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.”
“It’s not that simple, Monsieur van Gogue,” Monsieur Soulé said smugly as he tucked the money into his waistcoat pocket. “I’ve already rented the house to another tenant, a tobacconist who’s opening a shop here. I told him he could move in at the end of the month.”
Vincent glowered at him. “What’d you do that for?”
“Word around here a few weeks ago was that you weren’t going to recover.”
“As you can see, I have recovered, so you can find someplace else for your tobacconist.”
“He’ll be a more responsible tenant,” Monsieur Soulé said in the same smug tone.
“Who paid to have the whole house painted, inside and out? Who arranged to have gaslights installed in the front room?” I put my hand on Vincent’s arm, but he ignored me and kept shouting. “Christ, this house was a disaster when I moved in, and you want me out so you can charge somebody else higher rent? Thanks to
my
improvements?”
“Who’s always late with the rent?” Monsieur Soulé fired back.
“I won’t be late anymore, I swear!” Vincent ran his fingers through his hair and wheedled, “Please don’t turn me out. I need this house to do my work. We had a deal when I rented it at the beginning of last May: one-year lease. Let me keep it until the end of April, then if you’re not happy with the way I’ve been taking care of things, I’ll go.
D’accord?
”
Monsieur Soulé frowned as he mulled over Vincent’s plea.
“D’accord
. End of April. But I better not hear any more stories about you, or you’ll be out.”
“Yes, yes, thank you,” Vincent mumbled. “I really do have work to do, so please excuse me…” He ushered out Monsieur Soulé with a halfhearted “
Bonne journée
.”
“God damn it!” he exploded once he shut the door. “I wasn’t expecting to give him the whole thirty francs today!” He stomped into the kitchen as I followed behind him. “Thirty francs to the charwoman,” he ticked on his fingers. “Thirty francs to the hospital. Twenty francs toward the gas heater and the furniture I have on account. Twelve francs fifty for all the laundry. Fifteen francs for new brushes and to replace the clothes I ruined. Five francs for wood and coal. Now the rent! God damn it! And my
brother
”—he grabbed sheets of paper off the table and shook them—“only sent fifty francs! I have precisely twenty-three francs fifty left, how the hell am I supposed to live thirteen days on that? How am I supposed to get better if I can’t afford food? I’ve already run up a new credit at the Restaurant Vénissat—”
I interrupted his tirade. “Don’t do that any more, Vincent. I’ll give you the money.”
“Theo and I have a business arrangement. It’s his responsibility, not yours. I was just writing to remind him of that fact.” He glared at the pages in his hand and shook them again.
“But if you think about it, it’d really be returning your own money to you. All those three-franc visits from before—”
“I said no. I won’t take your money.” He collapsed into his chair by the fireplace with a sigh. “And now Gauguin wants my sunflowers.”
“What?”
“Read that letter sitting on the table.”
I picked up the letter and tried to read as Vincent kept complaining. Gauguin’s handwriting wasn’t much better than his, and I had to squint at some of the words. “First Gauguin goes to Theo and implies we were exploiting him,” Vincent said. “He insists that Theo owes him money, which is absurd.
Then
he tells Theo stories about what went on down here, most of which is
completely
exaggerated. After I
specifically
asked him to keep matters between ourselves.”
My head jerked up from the paper. “Not things about me?”
“I don’t think so, or I would have heard about it.” Vincent rolled his eyes. “Gauguin told Theo that he’d prefer to work only with him on the business side of things, and keep me out of it. Did he think Theo wouldn’t tell me?” His voice rose again with his aggravation. “Then he has the
gall
to write me that letter, overflowing with compliments about the paintings of mine Theo showed him in Paris. He’s hung the self-portrait I gave him in his studio, etcetera, etcetera, then he drops what he really wants. My sunflowers.”
Gauguin’s letter was filled with good feelings and helpfulness on the surface but, knowing the writer as I did, flooded with greed and manipulation underneath.
“Un style essentielle-ment Vincent,”
he called the sunflowers, “an essentially Vincent style,” and he minced no words about which painting he wanted either: the yellow-on-yellow sunflowers, the ones I loved most of all. He gave Vincent advice about caring for damaged canvases—hadn’t we all had enough of his advice?—then closed the letter with a cheery
“Mes amitiés à tout le monde,”
wishes of friendship for everyone in Arles that only angered me more.
I lay the letter on the table. I wanted to wash my hands after touching it. “You’re not going to do it, are you?”
“Of course not!” Vincent’s mouth tightened into an obstinate line. “I’ll send him his own paintings, I’ll send him his childish fencing things upstairs in the closet, but never, ever will he get those sunflowers.”
As much as I wanted to say “I told you so,” I muzzled it. “You need to calm down,
mon cher
,” I said instead, kneeling next to Vincent and placing my hand on his. “Forget about the money, forget about Gauguin.”
“If only I could sell a painting,” Vincent groaned. “Just one goddamn painting. What the hell is Theo doing up there? Selling fucking Corots, that’s what he’s doing, instead of looking out for his own brother.”
I sighed and rubbed his hand. “You know what would make you feel better? To paint outside a while. You haven’t painted outdoors at all since you left the hospital. I could go with you. The almond trees are beginning to blossom—”
“I tried.”
“What do you mean, you tried?”
He stared into the fire. “After I read Gauguin’s letter yesterday, I packed up my gear and headed to the orchards. I wanted to get out of the house. But…”
“…but what?”
“Some children found me.” He fidgeted in his chair. “Well, older than children, a group of boys about twelve or thirteen.”
“And?…”
“They said things.”
“What things?”
“The kinds of things boys say to a crazy man.” They made up a song, he said, singing it over and over as he tried to hurry away. He begged them to leave him alone, but their voices grew louder, until he gave up and came back to the yellow house. “They imitated the way I walk, Rachel. They wouldn’t stop laughing, and they followed me all the way here.” A tear rolled down the side of his nose. “One of them knew I went to the brothel when I…and he knew your name. He said it was in the newspaper. Is that true? Was there something about me—and you—in the newspaper?”
I didn’t want to tell him, but I didn’t want to lie. He put his head in his hands at the look on my face and murmured, “Christ. The whole town knows.”
“It was a tiny article, dearest,” I said, draping my arm around his shoulders. “Weeks ago. I doubt most people saw it.”
“That explains everything. What Soulé said about stories about me, the way everyone stares, the way they whisper when I go to the restaurant or the café…I told myself I was imagining things, but I wasn’t.” His voice quivered.
“Ignore them, ignore them all,” I pleaded. “As for those
catiéu mòssi
…they’re just kids, they aren’t worth the trouble.”
“All I want is to work and get better in peace. Is that too much to ask?”
I didn’t try to answer the question, because I couldn’t. “Listen, why don’t I buy some things next door and cook us a nice supper?”
“Your answer to all my problems is to feed me.”
“It always cheers you up, doesn’t it?” I smiled and gave him a squeeze. “We’ll sit by the fire, I’ll stay tonight if you want me to…. Forget about all that other nonsense.”
He regarded me solemnly. “Of all the people in this town, the person who should be most angry with me, most afraid of me, is you. But here you are. Why?”
I ruffled his hair. “I think you know the answer to that.”
Marguerite Favier next door at the
épicerie
had been friendly in the past, but that day she didn’t smile, she didn’t reply to my
bonjour
. Her eyes followed me around the shop. I lay the groceries I chose on the counter and announced, “I’m cooking Vincent a special supper tonight. He’s very sad today about the way people have treated him.”
She focused on the groceries and wouldn’t meet my stare. “Oh?”
“His own neighbors have been avoiding him and saying nasty things behind his back.” I clucked my tongue dramatically. “You haven’t heard any of that, have you?”
“Oh no, I haven’t heard anything.” Her face had gone red. She was lying.
“Well, if you do, tell them he is doing much better. You’d think good Christians would know it’s wrong to gossip and judge.” I grabbed my basket and flounced out of the shop, wishing I’d been a man so I could have said or done more. Or even less of a lady.
Sunflowers
I am a man, and a man with passions;
I must go to a woman, otherwise I shall freeze or turn to stone.
—Vincent to Theo, Etten, December 1881
V
incent was still writing his letter to Theo when I returned, pages of tiny script that made him grumble and scowl. Not once did he comment on how good supper smelled, and when I served it, he picked at his food, drawing on his plate with his fork instead of eating. I tried to make conversation, but I had to repeat everything before he heard me and answered with as few words as possible. After supper he stared sadly into the fireplace and ignored the book in his lap, pipe hanging unlit from his mouth.
I told him I’d stay in the second bedroom, and as I changed into his nightshirt and washed my face at the basin, I heard him pacing in his own room, up and down the wooden floor. I stared at his paintings in the candlelight, seeking comfort from them as I always did. A poet’s garden, that’s what Vincent called the public garden of the Place Lamartine, a garden of love. The couples in the paintings would never stop holding hands among the trees and flowers. They’d walk those paths forever—around the firs, around the cypresses—with no one to separate them. No one could.
I was just drifting into sleep when the door opened, and I sat up with a start. “Vincent? Is something wrong?”
“I—I lit a fire in my room,” he stammered. “I—I thought you might like to sleep where it’s warmer.”
I pushed back the covers and climbed out of bed. “Are you worried about nightmares?”
He traced the length of my arm with his hand. “No.”
My heart started to pound. It’d been so long. So many things had happened—
“D’accord,”
I whispered, nodding my head. I didn’t know what else to say.
I followed him into his room, and he shut the door so the warmth of the fire would not escape. He tipped up my chin with his fingers and gave me a kiss. Another. Another. Our arms wrapped around each other, we consumed each other, his hand roamed up my belly to knead my breast through the nightshirt. Would he know my body had carried a child, I thought wildly, would it hurt?
“Wait.” I freed myself and backed away. “Stop, it’s too soon.”
His eyes were wide in the firelight. “You don’t want me anymore.”
“No, that’s not it, Dr. Rey said—”
“You don’t want me because of this.” He gestured to his bandage. “And why should you? A broken man, a—”
“That’s not true,” I insisted and cupped his face in my hands. “It’s what happened to you, it’s not who you are. I know who you are, and I love you, I want you as much as ever.”
“Truly?”
“Truly. But I think we should wait.”
“I’m tired of waiting,” he sighed, and pulled my hands from his face to press them against his chest. “Please, Rachel. I need you. I need to feel…” His words trailed away.
He didn’t have to say it. I understood.
I didn’t protest as he lifted the nightshirt over my head and I stood naked before him, oranges and yellows from the fire dancing across my skin. His hands trembled, then teased as they skimmed over, up, and down, and his mouth too, exploring me as if it had been the first time for us both. Everything about me felt weak, flimsy, as if he’d been a sculptor instead of a painter and I’d been clay to be molded and shaped by his touch. I let my shaking fingers glide over his chest, shoulders, face, until he lifted me and lay me on the bed, reaching impatiently for his own nightshirt.
I tensed when he entered me. “Am I hurting you?” he whispered.
“No,” I whispered back, although it did hurt a little, and I hoped I wouldn’t bleed. I clung to his neck, and the pain eased, my fear ebbed. To be together like this, when I’d come so close to losing him…. I savored the rhythm of his body, I closed my eyes so tightly that colors swirled behind my eyelids, a kaleidoscope of yellows, blues, pinks, greens. Then the colors were exploding within me, washing over me, drowning me in their brilliance until I gasped for air and called his name. From far away I heard his answering cry, and he collapsed against me, shivering as I shivered, holding me as tenderly as I held him. Tears spilled over my cheeks. He smiled in the half-light and kissed them away.
For once, the breaking of dawn didn’t lure Vincent to the studio. When I awakened, he was still beside me. I propped myself on my elbow to watch him sleep: the anxious lines on his forehead had smoothed, his features were peaceful. So many things flooded me in that moment—love, desire, gratitude, hope—that I nearly cried again from the joy of it.
I touched his cheek, and his eyes fluttered open. “I’m sorry I woke you,” I whispered. “How are you feeling?”
His drowsy smile was the most beautiful thing I’d ever seen. “Alive.”
“Whatever would the doctor say?” I teased.
“To hell with him. He lives with his parents, for God’s sake.” Vincent brushed a stray lock of hair from my face. “You have never looked lovelier to me than you do right now.”
“Even with my hair all mussed?”
“Especially with your hair all mussed. I’d draw you if you’d let me.”
I pressed my lips to the downy red thatch on his chest and let my hand creep down his stomach. “Don’t you ever think of anything besides drawing?” I asked, still teasing.
His answer was to roll me onto my back and nudge my legs apart, nuzzle that place behind my ear that never failed to make me tingle. “Ohhh, I suppose you do,” I giggled, greedily welcoming him inside me, and in the light of that morning we were resurrected, reborn. Alive.
The whistle of the Marseille-bound express train echoed through the Place Lamartine sometime later. “I have to work,” Vincent said, swinging his legs over the side of the bed. “It’s getting late.”
“Damn train,” I muttered, reaching out to trace his spine. “Don’t go, stay with me. Just a while longer?”
He laughed as he pulled on his painting trousers. “
Petite coquette
, twice is all I can manage for a while. I’m not as young as I used to be.”
I lay back onto the pillows and lazily watched as he finished dressing then disappeared into the other bedroom. But when I saw what he brought out with him, I sat up straight. “Where are you taking the sunflowers?”
“I’m making a copy.”
“For who? Gauguin?”
He frowned at my accusing tone, then said patiently, “I have to sell something, Rachel. I figure Theo could get five hundred francs for a good sunflower picture, so I’m copying this one and the one with the blue background. The originals will stay here with me. With us.” He paused and added, “If they don’t sell, then Gauguin can take whichever copy he pleases to shut him up.”
I climbed out of bed and fetched my clothes. “I don’t understand you, Vincent. Why would you let that man have anything of yours?”
“I’m not as naïve as you think,
chérie
, nor as Gauguin thinks. If he has one of my sunflower canvases, then other painters will see it in his studio. With my name on it.” I was about to ask who cared about that, when he continued, “More than one painter has accused Gauguin of lifting ideas. Not saying he’d try with my sunflowers, but…”
“But why not make sure?” He smiled a smile that said he knew exactly what he was doing.
By the time I ventured to the bakery and prepared our breakfast, Vincent’s sunflower painting was well underway. He’d already traced the outline of the original painting on the new canvas and was starting to add the colors. “It’s yellower than the first one,” I observed when I handed him a cup of coffee and
une tartine
, bread slathered with butter and jam.
“Different paints,” he said. “But I’m feeling the high yellow note especially well this morning, and that’s part of it too.” He gave me a naughty wink.
I winked back, then cleared a chair of drawings and started my own breakfast. “Vincent,” I said, trying to sound casual, “I’ve been thinking. Maybe it’s time to tell Theo about me. About us.”
He raised his eyebrows over his coffee cup. “What brought that on?”
“Well…since Theo is engaged and so happy, perhaps he’ll understand now. You could write him, and so could I, like Johanna wrote you. Then he’d see that I’m not like—”
“Sien.” Vincent sat his coffee and half-eaten
tartine
on the table among paint tubes and charcoal sticks and walked back to the easel. “There isn’t just Theo, you know,” he said, picking up his palette and avoiding my eyes. “There’s my mother, my sisters…”
“Imagine how much better life could be for you—for both of us. You wouldn’t be alone anymore. We could have a real home. And if you get sick again—”
“I won’t get sick again.”
“But if you do, I could take care of you. Don’t you see? I love you, and we could be so happy. And I”—my voice wavered—“I could give you children. We could have a family, a real family.”
He gazed at the sunflowers, brush poised in his hand. “I’ve caused Theo so much trouble already…now he has to plan for a wife…he’d see it as an added burden, thinking he has to take care of us. He’d be angry that I’ve kept you a secret.” He shook his head and declared, “It’s not the time.”
“Theo wouldn’t have to take care of us,” I protested. “I have money saved, and once my name is off the police register, I can get another job, maybe as a laundress—”
“No. That kind of labor would kill you.”
“Then something else, in a shop or café—”
He shook his head again. “I don’t want you supporting me. I want to be able to take care of you, like a man should.”
“Only until your work starts selling. We could manage without troubling Theo.”
“Then why tell him at all? Why is it so important to you?”
I took a deep breath. “Don’t you love me? Don’t you want us to be together?”
“Of course I do.” He lay down his brushes and palette to take my hands in his. Yellow stained my fingers. “But right now we have to wait. I can’t risk losing—”
“—Theo’s money?” I snapped.
“You. I can’t risk losing
you
.” My face flushed, and I stared at the floor. “I know it’s a lot to ask, but we must both be patient a while longer.”
“Patience again,” I sighed. “I suppose you’ll tell me about the wheatfields next.”
“I was going to tell you that winter will be over soon, and spring will come before we know it.” He bent his head to kiss me, and I slid my arms around his neck. He’s such a child, I thought, believing a kiss would distract me and make it all better. “Just a while longer,” he murmured in my ear. “Please trust me.”
A sound of laughter pulled my attention to the window. A trio of young boys stood on the sidewalk outside, poking each other and making loud kissing noises. Vincent spun to face them, and the boys grabbed their ears, their cries of
“fou rou, fou rou”
penetrating the glass. Crazy redhead. Crazy redhead.
I tore myself from Vincent’s arms and ran into the kitchen to snatch up the broom. Throwing open the front door, I shouted, “Get out of here! And if you come back, I’ll beat you until you’re black and blue!” The boys’ jaws dropped, and they scurried away.
Vincent was laughing fit to burst when I came back into the studio. “I think you scared them. You scared me!”
“You remember that!” I teased and waved the broom at him.
He fell serious again. “One day soon, Rachel. I promise.”
“I think you’re afraid to be happy, Vincent,” I said, serious again too. “And I don’t know why.”