The World Behind the Door (15 page)

      
He could hear the whispers in the audience behind him. "It's Dali!" "No it isn't!" "It must be. Look at the mustache!" "But doesn't he live in Spain?" "Go ask him!" "
You
go ask him!" Dali could have spent the whole evening contentedly sitting there with his back to the audience, listening to the awed whispering, but then the lights went down and an announcer came out, explaining that the greatest theoretical physicist since Albert Einstein was about to speak.

      
A moment later Heisenberg came onstage. He began with a joke that elicited polite, rather than enthusiastic, laughter, and then quickly moved into the body of his speech, most of which dealt with quantum mechanics and went right over the audience's head.

      
But not Dali's.

      
He didn't understand most of what he heard, but he understood that this man was the polar opposite of Freud. If it couldn't be proved, Heisenberg didn't believe in it. If something wasn't logical, then it was clearly wrong and just as clearly worthless.

      
The more he spoke, the more excited Dali became. He hadn't felt like this since that first day he had encountered Freud. Freud had opened a door for him, had shown him the power of his psyche, of his dreams and fears and longings. Heisenberg clearly had no use for such things. Dreams were something men were meant to outgrow, fears were to be overcome, longings were to be approached in the most logical manner.

      
This man could be my salvation!

      
The speech lasted for ninety minutes. By the end, more than half the audience had left, and the man sitting right behind Dali was snoring gently, but Dali sat as if mesmerized. Finally he got to his feet, applauding wildly, and the remaining members of the audience were shamed into giving Heisenberg a standing ovation.

      
Then, as Heisenberg was walking off the stage Dali raced up to him.

      
"I must speak to you!" he said excitedly.

      
"You are Salvador Dali, are you not?" asked Heisenberg, peering at him through thick glasses.

      
"Yes."

      
"I have long admired your mastery of your technique, your use of color and perspective," said Heisenberg. "I do not pretend to understand your subject matter, but then, I don't imagine you understand mine either."

      
"But I want to!"

      
"The great surrealist?" said Heisenberg with an amused smile. "Now, that
is
interesting."

      
"When can we speak together?" asked Dali.

      
"There is a charming bar in my hotel. They have provided me with a chauffeur and a limousine, so why don't you join me and he will drive us both there."

      
Dali eagerly agreed, and a few minutes later they were sitting in the bar, awaiting their drinks.

      
"I was surprised to see you in the audience, Senor Dali," Heisenberg was saying. "This is the seventh city on my tour, and mostly what I get are mathematics and physics professors. I am quite flattered to have an artist of your reputation attend one of my lectures."

      
"I will be honest with you, Dr. Heisenberg . . ." began Dali.

      
"Call me Werner."

      
"And you may call me Salvador," replied Dali. "I will be honest with you, Werner. I did not come to hear your lecture. At least, not initially. I came to see if I wanted to paint your portrait, and to see if you would like to commission it—but you have opened my eyes. The portrait, if you will pose for it, will be yours for free."

      
"You make more from one painting than I make in a year of lecturing," said Heisenberg. "Surely my lecture wasn't
that
interesting."

      
"It was not your lecture," replied Dali. "It was
you
, Werner."

      
Heisenberg frowned. "I do not understand, Senor Dali."

      
"Salvador, please," Dali corrected him.

      
"I understand your name," replied Heisenberg. "I do not understand your motives."

      
The waiter arrived with their brandies. Dali had no idea what to pay him, or indeed which of the two men should pay. Then he decided that since he was the supplicant, the obligation was his, so he pulled a bill out of his pocket and handed it to the waiter. The young man tucked it in his pocket and began walking away.

      
"He'll want change," Heisenberg called after him.

      
"I will?" asked Dali.

      
"About eighteen dollars' worth," said Heisenberg, staring at him curiously.

      
"How much are the drinks?"

      
"It is a fine brandy," said Heisenberg, as if explaining it to a child, "so they cost a dollar apiece. You gave him a twenty-dollar bill."

      
"And I will get change from that?"

      
"Are you quite sure that
I
am the man you wish to see?" asked Heisenberg.

      
"Yes," said Dali. "I sense that you are my antidote."

      
"I beg your pardon?" said Heisenberg, looking at him as if he might start foaming at the mouth any second.

      
"You are the counterbalance to Freud."

      
"
Sigmund
Freud?"

      
Dali nodded. "It was he who opened the door to surrealism for me. Now I need someone to close that door, to lead me down another path, to substitute logic for the irrationality in my paintings."

      
"This may be a request beyond my poor powers," said Heisenberg. "The irrationality lies within you, Salvador. I really don't see how I can eradicate it."

      
"What if I were to show you, to
prove
to you, that I am not mad and not irrational," said Dali, "that I actually paint what I see?"

      
"I would say you are more desperately in need of help than I thought—and not the kind of help that I am capable of giving to you."

      
Dali smiled. "That is a very good answer, Werner."

      
"It pleases you that I cannot help you?"

      
"Oh, you can help me," replied Dali happily. "It pleases me that you do not believe me, that you insist everything must be logical and rational. If you did not, then indeed you would be unable to help me."

      
"I suppose it will not surprise you to know that I have absolutely no idea what you are talking about," said Heisenberg.

      
"But you will," said Dali. "We are going to become friends, you and I."

      
Dali unfolded his paper cocktail napkin, pulled out a pencil, and began sketching his companion's face.

      
"I have always admired such a skill," said Heisenberg, as Dali's hand moved faster and faster. "Doubtless because I have a total lack of skill in that area. Poor manual dexterity, poor hand-eye coordination. Given time I could create a mathematically-precise representation of you, but"—he sighed—"it would not be art."

      
"Have you never had the desire to express what you
feel
rather than what you see?"

      
"Of course," said Heisenberg. "I have expressed my horror at the Nazis, my love for my wife, my admiration for—"

      
"That is verbally," Dali interrupted him. "Have you no desire to express it any other way?"

      
"As I said, I am totally without skill in all areas of art," answered Heisenberg, "and I have yet to discover a formula or lemma that expresses emotion."

      
"Yes, Werner," said Dali decisively, "you are just the man for me. I can't believe I found you so soon after talking with . . . with my friend." He put his pencil away and shoved the finished sketch across the table to Heisenberg, who picked it up and studied it.

      
"It is an excellent likeness," said Heisenberg. "May I keep it?"

      
"Of course."

      
Heisenberg handed the sketch back to Dali. "Would you sign it, please? Otherwise no one will believe that I own an original Dali."

      
"You will own a better one, done in oils, before the summer is out," Dali promised as he signed the napkin and returned it to Heisenberg, who folded it neatly and inserted it in a breast pocket.

      
"But I have performed no service for you, nor based on what you've said will I be able to," protested Heisenberg.

      
"I don't know if you will be able to, either," admitted Dali. "But I know that if anyone can, you are the man."

      
"I still don't know what you want."

      
"I want to close a certain door and open others," said Dali. He lowered his voice. "The problem is, I don't know if the door is real."

      
"Well, here we have the basic difference between realism and surrealism," said Heisenberg. "I would say that a door is real or it is not. You would say that it is possibly or occasionally real."

      
"We really are not in disagreement," said Dali. "If it's real, it is always real." He paused. "I just don't know if it is. But
if
it is, you must teach me how to keep it locked."

      
"With a key, of course."

      
"This is a unique door, and it will require a unique key, one that I suspect only you can supply."

      
"This is all very interesting, Salvador, but it is late, I am getting tired, and you keep speaking in riddles. Perhaps you will lay out the problem in terms a realist like myself can understand?"

      
"You will think me crazy."

      
"I already do," said Heisenberg with a smile. "Are you?"

      
Dali shrugged. "I don't know."

      
"Well, you must either tell me what this is all about or let the subject drop. I am through trying to guess what you are getting at."

      
"What would you say if I told you that there is another world," began Dali, "a world where the most amazing things occur, where cause often follows effect, where many of the things I've painted actually exist?"

      
"I would say that you have an overactive imagination," answered Heisenberg. "But of course, it is that imagination that has helped make you world-famous."

      
"What if I told you I paint what I see, not what I imagine?"

      
"I would not believe you," said Heisenberg. "Although," he added thoughtfully, "I suppose it is possible that
you
believe it."

      
"Very good," said Dali. He leaned forward suddenly, almost knocking over his brandy. "What if I told you I could take you there?"

      
"To this world you are talking about?"

      
"Yes."

      
"I would not believe it."

      
"I have a final question, friend Werner," said Dali.

      
"Then ask it."

      
"Will you humor me and let me try to show you this world? I will still paint your portrait, regardless of what happens."

      
Heisenberg stared at him for a long moment, then shrugged and smiled. "All right," he said. "Where is your spaceship?"

      
Dali returned his smile. "In my studio."

      
Heisenberg's expression said it all:
The man is as crazy as a loon.

      
"Gala—my wife—will not be home for another three hours," continued Dali. "Can your driver take us there now? By tomorrow you may have second thoughts."

      
"I have second thoughts right now," said Heisenberg. "But you seem harmless enough. I do have a question, though. Why can your wife not be present?"

      
"I do not share this world with her."

      
"So no one else knows about it except you?"

      
"One person does," replied Dali.

      
"Who?"

      
"You will meet her," said Dali.
Unless I am truly insane,
 
which is somewhere between possible and probable.

      
"All right," said Heisenberg, getting to his feet. "Let's get this over with. And you do not have to paint my portrait for free. I cannot hold a madman to such a promise."

      
"Wait two hours and then tell me if I am still a madman."

      
They went out to the limo, awoke the chauffeur who had been napping in the front seat, and reached Dali's house in ten minutes.

      
"Wait for me here, Bernard," said Heisenberg to the chauffeur. "I suspect I will not be very long."

      
"Yes, sir."

      
Dali unlocked the front door, turned on a light in the foyer, waited for Heisenberg to enter, and then closed the door behind him.