The Narrow Door by Paul Lisicky

Carrel, but happiness is missing. A friend is missing, other artists are missing. He has thoughts of founding a collective of artists, and when Gauguin promises to meet him in Aries, he buys two beds for the house and gets to work on his most ambitious paintings yet. He can’t stop work, and he can’t stop thinking of Gauguin, whose presence will change his life, change painting, as we know it. His friend’s presence will challenge him; they’ll argue fiercely about the things they care about. They’ll draw closer to each other, and there won’t ever be a reason to think they’ll ever need to leave home.
    But Gauguin has a different idea. He finally comes to Aries after repeated requests. Is he coming because he really wants to live and paint with Vincent, or is it because he feels hounded and it’s just too hard to say no? He doesn’t know, but he gives in one day. He arrives, sets up his easel, and within a matter of days, he’s painting Vincent’s portrait, The Painter of Sunflowers. He persuades Vincent to paint from memory, as he does, and in a matter of days they even embark on a collaborative work, an outdoor project at the Alyscamps.
    But the closeness to Vincent is killing him. He can’t stop himself from arguing with him; he’s not even sure he believes in the points he’s arguing for, but Vincent brings it out in him. Vincent is turning him into someone he isn’t. Vincent is turning him into a monster, someone who wants to hurt Vincent, for Vincent is just waiting for Gauguin to desert him at any minute. How could Gauguin not be exhausted from it, those eyes always turned to him, those ears just waiting for that strain of formal speech, which Vincent will translate to: I don’t love you anymore.
    And even while these things are happening, they’ll get the sense that the falling out isn’t exactly of them, or inside them; it’s out of their control. They’ve gotten hold of the notion that one person’s success means the other’s failure. For Gauguin, however, it’s even more complicated than that—it is part of a deep internal knowing that he’s not afraid to admit to. As much as he’d like to be brothers with Vincent, equally recognized by some hard but loving mother, that mother will always love one better. Currying the favor of the invisible mother: isn’t that the essence of competition? And so Gauguin pulls away, which is why Vincent cuts his own earlobe. Or does Gauguin cut it, in a sword attack, in anger or self-defense, as some historians claim? Rather than turn his friend in, Vincent takes the ear to a prostitute and staggers home. His last written words to his estranged friend: “You are quiet, I will be, too.”
    1986 |  I wait tables breakfast, noon, and dinner. I wait tables as if I’ve balanced trays and taken requests with a benevolent smile my whole life. I have a conversation with Francine Prose, who’s not yet Francine Prose, about the work of Jane Bowles. I listen to Nancy Willard on the porch of the main house, trying not to rock my rocking chair too hard, trying to look in her face as if to reassure her that everything she says is helpful to me. She quotes John Gardner: “A decision to make a character a victim is disastrous.” I try to store up everything she says while mosquitoes raise welts on my inner arm. I put so much effort into impersonating the look of the successful young writer of the day—J. Press shirts, Brooks Brothers grosgrain watchband, and Birdwell Beach Britches for swimming—that I can’t even tell how much it’s wearing me down. Perhaps germs are already brewing in me, like the coffee molecules brewing inside the urns in the dining hall. I’m not exactly shocked when I come down with strep throat a week after my departure, as if my body would need to rebel, to lie on its back for two weeks.
    But at every turn I’m thinking about Denise. Not just what I’ll report back to her, but what I’ll withhold from her: I don’t want her to