Waiting For Columbus (18 page)

Consuela feigns sickness, takes three days off. She needs to shake her dream away, find her footing before she faces Columbus again. On her first day, she reads in bed until noon, drinks a bottle of Cava with a bowl of strawberries, and sleeps. She walks to a restaurant for dinner, meets her sister, Faith, who is a psychologist. She’s married to a really decent man named Rob, has two amazing girls, and lives in an upscale neighborhood in Córdoba. She has a thriving practice and is in Sevilla for a convention of clinical psychologists.

“I think I’m in love.” Consuela blurts it out even before Faith sits down and then doubts herself immediately. Why in God’s name would I start down this road when I know very well what’s at the end? Shut up,
shut up, shut up, she tells herself. Change the subject. Talk about the goddamned weather.

Faith pushes her sunglasses up into her hair, which is chestnut-colored and pulled neatly back behind her ears. Perfect silver earrings the size of pesos in each ear. Her face is narrow, kind, open. She’s wearing a gray silk blouse with too many buttons and a black, ankle-length skirt, slit on one side to the knee. There’s roundness at her belly, a small roll—in fact, if Faith was not as tall as she is, she might qualify as plump. But she is tall. She does not appear to be overweight. The net result is softness. There are no hard edges to Faith. The only thing that is not soft is her walk. Faith has no sway—there’s nothing fluid in her stride. She walks with a stiffness that screams she’s all business—very serious.

“I don’t think I can remember you being this excited about a man,” she says. “Is it serious?”

“Oh, it’s nothing. I got a raise.”

“What do you mean it’s nothing? I’ve never seen you this bubbly. Tell me.”

“I’d rather talk about you, Sis. How are the girls? What’s new with Rob? I haven’t seen you for too long.”

Faith persists. “Is it serious?”

“Of course, it’s serious,” Consuela says, finally giving in, and feeling every bit the younger sister.

“As serious as Rolf?”

Consuela looks at her sister’s concerned face. She tries to keep her own face neutral. She fights the impulse to throw her drink at her sister.

“Actually,” Consuela says, “I’m getting back together with Rolf.” She smiles hopefully, as if she hopes Faith will join her in her joy regardless of any past history. And she waits. Watches.

Faith’s face tightens. Rolf and she did not see eye to eye on politics and fought often. Ugly fights about Spain’s immigration policies, about the conflict in Iraq, and about the rampant corruption in government.
Rolf wanted tighter borders, thought Spain ought to be more involved in the Middle East, and believed the government was innocent as the day is long. It didn’t take much to get them going. Faith breathes long and exhales even longer, like she’s meditating, trying to regain her calm. She leans back in her chair—places a foot on the seat, drapes her wrist over her knee—strikes an at-ease pose. Probably hoping her mind will follow, Consuela thinks.

“I …” Faith starts. She clears her throat of whatever words are stuck there. “I’m happy for you—”

“Oh relax. It’s not Rolf. He’s remarried and living in the south of France. Didn’t I tell you?”

“It’s … it’s not Rolf? Why would you lie about something like this? I’m happy if you’re happy. You know that, Con.”

“Why do you always bring me down like that? Why did you have to bring up Rolf? I mean, I was feeling good, and you remind me of a failure … rub it in my face. Let the damned past be, Faith.” Consuela blinks away her tears, looks across the square at a small fountain with a horse sculpture at its center. Children splashing in the water. Sparrows flirting in the thickness of dark green above the café patio.

“I’m sorry, Connie. I only want you to be happy. I don’t mean to bring you down.”

“I know you don’t do it on purpose.”

“It’s one of my many faults. I know how far from perfect I am. I am a deeply flawed—”

“Stop it, Faith. You’re trying to manipulate me into feeling sorry for you. I’m not going to feel sorry for you. I love you. Can’t we just enjoy each other’s company?”

Faith gulps down her glass of wine. The waiter is there almost instantly to refill their glasses.

“So who is this man?”

“He’s a chart maker, a stargazer, a navigator, and an amazing story-teller.
He is possibly the most romantic man I have ever met. He’s been to Iceland!”

“Iceland?”

“Yes.”

“Does he make a living?”

“Not right now. He’s on a hiatus. But he does and will again.”

“Where did you meet?”

“And he’s very good-looking.”

Then Consuela is quiet. She’s not stupid. She knows this is going to be classified as a failure in Faith’s lexicon of Connie failures. She’s not sure why she’s trying to explain Columbus to Faith. The fact he’s a patient is bad enough. The fact he believes himself to be Christopher Columbus will be several steps beyond bad.

“And where did you meet this man?”

Too late to stop now. “I met him at work,” she whispers.

Faith’s eyes widen. “My God! You’ve fallen for one of your patients! You have to dump him. Immediately! Please tell me you haven’t fucked him yet.”

“It’s not that kind of love—”

“We’re going to have to get you a lawyer. What were you thinking, Sis?” Faith is in full “save Consuela” mode.

Consuela sits silently as her sister rants. Of course she’s right. Falling in love with a patient is ethically, morally, and professionally wrong. The only place it makes sense is in love.

“Does anybody else know about this?”

“I wasn’t thinking,” Consuela says flatly, “I was feeling. I was really feeling.”

“You have to stop treating this patient. What ward is he in?”

A nice way of asking how crazy he is, or what form of crazy is manifesting in him.

“Doesn’t matter,” Consuela says. “Doesn’t matter.”

“The body is an ocean. An ocean of delight. Making love with a
woman is always a voyage of discovery, is it not?” Columbus looks up from the chessboard, laughs. “What a foolish thing to say to a beautiful woman. Forgive me, please.” He has a towel around his neck as he always does after his morning swim. His hair is still wet and pulled back into a ponytail.

It is the day of the feast of Saint Hilarion. They are sitting at a table in one of the upper-courtyard patios. Consuela is winning. Columbus has never even come close to winning a game against her or, as far as she knows, anyone else. Regardless, he seems to enjoy their games. He approaches each match with pleasure—seems fascinated by the journey. He studies her moves as much as his own. Each game is different. He has never repeated an opening, and his responses to her opening moves are always interesting—ultimately stupid but interesting.

“Oh it’s not so foolish,” Consuela says. “I have thought long and hard about making love with a woman. Curious, you know? Surely you’ve considered another man? While on those long, lonely voyages? All alone in your cabin, late at night—you’ve never thought about being with a man?”

“The Bible says it is forbidden for a man to lie down with another man. It says you should not lie with a man, as with woman: it is an abomination. It’s written in Leviticus.”

“So you have thought about it—considered it but dismissed it? Because of some vague mention in the Bible?”

“No, I never considered it in the first place, and then I recognized that the word of God backed up my inclination to not consider it.”

“Ridiculous. Check.”

“It’s a sin. Where?”

“Don’t be silly. Here. My queen.”

“But the Bible—”

“Doesn’t the Bible also say eating shellfish is a greater abomination? In Deuteronomy, I think it mentions shellfish—”

“Okay … okay … but—”

“But you love our crab dinners. That’s checkmate, by the way.”

“Yes, I see.” He studies the board as if he’s memorizing it. Eventually he looks up. “Where was I? Oh, yes … the body is an ocean of delight. Making love with a woman … discovering her secrets, the unknown.”

“It’s like this,” he says.

He massages her breast, focusing his attention on the nipple. When she arches her back in their lovemaking, her breasts disappear. They flatten out and only her nipples protrude.

“When we are at sea, we are this nipple on your body.” His lips brush her nipple and she shivers.

“And this?” Beatriz says, taking his hand, and sliding it downward, across her belly and into the hair of her pubic mound.

“That is what we dream of.”

“Then why do you leave?”

“So that we have something beautiful to dream.”

“And if you stayed? What would you dream?”

“The ocean and what is beyond.”

“There is nothing beyond,” she says.

Columbus smiles in his eyes. “Only the edge of the world,” he says, “and perdition.”

“Why is it that you wish to rush toward death?”

“Death is the ultimate journey, is it not?”

“But you already know what will happen after death,” she says.

“Yes, of course. I know what I have been told. I know what the priests say.”

“And you know that you will sail off the edge if you go too far west.”

“Don’t be ridiculous,” he says. “Nobody, including you, believes the Earth is flat.”

“Shhhh, there are ears everywhere. And besides there are some who still believe the Earth is flat.”

“I can’t speak the truth in my own home?”

“Better to speak the myth. The ears of the bloody Inquisition are everywhere.”

“You are right, of course. The Earth is flatter than a pita bread and there is always the danger of falling off the edge into a great nothingness.”

She smiles. “Then you will stay here with me?”

“Yes, of course … for tonight.”

Her skin holds fading blue-sky tones that enter through the window next to the bed. Each second there is more shadow in the room. He thinks about the sun and where it sinks now into the unknown. The sun disappears into the blank paper beyond the Canary Islands. On all the maps of the world there is only the blank paper for certain. There are theories and dreams and speculations but only emptiness for sure. Well, there was the one chart, which showed some tiny specks far across the sea, but only one chart among so many.

We do not know what is there. But if I sail far enough, I will be
there. And if I sail far enough I will get to where I am. That is the way it is with spheres. And whatever is in between will be discovered. All I have to do is survive the obstacles of starvation, thirst, and storms—and hopelessness. It would be easier to sail across the ocean if I had ships. The ships will come, though. The king and queen cannot afford to pass up an opportunity like this.

He looks at her darkening body. I am sailing off this body, which I know well. I am moving beyond that blank paper, at the edge of the world, beyond the rain. That is where I exist.

“Where are you going?”

He turns at the door, looks back at Beatriz on the bed, sitting up, the sheets pooled around her. He’d like to memorize this picture. This image of Beatriz in bed, asking him with her silky voice where he’s going.
Where are you going?
she says. And the big answer is:
I have no idea, except west
. But he’d love to memorize this image of Beatriz in bed, doing a great favor to the light of the room. “To get another bottle of wine,” he says.