Sunflowers by Sheramy Bundrick Read Free Book Online

climbed to his feet and gave me a swift kiss, his nose bumping mine.
    “À bientôt,” I stammered and made a hasty retreat.
    “Rachel?” he called after me. “You didn’t say whether you like my painting.”
    I turned at the hedges to call back my answer. “I love it.”

    A yellow envelope appeared at the maison a few days later, my name written in a loopy scrawl. Inside was a sketch of Vincent’s house and the single word “Today?” with its bold and insistent question mark. I would not fail him again—this time I would keep my promise. I tucked the note into the bosom of my dress and fetched an apron, a basket, and clean cloths for dusting.
    “Where are you going?” asked Jacqui, lounging in the salon with a fashion gazette, the only girl about.
    “The market,” I lied over my shoulder as I walked out the door.
    I must have passed the house a thousand times since coming to Arles, when I walked up the Avenue de Montmajour to the bathing-house, or when the girls and I dressed respectably to enjoy an afternoon coffee at the Café de l’Alcazar across the street. Madame Virginie had registered me as one of her filles at the gendarmerie , also across the street; I’d had to fill out a long form, answer questions about my family, and let the police doctor examine me in a back room. I remembered looking toward the little dilapidated house on the corner that day, thinking someone should live there and take care of it. It had seemed lost among the other buildings of the Place Lamartine, as lost as I’d felt. But today, with fresh paint the color of fresh butter, the house shone, and the shutters were bright green now, too. It wasn’t lost anymore.
    Vincent threw open the door with a cheery greeting and didn’t stop talking as I walked inside. A slender corridor stretched ahead, two doors on the right leading to the studio and the kitchen, a flight of stairs rising to the second floor. He chattered about what would go here, what would go there, flinging his arms left and right. “A house of my own! I got some beds for the upstairs and a mirror…I still need a dressing table for the guest bedroom, though…and I need to hang up my pictures and Japanese prints…. I’ll eat here and I’ll save so much money…just think of the work I’ll be able to do with all this space!… Et voilà , the studio…” He opened the first door and waved me inside. “I took down the shutters so there’d be plenty of light, and I’m having gaslamps installed so I can work late.”
    “Don’t you worry about everybody watching you?” I asked, glancing at the large windows facing onto the busy street.
    Vincent shrugged. “I have nothing to hide.”
    I wouldn’t want anyone to see such a mess. Half-squeezed paint tubes and black stubs of charcoal littered the red-tiled floor. Stained cloths were piled on the worktable, together with wilted flowers, empty ink bottles, bouquets of pencils and reed pens. A stack of drawings and prints lay on a chair, others were tacked to the walls, a piercing smell of turpentine perfuming the chaos. My fingers itched to clean, and I had to stop myself from finding a broom.
    But the paintings . I clapped my hands at Monsieur Roulin in his uniform, face wise and serious with his bountiful beard, cap emblazoned with the proud word “Postes.” In another picture stood an old man in a straw hat, careworn eyes in a careworn face, and I knew this had to have been Patience Escalier, the former Camargue cowherd Vincent spoke about with such respect. A sunset scene with coal barges by the Rhône, beyond it the public garden, the night café, and Vincent himself, dressed up in a brown suit and gazing from a canvas with tranquil eyes. So many more, more than I could absorb all at once, and I felt almost dizzy.
    I looked at the painting on the easel and smiled. “That’s one of the cafés downtown in the Place du Forum.” The café’s terrace glowed yellow from a single gas lantern, and under the