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Waiting for Columbus

Page 24

by Thomas Trofimuk


  “Can you tell me who you are?”

  Columbus sighs. You ought to know, he thinks. “Yehhh,” he says finally, inside an exhalation.

  “What’s your name?” He leans in closer. He’s hoping Columbus will say something other than Columbus.

  “King Ah-thur.” Columbus closes his eyes, exhausted. Slowly, he turns the side of his face into the pillow.

  Dr. Balderas is confounded. He has no idea Consuela was reading Columbus the Malory. He has no idea what to think, except that his patient is still delusional and that alprazolam is an effective sedative. Columbus is certainly sedated.

  ***

  “What happened?” She glares at Dr. Balderas. His forehead is sunburned.

  He takes his reading glasses off and places them quickly on top of the papers on his desk. “He came to and was extremely agitated. He would not stop screaming. He was hysterical.”

  “So he’s pumped full of drugs again?”

  “We had no other option.”

  “He was already restrained. Did he say anything? Anything at all?”

  “Nothing but screaming. I have no idea what he went through out there in the strait. It’s a minor miracle he survived. And I am accountable. I’m responsible for this. It’s not going to be pretty when I get in that room with the board. They’re going to want to talk to you, too.”

  “It’s not your fault. He duped all of us.”

  “It was my idea to go to the beach.”

  “It was a good idea.”

  ***

  Consuela spends as much time with Columbus as she can. She reads to him for an hour each morning, and then pushes him in a wheelchair down to the pool. Each day for a week, and then two, and then three.

  Pope Cecelia dies in the second week of his withdrawal into silence. Consuela finds her in the morning, a peaceful smile on her face, eyes closed, hair like a mane-almost like it’s been brushed and arranged on the pillow. After the first gentle nudge, Consuela knew. She decides to sit for a while before letting others know. She needs to do something to make grace around this passing. So she sits quietly with the pope. I can give you an hour, Cecelia, she thinks. There will be no white smoke over the Sistine Chapel when a new pope is chosen. There will be no new pope to replace Cecelia. There will be just one less patient.

  Cecelia’s family claims her body and belongings. The duty of gathering Cecelia’s life, at least her asylum life, into three cardboard boxes falls to Consuela. She is surprised to find a Hafiz ghazal in Columbus ’s handwriting on a piece of paper with well-worn fold lines. She knew they’d talked occasionally, but this implies an intimacy beyond casual conversation. Good for you, Cecelia.

  ***

  Consuela begins to struggle with her hope around Columbus. She had hoped the sound of her voice would draw him back, or the hollow sound of the pool room would spark a connection to the present. But he does not speak. Even when they back off on his medication, he remains silent… eats without looking at his food, stares straight ahead. He’s turned inward. He eats and goes to the bathroom and sleeps, but it seems his life is elsewhere.

  Maybe this is his way of escaping, Consuela thinks. She misses his voice, his stories.

  She has started to take Columbus down to the pool for half an hour before her shift each day, and lets him sit there while she swims. She sets up a couple of candles at either end of the pool, slips out of her clothes, and swims her lengths in the luxurious cool water.

  This morning, on the day of the feast of Saint Sylvester, Columbus ’s eyes follow her in the water-watching her swim.

  “You have an exquisite body,” he says.

  Consuela swims to the edge and looks him over. She’d almost given up on him coming back. But he’s staring at her, eyes sparkling, almost laughing. “Welcome back,” she says. “Where have you been? I’ve missed you.” Consuela pulls herself from the pool. Tries not to act like she feels, which is self-conscious of her body, embarrassed, fat.

  “I don’t know. I was swimming. I remember being on a beach. I remember seeing Tammy, but after that… I don’t know. How did I get back here?”

  “Some children found you, washed up on a beach.”

  “ Spain?”

  “ Morocco.” Consuela wraps herself in a towel.

  “Shit.”

  “Yes, quite the little journey you went on. They say dolphins saved you. They say the dolphins waited just offshore until you were found.” She smiles. She only has one towel and needs to dry her hair. It’s a big towel, but it is only one. She turns around. He can look at my butt, she thinks. As she puts on her bra-fastening it in the front, twisting the clasp to the back, and then finding the armholes-it feels too tight. She pulls on her uniform and is keenly aware of the way this uniform constricts. It seems too tight around her armpits. She wonders if she’s gaining weight.

  “But you don’t believe that.”

  “I’m just happy you lived. You almost didn’t.” She quickly towel-dries her hair and turns around.

  “I’m surprised, actually. I don’t remember the end. I think I dreamed about dolphins. I dreamed a lot of things. Some not so nice things. Some very pleasant.” He tries to stand but his legs are wobbly. “How long have I been…”

  “Out of it? Six weeks. Just over six weeks.”

  Columbus sits back down. “Six weeks,” he says, stunned.

  “I know, by the way,” she says.

  “You know what?”

  “That my body is exquisite.” She walks by, the towel under her arm, and the edge of it brushes Columbus ’s arm. That touch shivers through him.

  ***

  Dr. Balderas is pacing back and forth in his office. Dr. Fuentes was sacked three weeks ago, just after the hearing in which Dr. Balderas was cleared of any wrongdoing in Columbus ’s escape incident. According to the board, Balderas had taken all the necessary precautions. It was an unfortunate incident but the patient was safely back in care. Dr. Balderas was not happy about the result. Sure, Columbus was back at the institute and had lived through the ordeal, but he was turned inward, silent-almost comatose.

  So the news that Columbus is cognizant and speaking makes him giddy. Consuela brings the news to him and together they trundle down to the dayroom and sit with Columbus for a few minutes.

  Columbus is staring out the window, his expression not changing, head slightly to the side, drooling.

  “Mr. Columbus?” Dr. Balderas moves around in front of him, into his view. “Can you hear me?” He looks over at Consuela, whose heart is pounding. She’s terrified. Maybe the pool conversation was an anomaly and he’s slipped back inside. Disappeared. Did she imagine him commenting on her body?

  “It doesn’t look like there’s been any change,” Dr. Balderas says. This makes him sad. Perhaps this nurse, who’s spent so much time with this patient, was only hoping he’d come around. He reaches into his shirt pocket and pulls out a flashlight. Checks Columbus ’s pupils, looking for even constriction in both eyes when the light is only in one eye. Everything appears to be normal. Just as he’s about to stand upright Columbus shouts: “Boo!” Dr. Balderas drops the flashlight in shock. Steps back gasping. Columbus catches the flashlight, snatches it midair.

  Consuela jumps, too. “Son of a bitch, Columbus!”

  “I was just mucking with you guys. I’m fine, really.”

  “I don’t think I am,” Dr. Balderas says. He exhales and looks hard at Columbus. “If you ever do that again I’ll prescribe cold-water therapy with Nurse Sidona. And I’ll insist that she use the brush.”

  “It was a joke, Balderas. Lighten up.”

  “That’s Dr. Balderas and it was not funny, Columbus. Not fucking funny.”

  ***

  In Cádiz, Emile goes right to the harbor and looks for the office of the coast guard. He finds out that the Spanish coast guard picked a man out of the water just off the coast about one month after his person of interest disappeared. This man was in bad shape-hypothermic, dehydrated, and exhausted. When he
came to, he wouldn’t stop talking about sailing the Western Sea and how he was the one true and only Christopher Columbus. He had no identification. There are still questions about where he came from. He could have come from Morocco or from a boat offshore. They know what they should do with him. There are protocols when you find someone with no papers, no passport, no identification whatsoever, floating in the Strait of Gibraltar. Those protocols, in a world gone mad with fear, were not pleasant if you were on the receiving end. One of the men who helped fish this man out of the water suggests the obvious: “We should take him to the hospital-he needs a doctor.”

  For some reason, these men hesitate. They listen to this man. “My ships are in Palos,” he says. “I have no time for hospitals. My ships are in the harbor in Palos.”

  “He’s out of his head.”

  “Why don’t we take him to Palos? Take him to the Franciscan monastery at La Rábida. I know Father Bolivar. The monks will know what to do with him. Maybe they know him.”

  “Maybe he’s an actor or something. Part of some historical play about Columbus.”

  One of his co-workers chips in. “But what was he doing in the strait?”

  “Maybe he got drunk at a party.”

  “Hell of a party. He looks like shit.”

  The men look at one another and know this is something they will not speak of. This didn’t happen. There was no man who believes he is Christopher Columbus floating half dead in the strait. This information was only pried out of one of these men with a hefty bribe. The Interpol badge by itself wasn’t enough.

  Emile leaves the coast-guard office in Cádiz, his wallet a little slimmer. He checks out of his hotel, and heads for Palos. Palos, as a destination for this man, makes sense, but Emile thought he would wind up there on his own. Emile has no idea what this man might have been doing swimming in the Strait of Gibraltar.

  ***

  They are sitting on wooden benches in a simple antechamber with stone walls. Emile had waited almost an hour. Then a monk brought in steaming tea. Father Michael was a few minutes behind the tea.

  “I apologize for the wait.”

  No reason is forthcoming-just the apology. Emile describes what he knows of the stranger and Father Michael nods.

  “He slept for almost two days when he arrived,” Father Michael says. “Father Bolivar nursed him, took care of him. He didn’t speak for a week.”

  “Would it be okay if I talked to Father Bolivar?” Emile is trying hard to contain his excitement.

  “Unfortunately, Father Bolivar is in the north, on a silent retreat. He cannot be reached.”

  “Can I ask what happened to this man?”

  “He was with us three weeks.”

  “And then?”

  “And then Father Bolivar called in a favor with a chief of police in Sevilla. It was obvious this man needed more than what we could provide.” Father Michael sighs, shakes his head. “He became violent. In the end, he could not be controlled. Father Bolivar is not a young man. La Policia came and took him to an institute in Sevilla. They were discreet about where this man had been.”

  “Can you provide me with a telephone number for the institution in Sevilla?”

  “I have it here. I’ve taken the liberty of getting my assistant to look up the name of the director for you. It’s a Dr. Fuentes you’ll want to speak with.” The father hands Emile a piece of paper and stands up. “You must understand that he was quite violent and became more so when he found out we were sending him to Sevilla. I think he felt betrayed by Father Bolivar.”

  “Thank you, Father. I… I am curious about one thing.”

  “He believes he’s Christopher Columbus. It’s no game. He’s slipped out of this reality and there was no bringing him back. We tried, but…”

  ***

  Emile is dialing the institute in Sevilla even before he gets to his car. He asks for the doctor and is told the director will be right with him.

  “Hello, this is Dr. Balderas.”

  “Oh, I was looking for a Dr. Fuentes.”

  “Yes, Dr. Fuentes is no longer here. Can I help you with something?”

  “Well,” Emile says, “I like people who get to the point, so here goes. I’m an investigator with Interpol. My name is Emile Germain. I’m wondering if you’ve got a guy there who believes he’s Christopher Columbus?”

  “You’re either a psychic or we’re about to have a long conversation,” Dr. Balderas says.

  “Can I take that as a yes?”

  “Yes, but we also have a Pablo Picasso, a Tom Cruise, and a Don Quixote. We used to have a pope.”

  “But you have a Columbus,” Emile says.

  “We have a Christopher Columbus, yes-a man we’ve not been able to identify.”

  “He’s got to be my man.” Emile is amazed. He had almost convinced himself that his man would have been at the institution and then released, and the game would carry on. But it seems the chase is over. How long has he been on his trail? Months. It’s been months. He’s had other cases in the interim, but this man kept rising to the surface. He kept pulling Emile back to Spain.

  His impulse is to call her with this news. For the three years they were together, whenever Emile successfully solved a case-the subject was found alive-he and his wife would do the recovery dance: they would have a drink together, sometimes hundreds of kilometers apart, and they would toast over the phone. Or if they were physically together, they would go out for dinner, and at some point in the evening, they would dance-in a restaurant or café, beside the car with the radio turned up and door open, or at home in the kitchen. Emile’s first thought when he hung up the phone was: recovery dance. But it’s doubtful she would want to hear his voice.

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  He finishes his morning swim and rolls himself onto the edge of the pool. It is the morning of the feast of Saint Agnes. “Shakespeare’s undiscovered country,” Columbus says, “is something I know about. It is a concept I understand. Nobody has been dead and come back to tell us what it’s like to be dead. Undiscovered is an appropriate designation. All we have is speculation, rumor, hope, and, of course, what the church tells us. The church is so certain.” He slips back into the water, ducks his body under the surface, comes up sleek and dripping. “I am not so certain, but in a sense, given the prevailing superstitions and old wives’ tales at the time, I was about to tempt death with my proposed journey. But just discovering new lands is nothing. You have to come back and prove it, loudly.” He looks over at Consuela, who is leaning forward in her chair. Looks at her sideways-cocks his head. “You look lost,” he says.

  “Well, given that Shakespeare was born nearly sixty years after Columbus died, I’m curious about how you know about his work.”

  Columbus shrugs. “I’m not dead, as you can see. But this is a minor detail of time. What does it matter? The story, Consuela. The story is the thing!”

  “It would help the credibility of this story.”

  “Credibility? You want credibility?”

  “Yes. If you keep getting things wrong, how am I to come along?”

  “Well, it was some gigantic-brained scientist or philosopher who said, or postulated, that time was fluid-forward, backward, past and future: all the same thing. Not my idea.”

  Consuela thinks about the complete disregard for time and the bevy of anachronistic artifacts in Columbus ’s stories. She thinks about the possibility that he won’t come out of this-that he’ll stay locked in this cage as Columbus. It frightens her. Because if he stays there, as Columbus, in that world of kings and queens and inquisitors, she won’t know what to do with her feelings. And if he comes out and they manage to unravel the mystery? She doesn’t want to think about that, either.

  “Forget it, Columbus. Doesn’t matter.”

  “Trust the tale not the teller. Remember who I am.”

  ***

  The next morning at the pool, Consuela makes a silent deal with herself. She has to tell him about Cecelia. He has
to find out from her. Mercifully, he tends to keep to himself and Cecelia was not an everyday occurrence in his life. She has been struggling with how exactly to tell him. But he’s got to know. “Look, there’s something I have to tell you and there’s no easy way.”

  “This sounds serious. Are you all right?”

  Consuela takes a big breath. “Cecelia passed away, Columbus. I know you two were friends. I’m sorry.”

  He sits up on the edge of the pool, slips his feet into the water, keeps his back to Consuela. “When?”

  “While you were lost inside yourself-about a month ago.”

  “Goddamnit.”

  “I’m really-”

  “Goddamnit. I never… I never kissed them good-bye.”

  “Them?” she says. She wonders what in the hell he’s talking about.

  “Her. I mean her. I never said good-bye.”

  “Are you okay?”

  “Not now.” He slips into the water and starts a slow front crawl toward the far end of the pool, performs an efficient turnaround, and moves toward and past Consuela. He swims for another hour. Gets out of the water, exhausted and silent and dripping. Goes to his room, shuts the door to the world.

  ***

  Columbus grieves Cecelia with an irrational intensity. There are no more stories. He’ll chat briefly about the weather. He’ll grumble about the food. He rejects Consuela’s company and so she is relegated to watching him from a safe distance as he comes to terms with this death. When he does let Consuela near, it doesn’t go well.

  “I was not there, and then she died,” he says. “I should have been there for her.”

  “You swam the Strait of Gibraltar and almost died-”

  “I should have been there for her. Nobody should die alone. Nobody!” Columbus picks up a chair and shatters the nearest window. The chair leg gets stuck in the wire mesh and is left hanging. Columbus storms toward his room. Kicks over a wooden table with a half-finished puzzle of a running horse. Two indignant patients barely escape the table as it slams to the floor. They stand there with puzzle pieces in their hands watching Columbus disappear. He slams a door that is always left open and is off down the hallway.

 

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