by Kien Nguyen
“Enter!” he said. “You will be more comfortable inside.”
The copper urn emitted a steady glow under a thick layer of ash. Its light fell on the boxes of books he carried with him on his travels. The room’s heat had made the pages curl at the corners. The artist let out a groan of pleasure, thawing out his muscles in the warmth of the coal brazier. His cheeks were crimson. He covered his mouth to stifle a cough. Pierre offered the only chair to his guest and settled himself upon a wooden crate.
“In this cold,” he muttered, “staying close to the hot coals can help protect the lungs against pneumonia. Do you feel better?”
The young man nodded, still clutching his bundles.
“I am Monsignor Pierre Pigneau de Béhaine,” he said. “And, sir, what is your name and title?” He leaned back, studying his guest.
The artist regarded him steadily. “My name is François Gervaise. As you can see, I am just a humble painter with no title.”
Pierre watched the artist scratch his head. The thick chestnut hair was pulled back in a braid.
“Remove your coat,” he said. “Put down your possessions. Be comfortable!”
François glanced at him from under his eyebrows and unbuttoned his coat. “I am sorry for choosing such a late hour to visit. If you wish, I can return at another time.”
“Don’t be ridiculous!” the priest said. “You’re already here. I have been studying the painting you have left behind. That is what you wanted me to do, is it not?”
“What I want is to get out of France,” blurted François.
Pierre barked a laugh of astonishment. “And you think I can help you? Monsieur Gervaise, I don’t know how you came to that conclusion. How did you learn about me, or my lectures, or my planned voyages?”
The artist looked back at him with blue eyes full of expectation. “At the Carthusian monastery of Val-de-Bénédiction.”
“Oh, the charterhouse. Is it located across the river, in the town of Villeneuve lès Avignon?” asked the priest with a vague recognition.
“Yes, sir. There were three monks who worked as almoners, feeding the hungry in one of the cloisters every afternoon. Your adventures have made you a man of legend. I overheard their conversation about you two days ago.”
Again the monsignor laughed, rising from his seat. “Listen to me; I am a missionary, not a sea captain. I only recruit priests.” He reached for the door handle.
“Please, let me explain,” François persisted. “You need an artist to capture the beauty of the lands you travel in and to chronicle your work. Remember the reaction of your students when they saw the painting? My art can help them experience the same excitement you once had. For that, you’ll need my assistance.”
“Ah!” said the monsignor, narrowing his eyes. “So you have thought of everything to your advantage, even the response from my students. But have you thought about the dangers of these missions? The natives often react violently to intruders. You could be shunned, tortured, or even murdered.”
“Every day I confront the same risks here in France.”
The priest lowered his voice. “Monsieur Gervaise, you don’t act like an ordinary vagabond. In fact, you seem intelligent and calculating. Tell me, why is it so important for you to abandon this country? What are you running away from?”
François slumped in his chair, looking down and tapping his foot against the stone floor. “We have just met,” he said. “I would rather not speak in detail of my past. All you need to know about me is my talent, and that I am a good and honest person. I can be of use.”
Pierre turned his gaze to the nothingness outside his window. Even though he was just thirty years old, he knew how to use his poise to seem older. He enjoyed intimidating others and taking control of conversations. “Then why should I believe in your goodness? So far you have shown me only that you are a troubled soul.”
The guest coughed as he traced a crack in the wall with his fingernail.
“Are these your drawings?” the priest asked, reaching for the artist’s sketchbook.
Without asking permission, he turned the pages, going through them with the tips of his fingers, discarding each sheet of paper on his bed as if he were sorting through a deck of cards. The room was silent except for the rustling of the pages and the crackling of the coals.
“These are the work of a talented artist,” he said after a moment. “Where did you learn such technique? Who was your teacher?”
“My skill has been largely self-taught.”
The priest responded with a look of doubt.
“At the age of sixteen,” added François, “I was introduced to Monsieur Jean-Baptiste-Siméon Chardin in his apartment at the Louvre and was fortunate enough to be invited to attend his master class.”
Pierre was taken aback. Chardin was, in his opinion, one of the finest painters of his day, although unappreciated by the Royal Academy because of his simple subjects. He remembered seeing one of the artist’s early works, a painting of a youth playing with cards.
He cleared his throat. “Monsieur Chardin has the support of many wealthy patrons, including His Majesty King Louis XV. How can you, a drifter, claim the company of such an illustrious individual?”
François’s only answer was to continue tracing the invisible pattern on the wall. Pierre’s patience was fleeing.
“I have a strict policy,” he said. “Because you cannot answer my simplest questions, I will not be able to accept you. What kind of missionary would you be if you cannot be forthright with your superiors?”
“In due time, sir, I will.”
“Time is something I have very little of. Soon I will be leaving this seminary. If you have anything to say, tell me now. As a priest I am bound by God to keep my silence when it involves a confession. Are you a Catholic, my son?”
“Yes, I am,” replied François.
“Then tell me who you are, where you came from, if you want to join me.”
The artist gathered his drawings from the bed and stacked them back in the sketchbook, saying nothing.
Pierre dismissed his guest with a wave. “You are a fool!” he said. “I can no longer be bothered with your nonsense.”
François’s face darkened with defeat. Leaning forward, he muttered in dismay, “Please, wait.” With downcast eyes, he said, “Bless me, Father, for I have sinned. It has been two years, four-and-twenty days since my last confession. I was born in Villaume on the thirty-first of October. The year was 1751.”
Under the flickering light of the candles, a smile tugged at the corners of the monsignor’s mouth. He reached under his pillow for the wooden box that held his Bible.
As François uttered the words that led to his past, shame flooded his soul. The artist had come to visit the priest with one hope in mind—escape. He had believed that his talent would be enough to impress the monsignor. But now, although the priest was expressing interest in his sketches, he realized that to achieve his goal, he must give up a part of himself.
François was in despair. Before he arrived in Avignon, he had been struggling to find the barest necessities of life. All the changes he had made seemed to lead him in a downward spiral. He was elated to be inside a warm room and hated the prospect of returning to the bitter cold outside.
“Villaume,” said the priest. “Where is it?”
“Sir . . .”
“Don’t tell me,” interrupted de Béhaine. “I’ve heard this name before. Is it between the towns of Saint Gilles and Beaucaire, in Nîmes?”
François nodded. The sound of his village’s name coming from the mouth of a stranger made him realize how unprepared he was to confront his past.
“I was born in Villaume,” he repeated. “As an infant of about a week, I was abandoned in the stable of Saint Mary Magdalene Priory and was discovered by one of the priests. That was the only home I knew in all my twenty years. There in the church I was fed, clothed by the parishioners, and educated by Father Dominique, who was both my guardia
n and teacher.”
An expression of pain gripped his face. He grabbed his coat in one hand and his possessions in the other, strapping them over his shoulder. “I have told you enough,” he said, rising to his feet. “I can’t say any more. What kind of priest are you if you turn away a needy soul like me?” He flung open the door.
Before the monsignor could recover from his accusing words, François disappeared into the dimness of the hallway. The whooping sound of his cough lingered.
CHAPTER THREE
Time began its torment once his guest departed. Alone and dreading the next six hours of darkness, Pierre tossed on his cot. He knew the routine of insomnia so well. It had first troubled him in his old bedroom when he was ten, the evening his mother had died, and it had returned to disturb him every night since. Here in another unfamiliar room, when the light faded into obscurity, he again became that bereft ten-year-old.
His cell was warm, and the night, through his half-closed eyelids, was an undulating indigo in which he was sinking. In this viscous space burned the red shadow of the urn, so dim he seemed to be staring at the sun from deep within a pit.
He had gone to the Far East at the age of twenty-four, and had lived in India, Siam, Kampuchea, and Annam. Six years ago, under a cluster of bamboo by the edge of a rice paddy, he had built his first mission, a bunch of mud-drenched, thatch-covered huts. The image of the Annam that he knew merged into that of the painting created by the drifter. He marveled at how accurate it was for someone who had never set foot in a tropical terrain. Could some intuitive bond between them have provided the artist with such keen vision?
Soon Pierre would be traveling to the Far East again, leaving the winter behind.
He turned to one side, his eyes squinting shut as he tried to trick his mind into drowsiness. If he achieved two hours of sleep tonight, he would consider himself fortunate. Often, he masked his frustration by conducting predawn sermons, seizing the opportunity to ridicule any monks or novices who were unable to keep awake. He regarded those who overindulged in sleep as grave sinners. He knew his suffering showed clearly in the dark rings under his eyes and in the lethargic way he moved.
Pierre ran his fingers under his pillow to search for a crude wooden box. The unvarnished texture was familiar to his touch. On the lid he felt the metal crucifix fastened next to a faded inscription. In the box he kept a small Bible, a rosary made from olive pits, and a few unopened letters from his brother Joseph. These were the only possessions that remained from his past.
Home was a comforting word that soothed his mind with tranquil images. Many a spring day he had sat on the doorstep of his house on the outskirts of Origny watching his brothers and sisters play in the meadow. Once, behind the rows of apple trees, he had spotted a pair of young lovers, their colorful garments showing through the green leaves like ripened fruits. Curious, he observed them. Their passion made him wonder about his own sexual apathy. For as long as he could remember, he had felt no interest in women nor courted any from them. Something inside him seemed radically wrong; he believed it was his heart. Instead of love, it harbored only resentment, and most of it was directed toward his father, Doctor Abraham Pigneau de Béhaine. His mother’s body was not even cold in the grave before there was a new bride in the house.
When Pierre decided to leave home at the age of seventeen, his family’s governess, Mademoiselle Émilie Tournelle, had already been Madame Pigneau de Béhaine for more than seven years and had borne five more offspring for his father, including a set of twins. Pierre needed a change in his life. Enrolling in L’université théologique de Paris was his way to escape the infirmary, a household full of noisy children, the country life, and a woman who every day attempted to erase his mother’s presence with her own offensive traits. He knew that if he allowed the memory of his mother to dissipate, he would retain nothing of his spirit. He would become an empty shell, a walking corpse among the living. With all his will, he kept alive his belief in the heavenly world where his mother was now dwelling.
As the day for his journey to the seminary drew near, the atmosphere in his family had quieted to a deceptive calm. Dr. de Béhaine, still tending his duties in the somber, rustic hospital, hoped his eldest son would come to his senses and accept his rightful place as the heir to his father’s profession. But no miracle intervened. The doctor accepted his son’s decision with ambivalence. He did not hold the Church in the same esteem as Pierre did. But what was happening to his son was now a private matter between the boy and God, and even a father could not enter that realm.
Pierre remembered the galloping of horses on the cobblestone pavement, the fresh scent of a spring morning, and three of his siblings—Theresa, Mary, and Joseph—pressing their faces against the kitchen window. He also recalled the way he had forced himself to be polite and not give in to his feelings as he bade Godspeed to his father and stepmother.
In Paris, Pierre used his newfound freedom to submerge himself in his studies. Slowly, like the winter in Origny, he grew icy.
The next dawn, he conducted his sermon in the Tower of Saint John. Pierre paused in the middle of a sentence and squinted above the students’ heads. There was an empty space in the dark opening of the corridor where the artist had stood the day before.
François Gervaise and his painting weighed on the monsignor’s mind. He could not deny the impression the drifter had made on him, and on the novices. Why couldn’t he captivate his audience the way a simple painting had? The artist added a new element of turmoil to his already restless mind.
His words flowed as he sped through the lecture. Phrases leaped from his mouth as if to catch up with the time he had wasted. He was preaching with such fervor, he wondered if he had gone mad. In his excitement, he raised his voice and stretched out his arms. Over the last bench, where the air still seemed heady with the odor of wet paint, all that he looked at became bright and colorful, full of promise.
He must find François Gervaise and confront him. Talent alone would not be enough to stir the heart of Monsignor de Béhaine.
Pierre decided to start his search at Villeneuve. The city’s reputation for generosity, unlike that of Avignon, attracted the poor. Most of them would congregate at the charterhouse of du Val-de-Bénédiction for a free noonday meal. François, with his distinctive bundles of canvases, wouldn’t be difficult to spot in a crowd.
It took the monsignor a half hour to cross the river by ferryboat. He could see his destination at the foot of Fort Saint André, behind the Tower of Philippe le Bel. Back across the Rhône, Avignon was a cluster of Gothic castles wrapped in an amber bed of foliage, unfurling like an exaggerated sunflower. The winter in the south of France, although milder than the season in Origny, was still bone-chilling. The long stroll in the blustery wind tightened Pierre’s legs and cramped his muscles, but he refused to rest. He walked faster, until he came to the entrance of the charterhouse.
The structure was one of the largest Carthusian monasteries Pierre had ever seen. It comprised a church and three cloisters as well as forty monks’ cells, or so he had been told. Every building within the compound was constructed of limestone, with a tile roof. In addition to the resident priests in their simple black cassocks, at least a hundred people scurried about. Lay brothers in brown robes mingled with servants and workers in coarse breeches and layers of sleeved vests. He felt conspicuous in his Jesuit uniform, which often drew negative reactions because of the order’s poor reputation.
When Pierre entered the chapel, the Carthusians’ wealth was evident in the gold, marble, and paintings that lined the walls. Most of the frescoes depicted the life of Saint John the Baptist, as did the painted wood panels covering the windows—those that had escaped the damage of time. The luxurious vision lifted Pierre’s spirit. Looking farther into the sanctuary, he marveled at artistic renderings of the miracles of Christ, the feast of Hérade, and the decapitation of Saint John. He roamed through the building, projecting an air of confidence that discouraged others fro
m approaching him.
After passing through several manicured gardens, he exited the vestibule of the monastery where the public gathered, and strode into the sacred cloisters and living quarters of the monks. No one was in sight. His footsteps echoed down the stone galleries. He regretted not having asked the way to the kitchen. After he went through a series of colonnaded hallways, he detected the pungent aroma of grilled meat. Somewhere in this maze, the monks were preparing the only meal of the day.
At last he found the kitchen, a small square building attached to the north walk of the cloister, with smoke rising from a shaft in its roof. The morning was approaching midday. The rusting iron latch on the kitchen door was within his reach, but he hesitated to open it. The Carthusians were a strict order of contemplative monks, and Pierre was not sure how he would be received. In a clearing to his left, he spotted a group of more than fifty people, mostly women and children. They, too, were lured by the scent of stew.
Look at those faces. He had seen so many like them at the Saint Roch hospital where his father had worked. Despair glazed their eyes and dimmed their spirits. Hunger draped them like a blanket. Any acts of mercy showered upon them would wash away unseen, for they would never be able to change. He remembered helping his mother distribute food to the sick when he was a boy, but pride and duty were stronger in him then because of her presence. As time passed, he could no longer summon that sense of pure kindness, and he relied instead on his commitment.
The artist was not among this group. But it was still early, and more people were coming. Pierre decided to wait. The wind chilled his fingers and the tips of his ears. He put on his white gloves, pulled the rounded crown of his hat past his ears, and sat on a patch of grass under a leafless tree. A few paces away, four little girls picked tiny yellow flowers off the ground with their dirt-stained hands. He watched them fasten the blossoms in the folds of their clothes, a gesture that was more mechanical than playful. No laughter came from their lips.
