The Garden of Monsters

by Lorenza Pieri

  “Guido will show you what needs doing. Do you know him? The former mailman?”

  “Of course.”

  “We don’t waste time here, work is sacred. You’ll do two practice days and if that goes well, we’ll sort out the insurance and everything else.”

  “Thank you. I also want to thank you for my sister. I know you’re doing a lot for her. She adores this place. She’s totally in awe of you. And your myth. I think she considers you to be a kind of queen, a sorceress, a goddess. She’s been having a few problems, too, lately.”

  “I know.”

  “Growing up isn’t easy for a girl here. Also, Annamaria’s a little unusual. She acts tough but she’s fragile. She doesn’t feel pretty, she doesn’t feel feminine. The thing that’s missing the most for us kids around here is someone to teach us something about the world. Here, all they expect from us is to obey orders and to repeat everything they did before us, they want us to think like they do. As if there were only one path, one solitary destiny for all of us who are born in the countryside. Here, it’s the same place, but it’s so different.”

  “In reality it’s Annamaria who’s helping me. I am only teaching her to be disobedient. Call her in for a moment.”

  Saverio went out and came back with his sister.

  “Now, leave us alone. Giovanna will take you to talk with Guido. You can start at once.”

  Annamaria felt her heart speed up. She sat at the table of mirrors.

  “How was your summer?”

  “So-so. A boy fell in love with me, but I don’t like him.”

  “But you fell in love with someone, I can see.”

  “Yes, but with someone impossible.”

  “Nobody is impossible.”

  “Some people, yes.”

  “In that case you have to liberate yourself from them.”

  “I will try.”

  “You will succeed.”

  “How do you learn not to care about other people?”

  “You learn to listen only to what makes you happy. Almost nothing that other people say is important. You need to listen to yourself. But listening to yourself requires a lot of strength and patience. We say complicated and contradictory things. It’s a continual struggle to pay attention to yourself. I don’t know if you understand what I’m saying. I’ll read your tarot for you, that’s easier. They tell us what we need to say.”

  She took a pack from a box that was in a drawer and shuffled the cards. They were ones she had designed herself.

  “Now, pick one. We will ask this one who you are.”

  Annamaria wavered, confronted with the backs of the cards that were spread out on the table. They were all the same, with an irregular black and white mosaic pattern.

  She was afraid. She touched one, then with a sure movement picked another.

  Niki turned it over. Her lips stretched into an unreadable expression. Was it a smile? A worried look?

  Under a roman numeral was the drawing of a Nana, who was dancing with two rods in her hand atop a big egg surrounded by a colored snake, which in turn was perched on a machine with black wheels, similar to the kind Jean built. At the base of the drawing was a text in Niki’s goofy handwriting, half in block capitals, half in cursive, that said “The World.”

  “Oh God, what does it mean? Am I going to be disgraced? Is it bad?”

  “No, it’s marvelous. It’s you. It’s everything you want.”

  Niki slid her the card of The World.

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  This book owes debts to other books, other people, and other places.

  All of the volumes that have permitted me to reconstruct the character of Niki to represent the person she was as faithfully as possible are precious to me: her autobiographical texts Mon Secret (La Différence, 1994); Traces: An Autobiography: Remembering 1930–1949 (Acatos, 1999); Harry and Me: The Family Years (Benteli, 2006); the biographies by Bernadette Costa-Prades, Niki de Saint Phalle (Libretto, 2014), and Marco Ongaro, Psicovita di Niki de Saint Phalle (Historica, 2015); the graphic novel by Dominique Osuch and Sandrine Martin, Niki de Saint Phalle: The Garden of Secrets (Casterman, 2014); the catalogues Niki de Saint Phalle 1930–2002, edited by Bloum Cardenas and Camille Morineau (La Fábrica/Guggenheim Museum Bilbao, 2015); and above all Niki de Saint Phalle e il Giardino dei Tarocchi by Jill Johnston, Marella Caracciolo Chia, and Giulio Pietromarchi (Benteli, 2010), for the precious testimonials and photographs of the birth of the “Monsters.”

  I am grateful to Gemma Pacini and her firsthand accounts: almost all that I learned about Niki that did not come from books came from the direct source of her memories. Thank you to the Fondazione Giardino dei Tarocchi, and in particular to Bloum Cardenas, for her kindness and for her dedication to her grandmother’s artistic legacy.

  And my thanks also go to Marcello Serra for Kubrick’s dog; Tiziana Lo Porto (and Alejandro Jodorowsky) for the books on tarot; Grazia Bessi for the legal and equine advice, and for everything we have shared, of which there are continual traces in this novel.

  To Michela Volante, first editor and godmother of all my paper children.

  To Sandro, Sandra, and Eva Ferri, to Claudio Ceciarelli, to the entire editorial house of E/O + Europa Editions for their work, and for having believed in us again, more than ever.

  To distant friends, to the babbie, to my sister Simona, to the early readers who, after having read my book, sent me beautiful messages which I woke up to in this part of the world.

  To my parents Franca and Italo, who chose the most incredible places to live, and to whom I will always be grateful: nostalgia for a place is the perfect starting point to write from.

  To Mattia, Anita, and Tobia, the beautiful monsters in my life, who bring me happiness beyond words every day.

  And finally, to the places: I would like to thank the Civitella Ranieri Foundation for the artistic residency in the castle of Civitella in Umbria, during which part of this novel was written, in the best possible setting. And obviously, I thank Capalbio, the unnameable, and all those I spent time with when I lived there: this book is also a love letter to our village, and to the way we were.

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  Lorenza Pieri grew up on the small island of Giglio, off the coast of Tuscany. She is an author, journalist, and literary translator. Isole minori, her award-winning debut novel, was published in Italy in 2016 and has been translated in five languages. The Garden of Monsters is her English-language debut.