Waiting for Columbus

by Thomas Trofimuk

  “An excellent shot,” Ferdinand says and claps Columbus on the shoulder.

  Columbus wins seven more games. The king doesn’t even come close to winning a game. He misses shots completely, shoots the wrong color, and sinks the eight ball twice. They stop and Ferdinand calls for wine.

  They do not feel the direct heat of the day inside the stone building, but the air is blistering and still. Long streams of sunlight from high, narrow fenestrations slash through hanging dust in the room. The king walks the entire long room away from the pool table to an elevated throne, pulls his robes aside, and sits. Three servants bring wine to the king and then deliver a goblet to Columbus. The wine is red and slightly chilled.

  “Leave,” the king says to the servants, who bow out the door and shut it behind them.

  “Have you had sufficient time to ponder my riddle, Mr. Columbus?” The king must speak loudly in order to assure that Columbus hears him at the far end of the room.

  “The problem with women in general or the queen specifically, Your Majesty?”

  “Come down here, Mr. Columbus. So we can talk.”

  Columbus walks toward the throne. Stands before the elevated king and is reminded of his place. He bows his head.

  “I am sorry, Your Majesty. I have no answers to the riddle of women.” He thinks of the simple connection he has with Selena, the more complex but enjoyable time he spends with Beatriz. And then he thinks about the queen. His relationship with the queen has become impossibly complex and dangerous. It would be prudent to ignore any feelings or thoughts he held for Isabella. Isabella was the queen. She was the queen. This man’s wife.

  Ferdinand’s face transforms into something awful. As if painful memories have suddenly risen to the surface of churning water. Hopeless despair. He covers his face with his hands. “Women, Mr. Columbus, women. There are times, in the middle of the night, in complete darkness, when they weep. I cannot understand why they weep and yet I am held at fault for their weeping. They cannot, or will not, say exactly what my fault is, yet at these times they wish to be held by me and told that everything is well and good. But I do not believe this to be true. So they wish me to form lies in order to comfort them and when I say to them, in order to be truthful and clear, ‘You wish for me to lie to you?’ they weep with more water from their eyes than I have ever seen. And these tears, also, are my doing. Does this make sense to you?”

  “Are you speaking of the queen, Your Majesty?”

  “The queen? No. The queen does not weep. She has never wept. She is the strongest woman I know. The queen and I have no connubial battle. We have no troubles. She chases the Jews from our lands. She chases the Moors from our lands. She and her bloody Inquisition chase heretics from our lands. She chases people we simply don’t like from our lands. And I? I chase women. A simple and elegant arrangement, don’t you think, Mr. Columbus?”

  Columbus does not answer.

  “What troubles you, sir? Are you pondering your ships or do you, too, contemplate the quandary of women? Or are you ill?”

  “Acquiring the ships is often on my mind, Your Majesty.”

  “And what does the queen say?”

  “She says wait until the fall of Granada.”

  “Well, that’s what you should do then. When we walk the courtyards of the Alhambra, you’ll have your ships. And while we wait for the queen to reclaim Granada, we shall play much pool and do much riding. For you are also a mystery, Mr. Columbus. You wish to sail off into the unknown. Possibly to your death. To introduce Christianity to Japan and the Indies. To bring honor and wealth to Spain. This wealth part is the portion of your proposal that most interests the queen and me. We believe you are either very brave or very stupid-or absolutely crazy. But regardless of all these things, you are inspired. Yes. Mostly, I think, you are inspired. Come, let’s play more pool.” He grabs the wine bottle and his glass in one hand, and Columbus ’s sleeve in the other. Pulls the baffled navigator the length of the room.

  “I tell you what, Mr. Columbus. Since you are a good friend of Spain, I will make you a proposition.” He gathers the balls from the pockets around the table. “I’ll play you one game for your ships.”

  Columbus turns toward the King, shocked by the realization that this may be it. He’s shocked by the whimsical, careless nature of this offer. “What?”

  “I’ll play you for your ships. Win the next game and three caravels are yours. Provisions included. You’ll have to find men dumb enough to follow you.”

  Columbus is stunned. For ten years he had been incubating the dream, cajoling the doubters, fighting his own doubts. For ten years he had been envisioning a world that was smaller than commonly held beliefs. A world that could be traversed with a journey by sea to the west. The university commission did not believe it could be done. But they did not know all he knew. The Lord Himself could speak before the commission and they would not believe. “Look, fellows,” the Lord would say, “I think perhaps there is a chance some of your calculations are off. I ought to know. From where I sit I can pretty well see, well, everything.” But if He did not have the proper upbringing or education, the commission would deny, deny, deny. They make decisions based on the applicant’s social standing or nobility, and not on truth. Bureaucratic bastards. And now, here, before Columbus the king offers to fulfill his dream, not based in a belief of that vision but, rather, on a game of angles. It was too much.

  “I am sorry, sire, but I cannot.”

  “Why, Mr. Columbus, have you lost your faith for this adventure?”

  “No, Your Majesty. I… I need someone to believe in me enough to take a chance. It would not be moral to leave it to a game of angles and colorful balls.”

  “Same thing, isn’t it?”

  “I’m a navigator, not a pool player.”

  “Do you not believe in this dream of yours enough to take a chance?”

  “You ask too much, sire.”

  “Perhaps you do, too.”

  Columbus sits beside a small statue of the Virgin Mary. He feels sick to his stomach. Crosses his arms. Closes his eyes. Drinks slowly from his goblet. Am I willing to risk all on a game? Is it a risk? The king plays badly. The king is not good with these angles. Perhaps if I am asking others to take a risk on me, I should be willing to take a risk also.

  The king walks to a window, his hands clasped behind his back, and observes the courtyard.

  “Fine,” Columbus says. “One game for the ships.”

  “Well spoken, Mr. Columbus.”

  Columbus breaks but no balls go down. It’s the only chance he gets. Ferdinand clears the table in a stellar display of deceitfulness. With each ball the king sinks, Columbus ’s spirits sag a little bit more. At the end of it, he cannot face the king.

  “Well done, Your Majesty,” Columbus says. “I’m ruined.”

  Ferdinand smiles kindly. Turns a compassionate face to the navigator. “No,” he says, “you are not ruined. Neither is your idea of sailing west. If you had won, I would have personally seen to your ships, somehow. But the queen always has the final say in matters of the sea. In fact, she has the final say in matters of war, roads, religion. Almost everything.”

  “There’s still a chance then?”

  “Oh, Mr. Columbus, you’ve only proven your desire, your commitment, and your determination. These things, I will communicate to the queen.”

  Columbus bows his head, then very quietly says, “Thank you. Thank you.” And then he looks up at the king, who is eyeing the pool table. “But you do not want me to explain to you why I know this journey is possible?”

  “Yes, yes, yes… I’m sure you have your reasons.”

  “This new route could be very lucrative for Spain -”

  “Yes, yes… money is good.”

  “And of course I will carry God and Christianity to Japan and India -”

  “Well, that’s fine. That’s a fine thing to do. I’m sure they’ll be thrilled to hear that their own system of beliefs, whatever it ma
y be, is… well… wrong.”

  “And I will claim whatever land I might discover for Spain.”

  “Hmmm… expansion is good, I suppose… Yes. Very good. Quite convincing. Yes.”

  “And I will-”

  “ Columbus! Enough! I tell you what I’m going to do. I’m going to buy a few thousand shares of Columbus Sails West Incorporated… see where it takes me.”

  “Thank you, Your Majesty.”

  Ferdinand touches Columbus ’s shoulder and the navigator looks up into the king’s dark eyes. “Another game, my friend?” the king says.

  “I’m sorry, Your Majesty. I have lost the stomach for pool today. I think I have to lie down.”

  “Tomorrow then, Columbus. I’ll send up one of my special chambermaids. She’ll make sure you have a good sleep.” He turns, draws open double doors, finds a small crowd of courtiers in the hallway. “Tomorrow, Mr. Columbus!” he shouts. “Out of the way, you bloodsucking sycophants!” And they mutter after him down the hallway.

  ***

  Emile, to his surprise, has managed to keep a few friends in the company. He calls one of his Spanish contacts when he arrives in Marbella -finds out that there is a concierge who will work for Interpol-for a price. “He’s very reliable,” the agent says. “I helped him with a family matter a few years ago.” Emile finds the hotel and checks in. It’s too much money, but it’s the hotel where his contact works. His room faces the Mediterranean. The balcony looks out over the tops of palm trees. From the hotel lounge a walkway leads onto the beach. It’s clear and windy-a good steady breeze coming from the east. Emile finds the concierge and convinces him to ask around about a confused man. Emile emphasizes the fact this man will likely appear baffled-he might not know who he is or where he’s going.

  “I think he thinks he’s Christopher Columbus,” Emile says. “A theory. This is only a theory,” he adds. He’d not spoken these words out loud before, but all the pieces added up to this simple statement. The three ships down south. Isabella. Your Majesty. The concierge gives him an eyebrow-raised, skeptical stare. Emile makes his face go hard, stone-cold, and flat. The concierge sighs and nods. Of course, there was much that did not add up. Morocco didn’t make sense for a man who might think he’s Christopher Columbus. And this man’s sense of direction seems to be absent. One would think that Columbus would always know where he was. Ah, it’s just a theory, Emile reminds himself.

  ***

  For three days, Emile bides his time. He walks around his room naked-wearing a towel occasionally-and semi-drunk, quite drunk occasionally. He watches television and orders room service. He curses the stupidity of television, turns it off, and drifts into the minefield of memories involving his ex-wife. Conversations about his work that turned into three-day blowouts about how obsessed he was, how he was never home, how he was distracted by his work when he was home. But she would have loved this room, this view, being in a fine hotel on the ocean. He’s finding it more difficult to recall why they actually fell apart. There had to be more to it than his obsessions. But there wasn’t really a defining moment. He’d been tracking someone in Berlin, and when he came home hardly anything remained in the apartment. It was an equitable splitting up of belongings. She’d been fair. Emile didn’t bring a lot of material possessions into their life. She’d taken what had been hers, and not much was left at the end of that process. He sits up in bed, pours another whiskey, and turns the television back on.

  ***

  At 3:30 A.M. on the third night, Emile can’t sleep, can’t watch the television anymore, and doesn’t want to drink anything. He heads for the roof of the hotel to get some air, to breathe, to move his legs. There’s a jazz club on the top floor. He gets off the elevator and walks down the hallway, barefoot and wearing the hotel housecoat over his trousers, looking for a stairwell to the roof. He can hear the sound of someone tuning a piano coming from inside the club. Emile walks past the door, which is slightly ajar, and is halfway down the hall before he stops-acknowledges the pull of the piano. He hasn’t played since before the Paris incident. He hasn’t felt the desire to play.

  Inside the doorway it takes a while for his eyes to adjust. Through the windows the sparkling lights of Marbella arc along the shore of the Mediterranean. One thin spotlight shines directly onto a piano sitting on a small stage against the far wall. The man at the piano has a full gray beard and a no-nonsense face. His focus is on tuning the piano. He looks up at Emile quickly, then back to his job. He says nothing. Emile stands in the entranceway, awkward but also drawn to the pure sound of the piano. The single notes ring out-they hang in the room. Emile thinks of a raven, or a hawk, suspended in an air current, wings motionless except for a small flutter. A minute later, the gray-bearded man is packing up his gear. He looks toward Emile.

  “Still there?”

  “I-”

  “Come and play then. It’s what you need, yes? I will have a nightcap-a little Courvoisier. It is my custom. And I will listen.” The man has a thick Slavic accent. Emile’s not sure that he wants an audience tonight. It seems his feet are nailed to the wooden floor.

  “It’s what you need,” the man says. “I’ll pour some drinks in the back.” He does not move like an old person. There is a lithe vitality in his walk.

  Emile sits at the piano. It’s a Steinway, a good choice for a jazz piano. He read a story in an online news service that Keith Jarrett plays a Steinway. Emile plays a single note, a middle D, and lets it ring out in the dark room. Then he begins to unravel all he was taught as a child. He purposely forgets how chords work. He un-remembers scales, theories, and circles of fifths. He plays notes and combinations of notes that make no sense-he embraces dissonance, and yet there is an ephemeral order. Emile draws on feelings and colors. If he stumbles upon a musical cliché, he will repeat it, warp it, ruin it to the point where it becomes original and new. He remembers scents. Rain. Patchouli. Sandalwood. Cedar. Leather. He plays weather. He plays the stars in the village of his youth in France. The color of ocean at dusk-the indigo sky meeting the water evenly. The way dried grasses touch the wind. He plays the memory of his wife’s long legs and slender toes. He plays a scant memory of her voice speaking his name-whispering his name over and over inside an absence of periwinkle. And then he comes to what happened in Paris and he plays this, too. He plays its pain, its sadness, its loss and remorse. He begins to play the damaged parts of himself. Half an hour later, he is improvising inside a sixteen-bar blues riff he didn’t know he knew. The gray-bearded man is sitting at a table in the middle of the club sipping his cognac and reading a newspaper by candlelight. Emile notices there is a snifter of cognac sitting on the bench beside him. He stops playing, turns around on the bench, and looks out into the club. “Thank you,” he whispers.

  The man pulls the newspaper down, away from his face. “It’s nothing to pour two drinks when I am already pouring one,” he says.

  “No, not the cognac-”

  “I know what you meant.”

  Emile reaches for the snifter and sips. It’s lukewarm. How long have I been playing? he thinks.

  “I’m here every night. Come when you like and play. Or not. Just come for Courvoisier if you prefer.”

  “I’m… I don’t play well enough to do this piano justice.”

  “It is not always about technique-but it’s always about heart. What more can we do? Your playing is suggestive of Monk’s style. I saw him once. It was amazing the way he would get up in the middle of a song and do that little dance of his, around in a circle beside the piano. Completely absorbed in the music.”

  Emile finishes his cognac and begins to put his hand into his pocket. He wants to pay for the drink, at least.

  “Stop. I own this place,” the man says, his voice flattened out and matter-of-fact. “I can buy drink for whomever I please. Besides, you gave me this beautifully broken music of yours.”

  The next day, he goes down to the beach at two in the afternoon, when most sane people are out of the s
un. He swims two hundred strokes exactly, straight out into the gulf, then turns around and swims back to shore. He does not remember making a conscious decision to choose the number two hundred. It just seemed like the right number.

  ***

  On the morning of the fifth day, he opens the door. “Oh, hello,” he says. “I desperately need coffee.”

  The concierge is a short, efficient man with a very smooth complexion and he smells like cigarettes. He flips open his cell phone, says something very quickly, ending with Emile’s room number.

  “I have some news,” the concierge says, and then pauses.

  He takes Emile’s money without blinking. “I believe your missing man was in a bar near here, a few months back,” he says. “A place called the Pom-Pom. It’s a gay bar, you know? Several of the patrons of this bar showed interest in your man-if you know what I mean. But it seems he only wanted to talk.”

  “Are you sure it was him?”

  “We are quite certain. I don’t think he belonged there, though, if you catch my meaning. He kept looking around-said he was worried about the Inquisition. The patrons of this bar thought he meant the police.”

  “Do you know where he went? Did he say anything about where he was going?”

  “Apart from his nervousness, he did not appear to be confused. He did say he was a sailor and that he would be going to sea. Eventually, he went home with someone.”

  “Do you have a name?”

  “Nobody in this bar has a name.”

  The concierge opens the door and Emile hands him a couple more folded bills.

  Emile’s mind is racing. What was this guy doing in a gay bar? Did he actually get picked up?

  ***

  Emile is back in Paris for a few days to catch up on paperwork, to put a few of his simpler cases to bed, to recharge. He puts his book down on the bed. The apartment misses his wife. He misses her. It’s been two years, and he still carries the hole created by her absense. In the kitchen, he pours boiling water over a tea bag in a mug. I’m alone, Emile thinks. Get used to it. So is my strange man of great interest. He’s somewhere in Spain.