Waiting For Columbus (8 page)

Columbus does not speak about the pool. Nor does Consuela. This silence is a facility of age. They are both old enough to know that in a bureaucracy, a beautiful, innocent thing like this pool can become desecrated. There would be rules and lifeguards, hours of operation, and probably forms to fill out. It’s better to just remain quiet. Benito assumes someone has approved the use of the pool. Consuela does not ask for permission. The pool was there but forgotten. Columbus is just using it. Once a week, Consuela gets up early and enjoys a thirty-minute swim, a luxurious, tepid immersion, before starting her day. This is a gift. She thinks of it as a gift from Columbus. She swims naked. She and Columbus, separated by a few hours, share the same warm water. Consuela does not swim laps. She flounders, drifts around in the water—perhaps she will pull the breaststroke from a childhood memory, swim to the end
of the pool and then stop. Mostly, she delights in the feel of the silky, mineral-rich water.

On the morning of the feast day of Saint Clare, after Columbus swims his laps—eighty-six laps this morning—and after she leaves him in his room, Consuela finds an envelope in her mail slot in the nurses’ lounge. There are identical envelopes in every mail slot. Someone has given all the nurses tickets to the bullfights next weekend. Consuela, who has never been to a bullfight in her life, tells Columbus about the tickets and his face disappears into a memory. “Beatriz loved the bullfights,” he says. “The bullfights are how we met.”

It was at the El Prado Café, near the Plaza de Los Califas, in Córdoba. Columbus was a great lover of the bullfighting. Despite its inherent brutality, for him there was something beautiful about it. He was having an espresso when she walked in—stumbled in. She quite literally fell at his feet. He offered his hand, which she accepted, and then she was sitting at his table.

“Are you all right?”

“I don’t know,” she says. “Embarrassed. I’m embarrassed. I don’t suppose there’s any way that we can pretend that didn’t happen?” Her hair has fallen—a black splash across her face. She attempts to pin it back into place but fails.

“You and I can pretend, of course. But I’m afraid the café is full.”

“Yes, you’re probably right.”

“Are you okay?” he says, looking her over. “Oh, there’s a little blood there, on your lip.”

“I think I bit my lip.” She touches her finger to her lip, pulls it away, and examines the blood.

“Let me get you a cloth.”

“Are you a physician?”

Columbus smiles. “I’m a navigator. A stargazer. An explorer.”

“Three occupations. My, I’m honored to be sitting with such a busy man.”

He’s not quite sure about this, about her. She’s not smiling. Is she making fun of him? Or is this a verbal thrust that he must now parry? He nods in the direction of the doorway.

“It was quite an entrance,” he says. “Is it something you practice?”

Now she smiles. “It’s these damned shoes,” she says. “I can’t get used to them. All the women at court are wearing them—it’s the fashion of the day. How do they say? The rage? Yes, all the rage.” She raises her foot from under her skirts, exposing her narrow calf and a black shoe with a three-inch heel.

“I see. I see. Well, anyone might have problems with such footwear.” Beads of sweat form on Columbus’s forehead. It promises to be a sweltering hot day but this assurance is still hidden inside the cool morning. He sweats because he loves that curve of the leg—the way the calf curves up into the knee—the ankle, her slender foot.

“Are you okay? You appear to be sweating. Have you a fever?”

“Perfectly fine. My name is …” What the hell is my name? Oh for pity’s sake. What’s my name?

“Your name is?” She tilts her head, offers her perfect, crooked smile.

“Cristóbal. Cristóbal Colón.”

He invites Beatriz Enríquez de Arana to the bullfight that afternoon. Beatriz, it turns out, follows the bullfights with a passion.

She meets him outside the stadium. Columbus is carrying two botas full of wine and sandwiches. She is wearing a blue dress designed for easy movement. There is nothing frilly. But the dress rises to golden embroidery across her shoulders and around her neck. Even this is a simple elegance. They find their seats and watch the corridas as the mounted matadors fight and eventually kill their bulls.

“It seems to me,” Beatriz says, “that it would be more interesting if
these men got off their horses and then tried to kill the bulls. Those men, there”—she points by lifting her chin in the general direction—“the ones on the ground, with the capes, the ones coaxing the bulls into charging. What they do is interesting.” She hands him the bota and he lifts it and squeezes a healthy stream of red wine into his mouth.

“This is something that has been discussed in the bullfighting papers,” he says. “There is talk of outlawing the horses except for the beginning. They’re suggesting an angry bull and a lone man on foot will be the new bullfighting.”

“That would be wonderful, I think,” Beatriz says. She lifts the bota and drinks again.

They build the desire between them for three days, rest one, and then continue. On the fifth day, a storm blows in from the coast. Storms are inevitable at this time of year. The bullfight is canceled. Inside his borrowed villa, they lock the doors, drink icy white wine, and eat olives with feta cheese. Bruised clouds bank up at sea, then hurl themselves onto the land in waves of rain and wind. Columbus and Beatriz are pushed together in the rain. His need for reassurance is perfectly matched by her need to give it. She listens to his dream of crossing the Western Sea and does not treat it as a dream. To her this is something beautiful that will occur. It frightens her but she believes he will do whatever he wants to do. There is an absolute belief, a built-in faith. This belief arrives quickly, lands softly in her.

Columbus does not try to seduce her. This she finds very attractive. He shares his dreams. He is a man who has feelings and communicates those feelings. He becomes weak because he is unsure, and this pulls at something inside her. She talks about her life and her dreams, and he appears to listen, although she suspects he is just resting.

The wind howls all evening. They can hear the rain pounding down outside, and then they are on the bed in his room. Lightning flashes burst through cracks in the shutters. The room is sliced into shards of black and white.

They are drinking wine. They are light-headed and happy children, playing just out of the rain. Relishing the nature of the storm.

The storm blows hardest as they begin their lovemaking. It stokes the moment and amplifies the humor. The small awkwardness of first-time loving tilts the room and the bed and the floors in the dramatic storm light. There is no room for the world, no matter how big or how small. There is only the body, and the desire, and there is her unbelievable scent.

Another flash of storm jabs its way into the room.

“Like the storm has eyes,” she says.

“Crying eyes,” Columbus says.

They listen to the slapping of the rain on the leaves outside the window and on the stones in the street.

“Sobbing eyes,” she giggles.

“Weeping eyes.”

“Wailing eyes.”

In this physical realm, too, they seem absolutely suited for each other. She knows his needs before he does. It feels right that she knows. When she follows her intuition there is new pleasure in her.

Columbus allows himself to be lost, perhaps the ultimate vulnerability for a navigator. He does not know where he is—in the storm and with Beatriz and in the room and in the bed. It all gets washed together. He is completely lost but it does not feel dangerous.

After, they turn on the television. Columbus has the remote and he’s flipping up and down the channels, looking for a movie. He’s looking for the right movie—something seriously romantic or a Western. He loves Westerns.

“It’s amazing,” he says, “that we have this many choices yet there seems to be nothing at all on.”

“What’s that, my dear?”

“It’s like having an entire hold filled with fish but the fish are all rotten. The selection is nearly limitless yet it’s all gone bad.” He turns the picture off and places the remote on the bedside table. “They say this is progress.”

“That’s nice, dear,” she says from the kitchen.

She brings a plate of sausages, goat cheese, and fresh bread. Under her arm is a bottle of wine. Columbus watches as she moves into the room. The dark strands across her face. The long whip of a braid down her back. Her face, curious and narrow. The delicate enclaves of dark hair under her arms. The exceptional curve of her belly down to her pubic mound. Columbus feels blessed to have this woman in his life. She places the plate and bottle on the side table, and slips into bed beside him. She frowns and cocks her head suddenly, as if she’s trying to hear something. “May I ask a question?” she says.

“A question?”

“The crinkling sound. Is there something—”

“You mean the storm?”

She shakes her head.

“The lightning?”

“No,” she says. “Crinkling.”

Columbus shifts to his side and there is indeed a crinkling sound.

“Oh no,” he says, jumping out of the bed.

He stands at the edge of the bed, apprehensive, wired. He doesn’t know what to do with his hands. As if he does not own them, he holds them out like he wants to adjust something but doesn’t know how or what.

“What is it, Cristóbal?” She hops out of bed and stands beside him. Beatriz is terrified of spiders and this is what’s going through her mind. The size of this spider must be substantial.

“The chart! I placed a chart there. Under the blankets. I put it there to make it flat.”

“Under the blankets?”

It’s almost ruined. The blood in the bed and on the chart is menstrual. They use a cloth with water to try and lift some of the red stain off. Both of them get down on the floor and dab at it but it’s useless. They smudge the lines. The chart, according to Columbus, was created by an old mariner named Zuane Pizzigano in the 1420s. It shows a small cluster of four islands far off in the Western Sea. Regardless of the fact that no one had ever confirmed these islands existed, Columbus was thrilled to find them situated so far out into the darkness. These islands are now tinged a reddish brown. While the chart is stained, it still has value. They hang it on a rod near the window and scamper for the bed. It’s cool and humid in the room. Under the covers, they hug each other warm. There is only the sound of thunder, leagues away, and a dripping sound, and a dog barking, and the sound of the moon behind the clouds reflected in a puddle.