Leaving Van Gogh

by Carol Wallace

  When the women had gone inside, I asked, “Would I be correct in thinking that the two of you had an encounter with Monsieur van Gogh?”

  Paul merely nodded, looking down at Nero. The dog gazed back at him.

  “I hope all that paint came off a palette?”

  Paul winced. “No. A finished canvas.”

  “A finished painting!” I exclaimed, hands to my head in agitation. “This horrid creature destroyed a painting? I have a mind to drown him!” I shouted, glaring down at the dog.

  “I should not have brought him,” Paul said in the dog’s defense. “How could he know? Monsieur van Gogh was shouting, and Nero tried to get away from him. It was awful! Nero knocked over the easel, and then I think he fell on the picture, and Monsieur van Gogh was terrifying, Papa, he was screaming and ranting …” He turned away from me and dashed his hand across his face, trying to hide his tears.

  It is a terrible thing for a young man of seventeen to cry before his father. My outrage diminished. I bent down, quite awkwardly, and held out a hand to Nero’s bright-spotted head. He nuzzled me, and I took his soft ears into both hands, gently twisting them in the way he loved. He rolled onto his side, all worries forgotten.

  “When did this happen?” I asked Paul, without looking up. There were bits of gravel stuck in the clots of paint on Nero’s fur.

  “Yesterday, late in the afternoon.”

  “Where has Nero been?”

  “I closed him in a shed up on the plateau.” His voice was becoming steadier. “Nobody uses it. I took him some food and water. This morning I tried to get the paint off with turpentine and a rag. That was where I went. And it didn’t work, so I tried the river.”

  “Oil paint is not water-soluble,” I commented, unthinking.

  “No. And there was too much for the turpentine.”

  Madame Chevalier appeared on the steps with the tray of coffee cups. Marguerite followed her, carrying an ancient blanket and my studio coat. “This will only cover you to your knees, Papa,” she said, “but I could not find anything else.”

  “Thank you,” I said to both of them. “Marguerite, do you have a very large pair of scissors? Perhaps for cutting fabric?”

  “I do,” said Madame Chevalier. “I’ll bring them.” She set down the tray. “You’ll pour?”

  “I’ll pour,” I agreed, taking the blanket from Marguerite. “Paul, my boy, perhaps if you put this on like some kind of toga, you may yet salvage your trousers. We are going to give Nero a dramatic clipping.”

  It took us most of the afternoon, and we did not entirely escape being smirched, but our appearances at the end were less alarming than Nero’s. He looked like a newly shorn military recruit. At first we just removed the fur that was matted with paint, but he was so piebald that we had to clip the rest of his coat simply to restore his natural symmetry. Paul seemed relieved when we finished our task.

  “I am very sorry, Papa. I should have kept Nero under control.” It was a handsome apology.

  “Yes,” I said mildly. “But it’s Monsieur van Gogh you need to speak to.”

  “Must I?” he asked, stepping back in alarm. “He was so frightening!”

  “Yes, you must,” I insisted, annoyed. “He has nothing to live for, Paul, except his painting. Do you understand that? Think of how he exists, how lonely he is, among strangers.”

  “But he has us,” Paul protested. “He seems to like us; to like you, at least.”

  “All the more reason why we should not destroy his work, don’t you think?”

  “Yes, all right,” Paul conceded, scuffing the gravel with one foot.

  I looked at the sorry pile of black hair at our feet. “We need to replace the paint that Nero wasted. That, at least, we can do. The finished canvas is beyond restitution. Why don’t you go get tubes of cobalt, malachite green, lead white, and yellow ocher. A large tube of the ocher, if we have one. Make them into a package. If you take them to the inn after dinner, he’ll be there.”

  Paul looked at me with an appeal: “You wouldn’t come with me?”

  I considered. Going with Paul could give the boy courage as well as provide me with an opportunity to check on Vincent. “Yes, I will,” I told him. He flushed, and tears again started in his eyes.

  Paul was silent as we walked to the inn after dinner. We carried lanterns, though the last rays of the sun still diluted the dusk. Our steps were silent on the dusty road, and we heard only the sounds of a summer night: rustling and peeping in the trees, a far-off dog’s bark. The lights from Ravoux’s glowed at some distance, and the tables set out in front of the mairie were occupied with drinkers. We crossed in front of them, and I nodded to those I knew—the carpenter, the stationmaster, and the eldest son of the town’s biggest farmer. We turned down the alley beyond the inn, going directly to the back door, for Vincent would most likely be found in the shed where his paintings were stored. But he was neither there nor in the stuffy garret where he slept. Trying to quell my alarm, I turned to Paul. “I think you may know more of Vincent’s movements than I do,” I said. “Can you imagine where he might be?”

  “We can try inside the café,” he said. “I can’t think what else to do.”

  “He’s not drinking too much, is he?”

  “Why do you think I would know these things, Papa?” Paul asked, annoyed.

  I sighed and opened the back door to the café. “Never mind,” I told him.

  Ravoux had had gas put in, so the room was bright with that pitiless, cold glow that I have never liked. I suppose it was more cheerful than the dim yellow halo from a solitary oil lamp—certainly the marble tabletops and the mirrors gleamed. But gaslight casts harsh shadows, and Vincent’s face, when he looked up at us, had the hollow-eyed look of a skull. He was sitting in front of a small glass of brandy and an empty coffee cup, elbows on the table, shoulders hunched. When he recognized us, he merely lifted one of his hands a few inches from the marble, to acknowledge our presence. “May we sit down?” I asked, and he nodded, gazing into his cup.

  Paul set the brown-paper parcel of paint tubes on the table and pulled a chair from the next table to sit. I caught Ravoux’s eye and gestured to Vincent’s brandy. We would join him. Before the glasses arrived, Paul nudged the package toward Vincent with his fingertips. “I am very, very sorry about yesterday,” he said hurriedly. “I regret the loss of your painting. Here are some paints, to replace those that the dog …” He paused. “I know they are not the same as replacing a painting. I know that is a terrible loss.”

  At this moment Ravoux brought our brandy and Paul gratefully seized his, burying as much of his face as he could in the small glass.

  Vincent laid a hand on the paints and looked at me. “Thank you,” he addressed Paul. “Thank you.” He fell silent. A few moments passed, but he did not add anything. Paul looked at me, a question in his eyes. Vincent seemed to have withdrawn, retracted himself, as it were.

  I tried to be bracing. “I hope you can re-create the painting. Make a second version, perhaps.”

  He turned to me and nodded. “No doubt, Doctor,” he said. His voice was muffled. He took a breath as if to say something else, but nothing occurred to him.

  “And you are feeling all right?” I asked, searching his face. “After yesterday? Any headache?”

  “I’m tired,” he said to his hands, which were clasped around his glass. “It is such a long battle, Doctor, I wonder if it will ever be over.” He shook his head. “Yet I fight on. What else can I do?” He turned to me as if I might have an answer for him. Paul watched the exchange with his eyes as large as saucers.

  “There is nothing else, I think, for any of us,” I said. “Can I give you something to help you sleep?”

  “No, Doctor, I’ll sleep. And I’ll wake up tomorrow and go back out to the fields and put paint on canvas.” He looked at Paul. “I’m sorry if I frightened you yesterday. I don’t remember what I said, but I hope I wasn’t too … fierce.”

  “Not at all. But I
will always regret the painting,” Paul said, with dignity. He stood up. “Papa, shall I leave you two?”

  I looked again at Vincent and saw only weariness. “No, I will come with you. We will leave Vincent and wish him a good night’s rest.” As I rose from the table, I touched Vincent’s shoulder. “Remember, I can help you. If anything disturbs you, I beg you will come to me,” I told him. He made as if to smile, but his eyes did not meet mine, and his smile was just a movement of the lips. He was very far away from us.

  It was not until the second week in July that I went to visit Theo again. Vincent had not come to us the previous weekend, despite a friendly note I had left for him at the inn. I was sharply disappointed; I realized how much I had come to look forward to his company. I was also slightly alarmed, considering the mood in which I had left him. After Sunday luncheon, I sent Paul down to the inn to see if he could find out why Vincent had stayed away. Adeline Ravoux reported that he had taken the early train to Paris, so I comforted myself with the notion that he was with his brother. Yet he did not ring our bell on Monday, and Paul’s query resulted in the answer that he had returned from Paris and was out painting. This was worrisome. I was sure he was driving himself too hard. Exhaustion makes it more difficult for a man to withstand mental strain.

  On Wednesday, as usual, I returned to my apartment in Paris. A message to Theo resulted in the suggestion that we meet at a café on the Boulevard Malesherbes. It was there that I found him on the Thursday morning, stirring sugar into his coffee.

  “I am so sorry I have not been able to talk to you, Doctor,” he said, rising. “Will you have coffee?” He gestured to the waiter and sank back in his chair. He looked pale. I could not help checking his eyes to see if his pupils looked normal, but it was difficult to tell in the café’s bright light. “It has been a very busy time. I am taking Jo and the baby to Holland for a few weeks, you see, and there is so much to do before we depart.”

  This was news. I was aware that Vincent hoped they would spend some of Theo’s precious vacation time in Auvers: he had spoken to me more than once of finding holiday lodgings for the whole family.

  “Vincent seems to have had his heart set on your coming to Auvers,” I remarked.

  Theo sighed and shrugged. He seemed resigned. “I know. He is terribly disappointed. But my mother is old, Doctor, and needs to see her grandson. Vincent so rarely understands why things cannot go as he wishes.”

  “I think I know what you mean,” I agreed, picking up my coffee cup. “How did he seem to you on Sunday? He did not visit us last weekend.”

  “Vincent’s visit on Sunday was a disaster,” he said. “I cannot tell you how I regret it. We all got excited, worried, things were said …” He looked me in the eye. “If you had not come to me, I would have asked to see you.” Here he paused, as if unable to go on.

  “Was Vincent angry? I have seen a taste of his rage, and it was terribly alarming.”

  “We were all angry. It was a long day; the baby has been ill, and I have been driven to distraction by those gentlemen at the gallery who do not seem to understand that a man has a right to a respectable salary. I have been considering going out on my own as a dealer. Vincent urges this, though of course he has no comprehension of the risks. Jo is more cautious. She favors economy, on all our parts. She pointed out, quite forcefully, that Vincent’s work does not bring us income, and that his paintings take up a great deal of space. To be honest, I had never seen Jo like that, either.”

  “They say that women can be fierce as tigers when their children are threatened,” I suggested.

  “She was fierce indeed. She said that if she could economize and reduce our expenses by one hundred francs a month, Vincent should be able to live on fifty francs less. She thinks that I should stop buying him paint and canvases until he sells something.”

  I could think of no reply. I was astounded that the apparently mild-mannered Jo could have struck out at Vincent in this way.

  “Of course he ran down the stairs shouting, and then Jo and I had words. We have settled things between us, fortunately, and Jo wrote to Vincent. You say you have not seen him?”

  “No, but he was back at Ravoux’s by Monday, I know.” I glanced out the window at the boulevard. A rain shower had just begun, accompanied by a gust of wind that riffled the awning of the café. “I came to you, monsieur, because I have been worried about Vincent myself.” I told him about the episode with the unframed Guillaumin, and Paul’s unfortunate encounter. It was evidently difficult for Theo to hear this. He fidgeted with his empty cup until the waiter arrived, inquiring, but shook his head when offered another cup. His eyes ranged over the café’s interior, more crowded now that the customers seated outdoors had been forced inside by the rain. I saw him nod to a gentleman seated a table away, and his restlessness increased.

  When I finished speaking, he turned back to me. “Doctor, would you mind coming for a walk with me? I would like to tell you more, but …” His eyes slid toward his acquaintance.

  I glanced outside. The shower had ceased for the moment, leaving the sidewalk glazed with damp, but the clouds hung heavy and low. More rain was imminent. “Of course,” I answered, wishing I had brought an umbrella.

  He put down a few coins and stood, leaning on the table. I wondered if he was even aware of his own weakness. Sometimes the symptoms of syphilis arrive so gradually that the diagnosis takes the patient by surprise. And sometimes patients willfully ignore them. Our powers of self-deception are remarkable.

  Once on the pavement, Theo seemed unsure where to go, looking around as if the neighborhood were strange to him. “Never mind, let us go this way,” he said, linking his arm in mine. This was unusual: I had noticed that neither of the Van Gogh brothers seemed given to physical gestures of friendship. While exquisitely courteous, Theo did not even appear particularly demonstrative with his wife. I thought this hand on my elbow was a confession of sorts. He must feel utterly overwhelmed. It was actually quite pleasant, walking along linked to another human. I was reminded that my wife, Blanche, and I used to stroll this way, footsteps in unison, my hip against her skirts, along the Parisian streets.

  Theo and I turned away from the bustle of the boulevard, down a street lined with apartment buildings. Ahead, an unusual structure loomed, surrounded by gravel paths and a few trees.

  “I have often seen that building without knowing what it was,” I said.

  “The Chapelle Expiatoire,” Theo answered. “This is the site where Louis the Sixteenth and Marie Antoinette were buried. The chapel was built by Louis the Eighteenth. The park is very quiet, we can stroll there.” I could not see how the row of low arches leading to a domed building could possibly be a chapel, but I followed. There were iron chairs scattered beneath the dripping trees, but the brief rain had driven away any occupants. We set out on the path, our feet crunching on the gravel. The shower had brought a whiff of freshness to the spindly lindens. It was a strikingly quiet square. As we walked, I studied the white marble walls of the chapel, severe blocks sparsely ornamented by carved laurel wreaths and winged hourglasses. It occurred to me that the arcades along the sides might shelter tombs, and I marveled at this manifestation of death mere steps away from Parisian temples of commerce like the Galeries Lafayette.

  “Monsieur van Gogh,” I began, “would you tell me more about Vincent’s illness? His recent behavior has prompted some questions. There was an episode last week when he behaved very strangely. He shouted at me over a trifle, and then seemed to regain control of himself.”

  “Yes, his temper can be very alarming,” Theo agreed. “He becomes enraged. But then it passes off, and he often seems despondent afterward.”

  “That is just what I observed. It is this despondency that concerns me.”

  “Yes, of course,” he answered, but then fell silent. He speared the damp ground with his umbrella at every stride.

  “I am alarmed by the force of his despair,” I went on, looking at the row of tombs to m
y right. “Has he ever spoken of suicide?”

  “Yes,” Theo’s voice came quietly. “Not in personal terms, you understand. He has not knowingly attempted to do away with himself. But he has spoken of it, written of it. He said after one attack that he felt like a man who’d tried to drown himself and found the water too cold.”

  That startled me. “When you say ‘one attack,’ do you mean there were episodes besides the one when he cut his ear?”

  “I think so, yes,” Theo answered. “It was difficult to get information, you know. There were certainly spells of very irrational behavior while he was at the asylum, I did hear about that.”

  I could feel myself frowning. Surely I should have been told about this. “And did Vincent try to harm himself during any of these spells?”

  The umbrella suddenly swung in front of us like a pendulum, left to right, nearly rapping my shin. “Apparently so. Signac—you know Paul Signac? The painter?” I nodded, for I knew his work. “Signac saw Vincent at Arles, a year and a half ago. That was after the episode with the ear, and Vincent was still in the hospital in Arles.” He looked at me to be sure I remembered, and I nodded again. One would hardly forget the episode with the ear. “Signac was with Vincent when an attack came on. They had gotten permission to go back to the house so Vincent could retrieve some books. While they were there, he tried to drink turpentine, and Signac had to wrestle the bottle away from him.”

  “Had to wrestle …,” I repeated. “So this was an attack of some violence?”

  Theo’s eyes sidled toward mine, and I could feel his hand tense on my arm. “Yes, Doctor. According to Signac, Vincent was raving and throwing himself around wildly, breaking things … The gendarmes had to come in and restrain him, and take him back to the hospital.”

  So my idea that Vincent might be epileptic was not far-fetched. In fact, it seemed more likely with every word Theo spoke. I hardly knew what to think, or what to ask next. “Did you ever see behavior like that?”

  “When I arrived in Arles, after the ear episode, he was tied to his bed. He didn’t recognize me but kept thrashing around and shouting, things I couldn’t understand. I only caught a few words here and there: Gauguin’s name, Jesus.”