The World Behind the Door (3 page)

      
"And all I have to do is let you hypnotize me?"

      
"There are no guarantees," answered Freud. "This is the likeliest approach. If it should fail, there are other methods we can try."

      
"It will fail," said Dali with absolute certainty. "I have too strong a mind. No one can hypnotize me."

      
Freud laughed aloud. "I have hypnotized more than two thousand men and women, Senor Dali—and every one of them, without exception, told me beforehand that their minds were too strong and that I would never be able to hypnotize them."

      
"I will be different," said Dali.

      
"If you say so," replied Freud with no show of concern.

      
"When do you wish to try?"

      
"I am in town for two more days," said Freud. "When would it be convenient for you to come to my hotel room?"

      
"As soon as I finish my cigarette," said Dali promptly. "We might as well get this over with, and then, when you cannot hypnotize me, we can discuss alternatives."

      
"Very well," replied Freud. "And I shall expect your next painting to be dedicated to me."

      
"To quote an old saying, be careful what you wish for, Doctor Freud. You may get it."

      
"I will cherish the knowledge that I helped unlock whatever you have kept bottled up inside you."

      
Dali finished his drink, waited until Freud had done the same, and put out his cigarette.

      
"Shall we go?" he said, leaving some money on the table and getting to his feet.

      
Freud nodded, and stood up. "Follow me, Senor Dali," he said, leaving the bar and walking to elevator, which ascended to the fourth and highest level of the hotel. A moment later Freud led him to a door and unlocked it.

      
"A very elegant suite," commented Dali, looking around as he entered. "And a lovely view."

      
"I must confess I haven't been here long enough to enjoy it. I arrived yesterday in mid-morning. Since then I have given five speeches, and attended both a testimonial dinner last night and a luncheon today." He sighed deeply. "It will be nice to get back home."

      
"I will accept your being over-tired as an excuse," said Dali.

      
"An excuse?"

      
"For not being able to hypnotize me," said Dali. "Where do you want me?"

      
"Where are you comfortable?" asked Freud.

      
Dali sat down on a plush chair. "Right here."

      
"Then right there is where I want you," said Freud. "Shall we proceed?"

      
"By all means," said Dali confidently.

      
He was in a hypnotic trance in less than three minutes.

 

 

 

Chapter 3: Hunting for the Snark

 

      
Dali spent the next eight days painting his dream.

      
And he didn't like it.

      
The problem, he decided, was that he was doing it from memory, and even with Freud's help he hadn't remembered his dream very well. Yes, there was a lion in it, but somehow it looked exactly like the lion in the zoo, and he was sure that it had seemed distinctive and unique in his dream, but he wasn't sure
how
it had differed from every other lion he'd ever seen.

      
The same with the girl: she was young, maybe eighteen, and pretty, with dark brown hair and a slim figure. But he'd seen literally hundreds of pretty teenaged girls with dark hair and slim figures; try as he would, he couldn't bring the details to mind that made her different.

      
The trees were blue. But they branched out exactly like the trees in the park, and their leaves were the same shape, just a different color. Ditto for their bark.

      
Details.
He needed details, and they kept eluding him, slipping through the fingers of his memory. Even Freud hadn't been able to help him remember more.

      
Still, he was sure Freud was onto something, that all he had to do was find a way to unleash the genius he was sure was trapped inside him, trying to get out. He bought a copy of Freud's popular book,
The Anatomy of Dreams
, and found it fascinating, but couldn't see how to apply it to himself. He even considered making a pilgrimage to Vienna to speak further with Freud while he could still afford it, before the public thought no more of his art than he himself did—but he was still embarrassed by the fact that he'd been hypnotized so easily, and couldn't confront the Austrian this soon.

      
Amazing
, thought Dali.
I am capable of the most outrageous acts to publicize myself and my paintings, but I cannot force myself to visit a man I revere, a man who considers me a friend, because I feel I have made a fool of myself in front of him. No wonder he finds the study of human behavior so endlessly fascinating.

      
Still, that didn't mean he couldn't use Freud's advice, and possibly even his methods. So he spent the day trying to bring up odd and unusual images, but he was not Freud, and he wasn't trained in the science that Freud had pioneered. He felt that some vital part of him was missing, and he didn't know how to find it or get it back.

      
Well,
he told himself,
maybe instead of sitting here feeling sorry for myself, I should be out looking for it.

      
But since I don't know what it is, how will I know where to look for it?

      
Half the fun of finding something is searching for it
, he answered himself silently.
And who knows what you'll find along the way? Surely you can't look into every nook and cranny of your life and not find things to paint.

      
But this
. . .
this
thing
I'm looking for, this mystical missing part of me—will I know it when I find it?

      
What do you care?
he answered.
If you find it, your audience will know, and isn't that all that counts?

      
"I suppose so," said Dali out loud. "But it certainly sounds like a quest for Lewis Carroll's mythical Snark, a creature that appears in different guises to different people."

      
He went to his closet, pulled out his coat, and left the house to begin walking through town, not quite sure what he was looking for. He saw two drunks fighting outside a tavern, which was interesting but hardly unique. He passed a brothel, which was interesting
and
(he had to admit) exciting, but even less out of the ordinary than the fistfight. Soon he passed the arena, and considered it for a moment. After all, he was a Spaniard, and if there was one thing Spaniards loved, it was watching the matadors face the brave bulls on the sun-baked sand of the arena.

      
Suddenly he shook his head vigorously.
Every
Spanish artist painted the bulls. That was the best reason he could think of
not
to paint them.

      
Is it Madrid?
he wondered. Hemingway and others were producing brilliant literature and art living in Paris on the Left Bank. Maybe he should consider moving there. Or perhaps even America—Babe Ruth and Valentino and the leftovers from the recently-concluded Roaring Twenties. It didn't take him long to reject the idea: those were all
external
stimuli, and he knew the problem was within him.

      
Eventually he found himself walking past a fish market, and a crab, imported from the coast, caught his eye. It was most unique thing he'd seen in days, with its awkward eyestalks, its armored pincers, free from all the restrictions of Dali's world, capable of acts of murder and cannibalism in the course of a normal day. It was fascinating—and yet, and yet . . . it was still just a crab. Interesting, fascinating, even . . . but anyone who saw it could paint it, and there were a handful of artists who could paint it every bit as well as he could.

      
He sighed, realized that he was starting to shiver from the cold night breeze, and began walking home. When he arrived he took off his coat, went over to the closet, and hung it up—and froze, frowning.

      
"I never saw that before," he muttered, staring at the door in the back of the closet. "I wonder if it leads to a storage room I didn't know was there?"

      
There was only one way to find out, so he reached out, grabbed the knob, turned it, and stepped through.

      
And found his Snark.

 

 

 

Chapter 4: Jinx

 

      
"Where am I?" muttered Dali as he surveyed his surroundings.

      
He was no longer inside, but out in the open—but not the open of Madrid, or even the Spanish countryside. It was an alien landscape, half dream and half nightmare. Trees grow upside down, their branches and leaves in the ground, their roots reaching for the sun. Off to his left was a small waterfall—but the water was flowing
up
. A bird flapped its wings, but couldn't take off, while a treesnake glided effortlessly through the air from one tree to another one some fifty feet away.

      
"I'm dreaming again," said Dali. "I suppose to wake up I must go back through the door."

      
He turned and looked for the door, but there was no door, no closet, nothing familiar at all.

      
"Well," he said aloud, "as long as I'm thinking clearly, I might as well explore my dreamscape. Who knows? Maybe Freud was right; maybe there is something here I can incorporate in my paintings."

      
"Maybe there is," agreed a chipmunk that was standing right next to his foot.

      
"A talking chipmunk!" exclaimed Dali. "I don't remember dreaming of one before. Remarkable!"

      
"A talking man!" said the chipmunk. "What will they think of next?"

      
The chipmunk wandered off in search of food.

      
"Don't go away yet!" said Dali urgently.

      
The chipmunk turned and looked at him expectantly.

      
"Where am I?" asked Dali.

      
"You are here," said the chipmunk. "And if you walk 43 feet to your left, you will be there."

      
"What is this place called?"

      
The chipmunk stared at him curiously. "Why would you want to call it anything? It won't answer, you know."

      
"All places have names," said Dali.

      
"Silliest thing I ever heard," said the chipmunk. "Next you'll be telling me that effect
follows
cause."

      
"Doesn't it?"

      
"It depends on the time of day, the day of the week, and whether or not it's raining," answered the chipmunk. "Now, have you any other foolish questions to ask before I catch my lunch?"

      
"Yes."

      
"Why am I not surprised?" said the chipmunk in goaded tones. "All right, go ahead and ask it. But just one. You're ruining my appetite."

      
"How do I wake up?"

      
"You open your eyes."

      
"But they
are
open."

      
"Then you're awake."

      
"What use are you?" said Dali disgustedly.

      
"That's another question, and I only agreed to answer one." With that the chipmunk took a deep breath, plumped up like a balloon, and floated away.

      
Dali stood still and considered his situation. If this was a dream, it was more realistic and detailed than any he could remember, but it was just as illogical.

      
And if it's not a dream?
he wondered. Then it meant that he had gone over the edge, and he might
never
find his way out of this . . . this whatever-it-was.

      
He didn't know what to do. He wished he had his sketchpad, so he could draw some of the strange things he saw, but all he had in his pockets was a pencil, nothing to draw upon.

      
Then he noticed a white birch tree a few yards away, and he walked over to it. He knew that if one peeled the bark away, it could be written on, and if it could be written on, then surely it could be drawn on.

      
He reached out, found a small loose section, and gently pulled at it.

      
"Ouch!"

      
"Who said that?" demanded Dali, looking around.

      
There was no answer.

      
He stood still for a full minute, scanning the area, but couldn't find any sign of the speaker. Finally he decided that it had been nothing but his overwrought imagination, and he concentrated on the bark, tugging at it again.

      
"Damn, that smarts! Do I go around pulling off
your
skin?"