Chapter 4
Claire
“I have no money to give you. No one wants these paintings,” Agostina says with pity in her voice.
“I wish I could do more for you, Jo, I truly do. But you have got to understand. Vincent tried to sell these to me when he was last in Paris, and no one wanted them. They say he’s too bold.
His colors are unsettling, the brushwork too thick and gooey.
Collectors right now still prefer somewhat realistic landscapes, not wheat fields that look like they’re on fire. There are simply no buyers for him.”
Tina Segatori never lies or minces words, at least not when speaking with other women. She truly wants to help, she explains to Jo, but she doesn’t have cash on hand.
It is a slow night at the Café du Tambourin.
Only a few tables remain, and those customers are well on their way to obliteration with glasses of the green devil in front of them.
Agostina doesn’t seem to mind the hour. She will stay open as long as customers are paying, and the drunker they are, the more francs leak from their pockets.
Every inch of this small Italian restaurant is covered in canvases.
Some say that this place is the most interesting gallery of paintings in all of Montmartre.
Once a model, reliant on money from the artists she posed for, Tina is now a business owner profiting from the artists, the dealers, and all their vices.
Jo lowers her head to the cool surface of the table in defeat.
In the few months we have known one another Jo has given me small amounts of the francs she had left to help her with odd jobs.
I’ve also cared for little Vincent on many afternoons when Jo has gone out to meet with some of the dealers she hoped would help her determine what to do with the hundreds of paintings, but none of them have.
Her boy is the sweetest angel I have ever met.
He is made completely in his father’s image with his blue-gray eyes, friendly features, and tender nature.
Holding him in my arms makes me long for my own child, the one taken away from me and sent out to the countryside to be raised by a family friend of the madam of our house.
“Forget about her,” Madam has told me over and over again when I have asked to visit my daughter.
“She will only be a noose around your neck, and she is in a good home with a mother who lost her own child in birth. She will be cared for.” I always agree because there is no way I can raise a child when I can hardly feed myself, but I ache for her every night.
I worry Jo won’t be able to feed herself and Vincent much longer.
They have no money coming in and it is very clear that they have lived beyond their means for some time, likely spending more than Theo earned, despite his being a respected art dealer.
Jo tells me that her husband longed to protect her when he knew his health was failing, but he was refused life assurance due to his many sicknesses.
On rare occasions she has also revealed that Theo spent a great deal of their money taking care of Vincent, a fact that seems to have been a point of contention between them and one that also clearly brings her pain.
They had both hoped he would have more time to build up savings and perhaps buy them a home, but time was fickle.
Some days Jo is very angry. Other times melancholy overtakes her, and she cannot get out of her bed.
On those days, the ones when I don’t have my own work, I stay as long as I can and care for her child, taking him out of the house and drawing magical creatures for him on bits of paper.
I do my best to get Jo in and out of bed and force her to eat enough to sustain her.
During our time together, she shares bits and pieces of her life before Theo, her pleasant middle-class upbringing, how she studied English in London and taught it at a boarding school for girls back in Holland, her tumultuous romance with a young doctor.
My favorite story was when she told me how horrified she was when Theo proposed to her after only knowing her for three days.
“It would have been improbable if it had been in a novel, that after being in my company for three days at most, he wanted to spend his life with me, to put all his happiness in my hands, and yet that is exactly what he did,” she told me.
“What did you say?” I asked, rapt.
“I put him off, over and over. I hardly knew him, and I thought I was in love with another, but that relationship ran cold. Theo was persistent. He conjured up the ideal that I’ve always dreamed of; a rich life full of variety, full of food for the mind, a circle of people around us who wish us well, who want to do something in the world—and I ultimately found that, and him, very charming. ”
There are times when I want to share with Jo what I knew of Theo, to join in her memories, but I would never dare. For our friendship to continue I must keep silent about my acquaintance with her husband, at least for now.
I look up at one of Vincent’s paintings still hanging in Café du Tambourin.
Tina keeps the portrait he made of her hanging prominently on the wall next to the door.
It does not do her beautiful features justice, but it uncannily conveys her strength.
The cigarette dangling from her long, thin fingers, the half-empty beer in front of her on the table.
Vincent captured her essence more than any of the other famous men who painted her over the years.
“I know your struggle, Jo. I have been in your shoes. My son was small when I started this business. Also fatherless,” Agostina says.
I have heard the rumors that her child’s father is the artist édouard Dantan, but he refuses to acknowledge paternity.
“There were nights when I fell into despair and days when I could not get out of bed, but we do not have a choice.” She places a hand on Jo’s back.
“Do you hear me? As women we must persevere. As mothers we move forward no matter the personal cost. Wait here for a moment.”
When Agostina returns, she’s holding a canvas. “Have you seen this one?” She places it on the table in front of us with a dull thud. It rattles the glasses and I grip mine so it doesn’t spill. The painting is unframed and looks almost unfinished.
Agostina points to the face. “It is me. Terribly ugly, I’m afraid, but quite a good likeness.”
“Vincent didn’t paint nudes,” Jo declares as she examines the painting.
“Oh, I assure you he did. He had me pose for about four of them. In the dead of winter in his wretched studio with no heat. I froze my titties off. I couldn’t tell you if he did others. He was quite shy about doing mine.”
This is unlike any nude painting I’ve ever seen.
It is ugly, but in all the right ways. She’s in white knee-high socks, filthy brown shoes, and nothing else.
Her left hip is cocked up at an impossible angle and her head leans back into her cupped hands.
Her breasts are lumpy and lopsided, her features large, but not so different from real life.
Both armpits are filled with thick, dark hair, as is the pubis, details typically groomed in a painting.
“You’re beautiful,” I tell Agostina.
“You’re a liar. But thank you.” She likes the compliment, I can tell by her smile.
“He painted the reality of the moment. That’s what I told him.
No woman enjoys posing for these kinds of paintings.
It’s cold and uncomfortable and leaning back in that way, the way of all the classic nudes, gives you a terrible cramp in the neck.
And you have to do it forever. They take their damn time.
Men never notice when we’re ill at ease.
You can see that here. Can’t you feel my disdain? ”
“Why isn’t it hanging up?” I ask.
“No room. Look at these walls.” She waves toward them, her hands cutting a trail through the thick fog of cigar smoke.
“Do you want me to take it off your hands?” Jo says reluctantly. “Since you have no more room.”
“Not this one. I’ve become attached to it. I’ll keep it until it is worth something. What Vincent did was special. I believe it and you will have to believe it too. Do you think Vincent had talent, Jo?”
I don’t know her very well yet, but I know that question is complicated for Jo.
“I find his paintings interesting. And also confusing. I want to like them more,” she admits.
“I know Theo believed in him more than any other artist he represented. My husband adored me, but Vincent was the love of his life and he went to his grave doing everything he could to make him a success despite…” She trails off and Agostina nods as though she knows exactly where Jo is going.
“Vincent was a complicated and difficult man. You certainly did try,” Agostina replies. “You even named your son after him.”
Jo waves her hand as though to dismiss the remark.
“Names meant more to Theo than me. I only yearned that Vincent might suffer me to be counted among their small circle. As for his paintings, Theo truly believed that if my brother-in-law had more time, even another couple of years, he would be considered among the class of artists doing something exceptional.”
Agostina’s eyes glow with encouragement. “I believe in you, Jo van Gogh. I believe you can make something of Vincent if that is what you want to do.”
“I do not think I have a choice,” Jo says tightly as she stands. “I must return home. Thank you for the encouragement, Tina.”
“I cannot give you money, but I am here to help if you need anything else.”
When Jo is gone, I order a final drink. It’s warm and comfortable here and I am in no rush to go home.
“I worry about her,” Tina says as she hands me a glass.
“She needs money,” I agree.
“It is not that. It is true that Theo lived beyond his means, but they had investments that will eventually pay out,” she replies with a pointed look.
I don’t ask how she knows this. Tina has always been a guardian of everyone’s dealings and secrets.
“I like Jo so much. But women like her will usually have something to fall back on. Yes, she is without funds now, here in Paris, but she will never starve because she can always return to her family in Holland or ask them to help dig her out of a hole. You and I will always survive by our wits because no one is ever going to save us. Remember it, my dear.” She raises her glass to mine, a resigned toast to our shared backgrounds.
“What I worry about Jo is she will be infected with the same obsession as her husband, the compulsion to make something of Vincent. And I understand it. There is something miraculous in his art, even if the critics haven’t realized it yet.
The real danger is that Jo will be burdened by the guilt of it all. ”
“The guilt?”
“How much do you know about Vincent and Theo, Claire?” In the moment I decide I will not even reveal our intimate connection to Tina. I tell her I know very little.
“Two brothers have never been closer. Perhaps it was unhealthy. Perhaps it was exactly the way it should have been. Vincent was Theo’s entire world before he met Jo.
He lived and worked to support him and Vincent depended on him for everything.
When Vincent learned that his brother was engaged to Jo, he truly took leave of his senses. He committed a horrific act.”
“What did he do?” I know that wasn’t when Vincent took his own life by shooting himself in the chest. He lived long enough to meet Jo after her wedding and he even painted pieces for young Vincent. I have seen them in her apartment.
“I do not know the whole truth,” Agostina admits.
“Only bits and pieces our mutual friend Paul Gauguin told me when he was deep into his cups, and that man is a well-known liar. But what I heard is that when Vincent found out he was losing his brother to marriage, his mind unraveled to a more dangerous place than ever before. He couldn’t fathom who would be left to love him and to financially support his desperate desires to be a successful artist. And in his despair he acted out in a gruesome manner.
I know Jo feels the guilt for it, blames herself, at least somewhat, for what happened, and with both Vincent and Theo now gone, she feels she has to do something to repent.
If you care for her, do not let Vincent’s legacy consume her the way it did those two men. ”