The Last Van Gogh (21 page)

“You’re not wearing lavender,” he said when I opened the door for him. He clutched his soft hat to his chest and winked at me.

“Papa told me to wear white.” I blushed. The gown was a stiff white taffeta, with a pink ribbon sash that cinched at the waist.

“Never mind. It is a fine choice.”

I took a few steps and motioned for him to come into the parlor. “The piano is here, as you know. Do you still wish to paint me at the piano?”

Papa came into the room.

“Ahh! You’re here right on time!” he said, clutching his pocket watch. “I’m afraid my daughter’s stomach has been in knots all morning!”

“There is no need for her to be nervous….” His voice was soft now as he glanced around the room. It was obvious he was surveying the light to see where it would be best to assemble the large easel he had under his arm. “She is a natural at this.”

“Well, I don’t know about that,” Papa chuckled. “Perhaps a natural gardener or pianist, like her late mother. But her brother Paul seems more inclined to the artist’s world.”

Vincent didn’t respond to Papa. He squinted at the window. “I want the light to come in from an angle.” His voice was exuberant, almost ecstatic, as if he were now in the mind of his painting. “We’ll need to pull out the piano and rearrange some of the furniture. I want to paint the mademoiselle from her right side.”

“Oh, yes,” Papa said agreeably. “Whatever you want, Vincent. I’ll ask Paul to come down so we can turn around the piano for you. Just tell us where to put it.”

Papa withdrew from the parlor and called for Paul to come downstairs. Within a few seconds, Paul was in the living room with us, dragging the piano so that it stood perpendicular to the wall.

“Ah, that’s perfect now,” Vincent said, obviously pleased. He was pacing around the room, kneading his fingers before him. “Now, Marguerite, if you could just sit down and place your fingers on the keys, I’ll do the rest.”

I walked quietly past my father and brother, their eyes watching me as closely as Vincent’s, and sat down at the piano.

From that moment on, I heard very little. Vincent began to assemble his large easel. He placed a long, narrow canvas on its wooden lip and opened up his paint box.

Both Paul and Father watched transfixed as Vincent squeezed out his paints onto his palette board. Their eyes did not waver as he blended the pigments with the back of his palette knife.

I remained sitting at the keyboard, my eyes glancing outward only occasionally in order to observe everyone in the room.

Vincent, however, did not look up at me those first few minutes he spent organizing his paints and brushes. Only after he had set at least six colors on the wooden board did he begin to tilt his head and study me more closely.

“Lift your chin a little, mademoiselle…yes, now rest your fingers on the keys,” he instructed. I obliged. I swiveled to face the piano and delicately placed my hands on the ivory keys.

Louise-Josephine had suggested that I wear my hair in a chignon that afternoon. As I bowed my head slightly to pretend I was reading the sheet music in front of me, I could feel some of the pins unpopping, a few tendrils slowly unfurling behind my ears.

T
HE
sound of his brush moving across his canvas sent shivers up my spine. I could smell the intense odor of the turpentine and heard him opening and closing the bottle of linseed oil. Although my eyes were firmly placed on the keys, I could not help but imagine him as I had seen him painting that night at the church. Hunched over his canvas, his eyes darting over his subject, the indistinguishable extension between his brush and his hand.

I wondered exactly how he was painting me, and whether this time he would delineate my features: the sharp triangle of my nostrils, the low ebbing of my eyelashes, the thin ripple of my tightly pursed mouth.

My skin felt both hot and damp underneath the crisp white taffeta. My legs were sealed together like two wet leaves. As he painted me, I imagined he was kissing me just as he had that evening in front of the church, all his fingers and eyes wrapping around me like large loops of ivy.

F
OR
the several hours that I remained in pose, I became hypnotized by the sounds of wet pigment being applied to the canvas. The dragging of his horsetail brushes, the rake of his palette knife, and the brief sweeping of a dried reed.

I didn’t hear a peep from Father or Paul. Both of them were so mesmerized by watching him work that they didn’t dare disturb him.

As the third hour passed, my neck began to ache and my back felt so sore I thought I might fall from the stool. Then, just as I was about to ask if it might be possible to stop for a few minutes, Vincent announced that he was nearly finished.

“We can take a break now, Marguerite,” he said. “Why don’t you stand up and stretch your legs?”

I could barely feel my calves as I stood up. My legs were so tired that I feared they might buckle from the shock of my weight. But as I gathered my skirt and lifted myself up, I felt the tension in my back and shoulders finally release.

“Your daughter’s a natural,” Vincent told Papa. “She’s gone three hours without a break. I have painted other women before, but your daughter is different. Even her silence inspires me. It is like there is music under her skin. I hear it as strong as church bells.”

Papa tried to smile back at Vincent but it was obvious he was deeply troubled.

“My Marguerite has always been a natural at the piano,” Papa said diplomatically, clearly ignoring what Vincent was really saying. “Is the painting almost finished?”

Vincent nodded and put down his brush. “I can finish the rest at home.”

I smiled and walked over to the canvas. Papa was commenting to Paul that he found it remarkable how quickly Vincent painted. Paul was nodding his head, staring at Vincent intently. He had not taken his eyes off of Vincent for the entire sitting.

It was a beautiful portrait of me, and I made no attempt to mask my great pleasure.

“It’s wonderful,” I said, touching one of my hands to my breast.

He had painted me in swirls of pink and white. My blonde hair piled high above my head, a delicate and flattering profile of me as I concentrated on the keys. He had painted the wall behind me in a mossy green with vibrant orange spots. The contrasting carpet in ox-blood red with verdant strokes resembled thick blades of grass. The rich wood of the piano was painted in a dark violet. The long, saturated strokes, glossy like candy.

And he had made me look beautiful—the swirls of pink and red mingling with the white of my dress made me appear as if I were glowing brightly, lit from within.

THIRTY-TWO

The Final Touches

H
E
came back the following day to make a few adjustments to the painting. Paul was home that afternoon and fetched me in the garden.

“He’s here,” he said tersely. “He asked if you’d sit by the piano one more time so he can make some final touches to the canvas.”

I moved my hands over my hair and smoothed out my bun.

“He’s waiting, Marguerite…I left him alone in the vestibule.” There was a tinge of impatience in Paul’s voice. “I’ll go upstairs and tell Papa he’s here.”

Our father had been in the attic all day tinkering with his print-making machine.

“Yes,” I said. “I’ll go at once.”

I went into the house to find him. I was surprised my brother had left Vincent in the hallway and not shown him into the parlor. It was very poor manners on his part.

I found Vincent standing in the corridor looking at the stained glass-window. His straw hat was by his feet, next to the canvas of me at the piano.

“Good morning,” I greeted him warmly. “I’m sorry my brother didn’t show you in. He should have offered you a cold drink, at least!”

Vincent smiled. “Don’t worry. I haven’t come for your brother’s hospitality. I just need to make a few adjustments before I can consider your portrait finished.”

“Of course,” I said, somewhat surprised by the businesslike nature of his tone.

“Also,” he said as he stepped closer, “I couldn’t wait to see you again.”

I smiled and my cheeks began to warm.

“I, too, am happy to see you again.”

But I could not help but feel nervous. I knew we were not alone. “Papa is finishing up in his studio; he’ll be down any minute,” I said. I felt the need to warn him that we needed to be careful.

“In that case, I must tell you now just how much I enjoyed receiving your gift.”

Again, I blushed. He reached out and touched the back of my head. “So no one knows about the missing tresses but me?”

“No,” I whispered. His hand dropped from the nape of my neck to my cheek. I felt his cupped hand against my jawline and the pressure felt strong, the calluses strangely comforting.

“When will you meet me again?”

There was a greediness to his voice, an impatience that I now understood to be that of hunger and desire. It was no longer something foreign to me. It was in my voice too.

“I promise I will….”

“There’s a cave not far behind the Château Léry…come tomorrow night.”

I nodded, but it was not a confident nod. I was distracted by some noise I heard upstairs. Papa’s footsteps were easily recognizable and I stiffened.

“Come, Monsieur Van Gogh, let’s set your easel up in the parlor.” I spoke loudly so Papa would hear me. This was a signal to Vincent that our privacy was threatening to be compromised.

In this case, Vincent’s ability to abandon his intimate charms so easily when work was suggested worked in my favor. Perhaps his eagerness to get back to painting was greater than his inclination for romance, for the mere suggestion of setting up his easel energized him instantly.

Within seconds, his hands had abandoned the soft flesh of my cheeks for his sturdier companion, his easel.

He brought with him his lighter one, the one he was able to strap onto his back. And with the efficiency of a soldier, he picked up my portrait and slid his hand through the handle of his paint box, bringing all his equipment inside.

“We’ll need to move the piano again,” I said. “I’m sorry, Papa moved it back last night.”

“Not to worry.” Vincent walked across the room and began to move the piano so it was situated at the same angle it had been the day before.

He was just about to retrieve his paint box when Papa walked into the room.

“Good afternoon, Vincent!” Father had on a bright green smock and his hair, having been recently rinsed with his special henna shampoo, seemed even brighter against it. “How good of you to stop by!” Papa went over and shook Vincent’s hand.

“I hope you don’t mind, Doctor, I thought the painting needed a little tweaking. I wrote to Theo about it last night and I want it to be perfect.”

“Yes, of course. Don’t worry at all, my son.”

“I just need to arrange my palette and then I’ll get started. Marguerite has been kind enough to oblige me.”

Papa gave him a weak smile. “Yes, she is a good girl, our Marguerite.”

Out of the corner of my eye, I could see Vincent rummaging through his box. Suddenly, his face seemed worried.

“Is there anything the matter, Vincent?” Papa, too, sensed Vincent’s agitation.

“I think I’ve forgotten my palette. I’ll have to go home and fetch it! How could I have done that?”

Unable to believe he had left behind one of his essential instruments, Vincent began throwing all the contents out of his rucksack. Out tumbled his spare brushes, the dirty rags, and extra palette knives. Within seconds, the room was a mess.

“How could I have forgotten it?” His voice was beginning to escalate and Papa went over to him and tried to calm him down.

“It’s all right, Vincent.” He put his arm over his back and I could see the skin peeking from Vincent’s collar was aflame. “I’ll lend you one of mine. I have a spare palette upstairs.”

Vincent put his hand to his eyes. “I am sorry to have this outburst. I’m just furious at myself.”

I shook my head. To me Vincent’s agitation was a sign of his perfectionism, the passion he held for his work. All I wanted to do was soothe him.

“It’s not a problem. Papa says he has a spare.”

“Yes, absolutely, Vincent. I’ll run upstairs and get it! Don’t worry. I’ll relish telling everyone that you used my palette to paint my daughter’s portrait!”

Papa rushed out of the room and bounded up the stairs. Minutes later, he was in the parlor again, with a palette in hand.

After that, Papa did not leave us alone. He watched as intently as he had the day before. I knew he was anxious to see if Vincent would sign the painting after he was finished. He had heard from Monsieur Ravoux that Vincent had signed the portrait he had done of his daughter, Adeline. I knew this irritated Papa. Being the collector that he was, Papa knew that the artist’s signature would only increase the value of Ravoux’s painting, if Vincent became famous one day.

Vincent, however, seemed to take little notice of Papa’s presence. From the moment he began to set up his easel, nothing else seemed to matter. His bad mood about having forgotten his palette seemed to have vanished, and his eyes now focused on the painting in front of him.

“If you would be kind enough to sit by the piano, mademoiselle,” Vincent asked me, signaling that he was ready to begin. He was now back to his old self and the shadow of his outburst seemed to be fading, forgotten by all of us.

I did as I was told. I sat down on the stool and tried to focus on something unremarkable, like the vase of peonies in the foyer. But it was of little use. I couldn’t help thinking of the novel Louise-Josephine had given me. I closed my eyes and dreamed of the two of us marooned on Mauritius. I imagined jasmine-scented breezes and warm turquoise waters.

This time it was effortless to pretend I was somewhere else. I had to concentrate on suppressing my urge to smile.

He painted for nearly a half hour without uttering another word. Then, just as the silence began to worry me, I heard him ask me to pull away my hem.

“Can you move your skirt a little, Marguerite? I want to be able to paint the tip of your shoe.”