“Not this one. I’ve become attached to it. I’ll keep it until it is worth something. What Vincent didwasspecial. 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 mightsuffer 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 twomen.”
5
Emma
“Do you everthink about what makes a painting famous, Emma?”
Stella’s chatty today. I’ve been indulging her conversations more and more over the past few weeks for vaguely selfish reasons. Matthew has promised me extra cash to report back to him on how she’s doing, and I need the money. Paying for my mother’s care back in America is expensive and I’m about $25,000 in debt right now. It grows every month despite how many toilets I clean.
When I was accepted to the École des Beaux-Arts two years ago, I received a scholarship sponsored by an anonymous donor who had pledged to support three women who created or studied art. My roommates and I were the first to receive it. Colette and Lucie have become like family to me, the women I would do absolutely anything for. All our tuition was covered. Room and board was up to us.
The program was supposed to last for three years, but after year two, about six months ago, the funding was abruptly cut off with no explanation, and the three of us were left to cobble together thousands or leave the program unfinished. Colette and Lucie were in the same boat as I was. We’d all made sacrifices to be there. We were all broke and carrying our own baggage, but we struggled together and were stronger for it.
Early on we had managed to find ourselves an apartment that was cheap but certainly not free. We all stitched together various jobs over the past couple of years in cafés and bars, different kinds of service work. I currently clean about five homes a week.
There are two months until the new semester begins, and I don’t have nearly enough to be allowed to start classes. I’m so desperate for cash I’ve even looked around Stella’s apartment for objects to pawn. There are many things I’m sure she won’t miss, but I also keep remembering what Matthew said about Stella owning nothing in this apartment. How long will any of this be hers?
Stella asks me her question again since I’m so distracted.
“Do you ever think about what makes paintings famous, dear?”
Yes, I want to shout. I think about it constantly. I think about it every time I look at a Rothko that makes absolutely no sense to me, or when some dildo of a dude from my art class is chosen for an exhibition with his reimaginings of those very same Rothkos. I think about it each time my friends and I are overlooked for similar exhibitions and told our work is kitschy or derivative. I think about it when I gaze atThe Origin of the World, a painting I love in the Orsay, but also resent because I know that Gustave Courbet was famous not only for his art but for his confidence and his strong temperament, his bold physical presence. Some might even say for his beard. Critics loved his distinct pointed beard and they ignored similar paintings and nudes by womencreated at the same time because those women didn’t have commanding facial hair.
I know that many other male artists achieved fame and success because they married well. They chose wives with rich fathers and excellent connections. But I also know plenty of them, Vincent van Gogh included, died penniless and relatively unknown and only became famous years later because a very rich collector chose to fancy them and paid an extraordinary amount of money for their work.
“I’d like to think that paintings become famous because people love them,” I say, which is naive but not untrue. It’s what I want to believe.
