Chapter 2 #2
“Thank you. It has not been easy for me. My husband was a good man, but very ill at the end.” She stands then and walks down the hallway to open a door and peek inside at her sick child.
When she disappears, I allow myself to look around.
Barely an inch of wallpaper is visible between the many, many paintings hung from floor to ceiling.
More canvases crowd every available surface, leaning against the walls and furniture.
I even see some stacked beneath the couch.
Most are signed with a single name—Vincent.
I know Theo’s brother was an artist, not a terribly successful one, and that Theo worked as his dealer.
Vincent also visited the brothel when he came to Paris, but I never spent time with him.
He preferred the older and more domineering women.
They always complained he would lecture them about how by visiting them he was giving the fallen women the opportunity for redemption through the cycle of sin and forgiveness.
He was the subject of great mockery among the ladies.
I also saw him once late at night at Café du Tambourin, my friend Agostina’s restaurant.
She feeds us once the paying customers have retired.
By the time I arrived that evening, Vincent was quite drunk, sitting in a corner, sketching and staring into the depths of a glass of absinthe.
I noted how far the other patrons sat from the sturdy, broad-shouldered man.
It was well-known, among the other prostitutes, that he rarely bathed and that his smell was often repulsive.
Tina still had a soft spot for him and kept his paintings on her walls as a favor, she told me.
He traded them for food. Years earlier they’d been lovers, but she put an end to it quickly.
His manners were terrible, she said. He was too unpredictable and he needed too much of her that she wasn’t willing to give.
But Tina gave Vincent space on her walls for his canvases, just in case they might catch the eye of some eager buyer.
She maintained affection for him and his work.
“There’s something about his paintings,” she said once.
“I just don’t think anyone has truly seen it yet. ”
The sherry is doing its job of taking away the pain in my ankle. I manage to stand when Jo returns.
“I should go.”
“Are you sure you are able?” she asks, clearly concerned.
“I am,” I say, though I know it will be a difficult walk back to my quarters.
She helps me with my coat and takes both my hands in hers. They’re so tiny and fragile. Soft and unmarred by labor. “Thank you for what you did tonight, Claire. You saved my life.”
Perhaps I have now fulfilled my duty to Theo. I could leave and never see her again. I meet her eyes with a warm smile. “I am happy I was there when you needed me. And thank you, Jo. It was wonderful to meet you.” I mean that more than she knows.
I stay away from her for a week after that, and then finally return to the apartment to bring back the scarf she bound my ankle with. Jo welcomes me in for a bit of tea, but she is agitated. Her hands tremble as she pours me my drink.
“Are you bearing up?” I ask her.
“No. I cannot say that I am. I just returned from a most difficult meeting.”
“With whom? No. I am sorry. I do not mean to pry.”
“It is fine. You are not overstepping. I do not have anyone else to talk to here in Paris. Theo had many friends, but I am afraid I did not have many of my own besides my brother and his wife, and I fear I have exhausted them with my troubles.”
“I would love to hear more about the meeting you had.”
She sucks in a deep breath. “It is all worthless. Everything my husband left me. All of these paintings by his brother. Theo had such faith in Vincent. I assumed I could sell these and build a comfortable life for myself.” She is sobbing now.
I reach over to place my hand on hers. “Some days I wish he had thrown them in the Seine and spared me the trouble of having to stumble around them in here. These paintings killed my husband, the stress of them, the stress of caring for Vincent.”
“His brother was also ill?” My throat tightens around the question I already know the answer to.
“Very much so. Also brilliant. I think. Oh, I do not know anything any longer.” A sob shakes her body.
“In loving my husband, I had no choice but to love his brother. They were a pair, bonded more tightly than we would ever be, and I have to love these paintings as Theo did because in loving them I can keep him alive.”
I stand and make my way over to the wall to stare at a painting of a lone peach tree struggling in the wind.
“I think this one is beautiful,” I say.
Jo stands next to me and lifts her finger to trace the delicate boughs of the tree and the blossoms that appear so real they could fall off the canvas and into the palm of your hand.
“When I first saw his work, I thought they were such strange things. These paintings are supposed to make you feel many emotions all at once,” she says.
“That is what Theo always told me art was supposed to do. For him, he said it often felt like listening to a great symphony—that the colors are like two melodies in counterpoint.”
“Do they? Make you feel that way?”
“I wish they made me feel more. I want to. Theo wanted me to.”
Another twinge of guilt strums at my heart because I would like her to talk about Theo. I miss him and our conversations. He had seen me as a person who was worthy, and that was rare. It is obvious Jo wants to talk about him too. “What was your husband like?” I prod her.
“Before I met Theo, I believed I was completely ordinary and for that fact unlovable,” she says.
I didn’t expect her to be so honest. I also didn’t expect to relate to her so deeply.
“But Theo made me feel special,” she continues.
“He could somehow put into words all the things he loved about me. He made little poems about the expressions on my face, the sounds of my voice, my helpfulness, my feel for goodness, my openness to both joy and sadness, and even the fact that I wanted him for a husband. He said he could hardly imagine that last fact because at times his head felt as though it were made of cork, and he was unworthy of me.”
I close my eyes, and I can hear Theo’s voice.
He had also told me these things about Jo.
You would think it could have made me jealous, but it was not like that between us.
I believe we had both a business relationship and a friendship, nothing truly romantic.
I like hearing her side of their love story now.
“Until I met Theo, I walked through life with my eyes half closed. It was he who opened them,” she says softly.
“We were stronger together than alone, that’s what he always said, and he filled my days with great artists.
He believed their sculptures and paintings had the ability to touch people’s souls.
It was through these visits that I began to understand how the artists saw and felt things differently than the average person. ”
“It sounds lovely.”
“It was. He was. We were used to each other from the very first moment I moved here. Nothing forced, nothing strange. I wouldn’t trade those happy days for anything.
He used to tell me that we matched one another so well.
‘You’re a little woman made just for me,’ he’d say.
And it was true. He helped me to find my way in what I found to be such an overwhelming world.
Without him I am once again very aware of all my imperfections. ”
“Will you stay in Paris?” I ask.
“We cannot. It isn’t just the money that is quickly running out or the unhealthy air in this apartment and this city that is bad for little Vincent’s lungs. As a widow I don’t have many options to make money.”
She pauses, embarrassed for me because she is clearly thinking of my line of work.
“We all do what we need to do, madame. Do you have family you can return to?”
“It is an option, though I do not want to return as someone who needs looking after. Thinking about it fills me with dread and exhaustion.” She sighs.
She’s revealing so much, but I can’t say that I’m surprised.
People want to talk. They’re desperate for an ear.
“I should have planned better. We should have planned better. My son and I need so many things.”
Jo sits in front of the fire, shivering even as she gets closer to the flames.
“We’re nearly out of wood,” she says, her eyes glassy with tears and melancholy. They finally land on a canvas of a vast golden wheat field under a dark, turbulent sky. It gives me a feeling of both isolation and unease.
She picks up the painting so that it is at eye level and walks over to the fire. Her eyes flash with fury and fear as she stares into the dying flames.
“Perhaps I should just burn all of them for heat.”