Sacre Bleu (43 page)

“Perfect,” said Bleu. She padded over to the couch, reached between the cushions, and pulled out the Colorman’s revolver. To Juliette she said, “Scream.”

Juliette screamed, a pathetic little toot of a scream.

“What are you, a baby chicken?” said Bleu. “Louder and longer!”

Juliette screamed, much louder and longer this time.

“What are you doing?” asked the Colorman.

“Cleaning up,” said Bleu. She pointed the revolver at him and fired. The bullet hit him high in the chest and knocked him back. She cocked the revolver and fired again.

“Ouch,” he said. Blood fountained from a hole in his sternum.

“Keep screaming,” she said to Juliette. She cocked and fired again, three more times, until the Colorman lay motionless on the oilcloth, his blood pooling around him in the ultramarine powder. She cocked the revolver, pointed it at his head, and pulled the trigger. The gun just clicked.

“Hmmm. Only five shots. Okay, stop screaming and open the door.”

Juliette pulled open the door to reveal the concierge, a large, severe woman, who peered into the room, her eyes wide with horror.

And Bleu jumped bodies into Juliette. The island girl dropped the gun and began to scream hideously.

“I came in from the other room and he was attacking her,” said Bleu as Juliette. “The poor thing had to save herself, I don’t know what horrible thing he was doing to her. I’ll go get a policeman.”

Juliette whisked by the concierge, down the stairs, and out into the Paris morning.

All varieties of picture, when they are really art, fulfill their purpose and feed the spirit.
—W
ASSILY
K
ANDINSKY
,
C
ONCERNING THE
S
PIRITUAL IN
A
RT

He made painting his only muse, his only mistress, his sole and sufficient passion. . . . He looked upon woman as an object of art, delightful and made to excite the mind, but an unruly and disturbing object if we allow her to cross the threshold of our hearths, devouring greedily our time and strength.
—C
HARLES
B
AUDELAIRE, ON THE DEATH OF
D
ELACROIX

T
HE SIGN ON THE DOOR OF THE
B
OUSSOD ET
V
ALADON
G
ALLERY READ “CLOSED DUE TO DEATH.”
The three painters stood by the front window, looking in on the small array of paintings displayed in the window, among them one by Gauguin of some Breton women in stiff, white bonnets and blue dresses, threshing grain, and an older still life that Lucien had painted of a basket full of bread. One of Pissarro’s landscapes of Auvers’ wheat fields stood between the two.

“I would paint more farms,” said Toulouse-Lautrec, “but they always put them so far from the bar.”

“That bread still life will never sell,” said Lucien. “That painting is shit. My best work is gone. Gone…”

“How will I survive now?” said Gauguin. “Theo was the only one selling my paintings.”

Hearing Gauguin’s selfish lament, Lucien suddenly felt ashamed. Theo van Gogh had been a young man, just thirty-three. He had been a friend and supporter to them all, his young wife with a baby boy not even a year old would be distraught, yet the painters whined like kittens pulled from their mother’s teats, blind to anything but their own cold discomfort.

“Perhaps we should call on Madame van Gogh at home,” said Lucien. “Pay our respects. I can fetch a basket of bread and pastries from the bakery.”

“But is it too soon?” said Gauguin, realizing, like Lucien, that Theo van Gogh’s death was not a tragedy crafted for his personal misfortune. “Let a day or two pass. If I could prevail upon one of you for a small loan to tide me over.”

“You came here to ask Madame van Gogh for money?” asked Lucien.

“No, of course not. I had heard of Theo’s death in Père Tanguy’s shop only minutes before I saw you at Le Rat Mort, I was simply—” Gauguin hung his head. “Yes.”

Lucien patted the older painter’s shoulder. “I can spare a few
francs
to get you through until a proper amount of time has passed, then you can go see Madame van Gogh. Perhaps they will find a new dealer to run the gallery.”

“No,” declared Henri, who had been looking through the door into the gallery. He turned to face them, cocked his thumb over his shoulder, and looked over the top of his dark
pince-nez.
“We go see the widow now.”

Lucien raised an eyebrow at his friend. “I can also lend you a few
francs
until your allowance arrives.” Then Lucien followed the aim of Henri’s thumb to the red frame of the door. There, at exactly Henri’s eye level, was a single, distinct thumbprint in ultramarine blue—long, narrow, delicate—the thumbprint of a woman.

J
OHANNA VAN
G
OGH ANSWERED THE APARTMENT DOOR WITH A BABY ON HER
hip and a look of stunned horror on her face. “No! No! No!” she said. “No! No! No!”

“Madame van Gogh—” said Lucien, but that was all he got out before she slammed the door.

Toulouse-Lautrec nudged Gauguin. “This may not be the opportune time to ask for money.”

“I wasn’t going to—” began Gauguin.

“Why are you here?” Madame van Gogh said through the door.

“It is Lucien Lessard,” said Lucien. “My deepest sympathy for your loss. Theo was a friend. He showed my paintings at the gallery. Messieurs Gauguin and Toulouse-Lautrec here are also painters who show at the gallery. We were all at Vincent’s funeral. Perhaps you remember?”

“The little man,” said Johanna. “He must go away. Theo told me I must never let the little man near Vincent’s paintings. Those were his last words: ‘beware of the little man.’”

“That was an entirely different little man,” said Lucien.

“Madame, I am not little,” said Henri. “In fact, there are parts of me—”

Lucien clamped his hand over Henri’s mouth, knocking his
pince-nez
askew in the process. “This is Henri Toulouse-Lautrec, Madame van Gogh, a good friend to Vincent and Theo. Surely Theo mentioned him.”

“Yes,” said Johanna, the hint of a sob in her answer. “But that was before—”

“He
is
very small,” said Gauguin, looking a bit tortured now at the grief in the widow’s voice. “Forgive us, Madame, it is too soon. We will pay our respects another time.” Gauguin turned and began to walk down the hall toward the stairs.

Henri twisted out of Lucien’s grip, losing his hat in the process. “My deepest condolences,” he said, glaring at Lucien and straightening his lapels as he did. “I assure you, I am not the person to whom your husband was referring. Go with God, Madame.” He turned and followed Gauguin.

Lucien could hear Madame van Gogh whispering to the baby on the other side of the door.

“We will call again,” said Lucien. “Very sorry, Madame.” He started to walk away but paused when he heard the door unlatch.

“Monsieur Lessard. Wait.”

The door opened a crack and Madame van Gogh held out a small, cardboard envelope, big enough to hold a ring or perhaps a key. “A girl came here, very early this morning. She left this for you.”

Lucien took the envelope, feeling a completely unjustified euphoria rush through him as he did. Juliette? Why? How?

“A girl?” he said.

“A young Tahitian girl,” said Madame van Gogh. “I have never seen her before.”

“But why?”

“I don’t know, Monsieur Lessard, the doctor was here, my husband was dying. I couldn’t even remember who you were at the time. Now please, take it and go.”

“Madame, one thing. Did the doctor say the nature of his sickness?”

“He called it dementia paralytica,” said Madame van Gogh, and she quietly pushed the door shut.

“
Merci,
Madame.”

Lucien tore the top off the envelope and dumped it into his open hand: a tin tube of paint, almost completely used, and a small, folded note. He felt a hand on his shoulder and looked around to see Gauguin, holding out his hand.

“I think that is mine,” said Gauguin.

“In a monkey’s red ass, it is,” said Lucien.

It was then, with great force and no little glee, that Henri Toulouse-Lautrec swung the weighted pommel of his walking stick into Gauguin’s shin.

“
En garde!
” said the count.

It was some time before Gauguin was able to join his fellow artists outside on the sidewalk.

“I
THINK YOU CHIPPED A BONE,” SAID
G
AUGUIN.
T
HEY MADE THEIR WAY DOWN
rue Caulaincourt toward Toulouse-Lautrec’s studio, two of the three limping, one emphatically.

Henri said, “You know, for a man of forty-three, you are surprisingly good at hopping downstairs on one foot.”

“You will pay for that, Lautrec,” said Gauguin. To Lucien, he said, “That envelope is mine.”

Lucien held up the envelope to show the writing on the side. “Despite my name on it and Madame van Gogh saying that the girl left it for me, it is yours?”

“Yes. I know the girl who delivered it.”

“You know her? A random Tahitian girl? You know her?”