“Monsieur Roulin is married and has three children. Vincent—”
“He could take advantage of you, get you to see him for free.” Before I could fire back, she ranted on, “If you fall for him, you won’t want to screw anybody else, and Madame Virginie will sack you. That painter doesn’t have a franc to his name, he can’t take care of you. You could lose your post, lose him, to end up where? On the street?”
“He told me about his painting, and he walked me here. That’s all.”
“I’m not blind, Rachel. And I’m not stupid.”
A flush colored my cheeks. “Why should you care?”
“I don’t want you getting hurt.” The sudden tremble in her voice made me stare. “Years ago, I met this mec. Oh, what a sweet talker he was. I sneaked out, saw him for free, he strung me along for months. Then I got pregnant. When I told him I loved him and wanted to get married, he was gone, poof! The other girls warned me, but did I listen?”
I laid my hand on her arm. “What happened to the baby?”
“What do you think happened?” she said harshly and shook off my touch.
It wasn’t hard to guess. Madame Virginie had told me months before about the old woman who lived out the road to Tarascon, who had herbs filles de maison might want. “It won’t be like that,” I whispered. “I’m not in love with him.”
Tears swam in Françoise’s eyes, thick-skinned, barb-tongued Françoise who always seemed untouched by anyone. “Be careful, Rachel. I only want to save you.”
CHAPTER FOUR
The Yellow House
I want to make it really an artists’ house—not precious, on the contrary nothing precious, but everything from the chairs to the pictures having character.
—Vincent to Theo, Arles, September 1888
B
e careful. Be careful.
Françoise’s words kept me awake that night and haunted me the next day. I couldn’t concentrate on anything, not the mending I needed to do or the book I wanted to read, and when I gave up and went to the market, I wandered aimlessly among the stalls, looking over my shoulder for a yellow straw hat. When the maison opened for the evening, Françoise watched every move I made, and when I broke not one glass but two, cleaning up the bar at closing time, she hissed, “Get your head out of the clouds!”
I did not meet Vincent at the Café de la Gare. After breakfast that day, I went upstairs and sat on my bed, listening to the clock in the hall chime nine and trying not to think about him sitting alone at an empty table. Part of me hoped he would visit the maison that night to learn where I was; another part of me hoped he would stay away. And he did. For over a week there was no sign of him. Joseph Roulin came to see Françoise during that time, and when I passed by their table with a tray of drinks for a customer, he said gruffly, “Vincent waited for you at the café. For two hours.”
I nearly dropped the tray. “I don’t want to talk about it,” I said, ignoring the accusation in his eyes and the curiosity in Françoise’s face.
One sunny afternoon, the kind of day that held the last gasps of summer, my restless thoughts and footsteps led me to the place in the Place Lamartine garden where Vincent and I met. The oleanders were in full bloom, their pink and white petals seductive, but I knew better than to touch them, for inhaling their perfume too deeply could make you faint. Instead I picked a dandelion and blew away the seeds like a schoolgirl, uncertain for what I was wishing.
I stopped walking as I rounded the last corner and let the empty stem drop from my fingers. Vincent was there, standing in front of his easel and painting, a young boy with a basket beside him. I ducked behind a tree before they could see me.
“But the sky’s not green, Monsieur Vincent, why’d you make the sky green?”
I bit back a laugh at the childish voice and listened as Vincent explained his picture. His voice was patient, even affectionate, as if he didn’t mind being bothered and knew the boy well. Finally he said, “Isn’t your Maman waiting for those eggs?”
A sigh loud enough for me to hear. “I want to stay. Maman makes me do chores.”
“I think you should run along, or we’ll both be in trouble with your Maman. Tell her I said hello, won’t you?”
“I will, Monsieur Vincent, salut!” With that the boy scampered off.
I stood a little longer behind the tree, watching Vincent touch his brushes to the canvas, or take off his hat to run his hand through his hair. I could have slipped away, but my shoes seemed stuck to the grass. “Are you going to stay back there all day?” he asked without turning around.
“I’m sorry to eavesdrop,” I said sheepishly and walked toward him. “I didn’t think the boy should see me. Who is he?”
“Camille Roulin, Joseph’s middle child. A kind family, the Roulins, all of them.” He tossed his hat to the ground and gave me the same look Camille’s father had. “You didn’t turn up. I waited for you.”
I avoided his eyes to stare at the dandelions by my feet. “I know. I’m sorry.”
“Where were you? Why didn’t you send word?”
“I—I changed my mind. I can’t pose for you, Vincent. Please don’t ask me again.”
He did not speak for what seemed an eternity. I was afraid to look at him, but when I finally did, his expression had softened. “What happened to you,” he asked, “that you still cannot trust me?”
I did not answer and instead walked closer to the easel to see his painting. It couldn’t have been more different than the picture of the night café. All kinds of yellows and greens lit up the plants of the garden—the weeping beech, cedar bush, pink-flowered oleanders—while patches of sunlight warmed the grass. Over the trees peered Saint-Trophime’s stone tower, the only reminder of the surrounding city, and only I was missing, sleeping under the cedar in my pink dress and waiting for Vincent to find me.
“You’ve painted the place where we met,” I said. “Why?”
A blush turned his face as pink as the oleanders. “Yes…well…it’s a lovely spot. A garden like this makes me think of Boccaccio or even Petrarch. Petrarch lived near here in Avignon…” He babbled on about poetry and troubadours, but I heard, “He’s been thinking about me,” and I felt more guilty than ever.
“Rachel, is something the matter?” He’d stopped talking about the garden. “Are you feeling unwell? Let’s get you out of the sun.” He gave a quick wipe to his paintbrushes with a rag, then led me to the beech tree before I could object. He spread his jacket on the ground so I wouldn’t muss my dress and handed me a glass bottle before sitting opposite. “Water from the pump behind the café. Drink slowly.” The water was warm but tasted fresh.
“Why are you so nice to me?” The question burst from my lips, and Vincent stared with raised eyebrows. “I’ve never had a man be as kind to me as you, except Papa. You used to be a preacher, and yet…?” I fluttered my hand toward the painting, unsure how to explain.
He threw back his head and laughed. “You wonder why I treat a fallen woman like a human being, when good society shuns her.”
My cheeks burned. “I don’t see why that’s funny.”
“It’s not funny, I’m sorry.” His voice shifted, serious yet kind. “I don’t give a damn about good society, Rachel, and it’s not my place to judge you. Oh, it’s easy for the high-and-mighty to say it’s immorality, or laziness, or lust that drives women to prostitution, but I’ve never thought that way. No matter how good or noble a woman may be by nature, if she has no means and is not protected by her family, she is in great danger of being drowned in the pool of prostitution. Such women should be pitied and protected, not condemned.”
“I don’t need you to pity me. I don’t need anybody to—”
He held up his hand. “I don’t mean that in a bad way. I mean, I won’t—I can’t—condemn you or anyone else for the circumstances in which you’ve found yourselves. Besides, you’re not like other filles I’ve known. You’ve picked up the rough language and all the rest, but it’s not who you are
, not really.”
“Who am I?” I asked and clasped the glass bottle tightly.
“One of the few people who treats me like a human being instead of some odd foreigner.” He changed position to sit beside me, so close that his arm touched my shoulder and I could smell the paint on his clothes. “One of the few people here I like spending time with. That I’d like to spend more time with.”
“I like spending time with you too,” I said, and meant it. “I truly am sorry, Vincent, about what I did. I’m sorry if I—”
“It’s nothing,” he interrupted. “I’ve been busy anyway, too busy to be working on a portrait. I’m moving into my new house, and it’s taking up my time and money.”
“Your new…?”
“The yellow house here in Place Lamartine, on the corner next to the grocery shop.” He pointed to the other side of the square. “I’ve been renting it since May, using one room as a studio, but there wasn’t any furniture and it needed repairs I couldn’t afford. My uncle Cent died recently and left Theo an inheritance, so Theo sent me three hundred francs. I’ve bought some furniture, begun fixing it up, and I’m hoping to move in a few days.” He sighed happily. “It’s one thing to roam from place to place as a free-spirited lad of twenty, but a man of thirty-five should have his own house.”
“Is that how old you are?”
“You thought I was older, didn’t you?” He was right: the lines on his face and the creases around his eyes had fooled me. “You’re just une petite yourself.”
“I’m not that young. I’m twenty-one.”
He reached for my hand with another sigh. “I remember twenty-one. I was a different man then. You have years ahead, but one day you’ll wake up and wonder where they went. Don’t let the things you want escape you.”
I resisted the urge to pull my hand away. “Your new house—is it a big house?”
“Not very, but there’s good light, that’s the important thing. Not a bad price, either, fifteen francs a month.” He paused and looked shy. “I was wondering, would you mind helping me settle in? The house could use a woman’s touch. I could show you all my paintings, too.”
Françoise’s voice muttered in my ear: “First he says he’s short of money, then he invites you to his house. That’s how it starts.” All I’d be doing is cleaning and tidying things up, I told the voice. I’d be back for the evening business.
“I think you owe me that,” Vincent added with a teasing glance, and I had to smile. I told him I’d love to help, and he exclaimed, “Splendid! Are you feeling better? Shall I walk you back?”
Now I did pull my hand free, as politely as I could, and I stood to brush grass from my skirt. “I’m fine, thank you, stay and finish your picture.”
“Until next time, then.” He climbed to his feet and gave me a swift kiss, his nose bumping mine.
“À bientôt,” I stammered and made a hasty retreat.
“Rachel?” he called after me. “You didn’t say whether you like my painting.”
I turned at the hedges to call back my answer. “I love it.”
A yellow envelope appeared at the maison a few days later, my name written in a loopy scrawl. Inside was a sketch of Vincent’s house and the single word “Today?” with its bold and insistent question mark. I would not fail him again—this time I would keep my promise. I tucked the note into the bosom of my dress and fetched an apron, a basket, and clean cloths for dusting.
“Where are you going?” asked Jacqui, lounging in the salon with a fashion gazette, the only girl about.
“The market,” I lied over my shoulder as I walked out the door.
I must have passed the house a thousand times since coming to Arles, when I walked up the Avenue de Montmajour to the bathing-house, or when the girls and I dressed respectably to enjoy an afternoon coffee at the Café de l’Alcazar across the street. Madame Virginie had registered me as one of her filles at the gendarmerie, also across the street; I’d had to fill out a long form, answer questions about my family, and let the police doctor examine me in a back room. I remembered looking toward the little dilapidated house on the corner that day, thinking someone should live there and take care of it. It had seemed lost among the other buildings of the Place Lamartine, as lost as I’d felt. But today, with fresh paint the color of fresh butter, the house shone, and the shutters were bright green now, too. It wasn’t lost anymore.
Vincent threw open the door with a cheery greeting and didn’t stop talking as I walked inside. A slender corridor stretched ahead, two doors on the right leading to the studio and the kitchen, a flight of stairs rising to the second floor. He chattered about what would go here, what would go there, flinging his arms left and right. “A house of my own! I got some beds for the upstairs and a mirror…I still need a dressing table for the guest bedroom, though…and I need to hang up my pictures and Japanese prints…. I’ll eat here and I’ll save so much money…just think of the work I’ll be able to do with all this space!…Et voilà, the studio…” He opened the first door and waved me inside. “I took down the shutters so there’d be plenty of light, and I’m having gaslamps installed so I can work late.”
“Don’t you worry about everybody watching you?” I asked, glancing at the large windows facing onto the busy street.
Vincent shrugged. “I have nothing to hide.”
I wouldn’t want anyone to see such a mess. Half-squeezed paint tubes and black stubs of charcoal littered the red-tiled floor. Stained cloths were piled on the worktable, together with wilted flowers, empty ink bottles, bouquets of pencils and reed pens. A stack of drawings and prints lay on a chair, others were tacked to the walls, a piercing smell of turpentine perfuming the chaos. My fingers itched to clean, and I had to stop myself from finding a broom.
But the paintings. I clapped my hands at Monsieur Roulin in his uniform, face wise and serious with his bountiful beard, cap emblazoned with the proud word “Postes.” In another picture stood an old man in a straw hat, careworn eyes in a careworn face, and I knew this had to have been Patience Escalier, the former Camargue cowherd Vincent spoke about with such respect. A sunset scene with coal barges by the Rhône, beyond it the public garden, the night café, and Vincent himself, dressed up in a brown suit and gazing from a canvas with tranquil eyes. So many more, more than I could absorb all at once, and I felt almost dizzy.
I looked at the painting on the easel and smiled. “That’s one of the cafés downtown in the Place du Forum.” The café’s terrace glowed yellow from a single gas lantern, and under the awning a white-aproned waiter bustled among the tables. A finer establishment than the cafés of the Place Lamartine, the sort of place where filles de maison dared not go.
Vincent had been standing silent in the doorway, but he came to join me. “I’ve wanted to try a starry sky for some time,” he said. “In the dark I may take a blue for a green, a blue-lilac for a pink-lilac, but I can fix it in the studio if need be. Soon I’ll try a night painting by the river.”
“They look so happy.”
“Who?”
“The people in the painting. You can tell they’re happy from the way they’re sitting. Not like in the night café. It’s two different worlds.” I nodded toward the painting of the Café de la Gare.
“You’re very perceptive,” Vincent said.
“It’s not hard to see things if you only look.”
He tilted his head to study me, and I sensed he was seeing something—in me—that he hadn’t noticed before. He took my hand and drew me across the room. “Come, I want to show you something.”
There it was. The painting I’d been waiting weeks to see, propped against a windowsill, framed in the afternoon light. The sunflowers.
Blazing sunflowers that should have looked forlorn and sad, plucked from the earth where they’d grown, trapped inside an earthenware jug. But they didn’t. They writhed with life, the yellow so passionate, so untamed—oh, I wanted to touch that painting. I wanted to run my fingers over the canvas and savor it
s texture, every peak and valley of paint, every swirl and dash. Caress every line, every curve where his hand had been, trace the blue letters of his name.
I thought I knew this man who talked with me and made love with me, but I didn’t. I knew his body and something of his mind, nothing of his soul. Here was his soul, here, and here; in every painting in this room he’d left pieces of his spirit. Soun béu esperit, his beautiful spirit, as we say in Provençal. This was no ordinary vase of flowers. The sunflowers were his voice, and for the first time since the day we met, I started to truly listen. “I’ve never seen anything like it,” I murmured. “It’s more beautiful than I could have imagined. All of it, more than I could have dreamed.”
His hand was gentle on my shoulder, his voice soft in my ear. “You don’t know what it means to me, for you to say that.”
I threw my arms around him and buried my face in his chest, wanting suddenly to touch him as I longed to touch the painting. He was surprised but returned my embrace, and his lips brushed my hair, his fingers my spine. I closed my eyes to relish the rising and falling of his breath, and we stood in silence until embarrassment overcame me and I pulled away. “Shall we get to work?” I asked, my voice pitched too high, and I bent to gather paint tubes so he couldn’t see my face.
Bit by bit, Vincent’s ramshackle house began to look like a home. While he brought the rest of his things from the Café de la Gare and arranged them upstairs, I tried to work my artistry in the kitchen: blue enamel coffeepot and saltcellar on the table, mismatched dishes in the cupboard, tobacco box on the mantel. Vincent had a new stove—“on credit,” he said with a roll of his eyes—and the sink had a pump for running cold water, more than I had expected to find. I set two chairs by the fireplace, where he could read and smoke his pipe in the evenings; I nipped to the garden for zinnias to tuck in a jug on the windowsill, and attacked the floor tiles with a soapy brush, pleased to see them gleam red instead of a dull, dusty gray.
Sunflowers Page 4
