Waiting for Columbus

by Thomas Trofimuk

  “Do you backpack?” Columbus says, and Consuela is not sure what to make of the question.

  “Backpack?” she says. “You mean carry your tent, bedding, and food into the wilderness?”

  “That’s it,” he says. “Away from it all. No distractions. No work. No meetings. Nothing but nature and working the legs. The mountains are best because of the elevations. You get the vistas. Vistas are the payoff.”

  “Why are you asking me this?”

  He smiles, clears his throat. “Because…”

  ***

  Because they left Beatriz and the boys in the village. Columbus and Juan have come to the mountain regions between Spain and France to fish for trout. They move up through pine forests, looking for the tiny hut where they will spend the night. Columbus leads, even though Juan has been there many times before. The deer trail they were following has disappeared, and Columbus stops at the edge of a cliff with a mountain vista. He removes his cap and drinks from the large, leather water sack. The view is of blue mountain ranges against mountain ranges, fading rows of peaks against darkening indigo sky.

  “We’ll have to make a fire and stay here tonight,” Juan says. “It’s three leagues to the hut and getting too dark.”

  “By my calculations, it should be just over there.” Columbus points into the forest with no hesitation.

  “Actually, it’s there, at the base of that mountain.” He points across the valley in front of them.

  “Are you sure, Juan?”

  “Yes, Cristóbal, my friend, I have been there many times.”

  “Someone has made an incorrect calculation then?”

  Juan looks at Columbus. A pathetic man, standing there with cap in hand, tousled white hair. The past ten years of intense dreaming have come with a price, Juan thinks, and Columbus has paid with part of his sanity. Nurturing a dream requires a great deal of energy, and this is a big dream. He might be losing his mind. But Juan knows what Columbus has gone through. The trials and arguments at the university. His dealings with the king and queen. The years of waiting. The years of not knowing. The years of doubt massing up like storm clouds.

  “A wrong turn,” Juan says.

  “I do not make wrong turns,” Columbus snaps.

  “A faulty map then.”

  “An error in the map? Yes, this is a possibility.”

  “Yes,” Juan says, “but look. Look where you’ve brought us. I have never seen such a view.”

  Columbus turns and smiles. This is true, he thinks. I have discovered a new view. It is my destiny. And it is my destiny to claim the entirety of this magnificent view in the name of God and Their Glorious Majesties King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella. For Spain.

  Then he says out loud: “I claim all this land, all the trees, the animals, the birds and fish and gold and gems and peoples in the name of God and Their Glorious Majesties King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella.” He kneels and crosses himself. “And for my beautiful Beatriz, who very much wanted to come fishing but stayed in the village. And of course, for both my sons, Diego and Fernando, may they be safe and grow into decent and brave men.”

  “Cristóbal, my friend. I do not think the king and queen of France would appreciate you claiming part of their country for Spain, no matter how perfect a view it is that you’ve discovered.” Juan can see that this spot is a well-used campsite. There is a fire pit surrounded by stones beside a large boulder. Somehow, Columbus does not see this.

  “Is it not my destiny to discover?”

  “Ah, but this land is already discovered. Beyond these cliffs is France.”

  “But this view?”

  “A view is a view,” Juan says. “This is a magnificent view but it is-” He stops. He does not want to deflate this man who stands before him. That is not the role of a friend, he thinks. Is he loopy or is he pulling my limb? Surely he knows we are on the border between Spain and France. Ahh, it doesn’t matter. It does not matter if Columbus wishes to claim this small section of France.

  “We should make a fire before it is too late. We do not want to wander these cliffs looking for wood in the dark.” Juan kicks at the ground in order to begin to create a fire pit. He does it away from the established pit. He snaps off the first dry bough he finds, tucks it under his arm, and continues to search.

  When there are sparks twisting into the sky and a steady heat coming from the fire, Juan turns and looks at Columbus. He has been standing with his back to the forest, seeming to watch the light in the western sky move toward indigo.

  “Columbus,” Juan says, “I’ve got the fire going. Come and sit down.”

  “It’s going to happen,” Columbus whispers.

  “What?” Juan says, poking at the fire, making adjustments.

  “The journey across the Western Sea. It’s going to happen.”

  “I have always known it. And listen, I have some news. My meeting with the Rubensteins went very well. They’re in.”

  “That is good news. Any idea how much?”

  “Enough for one ship, fully outfitted. But there is a condition.”

  “A condition?”

  “They want transport to the Canaries.”

  “For how many?”

  “Twenty. Maybe more.”

  Columbus leans in and pokes the fire with a short stick. Sparks lift into darkness.

  “I have been thinking about this journey all day. There is too much to gain and too little risk for this not to happen. I play the role of the little risk…” He stops, pauses, and then shouts: “Nothing but the sea.” The echo from across the valley is strong and spooky. It hangs in a circle above their camp. The echo drains into the night and Columbus makes the silence wait before he shouts again: “NO THING.” And it comes back as “O-ING, O-ING, o-ing, ing, ing.” Columbus turns his back to the vastness of the valley. He sits down next to Juan and observes the fire. Looks up at Juan. Nods his head.

  “Sure, why not. Let’s transport the Jews.”

  “I’ll let them know when we get back.”

  “Good,” he says. “Now, tell me about your life, Juan.”

  “But have you heard from the queen? Is there word?”

  “No, no, not about me. Not about ocean journeys. You. I want to hear about you.”

  “There are no events in my life when it is compared to yours. I do not meet with kings and queens and noblemen. I do not speak with physicians and philosophers, and I do not read the latest charts.”

  “Just people,” Columbus says, smiling. “Just things.”

  Juan talks about his painting. He speaks about the mixtures of colors, the brushes, the textures of the walls. Then there are the canvas paintings, the portraits and crude landscapes.

  “The problem with the portraits is the skin. To mix the correct skin tone is half the battle,” he says. “And then I often wish to paint not what I see but what it is I feel.”

  “Is it not the job of the artist to paint what he sees?” Columbus says.

  “Yes. But there is the artist’s feeling in each accurate portrait no matter how true to life.”

  “And you wish to take it further?”

  “I simply wish to paint what I feel first, and what is truly there comes second.”

  “And what would someone think when they see such a work?”

  “Only what they feel is interesting.”

  The fire draws them in. The heat massages and makes them drowsy. It soothes something deeper than they know. And so they are quiet for a while.

  “Keep painting only what you feel, Juan,” Columbus says. “I’d like to see what you come up with. Perhaps you will be famous one day.”

  “Columbus, my friend, no one will remember me. It’s you who will be remembered.”

  “I have been thinking that this thing I wish to do will happen regardless of whether I want it to or not. I think perhaps some events in history are simply meant to happen. The right time, the right thinking, the right weather, the right person… all these things add up, and then all it
takes is one small seemingly unconnected event, and then there is no stopping.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “I’m saying I play only a minor role in this.”

  “But how can you say-”

  “The ball is rolling. It would take a great effort to stop it now.”

  “But it’s been all your work, your dream, your idea.”

  “But it’s no longer my destiny. It’s the destiny of Spain, and of human beings.”

  “But you want it to happen, right?”

  ***

  In the morning, they look out from under their blankets into a thick, white light. A vast whiteout encloses the campsite.

  “ Columbus?” Juan says. “It’s a whiteout. We should try and climb up and out of it.”

  They stand up and immediately lose sight of each other. Columbus takes a few steps toward where he last saw a fading Juan. Juan gathers up his blanket and, dizzy in all the whiteness, staggers a few paces. He feels the shrubs scratching his legs before he sees them.

  Columbus faces the forest, thinking it’s the mountain valley. He is suddenly struck with a thought about the view. There is no proof my view ever existed, he thinks. There is only memory. Is it my memory or my faith that tells me this mountain valley existed? He turns again to try and fix where Juan is but cannot see anything. “Juan?”

  “Here.”

  The voice is behind Columbus, perhaps. He’s not sure.

  “Have you moved from the spot where you slept?” It’s Juan’s voice again. Columbus looks down toward his feet and can barely see them.

  “I don’t know,” he says. “I can barely see the ground.”

  “Well, don’t move. The cliff is not far. And-”

  “Juan? Juan?”

  “I’m here. I think you’re in front of me. Say something.”

  “This is stupid. I’m going to move up this ridge,” Columbus says.

  “Which direction is up? Where is the cliff?”

  Columbus looks around at the white haze. “These are good questions,” he says. “So we wait then.”

  “Yes. I think that would be wise.”

  Columbus begins to feel tightness in his chest. He wants to run for the light and open air. A hopeless desire for blue sky grows in him. His eyes squint into the blankness for a direction. Then the scream pushes up from his gut to his brain. It explodes into his feet. Run! it says. Run! Get the hell out of this whiteness! Columbus begins to run in the direction he’s facing.

  “Don’t move!” Juan screams. But Columbus runs smack into him and knocks him over the edge of the cliff.

  ***

  Before he sits up, Columbus sees blue sky, feels a cool mountain breeze on his face, and hears a faint “Help, help, Columbus.”

  He pokes his head over the edge of the cliff and sees Juan dangling by his sword belt from the root of a tree. “Juan?”

  “Cristóbal, lower some of that rope, quickly. What have you been doing up there all morning?”

  “What happened?”

  “Just lower the rope and pull me up. Please.”

  When they are seated on the cliff’s edge, passing a bota of wine between them, Columbus looks at Juan and smiles.

  “How did you fall off the cliff?”

  Juan takes a good gulp of wine. Winces. Touches his head delicately. Looks at his friend.

  “I guess I panicked and took a wrong step.” One more little incident like this and I could be dead, Juan thinks. This is the man who wants to drag all of humanity to their destiny across uncharted water? Who wants to create a new passage to India, and the lands of Marco Polo? This is the man who still has to convince men to follow him on his journey, a queen and a king to trust him? I should begin praying now and not quit until the day I die and still there would not be enough prayer.

  A true friend, Columbus is thinking. Juan has lied kindly twice already to spare my feelings. This is a man worthy of much love. Here is the greater man of the two of us.

  “I think perhaps it was I who panicked and knocked you over,” he says.

  “No, Cristóbal, it was-”

  “Juan, you did no such thing. Let’s eat.”

  Behind them, the distance of ten men, the sound of a rock falling. The skittering sound of it down a steep slope.

  “Did you hear that, Juan?”

  Juan pulls slowly on the hilt of his sword. Draws it out and stands up. “Yes.”

  “There’s my problem,” Columbus says, not noticing Juan has drawn his sword. “That rock back there is my greatest problem.”

  “A rock, Cristóbal?”

  “My biggest worry.”

  “A rock-”

  “That rock is the one true challenge of this entire adventure.”

  Juan keeps his eyes and ears focused on the direction of the rock sound. “Perhaps we should eat something. I have some dried meat.” He twists and rustles in his pack behind him.

  “You think I am crazy sometimes.”

  Juan wants to scream, Yes! Yes, you are many, many times crazy. You are beyond crazy tenfold. Goofy, insane, ridiculous, a fool with no equal! But he remembers the dream of simply wanting to set sail and find out what’s there, regardless of the dangers. He can well understand this. He knows this desire.

  “You have great pressures and hardships,” Juan says.

  “All my pressures and any hardships are made small by my friends, by Beatriz and you, and Isabella and…” He encloses the end of his thought inside himself.

  Columbus drinks from the skin. Passes it to Juan, who also drinks.

  “Oh, getting the ships and men and supplies and finally embarking is challenge enough. Convincing ninety men that it’s perfectly safe to sail out past the point of no return, and then to sail beyond the point of going back safely. This is also a challenge.

  “We will discover what there is to discover. This I am sure of. But to simply discover is not a discovery. Like the rock back there. It falls whether there is anybody to notice it or not.” He looks hard at Juan’s face. “We must make it back and shout the discovery to anyone who can hear. We must bring back news of the falling rock. We must prove the falling rock exists. Then, and only then, is our discovery complete.”

  “Our discovery?”

  “You are coming along, are you not?”

  “I have no ocean skills. No experience. I don’t know.”

  “Bring your paints and record what you see. Better, record what you feel.”

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  Dr. Balderas has decided that a day-trip to the ocean might be just the thing for about a dozen of his patients-the safe ones. It’s about sixty miles to Punta Umbria and its nearest beach, Playa La Mata Negra. Dr. Balderas remembers these beaches from his youth. His parents used to go to this particular beach every summer for two weeks, at least in the years when they weren’t fighting. He remembers the golden sand, crystal-clear water, and a particular silky quality to the air. How could this not be therapeutic?

  On Friday afternoon, he sits down at his favorite café with a double espresso and makes a list. He’s been through the files. Pope Cecelia and Arturo make the list. Cecelia has been experiencing spells of lucidity in which she remembers her life, her name, her family. Arturo, well, he’s just slow. Not a bad thing on a sandy ocean beach. Columbus makes the list despite his escape attempts. Dr. Balderas is impressed with the effort he’s been seeing from Columbus. In his opinion, Columbus wants to get better, wants to get to the bottom of his delusion. That perceived honest effort goes a long way with Dr. Balderas. Mercedes is not on the list. The beach is a dirty place. And there’s nowhere for her to wash her hands. He chuckles to himself when he thinks about Mercedes. The audacity of a kleptomaniac with a hand-washing compulsion is too much. On Monday morning he gets his nurses to gather a group of thirteen peaceful patients, five orderlies, and three nurses, including Consuela, and by midmorning they’re headed to the beach.

  The temperature is a very comfortable twenty-two degrees Celsius when
they arrive. Not a cloud in the sky. The orderlies set up four large umbrellas, and the nurses spread blankets. Pope Cecelia demands a chair so she is higher than everyone else. An orderly finds a beach chair and places it in the shade. She’s wearing her usual three robes. Columbus is wearing an institute-assigned maroon robe, and he immediately goes down to the edge of the water and walks into the skittering surf. The water is warm but also refreshing. It jumps and spits at the bottom of his robe, tickles his calves. He goes into the water up to his knees, looks out to sea, breathes. Observes the waves. Breathes some more. He loves the smell of the ocean. The sounds. The shushing waves meeting land. The awkward gull calls. For a few minutes, he is happy standing up to his knees in the ocean, the gulls hovering carefully above the offshore waves. At the same time, he realizes there are two orderlies, one up the beach and one down the beach, watching him. There is no need to turn around and look. He feels them. He can smell them.

  Alberto, a patient who as far as Columbus can see is perfectly normal except that he is openly homosexual, throws a red ball the size of a large orange toward Columbus. Shouts, “Heads up, Columbus!”

  He turns and snatches the ball out of the air, an almost automatic gesture, then throws it back to Alberto. Columbus walks back to the umbrella encampment and sits down. He begins to wait.

  Elena comes over and sits beside him. Regardless of the fact that she does not speak, he has enjoyed having her around. She has a good energy. It costs him nothing to be with her-she’s not a taker of energy.

  “What do you see out there, Columbus?” Elena says. A creaky half whisper interwoven with the sound of the waves feathering the shore.

  Columbus wants to turn toward her. He wants to ask her what she means. He wants to be sure he just heard her say something. But all these options would ruin it-erode the magic of Elena speaking. He decides to trust himself. Of course she spoke.

  “Freedom,” he says softly.

  “If I can help, let me know,” she says, even more withdrawn than before.

  Columbus turns toward her. Finds her face, her eyes. Her eyes are hazel. She pushes a few strands of hair away from her face-in behind her ear.