Now the police have behind bars suspects who might have pulled the trigger, who might have wanted to pull the trigger, who might be filling in for the real murderer.
The guard points to the second floor. European Paintings. It’s the nineteenth century she is looking for. Past the Grand Staircase, buried among the glorious pastels of Cézanne, Renoir, Seurat, Monet, are van Gogh’s mad strokes against the wall. From the crowd gathering in front, it is easy to spot Sunflowers.
“Hey, birthday girl, you look not a day older than twenty-five!” Caleb exclaims from the wooden bench in the middle of the room. Twenty-five, Suzy’s age when she first met him.
“Hi, how was home?” Suzy slides by his side, kissing him once.
“Rick told me we’re finished if I ever bring him home again.”
“Oh no, was it that bad?”
“Brutal. The funny thing is, they actually liked him. My mom even went on to say that she thought he was prettier than Boy George. It was Rick who couldn’t stand her. He said that she reminded him of Sally Jesse Raphael. I guess it was the glasses.”
Suzy smiles, picturing Caleb’s mother with her oversized red plastic frames.
“I had to rush back anyway to get ready for the opening. The artist is the newest British import. The next generation of the Sensation kids. He gobbles up classics and whips out blasphemous installations. A mannequin replica of one of Ingres’s ladies that slowly turns into Princess Diana puking. A Botticelli painting where all the boys are sucking the Pope’s dick. This time he’s on to Sunflowers.” Caleb turns to Suzy, rolling his eyes. “Personally, I don’t see the appeal. I’m so bored by blasphemy.”
Van Gogh’s sunflowers look almost morbid. Not the usual perky, happy yellow faces, but a close-up of two withering heads, as if in torment. Beautiful, yet haunting. The madman’s last reach for the sun.
“In Chelsea, no one gives a shit about the real thing. Everyone’s just dying to know what new offense is about to be committed against the masterpiece. Except Vincent practically invented blasphemy. Look at his strokes, look how he twisted Impressionism senseless!” Glancing at the group of Japanese couples who are now following their tour guide to the next painting, Caleb continues, “In college, I was the only art major totally obsessed with Vincent. Everyone thought I was so passé. You fall in love with van Gogh, you study him in Painting 101, you copy Starry Night for your first assignment, but you don’t obsess over him. While they all moved on to Mondrian, Beuys, Duchamp, I stuck loyal. Even now, Starry Night blows my mind. His cypresses make me weep. I used to read his letters every night before going to bed.”
Suzy is suddenly struck by the image of the sky-blue bowling jacket Caleb always wore when they lived together. It had “Vince” stitched above its right pocket. She had assumed that it belonged to a former boyfriend. Strange how long it takes to know a person. Yet somehow reassuring that a person could have so many secrets.
“His letters? So that’s what you were doing when you used to keep your lights on until dawn?” Suzy asks, half laughing.
“No, honey, I did other things too.” Caleb winks before continuing. “But I used to read his letters religiously. They’re painful. He was so damn alone. He wrote to his brother Theo almost every day. He told him every single detail of his life, down to the exact color of the sunset he’d seen that evening, the price of the paper he was writing on, the angle of his fingers gripping the pen. He was so needy. He begged women for love. He latched on to Gauguin for friendship. He threw himself into a painting frenzy. He even turned to God.”
“God?”
“Vincent covered the whole nine yards. Studied theology, did the Evangelical bit, taught the Bible. But he didn’t quite make it. He didn’t fit. His loneliness was too deep, it really couldn’t be helped.”
So alone, so incredibly, desperately alone.
Something begins to break down inside Suzy. Something she has known almost from the beginning.
“Why was he so lonely?”
But the answer is there already. They are like twins. Suzy and Grace.
“Who knows? He was mad for sure. But there were other things, like his family, for example. His parents, his uncles, his siblings, including Theo. They sheltered him. They found him jobs, paid his rent, sent him paper and brushes. They had a strong hold on him, and Vincent was dependent and hated himself for it, although his family was by no means at the core of his problems.”
“Then why write to Theo?”
“That’s what makes those letters so fascinating. He felt suffocated by his family’s love, and yet he couldn’t help being a part of it. He choked Theo with his daily reports. There was a certain boundary he never learned. The suffocation he felt might’ve had something to do with it. No boundary with anything, with his family, with himself, even with something as common as sunflowers. Look at how he paints nature! His flowers are unique because there’s absolutely no distance from the artist. For him, they’re all the same, the self-portrait, the local postman, the sunflower. It’s fun for us to sit back and analyze them, but for Vincent it must’ve been hell. You can only drive yourself crazy if you have no distance from the world.”
Her face feels cold, as cold as her right hand against her cheek now, the curled fingers, the hollow of her palm. It is not clear which part emanates the chill, the hand or the face. It is the chill inside breaking loose. It is impossible to recall how long it’s been there, this knowledge, this anger.
“Oddly enough, Theo died only six months after Vincent shot himself. They were connected by some desperate blood, like twins.” Caleb shakes his head, still gazing at the painting. “Vincent paid for his genius, while Theo suffered for being sane.”
Except that Suzy and Grace are not twins. Suzy’s guilt is still tucked inside her unspoken. Suzy will continue to live.
“C’mon, enough culture for turning thirty. Let’s go to Barney’s to find you a dress. Your biological clock is seriously ticking, darling!”
Caleb is pulling her by the arm when Suzy notices a painting in the corner. A lime-green vase of violet petals against a palepink background. It is a tame still-life. Quiet, almost dejected, as if the artist has reached the requiem of his madness.
“Oh, Irises,” says Caleb, following her gaze. “I’m not a big fan of his irises. They’re a bit strange, tense. He painted that one at the mental asylum. It’s like witnessing his death.”
Irises.
It had to have been Grace who sent her irises each November. It was a letter to Suzy. A confession. A bouquet of Mom’s last kiss. Because Suzy is the only one in the world who understood. The only one Grace could have reached out to. Where could she be now? Where has she disappeared to?
It is then that Suzy panics. Leaving Caleb frowning in confusion, she breaks into a run. She is flying past Cézanne, Renoir, Seurat, Monet. She is leaping through the narrow corridor of Rembrandt drawings. She skips down the Grand Staircase in double steps. People turn to look at her. Some move out of her way. A few guards even step forward to stop her. But Suzy sees nothing. All she knows is that something terrible is about to happen to her sister, if it hasn’t already.