Waiting for Columbus Page 11

  In the morning, Emile will follow the trail east. If this is my man, he’s certainly not traveling in a straight line toward Morocco. But this feels right. Emile can feel it in his gut.

  ***

  Emile takes a gulp of his whiskey. “I’m drunk only on your beauty,” he says to Carmen. He stops. Finds her eyes again. “Tired lines like that do you a disservice, Carmen. I apologize. Perhaps I am too much with the Scottish beverage.”

  Truth be told, Emile is worried about his liver. He thinks he drinks too much and is concerned his liver is not able to keep up with its detoxification function. He worries but he does not curb his drinking. He’ll wake up in the middle of the night and know for certain he has cirrhosis because of his drinking, or that he’s dying of hepatitis because he drank something bad somewhere in his travels.

  His ex-wife used to lean over and check the time, and then try to calm him down. She’d go through all the symptoms she could remember, some of which he had. He gets headaches sometimes. He gets fatigued occasionally.

  “Calm down, Em. Breathe. We all get headaches,” she’d say. “We all get tired. Come to bed before one or two in the morning and you won’t be so tired.”

  He still stays up too late. He still gets the headaches occasionally. And he is still worried that his liver is ruined. He will not allow his drinking to interfere with his work, but there are times when he is not certain where the line between work and life is drawn-and he drinks in this gray area.

  It’s the kindness in Carmen’s face that has kept him coming back to this café for the past two days. There seems to be a built-in compassion-an acceptance of anything he might have to say. Her eyes are hazel. Her eyes seem to listen-as if they can follow the words in the air. Emile shakes his head, watches her pour beer at the end of the bar. Her hair is cropped blond, thick, and seemingly ruled only by its brevity. She has a gray sweater under her white apron. The sweater is unraveling a bit at the back, along the bottom. It must be a favorite sweater, he thinks. He has no idea what the landscape under that sweater might look like and this is part of Carmen’s beauty. The sweater makes a mystery. Or in the heat of noon, a baggy T-shirt makes a mystery. Yesterday he’d heard a table of customers comment on how crowded her balcony is, referring to Carmen’s breasts. But he does not really care how crowded it is there. And Emile does not know if, in fact, she is kind. Any appearance of kindness is untested. She has been a good listener, though, and there is kindness in this.

  If only I had a euro for every proposition, proclamation of beauty, or pass, Carmen thinks. But this guy… has a damaged charm she finds interesting. And he’s tall. He’s taller than she is, which makes him rare and attractive in her eyes. She’s six feet. He must be six two. It’s not much but she will not be with a man shorter than herself. This is one of her rules. He is not wearing a wedding ring, but for Carmen it would not matter if he was. In fact, he would be more attractive if he was. She does not acknowledge it, but she is attracted to unavailable men. There is safety in this condition. He has never mentioned a woman. On his first night at the bar he spoke about love. The next day he asked pointedly what it was women wanted, to which Carmen had no answer. Half the time she has no idea why she moves toward a particular man. In her thirty-five years, she’s not kept anyone around for longer than ten months.

  She does know a little about her likes and dislikes. For instance, Carmen does not care about hair. Men who attempt to cover it up, disguise it, or solve it she finds annoying. Men who lose their hair with grace-this, she finds very sexy. Emile is such a man. He’s thinning but seems not to care. His hair at the front is wistful. He wears glasses that seem a throwback to the thirties or forties, gold-colored wire-rimmed glasses that hook around his ears. She recalls seeing them sitting on a pile of papers, him rubbing his eyes. She remembers thinking the guy must work hard. She has no idea what he does. She knows he is looking for someone. She thought she saw a gun behind his hip on the left but dismissed this as her imagination-it was probably a cell phone.

  “We’re alone,” Emile says. He sighs. “We look up into the sky at night, and we feel terribly alone. This is the reason we invented God. At least, it’s the reason our gods are still around. In the beginning, I’m sure we were trying to explain the weather, or why volcanoes erupted, or why hunting expeditions failed. But now? Now religion only holds us back. If we are to evolve as a species, religion must be punted to the wayside. It explains nothing-is based in nothing but fear and loneliness.”

  “But what about faith?” she says. “What about ritual and holiness?” She deftly removes his glass and slides a clean one into place-then half fills the new glass with whiskey.

  “We do not need religion to have rituals. We can be holy about all the things that place us in a state of awe or wonder. Things like beauty. Art. Poetry. Music. A child’s laughter. Love. These are the things we should find holy. This is where holiness lives.”

  “And faith?”

  “We should have faith in each other.”

  “Not always an easy thing.”

  “Well, I have faith in your kindness, in your compassion, in the way you listen with your eyes.”

  “Faith?”

  “Yes, though I have never witnessed an overt act of kindness or compassion, I have faith that you possess these qualities, based on nothing but my observations of you.”

  “Sometimes faith is misplaced, misguided, wrong-is it not?”

  “Oh, now you’re turning me on.”

  Oh my. There’s the line, she thinks. It’s dangerous because she’s fascinated, amused, and enjoying herself. They have danced toward the line, and now it’s there, in plain view-easy enough to cross. She’s very interested in pushing across this line with Emile, but she hesitates. He must recognize this because he pulls back from it. He stands up, places too much money on the bar, and gathers his bag.

  “Until next time, Carmen. I will continue to hold my faith in you. Tomorrow I must continue my search.” And then he’s on the street; Emile, thick with whiskey, part of the human landscape of Córdoba at night. Tomorrow I will be a bit closer to finding this man who inspires loyalty in strangers, Emile thinks. Tomorrow we will unravel a bit more of this puzzle.

  “Buenas noches, Emile,” Carmen whispers to the empty room.

  Emile wakes up with a dull ache in the back of his head. He does not question what it was that caused this stunning ache but, rather, vows to not let it happen again. He searches his bag for the pain medication. What was it that Hemingway used to call it? The medicine. He looks for the medicine. He finds the small plastic bottle and pops two pills in his mouth, grabs a bottle of water from the minibar, and gulps them down. In the Hemingway book, the pills were dropped and rolled under the bed, and a cat helped find them. Emile can’t remember the name of the book and chalks up this lapse to the hangover. He downs two espressos in the café on the ground floor of his hotel, and is on the road to Castro del Rio in under an hour. He stops for gas, and in addition to the gas he buys two CDs: Miles Davis’s Kind of Blue, a remastered, slowed-down version, and a CD of five tangos performed by Astor Piazzolla and the Kronos Quartet. He gets into the car and slips Miles into the CD player. The first strains of “So What” come alive in the car as he pulls away from Córdoba.

  “ Islands in the Stream,” he says to the windshield after half an hour of driving. “It’s in the book called Islands in the Stream.”

  ***

  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.”

  CHAPTER NINE

  “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.