Sunflowers (5 page)

Isn’t this what you wanted?
asked the voice inside my head.
Someone to hold you, someone to make you feel safe?
I hadn’t felt safe since Papa died, not until today.
Someone to listen, someone to understand?
Vincent understood. I’d told him the truth of my life, and he understood.
Close your eyes, Rachel. Close your eyes
.

In my dreams I saw his sunflowers again. I saw us at the table, by the fire, every second of that wonderful day. I woke in the night and touched his peaceful face, reassuring myself he was no dream before burrowing into the warm circle of his embrace.

CHAPTER FIVE

Secrets and Warnings

I do not want to deceive or abandon any woman
.

—Vincent to Theo, The Hague, May 1882

I

was alone when sunlight kissed me awake the next morning. Sunlight and the clackety-clack of the Paris-Lyon-Mediterranée express train steaming across the nearby railway bridge. A sudden clatter from the studio below told me Vincent had risen early to work, but I lay under the blanket a while longer, listening to the hubbub in the Place Lamartine and gazing at the paintings and prints on the walls.

I knew things about him now that I hadn’t known the day before, that he snored when he slept on his left side, that his feet were cold even under warm covers. That he…sang? Yes, that was his voice drifting up the stairs, not totally on key but filled with good intentions. I rose from the bed and leaned in the doorway to listen. It was a Dutch song, so I couldn’t understand much, but he sounded happy.

While I’d been sleeping, he’d brought a porcelain pitcher of water and a basin so I could wash my face. I let my fingers play over the other things on the table—hairbrush, bar of soap, razor—and after I dressed, I used his comb to smooth my hair. Birds trilled in the plane trees outside the window, and between their song and Vincent’s, I couldn’t help but hum as I put away his nightshirt and made the bed.

His eyes lit up when I entered the studio. He was dressed in his painting clothes, and I was pleased to see that the mended trousers looked just fine. “
Bonjour, ma petite
,” he said with a smile that looked as shy as I felt.

“
Bonjour, mon cher
,” I said, stumbling over the “my dear.” “What are you doing?”

“Preparing canvases.” He waved his hand toward a roll of canvas and stack of wooden stretchers. “I was out of stretchers, so I had to take off some of the nearly dry paintings before I could tack new canvas. I’m sorry if my hammering woke you.”

“It didn’t. I needed to get up.” I reached out to rub the canvas between my fingers. “Did you get this here?”

“Oh no, that’s primed linen canvas from Paris. Theo sends it to me, my paints too. Here I can only get cheap paints and jute canvas I have to prime myself. Which will do if I have nothing else, but I don’t prefer it.”

I glanced around the studio at the paintings he’d shuffled. I didn’t notice the smell of turpentine anymore—I was getting used to it. “And you did all these since February?”

He laughed. “Since July. I’ve sent Theo two shipments of paintings already, and I’ll send him more once everything dries.”

He’d painted about two dozen pictures in only two months? “You do work hard,” I said in wonder, which made him laugh again.

“People around here think it’s odd, don’t they, a man painting all day instead of doing what they call real work?” Françoise had said exactly that, Jacqui and some of the other girls thought it, and I knew Vincent could read their opinions in my face. He shrugged as he carried the roll of canvas to his worktable and measured a length. “It was the same back in Holland.
Het schildermenneke
, the farmers called me in Nuenen, ‘the little painter fellow.’ That’s one thing I liked about Paris”—his knife sliced cleanly through the white fabric—“I wasn’t the only painter. The
quartier
where Theo and I lived was full of them. This summer I met a Belgian and an American painter over in Fontvieille, but they’ve both left now.”

“It must be lonely,” I said, “not having any artists to talk to.”

He looked over at me and smiled. “Not so much anymore. I can talk to you.”

Talk to me he did as he kept working, telling me things about each painting I approached, stories about the people he’d met and the places he’d gone. How the waiter at the café in the Place du Forum was rude but tolerated his being there, how the gypsies in the camp outside town were friendly and gave him homemade blackberry wine. “Today,” he said as he tacked the last nails into the last canvas, “I thought I’d do another study of the cedar bush in the public garden.”

“The place where we met? Again?” I teased. “Have you had any breakfast yet?”

He shrugged. “Coffee.”

“You can’t work on an empty stomach.”

“I do it all the time.”

“I’ll make some breakfast,” I said firmly, “and you’re going to eat it.”

“If you insist,” he replied. “It’s been a long time since a woman fussed at me about breakfast!”

It’s been a long time since I’ve had someone to make breakfast for
, I thought as I sliced potatoes to fry, revived the fire in the stove, and started a fresh pot of coffee. I’d made breakfast for Papa every day after Maman had died—sometimes he hadn’t wanted it either, but at my complaints he’d given in, every time.
“À table!”
I called a short time later, only to hear a muffled
“Une minute,”
followed by a Dutch curse as something fell heavily to the studio floor. Two minutes passed. Five. “Breakfast, Vincent,” I called again. “
Viens
, it’s hot!”

He strolled in then, wiping his hands on his trousers before I pointed to the sink. “I could get used to this,” he said. “Hot coffee, hot food…warm bed.” He winked as he reached for the coffeepot, and I passed him a plate with potatoes and toasted bread.

“You’ll work much better now,” I told him, and he nodded, mouth too full to answer. He ate in a hurry, not talking anymore but gazing around the kitchen, into the ashes of the fireplace, out the window at the carriages rattling down the Avenue de Montmajour. After he finished, I stood to get him more potatoes, but he shook his head. I thought he was anxious to go painting, until he looked grave and started drawing on the table with his fork. “Rachel, there’s something I’d like to talk to you about.”

I sat back down, my heart stirring in my chest. “Yes?”

“That night when I asked you about your past, you asked me something too. You asked why I wasn’t married. The truth is, I almost was.” He saw me glance at his left hand, resting on the table where I couldn’t see the scar. “Not her. Someone I met later in The Hague, a prostitute named Sien.”

“A prostitute?” I said numbly. “From a brothel?”

“From the streets.”

His story didn’t spill from him the way mine had from me. It came slowly, phrase after careful phrase, and he kept his eyes lowered to his plate. He met Sien one lonely night in a darkened alley, where she looked for men and money to add to the pittance she earned from doing laundry. She was pregnant, he said, discarded like an old rag by some man who’d promised her a better life, and she already had a little daughter. Vincent wanted to help her, so he paid her to model for his drawings, and soon he invited them to live with him and share his bread. He kept her a secret as long as he could, because he knew what his family would say: that she wasn’t beautiful, wasn’t refined, that she was using him. She could barely read and write; she smoked cigars, drank gin, and cursed like a sailor. A hard life had marked her figure and bearing, smallpox scars her face. She was many steps down the social ladder as far as his family was concerned, no worthy match for a van Gogh.

“Did you love her?” I dared to ask.

“Very much, and I wanted to marry her.”

“Why didn’t you?”

“
He
wouldn’t have let me,” Vincent replied, and I knew he meant his father. “Eventually I told Theo about Sien because I needed his help. He didn’t approve any more than my parents would, but he helped me anyway because he’s a good man and a good brother. Sien gave birth to a healthy baby boy, and although we couldn’t marry, we lived as man and wife—as a family—for well over a year.” He looked up, not at me but into the past, a wistful smile on his face.

Over a year. She’d taken care of him, he’d taken care of her. She cleaned his house and cooked his meals, and they lived together in a real home. She slept beside him in his bed the way I had, like me she fussed at him about breakfast. “What happened?”

He drew on the table with his fork again, and his voice changed. “It didn’t last. When I finally told my parents, my father thought I’d gone mad. Sien and I never had enough money, and she complained that I spent too much on my paintings and drawings. We started fighting more and more. Theo came to visit, and he helped me see that the situation was hopeless, that for the sake of my work and my health I needed to leave. I went to Drenthe to live on the heath, then to Nuenen to live with my parents. I saw Sien and the children once more, when I returned to The Hague to collect some things I left behind.”

“You left her?” I gasped. “Just like that?”

“She didn’t love me anymore, and if Theo had cut me off…” His eyes were liquid. “For months I wondered if I did right, and sometimes I still do. It broke my heart to leave the children. If they’d been mine, no force on earth could have taken me from them, but…”

Of course for a man of his age there had to have been other women—I wasn’t so naïve to believe otherwise—but I hadn’t expected this. He’d created a home with Sien then left her because Theo had said he should.
What would Theo say if he knew about me?
I wondered. Was I any better a match than Sien Hoornik?

Vincent reached across the table to take my hand in his. “Rachel, what happened between me and Sien was a long time ago. I made a lot of mistakes that I wouldn’t make again, mistakes that shame me now, but I felt you had to know. Especially after yesterday. I hope this won’t change things between us, although I’d understand if…” He let the thought fade away.

I could leave without looking back. I could forget him, the sunflowers, the feeling of his arms around me, pretend it never happened. Or I could believe, as I wanted to believe, that I was more to him than just another whore from the brothels, that I wouldn’t end up like Françoise when her man had left her, or like Sien. I stood at a crossroads, two paths winding before me to a distant, misty horizon. In my mind, I knew I had a choice. But in my heart, I knew I didn’t.

We said good-bye at the public garden, Vincent continuing toward the beech tree and cedar bush in his yellow straw hat, me in yesterday’s dress heading to the Rue du Bout d’Arles. “Do you want to see me again?” he asked in a low voice before I walked away, and I assured him that nothing had changed. He looked relieved and kissed me on the forehead.

I figured I’d get a scolding back at the
maison
, but I didn’t expect Françoise to be the one waiting for me. “Where have you been? Madame Virginie’s furious, as well she should be. Staying out all night without a word to anyone.”

Jacqui couldn’t resist joining in. “She’s been with that crazy painter.” At my shocked expression, she added, “Yesterday wasn’t market day,
idiote
. I followed you to the Place Lamartine. His house is just as ugly as he is.”

“Rachel, what were you thinking?” Françoise cried. “Don’t you remember what I—”

“He needed help moving,” I broke in. “I cooked him supper and mended his clothes. To be nice.” Françoise crossed her arms without comment, and I glared at Jacqui. “He’s
not
crazy.”

“Playing house, were you?” Jacqui jeered. “All night long? I can’t imagine why anybody’d want to sleep with that. Unless he has a really big—paintbrush!”

“You’ll never know,” I snapped before turning back to Françoise. “He paid me four francs, and I’m giving half to Madame Virginie like I’m supposed to.”

Jacqui jumped in again. “Four francs! That’s a laugh, I earned
ten
francs last night. Oh, I bet he told you that you were the prettiest girl in Arles and that he was so lonely and sad.” She tried to imitate Vincent’s accent. “Rachel, you inspire me sooo much—”

My face grew hot. “It’s not like that.”

“—and you fell for it. Cooking him supper, for God’s sake!”

“You’re just mad because he didn’t want you!” I exploded. “You think you’re so special, but he wouldn’t give you the time of day!”

Her mouth twisted with anger, and she drew close to loom over me. “
Petite salope
, why would I give a damn what that redheaded loon thinks?”

“Don’t call him that!”

Our shouting summoned the other girls to the landing or down the stairs, and Françoise stepped between us. “Stop it! Madame Virginie is going to catch you both out, and Rachel, you’re in enough trouble as it is.”

“What do I care anyway,” Jacqui said with a shrug and slinked away. “She’ll catch fleas or the clap, then who’ll want her?”

Françoise caught my arm before I could scurry upstairs. “You’re wasting your time. One day he’ll go back where he came from and forget all about you. He’s no different from the rest of them.”

“You’re wrong. He’s kind and gentle and caring.” I tried not to think about Sien as I spoke.
That was different. She was different
.

“He’s still a man.”

Madame Virginie’s voice thundered across the room, shouting my name, and she hurried toward us. “What do you have to say for yourself, missy? Where have you been?”

“With that painter,” Jacqui said smugly from the bar. “All night.”

I bit my lip so hard that I tasted blood, but I kept my temper and reached into my basket. “He paid me, Madame.”

Madame Virginie stared at the coins in her hand. “You were gone the whole night, and all you have to show for it is two francs? It was busy here, you could have made a lot more than that. You work for me, young lady, not him!”

I shoved the other two francs at her. “Then take my share too, and leave me alone!”

No one spoke to Madame Virginie that way. Her face turned purple, and her eerily calm tone made me take a step back. “If I threw you out, where would you go? Your name is on the police register, and until you have enough money to get it taken off, it’s a brothel or the streets for you. And you know what that means.”

I did know. At Leon Batailler’s the girls slept on hard cots in a damp attic, and they didn’t get half their fees, either. Half a franc each time, more like, and they did things for men that Madame Virginie wouldn’t let happen at her house. The other
maisons
weren’t much better. To work the streets like those
filles soumises
drunk on absinthe and wearing too much rouge, whining to passing sailors for a few centimes…it’d be weeks, maybe months, before I wound up in hospital with the clap or the madhouse with syphilis. Or in the cemetery.