Thomas Trofimuk - Waiting for Columbus

When he turns around, she’s gone. The room is empty. Gabriel meets him in the outer chamber and gives him the address of a tailor. “It’s been arranged,” he says. “Get some new clothes.”

Outside, Columbus is dizzy in the midday heat. He cannot determine if this light-headedness is from the heat or the conversation, which had its own intensity. He cannot find his car. In fact, there are so many cars in the parking lot, that after an hour of searching, he stops for lunch. Columbus cannot help but pitch the Western Sea expedition to his waitress. His steak is, of course, heavily spiced. “What would we do without spice,” he says to the hesitantly interested waitress who is too old for pigtails but regardless wears her hair this way. “But it’s not so easy to get your hands on spice. It’s a difficult journey to the East. Dangerous and inconsistent. A new, secure route would be a blessing, would it not?”

“Ya, I guess,” she says.

“Straight across the ocean and back with mountains of gold and spice.”

“Okay.”

Even though she seemed disinterested, Columbus finds this woman’s phone number on the back of the bill.

He locates his car almost immediately. It is, in fact, in front of the restaurant. He removes the parking ticket from the windshield and throws it in the backseat with the others. He’s off through the streets of Sevilla, and soon he’s in the countryside. He’s staying in a borrowed villa on the outskirts of town, which according to his sense of direction is just around the corner. He sees a sign for Almensilla, passes it, and is soon on a dirt road completely surrounded by olive trees. He doesn’t remember this particular road but his villa has to be around here somewhere. He has no idea where Almensilla is but enjoys the name, says it out loud several times as he continues to push generally southward.

Several hours later, after many left turns and too many right turns, after thinking that he was finally traveling north toward Sevilla and his bed, Columbus decides that the city must be just over the next rise. At the apex of the current stretch of road, he pulls over and gets out. The blue-gray ocean stretches along the horizon. Cracked yellow clouds. The sun will be setting soon. He pops the trunk open, pries the lid off the wooden case, and withdraws a bottle of wine. He walks to the front of his car and leans on the hood, looks wistfully across the lowlands and out to sea. Definitely not Sevilla, he thinks, pulling the cork out of the bottle, but beautiful nonetheless.

Consuela sits on her small balcony, overlooking the sluggish Rio Guadalquivir. A pot of mint tea is sitting on the table, steeping. The birds are so loud that she is beginning to find them annoying. They chatter at four in the morning and don’t stop. Back and forth making nests and mating, eating, and singing-always with the songs! She’d love two minutes of silence. Faith called an hour ago. When Consuela hung up she wanted a drink, but there was nothing in the house.

Mint tea will have to do for now. She’s not sure if Faith is convinced about Columbus -though, for the past hour she called him Bolivar, not Columbus. This name shift felt like a betrayal to her.

“It’s strictly professional, Sis. Nothing happened. It was all me. I know it’s wrong. Trust me. Nothing happened, and nothing is going to happen.”

“But you sounded so in love. You can’t have anything to do with this man.”

“I’ve moved away from that ward.”

“You’re in a position of power. It’s not only ethically wrong; it’s legally wrong. You could go to prison.”

“I can’t imagine what the Inquisition would do.”

“The what?”

“A board of inquiry, you know?”

It goes like this for an hour. They circle the issue, plow through it. Poke it, dismiss it, and circle around again. Until, finally, Consuela has had enough.

“I have to go,” she says. “I’ve got a date tonight.” A beautiful fabrication that ends things neatly.

“A date?”

“Yes, I may be old, but I’m not dead, Faith.”

“Anybody I know?”

“God, let me get through the first date before you disapprove, okay?”

Silence hangs between them, thick and awkward.

“Look, his name is Bart,” Consuela says finally. “He’s an accountant.”

“I’m just curious, Con. Nothing more.”

Faith pauses. She wants to ask more questions but refrains. Her voice is pinched when she finally says, “Have fun. Talk to you soon. Love you, Connie.”

Consuela pours the tea but it’s tepid. She decides to go out for a drink. She’d love to find a bar that offered the discriminating protection Salvos’s place gave to Columbus. But he was telling a story. It was just a story. Places like that don’t really exist.

“You are suffering from something we big-brained doctors call a dissociative break. These things can manifest when some sort of painful event or loss occurs, and the patient doesn’t want to face the pain. I know this sounds like a bunch of bullshit jargon meant to impress, not communicate. The plain version goes something like this: you’re avoiding something and it’s our job to try and find out what that is. When this dissociation is extreme, and in your case, I believe it is, the emergence of alter personalities can occur. Do you understand what I’ve just said?”

“Yes, I’m not going to sleep with a beautiful woman tonight. Nor am I going to drink three bottles of wine. Nor am I going to sleep in a bed with soft, 600-thread-count Egyptian cotton sheets. And I won’t have room service to call for coffee and croissants in the morning.”

Dr. Balderas smiles. He’s amused, not pitying. “What I’m seeing in you-and this is based on my reading of Consuela’s notes and my observations-is that you’re exhibiting a dissociative fugue, or a dissociative identity disorder. Sometimes, when a patient is faced with an overwhelming traumatic situation and there’s no physical escape, the patient will resort to going away in his or her head. You persist in your belief that you are, in fact, the Christopher Columbus. And we’ve got to start trying to find a way to unravel this story you’re telling. At the bottom of your story is the thing that happened-the thing you’re avoiding.” Dr. Balderas gets up and walks over to a cabinet behind Columbus, produces a key from his vest pocket, and opens the cabinet door. He pours two hefty glasses of red wine, hands one to Columbus, who is reclined on a black leather Barcelona daybed. Columbus is stunned. He has to sit up to accept the wine. Dr. Balderas locks his office door.

“Is this legal?”

“I’m the boss. And anyway, I don’t believe you’re dangerous. We wine lovers have to stick together.” The doctor raises his glass. “To getting well,” he says.

“To getting out,” Columbus says.

They drink in silence. Dr. Balderas pours more wine.

“I’m wondering if you’ll answer a question for me.”

“Well, I’m the one on the couch. I rather like this new wine therapy you’ve devised. Fire away.”

“I need you to really think about this before you answer. Okay?”

Columbus nods.

“Do you remember anything? I mean the smallest fragment of a fragment of half an imperfect memory-anything? Any minor detail.”

Columbus closes his eyes. He’d love to answer yes. He tries to stop thinking. Listens. Is there anybody in there screaming to get out? Hello? Hello? But no, he is who he is. Then the face comes. There is a man’s face. A bald man. His voice is soft-spoken. He’s looking down at Columbus -asking if he’s all right.

“Nothing,” he says. “I only have these Columbus memories.”