"It’s distressing to be so powerless to do anything for him, but exceptional people need exceptional remedies and I only hope they will yet be found where ordinary people would not look.”
Camille Pissarro
I |
am Vincent Willem van Gogh. According to historical record, I died on July 29, 1890, two days after shooting myself in the belly with a revolver. I have always detested how the world believes in so little, yet accepts so much without question. What close-mindedness there is everywhere we free-thinkers look. It both disgusts and wounds me, yet it kept me alive for a reasonable time. For that I suppose I should be grateful.
Like you, I shall die one day. Surely, I will eventually drown in my hidden shame. I know that death will not come by my own hand; I tried that once and failed. Based on my current predicament, I can only assume it will be murder.
If I share my story and give you my art, will you re-write history simply to honor truth? Will you use the information for your own benefit? Perhaps you will finally find true peace and fame as I have. Better yet, perhaps you will find a path that enables you to taste it all, but that also preserves the unfathomable good inside.
I fear there is nothing of the sort left in me.
_______________________________________________________
Chapter 1
Wheat Field with a Lark
1890
Vincent
“Are you in much pain?” Theo asks. His eyes drip grief. Despite his creeping illness, they are still young and full of life. They are bright, as if he is gazing into one of his beloved paintings rather than at the one-eared brother who has failed him. Sweat lies on his cheekbone, waiting like a tear.
“It is not so terrible now,” I say, although it is. My arms are outside my coverings, but feel curiously warm as if they are stuffed into the air. I can barely breathe.
We are in a room that was once a dull gray. Now the walls pulsate purple although the light is dim. My mind is twisted, but not like before. Perhaps this is death, and there are different hues, new colors to see. I feel the violet as if it is piercing my skin, hooking me, and pulling me away. I wish to leave myself behind but I do not want to leave Theo. I have often hated myself, but I have always loved him.
He whispers, “Dr. Gachet did not tell me how bad it is, Vincent.”
“He did not know,” I say, moving my hands over my chest. “He cannot always see what causes my pain.”
Theo says, “He should know. His business is to know.” His eyes dart about the room, trying to find what it is I keep looking for in the newly purple walls. They are like an over-ripened eggplant now, soft and swollen. “He promised that he could help; artists are his field of concentration.”
“He is not at fault,” I say, knowing Dr. Gachet has done all he can. “I have failed again, Theo.”
He says, “There is much to live for.” He often says such things even when he does not believe them.
“I cannot live like this.” I try to shake my head but it is too heavy. “I will not.”
“You must live however you can, Vincent. There is work to be done.” Theo’s naiveté enables him to overlook my complicated nature just enough to find me lovable when no one else can.
“I have created all the work that I could; I did it quickly. I cannot work like this. I look up at the sky and see different colors—ones that no one will understand. They cannot see what I see.”
“I will understand.” He takes my hand and squeezes. “I will see.”
His tight grip hurts me. “No, never, ever,” I say because he knows what these words mean to me. He alone knows how this phrase is embedded in my soul. He understands both the brutal finality and infinite love they hold. Theo knows I would never say these particular words without many meanings attached.
He looks perplexed, and for a moment I wonder if he has deciphered my plan. “You will feel better soon,” he says, but continues to cry as if I am already lost.
“I have seen the cornfields and wheat, the larks and wind and sun. There is something else I long for, Theo.”
“Art is all you have longed for, Vincent.” His words are alive, tingling along with the bulging walls and flickering glow of light next to my head. “Your work is just beginning.”
“Theo, he must rest now,” Dr. Gachet says from the door.
I wonder how a man so consumed with his own world became a doctor. They will believe that his was the last portrait I painted. I draw in a profound breath and manage to say, “Don’t cry. I did it for everyone’s good.” In Theo’s eyes, I see the history that was our lives: Holland, Paris, the gallery, the letters, the pleasure and pain, the losses, and finally, our art. “I will overcome this end but the sadness will last forever.”
“Vincent, this is not the end of your life. It is only the center, the middle.”
My eyes close and I feel something let go. I am becoming the eggplant walls and the musty sweat on my brother’s face. I leave behind what I intended, and take with me what I must. I do not respond.
†
Dr. Gachet’s unique methods and self-absorbed, maniacal talents enable me to steal away before nails pierce the coffin. I find it impossible to attend my funeral, but afterwards I go to see what they have done with me. Theo is still there, weeping. His tears fall upon the headstone he found for me. He has placed an easel nearby. Seeing it makes me long to touch, to feel again, the thing I have taken from myself and thrown away.
I failed to kill myself properly, but that did not stop me from dying. The most observant men I know, all artists, could not see me living a life worse than death. It was a life that was never good enough, never full and rich and colorful enough to overshadow the gnawing soul I struggled to understand. Theo is the only one who saw it; he believed in me. He cries for what was gained by my life, and for what has been lost.
I am tempted to shout to him. I cover my mouth to stop myself. I am feeling better and know that I will survive. I will find a new life, and if the time comes for me to find Theo, I will do so. “Theo,” I whisper into a void. “I wanted it to end this way. I’ll come back.”
“Theo!” It is Dr. Gachet, calling through the darkness. “You cannot stay here all night, man.” He meets Theo near my grave and puts an arm around my brother’s shoulders, as if to father him. It is a still, silent night.
“I will not be the same without Vincent.”
Dr. Gachet stares down at the earth covering my coffin. “He was a brilliant artist, but perhaps not the best brother for a man.”
There is a head jerk; I feel Theo’s passing anger. “He was the best brother for me.”
“You should focus on Johanna and your son now. They need you. And you must focus on your own health.”
Theo drops to his knees and seeing this, I drop to mine. He says, “I tried to save him. I tried to give him something to live for, and I failed.” His head sinks slowly toward the ground and Dr. Gachet continues to hold his back.
“A love so strong does not leave us, even in death,” says Dr. Gachet. “Vincent will not leave you, Theo. You have his art, his soul, in the palm of your hand.”
Theo looks at his hands, spread open before him like master tools. “Yes, I have his work, what he cared for most. But I must do something for him now to atone for all I failed to do when he was alive. I must show him to the world before the moment passes.”
“Theo, you must care for your own health.”
“Damn it, I don’t care about that.”
“Your son cares about that.”
Ignoring Dr. Gachet, he says, “Something is not right.” He frantically looks around, as if searching for what he cannot possibly see. “If this is how Vincent wanted it, he knew his death would bring life to his work.” He stands up and puts his hands on Dr. Gachet’s shoulders. “I will not let him down. I will not.” The doctor gives him a fatherly hug.
“I will not leave you, Theo,” I say as I look up at the stars I once painted. They dangle in the black night like bright promises.
†
Theo eventually travels back to Paris and I follow. He brilliantly convinces our mother and sisters to provide him, by signature, all rights to my work. He then constructs a will leaving all to his son, little Vincent. Although I am pleased with this, I am saddened by how easily they all agree. Even the woman who brought me into this harsh and beautiful world does not care to own my work. At least, I expected my own mother to catch a flickering glimpse of my soul within the images, lines and colors I painstakingly created. When she does not fully do so, I wonder if perhaps I failed to deposit any of my essence there after all.
I am not a swearing man, but I am sure that my strange spirit drained through an arm, a hand, a fingertip, as if they were not mine, onto the canvases of my life. Looking at what resulted had been a way of peering into my own soul through a magical lens I somehow found in the emotional rubble that was my life. Perhaps normal people do not need a canvas to look inside? Perhaps they do not need to look inside at all? And so perhaps this is why they cannot know the lens I speak of, and value my work.
I know that the magic lens may only work for me. I believe that the artist must paint for himself, yet it is so lonely to sit and stare at oneself, stretched across splintering wood, knowing that it is but rubbish to other eyes.
Now, at the center of my life, I must be seen. I must be acknowledged before I can move on. I will not paint again until I am free of this disease of dismissal that pilfers my identity.
†
As usual, Theo does what he says he will do. With my bothersome characteristics finally out of his way, he is able to display my work throughout the back rooms of Paris, starting with his own apartment walls. Now that tragedy is attached to my name, people look closer. It disgusts yet thrills me. Imagine a world where creative genius is clearly defined and when it surfaces, it is recognized without need of death, aberration, or sensationalism. That is what I imagine. What I want.
I watch from afar as Theo transforms his living quarters into a museum of my work. Although my poor brother manages to inspire a handful of artists and dealers, he is far from convincing the world of my talent. But I tell myself that he is; wanting to believe my plan is brilliant and that my work will begin to fetch a good sum, enough to sustain Theo and his family for as long as necessary, and set me on the road I have chosen. I always despised people who refuse to accept truth, yet here I am lying to myself, believing that my death can somehow redeem my life. This new found hope keeps me going—and believing that the lies will turn to truth.
Before July 27th, 1890, I was a coward, afraid to face year after year of failure. So instead I found a way out, one that would bring me what I craved without continuing the torturous burden of engaging with the world. I would no longer be required to stand next to blind men staring at my life, my heart, seeing rubbish. I was blinded by my own desperation; yet dying seemed the only way to remain alive, to come alive, and to open their eyes.
You understand now that I had no choice.
†
When Theo’s health deteriorates, I follow he and Johanna from Paris back to Holland, and then to his final destination in Utrecht. I somehow get by, as I always have, but hiding is difficult in Utrecht. I do not require much. I eat what I can find once a day.
It is curious how once you are perceived as dead, pressures decease and everyone finally sees the good in you. I hear my mother say, “Vincent was tender. He loved deeply and passionately.” My sisters say, “He did not ask of anyone; he only wanted to create,” and “He was a good brother.” And in his psychiatric confinement, Theo cries, wringing his hands. He says, “All I did for him was not enough,” as Johanna assures him that he was not responsible for his elder brother’s life or death. I am not sure how he could have loved me so. I sit alone for hours replaying our lives, and consider what I have done to earn such emotion. I want to relieve his pain, but I cannot.
I am still a selfish voyeur.
In Utrecht, the Theo I love slips away. I stand outside his window, listening to his ranting and screaming, and wonder if I can possibly help him. When he screams I think of sunflowers, wheat, fields, and crows. And the larks, the lark of it all! I consider the women I loved, the women who mostly grew to detest me and my intensity. I am screaming, too. It seems odd now that I could have loved them all, but I did. Each one was unique; I loved their particulars. I wanted to experience the contrast and similarities of women. In the end, I decided that love is a wretched word, one that should be sliced into a thousand thin pieces, creating different words just as powerful and truthful. Only then could I begin to explain what has been in my heart.
I have dreamed of loving just one woman, but I cannot find one who can be for me all that I have found in the others as a whole. Once I thought I had found her in my cousin Kay, but since I was mistaken, I lost trust in myself. She is the one who said, “No, never, ever!” and she was right. Later, I tried to love Christine, and then there was Margot, but it was never right. I am too enthralled with certain aspects of life. Like nature and art, there is too much and it overwhelms me. My need to satisfy is insatiable. It destroys my ability to fully satisfy only one.
I am sure love is what I feel for my brother. I do not know what I am waiting for; he needs me. He was there for me and I am here for him. He no longer recognizes Johanna, but quiets to my name. I catch the gleam in his eye, and I know what I must do.
†
“Theo,” I whisper, shaking his delicate, diseased body ever so slightly. “Theo, it is Vincent. I am here to take you away.” He reaches for me, his eyes still closed. “You should not be here, not like this. I will take care of you, Theo.” He has soiled his bed during the night. His stench only broadens my affection. My desire to wash it all away fills me with warm rushing love.
He bolts up; he is so thin. “Vincent! Vincent!” he cries, and I put my hand over his mouth. He struggles as if afraid. I am much stronger than he, and hold him down, his drool softening my hand. He grabs my ear and yelps. His fingers tug at the skin beneath my bright eyes. In his face, I see a mixture of fear and longing. He doesn’t believe in me, but I know he will again. The walls of his room seem to move toward us, reminding me that time is against us. Beside his bed, there is a burnt out candle and a copy of Art et Critique, the magazine that has published Dr. Gachet’s article about my work. I wonder if my brother reads it, or if it has been placed there as a comfort. I fold it and place it in my shirt.
“Theo, come with me. There is a place we can go, you and I. You will be safe and maybe you will become well again.” He has quieted, so I take my hand from his mouth and smooth his hair with his own saliva. He says something meaningless, and I know that he cannot think for himself. I will need to take him.
I am deciding how best to bundle his emaciated body into my arms when there is a loud noise in the corridor. I hear voices. The walls seem to shake, and I know that this has taken much too long. I will have to return. “Theo, I will come back for you,” I say, quickly smoothing down the thin sheet that seems to swallow him.
“Vincent?” he says and reaches for me. But I am nearly through the window. “Vincent! Vincent!” he calls as a nurse rushes in and struggles to calm him.
“More hallucinations,” she tells the doctor upon his arrival seconds later. They shake their heads as if they have given up. Their faces carry a blend of soft and hard—soft because they are powerless and hard because they know it.
I will never give up. Theo will die like me and we will spirit away. It is but the center of our lives and we will overcome. Imagine how we will journey through the starry night, arm in arm, until we find what we are looking for. We will slay our demons and etch out our creative place in history. The closed mind of humanity will not hold us down. We will stretch until we break; we will soldier through until the world listens, if only in the darkest night.
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