“Yes, I bet you are.”
“A couple of things, really. First, the ships. How did it happen that the ships appeared so suddenly? Everything was lost, hopeless. And then in a matter of days, it was done.”
“And the second?”
“The second is difficult for me.”
“Perhaps I can answer your second question before you pose it. I love your Columbus and I believe this love goes both ways. Unfortunately, I am queen. I have a husband and a country. If a liaison were discovered, it would not go well for me, nor would it be good for Columbus. It would be death all around, I’m afraid.”
Beatriz reaches down to her ankle and draws a knife-a squat stabbing blade.
Isabella looks at the knife and then at Beatriz. “Are you mad? They’ll kill you. They don’t take this security thing lightly.” She nods almost imperceptibly toward the perimeters of the forest.
“I could kill you first,” Beatriz says. And in scant seconds, Beatriz is on the ground, her hand twisted up and across her face. The agent pulls the knife out of her hand and looks at her face. A deep gash from the corner of her mouth to just below her eye. The cut is deep and it bleeds instantly. Beatriz moves her hand across the side of her face. “Fuck,” she grunts, her face in a mask of disbelief as she looks up at the guard.
Isabella, tackled by two guards for her safety, pulls herself up off the ground. She looks at her men, who have drawn their weapons. “Oh, put your guns away, you idiots. Pick her up and see that her wound is attended to,” she says. “Whoever it was that searched her did a piss-poor job by the way. Two knives. She had two knives. Now get her out of here and keep her out of the way until Columbus is gone.” Isabella walks over and picks up Beatriz’s knife, weighs it in her hand.
“Lose her in one of your institutions. Just keep her out of the way.”
“You arranged the ships, didn’t you?” Beatriz says.
When Isabella turns and faces Beatriz, her face is flat, devoid of emotion. Making herself appear to feel nothing is second nature to her. Her eyes, though, her eyes betray the anger rising in her. Her eyes become two sharp sticks.
“You did it because you love him!” Blood is seeping through Beatriz’s fingers, dripping in rivulets down her neck and into the crevasse between her breasts.
Isabella thinks about her time with Columbus -a few meetings, a cup of coffee. Memories occur in spasmodic jerks. A yearning rises up in her and takes the place of her anger. “I need…” She breathes and then sighs. “I needed to put an ocean between this queen and that foolish navigator. I needed to stop this lust in me. It was the only way.” She looks at Beatriz, who is held firmly by two guards. “It was the only way,” Isabella whispers.
“So you do not believe he can do this?”
“Take her away,” Isabella says.
“That’s the difference between you and me. I believe in the man and his dreams. You believe in nothing! Nothing!”
“Stop! I’m the queen. I’m your queen. It would be best for you if you remembered that.”
“Why don’t you kill me, then? You have all the power. You are the queen but you’ll never be my queen.”
Isabella squeezes the knife in her hand. She notices her hand is sweating. She nods toward one of her guards and they continue to carry Beatriz, none too gently, through the woods.
You didn’t want to kill me. You still don’t, Isabella thinks. You and I love the same man. For whatever reason, we love Columbus. We share that.
Then there is only Isabella, and around her the orange trees rising up like the bars of a cage, and at the edge of the grove there are palm trees, and beyond that the ocean, and beyond that the sky. She can see one guard hovering at the periphery. Columbus can love Beatriz openly, Isabella thinks. Without constraint. No hiding. No lying. “He needs that,” she says to the trees. “We all need that.”
***
Consuela stops swimming. A sudden absence of water sound. Columbus stops walking. It’s a cool day with clouds that seems thicker than the Basque sheep’s wool at the market. Yesterday, Columbus moved the stones away from the pipe in front of the hot spring flow-to make it warmer for the coming days. The warm edge to the pool is welcomed today.
“Do you need that, Columbus?” she says.
“We all need love-to love and be loved.”
“Not what I asked, Columbus.”
“Do not fault the pious ones, because they, also, like us, are seeking love and grace, in their own way, at their own pace.”
“Hafiz?”
“Yes, Hafiz.”
“You’re not Hafiz.”
“I am not a lot of things.”
“You are certainly evasive, and vague.”
He sighs. “Of course, I need love. To love and be loved.”
“Who loves you?” She holds his eyes. Looks up into his face from the lip of the pool. She’s not going to let go.
“I don’t want to talk about this.”
“You don’t want to talk about it because Beatriz, Isabella, Selena, and even Juan are fictions. There is no love there, Columbus. They’re not real like this water.” She splashes water up onto the deck, and it fans into Columbus, smacks into him. “Even your kids are fictions. They don’t exist. They don’t love you.”
His voice diminishes. “I… I love. There is love in my life. I love my girls.” He gazes down the distance of the pool toward the far end, where the spring comes in. But there is no focus-his eyes are simply facing a direction.
Did he say girls? He looks utterly lost. Consuela stops pushing. She hadn’t planned to confront him. Did she go too far? She remembers Dr. Balderas’s assertion that Columbus must finish his story.
I love you, Columbus, she thinks. More than I should. More than you know. I want you well and out of here. I want you to be happy.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
It takes three days before he unlocks another chapter of his story. He arrives for breakfast in shorts and a gray T-shirt, sits down like nothing is amiss. Consuela does a double take.
“Is that-”
“Yes. It’s Columbus,” Benito says.
“He’s wearing clothes.”
“Yes.”
“I’m not sure if it’s a good thing or a bad thing,” Consuela says.
***
“Well, of course, it’s a good thing,” Dr. Balderas says. “Mother of God! He’s wearing clothes for the first time in months! He’s going to come out of this, Consuela.”
They’re in his office, and Consuela has just lost a second game of chess. They have an agreement between them about talking shop. They don’t-not for the first half hour of their games anyway. They leave it alone, talk about life, their lives, anything. Dr. Balderas has been telling the story of how he met his wife. They’d been at a poetry reading in Madrid. And the poet, a woman whose name he used to know but has now forgotten, was terrible-dreadful.
“She read a long, long poem about some deceased pet. It went on and on and on. In the end, we started laughing. Rude, actually, but my God, it had to be done.”
“A dead pet?”
“Yes, and a very long, sentimental poem. My wife and I were the only ones giggling. Everybody else either thought it was brilliant or they were too horrified to react. I don’t see a way for you to avoid checkmate, by the way. Five moves, if you’re careful.”
She sighs. “Okay, enough chess. Let’s talk about Columbus.”
“Well, I recommend not making a fuss about his clothes. It’s a good thing. Pretend this is how it’s always been.”
“That’s it?”
“That, and he must finish. He has to finish the story.”
***
They take their espressos out onto the upper deck. Columbus removes his shirt, a wild red Hawaiian-style massacre of flowers and swirls, but keeps on a ridiculous straw hat with a short, rolled-up rim. She rather enjoys this new, clothed Columbus. It’s a welcome change. God only knows where he got the clothes, the hat.
“It all go
es wrong at the end,” Columbus says.
“What does?” She immediately knows what a stupid question this is and smiles at him knowingly.
“It’s the night before they leave. Columbus and Juan are sitting in some café in Palos pounding the wine. Columbus gets a note. I get a note. I was always getting notes from women. They just loved that lost-navigator routine. The romance of a navigator without a ship. Worked like a charm.”
***
The note reads only: “Meet me at Starbucks behind St. George Street at midnight.”
It’s unsigned. Columbus thinks he knows who it’s from but he’s not quite sure. He tips the messenger and then refills his glass with wine. It’s likely Beatriz. They already said their good-byes weeks ago when he came here to start outfitting the ships, but it is like her to come to Palos for the final night. He can’t even comprehend how much he will miss her. She is his rock. The one steady, unflinching thing in his life. Beatriz and the ocean. Regardless of any of the other dalliances, he loves her.
“We’re set,” Juan says sitting down. “We sail tomorrow morning.”
“All my gear is aboard? You loaded the wine into my cabin?”
“Yes to both.”
“Good. A toast, then.” He pauses. Smiles. “To whatever’s out there.” They raise their glasses and touch them together ever so lightly. Columbus looks at Juan and half smiles. “And may we please God, not cause some sort of catastrophe, some sort of horrible disaster, some sort of hellish nightmare in which everything dies but I am unaffected-”
“Cristóbal. Breathe. Just take big breaths. It’ll be all right. You’ll be fine.” Juan refills Columbus ’s glass.
“I just have this feeling”- Columbus interrupts himself to gulp half the glass down-“that we are going to go against God’s will. We are going to find something beautiful and utterly destroy it, not because we mean to but, rather, because we are just too bloody fucking stupid.”
Juan refills his glass.
“We are too stupid to understand beauty.” Columbus is muttering now. “I do not understand beauty. I do not understand Beatriz. I did not understand my wife. I do not understand Isabella. Selena is a mystery. That pine tree over there. I do not understand that pine tree. This wine. I do not understand the color of this wine-”
“Cristóbal,” Juan says. “Big breaths and you’ll be okay.”
He’s coming unglued, Juan thinks. On the night before he is to leave, his sanity has already set sail for parts unknown. I can only hope he’ll be all right in the morning. This has got to be the wine speaking, muttering.
The waitress, whose name is Lucero, comes over and leans into Columbus, giving him a good, long look. “The phone is for you,” she says, smiling.
“What? Where?”
Lucero points at the bar. “You’re the navigator who’s going to sea, aren’t you? You’re the one. You’re the leader.” She’s flushed with excitement, fawning.
“Yes, yes, we set sail tomorrow.”
“I just love sailors,” she breathes.
Columbus closes his eyes. For Christ’s sake. It’s raining women.
“The phone?”
“Oh, yes. At the bar.”
He leans on the bar, braces himself to hear her voice, and then picks up the phone.
“Chris, it’s me, Isabella. I can’t talk long because I don’t trust the line. And too many people around. Meet me tonight-”
“Yes, I got your-” He stops.
“What? Listen, meet me tonight at the Plaza Hotel, at ten.”
“Plaza Hotel, ten,” he says. “I’ll be there, my queen… Hello?” But she is gone. Columbus hangs up and gazes into space. The bartender brings him another glass of wine, and slides a note into place beside the glass. He softly taps the paper so Columbus is sure to notice it.
Oh, good God, he thinks. Now what? He opens the note and reads it. Then he reads it again and slides it into his pocket. Someone else wants to meet him at the Café Bordeaux at nine o’clock. Selena, he thinks. The Bordeaux is Selena’s kind of café. Selena has come to say good-bye. Selena the safe and silent harbor, he thinks. She has always been like the moon, a distant and giving lover. He remembers feeling very safe with Selena. Always.
***
Consuela dreams about Beatriz. Beatriz is sitting across from her and they are sharing a bottle of wine as old friends would. The air is pristine. They’re on a patio near the ocean. Consuela can hear seagulls. They’re drinking chardonnay from fishbowls. It’s so pleasant Consuela starts to feel apprehensive; she starts to not be able to breathe. She looks across the table at this olive-skinned, voluptuous, dark-haired beauty. Her eyes are only kind, and there is gentleness in everything she does. Even the meticulous way she drinks wine is an exercise in gentleness. Her movements are so fluid-it seems she is almost dancing with her wine instead of just drinking it. Her face is soft and her eyes, understanding. She’s telling Consuela about her love for Columbus. And once she begins to speak her love, Consuela can say nothing. She becomes paralyzed with fear. She’s afraid she’ll say something stupid, like: “I know.” And then Beatriz would say, “What the fuck do you mean, you know?” Everything would be ruined. So Consuela is silent. She listens to Beatriz and the seagulls. She breathes the wonderful ocean air. She wakes up cold and shivering with her blankets on the floor.
Consuela grinds her coffee beans, boils her water, and gets ready for work. She needs Columbus to finish. She can’t take much more of this. She wants to put him behind her, get on with her life, and live in the present.
It’s drizzling. The light is sublime. Fog mixed with cloud swirls in the high branches of the trees, giving everything an even, kind light. They hustle across the dayroom courtyard. Just before they reach the arched entrance to the south wing and the forgotten swimming pool, she says, “And?”
“And what?” he says, stopping.
“And what happens next?”
“Of course, you want to know what happens next, but great stories should never be rushed. This is a story about obsession and love, and lust and imminent discovery. It is a story that marks a leap in knowledge and understanding for all of humanity. It changes the world into a far bigger entity.”
“It is a good story. Do you think I’m rushing you?”
“I’m happy to keep going. Whenever you want, I am happy to tell you my story. Should we get out of the rain?”
But he doesn’t continue. He swims and she waits and nothing comes. When he finishes his swim for the day, he looks at her with confusion in his eyes.
“I… I don’t know what happened. I wanted to go on, to unravel more of this story. It just wouldn’t come out. I couldn’t find a way to begin.”
“It’s all right, Columbus. Stories can wait.”
In fact, it’s Consuela and Dr. Balderas, anxious in the wings, who wait. They wait for more than a week for him to continue.
“I know I started this,” Columbus says at breakfast. “I know. But it’s getting harder to keep going. I start to lose my breath when I think about coming to the end.”
“All in good time, Columbus,” Consuela says. “I’m not going anywhere.”
***
He holds his fingertip on the top of his queen, but Dr. Balderas is suspended in something other than chess. His mind is not on the game. Even Consuela can see that any move involving the queen would be disastrous. But still, he holds his finger there, as if he is considering the possibilities of such a move. He is looking at the board but he does not see it. He moves his forefinger to his pursed lips.
“The women,” he says, finally. “The women are his wife.”
“The women are his wife?” Consuela is confused.
“ Columbus. Columbus ’s women. Think about it. The queen, Isabella, represents strength, fortitude, and courage-and most important, she is sexual restraint. Selena is unconditional love. She asks no questions. She asks for nothing. Beatriz is the archetypal mother. Cassandra-was that her name?-she represents lust, desir
e, wild abandonment. All these women are representations of Columbus ’s wife. His real-life wife.”
Consuela can feel the blood drain from her face.
“What?” she says halfheartedly.
“It’s just one piece of the puzzle. I couldn’t get my head around all these women Columbus sleeps with, or in the case of Isabella, doesn’t sleep with. This parsing of personality traits makes sense. He’s not a philanderer in his real life. He probably loves his wife very much. What I don’t understand is why Columbus never beds Isabella. If I’m reading your reports correctly, they’re crazy about each other.” He’s about to go on but glances up at Consuela and stops. “Are you all right, Consuela?”
“Bathroom,” she says quickly. In a flash she’s in the hallway. In scant seconds she’s standing in the bathroom with the door locked. The lock click echoes in the small room. A strip of fluorescent lighting sparks to life, hesitant and yellow.
Breathe, Consuela, she tells herself. She slides down the wall so her buttocks rest on the floor, her feet still flat on the tile. Her forearms rest on her knees. This can’t be, she thinks. How could I be so stupid?
Even with the air-conditioning and the cool tile on her back, Consuela is sweating. She can feel the wetness on her back, and under her arms.
Why hasn’t Columbus slept with Isabella? It’s a story. There must be a thousand ways to tell a story in which this lust is consummated. There was plenty of opportunity. Just make up some motel room in Barcelona, or Madrid, or Marbella. Find some clever way to shake off her bodyguards. Wear disguises. But Columbus has not told this story. Their relationship is taut with sexual tension. It’s restrained, withheld, and ultimately forbidden. Just like…
It’s me. I’m Isabella. Oh, fuck.
***
“Does he know who he is?” Emile sips his coffee. Dr. Balderas had been pleased to show off his new Italian espresso machine. When Emile had asked for a café cortado, the doctor jumped up and made one for himself, too.
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