Waiting For Columbus (40 page)

He refuses Consuela’s invitations to swim in the morning. He refuses to bathe. He makes a pass at Elena, who considers his proposition and agrees to meet him. One of the orderlies finds them in a closet, embracing, kissing. Columbus disengages, thanks her, and goes to his room.

“I have to tell you something. I know, I know you’re sad right now and don’t really want me around. I respect that. And you can have as much space as you need. It’s just that …” She stops. She’s not even sure he’s awake.

Consuela is speaking through the little wire-mesh portal in his door. Columbus has his back to the door, is leaning against it, rocking slightly, staring straight ahead at the window. It’s 5 A.M. The nightmare dream woke him and he had no idea what to do. Going back to sleep was not an option. Walking the hallways would require breaking out of his room. He knows how to do this. It’s a matter of lining up the tumblers inside the lock with a straight pin, keeping tension with the tine of a fork. He knows that picking the lock again and walking around the institute freely is an activity that would certainly be frowned upon.

This dream is a swift horror. The first steps in a series of events he knows. He knows where this dream ends. The destination is a familiar terror. He’s been avoiding direct acknowledgment of it for so long. In the darkness, he throws his legs over the edge of the bed, sits up, sighs. Walks over to the dresser and bends forward to see himself in the mirror. Dark shadows. Narrow face. Sunken eyes. He leans over the washbasin and pulls tepid water to his face, does it again, and again. He reaches for his towel but it’s fallen to the floor. Once he finds the towel, he sniffs it for any hint of mildew, then dries his face and hands. After pacing for more than an hour, he’s tired, ready for sleep, but not if that dream is waiting. And one can never be sure about dreams. So he hunches, leans back against the door, and rocks himself into a sort of meditative state. Her voice is a whisper inside his meditation. At first he’s not sure it’s real. He’s not even sure it’s a woman’s voice.

“I have to tell you something. Are you there?”

“Yes.” He whispers, a kind of mimicking echo.

“I think I need to let a different nurse take care of you. Maybe Nurse Emily. Or Frances. You always said you liked Nurse Frances.”

“Why?” The thought of losing Consuela wakes him up fully—starts panic in him.

Yes, she thinks. Why would I think I could get away with not answering the why?

Columbus waits.

“Because I care for you in the wrong way.”

“Is there a wrong way to care for someone?”

“Well, yes, when you are the patient and I am your nurse. There’s a line. It’s professional.”

“And?”

“And I have feelings that go beyond professional.”

“So it’s okay for a patient to love a nurse, but not the other way around? That hardly seems fair.”

“You love …?”

“I have to get up. My knees are killing me.”

“Columbus?” She’s been whispering but now it’s her full voice.

“You have seen me at my very worst, Consuela. You’ve seen me stripped bare of dignity, clothing, pride, and still … you found me. You found me and kept me safe.” He stops. How could I
not
love this woman? he thinks.

They sit on the stiff wooden bench in silence for a long time, the television in the dayroom just loud enough to be heard but not loud enough to be deciphered. It’s some show about oceans. There are colorful fish and coral reefs. Consuela is torn. She wants him to finish his tale, but she does not want to lose Columbus. She had no illusions about awkwardness. She had confidence that there would be awkwardness between them. Just by telling him her feelings, no matter how oblique, she crossed a line.

She looks up at the television, then down at the floor. Columbus clears his throat and Consuela smiles.

“The Church of St. George in the town of Palos is a small stone structure with a modest bell tower. It was a mosque at some point in its history. Now a cross crowns its highest tower.”

Inside, soft cathedral light fingers its way through fine dust. A cluster of candles illuminates one corner. The coolness of this sanctum conflicts with the pervading heat outside.

Tomorrow is the day, Columbus thinks as he enters the building. His captains will board their respective ships. They will all wait for him. They’ll wait for him to board the
Santa Maria
. And then, with the blessing of the church, they will set sail for the Canary Islands, and then they will push the edges of knowledge.

Columbus sits on one of the wooden pews and Father Antonio, who has come to bless the voyage in the morning, joins him. After a few minutes of silence, Columbus nods his head in some sort of inner understanding, as if he’s made up his mind about something.

“Father forgive me, for I have sinned,” he says. “And I am about to sin.”

“Speak, my son,” Father Antonio says. “My friend, what is on your mind? What weighs on you?”

“I have lied to all these men, Father. I’ve told them we can sail easily to Japan and to the Indies and the lands of Marco Polo. In truth, I have no idea how far it is across the ocean.”

“You don’t know? But all this time—”

“Just words. I lied to the king, to the queen, to the university commission. I know in my heart there is land out there but I don’t know how far. The only way to find out is to sail and see for ourselves.”

The father is silent, turned inward. “You want my blessing?” he says finally.

“No, Father. I seek no blessing. I only need you to listen. I no longer have the heart to carry on. I no longer wish to continue on this
journey. I have my ships. I have provisions and crewmen. But I no longer have my heart. Forgive me, Father.”

Silence resorts to itself in the small church. Then the sound of a sparrow in one of the high windows. One problem at a time, Father Antonio is thinking. Columbus has no idea what he’s doing. He has no idea how far he’ll have to go to reach land. He’s told all these men, kings and queens and God only knows who else, that he knows this can be done. And now he admits he does not really know. And God? Well, God had to know this. God knows all. And if God knows, then God must want Columbus to do this thing. It is God’s will. What is faith if it is not this journey into the unknown? The journey is a shining example of faith. They are truly in God’s hands.

“Why?” Father Antonio whispers the word. The word becomes more a long escaping stream of gas, a sorrowful sigh. “Why, after all you’ve suffered. After all your difficulties. After all your years of chasing this dream. Why? Why do you wish to give up?”

“I feel something horrible is about to happen. I know some tragedy is following me across the Western Sea.”

“What could you possibly know? Only God knows the future.”

“Juan once suggested that time is nothing but a fluid. The past, the present, the future, all mix together. Water is water is water.”

“Only God sees all, Cristóbal. You are not God. You do not think you are God, do you?”

“No, Father, but my dreams. My nightmares. It’s there! Some awful thing above me. It waits, Father. This journey is doomed to some catastrophe.”

“Cristóbal—”

“So much death. So much death and destruction. And the thing is, I come through all right. Death is all around but it does not come for me.”

“I do not know what to say to you. What do you want to do?”

“I want to defy my fate. I wish to disobey my destiny. I want forgiveness for what I’m about to do.”

“God will forgive you. You have always been a good servant of God.”

Columbus laughs. It’s a sharp-edged, hollow sound that reverberates off the stone walls.

“Am I evil?”

“How can you say this, Cristóbal?”

“Where is evil if not inside of me? Does it exist there?” He points to the cross on the far wall. “Is it inside the men of the Inquisition who torture and kill in the name of God?”

“Not evil, good!”

“Both, Father. Both good and evil are here.” Columbus pounds his chest. “Here … inside of me.”

“What will you do?” Father Antonio has tears in his eyes. He has been a friend to Columbus for many years. He has seen his suffering. “Will you tell the men who believed you that they were wrong?”

“No. I will follow through with my deal. I have a deal with the king and queen and with the merchants who supplied the
Santa Maria
. And my men believe in this dream. I will find something out there. Something. And I will not mean to ruin it all, but I will.”

“Cristóbal.” Father Antonio doesn’t know where to look—does not know what to say.

“If you truly wished to serve God, Father, you would take a sword and kill me. For everything I fear I am about to do.”

“You do not know this, my friend. Nothing is written. The future is not written.”

“And yet, I know.” Columbus stands and he does not feel lighter. No weight has been lifted. Religion, faith, God—all these things fail again, he thinks. They offer nothing. No salvation. No relief. Nothing. “Come, Father, let’s have wine together. We will make our own last supper, yes?”

“I cannot join you tonight, Cristóbal. I don’t have the heart.”

Columbus shrugs and sighs. He doesn’t have the energy to try and
convince Father Antonio to come and have a drink with him. He just wants a drink. So Columbus leaves the disconsolate father sitting on the wooden pew in the church that was once a mosque and walks through the cool, triple-arched doorway into the dusty heat.

Consuela looks him up. She Googles Emile Germain, the Interpol investigator who thinks he knows the identity of her Columbus. She searches his name, along with the words
Interpol
and
missing
. She finds several stories attached to newspapers. She clicks on the link to the
International Herald Tribune
and starts to read.

“My God,” she whispers. She reads about an Interpol investigator, an Agent Germain, who was involved in a gunfight with members of an alleged Al Qaeda cell in Paris. Bullets from the gunfight went through a wall and killed a young girl, who was in bed, asleep. The girl was a promising pianist, a prodigy. The investigator had been looking for a German woman, who’d been missing for almost a year. He’d tracked her to the address in the same building as the young prodigy. The men living on the main level had opened the door, seen the offered Interpol identification, and opened fire on the agent, hitting him twice. They left him in the hallway and fled into the street. The agent dragged himself to the doorway and fired at their car. They fired back. They shot badly, wildly. The sleeping girl was in her bedroom one floor up, in her bed, which was against the outside wall.

When the wine is gone, she opens another bottle and dials her sister’s number. She’d like to call Dr. Balderas but she knows he’s off for a week, skiing in Switzerland with his family.

“Hello, Sis. You’re not going to believe what I just found out. There’s this guy from Interpol …”

Consuela and Columbus are in the long hallway that leads to the pool. The stone walls made the hallway feel cold. The ubiquitous Moorish-style arches persist even in this small space. Columbus stops.