Venera Dreams

by Claude Lalumiere

  The Octahedron lantern pulses in the dark, interrupting Dalí’s mournful prayers. Who would be so callous as to call him tonight of all nights? The guests have left; Dalí has dismissed even the house staff. He wants to be alone — alone with his God and with the memories of his beloved Gala, his muse, buried here at their home, the Castle of Púbol, a few hours ago.

  But the incessant pulse of the lantern nags at the 78-year-old surrealist. Dalí has produced only a handful of each of the five geometric lanterns, and few people know how to access their properties — for example, that the Octahedron allows for the instantaneous transmission of light and sound not only anywhere on Earth but anywhere across time and space in all possible universes. Propping himself up with his cane, he resigns himself to the intrusion.

  He touches one of the lantern’s eight faces, which causes a V of light to emanate, forming a shimmering window from which a voice issues.

  “Dalí, my friend! I have now just heard the sad news. I wish I could have been there for you, been there to pay my respects to Gala. I was on a shoot, cloistered, finishing my new film — our film, I should say. We will dedicate the film to Gala. Together, my friend, we have created a masterpiece, brought forth by your masterful script and storyboards. The world has never seen the like of Visions in Vermilion. Never!”

  The usually garrulous Catalonian cannot bring himself to respond to his friend. Behind Tito Bronze, Dalí can perceive just enough of his caller’s surroundings to know that Bronze is sitting in his study at the Velvet Bronzemine, the filmmaker’s decadent Veneran mansion, which Dalí himself designed, with the help of the young architect and inventor Hemero Volkanus.

  Bronze continues: “My dear friend, I apologize. Forgive my unseemly enthusiasm.”

  Dalí nods, wiping tears from his eyes. He cannot imagine that he will ever stop mourning. Well, he has not long left on this mortal plane. His health has been poor these past few years. Soon, God will call him.

  “Dalí — are you alone in that huge, desolate Spanish castle of yours?”

  “Tito, I am in no mood for company, nor for conversation. Leave me be. I will call you in a few days. When I am at least a shadow of Dalí, for I doubt that, without Gala, and with my faculties failing, I will ever be more than that again. But now, tonight, I am less than a smudge.”

  “Of course, my friend.” But Tito does not break the connection.

  “Your tone does not match your words. Please, leave me be for now.” The surrealist pleads.

  “I want to object, to implore you to seek the closeness of those who love you, to not isolate yourself, but I won’t. I will leave you with this: my home is your home, always, and I would be honoured if you were to come stay at the Velvet Bronzemine. Venera is the only city in the world that is a match for Dalí. It is where your home should be; here, among those who share and understand your passion for art and imagination. I could show you the rushes of our new film. Show you that Dalí will once again startle, shock, and amaze the world!”

  “Your enthusiasm and friendship are dear to me, my young friend. But tonight there is no Dalí — there is only Salvador Domingo Felipe Jacinto Dalí i Domènech — a tired, bereaved old man who knows that death is near and who will graciously welcome it whenever it finally chooses to visit. Goodnight, Tito. Goodnight.” Dalí breaks the connection and shambles to his bedroom.

  But the surrealist cannot sleep. His old, aching body cannot settle into comfort or repose. His mind is besieged with nightmarish distorted memories of his life with his beloved Gala. As the night progresses, he grows more restless, his disquieting visions growing more disturbing, more vivid. Finally at the first, faint hints of dawn, after hours spent tossing and turning, his heart growing ever heavier with grief, Dalí lugs himself out of bed, grabs his cane with his left hand, and slowly makes his way to his study.

  There, his left arm shaking as he struggles to retain his balance with his cane, he pauses before the niche where rests his personal set of the five surrealist lanterns: the Tetrahedron, its four triangular faces evoking the flames of fire and the mathematics of architecture; the Hexahedron, the perfect cube representing the tactility of earth, the substance of the real world; the Octahedron, the aerodynamicism of its eight triangular faces evoking the classic element air; the Dodecahedron, the whole of its twelve pentagonal faces being a portal to the wilds of art and creation; and the Icosahedron, its twenty identical equilateral triangular faces symbolizing both the intricacies of structure and the fluidity of water.

  There are four other sets of these lanterns, scattered among friends, patrons, and collectors around the world. Few are cognizant of the lanterns’ surrealist properties, thinking of them as merely decorative. Even among those, like Dalí’s friend Tito Bronze, who are aware that the lanterns are much more than they appear, only a fraction of the lanterns’ true attributes are known. Sometimes Dalí worries at having created such dangerous artefacts. Only God should wield such power. But the call of art and creation cannot and should not be denied or suppressed. He imagined the lanterns, therefore he created them.

  As the sun rises, Dalí feels a faint optimism seeping into his dark mood. His thoughts turn to Tito Bronze, whom, it is true, he misses. Dalí does not expect to have much time left before his body expires. It is also true that Venera is one of the greatest wonders of the universe, and he would be deeply saddened should he never see it again.

  As dawn gradually gives way to morning, Dalí collapses into his armchair, contemplating his brief future.

  … Until the house staff returns promptly at eight o’clock; Dalí instructs his manservant to pack his bags and bring them to the stables. Dalí is going to Venera, after all. He almost calls Tito to inform him, but a dribble of the mischievous remains in Dalí despite the darkness of his waning years and he decides to surprise his old friend.

  Dalí trusts his man to pack his clothes and other necessities, but the artist wants to bring his lanterns; those, he encases himself. The artist will bequeath the lanterns to Tito, along with all their secrets. More, he will task his friend with the recovery of the remaining surrealist lanterns, lest their power fall into the wrong hands. Dalí has to think seriously about his legacy, and there is no-one living he trusts more than the extravagant filmmaker.

  Besides, the power of the surrealist lanterns would not disrupt or destroy the decadent city-state: Venera is already suffused with more surrealist energy and creativity than the rest of the world combined. The lanterns should be safe there and not attract undue attention.

  Dalí’s manservant lugs the case, as he did the rest of the artist’s baggage, to the stables, but this time under Dalí’s watchful eye.

  Dalí can sense that the house staff thinks he has lost his mind, but they all obey him nevertheless. The door to the stables is five storeys tall, built onto a stone frame. It is a door that seems to lead to nowhere. The stone frame juts out of the earth amid the castle grounds, a door on one side, a blank wall on the other. The artist knows they all believe this to be a sculpture, but as is the case with much of Dalí’s art it contains secrets few know or even suspect.

  Dalí, dressed for travel, his luggage by the door to the stables, takes out a large bronze key, which he himself sculpted, from an inner pocket of his coat, and unlocks the giant, gilded door.

  The door opens inward, into Dalí’s imagination. Dalí sings in melancholy tones, calling his favourite animal.

  Immediately, the space elephant steps out from the door to the stables; Dalí chants his instructions to the massive beast with the impossibly long and thin legs. With its trunk, the elephant loads the artist’s luggage into the carriage on its back. Then, it picks up Dalí and delicately deposits him in the rider’s seat.

  Off they go! First, south — from the shores of Catalonia to the waters of the Mediterranean. The space elephant steps into the deep waters; its legs are so long that its bulky pachyderm body is still hundreds of metres above sea level. Rider and beast continue eastward at t
he speed of Dalí’s imagination. Within seconds the Italian mainland, Sicily, and the Venera archipelago are all within sight. The travellers slow down as they near the port of Venera. But as they approach the city-state the surrealist notices that something is dreadfully wrong. The garish beauty of the metropolis, its lush biomechanical architecture, its mazelike streets that confound visitors have given way to a drab grey grid bereft of greenery, mystery, and sensuality, as if another city altogether — a dead one — had crushed and then superimposed itself on surreal, fantastical Venera.

  And worse: scattered on the ground are the bullet-ridden corpses of hundreds of people, their clothes as ash-grey as the rest of the city, the pools of their dried blood the only colour in the urban landscape.

  2. HEXAHEDRON: THE WORLD

  Still atop the space elephant, Dalí turns to his lantern case. He opens it and takes out the Hexahedron, the perfect cube that encompasses all that is real in linear spacetime. He points the lantern toward the mundane dregs of what was once the most resplendent city on Earth, and he twists it so that the time-image will move backward. He fast-rewinds until the view of Venera is restored to its customary glory, from twelve hours ago, mere minutes after he last spoke to his Veneran friend Tito Bronze.

  Dalí lets the scenario play out …

  3. TETRAHEDRON: FIRE

  In the moonlight of the previous evening, a group of five men parachutes down into Venera. Dalí zooms in to get a better view. The men are all wearing identical dark grey business suits, cut to the latest in Italian fashion. Their heads are shaven, and their features are hidden behind black facemasks in the Venetian style. Each man carries a black briefcase. On each briefcase is emblazoned a golden eagle clutching a bundle of wooden sticks in which is embedded an axe blade, the fasces — together, the symbol of Italian fascism.

  During the Second World War, Hitler’s Nazis and Mussolini’s Fascists together occupied Venera — one of the darkest eras in the city-state’s history … Dalí wonders, are these neofascists with a decades-old grudge against Venera for never supporting Mussolini?

  A crowd of Venerans — mostly women, as the population is reputed to be at least seventy percent female — begins to gather around the five men.

  One of the five neofascists walks slightly ahead of the other four, who flank him and shield him. These four men pull out miniature assault rifles from their jackets and start mowing down the Venerans. Amid this carnage, the first man crouches and opens his briefcase; he pulls something from it and stands up, holding high in his hands … a Tetrahedron lantern. A Tetrahedron lantern created by Dalí.

  The neofascist chants while manipulating Dalí’s sculpture; surreal fire erupts from the lantern and engulfs the whole of Venera.

  When the flames subside all the beauty of Venera has been burned away, and there remains only the drab, ash-grey husk Dalí witnessed when he arrived at the shores of Venera. The five neofascists are nowhere to be seen, but Dalí is under no illusion that they perished. They are at large, wielding the power of at least one surrealist lantern. Dalí dreads what those other four briefcases might contain …

  Dalí weeps that his art could be responsible for such devastation, such ugliness. More than ever, he knows that all the surrealist lanterns must be recovered — and maybe even destroyed.

  4. ICOSAHEDRON: WATER

  But first things first: Dalí must repair the damage; he must call upon all his creative energy to restore Venera. He is old and tired and ready to give up mortal life whenever God should decide to call him to Heaven, but for now he is still alive — and he is still Dalí!

  The artist carefully puts away the Hexahedron into his carrying case, then he pulls out the Icosahedron, which symbolizes water and structure. With its help, Dalí hopes to achieve his goal.

  It is rumoured that Venera is not only a city but a goddess, that the city and the goddess are two manifestations of the same divine entity. It is said, too, that Venera is a water goddess: at every gibbous moon the waters of Venera flow red with her menses. Or at least it did when she was alive. Yes, alive. Because the city, whatever its true nature, was alive. She bled like a woman. She was sensuous and beautiful, like a woman. But now she is all but dead, a shadow, a smudge of its true self. Will she still bleed with life come the next gibbous moon?

  The artist instructs his space elephant to crouch down below the surface of the sea. As beast and rider submerge, the Icosahedron lantern envelops the pair inside an air bubble in the corresponding shape of an icosahedron. Following Dalí’s commands, the space elephant circles the main island of Venera, the capital of the archipelago. The Icosahedron — the water lantern — siphons whatever divine spark might linger in the waters of Venera.

  Around and around they go, until the lantern glows, indicating that it is charged and ready.

  How long were Dalí and his space elephant underwater? Hours? Days? Longer? The artist does not know, but as the beast surfaces he notes that it is now past nightfall and that the moon is gibbous. Dalí despairs momentarily, as the waters of Venera are not, as they should be, flowing red with the menses of the goddess. Can Dalí truly restore to life this divine city?

  When he was a young man, yes, of course … but he is so old now, and so tired. And his muse, his wife, his Gala, has died. The aged surrealist sighs, the aches of his 78-year-old body reverberating in the outtake of breath.

  Nevertheless, the septuagenarian musters his will, his energy, his creativity, his lust for art. The world needs him to be Dalí — who but Dalí can save Venera?

  The surrealist wields the Icosahedron lantern; torrents of blood-red waters — the waters of life — flow from the lantern and wash over the moribund city-state. The waters are so voluminous that the island nation is submerged. The vermilion-red waters glow in the light of the gibbous moon. The waves wash over Venera all through the night. Relentless and determined, Dalí focuses his creative will through the Icosahedron, breathing art and life into Venera.

  5. DODECAHEDRON: CREATION

  As the sun rises, the vermilion-red waters recede; Venera is revealed, reborn, as strange and beautiful as it should be. The whole city glistens in the sunlight, still damp from its watery rebirth.

  At first, the resuscitated Venerans wander the vias in a dazed stumble, but then some of them catch sight of Dalí atop his space elephant. A crowd gathers and grows by the water. The Venerans whisper and chatter among each other. The voices are too dim and too far away for Dalí to decipher what is being said; besides, Dalí has always struggled to make sense of the Veneran dialect.

  Then one voice booms over the rest: “Dalí! Dalí has saved Venera!” It is his friend Tito Bronze, wielding a handheld camera, filming the surrealist and his space elephant.

  The crowd takes up the chant: “Dalí! Dalí! Dalí!”

  The aged surrealist soaks up the adulation, almost forgetting the pain in his bones, almost forgetting how profoundly exhausted he is, almost forgetting the grief at having so recently lost his beloved Gala. If only he could revive her as he has revived Venera … But, no, Gala was mortal, whereas Venera and all who inhabit her exist beyond the mundane world.

  Dalí’s thoughts are interrupted by his lanterns. All five of them rise from their casings, blinking and ringing in alarm. Other surrealist lanterns are active in close proximity …

  Dalí’s five levitating lanterns form an X, with the Dodecahedron in the centre. A beam of surreal light issues from the Dodecahedron, locating the source of the other lantern activity: the five neofascists stand in a circle on a Veneran rooftop, each of them wielding a different surrealist lantern. A dark roar of energy builds around the quintet …

  There is no time to lose; Venera is again in deadly danger. Dalí grabs the Dodecahedron lantern and dons it as a helmet, its stand reversed, pointed antenna-like on top of the artist’s head. The other four lanterns congregate and attach themselves to the makeshift helmet. Dalí becomes imbued with the faculties of all five lanterns, as filtered through the
most powerful of them all, the lantern of creation, the Dodecahedron; Dalí is transformed into the Surrealist Lantern, courageous and relentless protector of madness, beauty, and art.

  The Surrealist Lantern speeds through the sky toward the neofascist usurpers of the lanterns’ powers.

  On the ground, Tito Bronze shouts: “Lights! …”

  The Surrealist Lantern glows with the power and intensity of Dalí’s imagination.

  “… Camera! …” Bronze points his camera toward the rooftop where the neofascists are assembled as the Surrealist Lantern confronts them.

  “ … Action!”

  And the fight is on, with the fate of Venera in the balance. The fate of madness and art and beauty. The stakes for which Dalí has always fought and will always fight, to his dying breath.

  INTERLUDE

  THE PHANTASMAGORICAL ODYSSEYS OF SCHEHERAZADE

  THE PHANTASMAGORICAL ODYSSEY OF SCHEHERAZADE: A CRYPTOMYTHOLOGICAL BIOGRAPHY

  by Jane Zacks

  [from the Albion Pulp Press catalogue]

  MOST SCHOLARS BELIEVE SCHEHERAZADE to be nothing more than the fictional storyteller of The Arabian Nights, nothing more than a narrative device that enabled the gathering of fantastical tales from various cultures across North Africa, the Middle East, the Indian subcontinent, and parts of Asia as far as China. The genesis of The Arabian Nights itself is complex and tangled — is the original prototype Persian, Indian, or …? — but Scheherazade’s story is even more multifaceted, reaching far beyond the confines of The Arabian Nights scholarship. Anthropologist Jane Zacks traces the origins of Scheherazade to the dawn of language and religion and ties the creative energy of a young Ethiopian woman from 300,000 years ago to the development of human art and culture. Most controversially, Zacks claims that Scheherazade’s history and that of the enigmatic, isolationist city-state Venera are profoundly entwined and that Scheherazade might still be alive today, engaged in a secret civil war with its current rulers, the Venera Church of Mother Earth.