Sunflowers by Sheramy Bundrick

Author:Sheramy Bundrick [Bundrick, Sheramy]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Tags: Historical Fiction
ISBN: 9780061765278
Publisher: HarperCollins
Published: 2009-10-01T10:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

The Petition

This so-called good town of Arles is such an odd place that it’s with good reason that old Gauguin calls it “the dirtiest hole of the south.”

—Vincent to Theo, Arles, February 1889

A

mere ten days after his collapse, Vincent had improved enough to return to the yellow house. But only to use the studio—he accepted Dr. Rey’s suggestion that he sleep and eat at the hospital, at least for a while. I believed he would feel better at home, but I kept my opinions to myself. Monsieur Roulin whitewashed the studio wall so the splattered paint was no longer visible, and I went searching for new brushes, carrying Vincent’s ruined ones with me for the shopkeeper to compare. Their quality wasn’t as fine, but I hoped they would do for now. When he saw them standing in a jar next to his easel, Vincent kissed me on the cheek and told me they were perfect.

The first afternoon he drew quietly in his sketchbook, practicing with things lying around the house. He spoke little—ever since he’d gone back to the hospital, he’d spoken little, and his silence worried me. He never mentioned the baby or anything that had happened, but sometimes I’d catch him watching me, and the grief and regret in his eyes were plain to see.

The second afternoon I arrived to the smell of turpentine. “You’ve started painting again,” I said as I walked into the studio. “What are you working on?”

“The fourth répetition of Madame Roulin’s portrait,” he said, frowning at the canvas on the easel. “The fourth Berceuse.”

“Are you sure that’s a good idea?”

“Why wouldn’t it be?”

“You were working on the first one when you got sick the first time,” I said hesitantly. “You’d finished the third one and started this one when you got sick the last time…”

“I didn’t get sick because of the painting,” Vincent said. “This is a comforting image, the kind of picture that lonely men would see and remember their own wives and mothers. I imagine it hung between two of the sunflower canvases to form a triptych of musical color—don’t you think that would make a fine effect?”

“Yes, mon cher,” I gave in.

“You shouldn’t be so superstitious,” he added, and I let the matter drop.

He worked on the portrait a few days, then set it aside to make another copy of the sunflowers. Aside from the occasional grumble, he seemed satisfied as he worked, but something was missing: some fire, some passion that he’d never lacked before. The high yellow note, as he called it.

A week after he left the hospital, I told him he could paint me.

He was fiddling again with the fourth Berceuse. “Damn it, I can’t get her hands—what did you say? Right now?”

His eagerness made him stumble over his own feet as he scurried around the studio to find a length of canvas and tack it to a stretcher. Then he dug in his jars and boxes. “I can’t believe you’ve said yes,” he said, a new flame blazing in his eyes.

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