Sacre Bleu: A Comedy d'Art Read online

  “Just try some ultramarine,” said the Colorman. He capped the tube of paint and set it on the table. “If you like it, you pay. If not, no worry.”

  Pissarro picked up the tube of paint, uncapped it, and was sniffing it when Margot emerged from the bakery, dancing the small canvas in a great circle in front of her, her skirts swirling around her as she moved. “Oh, it’s wonderful, Monsieur Pissarro. I love it.” She held the canvas to her breast, bent, and kissed Pissarro on top of his bald head.

  Lucien felt his heart leap with the lilt in her voice and he blurted out, “Would you like to see a picture of dogs wrestling?”

  Margot turned her attention to Lucien now, and still clutching the painting to her bosom, she caressed his cheek and looked into his eyes. “Look at this one,” she said. “Oh, these eyes, so dark, so mysterious. Oh, Monsieur Pissarro, you should paint a portrait of this one and his deep eyes.”

  “Yes,” said Pissarro, who suddenly realized that he was holding a tube of paint and the twisted little man and his donkey were gone.

  Lucien didn’t remember seeing him leave. He didn’t remember the girl leaving, or going on to school, or his lessons from Monsieur Renoir. He didn’t remember anything that happened for the next year, and when he did remember again, he was a year older, Monsieur Pissarro had painted his portrait, and Minette, the love of his young life, was dead from fever.

  It was a small enchantment, really, Lucien’s encounter with the blue.

  “These dogs are not fighting, Rat Catcher.” Self-Portrait—Camille Pissarro, 1873

  Four

  PENTIMENTO

  1890

  I LIKE A MAN WITH TWO STRONG EARS,” SAID JULIETTE. SHE HAD LUCIEN BY the ears and was pumping his head back and forth as if to make sure that his ears had been nailed on properly. “Symmetry, I like symmetry.”

  “Stop it, Juliette. Let go. People are looking.”

  They sat on a bench across from the cabaret Le Lapin Agile, a small vineyard at their back, the city of Paris spread out before them. They had made their way up the winding rue des Abbesses, looking from each other’s eyes only in glances, and although the day was warm and the climb steep, neither was out of breath or sweating, as if a cool pool of afternoon had opened just around the two of them.

  “Well, fine then,” said Juliette, turning away from him to pout. She popped open her parasol, nearly poking him in the eye with one of its ribs, then slouched and puffed out her lower lip at the city. “I was just loving your ears.”

  “And I love your ears,” Lucien heard himself say, wondering, even though it was true, why he was saying it. Yes, he loved her ears; loved her eyes, as crisp and vibrant blue as the virgin’s cloak; loved her lips, pert and delicate platform for a perfect kiss. Loved her. Then, since she was looking out over the city and not at him directly, the question that had been circling in his mind all afternoon, only to be chased away by his enchantment with her, finally lit on his tongue.

  “Juliette, where in the hell have you been?”

  “South,” she said, her gaze fixed on Eiffel’s new tower. “It’s taller than I thought it would be when they started it.” The tower had been barely three stories tall when she had disappeared.

  “South? South? South is not an answer after two and a half years without a word.”

  “And west,” she said. “It makes the cathedrals and palaces look like dollhouses.”

  “Two and a half years! Nothing but a note saying ‘I’ll return.’”

  “And I have,” she said. “I wonder why they didn’t paint it blue. It would be lovely in blue.”

  “I looked everywhere for you. No one knew where you had gone. They kept your job open at the hat shop for months, waiting for you.” She had worked as a milliner, sewing women’s fine hats, before she had gone away.

  She turned to him now, leaned in close and hid them both behind the parasol, then kissed him, and just when he felt his head start to spin, she broke off the kiss and grinned. He smiled back at her, forgetting for a moment how angry he was. Then it came back to him and his smile waned. She licked his upper lip with the tip of her tongue, then pushed him away and giggled.

  “Don’t be angry, my sweet. I had things to do. Family things. Private things. I’m back now, and you are my only and my ever.”

  “You said that you were an orphan, that you had no family.”

  “That was a lie, wasn’t it?”

  “Was it?”

  “Perhaps. Lucien, let’s go to your studio. I want you to paint me.”

  “You hurt me,” Lucien said. “You broke my heart. The pain was such that I thought I would die. I didn’t paint for months, I didn’t bathe, I burned the bread.”

  “Really?” Her eyes lit up the way the children’s did when Régine set out the fresh pastries in the bakery.

  “Yes, really. Don’t sound so gleeful about it.”

  “Lucien, I want you to paint me.”

  “No, I can’t, a friend has just died. I should look after Henri and talk to Pissarro and Seurat. And I have a cartoon I must do for Willette’s La Vache Enragée journal.” The truth was, he had more pain to vent on her, and he didn’t want to leave her side for a moment, but he needed her to suffer. “You can’t just pop back into my life from a street corner and expect—and what were you doing on avenue de Clichy in the middle of the day, anyway? Your job—”

  “I want you to paint me nude,” she said.

  “Oh,” he said.

  “I mean, you can leave your socks on, if you’d like.” She grinned. “But other than that, nude.”

  “Oh,” he said. His brain had seized when she’d mentioned painting her nude.

  He really wanted to remain angry, but somehow he had come to believe that women were wondrous, mysterious, and magical creatures who should be treated not only with respect but with reverence and even awe. Perhaps it was something that his mother used to say to him. She would say, “Lucien, women are wondrous, mysterious, and magical creatures, who should be treated not only with respect but with reverence, perhaps even awe. Now go sweep the steps.”

  “Mysterious and magical,” his sisters would repeat in chorus, nodding, Marie, usually, holding the broom out to him.

  Magical and mysterious. Well, that described Juliette.

  But his father had told him that women were also cruel and selfish harpies who would as soon tear out a man’s heart and laugh while he suffered as file their nails. “Cruel and selfish,” said his sisters, nodding. Régine would snatch the last piece of pie from his plate.

  This was also Juliette.

  And his teacher Renoir had indeed told him, “All women are the same; a man needs to simply find his ideal and marry her to have all the women in the world.”

  She was that, Juliette, she was all women to him. He had been with girls before, had even been in love, but she had enveloped him, overwhelmed him like a storm wave.

  “But even if you have found the one,” Renoir continued, “it doesn’t mean you won’t want to see them all naked. It is a sick man who is unmoved by the sight of a pretty breast.”

  “I don’t have colors, I don’t have canvas for a picture that size,” Lucien said.

  “What size, cher?” She smiled coyly.

  “Well it will have to be a large canvas, I think.”

  “Because I am a large woman? Is that what you’re saying?” She pretended to be offended.

  “No, because it must contain my feelings for you,” said the painter.

  “Oh, Lucien, that was the right answer.” And she kissed him swiftly, then snapped the parasol shut and was on her feet like a soldier called to attention. “Come, we’ll find you color. I know a dealer.”

  How had that happened? Lucien stood and stumbled after her. “I still have questions for you, Juliette. I’m still angry, you know.”

  “I know you are. Perhaps I will show you a satisfying way to vent your anger, no?”

  “I don’t know what that means,” said Lucien.


  “You will,” she said. Yes, he’s the one, she thought.

  BACK ON AVENUE DE CLICHY, TOULOUSE-LAUTREC HAD APPROACHED THE COLORMAN.

  “Bonjour, monsieur,” said the Colorman. “You are a painter, no?”

  “I am,” said Toulouse-Lautrec.

  When he was twelve, Henri’s mother took him to Italy, and in the Uffizi Gallery in Florence, he saw a Tintoretto painting of the Blessed Virgin, in which there appeared to be the ghosts of dark faces in the sky, barely detectable, but the eager young artist couldn’t help but notice.

  “The effect is called pentimento,” said the guide his mother had hired. “The master has painted over another painting, and over the years, the old image is beginning to show through. It is not clear, but you can see that something has come before and does not belong.”

  Henri had, upon seeing the Colorman, felt a dark pentimento rising in his mind, and somehow it had drawn him across the street.

  “You need color, perhaps?” said the Colorman. He tapped the wooden case he carried, big enough, Henri noted, that the Colorman himself might have fit inside with only minor contortionism or dismemberment.

  He was shorter than Henri, and twisted in a way that made the painter think that someone may have once packed him into his case with a cannon ramrod, with no concern for comfort or integrity of limb. The painter felt a sad affinity for the Colorman, even as the revulsion of something past and forgotten made the hair on the back of his neck rise.

  “Don’t I know you?” asked Henri. “Have we traded before, perhaps?”

  “Could be,” said the Colorman. “I travel.”

  “Don’t you normally have a donkey to carry your wares?”

  “Oh, Étienne? He’s on holiday. Do you need color, monsieur? I have the finest earths and minerals, nothing false. I have the syrup from which masterpieces are poured, monsieur.” The Colorman popped the latches on his case and opened it on the curb, displaying rows of tin tubes, held in place by bronze wires. He snatched one up, unscrewed the cap, and squeezed a dab of dark, bloodred paint onto his fingertip. “Crimson, made from the blood of Romanian virgins.”

  “Really?” said Henri. His head was spinning and he had to lean on his cane to steady himself.

  “No, not really. But it is Romanian. Made from beetles handpicked from the roots of weeds near Bucharest. But they are ugly beetles. They might be virgins. I wouldn’t fuck them. You want some?”

  “I’m afraid I have all the paint I need. I have a lithograph to put on the stones today, a poster for the Moulin Rouge. And I appear to have some nausea which needs attending as well. My printer will have inks.”

  “Ach, lithography.” The Colorman spat to show his disdain for all things to do with limestone and ink. “A fad. Once the newness wears off no one will do it. Perhaps some vermilion? Made from the finest cinnabar—I grind it myself—you know, to paint the redheads you love.”

  Henri stepped back and stumbled off the curb, barely catching himself before he fell. “No, monsieur, I must be going.” He hurried away, as quickly as his hangover and the pain in his legs would allow him, chased by a redheaded ghost he thought he had long left behind.

  “I will call on you at your studio, monsieur,” the Colorman shouted after him.

  “THIS WON’T DO,” SAID JULIETTE. SHE STOOD IN THE STUDIO THAT LUCIEN shared with Henri on rue Caulaincourt at the base of Montmartre. They had rented the rear flat on the first floor, so Henri didn’t have to endure stairs when moving his canvases, but as artist’s studios went, being on the rear bottom floor of a five-story building that was attached to other buildings on both sides and only had a narrow courtyard behind, it had a rather distinct flaw.

  “There are no windows,” Juliette said. “How can you work with no windows?”

  “Look at all the gas lamps. And there’s a changing screen for the models. And a water closet. And a stove for making tea. And a café table, and a bar, with everything you could want. And there’s a window in the door.” There was, indeed, a window in the door, oval, stained glass, and about the size of a modest fedora. It provided just enough light from the foyer to allow Lucien to light the gas lamps without tripping on the clutter and killing himself.

  “No,” Juliette said. She held her folded parasol as if she might have to use it as a weapon to fend off the canvases that were leaned against walls all around the studio in various states of drying. She took a swipe at an easel that stood empty in the center of the room, as if warning it to stay back. “I will look like a corpse in here. We need sunlight.”

  “But I mostly work here at night, anyway, when Henri is at the Moulin Rouge or one of his other, uh, workplaces. I have to work most days in the bakery until noon, and…” He slumped, unable to think of anything else positive to say.

  “There must be another studio,” she said, stepping close to him, pushing out her lower lip, and speaking in a pouty, baby-talk voice. “Somewhere where you can paint the warm, golden sunshine on my body.” She made as if to kiss him, then pirouetted, her bustle nearly bumping him aside, and headed to the door. “Or not.”

  “Henri pays most of the rent,” Lucien added weakly. “It’s his studio, really.”

  “I can see that—the little troll in his cave, eh?”

  She had stopped to look at a stack of canvases leaning against the wall by the door.

  “Don’t say that. Henri is a good friend to me. I couldn’t afford a studio if not for him.”

  “This is one of Henri’s paintings?” She bent down and held the top of the canvas at arm’s length. It was the painting of a redheaded woman in a plain white blouse and black skirt, looking out a window.

  “That’s Henri’s laundress, Carmen.”

  “She looks sad.”

  “I didn’t know her well. Henri said he wanted to show how strong she was. Exhausted, yet still strong.”

  “Is she not around anymore?”

  “Henri sent her away. Well, we persuaded him, along with his mother, to leave her. Then she went away.”

  “Sad,” said Juliette. “But at least she had a window to look out of.”

  Take her home, eat with her, and sip wine, laugh softly at sad things, make love to her and fall asleep in her arms; that’s what he wanted to do. The Laundress—Henri Toulouse-Lautrec, 1884

  HENRI MADE HIS WAY TO THE SECOND FLOOR AND HIS APARTMENT. THE MAID had been there and there were fresh flowers on the table. He hung his coat and hat on the rack by the door and went immediately to the writing desk. His hand was shaking, whether from drink, or from seeing the Colorman, or both. Either way, a cognac could only help, so he poured himself one from the decanter, then sat down and took the last letter he had received from Vincent from the drawer.

  My dear Henri:

  As you advised, the climate in the South is very conducive to painting out of doors, and capturing the colors in the hills not only challenges my abilities, but inspires me to work harder. It is the colors, however, that seem to slow my progress, and my spells have become even worse since coming here. What I thought would be escape from the mad pace of Paris, and from the other influences that threatened my health, has been no escape at all. He is here, Henri. The little brown Colorman is here in Arles. And even when I tell him to go away, I still find myself using his color, and my spells become worse. I lose whole days, only to find pictures in my room that I don’t remember painting.

  People at the inn where I sometimes have my supper tell me I have been there, raging drunk in the middle of the day, but I swear it is not the loss of time that comes from too much drink.

  Theo has written me that I should not use colors at all, put them down and work on my drawings. I haven’t told him about the Colorman, or the girl, as I don’t want him to worry. You, my friend, are the only one I have confided in, and for not calling me mad, I thank you. I hope that you are no longer vexed by your own troubles in that regard and that your work is going well. Theo tells me that he has sold two of your paintings, and I am happy for you. Per
haps, by coming here, I have drawn the sickness away from Paris, and you can work in peace.

  I still hope to be able to start a studio of like-minded painters here in the South. Theo is trying to persuade Gauguin to join me, and it looks as if he will come. Perhaps it is only my imagination, a symptom of my illness, that makes me think the little Colorman is dangerous. After all, his paints are very fine and fairly priced. I think too much, maybe. I will try to persevere. Strangely, I find I am better if I paint at night. I have finished a picture of the outdoor café here, and the inside of a bar where I sometimes pass the time, both of which I like very much, and I felt no ill effects while painting them or upon finishing them. I hope to send them to Theo as soon as they dry.

  Thank you again for your advice, Henri. I hope to do justice to your beloved South. Until I see you again,

  I shake your hand,

  Vincent

  PS: If you see the Colorman, run. Run. You are too talented and too delicate of constitution to endure, I think. I am not mad. I promise.

  Poor Vincent. Perhaps he wasn’t mad. If the Colorman had followed him to Arles, then north to Auvers, was it coincidence that he showed up in Paris just days after Vincent’s death? Until Toulouse-Lautrec had seen him outside the Rat Mort, he’d forgotten about the strange letter from Vincent, and indeed that he had ever heard of the Colorman before. But somehow, he had known him. Perhaps from Vincent’s descriptions. Henri downed his cognac, then poured himself another. He folded the letter and tucked it back into the drawer, then picked up his pen and put it to paper.

  My dear Mama,

  Circumstances have changed, and it turns out that I will be able to join you at Château Malromé after all. Although I have finally been able to find some models, which is peace of mind to a painter, and all very proper young ladies at that, I am overwrought, not by my work, but by my personal circumstances. I have recently lost a friend, a Monsieur Vincent van Gogh, a Dutchman who was one of our group of painters. Perhaps you remember me speaking of him. His brother hangs my paintings in his gallery and has done very well by me. Vincent succumbed to a long illness and his loss weighs heavily on my heart, and, I fear, my constitution.