***
Consuela is out for dinner with Faith and Rob. Emile finds them at Enrique Becerrita, one of Consuela’s favorite restaurants. She loves the roast lamb, the pork in crab sauce. But her absolute favorite is the specialty: oxtail croquettes and baked white prawns from Isla Cristina. Consuela picks Becerrita because she knows Rob appreciates the wine cellar, which is outstanding, and there’s actually a cigar menu. Rob smokes the occasional cigar. Faith disapproves.
Consuela drank almost an entire bottle of Cava before hopping in a taxi for the restaurant. This conspicuous consumption is a purposed buffer against her sister’s good intentions. She’s surprised when their dinner isn’t a setup. Faith and Rob arrive without a surprise date for Consuela. There is no tag-along friend. Instead, they have news. Faith is going to have another baby. Consuela is going to be an auntie, again. Faith’s tone is subdued and delicate. She tiptoes toward the word baby-pads the word with cotton batting. Consuela takes her hesitation as an underscoring of the fact that Consuela has no man in her life, no immediate prospect of family. It’s as if she has to be delicate about it because it might upset Consuela, the sister who is so far from having a baby of her own.
“Faith,” she says, “that is the best news I’ve heard in months. Congratulations, you two.” She glances toward the entrance and sees a face she knows-and he’s coming her way. Consuela was about to stand and offer a toast to baby number three. Instead, she stands up to greet him. “Mr. Germain. Emile. What a nice surprise. This is my sister, Faith, and her husband, Rob.”
“I’m so sorry to intrude. Dr. Balderas said I might find you here. Well, he suggested a few places. I left a message at the institute but I thought… well, I have some paperwork I need you to look at with regard to Mr. Columbus.”
“Con? I thought you dropped the Columbus patient.”
“Not now, Faith.” Consuela sits down and picks up her wineglass, takes a big gulp.
“There’s a spot at our table-Emile, is it? You’re welcome to join us.” Rob stands up, motions with his hand.
“I don’t want to intrude.”
“It’s no trouble, no intrusion,” Faith says. “We’d love it if you joined us.”
Consuela looks at Faith, rolls her eyes, then looks up at Emile’s face. “Sit,” she says.
***
After their meal, Faith and Rob say their good-byes. Faith gets one last embarrassing stab at the spinster Consuela by mentioning what a wonderful auntie Consuela is, and what a great mother she’ll make someday.
“Oh God, that’s embarrassing,” Consuela says after they’ve disappeared into the throng of pedestrians walking past the restaurant. “I’m sorry.”
“She means well. I can see she means well.”
“Yes, what’s that saying about the road to hell being paved with good intentions?”
Eventually they move to the bar section at the back of the restaurant, where they order another bottle of wine. They start to go over everything they know about Columbus and Julian Nusret. They share information back and forth over good thick wine. They talk about the fact he was found swimming in the Strait of Gibraltar. Consuela does a distilled retelling of the adventures of Columbus. She talks about his escape and his swim across the strait. Emile tells her everything he can remember about Julian Nusret.
“He was a professor who specialized in fourteenth-and fifteenth-century European history. Last spring, while on vacation in Spain with his family-he had a wife and two daughters-they wound up at the wrong place, at the wrong time. Madrid train station on the morning of the bombings. For some reason, he was separated from his family on a train platform the morning of March 11. His wife and two daughters were killed. There were reports of people seeing this Julian Nusret after the explosions but he disappeared… vanished.”
He tells her about the eyewitnesses, about the chaos, the screaming and blood everywhere. Witnesses say they remember the strangest things. A bird singing. An airplane. The temperature of the pavement. The curve of a twisted bit of train track. A hovering silence. Then the sirens started. “One of my witnesses said the missing man was crying. One woman only noticed somebody holding a leather bag, looking through the rubble. Apparently he stopped to help several people get out of the wreckage.”
Emile reaches across the table, gently slides his fingers inside hers. “My guys say just a few more days for the DNA results, but I’m convinced.”
Consuela feels like she’s going to cry and she doesn’t want to do that. She’s so tired.
***
Consuela joins Columbus on the upper dining-room patio where he is taking his coffee. She does not know how Columbus has managed to get Frederica to make him espresso every day. She’s almost afraid to ask. It’s midmorning. He’s got one of the sturdy wooden chairs from the dining room leaned back against the stucco wall. Thick clouds obscure the sun and extend to the horizon. The air is humid and sweet.
“I want to tell you a story,” she says. “Now that you have delivered the ships to Columbus and he’s out of the picture, I thought it might be a good time for me to tell you a story.”
“How fortuitous,” he says, smiling. “It seems I’ve temporarily run out, and here you are. Thank you.”
“Oh, don’t thank me yet. You might not like this one.”
“I love all stories. Don’t worry about me.”
“Okay,” she says slowly. “This story is about this professor. He worked in Canada, at McGill University, in Montreal. His wife and two daughters were killed-”
“I don’t want to hear this story.”
“Not all stories are happy,” she says. “Not all stories can be happy.”
Columbus stands up. His chair folds onto the ground with a bang. The espresso demitasse shatters. “Stories can be whatever you want them to be,” he says.
Consuela fights the impulse to reach out and touch his hand. “Life is not a story, Columbus.”
“Of course life is a story. Life is only a story.”
“Sometimes bad things happen in our lives, and eventually we have to face them. We can’t hide… not forever.”
“This is not a good story,” he says. “I don’t like this. I can’t…”
Columbus is rocking back and forth, stalled between sitting again and leaving. His back is to her-his gaze is across the courtyard, toward a gathering of orange trees. Consuela pulls the folding chair off the ground, sets it back up, sits back down in her chair, and waits. He keeps rocking.
“I want to go,” he says, finally. He doesn’t move.
“Go then,” she says. “But can I say something before you go?”
Another long pause and then in a whisper: “Okay, but not that story.”
“It’s just… you were someone before you came here… I think you know this.”
“I’m not that guy. That’s not me.”
“Look, if you ever want to tell me your story, I can listen with an open heart. Telling someone what happened is important. It’s the same as you letting me know the story of how Columbus got his ships.”
He starts to mutter. She can barely hear him. “There’s no rule. There is no rule. There is no rule. There is no rule.”
“No rule?”
“Grieving. No rules about grieving. No rules about how to be sad.”
“I’m here when… if you’re ready. You know I can listen, and-”
“I’m not that guy. I have to go.” He starts off across the courtyard-small, quick steps. “That’s not me.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
Five days later, Consuela gets a call from Emile, excited and babbling like an idiot. It’s three in the morning. Consuela had just drifted off, after a night with the girls at a flamenco bar. She definitely had too much sangria, talked too much, had a puff of someone’s cigarette, drank some more, and got up and danced. She doesn’t dance. She most certainly does not dance flamenco. She did tonight.
She almost does not recognize his voice. He’s shouting above loud music, calling from the bathroom
of a bar-telling her to Wake up. Wake up for Christ’s sake.
“Have you been drinking? Do you realize what time it is?”
“Those are excellent questions, Consuela. The answers are yes, and it doesn’t matter. I talked to his brother. He called from Quebec City two days ago.”
“Who? Whose brother?”
“Julian’s-your Columbus -his brother. We talked for an hour. He told me Julian and his wife honeymooned in Tangier.” The music gets louder for a few seconds, like someone just opened a door and then let it shut.
“Tangier, so?” Consuela is not following. Why is Emile so excited?
“Julian went on his honeymoon in Tangier. In Morocco. Across the Strait of Gibraltar. It’s the piece of the puzzle I didn’t have an answer for. I didn’t understand how the Strait of Gibraltar fit until now.”
“Okay, I’m wide awake.”
“Look, I’ll be back in Sevilla tomorrow night. I’ll call you when I get in.” He hangs up. Consuela sits and looks at the receiver in her hand until it beeps. She hangs it up and then sits in her bed until she has to pee. Sleep does not come easy. It is finally purchased with two glasses of warm milk and a shot of brandy. She does not work the next day, sleeps until 9 A.M., and goes to the gym. She calls Dr. Balderas, tells him what Emile told her. She meets Emile in the bar at Enrique Becerra. He kisses her gently on each cheek-then pulls back a bit, looks at her with pure joy. “I missed you, Consuela,” he says.
Dr. Balderas weaves his way through the restaurant toward their table.
“He was trying to connect with his wife,” Dr. Balderas says. Before he sits down, the owner, a man Consuela could easily imagine as Salvos from Columbus ’s story, comes over immediately and shakes the doctor’s hand.
“Wine?” he says. “I have an extraordinary pinot I know you’d love. The blackberry flavors practically jump out and slap you in the face.”
“That sounds fine, Ernesto.”
Dr. Balderas sits down across from Consuela and Emile, who look amused and surprised. “I’m a regular,” he says. “We play chess.”
“What do you mean he was trying to connect with his wife?” Consuela says.
“Swimming the Strait of Gibraltar was a subconscious desire to join his wife, the memory of his wife in Tangier. Something in Columbus was trying to connect with his wife.”
They sit silently as the waiter appears at their table, opens the wine with a certain efficiency, and pours with elegance. Dr. Balderas tastes the wine-lets a sliver roll around his mouth, waits, then looks up at the waiter and gives an almost imperceptible nod.
“So,” Consuela says. “What do we do now?”
***
The day is a gift. The morning air is fragrant with the heavenly scent of orange trees. But it’s also humid and hot. The sky is already a striking, flawless blue. There is no wind. Not even a faint breeze. It’s as if the day is holding its breath along with Consuela. She and Columbus are in the lower courtyard, moving toward the swimming pool. He is in front of her, in his robe, a towel draped around his neck. She stops walking, stands still, and watches as he moves away from her. Her heart is racing.
“Julian,” she says.
Columbus stops. He does not turn around. His legs wobble; they buckle. He goes down hard, and then he is kneeling on the cement.
Consuela moves in front of him, crouches, then sits cross-legged on the ground.
His hands cover his face. “My daughters’ names are Chloe and Jane. Jane is thirteen. Chloe is eleven. My wife, was lovely. I found them… I was chasing someone… and then I found them. I thought it was thunder. But the sky was blue. It was so blue. They were so beautiful.”
He’s having a hard time with his breathing. Can’t seem to get a full breath.
“Chloe and her mother were together, peaceful, embraced. Jane was alone. I couldn’t find her arms. I don’t want this… I don’t want to feel this. My little girl’s arms were gone.”
Consuela stops breathing. Not breathing is the only appropriate response she can muster. This catches her by surprise. She doesn’t want this, either. She wants to be alone in her bed curled into a ball, headphones on, and drunk beyond compare. She does not want this picture. It’s a picture that will never go away. She takes a breath.
“I know,” she says. Consuela leans forward to embrace him and he collapses into her.
Julian arrives back at the station, winded and confused. Three thunderous bangs and a clear blue sky. There’s so much smoke. People screaming. He’s going down a flight of stairs toward the smoke-fighting against desperate people moving in the opposite direction. He’s going the wrong way. Bombs, someone says. Bombas. He pushes through people. At the same time, he’s looking at faces. What were they wearing? What were his girls wearing? He just needs a glimpse of a face or a garment. He begins to see bodies through the smoke, some still alive, some not moving. They won’t be here, he tells himself. They’re already out in the street looking for him. They won’t be here. They’re not here. A silence enfolds the scene.
Consuela is not sure she wants to hear any more. He’s telling his own story now-a hesitant revelation in a hoarse whisper. There is no fifteenth-century façade. And just like that, she thinks, Columbus vanishes.
Julian helps a slender young woman with a head wound to the stairs-starts her on her way up and out. He keeps looking, but they’re not here. Chunks of train everywhere. He pushes over a seat. Gets tripped up on some wire that grabs his pant leg and won’t let go. He picks up somebody’s running shoe-the laces are singed. Does he remember what Jane was wearing? Chloe? Jane, a gray hoodie. Chloe, a blue shirt with the name of some hip-hop guy on it. Rashmi… Rashmi is wearing. What the hell is Rashmi wearing? Doesn’t matter-they’re up on the street looking for him. He carries the shoe for a while. Somewhere among the wreckage and the bodies and the smoke, he drops Rashmi’s bag, her poems. This bag has become irrelevant. It no longer matters. He has to find them. He does not remember hearing anything. At some point there were sirens but not for a long time. He stops, jumps to the tracks to help an elderly Japanese man to his feet. The man is holding his left forearm with his right hand. Lots of blood. He pushes the old man up onto the platform. The smoke is making him dizzy. He craves a breath of clear air. He’s moving in slow motion through wreckage. Why did this happen? Who would do this? He’s hazy, staggering. He trips over a dead dog, a German shepherd. He turns around and finds a single black pump and knows. This is one of Rashmi’s pumps.
“They were so beautiful,” he says to Consuela.
He does not retreat from reality but an overriding grief wraps itself tightly around Julian. His voice flattens. He becomes methodical and pragmatic. Some things need doing, others do not. Bits of the past year drift in and out of his consciousness. He remembers swimming. He remembers the strait. He remembers a small child named Aabida. And there was a story, a tale, an adventure. He remembers being Columbus as if Columbus were a beautiful dream. But none of this matters anymore. He’s going home. Maybe there is a life there, in Montreal. There is a house. He remembers a house. There are the pieces of a life. There is a city he loves. He’s going home.
The gears go into motion. A woman from the Canadian embassy arrives the next day and interviews Julian. She is efficient, well briefed, and extremely compassionate. Three days. He’ll be on an airplane in three days. She’s taken care of a replacement passport but a passport is hardly necessary. They’re sending an airplane. This woman will be on the plane with him. She’ll take him home. Julian declines an offer of putting him up in a hotel. He’ll stay at the institute for three more days.
***
Dr. Balderas smiles into his office and barely recognizes his patient. Julian’s hair is combed. He’s fully dressed. Even his posture is more upright-he seems pulled up and taller. He seems more intense, more present, and very sad.
The cloudy light steals through the venetian blinds to give the room an even flush. It’s a kind light. Not gloomy. Doves, Julian thin
ks. This sky is the color of doves. There were doves on campus, outside his office window, in Montreal. Turtledoves or mourning doves-doves of some kind anyway. A combination of grays, with tinges of brown. That color is this day. This day is gray and delicate and hollow.
“I have to ask,” Dr. Balderas says.
“Julian. My name is Julian Mehmet Nusret, Doctor. I was named after a famous Turkish writer, who was an advocate for free speech, particularly the right to criticize fundamentalist Islam. I understand Al Qaeda has claimed responsibility for the bombings.”
“Still to be determined, but yes.”
“Irony.”
“I am truly sorry for your losses, Julian.” The doctor stops, picks up a small sculpture of a horse, examines it, measures its weight in his hand, then places it carefully back where it belongs. “Where is home, by the way?”
“You know very well where my home is, Doctor. Montreal. Do you want me to recite my address and postal code, too?”
Dr. Balderas smiles. “I’ve never been to Canada. I hear it’s beautiful.”
“Listen, I want to thank you for not giving up on me. I…” He shakes his head. “I’m at a loss.”
“It’s all right. I wouldn’t know where to begin, either.”
“I hope I wasn’t too much trouble.”
“It was an interesting journey, Julian.”
They sit in silence. A squeaky metal cart moves by in the corridor outside the closed door. Julian can smell coffee. He turns toward the smell.
“Do you want a cup of coffee? I just made a press.”
“I would. Black. Thank you. What is it the Turks say about coffee? That it should be black as hell, strong as death, and sweet as love? I’ll forgo the sweetness today.”
The doctor gets up and retreats to the small sitting area behind his desk. He comes back with two steaming mugs.
“I take mine black, too,” he says.
Julian inhales the scent of the coffee like he’s been away from it for years. He takes a sip. Closes his eyes. He places the mug carefully on a stone coaster on the side table. “What happens now?” he says. “My daughters, my wife, gone, and I should have been there, with them, to protect-”
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