“I would,” Jo says, taking both of us completely by surprise. “I’d like to hear more about what it is all about.”
Once Millie has taken care of the soiled linens and Mr. Pietersen has been fed a lukewarm porridge that he never thanked us for, I brew Jo a cup of tea. “Why do you want to attend that suffragist meeting?” I ask her.
“I have been so exposed to the ways in which women arekept from power and from financial gain,” she says slowly. I know she must have spent some time thinking on this already because Jo never goes along with anyone’s opinions before she makes up her own mind. She’s often contradictory about new things at first, until she’s done her own research.
“Powerful men within the world of art would love to take Vincent’s paintings from me. Just the other day I received yet another letter from that Henrik Swanson, the art dealer in Germany. He offered a painfully low price for Vincent’s entire collection; told me he couldn’t imagine I would want to be worrying over them when I could be keeping house and caring for my son. It was belittling. Women should be able to choose both education and occupation if that is what they desire. It feels completely rational to me.”
“The only time I’ve ever felt like a man’s equal, or even his superior, is when our clothes are off,” I reply. I love shocking Jo. But my words don’t startle her at all this time.
“Isn’t that the truth.” I know she is thinking about Isaac and I try to keep her focus away from him.
“What bothers you the most about Henrik Swanson? Besides his condescension.”
“He’s buying up as many of Vincent’s paintings as he can. His strategy is for pure gain. He will store all the work, hide them away for years, hope they appreciate because of my labor, and then resell the lot of them at a profit for his own family. He’s done it with others. He won’t make sure that Vincent’s art is shown around the world, or that students can gaze on it for free and learn his methods. He cares only about Vincent as a potential investment.”
“You have never shied away from making money, though,” I remind her.
“But I also want the value of Vincent’s work to increase because it makes people pay attention. And when a painting sellsfor more than the last one, the right people come to the next show. That’s what Theo wanted. For Vincent to be remembered.”
“But what do you want?” This is a dangerous line of questioning. I’m asking about the art, but I could just as easily be asking about her personal life. Isaac and Jo quickly fell into their old routines after the incident at the show when he told her to forget about him, though he made it even more clear that he has absolutely no intention of marrying her. Some days she seems to accept that. Others I see her work herself into a fury after being with him. She tells me she ended things and that she will never return. But she always does. The leak in the roof is the only thing besides caring for her child that has gotten her out of bed this week, due to yet another passionate argument between the two of them. And that hole in the roof never would have grown so large had Jo been able to muster the strength to help me patch it earlier.
Jo releases a long sigh as she mops up the last of the puddles in the hallway. “Every time I want something of my own, it ends badly. It’s easier to want a thing for someone else.”
“It is acceptable for you to have your own desires.”
“I don’t disagree,” she murmurs. “But everything I tend to desire ends up shattering me.”
Our first suffragist meeting isseveral weeks later, on a Tuesday at lunchtime. It is clear that anyone is welcome—middle-class women like Jo, lower-born women like Millie. And then there is me, who no one knows how to put into a category. But it is also evident that we are all curious about our place in the world—that we want to know more about choosing to be “new women,” the ones who crave a purpose in life beyond the home and desire to work serving men. I am inspired by all of it,and once again, grateful to Jo for giving me this life, for seeing that I deserved something more.
Jo is in good spirits at the meeting. “Thank you for coming with me,” she whispers as we walk in. “I needed this. I know I have been quite unpleasant as of late. We can’t have the wind in our sails all the time, but I have truly been pushing the limits.”
At the end of the gathering, one of the organizers pulls the two of us aside. She’s dignified, composed, with modest manners and language—a typical, respectable Hague lady.
“Mrs. Van Gogh,” she addresses Jo, but also smiles warmly at me to let me know I am welcome in the conversation. “I was so pleased to see you here. I have read many of the pieces you have written about your late brother-in-law and I attended a recent show. It was wonderful.”
“Oh, thank you,” Jo replies, a blush creeping up her neck. “It turned out to be quite a success.”
“I do enjoy your style of writing very much and I was wondering if you might be interested in penning some things for us.”
“Writing what exactly?”
“Pieces for periodicals and pamphlets. We are hoping to get more of our information to a wider audience, and you seem to have an expertise in doing that with your brother-in-law’s work.”
I watch Jo closely. Writing is something she enjoys, and she certainly has thoughts on this subject, but I do not know how she will respond. She looks over to me as though I might have the answer for her. I give a slight nod. What does she have to lose? I want to remind her that she is in a lucky and privileged position to use her voice. There is no man in our home to silence her. “I’ll do it,” Jo agrees. “I would be happy to. When shall we get started?”
We research together, as wedid with most things in those days. Our work often complements one another’s. Jo hasbig ideas linking the many things she has read in newspapers, essays, and even novels, but she has a hard time organizing all of them in a single cohesive argument. I have always been good at listening and absorbing in order to make sense of the world.
There have been many recent pamphlets about how women need to stop working. How having a job and performing labor for pay is unbecoming of the female sex. One essay we found argued that if a woman had to work it was a sin for her to also hire a housekeeper when she should be taking care of both her house and her children all on her own. And the worst part was that it was a woman who wrote it.
“How is this for a response to that ridiculous idea?” Jo reads what she wrote out loud to me. “ ‘It is a wise, sensible woman who would prefer to spend her time with her children rather than always washing up the cups, mending, and doing the laundry in the few spare hours she has in a day after she has been working to support those children or to support her entire family. A person can only do one thing at a time, and sadly I know a lot of women who put their house before their children.’ ”
“I agree. But also add something about how a male widower is quick to hire an entire staff if he can afford it, to help him with his home and children so he can continue working.”
“Excellent point. I will write that in. This is such an important truth to speak about. I could not spend the quality time that I spend with Vincent if I did not have help from you. I could not be the kind of mother I wish to be and I do not think any woman should be criticized for asking for help in any part of her life.” Jo pounds the table with her tiny fists. “Or for paying a fair wage for that help.”
“Absolutely,” I say.
“I think we are almost finished here. I hope you’ll sign your name along with mine, Claire,” Jo says with a smile. “You have done so much of the work.”
