Page 52 of In the Garden of Monsters

“Julia is a dynamite abstract expressionist.” Lillian put her hand on my arm, cool and calming, as she spoke to Jack. “Her paintings are wild and full of color. Viewing them leaves you feeling positively sublime.”

Lillian was only standing up for me, but I wished she had kept her mouth shut. I could feel Dalí’s irritation rising.

“Isn’t it amusing?” Gala interjected, a cold smile playing on her lips as she glanced at Lillian. “How often those who cannot create, promote. Julia, dear, you really ought to surround yourself with people who truly understand art.” Her eyes lingered on Lillian, the implication clear.

Gala’s words hung in the air like a thick fog, suffocating the conversation. Lillian, however, seemed undeterred, her eyes narrowing as she met Gala’s challenge.

“Well, Mrs. Dalí,” Lillian began, her voice sweet but with a hint of steel, “I believe that true appreciation of art doesn’t require one to create it. Understanding and passion can be found in those who merely witness the beauty, don’t you think?”

Gala’s smile was fixed, a mask that failed to conceal her irritation. “Darling, you mistake simple admiration for genuine understanding. It’s quaint, really, how people like you believe they can comprehend the profound depths of artistic genius.”

Lillian’s cheeks flushed, but her voice remained steady. “Perhaps, Mrs. Dalí, you mistake pretension for wisdom. Art is a language spoken by many, not just the so-called geniuses.”

Dalí glanced between the two women, his eyes dancing with amusement. But Gala’s expression had turned frosty, and her reply was clipped. “And yet it’s the geniuses who shape the world, while the admirers merely gawk.”

“Or exploit,” Lillian shot back, her eyes locking on to Gala’s. “After all, without those who truly value art for its essence, the geniuses might starve.”

The room fell into an uncomfortable silence, the tension palpable. Gala’s eyes narrowed further, a challenge in her gaze. But before either woman could continue, Ignazio appeared in the doorway, a glass carafe of golden liquid in his hand.

I interrupted the conversation. “Lillian, our host has the most wonderful concoction you must try.” I waved at Ignazio, who came to our table with a dazzling smile. “He says it’s from Elysium, and I think he might be right.”

Ignazio filled our goblets with the shimmering elixir, then raised his glass. “I propose a toast.”

“Yes, a toast!” Dalí cried, jumping to his feet and raising his glass.

“To the power of art to bring people together,” Ignazio said, lifting his glass a little higher.

“To art,” Jack said enthusiastically, clinking his glass with Dalí’s. Gala snarled but brought her glass to meet Jack’s.

Ignazio winked at me as we touched glasses, and again, conflict rose within me. Could this man indeed be Pluto...or Hades...or the Devil? Sipping at the wine, I savored the heady scent and each delicious drop on my tongue. I should have warned Lillian to indulge carefully, but I was lost in thought about Ignazio. I couldn’t stop thinking of him kneeling at my feet in my bedroom, and I hated myself for turning over the moments of pleasure more than the confusion and terror I felt when he vanished.

Dalí was obviously delighted to have another person to regale with his tales, and he made a grand show of doing whatever he could to shock Lillian. He told us stories of how he pushed a childhood friend off a bridge just to do it and how when he first met Gala he so wanted to impress her that he dyed his armpits blue, then cut them up to be bloody and scabby, before making a paste that smelled like ram manure to smear all over his body.

“Fortunately, he had second thoughts and showered it all off before he came outside.” Gala chuckled, the wine clearly having dissipated her anger. “But he wore a pearl necklace and had a red geranium behind his ear.”

Lillian nodded politely, smiling and laughing at all the right spots. But I knew my friend, and she was mortified. More than once, she nudged my leg with her hand or her knee. Yet as the evening progressed—and as Dalí poured more of the golden Elysium wine into her goblet—she seemed to relax into the weirdness, even egging Dalí on, teasing Gala, flirting with Paolo.

Dalí had just poured another round when the first crack of thunder sounded, a massive crash of the heavens right above our heads, causing us all to jump in fright. A moment later, the skies lit up bright as a blue-white sun then plunged us back into darkness, releasing a deluge of rain upon our heads. The wind kicked up and blew out the candles and torches that had lit up the terrace. We only had a few feet to run, but by the time we shut the doors behind us, we were drenched. Ignazio arrived a moment later with a servant bearing a pile of towels.

“The night is young,” Dalí proclaimed as he toweled off his hair. “It is time for SNAPDRAGON.” He said this last word with a grand flourish, elongating the sounds.

Gala clapped her hands together like a little girl. “Yes. How perfect!”

“What is Snapdragon?” I asked.

“Go and change into something dry, then return to the small salon and you’ll find out.” Gala had never sounded so gleeful. She took Ignazio by the arm and led him out of the room, giving him some sort of instructions in a low voice.

We trudged upstairs to change. Lillian was disappointed.

“I’m guessing it’s probably not the best night to go to the garden,” she said to Paolo and me as we headed back downstairs a while later.

Unlike my friend, I was relieved to spend the evening playing Snapdragon, which, it turned out, was a game, usually played on Christmas or, sometimes, on Halloween, that had been popular as far back as the Renaissance. Shakespeare even mentioned it inThe Winter’s Tale—though it had fallen out of favor sometime before the Great War because it was rather dangerous.

“We’re going to do what?” Lillian asked, incredulous as Ignazio poured sweet brandy into a shallow dish, just barely covering the fruit therein.

“You will reach into the flames and pluck, with your beautiful hands, a fruit or a nut,” Dalí explained.

A growing horror rose within me as I noticed that, in addition to raisins, currants, and figs, the bottom of the dish was laden with pomegranate seeds. How would I avoid snatching one up through a hot flame that could burn me as I tried?

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