Let me get this straight: Rafael and Salvador Dalí Cusí  were brothers. Rafael, a doctor, was your mother’s father; and Salvador, a solicitor, your great uncle. Rafael is the father of Montserrat, your mother; and Salvador, the father of the painter Salvador and Ana María. Dalí and your mother were cousins. 

Exactly.

What remains unknown is the origin of the Dalís...

The Empordà.

The expert Rafael Santos Torroella hinted at a gipsy  origin. 

Don’t give that! The Dalís aren’t gipsies, although Salvador, just like all painters, used to  mix with gipsies, who were numerous in Figueres. 

What is your first memory of Dalí?

I was nine years old and he had just come back from America, in 1948. While his house  in Portlligat was being refurbished, they spent some time in the family home at Llané beach. I don’t remember much, just that Ana María used to encourage me to sing some Catalan rhymes to Gala: “Gala fumada, cap d’arengada, coixa d’un peu, a Can Dalí no la voleu” (Smoked Gala, herring head, crippled in one leg, in Dalí’s house is not wanted). Of course, I didn’t do it. But Gala and Ana María despised each other, and you were forced to take sides.  So that if they found out that I had been with one of them, the other would close the door to me. But of course, Dalí used to introduce my mother to the celebrities that would pass by Portlligat, such as the former king Umberto of Savoy, Niarchos, the Dukes of Windsor... he had the upper hand. Anyway, Gala and Dalí liked us because our family approved their marriage. His father, the solicitor, such a liberal character, could never tolerate Gala, a Russian woman, who was a divorced mother. My grandfather instigated the first family reconciliation, shortly before the civil war. 

Ana María Dalí was in jail during the conflict... 

Yes. I think she was reported. The Hostenchs arrived at Cadaqués  on a boat, they were young and good-looking, and they had a gramophone. Ana María was with them. They were accused of being fifth columnists and she was arrested. She had been in the Cheka of San Elías, in Barcelona. The psychological impact was devastating. When she was released, she crawled to our home at number two of Plaza Urquinaona. It took her a year to speak again. My grandfather weighed 140 kilos in 1936. At the end of the war he halved his weight. I was the only joy in the house for a few years… Now I recall, Dalí first met me in 1940, in Barcelona, just before moving to the United States. 

And of course, after so much Dalí, you got the itch to paint.

No way! I didn’t like painting. I wanted to play, like every kid  my age. But the first Dalí painter had been so prosperous... My family forced me. It wasn’t until I enrolled in Fine Arts, after high school, that the poison of art got under my skin. 

How was Dalí with the family?

He was a gentle, loving and funny person. But if you were there with him when the media  arrived, he’d announce: “I am going to dress up as Dalí now, alright?”, and he’d start to roll his eyes out of orbit, gesticulate and speak separating the syllables. 

Until when did you use to see Dalí?

I was already the mother of four children, and Portlligat was full of hippies and the weirdest  people. We didn’t fit there... But my mother kept going until Gala died. 

What happened then?

Dalí was confined in Púbol and my mother was no longer allowed to go. How someone  like him, who loved the sea so much, could not get depressed there? When he got burned, we went to the Pilar Clinic, in Barcelona, but they didn’t let us in either... 

Don’t you find it strange that Dalí didn’t want to return to Portlligat? 

There are so many enigmas surrounding Dalí...  Let me try you: what colour were his eyes? His father and uncle’s were blue, so were my mother’s and mine. However, his eyes... I don’t remember. 

Neither do I. I’ll look it up when I get home.//