The World Behind the Door Page 4

  The young girl had filled almost every page in her sketchbook. What she lacked in skill and polish, she made up for in enthusiasm. Everything fascinated her: the walls and ceiling, the floors, the sink in the kitchen, the tile on the floor of the bathroom, the dogs and cats that wandered into sight as she looked out the widow. None of her finished sketches pleased her, but the mere act of sketching gave her enormous pleasure. She thought she could see improvement, however minimal, from one day to the next, and that kept her spirits up.

  She slept in a spare room. It may have been designed as a guest room when the architect designed it, but it was filled to overflowing with paints, canvases, sketchbooks, easels, chalk, pencils, all the tools of the artist's trade. She was surprised not to be sharing the room with a bowl filled with fruit and a nude model.

  Jinx decided that Dali's cooking was all but inedible, so he finally agreed to take her to one of his favorite tavernas. He had feared that he would get a lot of knowing glances—looks that said Dali has a new mistress! We must tell Gala of this!—but the streets were relatively empty and the few people he passed paid him no attention at all.

  When they reached the taverna they seated themselves. There was no menu, of course. The table had a garish cloth over it, and an old wine bottle held two limp flowers. They sat in splendid isolation for a few minutes, and then Jinx got to her feet.

  "I must excuse myself for a moment," said Jinx, heading off toward the single bathroom.

  Dali nodded absently, briefly considered eating the flowers and drinking the dirty water from the wine bottle, but rejected the notion when he realized that there was no one else in the taverna. No sense acting like a crazy man if there was no one around to appreciate it and report it to their friends.

  The waiter brought out the meals—there was no point in ordering a particular dish, since the taverna only cooked one dish per day—and stopped to chat with Dali for a moment.

  "You have a guest today, Senor Dali?" he asked, indicating the chair that had clearly been moved when Jinx got out of it.

  "My cousin from Barcelona," lied Dali.

  "How goes the painting?"

  "The same as usual, Felipe," said Dali. "What have we for dinner?"

  "Today's catch."

  "That's what you had the last five times," said Dali. "When are you going to serve something interesting?"

  "I can speak to my uncle, who does the cooking," said Felipe. "What did you have in mind?"

  "Robins' beaks, chocolate-covered cicadas, black mamba imported from Africa."

  Felipe chuckled. "You are always making the jokes, Senor Dali."

  "You get them and I will eat them."

  "You know, I almost believe you would." Still chuckling, he vanished back into the kitchen just before Jinx returned to the table.

  Jinx ate her meal enthusiastically, but Dali kept glancing at the door, wondering just how many of his bones Gala would break if word of his new companion reached her. He figured the odds against her believing that Jinx was just a student and a friend were about the same as the sun turning into a snowball before morning.

  They finished the meal. Jinx went outside while Dali pulled some bills out of his pocket and laid them on the table.

  "Thank you, Senor Dali," said Felippe, emerging from the kitchen at the sound of Dali's chair being pushed back. He looked around. "Your cousin never showed up."

  "My cousin is outside waiting for me." Dali indicated Jinx's empty plate. "You can see that she ate her dinner."

  "I can see that somebody did," said Felipe, sure Dali was making some kind of joke. "I'll tell my uncle that you enjoyed his cooking twice as much as usual. And I'll make sure he prepares frosted walrus whiskers the next time you come by."

  Felipe laughed uproariously at his own joke and vanished back into the kitchen.

  "It was a nice meal," said Jinx as Dali joined her outside the taverna. "But next time we go out for dinner, I want to go someplace big and crowded. It would be more interesting and exciting."

  "We'll see," said Dali noncommittally, for he had already decided that it made more sense to go places like this taverna, where there was no one to report him to Gala.

  "You are afraid of Gala," she said suddenly.

  "I am not!" he lied, startled.

  "We can go to some restaurant or taverna where nobody knows you, and then they will not tell her."

  "There is no place where I am not known," said Dali, not without a touch of pride. "If I see a new woman, or create a new painting, or even lose a wager, they know about it almost as soon as it happens. It is the price of fame. You know," he added, lowering his voice confidentially, "I was kicked out of art school when I declared that none of my professors had the skill and knowledge to properly evaluate my work." He grinned. "That story made the rounds, I can tell you. They still talk about it."

  "You look very proud of yourself," noted Jinx.

  "I am."

  "May I ask you a question?"

  "Certainly."

  "What did it accomplish, except to get you kicked out of school and convince everyone that you were a pompous, conceited, ill-mannered egomaniac."

  He stared at her in surprise. "No one has spoken to me like that since I was a child."

  "Maybe they're afraid of you," suggested Jinx.

  "And you are not?"

  "Why should I be?" she replied calmly. "I know you're not going to hit me."

  "Maybe I won't teach you how to paint."

  She smiled at him. "And maybe the next time you visit my world I won't show you how to get back to this one."

  "Do you always speak like this to grown-ups?" said Dali.

  "Only when I must," said Jinx. "Now, what about my suggestion?"

  "What suggestion?" he asked, puzzled.

  "That we go to a restaurant where you are not known," answered Jinx.

  "I told you . . ."

  "I know what you told me," she said. "But there are thousands of restaurants in Madrid. I refuse to believe that you have graced each and every one of them with your presence. Do you know what I think?"

  "What?" asked Dali.

  "I think you just do not want to go anywhere where people don't know who you are."

  "Perhaps," he said with a noncommittal shrug.

  "If you someday become a great artist instead of merely a very good painter, you will not be able to go anywhere in the world without people knowing who you are," she said. "You might consider that."

  "You are very young and innocent of the world," said Dali. "The only artist of the past half century anyone but his friends and associates could identify was little Henri Toulouse-Lautrec, not because he was a great painter, but because he was a physical freak."

  "You will find a way," said Jinx with certainty.

  "You really think so?" said Dali, interested. "Why?"

  "Because you are a pompous, conceited egomaniac."

  "That again," he said. "Do you take a certain delight in insulting me?"

  "I wasn't insulting you," said Jinx.

  "Oh?" he said, arching an eyebrow. "Is that what you consider praise?"

  "I wasn't insulting you or praising you," said Jinx. "I was defining you. You are an egomaniac—and an egomaniac will find ways to make himself noticed."

  "Perhaps you think I should cut myself off at the knees like the little Frenchman?" he said sarcastically.

  "No," she said seriously. "You are not the type to copy someone else. That's what you don't like about your painting; that it isn't uniquely your own. You will cultivate some physical feature or mannerism that no one else possesses, so that when people see it they will say, 'Why, who else could that be but Salvador Dali?'"

  "I could shave my head bald," he suggested, half-seriously.

  "There have been other bald artists."

  "Then what?"

  She shrugged. "I don't know. But you will think of something. It is your nature to be the center of attention."

  "What do you know about my nature?" h
e asked. "I've known you for less than half a week."

  "All right," she said with a shrug. "I was wrong. You hate the limelight and wish only to be ignored."

  Dali couldn't repress an amused laugh at that. "All right, young Jinx. I take it back. Of course you know my nature, and you are absolutely right. Now if you truly know how to turn me into the artist I long to be, I shall forsake Gala's face and put yours into every painting."

  "I'd rather you didn't," said Jinx.

  "Why?"

  "Because not everyone longs to be the center of attention," she explained. "All I want is to be the best artist I can be. I don't care if I receive any acclaim or notoriety; I just want to know that I have made the most of my gifts, however modest they may be."

  "That is a very unusual attitude," commented Dali, "and a very mature one. Most of the painters I know would much rather be famous than good."

  "I suspect that's true of writers and actors as well," said Jinx.

  "The odd part is that the ones who are good are usually the ones who become famous," continued Dali. "An American president once said that you can fool some of the people some of time, and indeed you can—but eventually they realize that, as in Hans Christian Anderson's fable, the emperor has no clothes. That's why I will personally take care of the notoriety, but only to draw attention to my work—and if my art isn't exceptional, then as quickly as I make people seek it out they will lose interest and look elsewhere."

  "May I see what you've done so far on the current one?" asked Jinx.

  Dali shook his head. "Not until it's done."

  "When will that be?"

  "There are two answers to that," he replied. "The first is: sometime tomorrow. The second is: never."

  "They are both good answers."

  Dali paused for a moment. "Are you getting tired?" he asked solicitously.

  "A little," she replied. "What time is it?"

  He looked at his watch. "Almost ten o'clock."

  "Already? How time flies!"

  Dali shook his head. "Time doesn't fly. It lays there like a sodden beast."

  "I've never seen a sodden beast."

  "Then we're even," he replied. "I've never seen time fly. Shall we begin walking back to my place?"

  "Yes, I think so," agreed Jinx.

  "You have been asking me questions all week. Allow me to ask you one: why are you called Jinx?"

  "Don't you like it?"

  "It's very distinctive," he answered. "I've never met anyone else called Jinx. But I have encountered the word many times, so my question really is: who did you jinx?"

  "My father," she said.

  "He wanted a son?"

  "He wanted my mother. She died when I was born."

  "I can sympathize," said Dali. "We had some early tragedy in our family too."

  "I keep explaining that it wasn't my fault my mother died," she said. Suddenly a tear ran down her cheek. "But it probably was."

  "You mustn't blame yourself," said Dali. He wanted to reach out, to put his arms around the young girl, to hold her close to him and comfort her—but some instinct prevented him from touching her. Maybe he was afraid he'd find out he didn't love Gala as much as he thought; he didn't know. He just knew that he shouldn't touch her. "I had an older brother who died just before I was born. They gave me his name—and because of that I've always felt that I was a substitute, that I could never live up to the original." He smiled ruefully. "Isn't that foolish? My brother died at 21 months of age. How could I not live up to that?"

  "You can't control your secret beliefs and fears," said Jinx, as they turned onto a winding side street filled with centuries-old stone buildings, their heels clicking on the ancient brick pavement.

  "Freud says you can." He paused. "I would like to believe him. But I don't know if I do."

  "Poor Salvador," she said, as another tear followed the first down her freckled cheek.

  "Don't move!" he said suddenly.

  "What is it?" she asked nervously. "Is it a rat?"

  "No," said Dali, pulling his sketch pad out of his pocket. "It is that sad expression that seems to encompass all the troubles of the world. I must capture it!" He positioned himself beneath a gas street lamp and sighed deeply. "It's gone."

  "You shouldn't have frightened me."

  He began drawing rapidly, "Let me see if I can approximate it before I totally forget what it looked like."

  His hand moved faster and faster, becoming a blur of motion. In less than a minute he stopped and looked up at her.

  "I lost it," he said unhappily. "Next time I tell you not to move, don't move."

  "May I see it?" she asked, extending her hand.

  "It's not very good."

  "I'd like to see it anyway," she said. "After all," she added with a half-smile, "I posed for it. Sort of."

  "All right, but don't judge it too harshly," he said apologetically. "It's just a spur-of-the-moment sketch, and a failed one at that."

  She took the sketchbook from him and studied it intently. Finally she looked up.

  "Possibly you should see an ophthalmologist," she said at last.

  "It's not that bad!" he said harshly.

  "It's not bad at all," she said, handing it back to him. "But it's not true."

  "Explain."

  "You tell me your friend Picasso sometimes puts both eyes on the same side of the nose. Is that the way I appear to you when you look at me?"

  "No, of course not."

  "Then why are you drawing second-hand Picasso sketches instead of first-hand Dali sketches?"

  "You don't understand," said Dali. "Drawing a face that way is a very popular convention."

  "And is that what you wish to be?" persisted Jinx. "A very popular conventional artist?"

  "No," he admitted.

  "Well, then?"

  He ripped the sketch into tiny pieces.

  "And when I get home, I will do the same with the painting," he promised her.

  "You painted people with both eyes on the same side of their heads in that, too?" she asked.

  "No, but there are other conventions I subscribed to. What I must do is rid myself of all preconceptions, and create works that do not build on what has gone before, that do not borrow from the current trends, but which become artistic first causes in themselves."

  "What is an artistic first cause?" she asked curiously.

  "You are aware of cause and effect?"

  "No."

  "But you must be!" insisted Dali. "For every cause, there is an effect."

  "Not in my world," said Jinx.

  "But there is in mine," he said. "Each effect in turn becomes a cause for the next effect, for whatever follows. This indeed is how Saint Thomas Aquinas proved the existence of God. For every effect there is a cause, and when we come to the First Cause, that which existed before anything else, we call it God."

  "Are you equating what you want to paint with God, then?" asked Jinx curiously.

  Dali shook his head impatiently. "Of course not. I am simply saying that I do not want my paintings to be derivative, to be the effect of other artists' causes."

  "Yes, I suppose that makes sense."

  "Oh, it makes perfect sense," said Dali bitterly. "The trick is how to accomplish it."

  "That's easy enough," said Jinx.

  "All right, my young genius. Suppose you tell me how to do it."

  "That would be cheating."

  "What are you talking about?" he demanded irritably.

  "If I told you, then you'd never be sure it was your own idea—and in fact you'd be right," said Jinx. "Sooner or later you'd convince yourself it was just the whim of a young girl, and you'd abandon it. You'll be much happier if you come up with it yourself."

  "When?" he growled. "When I am eighty and half-blind?"

  "Oh, you'll figure it out sooner than that," she assured him.

  "How comforting," he said sardonically.

  "It's like the next-to-last chapter in a mystery novel," she said. />
  "What do you know of mystery novels?"

  "I read one in your house while you were sleeping," she replied.

  "Fine. How is it like a mystery novel?"

  "You already know everything you have to know. Now you just have to put it together."

  He was still pondering that when he went to bed a few hours later.

  Chapter 7: An Angry Figment

  "Maybe we should go back through the closet," suggested Dali the next evening.

  "Why?" asked Jinx.

  "Don't you miss your world?"

  "Come on, Salvador," said Jinx. "You don't care whether I miss my world or not. What's your real reason?"

  "Has anyone told you that you are an annoying little girl?" said Dali irritably.

  "I thought I was a young lady."

  "Only when you are not annoying me."

  "I am not annoying you," said Jinx. "You are."

  "So now you not only aspire to be a painter, but to take Sigmund Freud's place and tell me what I am to think?"

  "I would never tell you what to think, Salvador," she replied. "I would only tell you to be true to your thoughts."

  Dali sighed. "I am surrounded by the mundane and the boring. Why should I expect anything but platitudes from a girl who is barely into her teens?"

  "Do you find me mundane and boring?" she asked.

  "No," he admitted. "You are perhaps the one thing in my life, besides Gala, that does not bore me." He stared at her. "But you torment me, young Jinx. You know what I need to know, and yet you will not tell me."

  "It is too pleasant an evening to argue," she said. "The last rays of the sun will soon be gone, the moon is rising, and there's finally a gentle breeze. Shall we take a walk?"

  "Through the park."

  She smiled. "Are you afraid someone will see us?"

  "I love the motion of moonlight on water," he answered noncommittally.

  He walked to the door and opened it for her. She went out, then waited for him.

  A pudgy woman was the only other person in the park, walking rapidly along a stone path, and Dali made sure they stayed far enough away that she couldn't see them clearly.

  "Why are you avoiding her?" asked Jinx.

  "She is a fat cow," said Dali.

  "She is not responsible for how she looks."

  "We are all responsible for how we look," Dali corrected her. "And she is a most unpleasant woman, an obese spinster who pokes her nose into everybody's business. If she could see you clearly, within an hour everyone I know would think you were my new mistress." He glared at the woman. "The fat cow," he repeated.