Waiting for Columbus Read online

  “Can’t or won’t?”

  “The end result is the same.”

  “But the journey is the thing. The beauty is in the way a thing is done.”

  “That, Nurse Consuela, is a beautiful thought.”

  “But you’re still not going to tell me, are you?”

  “Nope.”

  “What were you thinking, anyway? You know how tight security is around here.”

  “There’s nothing for me here. I’m not sick. I’m not delusional. I’m Columbus. I’m happy being Columbus.”

  “I don’t think you’re sick. But as long as you insist you are Columbus, I’m afraid they’re not going to entertain the idea of letting you out.” This is the first time she can remember that Consuela puts herself on Columbus ’s side and “them” on the other. It’s a small shift but she notices it.

  “How can I not be Columbus when he is exactly who I am?”

  “I don’t have an answer to that question. Someone smarter than I am once said we are what we do. I can’t tell if you are doing what Columbus would do.”

  “Take a look over there at those two muscle-bound idiots.” Columbus waves and smiles. The orderly who was reading, continues to read; the other one smiles and waves back. “I can’t do what Columbus should be doing. If your axiom is true then I’m spending time in a mental institute, most of the time doped up on pharmaceuticals. What I do is put up with being treated as if I am insane. What does that make me?”

  “It’s not like you don’t try to get out. This was your third failed attempt in what-six months? It’s no wonder they have two orderlies watching you. Listen, seriously, just between the two of us, how did you get out of your room?”

  “No. I may need it. And those orderlies have nothing to do with my escape attempts.”

  “Attempting to escape is futile. There’s too much security.”

  “It would only be futile if escape was the goal.”

  “You’re telling me that escaping was not the goal?”

  “This sun feels good on my face,” he says.

  “Yes, yes, it’s a nice day, Mr. Columbus.” She closes her eyes and focuses on the warmth on her face.

  Consuela drifts into silence. If escape was not the goal, then what? And what about their chess games? Is he losing on purpose? She’d not considered this. Is he playing her?

  She opens her eyes and looks at him. He’s got a wild, half-undone look about him that she has always found attractive. It is as if some part of his psyche does not care about how he appears to the world. There are more important things than appearances. The result is style. Consuela has been trying to maintain a professional demeanor toward Columbus -ever since her luncheon with Faith. But her imagination skips a beat when it comes to Columbus, her fantasies; her longing grows each time she rubs up against him. She’d like to do some serious physical rubbing up against this hopeless cause. She’d like to do a lot of things. She wonders if he knows how she feels.

  “One can only truly learn from failure,” Columbus says. “The valuable lessons come from failures, not from a continual stream of successes.”

  ***

  “There are three candles in her room,” he says at breakfast the next morning. It is the morning of the day of the feast of Saint Bertilla. “Always three,” he adds. “Not two. Not four or five. Why would she choose three?”

  “Who?” Consuela is tired. It was a late night, and her air-conditioning was not working. While temperatures were hitting only the midtwenties in the day, her apartment was uncomfortably hot. Sleep came late. She’s grumpy-holds her third cup of coffee protectively.

  “Selena.”

  Oh good Christ. Another story about a lover. Another woman. Another tall tale of lovemaking. When was the last time she made love?

  “If you had a choice, how many candles would you choose?” he says.

  “I wouldn’t, Columbus. I’d turn on the light. You’ve noticed the light switch in your room, haven’t you? And its clever relationship to the light in your ceiling?”

  He ignores her. “If you were choosing to light your bedroom with candlelight, how many would you choose?”

  Consuela sighs. “Fifty. I don’t know.”

  “Selena always had three. There was only giving and tenderness that first time with Selena, and it set the pattern for all the rest.”

  ***

  “End of the hall, on the left,” she’d said. Columbus enters her room hesitantly, pushes the door shut with his back. He is moderately thick with wine.

  Selena is naked as she moves gracefully across the dusky room-through the shuddering candlelight-hands him a glass of wine, and disappears into the bathroom. There are no bubbles in the tub. The water is steaming hot and clear. Three more candles in a high windowsill dance the light and shadow through the water and across the walls.

  “What’s that scent?” he says. “It’s nice.”

  “Lavender.”

  Columbus sits on the toilet seat and looks at Selena. Blond strands scattered across half her face, which she does not bother to push aside. He notices the scar along the top of her cheekbone, traces the pale line of it with his finger.

  “The bar?” he says.

  “Yes.”

  Everything is softened by the candlelight. She makes a harbor of her legs-at one end, her feet, and at the other, the sandy-brown triangle of her pubis. Her arms ride the edges of the tub. “Do you have any idea how beautiful you are?”

  She looks directly at him-finds his eyes. “Tell me,” she says, serious and intense.

  He had not expected her to want him to clarify his question. It is one thing to be romantic, to say romantic things, but quite another to be called into account for what you say. He thought the question explained itself. Her response knocks him slightly off balance. “I’ll be right back,” he says. When he reappears, Columbus moves the candelabra to a chair beside the tub, drops his clothing, and slips in behind her, so she is between his legs. Her hair smells like vanilla.

  “You, my dear woman, are like these poems of love, and desire, and longing, and wine. These are the poems of Hafiz. They dare to speak to unspeakable beauty or desire.” And so he begins to read her Hafiz’s ghazals, his voice softly filling the small bathroom. Selena sips her wine and listens. Sometimes she is lost in the words; other times, the words lose her. When she leans out of the tub to retrieve the wine bottle, Columbus stops reading. She fills her glass, leans back, and takes a sip. “Proceed,” she says, and he does.

  Eventually they are tired. The wine is gone. The hot water has worked its magic. They make love by spooning. She draws his hand around her body to the soft nest between her breasts and he kisses the back of her neck. Then the wine and the country air, the hot bath, the cool sheets, and the down quilt work together to lull them to sleep.

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  Columbus is playing with his thumbs. He’s sitting on the patio in a chair experimenting-attempting an illusion in which it seems that he is pulling his thumb apart. He twists his head sideways, tries to see the trick from the viewpoint of where his audience might see it. Consuela finds him before the end of her shift. “You have to see this,” he says. “It’s a parlor trick. Something my dad used to do.”

  “The senior Columbus?”

  “He used to scare us kids. Watch,” he says. He grasps his thumb in his fist and then appears to pull it in two.

  “Impressive.”

  “Was that sarcasm?”

  “What do you think?”

  “I think a parlor trick as stupid as this can be a useful metaphor.”

  “Metaphor?”

  “Yes. The girl is a gazelle when she runs, instead of, she runs like a gazelle.”

  “I know what a metaphor is. Why are you telling me-”

  “Because failure is never easy,” he says.

  ***

  These failures, in particular, sit ugly in Columbus ’s stomach. He walks away from his second audience at the commission’s chamber at the university
knowing that even if he’d told them all he knew they still would have said no. Columbus knew it was a tough sell. He never expected them to jump up and down with excitement, shouting their approval at the prospect of his adventure. His goal was not to win his ships, not right away. It was to move some of them from a hard position to a more moderate one. This is the failure Columbus has a difficult time swallowing; he’s not sure he moved anyone.

  If he’d told them about Iceland and the Norseman, and what those sailors said they saw twenty-one days out into the ocean, they might have considered his journey. That might have moved a few. The problem was withholding what needed to be withheld while revealing the right amount. Reveal the one wrong thing and he could become just another dead heretic, a potential special guest of the Inquisition. It seemed that offending behavior could come and go out of fashion with this holy tribunal. One week, converting to Christianity was fine; the next, it wasn’t good enough. One week, the official map of the known world was sacrosanct, not to be tinkered with, church doctrine. The next week, new ideas about the unknown world were entertained. It was difficult to stand on this shifting sand dune.

  ***

  The first commission said his idea had merit. It was a bold scheme. A new sea route to the Indies and Japan, and especially one forged by Spain, was a grand idea. Going all the way around Africa was a long and expensive and dangerous journey. And it had only been done once, allegedly. But it wasn’t possible to sail across the Western Sea without dying of starvation or thirst. The second commission agreed with the first, in its own unique way. The bottom line: the world was too big, the ocean too wide, the ships too small to carry enough provisions.

  “With respect, Your Honor,” Columbus says, “you have no clear evidence the world is that big.”

  “Nor do you have any evidence that it’s any smaller. We do have science. Our country’s best minds.” Las Palos stands up. He’s a narrow man, with a large, humped nose and a full head of black hair that falls to his shoulders. “All these men”-he motions with his hand to a group of men sitting in the back row-“all these men, say you are wrong, that the Earth is vast. That the Western Sea cannot be crossed successfully. That you will only kill yourself and those who are foolish enough to sail with you.”

  “I bow to these learned men. They have resources and knowledge of which I can only dream. But I have a question.”

  “I think we’re done, Mr. Columbus.”

  “Just one small question?”

  Las Palos turns toward the back row. Raises his eyebrows.

  “All right, but our minds are settled.”

  “For the best minds of our time-because your intelligence is so dazzling-exactly how big is the Earth?”

  Four men lean their heads together into a huddle. One man does not move but, rather, looks bemused.

  After five minutes, Las Palos is obviously agitated. After ten minutes, he stands. “It is not our position to prove the size of the Earth, Mr. Columbus. It is, however, required that you prove your case to us. And we have doubts.” Las Palos pauses. A large man at the end of the back row clears his throat. Las Palos stops, turns toward the man, and nods. The man stands. He looks down at the papers in his hands. Then looks directly at Columbus. “Well, we do not know exactly how vast the planet is, but we believe it is larger than your, ah… estimate.”

  “I want to suggest that one sure way to find out exactly how big the Earth is, is to sail out there and have a look. Somebody has to go out there and witness the ocean. Make notes on distance. Sometimes theories, fascinating as they may be, need to be proven. I am willing to-”

  “Your price is too high,” Las Palos says. “You will have our official answer in a few days but I can almost guarantee the outcome. I can only speak for myself, but what you are proposing is, well, quite impossible.”

  “With respect, how will you know for sure? Will you let Portugal discover new routes? Britain? France?”

  “Enough.”

  “Will we beg foreign powers for the charts? Is that what you envision for Spain? Is that your grand plan?”

  “Enough!”

  ***

  Newspaper stories of this audience, Columbus ’s second, report that as Columbus was leaving the commission chamber he turned and challenged anyone in the room to stand an egg on its end, on a marble tabletop.

  “A thousand silver pesos to anybody who can do this thing,” he said. “Just take an egg and stand it on its end. It’s a simple thing.”

  Eggs were sent for and four men attempted to make the egg stand on its end. Then two more tried to no avail. Columbus watched dispassionately. Las Palos had already disappeared into the back sanctums of the university.

  “Impossible,” the men of the commission finally declared. “An egg can’t be balanced on one end-not on a flat surface. Utterly impossible!”

  When Columbus took the egg, smashed one end-not hard enough to make it run-and stood it on the table, only Luis de Santángel, the queen’s treasurer, could be heard laughing hysterically in a sea of stunned silence.

  Columbus had made an ally.

  ***

  “Oh, my dear boy,” Cecelia says. “You are smiling, but there is sorrow in you as wide and deep as an ocean.”

  “Well, I am here, in this so-called hospital of innocents, against my will,” Columbus says as he sits down. “Why would I be happy? How could I be happy?”

  “No, no, no. It’s much bigger than that, Mr. Columbus.” She pats his hand. “This is loss, and guilt, and too much to bear.”

  “Well, I’m afraid you have me at a loss. I don’t know what to say.”

  “In time you’ll know,” she says. “There’s no rush. In the meantime, we can chat.” Cecelia hands him a cup of tea. “It’s green tea. It’s good for you.”

  Columbus thinks about politely declining. He doesn’t drink tea. But with Cecelia it seems as if he should. Steam rises from the cup in minuscule swirls. Its scent is so singular-simple. He sips the tea and, surprisingly, finds it to his liking. This is not a complex flavor.

  They are at a table in the dayroom-near the windows-Cecelia in her robes on one side, and Columbus, wearing only a pair of socks and an open housecoat, on the other. This is the first time they’ve communicated beyond casual nods in passing. Columbus has a few more sips of the green tea and is about to comment-to supply mindless dialogue-something about how he is pleasantly surprised at the taste of this tea. But he doesn’t. He turns inward against his impulse to fill the void of silence with his self-manufactured nonsense.

  When the bird hits the window it shocks them. A loud, muffled bang, they turn, see nothing, both know immediately it was a bird.

  “A sparrow?” Cecelia says. “Oh my dear God.”

  “We need to see-maybe we can do something.”

  “The doors are locked. We can’t get out.” She’s distraught. Her hand shakes as she points at the locked door.

  “This is a rescue mission-a special circumstance.” Columbus stands. One of the new orderlies, a pimply-faced young man named Sylvester, follows him to the door. Columbus tries it and indeed it is locked. He yanks on it again, testing the veracity of the lock. He yanks on it again, harder this time.

  “The courtyard is closed for the day,” the orderly says, stepping between Columbus and the door.

  “Open it. A bird has hit the window-might be hurt, suffering.” Columbus looks around the room. They’re alone. A minor miracle in this institute. The fact it’s bingo night could account for the scarcity of inmates.

  “The hours are there.” Sylvester points to a small square of white paper mounted on the wall. “The courtyard is closed. It’s late. I’m sure this bird is fine.”

  Columbus leans in close. The orderly places his hand on his walkie-talkie, puffs up his chest, draws sternness to his face.

  Columbus whispers, “By the time you get even remotely close to calling for help, I could do great damage to you, my friend. Now just open the door.”

  Sylvester loo
ks hard at Columbus, weighing his words, measuring height, weight, physical condition. He hesitates. Columbus lurches forward and head butts the orderly-a hard, ugly thumping sound. Sylvester goes down. There are far too many keys on his ring for a quick exit, so Columbus hands the key ring to Cecelia and starts to look around for something he can use to force the door open. Something that could be used as a makeshift pry bar. Many of the candidates are screwed to the floor. Cecelia chooses a key with assuredness. “This one,” she says and Columbus turns around. “Is he hurt?” she adds, pointing at Sylvester.

  “He’ll have a lump.” Columbus pushes the key into the lock and turns it. The door opens smoothly and quietly. Son of a bitch, he thinks.

  Outside they find the bird, a sparrow. Its neck is broken. Its body still warm. They bury the bird quickly, carefully, under a rosebush and Columbus defers to Her Holiness the Pope for a prayer. Cecelia turns to Columbus with tears in her eyes, at a loss. The only thing he can think of is the first verse from the hymn “Silent Night.” He recites it with apologies to the bird but it seems wholly appropriate. It seems correct that this bird should have these words. “Silent night,” he begins, “holy night…” He and the pope stand in the garden above the small mound, with a growing indigo sky above. “Sleep in heavenly peace,” Columbus says. “Sleep in heavenly peace.”

  They go back inside and Sylvester is still out cold on the floor. They reattach the keys to the orderly’s belt. Columbus hustles into the adjoining lounge and brings back a pillow, which he slides under Sylvester’s head. Columbus and the pope look at each other. Cecelia is smiling, a vulnerable, grateful, and astounded smile.

  “Thank you,” she says.

  “You’re the pope. You ought to be able to attend to sparrows whenever they fall. It was an honor and my pleasure.”

  “Good night, my dear.”

  “Sleep well, Your Holiness.”