Thomas Trofimuk - Waiting for Columbus

“Is there another person or more than one person inside you who has a name?”

“I said no.”

Dr. Balderas looks hard at his patient. Okay. Enough, he thinks. Stay with me. Stay with me.

“I understand you play chess, Mr. Columbus.”

“Not very well. I enjoy the game, though. Mostly I like to watch.”

Dr. José Balderas has played chess all his life. He is good enough to have played in a few minor tournaments. He went to Las Palmas in 1996, watched Kasparov take the championship-studied Kasparov’s match against Karpov for months afterward. He’d missed his son’s birthday while in Las Palmas.

Dr. Balderas flips his palm open in the direction of the chessboard set up between two armchairs in the corner of his office. It’s been a long time since he’s had real competition. It’s doubtful, but perhaps Columbus can actually play.

It’s a plain sandalwood board with comfortable black and white marble pieces. The doctor opens and a couple of moves later, Columbus sacrifices one of his pawns in the center of the board. In another fourteen moves the game is over.

Dr. Balderas studies the board for several minutes and then, astounded, tips over his king.

“The Budapest Gambit? At least a variation on it.”

“Something I’ve been working on.”

“I was not expecting a gambit.” Dr. Balderas is stunned. This loss takes him completely off guard. “Shall we play again?”

“I’m all out of tricks, Doctor. Perhaps another day.”

Columbus leaves the doctor at the chessboard, going over his moves, making notes on what happened. It’s the first time he’s lost a match in five years. After an hour, Dr. Balderas is certain of only one thing: it wasn’t a simple gambit. There were brilliant complexities at work, and Columbus ’s skill as a chess player was certainly not a onetime trick.

Consuela fills her mug with coffee from the steel silo in the cafeteria. She walks with Columbus through an archway. “ Columbus has charmed his way into the pants or skirts of every woman he’s met so far. Why not Isabella?”

“Because it’s forbidden,” he says and then stops walking, turns, and looks at her. “It’s not that he doesn’t want to. But he needs something from her, too. He needs her to be queen, not lover.”

They take their coffee outside.

“Is that the only thing stopping him from-”

“If they become lovers, everything changes. Maybe she doesn’t want him to traipse off across the Western Sea. And if they get caught, I can’t imagine.”

“It’s like this,” Isabella says. “To begin this, with even a single passionate, deep, lusty hot kiss, is death-very unpleasant death.” She stops walking. But at the same time, I want him. How do I hold him without holding him? And is this fair? She walks the streets of Sevilla, cloaked in dark robes, a hood pulled across her face, talking-muttering-to herself. Her guards are on the perimeter, moving tree to tree, building to building, street corner to street corner, like a pack of constant wolves.

She tries again, imagining him standing in front of her. “Okay, it’s like this.” She pauses at the edge of an orange grove. Inhales the rich nascent blossom scent. Looks at the hazy moon, stuck in the branches of trees. “This would be a death sentence for us both. It is dangerous to even think about this joining-perhaps more dangerous than setting sail into an unknown ocean.” This is ridiculous. She would have to be completely alone with Columbus to have this conversation, and that will not happen-not if she wants to live. There will be no trysts. No surrender to lust. She moves toward Gabriel, her chief of staff and head of security. He is, for Isabella, so profoundly nondescript that he is the perfect bodyguard. She smiles. Even among these trees, he blends in.

“We will visit Mr. Columbus,” she says to Gabriel, “and we will discuss his proposed voyage. Set up a meeting.”

“Is that the best course? Will this not instill hope for a hopeless proposal?” Gabriel has been her constant companion, bodyguard, and unfettered confidant for more than ten years. These are the kinds of questions she expects from him. But today she’s just irritated. Gabriel has shoulder-length hair that has always been, in all of Isabella’s memory, in a neat ponytail. It makes him look more severe than he really is.

“Just set up the meeting. I can handle Mr. Columbus and his obsession with sailing away in the name of Spain. Make it for tomorrow.”

Noon the next day, they are seated in a small chamber inside the Catedral de Santa María de la Sede. Candelabras surround them. A blurry haze of colored light in a high stained-glass window. The light in the room flickers, bends, and sways across the walls.

“Tell me again about your proposed voyage, Mr. Columbus. We need convincing before we consent to this idea.”

“I am not sure I understand your question, Your Majesty.”

“I mean, tell me, what’s it like at sea? We want to understand the attraction-the motivation.”

Isabella is elevated; her chair on a small platform, a long red curtain puddles the floor behind her. Columbus sits in a lower chair directly in front of her. He looks tired, disheveled, Isabella thinks. His shoulders are more rounded, if that’s even possible. She makes a mental note to tell Gabriel to give Columbus enough money to buy some new clothes. “Convince me.”

“At sea, the ocean is an undulating, constantly changing force. Our ships, at full sail, penetrate the ocean, move through the waves with a rhythmic, plunging energy. And yet we are but a tickle on the skin, a brush of a finger along the lower back… of the ocean.”

Breathe, Isabella, she tells herself. Breathe.

“And it must be something,” she says, “to stand beneath the masts as they thrust into the sky. The power of your ship’s mast must be something to behold.”

Columbus has no idea how to respond to this, so he bows his head. When he looks up, he can see Isabella’s face is flushed.

“It is hot today, Your Majesty. I appreciate you seeing me.”

“Do you ever worry about being swallowed?”

“Pardon me, Your Majesty?”

“Swallowed. Your ships, mast and all-swallowed by the ocean, being sucked down into the water, being lost. Swallowed until the very tip of your mast sinks into the ocean?”

“I… I try not to think of such things.” He thinks about kissing her, about spending entire lifetimes in the nape of her neck, the arch of her back, the edges of her armpits, a single nipple. He thinks about her lips, an eternity of kisses, about being consumed by her, about making love until the word lovemaking folds in on itself a hundred thousand times.

“You must love the ocean,” Isabella says.

Columbus looks into her eyes and they capture him again. How can eyes be such a deep blue? Something in him begins to rip. “More than the ocean knows,” he says.

“And you want to sail this particular ocean, why?” Her voice is stern, commanding.

“This ocean is a mystery, challenging and tempting-shrouded in questions. From what I have seen, it is more beautiful than any other ocean I could imagine. It becomes more beautiful because it is withheld-forbidden and untouched.”

“Can you imagine what it would be like, Mr. Columbus? I mean, to sail this particular ocean.”

“Oh yes, I can imagine this ocean. Is it your wish, Your Majesty, that I sail this ocean?”

“Were it that simple,” she whispers. She stands-moves toward him, brushes by his chair, her gown touching his clothing, slipping across his exposed forearm. The smell, her smell, lingers.

“We’re done for today, Mr. Columbus. I’ll let you know.”