nodded and tapped his breast pocket. He always kept his silver medicinal flask close to him, taking an occasional swallow of his self-prescribed tincture throughout the course of the day. He had not made it a secret in our house that he was medicating himself for his own depression. After all, he had written in his dissertation that all great men of the world were affected by one form of melancholy or another.

“Artists are sensitive, Marguerite,” he said and his voice drifted slightly as if he were imagining he were speaking about himself. “Painters, perhaps more so. A sculptor can find relief in his clay. He can claw into the clay and channel his frustration into the earth and mud. But a painter…he has a far more arduous task…he must always fight against the gap between his vision and his canvas.“

“Yes, Papa.”

“If your brush fights against you, you are helpless. You are always at the mercy of your brush!” He was shaking a stem of skullcap at me and I could see the tiny seedpods fluttering to the floor.

I remembered seeing Vincent painting in our garden the other day. He had painted so vigorously, with one spare brush sticking out of his mouth, and the other wielded with an outstretched arm. I watched him as he applied one color over another on his canvas. I could see the traces of where his brush swept the pigment across, how he sometimes took his palette knife and carved away the paint to reveal an underwash of another shade. Watching him, I was hypnotized.

I looked at Papa as he began removing the stigmas and anthers from the passionflower. His hands were deeply lined, the knuckles large and chafed. But still, he was nimble. He worked carefully but briskly. Within a matter of minutes he had a pile of pristine, carmine-colored petals in a jar.

“I was watching Monsieur Van Gogh painting in our garden,” I said. “I wonder, do you think what he paints resembles the images in his head?”

“I suspect it does,” Father said rather absently. He was now stirring the mixture of the herbs and alcohol.

“What colors he sees, then….” I sighed. “Lapis blue and tangerine…“My mind was spinning.

Papa raised an eyebrow. My comment had obviously disturbed him. He looked at me quizzically. “Why are you thinking such thoughts, Marguerite?” he asked. “You have little experience with the complexity of an artist’s mind.” He lifted his finger and waved it at me cautiously.

“Papa, I meant nothing by it—it’s only—” I stopped myself midsentence.

He looked at me carefully, as if trying to gauge the root of my curiosity. Then he spoke with a soft voice, but one full of warning. “Marguerite, you must realize I am in a unique position and one that requires tremendous sensitivity. Artists come to me because they know I will understand them. I may not have succeeded in my own painting career but I have great compassion for them.” He paused and straightened his back. “I have
great empathy
.”

“Yes, Papa.” I managed to get the words out. My bottom lip was trembling.

Father placed the tinctures on a tray. “Vincent is not well, Marguerite. You should realize that. Before he came to me, he was in an asylum in Saint-Rémy.”

I looked at Father blankly, trying hard to disguise my disbelief.

“He is under my care now. Let it be just that. He is a great painter, and I want to see him fulfill his potential. His brother Theo believes he is a genius, and I am beginning to suspect he is right.” Father took a deep breath. “Regardless, you must accept that a man such as Vincent does not see the world like most people do.”

I nodded and bowed my head.

There were pockets of time when I did see the world as Vincent’s paintings portrayed—stitches of bright colors, voracious strokes of malachite green and peacock blue. I might be lonely in my solitude but my garden afforded me a palette of crimson and pale yellow in the summer and it made me appreciate the changing colors of the outdoors. Even after my rosebushes were cut back and our hedges trimmed for fall, I still rejoiced at the October foliage, when our chestnut trees turned copper and our tall oak trees swayed with red and gold leaves.

It was at the thought of November, however, that I could no longer share his vibrant vision. The wet stones of winter, the naked, shivering boughs weighed heavily on me. Our house became even darker, the walls even damper, and the lack of access to the outside world seemed even more intolerable.