The Last Van Gogh (5 page)

“You will like painting in our garden,” I told him softly. He lowered his eyes when I spoke. I could not believe that this person who had appeared so bold and confident when he handed me the folded red poppy was actually quite shy. Just like the day before, I found myself feeling more at ease knowing that he, too, had bouts of awkwardness.

“Please, come this way.” I made a small gesture with my hand. He collected his things and followed me through the long corridor. We passed the parlor and then the kitchen, where it was clear I had been busy baking.

He took in a deep breath. “There is nothing more comforting than the smell of baking bread,” he said softly to me. “Except, perhaps, the odor of turpentine.”

I found him charming, and let out a small laugh. “Bread and paint thinner are an artist’s milk and honey,” I said as I opened the back door that led to our lawn. We stepped outside and discovered Father busy feeding the peacocks and the goat.

“Papa, Monsieur Van Gogh is here!”

Father turned and looked up. He was wearing his blue smock, and the tufts of red hair around his ears appeared almost orange against it.

“Ahh…Vincent! I’m so glad you could come this afternoon.” He came over to Vincent and extended his hand. “I see you’re taking my advice and are ready to paint today.”

As I saw the two of them standing there in profile, I again could not help but notice their physical resemblance. Father’s hair, too, was closely cropped, the pale red color achieved through a shampoo of crushed henna leaves. They both had the look of an ascetic, with their sharp cheekbones and close-set eyes.

But whereas Papa could barely contain his energy, Vincent seemed to be keeping his in close reserve. I suspected he saved all his strength for his painting. He stood perfectly still, while Father gestured feverishly to the various parts of our garden, like a maniacal conductor without his baton.

There is truth in the saying that the less one says, the more mysterious he becomes. And so was the case with Vincent. I watched transfixed as he stood in Papa’s shadow, his brushes and wooden stretchers extending from the open corner of his rucksack. He didn’t move or utter a word as Father chattered on. In contrast, he remained almost frozen. Like a garden statue set against our flowers and trees.

I imagined that as Father rambled on, Vincent was no longer listening, but was busy deciding where he would place his easel, at what angle he would adjust the level, and what colors he would use to paint. He seemed far more interested in painting than talking; that was perfectly clear. I could not help but feel embarrassed that Papa’s egotistic nature prevented him from seeing that.

“I will leave the two of you,” I said as my father took a breath between sentences. “I’m sure Monsieur Van Gogh is anxious to paint.”

“Yes, I’m sure he is!” Father nodded to Vincent. “But I’m sure he would like some tea before he begins. How about picking some lime leaves, Marguerite? Certainly Monsieur Van Gogh will appreciate the fragrance.”

I acknowledged my father’s request and began to walk toward the house.

“Actually, if you don’t mind, Doctor…” I could hear the faint whisper of Vincent’s voice behind me. I slowed down my steps so I could hear more clearly.

“I’d prefer not to have any tea now but to get to work at once, if that’s all right with you. I got up early and painted behind the Château Léry, but the light has changed and I think my paintings here this afternoon will be all the better for it.”

“You’re absolutely right, Vincent!” Father said, clasping his hands. “I think you’ll find the light in our garden to be perfect!”

I collected the lime leaves anyway, as I knew that Father would ask Vincent to stay for tea after he finished his painting for the day. Also, collecting the leaves allowed me another chance to watch him from afar.

From behind the trees, I studied Vincent intently, just as I had the day he arrived in Auvers. He walked around for several minutes before settling on an area with a patch of yucca plants and blooming geraniums. I thought it a wise choice, for from that corner, one could see over the garden wall and view the entire panorama of the village: the tops of the thatched cottages, the tile chimneys, and the blue ribbon of the horizon.

Even at four o’clock, he did not take tea with Father. This surely must have upset Papa, but Vincent was so engrossed in his painting that he seemed to have little time or patience to stop for idle conversation. He painted vigorously, as if he were in a mad race against the setting sun. From the rear window of our house, I caught him looking up at the sky on more than one occasion. With a gaze of competitiveness, he seemed to be challenging the daylight to a race, striving to capture one more image before the sun began to descend.

By five o’clock, he had painted the twisting branches of the apple trees, the spiny blades of the yucca, and our narrow terrace, which he had painted replete with marigold bushes and aloe plants.

Father offered to store the canvas upstairs so that the thick paint might have a chance to dry. Vincent declined.

“Might you join us for dinner and afterward a little music played by my children?” Father asked.

“I am afraid I am too weary this evening, Doctor,” Vincent answered quietly. “But perhaps another time.”

“You must come for lunch, then,” Papa insisted, “when you have your energy about you. Perhaps later this week?”

Vincent smiled and lifted his head. He appeared almost celestial, as if his skin were merely a veil and his eyes and flesh could barely contain the enormity of his spirit.

“It would be my pleasure to join you and your family for lunch,” he answered politely. And as he finished his sentence, he looked up at me and I was sure that I noticed a certain flirtation in his eye.

FIVE

Paul van Ryssel

T
HAT
Saturday, two days after Vincent painted his first canvas in our garden, Papa took the train to Paris to meet with Vincent’s brother, Theo. I had not known of his plans until Paul mentioned it in passing.

“They’re going to discuss Vincent’s cure,” Paul said, as he leaned against the wall. I was rolling out a sheet of pie dough and tried to hide my curiosity.

Paul had arrived home that afternoon from his studies in Paris. It had been his first year away from our home and his semester had nearly come to an end. He would be returning home full time in only a matter of weeks.

“Well, I’m certainly glad Papa didn’t invite Vincent to live with us this summer,” Paul muttered as he fumbled in his pocket and retrieved his small pipe. “He’s quite a curious little man. But I wouldn’t want to share the same roof with him.”

I looked up and smiled at him and said nothing. In truth, I thought my brother’s comment a bit ironic. At that point in our lives, Paul was not full of bitterness toward me. In fact, he was a rather benign young man in his youth, albeit a bit odd. Much to my chagrin, his first year at school had only accentuated his oddness, not curbed it as I had hoped it would. I suspected he was having quite a hard time adjusting to life in the city after such a sheltered existence in Auvers.

I tried to change the subject between us. “You shouldn’t smoke here while I’m cooking,” I chided. “My pie is going to taste like tobacco!”

Paul ignored me, and lit his pipe anyway.

“Have you seen him yet, Marguerite?”

“I was here the day before last, when he painted in our garden,” I said, trying to sound disinterested.

Paul, however, was making no attempt to conceal his curiosity about Vincent’s arrival. “Just today, when I arrived from the station, I saw him painting in the field behind the church. He was dressed like a beggar, and had paint all over his face.”

I scooped up some flour from my ceramic bowl and spread it on the countertop. “He seems perfectly nice to me. Perhaps a bit eccentric, but that just makes him more interesting than the others….”

“Eccentric?” Paul laughed, shaking his head. “Madame Chevalier told me that Papa said he cut off his ear in Arles!”

I suddenly felt the color drain from my face.

“I don’t believe you, Paul. You shouldn’t make up such terrible things.”

“It’s true! Next time you see him, take a good look at his left ear. He cut off the bottom part!”

I shook the flour off my palms and wiped my hands on the front of my apron.

“We shouldn’t be gossiping, Paul. He’s a patient of Papa’s.” I tried hard not to seem affected by what my brother had just said, but, inside, I felt my stomach turning. I reached for a glass of water. The stove was making the room unbearably hot and it was difficult to breathe.

“Whether Vincent is ill or not, he’s immensely talented. I saw the painting he began of our garden. The colors were so vibrant, and the paint was applied so thickly that it seemed almost sculptural.” I paused for a second, remembering how I’d been impressed by the canvas. “Truthfully, Paul, I think he’s better than Papa’s friends Pissarro and Cézanne put together.”

My brother’s face suddenly changed. He was capable of instantly becoming morose, as he had inherited our father’s mood swings. “You really think he’s that talented, Marguerite?”

“Yes, I do.”

Paul began to sulk, chewing on the side of his mouth while pulling on the chain of his pocket watch. “You always seem to be around when there’s excitement in the house,” he grumbled, still playing with the watch.

“Paul, that’s because I’m always here. Consider yourself lucky you’re not in the kitchen half the day!” I said. To emphasize, I smacked him on his thigh with my dishrag.

I managed to get a small smile out of him, but it quickly vanished. I knew this year had been a difficult adjustment for Paul. Over the past several months, while doing my dusting, I had glanced at some of his letters, which were often left opened on Papa’s desk. He complained that his classmates had not been kind to him, that he often felt like a lost ship among those steadier and sturdier than he.

My heart actually ached for my little brother when I read these letters. He was almost seventeen years of age now but his upbringing had been quite unconventional. I could see how he might be a target for certain secondary-school bullies.

The fact that, over the winter, he had decided to grow a small goatee like Father’s probably didn’t help things. The narrow tuft of beard only accentuated his sharp angular face. Tall and thin, he appeared almost sickly. Like a fragile duck, with a long neck of blue veins. I could almost hear the taunts echoing in my head.

Recently, when Paul returned home for the weekend, he began to show less and less interest in adapting to the lifestyle of his peers. Perhaps in a reaction to their rejection of him, he began to cultivate an attitude of eccentricity just like Papa’s. At first, it began quite benignly. He would withdraw after his Saturday dinner to his room, where he proceeded to dabble with some borrowed paints of Papa’s. Then he started to imitate our father’s style in other ways. He would wear similar smocklike jackets and brightly colored cravats.

He began to mimic Papa’s way of walking, the way he held one hand under his breast pocket, the other dangling awkwardly with a pencil clutched between his fingers. He memorized Papa’s gestures and expressions, even the odd way he tied his tie.

But whereas Father’s quirks were the eccentricities of an aging doctor, they seemed particularly worrisome in a boy of school age.

At dinner one Sunday, Paul announced that someday he would be a famous painter. I knew he was trying to impress Father with the idea that his only son would fulfill the dream he had been too bourgeois to devote himself to.

Papa looked up from his lamb chop, holding his fork steady on the bit of meat, and smiled. “There will always be space on the walls here for your paintings.”

It was a far kinder response than I had expected, though Papa said little else to encourage him.

Still, Paul threw himself into his newfound ambition. He would return on weekends not with textbooks, but with a stack of sketch pads and a tin full of pastels. He set up an easel in the corner of his room and spent several hours a day drawing or painting with his window wide open.

He took the name Paul van Ryssel as his “painter’s name,” as Father had painted under the name Louis van Ryssel since he was a little boy. He copied paintings out of Father’s books, trying to imitate Cézanne. Even I could not help but admire his determination, though I did wonder how well he was devoting himself to his other studies.

That afternoon, as I rolled pie dough in our hot, crowded kitchen, he chirped confidently: “I doubt anyone will ever hear of this Vincent van Gogh in years to come, but they will surely have heard of me!”

“Paul, I hope the world hears of both of you,” I replied sweetly. I wanted to share his confidence, but I had seen his sketches and paintings. They were awkward and revealed little talent.

I looked over at my brother. His eyes were cast downward, his fingers were still nimbly fiddling with his watch. I could not help but remember him when he was just a little boy of seven, playing with me in the garden. He wanted to be special even then, begging me to weave him a crown of laurel leaves so that he could be the ruler of the forest. So that he, in our tiny little realm, could be king.

SIX

Gachet’s Secret Water

T
HERE
was little doubt in my mind that Father must have seemed odd to the villagers of Auvers. Every Sunday, he walked through the streets with our pet goat—whom he had affectionately named Henrietta—on a leash. “She’s the town’s lawn mower,” he would tell those who looked at him puzzlingly as the goat grazed on the long grasses that grew alongside the road.

Father stood out against the rustic farmhouses like a fauvist painting among a sea of Brueghels. He would wear one of his white button-down smocks and festive cravats tied in a voluminous bow and carry a green parasol even when it was cloudy. He was surprisingly amicable to anyone who approached him during the course of his promenade, though he would never engage and socialize with them beyond that or invite them into our house. On more than one occasion, people asked him for medical advice on how to cure their aches and pains. “Take my elixir,” he would tell them and hand over a bottle from one of his pockets. He never asked for money, as it was his great pleasure that he could give them (or so he thought, anyway) the secret to long life in a small glass bottle with a handwritten label. Though they never seemed to come back for more.