Waiting for Columbus Read online

  “You will go to petition the king and queen again?” she says. She can feel the tightness creep into the muscles in his upper back.

  “Las Palos is going to be trouble. He knows as well as I do that the distance is much farther than my calculations show. But he does not know how far exactly, just that it is farther.”

  “What will you do?”

  “Well, if I let it be known the true distance is far greater than what I have said in public already, I won’t be able to man a rowboat, let alone three or four ships. I need at least three caravels.”

  “You cannot lie, Cristóbal.”

  “I don’t know how I can’t lie. Las Palos and his band of bastardos have the king’s ear. What can I do? The truth is not known exactly.”

  “What can you do?”

  “I might have to have Las Palos killed,” he says in a whisper, barely speaking the words. A subconscious undertow of fear nags at him. “There are men…”

  She stops her massage. Columbus reaches across his chest to her hand on his shoulder.

  “Just a morbid thought. It will not ever come to that.”

  “What will you really do?”

  “He is a small-minded bumbler. He has no art. There is no adventure and no conviction in him. He is dry, dead with his calculations. He may as well be dead.”

  “But you say he is right?”

  “Of course he is right! He may be dead inside but he is utterly brilliant!”

  “So you truly do not know how far-”

  “I have no idea.” Columbus drinks from the goblet. “While this is an unfortunate truth, it is also true that Las Palos does not know either, exactly.”

  “And you will go to the university court and fight him?”

  “I will have to be louder, bolder, and inspire with words of gold and spices and riches. I’ll have to promise things to this poor cash-starved monarchy. I will have to use my wit.” He sighs heavily. “Mostly, I will have to be louder and bolder.”

  “And at the same time as you try to impress the royals, will you anger those of the Inquisition?”

  “This nags at me every day. I will have to hope that the idea of profit rules even those of the Inquisition. And after all, I will be discovering whatever there is to discover in the name of God, and king, and queen. God first, of course.”

  Beatriz stands in front of a large chart that hangs from a rod, near the wall. She’s wearing a loose-fitting, flowered gown. Her eyes are drawn to the blank area in the western zone. She thinks about the blankness of it. She remembers swimming beyond land’s sight, getting to the place where there was only water and how lonely it felt, and the small, gnawing fear in her stomach. I cannot imagine only seeing the water in the four directions, and for weeks at a time. I cannot imagine the faith it would take. I am going to lose him to the unknown. I’ve already lost him. He sees nothing but the blankness there. It pulls him.

  She touches the unknown area on the chart with three fingers, and then presses the palm of her hand there. Closes her eyes, wishes to feel something, imprint safety, imprint her love there.

  “What is it that you feel?”

  “Fear,” she says quickly and without thinking. She turns to look at him. Green eyes flashing. “And I feel a small amount of excitement.”

  “Excitement?” he says.

  “The unknown.”

  “But they say there is nothing there. They say there is only the uncrossable Western Sea. They insist that we know the entire world already, that there is nothing new to discover.”

  “There are the stories you speak of,” she says.

  “Stories that should never be repeated.”

  “I know, my love, but what about the dark-skinned man in the tree-boat? And the Norseman?”

  “Also not to be repeated,” he says.

  “I know, my love.” She walks to the window, places her hands gently on the sill, and looks out. It is hot and bright, clean smelling. The sun is directly above. A tiny breeze moves from the sea to the land. There is a becalmed, midnight quiet in the courtyard. The sound of the sea is there but it does not remain in the conscious. It circles to the back and lurks with heartbeats, birdsong, and the wind in the leaves.

  She pulls herself up into the open window frame and stands on the ledge.

  Columbus leans back in his chair and watches. He smiles, takes a gulp of wine, nods to himself. He does not feel the urge to save her. She does not need saving. She certainly does not need warning. He finds this very interesting.

  Beatriz begins to remove her clothing. Her dress, shoes, stockings, and undergarments all fall from the window. They drop the forty feet to the ground until she is naked. The warm flesh tones of her body contrast the harsh brightness of the day. The cool stone ledge is a luxury to her bare feet.

  Columbus is bewitched. He begins to feel the strong warmth of love welling up inside him. What a woman to love. You have my complete attention, he thinks. I am watching you with all my heart.

  ***

  Do you see me? she’s thinking. Do you see me standing on the edge of this world? I am your mistress, not your wife, and you should know it does not matter. But because I am your mistress, I am on the edge of your world. Do you see me standing on the edge of this life? Do you see me standing on the edge of what is accepted? I wish to be with you. Am I with you now? Am I?

  She does not turn around.

  “What if I was to jump?” she whispers.

  “Perhaps, you would be dead.” He is standing directly behind her.

  “And what you propose to do is so different?”

  “Yes,” he says. “There is no edge of the world, there is only distance.”

  “But there is the unknown.”

  Columbus laughs.

  She lifts her foot and there is a faint sweaty impression on the stone. She places her foot back inside the imprint.

  “Each next moment is the unknown,” he says. “A moment ago I would not have dreamed you here on the ledge, without clothing, beautiful.”

  Beatriz almost turns to face him but stops halfway. “Will you remember that for your defense against Las Palos?”

  “Yes, I will remember it.”

  “Good,” she says.

  She turns around. Columbus lifts her off the ledge, moves her to the table, places her on top of the layers of charts. He begins to kiss her and she begins to whimper. It is the hot, dead space in the day. They bathe in the sweet scent of the sun. Their loving is slow and gentle and hazy. The only roughness is the near-empty bottle of wine that falls to the floor and breaks. And the charts. Beatriz perspires and there are areas of sweat where her body presses. The contour of her body is imprinted. The sweat lines from her buttocks carve a crease across the unknown area.

  ***

  They are curled on the table, side by side, two cats in late-afternoon sun.

  “When will you go to the university?”

  “Tomorrow.”

  “You will propose your journey to the scholars?”

  “Yes, to the close-minded dead people,” Columbus says, smiling.

  “But you will be careful? And treat them with the respect they require?”

  “Yes. But it is hopeless. I know what they will find.”

  “Don’t say that.”

  “They have already decided but I must do this anyway. Perhaps I will sway a few in the process.”

  “But if it is truly hopeless, why do you do it?”

  “For the queen.”

  “Oh,” Beatriz says, a coolness to her voice.

  “The queen is the only hope I have. If she likes the idea and can see I have tried to obtain permission for the journey her way, perhaps she will overrule or just ignore the university. If I can convince her in the end, there is hope. Even then, it depends on the king and queen getting rid of the bloody Moors.”

  “It seems such a long journey just to begin another long journey.”

  “Yes, it does. But there is much profit to be made in this adventure.”
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  “Profit?” Beatriz says. “Surely profit is not the true reason you wish to sail across the sea.”

  “Nothing is done for the simple love of doing. Nothing worthy anyway. There must be a profit of some kind or nothing would get done.”

  “I do not wish to live in that world.” She moves like a sleek feline to the wall where a sword hangs and pulls it from its sheath. She thrusts it at him and kneels down. “Take this sword and plunge it into my heart. Take it!”

  He takes the sword and places it on the floor.

  “Can’t you see that profit and commerce make the world run? We have often spoken about the church and its love of money and power. I will not get my ships if I do not promise a profit. Gold, silver, and spices.”

  “This is a world I despise.” She picks up the blade and pushes it into his hands. He throws it across the room and it clangs loudly against the stone wall.

  “All right, Beatriz,” he says. “All right. Mostly I wonder what is there. I have a mad wonder in me. Is that what you wish to hear?”

  “You’re not just saying this to please me?”

  “No. I have to know what’s out there.” Columbus sighs, walks across the room to a window, looks down into the courtyard. A cat stretches, then sits in a shady spot, licks its paw. There are no clouds in sight. Just sunlight and perfect blue from the horizon all the way into the heavens. “Sometimes I get so caught up in the money, and ships, and crewmen, and supplies I will need that I begin to lose sight of the reason.” He turns around. “It’s simple, Beatriz. I have always wanted to find out what’s out there in the unknown.”

  “Now I wish to live again,” she says, smiling.

  “But still, I will have to beg the bankers and the scholars and the kings for the ships to satisfy this wonder.”

  “Can’t you convince them that you are right?”

  He smiles. “It is difficult when one does not know if one is right.”

  “I am certain that you are right,” she says.

  “You shouldn’t be.”

  “Yes, I should.”

  “In the end, it comes down to one woman,” Columbus says. “I have to convince one woman that I might be right.”

  “One other woman.”

  He sighs and sits down heavily on a chair against the wall. “I must convince a queen. All of this game playing and risk is to persuade one damned woman. It’s not going to be the steadfast scholars, or the bankers, or the shipbuilders, or really anybody in Spain, except for that one woman. Her and her aristocratic friends.”

  “The queen,” Beatriz says.

  “Yes, the queen,” he says. “Remember, Beatriz, nothing truly inspired or beneficial to mankind has ever been accomplished by asking for an agreement from the masses. It’s the elite. It’s the elitists who drive society forward.”

  “To the queen then.” Beatriz raises her glass.

  “Yes,” Columbus says. “To Isabella.”

  ***

  Two days later, just before he leaves for the university, Columbus makes one of his most important discoveries. He finds a crease in the chart-the one upon which he and Beatriz made love. He makes an important decision. He takes a huge leap of faith. He looks at his top chart. It’s one of the charts made by his brother, Bartholomew, who is in France seeking funding from a different royalty. Columbus decides the crease is the route to the Indies. He decides he will follow the map of his love for Beatriz. From the crease in the far western unknown area where he hopes to find the Indies, he draws a line back toward the known world, across the Western Sea, to find his starting point: the Canary Islands.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  Emile places the TV remote on the bedside table. He’s been in Córdoba for two days-poking around, looking for something, anything that might be a clue to the whereabouts of his mysterious man. It’s 5 A.M. He crawls into the shower to try and shake off his dream, which was more a lucid memory. Perhaps the dream is a bit more violent than the memory. There’s more broken glass. More screaming. More shame.

  It was six months after the shooting and he was slated to return to duty. Emile shows up at the Lyon office. Everyone is smiling and happy to see him back at work. He’s ushered into a meeting before he can get settled. In the boardroom, there’s a man wearing a bad tie and a cheap suit talking about the importance of something called an augmented business planning process and managing risk. There’s a three-day seminar on risk management this man highly recommends. He somehow segues into the vision and values of their organization. When he fires up his PowerPoint presentation, with whirling text and fading screens and headings that outline the levels of bureaucratic functioning of Interpol’s role in the overall security scheme for the European Union, Emile starts to lose control. At first it’s just a twitch. He’s holding tightly to a company coffee mug and the twitch jerks his hand-creates a splash that almost escapes the mug. He wants to run from the room before anything bad happens. He knows something bad will happen if this man continues his earnest presentation. Emile starts to actually see hazy silos of information, silos of processes, silos of small-brained bureaucrats like this man, and none of these silos communicate in person-they all e-mail each other, copy subordinates and sub-subordinates, obscure information; rewrite memos dozens of times, make simple memos into academic dissertations so laden with cover-your-own-ass modifiers that they become meaningless. Emile breaks into a cold sweat. His breathing becomes shallow and quick. He worries that he’s going to say something stupid. But he can’t move. At least not right away. Emile remembers thinking: It can’t last much longer. It’s got to be over soon. But it doesn’t end. The presentation goes on for another fifty minutes, with no end in sight. Finally Emile has had enough. The dull man asks if there are any questions. Emile stands up. “What is the relevance of any of this?” he says. He draws his gun and fires two shots at the projector, which is suspended from the boardroom ceiling. The projector falls and shatters the glass table, which collapses on top of the people who have taken cover under it. Emile remembers holstering his gun and going home. They let him go home. They admit his return to work was premature. His bosses insist on more therapy. He was apparently suffering from something called post-traumatic stress disorder. Nothing to be ashamed of, they said. Happens to the best of us.

  In his dream about shooting the projector, there are glass windows all around-nothing made of glass ever makes it through his dream intact. In one version of the dream, the presenter gets shot. Just shot, not killed. His therapist had a field day with that particular wrinkle.

  ***

  He’s been to most of the bars and cafés around the main roads that skirt the edge of Córdoba. He’s tried to stay away from the A-4, but he now finds himself in a small nook of a bar called El Gatito, just off the Autovia del Sur-the highway that runs mostly uninterrupted from Madrid to Cádiz.

  Emile sticks his nose into the opening of the glass, inhales the peaty, sweet aroma of the whiskey, then looks up to meet Carmen’s eyes. “I have no doubt in my mind, addled as it is by this brilliant whiskey, that God is a human invention. We invented God, and now he’s got to go. It’s time we grew up.”

  “I have no doubt in my mind that you are too much with the Scottish beverage,” she says.

  The day he’d arrived in Córdoba, Emile had done a circuit of bars and cafés closest to the train station, asking his open-ended questions, gently prodding. “He probably has better Spanish than I do,” Emile would say, a line that always got them smiling, and added an immediate layer of trust. Emile used this self-deprecatory statement about his ability to speak Spanish when, actually, his Spanish is very good. As is his English. His Italian? Not so good. Spanish was a cradle language for Emile. His mother was Spanish; his father, French. There was a nanny for a few years, a woman who spoke English-loved American films. His limited Italian can be credited to a lover-long before his wife.

  ***

  Emile had started to doubt this approach. Four days in Córdoba and nothing. He would be h
ard-pressed to say what it was exactly that caused him to strike up a conversation with an elderly man feeding the birds in the park just off Avenida de Cervantes. It was just after noon. He’d been on his way to visit Carmen at El Gatito. Maybe it was a hunch. It was more likely dumb luck. Perhaps it was the fact that this park was only a stone’s throw from the train station. Regardless of the motivation, the conversation paid off. The old man, who was wearing baggy gray flannel trousers, a pressed white shirt, and a black sports jacket, had seen a man wandering the street with a stick stuck into his belt like a sword. “It was a couple of months ago, maybe a little less than two months. He was talking to himself. Fighting demons, you know? He was dirty. Dirty hair and clothing. I thought he might be on something or drunk. But he was just strange.”

  “What did he say, exactly?”

  “Nonsense. Half sentences about sailing. Something about navigation. But there was something warm about him. He didn’t seem dangerous.”

  The old man tosses a handful of crumbs onto the ground and immediately the pigeons are there at his feet. “This man said the North Star was not always true. He kept repeating this. He said he wanted me to remember that the North Star was not always true.”

  “What do you think that means?” Emile says.

  The old man looks over the top of his glasses at Emile. “He’s crazy. That’s what it means. He’s crazy, but nice. I gave him directions to Jaén. I told him about my brother-in-law’s place in Castro del Rio. It’s on the way to Jaén. But then you know this because you’re from Interpol. My brother-in-law rents a few rooms out. I don’t like my brother-in-law too much.”

  “The North Star is not true?”

  “Yes, he said it just like that. I felt sorry for him. I gave him a few euros.”