Waiting For Columbus (34 page)

“But it’s been all your work, your dream, your idea.”

“But it’s no longer my destiny. It’s the destiny of Spain, and of human beings.”

“But you want it to happen, right?”

In the morning, they look out from under their blankets into a thick, white light. A vast whiteout encloses the campsite.

“Columbus?” Juan says. “It’s a whiteout. We should try and climb up and out of it.”

They stand up and immediately lose sight of each other. Columbus takes a few steps toward where he last saw a fading Juan. Juan gathers up his blanket and, dizzy in all the whiteness, staggers a few paces. He feels the shrubs scratching his legs before he sees them.

Columbus faces the forest, thinking it’s the mountain valley. He is suddenly struck with a thought about the view. There is no proof my view ever existed, he thinks. There is only memory. Is it my memory or my faith that tells me this mountain valley existed? He turns again to try and fix where Juan is but cannot see anything. “Juan?”

“Here.”

The voice is behind Columbus, perhaps. He’s not sure.

“Have you moved from the spot where you slept?” It’s Juan’s voice again. Columbus looks down toward his feet and can barely see them.

“I don’t know,” he says. “I can barely see the ground.”

“Well, don’t move. The cliff is not far. And—”

“Juan? Juan?”

“I’m here. I think you’re in front of me. Say something.”

“This is stupid. I’m going to move up this ridge,” Columbus says.

“Which direction is up? Where is the cliff?”

Columbus looks around at the white haze. “These are good questions,” he says. “So we wait then.”

“Yes. I think that would be wise.”

Columbus begins to feel tightness in his chest. He wants to run for the light and open air. A hopeless desire for blue sky grows in him. His eyes squint into the blankness for a direction. Then the scream pushes up from his gut to his brain. It explodes into his feet.
Run!
it says.
Run! Get the hell out of this whiteness!
Columbus begins to run in the direction he’s facing.

“Don’t move!” Juan screams. But Columbus runs smack into him and knocks him over the edge of the cliff.

Before he sits up, Columbus sees blue sky, feels a cool mountain breeze on his face, and hears a faint “Help, help, Columbus.”

He pokes his head over the edge of the cliff and sees Juan dangling by his sword belt from the root of a tree. “Juan?”

“Cristóbal, lower some of that rope, quickly. What have you been doing up there all morning?”

“What happened?”

“Just lower the rope and pull me up. Please.”

When they are seated on the cliff’s edge, passing a bota of wine between them, Columbus looks at Juan and smiles.

“How did you fall off the cliff?”

Juan takes a good gulp of wine. Winces. Touches his head delicately. Looks at his friend.

“I guess I panicked and took a wrong step.” One more little incident like this and I could be dead, Juan thinks. This is the man who wants to drag all of humanity to their destiny across uncharted water? Who wants to create a new passage to India, and the lands of Marco Polo? This is the man who still has to convince men to follow him on his journey, a queen and a king to trust him? I should begin praying now and not quit until the day I die and still there would not be enough prayer.

A true friend, Columbus is thinking. Juan has lied kindly twice already to spare my feelings. This is a man worthy of much love. Here is the greater man of the two of us.

“I think perhaps it was I who panicked and knocked you over,” he says.

“No, Cristóbal, it was—”

“Juan, you did no such thing. Let’s eat.”

Behind them, the distance of ten men, the sound of a rock falling. The skittering sound of it down a steep slope.

“Did you hear that, Juan?”

Juan pulls slowly on the hilt of his sword. Draws it out and stands up. “Yes.”

“There’s my problem,” Columbus says, not noticing Juan has drawn his sword. “That rock back there is my greatest problem.”

“A rock, Cristóbal?”

“My biggest worry.”

“A rock—”

“That rock is the one true challenge of this entire adventure.”

Juan keeps his eyes and ears focused on the direction of the rock sound. “Perhaps we should eat something. I have some dried meat.” He twists and rustles in his pack behind him.

“You think I am crazy sometimes.”

Juan wants to scream,
Yes!
Yes, you are many, many times crazy. You are beyond crazy tenfold. Goofy, insane, ridiculous, a fool with no equal! But he remembers the dream of simply wanting to set sail and find out what’s there, regardless of the dangers. He can well understand this. He knows this desire.

“You have great pressures and hardships,” Juan says.

“All my pressures and any hardships are made small by my friends, by Beatriz and you, and Isabella and …” He encloses the end of his thought inside himself.

Columbus drinks from the skin. Passes it to Juan, who also drinks.

“Oh, getting the ships and men and supplies and finally embarking is challenge enough. Convincing ninety men that it’s perfectly safe to sail out past the point of no return, and then to sail beyond the point of going back safely. This is also a challenge.

“We will discover what there is to discover. This I am sure of. But to simply discover is not a discovery. Like the rock back there. It falls whether there is anybody to notice it or not.” He looks hard at Juan’s face. “We must make it back and shout the discovery to anyone who can hear. We must bring back news of the falling rock. We must prove the falling rock exists. Then, and only then, is our discovery complete.”

“Our discovery?”

“You are coming along, are you not?”

“I have no ocean skills. No experience. I don’t know.”

“Bring your paints and record what you see. Better, record what you feel.”

Dr. Balderas has decided that a day-trip to the ocean might be just
the thing for about a dozen of his patients—the safe ones. It’s about sixty miles to Punta Umbria and its nearest beach, Playa La Mata Negra. Dr. Balderas remembers these beaches from his youth. His parents used to go to this particular beach every summer for two weeks, at least in the years when they weren’t fighting. He remembers the golden sand, crystal-clear water, and a particular silky quality to the air. How could this not be therapeutic?

On Friday afternoon, he sits down at his favorite café with a double espresso and makes a list. He’s been through the files. Pope Cecelia and Arturo make the list. Cecelia has been experiencing spells of lucidity in which she remembers her life, her name, her family. Arturo, well, he’s just slow. Not a bad thing on a sandy ocean beach. Columbus makes the list despite his escape attempts. Dr. Balderas is impressed with the effort he’s been seeing from Columbus. In his opinion, Columbus wants to get better, wants to get to the bottom of his delusion. That perceived honest effort goes a long way with Dr. Balderas. Mercedes is not on the list. The beach is a dirty place. And there’s nowhere for her to wash her hands. He chuckles to himself when he thinks about Mercedes. The audacity of
a kleptomaniac with a hand-washing compulsion is too much. On Monday morning he gets his nurses to gather a group of thirteen peaceful patients, five orderlies, and three nurses, including Consuela, and by midmorning they’re headed to the beach.

The temperature is a very comfortable twenty-two degrees Celsius when they arrive. Not a cloud in the sky. The orderlies set up four large umbrellas, and the nurses spread blankets. Pope Cecelia demands a chair so she is higher than everyone else. An orderly finds a beach chair and places it in the shade. She’s wearing her usual three robes. Columbus is wearing an institute-assigned maroon robe, and he immediately goes down to the edge of the water and walks into the skittering surf. The water is warm but also refreshing. It jumps and spits at the bottom of his robe, tickles his calves. He goes into the water up to his knees, looks out to sea, breathes. Observes the waves. Breathes some more. He loves the smell of the ocean. The sounds. The shushing waves meeting land. The awkward gull calls. For a few minutes, he is happy standing up to his knees in the ocean, the gulls hovering carefully above the offshore waves. At the same time, he realizes there are two orderlies, one up the beach and one down the beach, watching him. There is no need to turn around and look. He feels them. He can smell them.

Alberto, a patient who as far as Columbus can see is perfectly normal except that he is openly homosexual, throws a red ball the size of a large orange toward Columbus. Shouts, “Heads up, Columbus!”

He turns and snatches the ball out of the air, an almost automatic gesture, then throws it back to Alberto. Columbus walks back to the umbrella encampment and sits down. He begins to wait.

Elena comes over and sits beside him. Regardless of the fact that she does not speak, he has enjoyed having her around. She has a good energy. It costs him nothing to be with her—she’s not a taker of energy.

“What do you see out there, Columbus?” Elena says. A creaky half whisper interwoven with the sound of the waves feathering the shore.

Columbus wants to turn toward her. He wants to ask her what she
means. He wants to be sure he just heard her say something. But all these options would ruin it—erode the magic of Elena speaking. He decides to trust himself. Of course she spoke.

“Freedom,” he says softly.

“If I can help, let me know,” she says, even more withdrawn than before.

Columbus turns toward her. Finds her face, her eyes. Her eyes are hazel. She pushes a few strands of hair away from her face—in behind her ear.

“Thank you, Elena.”

“It’s what wounds you that you love,” she says.

“I don’t know my wounds,” he says.

“You will,” she says.

Two of the orderlies begin to set up folding tables for a midday meal. Columbus gets up and offers his assistance, which they accept. At least this way they know exactly where he is.

After lunch, he and Alberto go for a stroll along the beach. Columbus nods to Benito, who looks more weighed down than usual, seems more resigned to the fact that life is hard. Benito says nothing but follows, leaving them plenty of room.

“You really are crazy if you think you can do this,” Alberto says.

“Perhaps. But will you help me?”

“Of course. It is a small thing you ask. I hope you make it.”

They walk a bit more. Alberto stops to pick up a starfish and throws it back into the ocean. They both watch as it is swallowed by the incoming waves. “What exactly are you in here for, Alberto?” Columbus says.

“I like men.”

“That’s it?”

“That fact alone, which I do not deny, makes me crazy. I am insane because I am not physically attracted to women. There are a few other things, small problems with coping. I don’t handle stress well.”

“How long have you been in here?”

He closes his eyes. And then softly: “A year and a half.”

It’s a simple plan. Around two o’clock, Alberto kneels at Pope Cecelia’s side and whispers that Elena has been spreading a rumor about her. “She’s been saying that you’re the Antichrist,” he says. Cecelia glares at Elena and Elena nods—confirms the alleged rumor. Cecelia goes completely ballistic. She splinters. She stands and, with strength one would not normally attribute to a woman of her age, she tosses her beach chair at the nearest food table, which collapses—spills the small loaves of bread, meat, cheese, and bottles of water into the sand. Condiments splatter across most of the patients. The collapsed table bangs into the other table and it teeters. Pope Cecelia lunges at Elena, attempts to grab her neck, wants to choke the lie out of this sinner. Elena holds out one of her long arms and keeps Cecelia at bay until the orderlies can stop her. James, who has narrow, scary eyes, has mustard spilled across his shirt and pants. He caws like a crow—raspy squawks. These caws come sporadically, surprising not only those around him but also James. He has no control whatsoever. He caws now as he attempts to get at the pope. He accidentally steps on Howard, who’s mostly deaf and had been sleeping on his back throughout the ruckus. Howard comes to, sits up, in a foul mood—wants to know why James has stepped on his arm.