Sacré Bleu

Having decided that the theme of this picture would be a deserted street, he was almost disappointed to hear footsteps from the courtyard of the Colorman’s building. The building’s concierge, a wizened widow, appeared at the first-floor window, then ducked behind a curtain as the gate latch clanked. Every apartment building in Paris had a concierge who, by some sort of natural selection, was both extraordinarily nosy yet loath to be accused of it.

The Colorman backed his way through the wrought-iron gate, pulling behind him the wooden case nearly as large as himself.

Henri could feel the hair stand up on the back of his neck and he wished he hadn’t become so engrossed in his painting that he’d completely forgotten to drink, because he could have used another cognac to still his nerves. Now he leaned into his canvas and pretended to be meticulously working on an edge when, in fact, he very seldom worked up close to the canvas and preferred long-handled brushes.

“Monsieur!” said the Colorman, crossing the street, his great case bumping his heels as he moved. “Remember me from avenue de Clichy? Monsieur, can I interest you in some color? I can tell from your excellent hat that you are a man of taste. I have only the finest earths and mineral pigments, none of that false Prussian shit.”

Henri loo

ked up from his painting as if he’d been awakened from a dream. “Ah, monsieur, I did not see you. I tell you honestly, I do not know the state of my paint box today. Perhaps I will have need of your wares.” Henri pulled his paint box out from under the easel, unsnapped the latches, and opened it. As he’d planned, it was a sad cemetery of crushed and depleted paint tubes, twisted sacrifices to beauty.

“Ha!” said the Colorman. “You need everything.”

“Yes, yes, one of everything,” said Henri. “And a large tube each of lead white, ivory black, and ultramarine.”

The Colorman had opened his own case on the street, but he stopped. “I don’t have a large tube of ultramarine, monsieur. Only a very small tube.” His eyes were set so far back under his brow that Henri had to bend down to see what emotion was there because the Colorman’s voice sounded full of regret. Not what Henri expected.

“No matter, monsieur,” Henri said. “I will take what you have, a small tube is fine. If I need more blue I can always—”

“None of that Prussian shit!” barked the Colorman.

“I was going to say that I can always use stand oil and glaze what little I have over white.”

The Colorman cocked his head. “No one does that anymore. That’s the old way. You new fucks putting paint on with a trowel, that’s the way now.”

Henri smiled. He thought of Vincent’s calculatedly violent palette-knife paintings, paint so thick it would take half a year to dry, even in the arid South. Then his thought of Vincent went dark as he remembered the letter. The Colorman had been in Arles.

“Well,” Henri said, “better the old ways than use that Prussian shit.”

“Ha! Yes,” said the Colorman. “Or that synthetic French ultramarine. I don’t care what they say, it’s not the same as the blue from lapis lazuli. It is not the sacred blue. You will see. You will never find a finer color, monsieur.”

At that moment, seeing the color in the case, the pentimento that had been rising in Henri’s mind became a clear, vivid image. He had seen them together, one time outside of his studio, Carmen and the Colorman. How had he forgotten? “Actually, I have used your color before. Perhaps you remember?”

The Colorman looked up from his case. “I would remember selling to a dwarf, I think.”

Henri wanted right then to bash the twisted little creature’s brains in with his walking stick, but he calmed himself enough to just snap, “Monsieur, I am not a dwarf. I am fully seven centimeters taller than the requisite for a dwarf, and I resent your implication.”

“So sorry, monsieur. My mistake. Still, I would remember selling to you.”

“Your color was obtained through a girl who modeled for me, a Mademoiselle Carmen Gaudin. Perhaps you remember her.”

“Is she a housemaid? My maid quit yesterday.”

“Your standards were perhaps too demanding for her?”

“Penis,” explained the Colorman with a shrug.

“Ah, I understand,” said Henri. “Mine refuses to do windows. No, Mademoiselle Gaudin was a laundress by trade. A redhead, perhaps you remember?”

The Colorman lifted his derby and scratched his head as if trying to conjure a memory. “Sure, maybe. The redheaded laundress. Yes, I wondered where she got the money for color.”

Actually, at the time, Henri had wondered that as well, since she’d brought him the paint as gifts. “For our pictures,” she said.

“Do you know where she is now?” asked Henri. “She used to work at the laundry near Place Pigalle, but they haven’t seen her.”

“That one was called Carmen, right?”

“Yes, Carmen Gaudin.”