Page 23 of The Seekers of Deer Creek

Vivi saw that her sister was right. WhereLý’s paintings were usually claustrophobic in color and composition, this landscape was peaceful and comparatively minimalistic. Navy spears of wheat tumbled across a foreground trampled by leopards with piercing yellow eyes. Above, the moon’s tear dribbled across the canvas in a smeared line. In the far background of the painting, there was a small structure with a sloped roof, nearly subsumed by the foliage around it.

Moonbathers

1936

15 x 22 cm.

Oil on canvas

Private Collection

This small-scale piece by K. P.Lýsignifies a new direction for the Surrealist painter. While the majority ofLý’s work is inseparable from his Indochinese birthplace,Moonbatherspresents an unabashed celebration of the bucolic French countryside. The landscape is warped, with a weeping moon and a menagerie of animals only found in the artist’s imagination. Again,Lý’s psychic unrest overlaidon a dreamscape that only he could summon. Yet, perhaps, in this turn toward the pastoral, we can see a new artist emerging too.

“You see it?” Calla jabbed toward the structure at the back of the painting. “It’s like you were saying. The cottage. The château or whatever.”

“It could be a shed. Or somethingLýadded for composition’s sake.”

“This was the only painting he’d ever done that depicts the French countryside. During that very same summer where Justine Allard hosted an artist in Arles. There has to be a connection.”

Once Vivi looked past the trappings of the Surrealist nightmare in the painting, she could recognize the wet sprawl of the Camargue countryside that had lured artists like Van Gogh and Gaugin decades beforeLýarrived.Moonbatherscould have been the very painting commissioned by Emil Blanc for his sister, a gift for Justine’s hospitality duringLý’s bleak period.

“This is all guesswork,” she protested.

“We have to start somewhere. And I have a feeling about all this.”

“I should do more research. There’s bound to be more about the Allards’ estate.”

“You, always researching. Let’s get a hotel. We can take this catalogue with us. No one will notice.”

On their way out, Calla stopped in front of the installation,We Die Alone. She pulled a pen out of her pocket. “This generation of artists. Such a defeatist lot.”

“Leave it, Calla.” Vivi pulled at her arm, to no avail.

Calla glanced around, and spying no docents nearby, hastily changed a word on the placard taped to the wall.We Die Together.

Vivi shook her head. But before she followed Calla, she took a photo of the placard. It was, she thought, a better title after all.

To: VivianNguy?n[[email protected]]

From: Samuel Noi [[email protected]]

Subject: the perils of rationalizing

Vivi,

I’ve tried to understand why you did what you did. Not just strippingBlue Mirrorbut leaving us without a goodbye. Because you did leave us, didn’t you? Was it the key that scared you away? Was Phoebe too much for you? I won’t regret her, of course, but I regret that I didn’t listen more closely to your needs. Only—you never told me what you needed. I thought it might have been us.

Loving you has been an impossible cipher. Once I think I know the solution, the puzzle has changed again, numbers rearranging into a new sort of taunt. I wish I’d never set my mind to that puzzle, to you.

I’m angry in a way I’ve never been before. Even putting aside what we’ve meant to each other, your professional betrayal was unforgivable. Of all our colleagues, I considered you my partner. You loved the art. I trusted you would not harm it without reason. But now I’m left wondering: What is the reason for all this risk? Was it worth it?

I say that you did an unforgivable thing, yet there’s a part of me that wants to be able to forgive. Not for you. But for me and for Phoebe. I don’t want to live as you do, with my heart walled off from any reprieve that might have been freely given.

I hope you are at peace with your decisions. In the end I guess I don’t need to understand them. Only you do.

Samuel

Chapter 8