The World Behind the Door

by Mike Resnick

  "And it has seeped over into your artwork." Freud smiled. "I told you: I've seen some of your paintings."

  "You know what I think of them," said Dali dismissively. "Yet I am a successful artist, at least in the eyes of the world. I am not hurting for money. No one is threatening my life or my property. Why should I keep having this dream?"

  "Perhaps," suggested Freud with a sly smile, "because your work is dreck."

  Dali returned his smile. "Perhaps. In fact, that is why I have sought you out. I was wondering: if I were to paint my dream, would that become my escape valve? In other words, once I captured it on canvas, would I finally stop dreaming it?"

  "This is the dream you were describing to me earlier?" asked Freud.

  "Yes."

  "The elephant on the stilt-like legs is interesting, though I have no idea how commercial such a painting might be," replied Freud. "But from what you tell me, the main part of your dream concerns a lion that speaks and a pretty girl who growls and roars. How would you create a painting that showed the viewer what makes them the creatures of your dreams, rather than merely a pretty girl and a lion?"

  "I don't know," admitted Dali.

  "Neither do I," said Freud.

  "Then am I never to be free of this dream?"

  "Oh, sooner or later it will be replaced by another one," answered Freud. "Probably a much more disturbing one."

  "That is not an encouraging answer, Doctor," said Dali unhappily. "You are the foremost authority on the unconscious. If even you cannot help me, then I am doomed."

  "May I suggest that you are looking at this all wrong, Senor Dali?" said Freud, taking another sip of his brandy.

  "I don't understand," said Dali.

  "I know you don't," said Freud. "That is why you have come to me."

  "Please explain."

  "Let me ask you a question first," said Freud. "Are you dissatisfied with just the painting you are currently working on, or with all of them?"

  "All of them," answered Dali morosely.

  "Why?"

  "Because it is work anyone could have done."

  "Would you consider changing your brushes, or the way you mix your paints?" continued Freud. "Would you paint on wood rather than canvas?"

  "No," answered Dali. "It would make no difference."

  "Why?"

  "Because the end result would look the same, or so similar as to make no difference."

  Freud smiled. "Well, there you have it."

  Dali frowned in puzzlement. "What do I have?"

  "The reason for your dissatisfaction. It is not your skill or technique that disappoints you, but your subject matter. You must change what you paint, must find new things, things no one else has ever painted, before you will be free of your particular demons."

  "My thoughts exactly!" said Dali enthusiastically. "But where will I find such things? I can travel the world, but whatever I see in Africa or Asia will already have been captured by African and Asian artists."

  "Every human being is unique, Senor Dali," replied Freud. "If you can find nothing new in the world, then you must search the inner recesses of your consciousness, your mind if you will, and bring forth those images that are entirely your own, that no one else has ever seen before. And I think you should start with your dream."

  "But we've already agreed that I cannot, through my painting, show that the lion can speak and the girl can only roar."

  "There will be other dreamlike details, details that you are overlooking," said Freud. "They obviously did not impress you as much, so your conscious mind does not remember them, but if you will consent to hypnosis, they will be revealed, and perhaps they will be proper subjects for your brush and paints. And once we bring them out into the open, there is an excellent chance that your dream will cease." Another smile. "Even if it doesn't, once you have painted all the details, it may seem less strange and upsetting to you."

  "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 th
e 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?"

  Dali stared disbelievingly at the tree. "You said that?"

  "Of course I said that."

  "I've got to get out of here!" said Dali.

  "Just like a human," said the tree. "No apology, no remorse, no thought for the discomfort you've caused me. Your only thought is for yourself."

  "But you're just a figment of my imagination," protested Dali.

  "Do you really think so?" asked the tree curiously. "I could have sworn you were a figment of mine."

  "Stop teasing him," said a feminine voice. "Can't you see he's a stranger here?"

  Dali spun around, fearful of what he might confront, but he found himself facing a rather pretty girl, barely into her teens. Her hair was bright red, shoulder-length, with a little swirl at the end of it, and she wore a
yellow satin bow in it. Her face was lightly freckled, her eyes a clear blue, her nose on the small side. She wore a plaid dress that came down halfway between her knees and her ankles, and she had a bracelet of some bone-like material Dali had never seen before.

  "You look . . . real," he said lamely.

  "I am real," she replied. She extended a hand. "My name is Jinx. Please don't be mad at my tree. It was just having a little fun with you."

  Dali stared at her hand but seemed afraid to touch it, to find out that she was something other than the young girl she seemed to be. "But I should make amends," he said. "After all, I hurt it."

  "Not a bit," answered Jinx. "It doesn't feel pain. If you really want to upset it, tell it how pretty the maple tree over there is."

  Dali made no reply, but just stood there silently, trying to absorb what he was experiencing.

  "Why are you staring at me?" asked Jinx. She quickly ran her fingers lightly over her face. "All the pieces are there—eyes, nose, mouth, ears." Suddenly she looked worried. "Is there more? Am I missing something?"

  "No," said Dali. "You're the first normal thing I've seen here."

  "Normalcy can be a pretty tricky thing, you know," said Jinx. "For example, normal dress at a nudist camp isn't normal dress at a high tea. And speaking of normal, it's not normal to go around pulling the bark off trees. Are you that hungry?"

  "I'm not hungry at all," answered Dali. "I didn't want to eat it; I wanted to draw on it. I am an artist."

  Suddenly her face came alive with interest. "You are?" she said enthusiastically. "I am an artist too! What is your name?"

  "Salvador Dali."

  "May I call you Salvador?"

  "Please do."

  "Do you have any of your art with you, Salvador?"

  Dali shook his head. "No. I don't know how I got here, or even where I am. All my art is back in my studio."

  "May I see it?"

  "If you can show me how to get back, you can have some of it," said Dali.

  She stared at him as if considering her next statement. Finally she spoke.

  "If I show you how to get back, indeed how to come and go whenever you want, will you give me lessons?"