Sacré Bleu

Theo smiled at Toulouse-Lautrec. “You’re just jealous.”

“Nonsense, this painting is shit,” said Henri.

“It’s not shit,” said Lucien, really having trouble trying to figure out what, exactly, was their plan. It might not be a masterpiece, but it wasn’t shit.

“It’s not shit,” van Gogh confirmed.

“Thank you, Theo,” Lucien said. “Your opinion means a lot to me, which is why we’ve brought the painting to you unfinished. I’m thinking of painting a scarf—”

“Do you have all of Vincent’s paintings here now?” interrupted Henri.

Theo looked startled at the mention of his brother. “Yes, I have them all here in Paris, although not hanging, obviously.”

“In the lot of his last paintings, were there any figure paintings? Any paintings of women?”

“Yes, one of Madame Gachet; three, I think, of the young girl whose family owns the inn at Auvers, where Vincent was living; and one of the innkeeper’s wife. Why?”

“Often, when an artist is tormented, a woman is involved.”

Surprisingly, Theo van Gogh smiled at this. “Not just artists, Henri. No, when Vincent first went to Arles he mentioned a woman briefly in one of his letters, but it was the way you talk about a pretty girl you see walking in the park, wistful, I think you would call it. Not as if he knew her. Mostly he wrote about painting. You know him—knew him. Painting is all he talked about.”

“Was there something about his painting that would have—that was causing him distress?”

“Enough distress to kill himself, you mean?” Now Theo lost his semblance of gentlemanly detachment and gasped as if unable to catch his breath.

“I’m sorry,” Lucien said, steadying Theo with a hand on his back.

In a second van Gogh snapped back into his clerk aspect, as if they were talking about the provenance of a painting, not the death of his brother.

“He kept saying, ‘Don’t let anyone see her, don’t let anyone near her.’ He was talking about a painting he sent from Arles, but I received no figure painting from Arles.”

“And you don’t know who ‘she’ was?”

“No. I don’t. Perhaps Gauguin knows; he was there when Vincent had his breakdown in Arles. But if there was a woman, he never mentioned her.”

“So it wasn’t a woman…” Henri seemed perplexed.

“I don’t know why my brother killed himself. No one even knows where he got the pistol.”

“He didn’t own a gun?” asked Henri.

“No, and neither did Dr. Gachet. The innkeeper only had a shotgun for hunting.”

“You were a good brother to him,” said Lucien, his hand still on Theo’s back. “The best anyone could expect.”

“Thank you, Lucien.” Van Gogh snapped a handkerchief from his breast pocket and ran it quickly under his eyes. “I’m sorry. I’m still not recovered, obviously. I will find a place for your picture, Lucien. Give me some time to put some of the prints in storage and sell a few paintings.”

“No, that’s not necessary,” said Lucien. “I need to work on her. I meant to ask you, as an expert, do you think I should paint a scarf tied around her neck? I was thinking in ultramarine, to draw the eye.”

“Her eyes draw the eye, Lucien. You don’t need a scarf. I wouldn’t presume to tell you how to paint, but this picture looks finished to me.”

“Thank you,” said Lucien. “That helps. I would still like to work on the texture of the throw she is lying on.”

“You will bring it back, then? Please. It really is a magnificent picture.”

“I will. Thank you, Theo.”

Lucien nodded to Henri, signaling him to pick up his end of the painting.