Thomas Trofimuk - Waiting for Columbus

Dr. Fuentes slaps his notebook shut. Slips his pen into his shirt pocket. Smiles a cool, professional smile in Columbus ’s general direction.

“You don’t want to share your shopping list? Maybe you’re writing a novel. Were you composing a poem? A ghazal perhaps?”

“A ghazal?”

“Yes, an ancient Persian style of poetry. Five, or more, two-line stanzas. Each stanza is a complete thought and unrelated to its neighboring stanzas except by a thin emotional thread. Surely you’ve heard the term before?”

“Sounds fascinating.”

“Except that you are the type of person who demands neatness and logic and a chronological order. You could never write a ghazal except by accident. It was wrong of me to accuse you of writing a ghazal. You’re much too stupid for that. Limericks are more your style.”

“We’re done here.” Dr. Fuentes stands up. “Have a good day, Bolivar.”

“Yes, that’s perfect. Dismiss me with a phony wish, a platitude, and an incorrect moniker. Well done, Fuentes. You must have a lot of friends.”

“We’ll try again next week.”

Columbus ignores him. Focuses on his cuticles. Observes his fingernails. Lets the doctor stand for a long minute. Then he stands up. “I can let myself out,” he says. “Thanks for a lovely chat.”

The dayroom is crowded. It’s been raining for days. The whole institute has a gloomy and claustrophobic feel. Tempers are short. There have been five fights in the last two days, which is unusual. These fights were serious enough for the nurses to call the orderlies to break them up. Pope Cecelia is in isolation for smashing a plate on an orderly’s head. Yesterday Dr. Fuentes slipped and fell, broke his tailbone, is going to be off work for a month, maybe more. He’s managed to reconcile with his wife. A miracle of sorts.

Columbus stays away from these confrontations. He lurks at the edge of things. Consuela finds him in the game room, watching a chess match between Mercedes and Arturo. Mercedes washes her hands after every move on the chessboard. As a result, they are red, chapped, and sore looking. Mercifully, Arturo needs a lot of time to contemplate his moves. Arturo thinks and thinks and ponders, and eventually Mercedes complains. He moves, she moves, and then she gets up and goes off to wash her hands. Arturo damaged his head in a fall. Before he fell, he was a brilliant lawyer-a Crown prosecutor with a reputation for being a pit bull. There are still glimpses of brilliance but these are veiled behind a plodding, lethargic man.

Consuela moves quietly, comes up behind Columbus. “It’s a slow form of insanity,” he says, without looking up.

She’s impressed. But she wonders. Did he see her reflection in a window?

“I can smell you,” he says.

Arturo looks up from the game. Smiles. Consuela blushes. She clears her throat. “Are they any good?”

“Arturo is better than you. But he has much practicing to do before he will give me a game. He would do well to study the Greco Counter Gambit.”

Consuela thinks hard about this. Greco Counter Gambit? She has never lost a game with Columbus. What the hell is he talking about? This doesn’t make any sense. Is this a clue to another life? Did she just get a glimpse?

“Though I doubt Mercedes is smart enough to know it, she has been playing the Italian Quiet Game: E4, E5, then Nf3, Nc6, and finally Bc4, Bc5. You see how white prevents black from advancing in the center?”

“Gambit?”

“Yes, a risky attacking style of opening. It avoids the calculated buildup of classic games.”

Columbus looks up at Consuela’s confused face.

“A gambit is an opening in which something is sacrificed, usually a single pawn, in order to achieve some sort of advantage. Gambits are not normally successful in the highest-ranked games. By the way, thank you for taking such good care of me,” he says, “and good-bye.”

“You’re welcome. I-” She stops. “What do you mean good-bye?”

“You never know. I could die in my sleep. A tree could fall on me. I could choke on my dinner.” He half smiles.

“You’re not planning anything stupid, are you?”

“Define stupid.”

“Suicide is stupid.”

“Suicide is a sin.” Columbus seems appalled at the suggestion.

Consuela takes a deep breath. She looks him over through squinted eyes. “Then you’re going to try and escape again, which for you is only mildly stupid.”

Arturo stands up. “I have to… please excuse me.”

“I’ll watch the board. Not to worry.”

“What are you planning?” Consuela is hissing.

Mercedes arrives back at the table, looks over the board, and makes her move. She gets up and disappears again down the hallway toward the washrooms. She passes Arturo in the entranceway.

Columbus smiles as Arturo sits down. “Six moves, Arturo. It’s over in six moves. Your knight, yes. You’ve got her. If she makes the right moves, it’s checkmate in six. If she’s careless, it may take fewer, but the result will be the same.”

“I see I’m going to have to do some practicing,” Consuela says.

“Aren’t all our games practice games?”

Later that day, she walks along the edge of the pool. He’s swimming, a seemingly effortless sidestroke through the water almost silently. The evolution of his initially rather noisy swimming to this almost-silent-in-the-water stroke has been a slow but steady journey. It’s not something he was trying to achieve but something he noticed happening as he tried to make his movements more efficient. She is reading out loud from a small book of ghazals. Reading a stanza, then walking a few steps, reading another-keeping up with him as he swims and listens. She reads, walks, reads, walks. After a while it is difficult to determine if she is matching his pace, or he, hers.

“Into the mirror of my cup the reflection of your glorious face fell. And from the gentle laughter of love, into a drunken state of longing I fell.”

She walks a few steps, and then: “Struck with wonder by the beauty of the picture that within my cup I beheld. The picture of this world of illusion from the reflection of my mind fell.”

He pulls himself out of the pool after just under an hour, sits on the rough stone edge, and looks up at her. “Why did you choose this particular style of poetry?”

“You don’t like these? These are in translation. They were written by a poet named-”

“Hafiz. I know who wrote the poems. That’s not what I asked.”

The edge to his voice, the clipped tone, takes her off guard. She cannot, will not say that this book of poems is one of her favorites-that it is a book her father gave to her mother. This book is one of her few treasures. These poems move through her as an old lover would; they know where to touch, and when, and sometimes they surprise. “I found the book in a used-book shop,” she says. “Ghazals are Persian. They-”

“I know what a ghazal is. Why did you choose Hafiz?”

“I don’t know. I thought you might enjoy it. They’re odd poems. At first glance, they don’t make sense.”

“These are poems of longing! Of love. Of illicit, impossible love.”

“You seem agitated.” Oh God, that’s jargon, she thinks. It’s stupid and lazy of me. He’s angry. He’s really angry. But this may be a weak spot in Columbus ’s defenses, a way in. She can’t remember him this angry, this quickly. The question is why. Why is he so angry about some poetry by a dead Persian poet named Hafiz?

He is angry, he realizes. To hear this poetry reminds him, in a new way, that he is trapped in this place. The truth of this poetry, the power, is too much.

He swallows. Breathes. “No, no, I enjoyed your reading of Hafiz.”