Page 2 of In the Garden of Monsters

In the years following, as Vicino began work on the garden, a change was palpable in the air. Each evening, as the twilight deepened, a subtle energy began to emanate from the heart of the valley. I found contentment not just in the evolving grove, but also in my closeness to Giulia. Our time together, so abundant and intimate, felt different. I had never waited so long to make my attempt, but I nurtured this earthly bond, knowing it was essential for the garden’s growth.

The day finally arrived when Vicino ushered Giulia into the heart of the Sacro Bosco—the Sacred Wood—the name he had fondly bestowed upon the garden. As she crossed the threshold, I sensed it—a strengthening of our connection, more profound than ever before. It was time.

That night, the chicken with pomegranate sauce I prepared was met with Giulia’s usual lavish praise, although I knew she took in the single pomegranate seed garnishing the dish as a courtesy, not a desire for the fruit. As she savored each bite, I felt a loosening in the ethereal shackles binding her heart. A vivid, red-hued hope blossomed within me.

Postdinner, I retreated to the palazzo’s highest balcony, my gaze drawn to a nascent light in the wood below. The light, though barely perceptible, was imbued with a power that seemed to bridge the realms of mortal and divine. A faint green luminescence that whispered of unwanted things to come. It pulsed like a languid heartbeat, beckoning to something—or someone.

I was immediately compelled to find Giulia. Amid the soft murmur of the salon where she played with her children, I enveloped her in my senses and the flower of hope within me withered. Her heartbeat, steady and unsuspecting, echoed the rhythm of the garden’s glow.

1

Rome, 1948

“Julia, I still don’t think you should go,” Lillian said as we sat down at the base of the Spanish Steps near the entrance to the famous Babingtons Tea Room. It was late in the afternoon and the sunlight glowed against the boat-shaped fountain that Bernini’s father had designed nearly three hundred years before.

I sighed. Lillian and I had been arguing ever since I had received the invitation to sit for Salvador Dalí. “You know this is an opportunity I can’t pass up. And you also know how much I need the money.”

Dalí had made waves in the city papers because he was in town creating sets for the Rome Opera. But he was also painting on the side, which was good for me. I had graduated from the Accademia di Belle Arti in the spring but continued to take classes to maintain my student visa, and I modeled to pay the bills. Dalí had inquired about me by name—I don’t know how he’d heard of me, but it was often difficult to find a naturally blond model in Rome and I assumed that another person I had sat for referred me. He wanted to paint me in the guise of an ancient goddess—Proserpina, the Roman counterpart to Persephone. Lillian was convinced it was a bad idea.

“Come on. He admires fascists, for god’s sake. You have to be pretty bad to get kicked out of the Surrealists for having weird views.”

“I know, I know. But he’s been spending a lot of time in New York, so maybe he’s changed. It’s only for a week. He’s one of the best painters in the world, Lil, and watching a maestro like him at work isn’t something I can pass up. It’s only a week.” But I hated that she was right and felt guilty that I still planned to go.

Lillian tried a different angle. “Okay, then. But he’s also a deviant. You’ll be naked in front of him.”

“His wife will be there,” I protested. “There’s nothing to worry about. He only has eyes for Gala.”

Lillian, who worked as a shopgirl at a luxury clothing store, had never understood how I could be just as comfortable dressed as I was undressed. But the art scene had always been comfortable with nudity, sexuality—and promiscuity—while the rest of the populace was not.

My friend pulled a ribbon from her pocket and began tying up her long, dark hair. “You don’t even like surrealism.”

“That’s not true,” I insisted. “I just hatemostsurrealism.”

In fact, I was somewhat obsessive about surrealism, but it was no longer in vogue to say so. Abstract expressionism had taken the art world by storm and I wanted to sell my work, so I followed the trends, inspired by the likes of Kline and Rothko. But, oh, the surrealists tugged at my heart and soul. It had been Dalí’sDream Caused by the Flight of a Bee Around a Pomegranate a Second Before Wakingthat had lured me in when I was in Madrid. The painting of a naked woman—Dalí’s longtime muse, his wife, Gala—resting on rocks in the middle of the ocean, a pomegranate by her side, had a lot going on. In the sea, another monstrous pomegranate births a rockfish that spits out two tigers, their mouths wide open, their claws ready to rip the woman apart. There was also a floating gun and Dalí’s first spindly-legged elephant. But it was the pomegranate that had really caught my eye—how it opened up, bursting with life, and yet the woman lay asleep, unable to react to all the emotion and life around her, lost in a dream.

There was something in that painting that resonated with me, that made me feel a little less fragmented. I couldn’t explain that to Lillian. She would never understand. She knew the newest version of me, a fabricated tale: born in Italy, raised in Manhattan by an eccentric aunt after my parents’ tragic deaths, and educated in Boston before returning to Italy postwar.

But the truth is, my earliest memory is emerging from the Pantheon years before into the streets of Rome and a stranger’s kindness to help me reach theaccademia. Beyond this, my past is a void; I have no recollection of family, childhood, or schooling. A doctor once dismissed my amnesia as temporary, but it never resolved.

To dispel any awkwardness, I concocted a fictitious past. This story satisfied the curious and accounted for my advanced intellect and erudite speech—traits I never fully understood in myself. I claimed an education at Radcliffe and feigned ties to high society, a narrative that seemed plausible enough to explain my idiosyncrasies.

But the way I felt when I looked at that painting by Dalí was one of the reasons I couldn’t turn this job down. There was a connection there and I had an inexplicable need to discover what it was.

Lillian looked at her watch. “I really should go. I don’t want to be late for my shift. But I hate you gallivanting off to some town no one has ever heard of with a couple of fascists to pretend to be some Properseena goddess in a wild garden of monsters.”

“Proserpina.Pro-ser-pin-ah,” I corrected. “I know, the name is confusing. You could just say Persephone. And don’t worry. I’ll be home before you know it, and much richer. I’ll take you out for dinner on the Veneto.”

“On the Veneto?” She whistled. “I never did ask how much he is paying you, but now I want to know.”

I pulled out the invitation with the details and handed it to her.

“Holy mackerel, Jules,” she gasped. “Seventy-five thousand lire a day for seven days? That’s what, about a thousand bucks? Dear lord.”

“I know. Pennies from heaven. It will be nice not to be a starving artist for once.” And with that kind of cash I’d be far from starving. “But, Lil, this is less about the money. It’s the chance of a lifetime. To learn from a master, to be depicted as one of my favorite mythical heroines, and to be...”

“Dalí’s muse,” she finished for me. “I know.” She kissed me on the cheek and hugged me goodbye, giving me one last admonishment to be careful.

At four o’clock on the dot, a sleek black-and-red Alfa Romeo pulled up, with a wood-paneled Fiat station wagon following behind, laden with luggage and easels strapped to the roof. Salvador Dalí stepped out of the elegant car, walking cane in hand, and looked around. The artist wore a beautiful dark gray double-breasted suit, complete with a pink-and-gray tie, and I worried that he might find my outfit, a simple black sweater over a red dress, lacking. I approached slowly, working up my courage, but Dalí caught sight of me and waved me over.

---