“Yes. Or something like love. I worried about her constantly. He was such a distraction, and her health deteriorated during those years. Johan Cohen, for all his flaws, was a much better fit. Being a mistress was not a life for someone like Jo. And people talked. There was much gossip and none of it good for what she has been trying to accomplish. If she had stayed with him, she would not be where she is now.”
“You have a lot of opinions about her life?”
“I’ve been very invested in it.”
“To the detriment of your own,” Marie-Celeste says.
This makes me stop. “What are you saying?”
“Forgive me. I spoke out of turn.”
“No.” I grasp her hands in mine, needing her to continue. “I want to hear all your thoughts.”
“You have worked so hard for Mrs. Van Gogh. You have devoted so much to her. And it seems to me that you have kept your own life small. Please do not take this badly. I do love the life you have built for yourself from practically nothing. I know your circumstances in Paris were not ideal. But it feels like you have been afraid to hope for something more.”
This is the first time she has mentioned what she knows about my past. And how can I tell her that all this timeshewas my something more? I let her continue as we wind our way back home.
“You do not seem to have many friends, only acquaintances. More companionship could do you well.”
“You raise good points, my dear,” I manage. They are all things I have chosen not to think too much about. I have not seen my life as small; I have seen it as comfortable and more than a woman like me could have hoped to have. But I like that Marie-Celeste dreams bigger than her station, that she wants more than to be content and that she also seems to want that for me as well.
“I apologize again for overstepping.”
“No. Stop that.” I interrupt her. “We must never be afraid to say anything to one another. I know this relationship is new for both of us, and it is unconventional to say the least, but I hope we can always be honest.”
“I would like that,” she says, grabbing my hand.
“But it is a lot to digest, to take in how someone else sees me.”
“I understand. And I want you to know that I also have much respect for you. I do not know if I could have done what you have done.”
“My girl, you are already braver than I ever was. You are building a life for yourself that is completely unexpected, and I cannot wait to see what you accomplish.”
We walk in silence for a bit, her arm casually looped through mine. She’s taller than I am already, long and lithe, her hair a golden auburn tumbling down her back.
As we exit the park, I feel a figure behind me, his hot breath on my neck. As I turn, Isaac leans into me and hisses into my ear, so quietly Marie-Celeste cannot hear.
“I know it was you who kept me from her. But does Jo know all your secrets? Does she know about your meetings with Monsieur Swanson?”
My jaw drops; the blood in my veins turns to ice. He smirks, more lucid now.
“The canals here have ears. Everyone is always listening.”
29
Emma
Maybe it’s thefact that I walked out of that castle with a half million dollars nestled between my thighs, or that this canvas I am working on will hang in the Musée d’Orsay, but I’m alive in a way I haven’t been since Pascal crushed both my heart and my pride beneath his thick black boots, since he told me I was worthless as an artist and as a lover.
Vincent lives rent-free inside my head. His genius, his joy, his madness, his ego, and his insecurities all become mine.
The morning after I return from the château, painting is like a balm soothing all the things that have broken me over the years.
I stay awake for three days. The beauty of working in oils is having more leeway to fail. You can scrape off a mistake or simply paint over it. The layers give a piece more character. First, I finish the Renoir nude because it is the easier of the two. It’s calmer, the contours smoother. The female form with her perfect fleshy bellycomes easily to me, as does the slight exasperation on her lips. I spend the most time getting the colors just right, the bright red flush of her cheeks, the royal blue of her slippers.
Then I move on to Vincent’s. He and I are now firmly also on a first-name basis. And once I start, I become obsessed. I ignore each of Lucie’s and Colette’s knocks on my locked door, but accept the food they leave me in the hallway. I’m determined to finish before I close my eyes.
I know better than anyone that mental illness is often notcausedby anything, but rather a disease that lives inside a person, lying in wait. Theo van Gogh once wrote, “Genius roams along such mysterious paths in the mind that a spell of dizziness can bring it hurtling down from its heights.”
