Christmas 1888 must have been Vincent van Gogh’s lowest and most comforting moment. On December 23, he had sliced off a portion of ear in the ultimate act of devastation born from disappointment. But ten months earlier, on February 20, Vincent believed his arrival in Arles was the beginning of good things to come. Charmed by the light and the culture of this southern village, the painter quickly had tried to commandeer his presence in the South into the beginning of a movement. He worked hard at cajoling other painters to make the trip down to join him in inaugurating the Studio of the South. After much persuasion, Paul Gauguin had agreed to come to live in Vincent’s so-called Yellow House as the movement’s leader. (That relationship has been analyzed through both anecdotal evidence and scholarly conjecture, most notably by Maggie Harrison—reference her work, The Passion of the Yellow House, a book based on her interpretations of both artists’ work at the time, in conjunction with commentary from leading psychoanalysts—although hopelessly biased in favor of Gauguin!)
And there can be no doubt that Vincent’s adulation for Gauguin began to rival his own passion for painting. Vincent had been overjoyed with the expectation of Gauguin’s arrival. He had decorated the Yellow House for him, stating that he was “preparing the prettier room upstairs, which I shall try to make as much as possible like the boudoir of a really artistic woman.” He must have been giddy with excitement when Gauguin arrived, romanticized by the drama of art, and no doubt physically attracted to the elder’s rugged stature. Maggie Harrison wrote of homoerotic tendencies in The Passion of the Yellow House, and that Vincent’s behavior suggested that of a doting wife, more than a cohort. Poor Vincent, disappointed by his own concoctions for intimacy and companionship, always felt rejected by Gauguin. On that December 23 night, Gauguin led Vincent through the narrow Arles lanes in pursuit of prostitutes. Maggie Harrison’s book makes much of this incident, suggesting that the love-struck had helped the object of his affection seek others. Accounts of the evening vary (with Gauguin’s later recollection being the most dramatic—and the most discounted), but either way, Van Gogh ended the evening furious with Gauguin, and with a portion of his left ear missing and delivered to a prostitute named Rachel, perhaps as a gesture of camaraderie, a sad toast to the emotional ignorance of coveted men who will enter your life but will never share it. With a bandage held tight to his ear, Vincent was led home by the postman, where he promptly thanked the letter carrier before sending him away. Vincent would then have walked past Gauguin’s pretty room, already emptied, as the idol had left town, terrified by Van Gogh’s violence—and not wanting to risk further association. But, even in a state of shock, Vincent was not surprised by his friend’s absence, he knew that incompatibility had come between them, or more succinctly, in his own words: “Gauguin was not happy with the little yellow house where we work, and especially with me.”
Vincent lay down in his bed, the blood flowing from his ear, as he drifted in and out of consciousness. The expectations had been more than unfulfilled—they had been destroyed. And as he lay there feeling the blood oddly cool against his neck, he must have hoped that it would all drain out at once, cleansing him of this life. It was the heartbreak of the adolescent. The letdown of the dreamer. A life that had seemed so perfectly beautiful had just as suddenly revealed its hideous scars. There is no question that as he allowed himself to drift out of consciousness, Van Gogh hoped that he would never wake again.
Theo was at the bedside when Vincent awoke in the hospital. Following the postman’s advice, a policeman named Roberts had checked in on Vincent in the Yellow House and subsequently rushed the wounded painter to the hospital, where his dutiful brother was summoned from a celebratory weekend after announcing his engagement to the future Johanna van Gogh. In seeing his brother, Vincent felt a rush of comfort.
The swirling out-of-control night now seemed distant when he looked at Theo’s reassuring stare. Theo likely did not ask Vincent what had happened with Gauguin, the prostitute, or the ear; only told him that he had made arrangements with Johanna to stay with Vincent until the ear had healed. They discussed heading north to Auvers. Vincent felt hopeful with this discussion, saying that recent events convinced him that this all necessitated a return to the North. Theo agreed, but from a more methodical viewpoint. It would be best if Vincent kept to himself for a while, to draw on a new inspiration to bring some sense of solemnity to him. (Meanwhile, Theo would look into this doctor up in Auvers for whom Cézanne had been so enthusiastic.) The two brothers celebrated Christmas in the hospital room. They talked of family and art. Every day until January 7, Vincent would ask Theo to tell him again about how good the North would be for him. And each time Theo reassured him, there was no past for Vincent. Only a future.
Claire told Richard that Cocoa needed plenty of attention while she was overseas. Real attention. He couldn’t just feed her and then toss her out the back door twice a day to shit. Her dog had come to expect a certain level of companionship, and it was nothing short of cruel to expect her to live the same ornamental life as a goldfish. She had made a list for caring for the lab, one that was separate from the caring of the house. In return, Claire allowed Richard to convert the upstairs bedroom into a studio. He could move his bedding into their old room. It was not a life intended to replicate their past, but rather to preserve her current one until she returned. No assumptions were made.
After last month’s placard stunt, Ron Bernard had encouraged the idea of a research trip to France. While he needed Claire to be on call, Bernard believed that being away for a brief time actually made for good strategy, given the public exploits of the Kennealys. Three weeks at the most, with a tightly scheduled itinerary. It would temporarily free her from the open scrutiny and allow her to continue her work. He had also seen her going abroad as a public relations counterattack—demonstrating the responsible scholar engaged in her work, not the lunatic shut-in who is afraid to show her face out of guilt.
Claire had agreed reluctantly, knowing it meant that she would need to face her book again, trying to find the meaning in something she didn’t quite see anymore. But getting out of Rhode Island did seem appealing. Any errand outside the house was stressful. Anybody could be the Kennealys. Or witnesses. Or investigators. She had started sending Richard to the grocery store, to the gas station, and for all other needs. Since classes ended, Claire had only left the house once to go to campus at the behest of her dean, Bruce Wright, on the Monday following the placard incident. Bruce Wright had called her into his office, suggesting that she consider a semester off, “perhaps to research,” he said grudgingly. Bruce was always irritated by Claire and her fellow faculty members who had gained prominence in their fields, and exercised it when needed. More than twenty years ago, Bruce had chosen to go into administration as his way of expressing his scholarly devotion, and ever since, he had become very defensive over his position. Bruce made constant reference to the fallacy of social Darwinism, forever citing that it was not the strongest and brightest who survived and prospered, but rather those who gained recognition, and then resorted to self-promotion. He knew scores of mathematicians who engaged in critical research, yet as far as university administrations were concerned, such scholars were always overshadowed by those who were getting favorable book reviews in the New York Times or NSF grants. It was a speech that Claire had heard many times before and was prepared to hear again. He had taken off his glasses in his per usual dramatic form, landing them on his desk, letting the steel frames ring throughout the room. “I understand that this is rather late in the year to be having this conversation, but—”
“These are exigent circumstances.”
Bruce had looked down, presuming to acknowledge the unspoken. Not a single person on that campus had mentioned anything to Claire about the accident, even though the sandwich board incident had caused quite a stir. A photograph had ended up in both the student newspaper and the shore paper. And to make matters worse, without knowing of Claire’s involvement, the multicultural studies department had taped the photo from the news clipping to their office door; it was not clear if it stood as a representation of heroism or exploitation.
“Claire, you must understand…What I mean to say is that…” Bruce put his glasses back on. “I think, given the recent events of the last month, that the provost’s office is in agreement that a semester sabbatical serves the mutual interest of the university and your own work.” Bruce stood up, still refusing to speak the obvious. He clapped his hands together, as though the meeting was over. “The university believes in trying to support our faculty in whatever ways it can.”
Bruce had put his hand out to Claire. She politely shook it. He tried to make eye contact with her but kept looking down at the tops of his shoes. “Please don’t forget to fill out the necessary paperwork. Julie can help you, if you need it.” He still wouldn’t let go of her hand. “This will be good for you.”
She had slid her hand out from his grip. “Thank you, Bruce.”
CLAIRE MADE PLANS TO LEAVE after Christmas. Somehow it seemed better to spend Christmas alone in Providence than in France. At least Cocoa would be by her side. As it turned out, Richard had finished his project by Christmas eve, but Claire told him just to stay in Cambridge. She ended up sitting desperately alone through Christmas eve and Christmas day, stroking Cocoa’s head and unwrapping a giant dog biscuit for her dog. Last year, she and Richard had spent the first Christmas of their separation together, both too terrified to risk it alone. But this was the first one on her own. She felt it was the only way to assess the future with any clarity.
BY THE FIRST OF THE year, the loose ends for the trip had been tied together surprisingly smoothly. Maggie Harrison had offered to help Claire organize the trip, while her husband, Bill, maintained a poorly disguised glee that Claire was getting back into the book. In her last phone call, she had told him some of her ideas about the complicity of Gachet in Vincent’s death, and how that might be tied into the painting. Bill said it sounded intriguing, and that he knew Maggie had never trusted Gachet much either for some reason. He hoped Claire found something on the trip that helped forward that theory. It sounded as though it could make for a good book.
Ron Bernard had one lone condition: Claire needed to meet Trevor McCarthy in Bernard’s office before she left. For Bernard, it would mollify his nagging concern that the Kennealy team would try to say publicly that Claire had left the country to avoid answering questions. Even a brief meeting would show that she was being fully cooperative, willing to halt her illustrious career to get to the bottom of the truth. They scheduled the meeting on the day before she was set to leave. Then, at least, they could shut the door on Trevor McCarthy.
Claire’s tickets were bought. The itinerary set. She would return to Auvers-sur-Oise, grounding herself among the familiar streets and sooted air, now replicated with modern conventions and layers of trampled dreams. Maybe she would rediscover Crows over the Wheatfield. At least uncover some of its truths.
MONDAY
It seems as though no matters of public interest are ever private nor without hyperbole. Yet somehow they live on to tell the tale. Following the ear incident, Le Forum Républicain, the local Arles newspaper, reported it as such: “Last Sunday at half past eleven, a local painter named Vincent van Gogh, a native of Holland, appeared at the maison de tolerance n. 1, asked for a girl named Rachel, and handed her his ear with these words: ‘Keep this object carefully.’ Then he disappeared. The police, informed of these happenings, which could be attributed only to an unfortunate maniac, looked the next morning for this individual, whom they found in his bed with barely a sign of life.”
One would assume that Theo kept this article from his brother’s attention. In the matter of one short week, the private demons had become the public scrutiny.
THEY ALL FACED RON BERNARD’S desk. Claire and Richard paired off to the right, with Trevor McCarthy seated on the left. Amazingly, he looked just as she had pictured him. Early thirties. Close-cropped hair, spiked with scented gel. Disproportionately short legs anchored his stocky body. There was nothing pleasant about his face, just the blank demeanor of a school yard wall pocked by the imprints from dodgeball games. He sat with his legs crossed, arms folded, and bouncing his left leg in annoyingly stilted rhythms.
Eschewing formality, Bernard leaned into his desk. The edge cut into his gut. “I swear to God, Trevor, you relay to Jack DiMallo that another bullshit stunt like last month’s at the college will have me screaming of ethics charges in every newspaper. You tell him that.”
“DiMallo swears that he has no knowledge of, nor was he involved with, the girl holding the sign. Believe me, Ron, you know he would never encourage that. Jack DiMallo play by the rules.”
Bernard laughed. “But from what I hear, his clients are…Goddamn, inflicting emotional distress on my client and poisoning a jury pool in one fell swoop. Bravo. Brilliant. Tell DiMallo I doff my cap to him. But, I repeat, if there is a next time I will…So help me.” Claire figured Bernard’s outburst was for her benefit. She appreciated watching McCarthy shift in his chair. “Now let’s get on with this, shall we. I understand that Mrs. Andrews has obligations.”
McCarthy spoke quickly. A pedestrian had come forward to say that an older black car had been trying to work its way into the traffic, and that there may have been something of a battle between the drivers. The witness believed it caused just enough distraction to encourage the accident. McCarthy wasn’t looking for Claire’s version, only if she remembered such a car, and, if she did, could she provide a description. He was trying to track down the driver of the black car and reminded Claire that the testimony could be beneficial to her.
Claire stared at McCarthy until she forced his eyes to the floor. “What do I say?” she asked Bernard.
He answered, “The truth.”
“There were many cars,” she spoke. “Old and new. The road was traffic. All traffic.”
“Let me rephrase this: can you help me locate the model of a black car that might have been involved?”
She looked beyond McCarthy, out the window. The moist gray clouds thickened in striated layers, starting to lighten, as though contemplating snow.
McCarthy pushed himself to the edge of his chair. His cheeks reddened. He looked to Ron Bernard. “Tell her she needs to be forthright. She needs to be forthright. Can you tell her that? She just can’t be—Forthright, can you tell her that?”
Claire tingled in nervousness. Her head went light in the reflex of anticipation and fear.
Richard and Bernard looked to each other. McCarthy’s legs opened a bit wider, and he tapped his foot faster. A thread dangled from the hem of his chinos.
“Look, Mrs. Andrews,” Bernard said. “Just know that nothing that you say here will incriminate you. In fact, it can only help the case. It is best to have everything corroborated.” He tried to give a gentle smile.
Claire bit down on her lip, shaking her head. Only recently had she been able to get through a whole day without reliving the guilt every damn minute, and here she was drawn right back into it. There was no way that anybody in this room was going to ever believe that she didn’t record and memorize every detail of that night, right down to nuance of smell and touch. What she knew now was only the aftermath. Like looking at your own bloodied fist with no explanation for what came before.
“Claire,” Richard said.
“What do you want me to say?”
“The car,” McCarthy said. “I told you about it already. I told you, the car.”
“The car?”
“I told you, the car. Didn’t you hear me tell you about the car? I told her about the car. Explicitly.”
“I don’t know.”
“About the car? Is that what you are saying? You don’t know anything about the car. I need to get this straight. I need to report correctly.” McCarthy pulled down on his tie, trying to drag the shortened tip to its properly appointed position at the belt. “You don’t know anything about the car, you are telling me.”
“My car,” she said.
McCarthy looked at Bernard. “Her car? What’s she talking about, her car?”
“My car is all I know, and I barely remember that. But there is nothing different that you would have…No reason to expect…He just shouldn’t have been…And if you think that you are going to sit here and pin this on…Well, then you can stop.”
“Oh, I can stop?”
“Yes, you can stop. You just sit there and try to fill in the blank with whatever crap that you—”
Bernard jumped in. “Mrs. Andrews, I think it is best of you…” He was still seated behind his desk, with McCarthy frozen in place.
Claire took Richard’s hand and pulled him from his seat. “I won’t just sit here and…”
Richard tried to resist, but as she stood she kept him in tow, tugging him reluctantly toward the door.
She swallowed, hoping to push air down into her queasy lungs.
When Van Gogh finally was released from the hospital and back in Arles, he went through a furious period of painting. The self-portraits, with gauze wrapped around his head to bandage the left ear, suggest what the townspeople might have seen when he would venture from the studio. Imagine the monster from the newspaper article standing before you on a Romanesque street, frail and distraught, with little patches of dried blood still staining the bandage. This was too much for a populace still enchanted by superstition and myth. It took only a month before Vincent broke down again. An episode that was so publicly violent that the citizens of the village petitioned to have the painter imprisoned in a hospital cell. Writing of being held under “lock and key and with keepers, looking out a window at township of people here cowardly enough to join together against one man, and that man ill,” he must have been relieved when finally Theo, in conjunction with a local minister, arranged for Vincent to go to the sanitarium in Saint-Rémy for a true recovery. It was one step farther north. Away from the daily haranguing outside the hospital cell window, the publicly made allusions in the newspaper, and the curious onlookers that passed through the halls, staring at him as though they had paid admission. The move into the sanitarium in Saint-Rémy had felt liberating. And more importantly, one more gate to pass through en route to a free and healthy life in the North.
Claire lay in her bed. She could hear Richard creaking upstairs. Tomorrow, when he would be in her bed, she would be in one overseas. Within the week, a bond would be formed between Richard and Cocoa that would make the dog forget all about Claire.
Her plane would not leave until two o’clock tomorrow afternoon, still giving her most of the morning for last-minute details. But, for some reason, she was restless, tossing and turning, rolling over to look at the clock.
The light coming through the window looked strange. She could not make out the hands on the clock, but she knew the hour was well before sunrise. An odd yellow glow washed over the curtains, striking in its luminescence, but still lacking the power of the sun. She tried closing her eyes, even dragging a pillow over her head, but she could still sense the glow.
Claire had been a junior in college when she had first traveled to France. Even then she was ambitious to learn more about Van Gogh than he knew about himself. She had gone south, walked the tree-lined streets of Saint-Rémy, weaving under the knotted olives, planning to make her way up to St. Paul’s Asylum, and then into the wheat fields, where she waited for night to fall, so she could see the stars and sky exactly as Vincent had when he painted them. The surrounding light had stopped her. Its subtle glow called forth all the colors and forms, in a pure composition of magnificence. Claire had imagined Vincent being so struck by the light and its complementing elements that he must have felt as though he had found his aesthetic paradise. But, slowly, as the elegance of the figures were revealed to him, so too must have been the imperfections. This great gift of light also would be his tormentor. Vincent quickly would realize that his own form was being revealed. The flaws and deficiencies shining bright, radiating his angry sadness. At the time, Claire had been certain that’s what he had experienced, because she too had felt it; struck still by the most vividly haunting beauty one could imagine. She had never known so much self-loathing in all her life. It began with a superficial dissection of her body and mind. Then it slowly penetrated her soul. She had gone back to the hotel room that night, afraid to sleep. At dusk she took the earliest train back to Paris, where she retreated into the safety of the museums and libraries, as she would for the next nineteen years of her life.
Claire still felt the threat of the painter’s light. It scared her to think that she could move on. Could anybody other than a sociopath inflict such a horror and still eat breakfast the next morning when the sun rose?
TUESDAY
The phone rang as Claire closed the front door, not locking it as she left. It is frightening how simple it is to leave once you make the decision. She felt no nostalgia for the postholiday Providence streets. Piles of dirty snow were shoved up against the corners. Next to nearly every trash can was a tattered Christmas tree with receding needles and stray tinsel, surrounded by smashed cartons and remnants of wrapping paper held by Scotch tape, waving like flags in the winter breeze. Green recycling bins filled with champagne bottles weighted down flattened pizza boxes. She had been the invalided observer for the holiday season, shut in behind closed curtains and off-the-hook telephones. She was glad to see the holidays organized and waiting for waste management to dispose of them. And she was glad to be swept away ahead of them.
Richard drove her to the airport. He commented that it was strange that she was taking only one suitcase; she usually over-packed even for the shortest conference. They quickly agreed that for three weeks it didn’t really matter, because even two more suitcases of clothing would not be enough.
Every address. Every phone number. And along with those, Richard wanted every detail that altered the itinerary. She agreed to call, having decided against taking her laptop because she got too flustered with figuring out the dial-up modems, and she was forever losing those European adaptors. He would be on an airplane the minute she needed him. “Where did I go wrong?” Claire said. “At thirty-nine I finally have a knight in shining armor. He is chivalrous. He is smart. He is handsome. He is my estranged husband,” causing Richard to belt out his faux lounge rendition of “That’s What Friends Are For.” He held the syllabic space between are and for in aching dramatics until they both erupted into a laughter that relieved all their anxieties. Near hysterics, Claire clutched her sides. It plunged her into a pure moment where there were no fearful deans and unsure husbands and angry drivers and ghosted faces of accidental boys lost.
From their laughter, the clouds seemed to rise, lifting the normally low ceiling of sky that boxed in the terrain, opening it up with brilliant possibilities. There is that strange cavern of atmosphere that covers New England—even the Atlantic and her bays feel the limitations. Perhaps that accounts for the close-knit protectiveness of the culture, where newcomers are always strangers, and the shades are drawn at 5 P.M. New England can be a domed world, limited by the very borderless frontiers that gave it its existence. As with the southern French light that Claire knew at twenty, the region can merely define the flaws and bitterness.
The light at Angell and Thayer seemed to be taking forever. Their laughter had faded as quickly as it came. Richard’s hands gripped the wheel at ten and two. Jaw clenched. Steam rose from a manhole cover. She had almost crawled into bed with him last night, had walked halfway up the stairs before turning back. She had only intended to hold him from behind. Feel the back of his lungs rise and press into her. But the intimacy scared her, especially on the night before she was due to leave. You can’t lose something you don’t have.
Claire spoke, breaking the quiet. “At least you’ll have time to finish your illustrations again,” she said. “No interruptions. No need to go to Cambridge.”
He nodded.
“They really are stunning, Richard. And I’d swear that they could hang in an exhibit one day. You should think about showing again. They are that fascinating.”
He still did not say anything. The light finally changed. They drove over the peak of College Hill.
“I am serious. When I return, I’ll call on my contacts to get your drawings into a show. It could be called something like, ‘The Art of Medicine.’ It would be amazing.”
“Okay,” he said.
“It doesn’t appeal to you?”
“I make illustrations, Claire. That’s all I do.”
“Oh, but that’s not true. I felt something with that drawing in your room.”
“Then I just made a bad illustration. It shouldn’t leave you with any feeling. If you interpret anything I draw, then I am doing a lousy job.”
“Or maybe not…But, really, let’s think about doing something in a gallery with your work…When I get back.”
He was quiet for a few minutes. Finally he spoke, “I appreciate what you’re saying. I really do. I’m just not…I don’t know if that’s what I want to do. I am not sure…”
She wished he hadn’t said that.
BEGINNING AT AGE EIGHT, CLAIRE used to take the train by herself to visit her grandmother. Those were different times. It was a long ride for a little girl alone. In truth it was only about an hour and a half, but for a child who was not permitted to stay in the house alone, it was an excruciating journey. The Amtrak people assigned an attendant to the young Claire. They would check in on her regularly, and had made the promise to escort her off the train upon arrival and into the arms of her waiting grandmother. In some sense it was no different from having a babysitter; she was just outside the home. But once Claire was loaded on the train, given a deck of cards with the company logo on the back, and set up with soft drinks and a system for emergency contacts, she was a little girl left in a train that rushed her away from all the familiar, at breakneck speed.
It was an early taste of freedom. At eight years old, Claire had already understood the need to leave her hometown. Her grandmother’s town in the most southern tip of Ohio (indeed more Kentucky than Ohio) was by no means the promised land. Claire recognized it as small and dusty. She didn’t know any kids, other than one who was the son of the daughter of one of Grandma’s neighbors—a mean boy who was a year and a half younger and spent a lot of time talking about killing animals, with his one true goal to skin a dog. In a sense, it was all very boring. She spent most of the vacation days sprawled out on the living room carpet, shifting her elbows to avoid prolonged rug exposure, watching the giant television in the corner with faded colors that looked almost psychedelic. Still, she had been given the chance to live a different life, albeit temporarily. The illusion of the wombed home had been dissolved. With only eight years to draw from, Claire had discovered that the rules of the world were contemplated outside of 39 Emerald Street in Dayton, Ohio. Her mother and father were not the ones standing behind the curtain and spinning the earth on the tips of their fingers. She wasn’t supposed to figure that out for another eight or nine years. But by that early age Claire was already dreaming of boarding trains that took her far away from Dayton. Deep into lands and lives that she didn’t know. Anywhere but home.
AS THE 737 TOOK OFF for Kennedy in New York (where she then would make her connection to de Gaulle), Claire looked out the window at her tiny state. It appeared even more delicate against the water’s edge. Peaceful and still. Frozen in time. As though a god consciously had created this diorama at a distance, only to admire the beauty and the workmanship without having to be privy to the messy details. The world was idyllic from this high up. It moved with order and respect. It seemed almost impossible that waiting below was an interconnected web of pain and anger and rage all organized into a tightly knit system, drawing her into its bargain. Claire looked out at the clouds, and then down again to a shrinking Providence. She felt pity for the little Central American girl, no doubt compensated by a pittance to advertise complications that she should never know. But as the plane lifted higher, Claire took comfort in knowing that she was seeing the details of her world reduced to something she could scoop up with her hand.