Free The Season of Migration by Nellie Hermann

flew from him. Theo took off his hat and waited for his brother to reach him. They shook hands and embraced, and Vincent clasped his brother’s thin frame and inhaled the familiar scent of him—a little sweet and a little musty, like a basket of raspberries shut in a cellar.
    Theo told him right away that he didn’t have much time. Pulling back from their embrace, he said, “I’m on my way to Paris; I have sent my luggage on ahead. They are expecting me there for work tomorrow morning, so I must catch the evening train. I’m sorry that only leaves us the afternoon.”
    Vincent, who had hoped Theo would at least spend the night, tried to hide his disappointment. The first words out of his brother’s mouth were to put a limit on their time. “Of course!” he said, trying to accompany his voice with a smile. “We’ll make the most of it.”
    Back in Vincent’s room in Cuesmes—in the house of Monsieur Frank, an evangelist, and his wife, Grace—Theo asked Vincent about the pile of sketches on the table by the bed; Vincent showed them to him one by one, kneeling by the chair where Theo sat smoking his pipe, explaining each in turn. “That’s a mining man,” he said of a drawing of an old man wearing a burlap sack and smoking a pipe; “they often wear sacking as clothing for an extra layer of warmth.” “And that’s my friend Alard,” he said of a sketch of a boy throwing a ball; “we used to share a room in the Denis house.”
    Theo was quiet; interested but reserved, asking questions but saying nearly nothing in response. Vincent chattered on, filling the silence, but all the while wondering whether something was wrong with Theo, or if perhaps this was just the way he was now. In the last year or so, Theo had become a success in the art-dealing world; perhaps along with his professional success had come a refining of personality, so all his rough edges had been permanently smoothed. In the past, their visits had been filled with gaiety and laughter; today, Theo was like a man with a terrible piece of news to unload who dared not speak it loud.
    On their way back to Mons, a walk of over an hour, they went by the disused mine La Sorcière: buildings crumpled and leaning, wooden beams jutting here and there, birds flying in and out of windows. “Theo,” Vincent asked as they moved toward the mine, “is anything wrong? I’ve been talking ever since you got here, and you have said hardly anything. Is everything all right in your life?”
    Theo, his pipe still lit, shook his head. They stood looking out over the abandoned mine. He took his pipe in his hand and held it, a twisting line of smoke rising from it. “No,” he said, “nothing is wrong. My life is good; I have everything I could ask for. I feel very lucky.”
    â€œWell, good!” said Vincent. “Of course I am happy to hear it.” He looked at his brother’s face. Theo was smoking his pipe again, looking at a turned-over mine cart in the field next to them, his forehead furrowed. “But you do seem gloomy. I’m not sure I’ve made you laugh once since you arrived.”
    Theo smiled. He met Vincent’s eyes. “I’m sorry,” he said. “Perhaps I’m just tired.”
    They kept walking, Vincent in front, and he pointed his arm out toward the mine and started to tell Theo about it, how the rumors held that there were people living down in the shafts, coming up for air only in the dead of night, when no one would find them. He stopped, realizing that Theo was no longer next to him, and turned around. Theo was standing a few paces back.
    â€œI’ve had letters from Ma and Pa,” Theo said. “They are very worried about you.”
    Vincent stared at him, silent for a moment, taking this in. “Is that why you have come, then?” he asked. “They’ve sent you to help me see