Waiting for Columbus

by Thomas Trofimuk

  “Not yet,” Dr. Balderas says, “but we believe he’s close.”

  “How close?”

  Dr. Balderas hesitates.

  “Look, it’ll take us a few days, perhaps as long as a week, to confirm who he is. But if he is this missing Canadian, I’ll have to let the Canadian embassy know we’ve found him. They’ll want to notify his family. And eventually, sooner rather than later, they’re going to want to take him home.”

  “How much can you delay that process?”

  Emile smiles. “Depends on how convincing an argument you can make.”

  “Nurse Consuela is supposed to be here.” He looks at his watch. It’s not quite eight thirty.

  ***

  Consuela is guarded when she arrives at Dr. Balderas’s office. She hesitates at the door. She does not know how to feel about this Interpol agent. It’s possible he holds the key to Columbus, and she’s not sure she wants the key.

  Emile stands when she comes into the office.

  Well, that’s old-school Cary Grant, she thinks. Nice. So far, her mother would approve.

  He reaches out his hand. “I’m Emile Germain. I’m with Interpol. I’ve been chasing your Columbus patient for a few months.” He smiles. “I’ve had other cases along the way but he kept pulling me back to Spain.”

  His handshake is firm, not overpowering and not lame. His eye-glasses are folded flat in his shirt pocket-they look like they might be wire-rimmed reading glasses. Consuela looks at his shoes. Her father always harped about how you could tell a lot about a man by the way he took care of his shoes-or didn’t. He’s wearing stylish, brown dress shoes, slip-ons-more pointed than any pair of conservative wing-tipped oxfords. The shoes are not polished. But they’re not in rough shape, either.

  “Do you know what happened to him?” Consuela sits across the room from the two men-she wants space.

  “My office identified four files out of our database-all of these men are possibilities. We need time to confirm his identity, but judging from these pictures, I’d say we’ve got a pretty good idea. We think he was in Madrid on March 11.”

  Dr. Balderas breaks in. “Everything fits, Consuela. They think he might be a Canadian.” He hands her four pictures inside a red-and-white Interpol folder, which she flips through quickly. The pictures are fairly conclusive, though not 100 percent. The man in the pictures has short hair, or his hair is covered by various hats. He wears glasses in a couple of the photos. The eyes seem to be right. Consuela returns to the first one. Yes, this one certainly looks like him.

  “I thought…” Consuela says. She inhales sharply. “He’s not Spanish? He’s Canadian?”

  “Yes, and this creates a bit of a problem,” Dr. Balderas says.

  “You mean beyond the fact that he still believes he’s Columbus,” she says.

  “Well, that and the fact Mr. Germain is going to have to report in. He’ll have to let the Canadian embassy know we’ve got one of their people. I’ve let Mr. Germain-”

  “Emile, please,” Emile says.

  “I’ve briefed Emile on our progress. I’ve given him my opinion. I’ve told him that based on your reports over the past couple of weeks, and the changes I’ve witnessed in Mr. Columbus, that he’s close. And we’d like a little time.”

  “Nurse Consuela?” Emile says. “You seem to be crying.”

  “Oh shit,” she says, wiping away her tears. “It’s nothing. I’ve been weepy for days. I’m a little overwhelmed. This is great news.”

  Emile crosses the gulf between them and hands her a handkerchief. It seems to be an honest gesture, not ostentatious. It’s just something he does when women around him cry. Consuela looks at it, then up at him. He shrugs. “My mother insisted her boys always carry a handkerchief. Old habits, you know?”

  Consuela takes the handkerchief and dabs the corners of her eyes. “Thanks.”

  “I’d be interested in your opinion, Nurse Consuela. How close do you think he is to coming out of this?”

  She stands up and crosses the office, looks down into the courtyard. These windows need cleaning, she thinks. A fly skitters along the glass. I’ve no idea, she thinks. “I’m not a doctor,” she says.

  “You see him every day-have seen him almost every day. Right now, I’d value your opinion more than any doctor’s-no offense intended.” He nods at Dr. Balderas.

  “He’s close to finishing his story. It’s almost done. But I don’t know if he’s ready to face whatever it is that happened to him.”

  “I think,” Dr. Balderas says, “what Consuela is worried about is the reality. We could pressure him to face his reality and push him even further away-lose him completely.”

  “How much time do you think you’ll need? I can be exceedingly slow when it comes to my paperwork.”

  Consuela smiles.

  “We need a week, maybe two,” Dr. Balderas says.

  “Okay. That’s not a problem. I’ll need at least that long to run the DNA. There are no fingerprints on file for this alleged Mr. Nusret. I’m having a file on him forwarded to your e-mail account, Dr. Balderas, but let me tell you what I know…”

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  “Well, you could tell him it’s a standard test-that the same test is being done on every patient in the institute.”

  Consuela smiles. “He’s delusional, not stupid. What do I tell him when he asks what the test is for?”

  “Tell him the test is looking for influenza antibodies,” Emile says, “that this test will help with the development of a flu shot.”

  “Is this in any way close to ethical?”

  “You’re responsible for his well-being. This test will help us be sure that he is who we think he is.” Emile is surprised to find himself feeling envy. He’s envious of Columbus because he gets to be with Consuela every day-well, every day she works. He looks over at Consuela. Clearly she is weighing the ethics of this test. Emile finds himself liking her more for her hesitation.

  “Okay,” she says. “Okay. I’ll get you a DNA sample.”

  “One more thing,” Emile says. “What time does your shift end?”

  “Are you asking me out on a date?” She shakes her head as if this would be entirely out of the question.

  “Well, we could call it business, but it’s been a long time since I’ve had a glass of wine with a woman who pushes me on the ethics of my job.”

  “No,” Consuela says. “I couldn’t possibly go out and talk about business. But I’d love to see what an ethical glass of wine looks like.”

  ***

  “I have a home in Paris,” Emile says. He catches the waiter’s eyes and holds up his thumb and forefinger for two more glasses of wine.

  Not a house, or a flat, or an apartment, Consuela thinks. “That sounds like code for a woman is waiting for me in Paris,” Consuela says. She stops. “I’m sorry, that’s none of my business.”

  “It’s all right. It is actually a pretty homey apartment. There used to be a woman there, but she took her leave two years ago. And I’m outside the realm of relationship right now.”

  “That’s a very odd way to say you’re single, Mr. Germain.”

  “I’d be willing to step back into that realm for someone like you, Ms. Lopez. You did say Lopez?” Shut up, you idiot, Emile tells himself.

  “I didn’t say.”

  “Oh? I’m sure Dr. Balderas introduced you as Consuela Emma Lopez.”

  Consuela shakes her head.

  “Well, it must have been on your name tag.”

  Consuela smiles and shakes her head again.

  “Okay, I asked around. I dug around a bit,” Emile says. “I know about that stop sign in Barcelona -the one you ran in 1997.”

  I looked you up, too, she thinks. Consuela can’t help wondering where Emile was shot. She finds his eyes. Is there hurt there? Is he still damaged there? Gray eyes, with shards of hazel. The same confidence she sees in Columbus ’s eyes. An even self-knowledge. A groundedness. Yes, Columbus is deluded. But still, he has
these same eyes. This Interpol man has not shaved in three days. She wonders if this is by choice. He has a strong, narrow nose. Brown hair with an undercurrent of gray. Even when he places the small wire-rimmed reading glasses on his face, he’s attractive.

  “I think I’m flattered,” Consuela says.

  “Well, I’d like to know about you, beyond your work, beyond Columbus. Where were you born? Have you lived in Sevilla all your life? I want to know your story.”

  Consuela sips her wine. “Well, I like to read.”

  ***

  In the dining hall, Consuela sits across from Columbus and looks into his eyes. She wants to tell him she’s tired. Tired of the stories and tired of being in love with someone she can’t touch, hold, or really, understand. He’s a man without substance. She has been in love with a five-hundred-year-old ghost. She’s afraid of the end.

  “Beatriz winds up in a place much like this,” Columbus says. “In a mental institution with wire screens over windows and locks on doors, security guards, orderlies, and drugs.”

  ***

  “She’s sleeping soundly,” someone says.

  Beatriz hears this and does not move. She listens to the people moving around the room. She listens to their conversations and judges their numbers and where they are in the room.

  “What happened to her? How did this happen?” A woman’s voice.

  “Some sort of knife fight.” A man. It could be one of the security agents. One of the queen’s men.

  “It’s going to leave a scar. It was a deep cut.” The woman again.

  “A shame. She’s really quite pretty.”

  A gentle touch on her forehead.

  “She’ll be out for quite a while.”

  And then the sound of a door closing. The hinges creak. Two sets of creaking and then silence.

  Is she alone? There’s no window in the door. Beatriz knows this for a fact. She remembers checking it on the way in. But did they both leave? She waits. And waits. But how long to wait? If she waits too long there is a chance she could actually nod off. She managed to palm most of the pills they gave her but she could not avoid ingesting some pain medication.

  Finally, she decides to risk one eye. Through a sliver she sees the lights have been dimmed. There are only three candles on a table across the room. Slowly, Beatriz moves her vision entirely around the small room. She realizes she’s been holding her breath. Breathe, she thinks. Breathe.

  She sits up and flips her legs to the floor. That motion doesn’t feel quite right but it’s not as bad as it could be. The door handle begins to turn. And the door is opening. The nurse comes in. Beatriz is just as she left her. The hinges squeak again and Beatriz is up and out of bed in a flash. Her clothes are not in this room. She finds and dresses in a set of green cotton pants and a simple smock. She’s a little wobbly on her feet but the wobbliness is not debilitating. She takes three bottles of pills. Then she’s at the window, pulling the latch and swinging the windows outward into the night. The heat hits her like a small fist. She had taken the air-conditioned hospital for granted.

  Eventually, after convincing herself that this was the only way, Beatriz jumps out the window into a hedge. It seems to her that she’s flying, in slow motion, through the air. The drugs help her landing. She’s still medicated enough to not really feel that her arm is broken.

  Finding the harbor is not easy. She has no idea where she is, but once she gets beyond the grounds, there are prostitutes on every corner. She figures she’s got to be close to the dock.

  She has no idea what time it is. From the shadows she watches the yawning guard on the dock for half an hour. She’s starting to feel her arm. Eventually, he steps out of the light and behind a few boxes to relieve himself, and Beatriz steals quietly up the plank. She cocoons herself in Columbus ’s cabin, under his bed.

  She has no plan and she is equipped with only her love for Columbus. Her sons are in good hands at the monastery. They’re safe and well cared for. She and Columbus will discover the new route together. Well, no, that won’t work. Not with that ego of his. Even though he plays at being the selfless navigator without ships, Beatriz knows there’s an ego in there. Now that he’s got his ships and he’s off, he’ll need her to keep that swollen self-worth in check. It’s a good thing she’s there. Well, she’s going to be there for everything.

  The gash in her face was painful at first but the pills from the hospital, which she choked down dry, keep her mostly numb. There’s a physician on board, she remembers. He’ll take care of my arm in the morning, after they sail. Maybe he can look at this gash in my face, too. Her arm only feels a little funny as she slides under his bed and drifts into a dead sleep.

  ***

  All the signs are there, but he denies them. Most of the time he stops his love and desire at the door. To love this woman is not a hard thing. He chooses to love Consuela. But these other emotions are tied to the idea of love. The symptoms of being in love, when she is around, are unmistakable. Sometimes he finds it difficult to breathe. His heartbeat quickens when she is around. He can’t eat if he thinks about her, does not want to eat, does not care about food. He wants to make love with her-to be lost, as Columbus is lost with so many of his lovers. To drink wine with her. To drink her body with his fingertips, his lips… to kiss. Ah, to kiss Consuela would be to die sweetly. But he denies entrance to these emotions. He will not let them exist where he lives. They have to wait outside. Why? What is it in him that denies Consuela?

  “You win again,” he says. “That’s checkmate. I’m never going to understand the nuances of this game.”

  “ Columbus, you’re not fucking with me, are you? You’re not letting me win?”

  “Why would I do that? I care about you.”

  “Well, you just avoided the question by asking a question, and I suspect you are so much more than you appear to be.”

  “This was a long game, and the lead vacillated between us the entire match. You won it by making better moves.”

  “Oh, Columbus, I’m not sure if that’s an answer.”

  He looks at her as she sets the chessmen in their starting positions. Her astounding blue eyes-a cross between periwinkle and navy. Shoulder-length black hair and a smile that ruins him. It’s as if her smiles do not come from a shallow place but, rather, come from the holy place in her, where prayers, and faith, and love exist. It is not that she rarely smiles. Consuela smiles often. It is just that he has noticed her smiles are not frivolous. They are, indeed, like prayers, like colorful flags with prayers printed on them.

  “ Columbus?”

  I must be tired, he thinks. The in-love Columbus normally does not lean this far toward Consuela. And he’s not done yet. He considers what it would be like making love with her. The sounds she might make. The feel of her skin. Her scents. The feel of the back of her leg, just beneath her buttocks. Her ankles. Her armpits. Her mouth on his. Her mouth kissing him. Surrender. Surrendered…

  “ Columbus!” Consuela is smiling. He’s lost. He’s off dreaming about himself, she thinks. Dreaming about sailing. “Hello, Columbus? This is Nurse Consuela to Columbus. Are you there?”

  “Yes, I’m here. Where else would I be? A new game, then. A game in which I shall endeavor to humble you with my chess skills.” He rubs his hands together and studies the board. Columbus stills his breathing. He stops thinking about Consuela. He looks at the board as if it is the first time he’s ever played chess.

  Consuela smiles. “That’s what I want to hear.” You are a liar, she thinks. But such a lovely liar.

  Columbus looks at the board. It is not in his character to make sure all the pieces face the front, or even the same way for that matter. When it comes to chess, the symbol of the piece-even a haphazard representation-is enough. Once each piece is in place, he will pause and look over the terrain. He will think through every beginning sequence he can remember. He will try and match the beginning of a game to the time of day, the weather, or the color of the sky. Sometimes
he’ll play something stupid just to see the result.

  Consuela pushes a pawn two squares into the center of the board. Columbus thinks about pawns-the quiet, underestimated foot soldiers-the soul of chess.

  He smiles at Consuela, but she can see it is forced. “Selena,” he says, “came to say good-bye. She came to Palos, to say good-bye.”

  ***

  Selena has never asked anything of Columbus. Not a promise. Not a conversation. Not even a word about when he might be back. Nothing. They communicated with loving gentleness and soft pleasure. She did not need words, or promises, or pronouncements of love or devotion. Their couplings became candlelit rituals. They moved toward holiness. This holiness was all Selena required of him. She took the sporadic love-making as a small gift to herself whenever he happened to visit the estate where she worked. She took the half-dozen or so postcoital conversations as glimpses-not as a summation of a man. Only the moments mattered. The moments were beautiful. Perhaps this is stupid, she thinks. But I just want to speak my love.

  The night before Columbus sails, she waits. She arrives at 8 P.M. and waits. She waits at Starbucks, nursing a coffee for as long as it will go, and then ordering another. Part of her wants to run. Columbus intimidates her-his desire, this dream of his, consumes or pushes everything in its path out of the way. But she is also in awe of his drive and his intelligence. With each hour that passes, she faces her flight instinct. And each time, her need to communicate her feelings wins out. She just wants to ask this one thing of Columbus -she wants him to listen to her love. That’s all. She does not need a return declaration. She only needs him to smile and nod his understanding. She tells herself that if this fails, she will have at least tried. She will at least have tried to tell him what she feels.

  At 12:10 A.M., she considers the possibility that he didn’t get her message. She thinks about the last time Columbus visited the estate outside Córdoba. They walked in the fields behind the barns, each step releasing swirls of heady, thick lavender scent around them. He’d passed her a bottle of wine with a cork pushed in just far enough for easy access. She drank and remembers the sweet hint of apple in the wine, the pervading scent of lavender, the clusters of stars and galaxies swirling in the sky, the small jangling sound of bells from a flock of sheep across the road. They sat for a long time in silence. It seemed something was on his mind and he’d turned inward-he seemed to be dancing with a problem or a decision, and Selena honored his silence. She would not ask what was wrong, nor would she ask what he was thinking about.