Page 47 of In the Garden of Monsters

By the time I reached the sill, the light had shifted, muted a little, and it was just sunlight again.

“Did you see where it was coming from?”

She shook her head, and the two of us stood there, staring down the valley, our eyes searching for whatever could have made such an alien glow.

“I’ve seen it before,” I confessed. “At night, in theboschetto.”

She turned to face me. “I told you this place was wrong,” she said, taking my hands in hers and squeezing them tight, too tight. “I knew it from the moment I met you that there was something off, something wrong with you. We should never have brought you here.”

I tried to pull away. “There’s nothing wrong with me.”

“There is. That’s why Salvador wants you for this painting, not me. He says you are more surreal than anything he has ever seen.” And with that, she let my hands go and the conversation was over.

There was another knock on the door. I went to it, grateful for the interruption. It was Jack.

“Good morning, you beautiful birds! Dalí says it’s time to get this show on the road.”

Gala went to Jack and linked her arm in his. He waved at me to follow.“Andiamo.”

I had missed breakfast, but Paolo had been thoughtful enough to save me a napkin with a cream-filledcornetto. Ignazio was absent, which I was both relieved and frustrated by—I wanted to confirm that he would be retrieving Lillian from the train station in Attigliano.

Dalí seemed particularly delighted to see me that morning. “My beautiful Proserpina, how the sun shines on your hair! Today we will fashion you a crown of laurel leaves. This dress, it becomes you. We will leave it on. You’ll hold a pomegranate in your hand. YOU! You are the goddess of the Underworld today. You are the embodiment of Pluto’s love and desire.” He continued on, raving about Cerberus and Mercury and Ceres, and I quickly lost track of all the gods and monsters he named.

It was chilly in theboschetto,and I was grateful Dalí let me keep my clothes on, but my thoughts were fixed on the pomegranate he had with him. A whole fruit in my hands was fine with me; I just hoped there were no plans to cut it open. In the end, Dalí decided that I would sit upright, my feet on the ground, my back against the bench. The stone goddess would surround me while I sat in her arms, the fruit in my hands, a laurel crown that Gala had fashioned on my head. This position wasn’t nearly as comfortable as lying down, but at least I wouldn’t be at risk of falling asleep and would be more aware of my surroundings.

Dalí was in a good mood, and Gala, too, was in fine spirits that morning. The two regaled us with stories of their travels to London, Paris, and New York.

“Tell them about when you nearly died at the International Surrealist Exhibition in London,” Gala instructed her husband.

Dalí set aside his paints and told us that in 1936, as part of the surrealist demonstrations, the opening talk was given by the poet Dylan Thomas, who was dressed entirely in green, and he offered teacups full of boiled string to everyone present. “Do you like it weak or strong?” he asked. While the crowd was tittering about this bizarre event, Dalí entered the hall with two wolfhounds on leashes in one hand and a pool cue in the other. But apparently, he was also wearing a deep-sea diving suit. “It was hot, but I did not care. It was a quest into the depths of the human subconscious!”

“And it was hermetically sealed,” Gala explained.

Dalí rose from his seat and began to demonstrate. “Not long into my lecture on the sublime nature of diving into the subconscious mind, I began to feel faint, so I waved my arms for help. But the audience did not believe me! I was pounding on my helmet, staggering, but everyone thought this was part of the show. No one came to my aid until I finally fell upon the ground, and Gala, my Gravida, saved me.”

Gala laughed. “I did save him. When he began flailing about on the floor, I knew something was very wrong. But imagine, it was a crowd of artists, none of whom had ever been within five meters of a diving suit. We tried to get the helmet off but couldn’t figure out how to unbolt it. Finally, I pried it off with his pool cue.”

“So, what happened?” Jack asked, amused.

“I finished my lecture. It was not my time to die.” Dalí stared at me, his eyes bulging as though there was something in those words I should understand. I held his gaze until he finally picked up his brushes and began to paint again.

Eventually Jack, Gala, and Paolo became bored and went on a walk around theboschetto. Dalí painted me in silence. He didn’t even open his mouth to complain when Orpheus jumped up on the bench and settled himself into my lap. I cradled him in my arms, holding the pomegranate out in front of him, and he reached out a paw and patted my hand three times. I took one hand off the pomegranate to pet him, and he seemed to settle down. But as soon as I took up the fruit once more, he again patted my arm three times.

“What are you trying to tell me, little kitty?” I whispered. He looked at me and blinked, quite deliberately, three times. I was so surprised I almost dropped the pomegranate.

But Orpheus wasn’t the only one trying to warn me about three things. The ghost in the fire and the ghost in my room had both raised three fingers in the air. “Three what? Why is that number significant?” I whispered to him, as if the cat could respond.

Just then, a turtledove came to rest on one of Proserpina’s outstretched arms. I expected Orpheus to attack the bird, but to my surprise, he ran off into the bushes instead. The dove watched the beast disappear into the garden before taking flight and disappearing among the statues.

“Did you see that?” I asked Dalí.

“A cat and a dove?” he asked.“Sì. Madre naturaworks in mysterious ways.”

I sighed. To him, nothing was as strange as what he saw with his mind’s eye.

A little past noon, Gala came down the stairs into the hippodrome and bade us come for lunch. Dalí obliged her with a kiss and set his brushes aside. When he took the pomegranate from my hand, I was glad.

“Julia, that dress becomes you,” Ignazio commented, flashing me a smile when he saw me coming up the path.

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