Page 72 of In the Garden of Monsters

Dalí’s voice rang through the room. “I, the divine Salvador Domingo Felipe Jacinto Dalí, declare this meal dedicated to my queen, the magnificent Gala, to begin.”

Paolo managed to catch my eye and mouthed something to me, which I thought might have been“Stai attenta.”Be careful.This time, he would not be close enough to knock anything containing a pomegranate seed out of my hand, nor would Lillian be able to swallow another seed for me.

“Mangia,”Dalí shouted in Italian, then in Catalan,“Menja.”

I examined the toast on my plate and, not seeing any seeds, took a bite. It turned out to be rich and pleasurable, and I detected a hint of alcohol but couldn’t identify the other ingredients. “What’s in this?” I asked.

Dalí was delighted that I wanted to know. “This is avocado toast. Never have you tasted anything so marvelous. You will experience a delirious concoction of avocados, almonds, lamb brain, and tequila. And a delightful fried egg stuffed with goose rillettes. I thought it quite Dalínian to begin this dinner with breakfast.”

“A divine beginning for this gathering of gods,” Gala said, licking avocado off her fingers.

What followed was a parade of food born from Dalí’s imagination—prawn parfaits made from egg and sausage and decorated with prawns waving their pincers in the air; snail stew; a soufflé of cauliflower and garlic topped by a skewer of fried frogs; ramekins of frogs’ legs; and a dish Dalí called “snail saltimbocca,” which was nothing like the saltimboccaalla Romanaof chicken and veal in white wine that I had grown accustomed to. His dish, made of fried snails with garlic sauce, was far more complex.

I carefully dissected every morsel of food before eating it, to ensure I wouldn’t ingest another pomegranate seed. So far, I’d found only two, stuffed into the egg, but I’d managed to tuck them under the empty prawn shells, glad that no one sat close enough to me to notice, though I was sure I’d been caught red-handed when Dalí suddenly screamed out,“Absolutament no!”

As it turned out, he hadn’t seen me squirrel away the seeds at all. Instead, he was yelling at Paolo, who tried to photograph the obscure but exquisite dishes before us. They were not ready to be seen by the world, Dalí insisted, and Paolo obliged him, putting his camera back in his pack.

Between courses, Ignazio brought us an herbaldigestivothat made me feel as though I hadn’t eaten a thing, which was fortunate because next came a tower of crayfish, which the servants shelled before us, then served in a broth, eel pâté and eels with beer, sardines in little bread boats, and an entire turbot with skewers of sausages rising out of its back. It was hard to imagine eating some of these things, but aware of Gala’s eye on me, I sampled a little of each dish, and, to my surprise, every one delighted me. If you had told me that same afternoon that one of my favorite bites of the night would be jellied codfish, I would have grimaced, then laughed in your face. But now I was wishing for seconds.

“This is magical stuff,” Lillian remarked to Ignazio as he poured us anotherdigestivo.

“Your Maestro Dalí would not want you to miss any of the magic of the food at hand.” He gave a nod toward the artist.

“We have not yet seen our friends of the land,” Dalí explained, and as if on cue, the servants brought out plates of pheasant in port sauce, steamed and stuffed larks, roast duckling, pigs’ feet in piecrusts, pork chops on a bed of flaky pastry, boar shank with black radishes, and a “siren shoulder,” which turned out to be a lamb shoulder with anchovies and caviar.

“There’s more,” I told Lillian. We still had dessert to come, and I knew how much the Dalís loved their sweets.

The “toffee with pine cones” turned out to be candies with pine nuts. The old-champagne sherbet, Dalí informed us, was made from a ten-year-old bottle of Veuve Clicquot. It was accompanied by a banana pie made with rum-soaked biscuits and a tiny plate with a chunk of chocolate, chock-full of what I guessed to be about fifteen pomegranate seeds.

I had a few bites of the pie and a little of the sherbet, both of which were divine, but I dared not eat much or my feigning at fullness might not be believed. The liquor we had been drinking made me feel like I still had room to eat a horse. Of course Gala gave me a stern look when I pushed away my plate of chocolate untouched, and I wondered if she would reprimand me later.

Finally, Dalí brought the meal to an end. Ignazio indicated that we should stand, and within moments, the tables and everything on them had been cleared from the room. They took the golden chairs and lined them up along the wall.

“You have dined upon the delights offered to the glorious Gala, the one true goddess who graces us tonight with her presence. Now,” Dalí exclaimed, “it is time to dance!”

I silently groaned. I didn’t think of myself as a great dancer. Besides, how could anyone be expected to dance after such a feast? But the music began, a slow waltz I recognized as a traditional Italian song called the“Serenata Napoletana.”

Jack came forward and took Gala by the hand. Lillian already had a hand on Paolo’s arm. And I stood there awkwardly as the couples danced. Just as I began to walk toward Dalí, thinking I would stand next to him and watch, Ignazio appeared in the doorway. I wanted to curse.

“Dance, my darling Proserpina. Your Pluto awaits,” Dalí commanded me.“Danse!”he instructed again in French. He spanked me with his lightning bolt, forcing me to move toward Ignazio, who had crossed the room with surprising speed.

Ignazio wrapped an arm around me, finding the small of my back with one hand, holding my hand with the other. Heat, smoke, and cinnamon circled around me as we began to move across the tiles of thesala grande. I tried to catch Lillian’s eye as we swept by her, but my friend was lost in Paolo’s embrace.

I had never danced the waltz without counting my steps, but in Ignazio’s arms, I could hardly think, much less count. Nor did I need to. We moved together as though we were one, as though we had been dancing together for centuries.Together for centuries.That thought came to me as we spun, as my feet moved effortlessly, in time with the clarinets. It was an alarming thought, but one I could not shake and one Ignazio seemed to validate with his whisper in my ear.

“This is something you have missed,” he said.

I had no response for him. While I rarely danced and had never danced with him before, his words rang true within me. How could I feel as though I genuinely had missed waltzing with him?

Over his shoulder, I caught a glimpse of the windows along the western wall, through which a green glow was evident. Theboschettowas alive again.

Julia...

The whisper was soft, and I wondered if I had imagined it. Ignazio and I moved together like fire, like heat rising. We spun, our bodies moving with a rhythm the music could barely reach.

Julia...beware...

The whisper grew louder, and it shook something loose inside me, a sliver of anger. Who were the ghosts warning me about?

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