The Elephant Celebes by Max Ernst

an image that plagues Nina throughout Acts of Malice

"Such a hideous painting! Dreary, industrial sky, sharp shadows. The sky had a crack in it and the plantlike structure on the right was collapsing. In the center was the Elephant Celebes, a dream monster like a crude elephant, its back to the viewer, shaped like a boiler with a pipe for its tail, a fake misshapen head growing from that tail. You couldn't see the real head and you didn't want to see it, you really didn't. Enough to see that the long tusks were turning toward you, turning in spite of the artist's struggle to keep the real head hidden because it was too awful to see...

In the forefront of the picture, a naked, classical woman's torso running away. Headless, charred around the neck. Nina stared at the painting, fascinated. It had been at the back of her mind for weeks. It seemed to her to encapsulate her current position, but in some nightmarish way, indescribable in words.