Page 18 of In the Garden of Monsters

The afternoon passed in a haze. I dozed while Dalí painted. At some point, Ignazio brought out folding chairs for the others, who collapsed in them gratefully in between their forays into the garden. Orpheus returned and curled up in his spot, purring against my belly.

“Time to go.” Gala shook my arm, rousing me. “This place is becoming creepy.”

I looked around and saw that dusk had begun to fall. The sirens at the other end of the hippodrome glowed in the last rays of the day’s light. Paolo was waiting, his camera bag and tripod on his shoulder. “Can I see?” I asked Jack, who held the canvas as Dalí packed up his easel.

He turned around to face me, bringing the painting into my view. My face had been sketched in great detail, and the outline of my body was there, and I was hardly surprised to see a pomegranate floating in space, a few inches from my figure. But rather than being held by Proserpina, as I had expected, my image was in what I could tell would become the mouth of a terribleorco, the beginnings of a vast ocean beneath and a wide pink-and-blue sky above.

“Why am I in the Mouth of Hell?” I asked Dalí.

His eyes bulged in a mix of surprise and incredulity. “Where else would Proserpina be?”

“Judge not,” Gala warned me.

I nodded, unsure what I would have said, even if my opinion was wanted. But I was glad he hadn’t decided to have me model in the mouth of theorco.

Ignazio was waiting for us at the truck to take us back up to the palazzo. On the way, the others filled me in on the parts of the garden I had yet to see.

“There is an old stone amphitheater, covered in moss,” Paolo said. “They must have put on some magnificent performances there at one time.”

“The tilted house is my favorite,” Jack said.

“Tilted house?” I asked.

“It’s like a house in one of Dalí’s paintings,” Gala said, patting her husband’s knee.

“No, it is like how itfeelsin one of my paintings,” he corrected her.

We hit a bump and Paolo slipped off his seat, knocking into the wet canvas, the top of theorcoand part of the ocean transferring to the sleeve of his jacket.

“Idiota! Stupido sciocco!”Gala cried out, smacking him across the face with the back of her hand.

Paolo drew back and looked down at the blue-and-black smear of paint on his clothing, mortified. Rather than reclaim his seat next to Jack, he sat down next to me, and I could see a red mark just beginning to bloom on his cheek. I felt for Paolo. It was the second time that day that Gala had slapped someone—and I still recalled the feeling of her hand hitting my cheek. Was she always so awful?

“My Lionette.” Dalí put his arm around Gala to calm her, speaking to her in a mixture of Catalan, French, and English.

I surveyed the damage. “Dalí can fix anything,” I said, looking at the canvas. I hoped that the situation would diffuse if I appealed to the artist’s ego. “Do not worry.”

Gala harrumphed and turned her head to look out of the truck toward the palazzo looming on the hill above us, but my tactic worked on Dalí. “A trifle,” he exclaimed after he’d lifted his head to survey the damage. “This is nothing. I can fix that with my eyes closed.”

Beside me, Paolo released a sigh of relief.

“Grazie per la tua gentilezza,”Paolo said, thanking me for my kindness when we got out of the truck and Dalí and Gala were out of earshot.

“Non era niente,”I told him. For it was nothing.

“Questo è un brutto posto. Lo sento nelle ossa. E queste persone, non sì prenderanno cura di te. Stai attenta.”

This is a bad place. I feel it in my bones. And these people, they won’t take care of you. Be careful.I opened my mouth to respond, but Jack spoke before I could.

“Gala is prone to outbursts,” he said calmly. “Don’t take it personally.”

Clearly, he hadn’t understood the cameraman’s words of warning. I wanted to ask Paolo what he meant, but he had already turned from me and was hoisting Dalí’s easel over his shoulder.

“Julia, may I speak with you?” Ignazio asked as we trekked up the long stretch of road toward the Orsini palazzo.

“Sure,” I said, although my heart had already begun to pound at his nearness.

He fell in step with me, waiting until Paolo and Jack were some distance ahead of us before he began to speak. “They told me you felt an earthquake when you were in the garden,” he said, finally.

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