Thomas Trofimuk - Waiting for Columbus

“What about places? Do you remember the Catedral de Santa María de la Sede in Sevilla? Can you close your eyes and see the orange trees in the courtyard, the stained glass? When were you there last?”

Columbus smiles. “You’ve been reading. That’s a step beyond your predecessor.” He takes a sip of his wine. “And if I lied and said yes, I do remember another life, would I-”

“That would only be a beginning step.”

“Well, what if you’re wrong? And what if I’m perfectly happy being who I am?”

“There is a danger that you are avoiding this event in your past with such fervor that, yes, you could never come out. That’s a real danger. It would mean that you’d never get out of here.”

Dr. Balderas looks evenly at Columbus. There is no panic, no hint of apprehension at the prospect of never getting out.

“In my notes,” Dr. Balderas says, “I saw that you believe, and Dr. Fuentes’s notes confirm this, that something horrible is going to happen-a disaster is looming, something you are powerless to stop.”

“That’s right.”

“Do you still feel this way?”

His voice gets very small. “Yes. Something too horrible to even think about.”

Dr. Balderas leans forward, elbows on his desk, one hand cupping his chin. “What if it already happened?” he says.

“What do you mean? I’m worried about the future.”

“What if the something awful already happened and you’re running away, not moving toward?”

“I was going to sea. Three ships in the harbor at Palos. Then I woke up here. I had my ships, supplies, a crew. Everything was ready.”

“You were brought here and the only name on file is Bolivar. You have no idea how you came to be here?”

“Yes. No. Ask Nurse Consuela. She was there when I arrived.”

“I’ll look into it.”

“Thank you. And thank you for the wine, too. It has been quite a while…” Columbus ’s legs feel wobbly when he goes to stand up; he’s a little unsteady but also determined not to show it.

The next morning, he stops swimming, stands up, and slow-motion walks over to the edge of the pool-looks up at Consuela. She’s been reading Huckleberry Finn . She puts the book down.

“Balderas is the real deal,” he says. “I have a feeling he’s going to solve this, and that’s a bit frightening.”

“Why would that be frightening?”

“If he’s right, there’s something horrifying at the end of this. Anyway, I get the feeling Balderas is the tipping point.”

“Tipping point?”

“When you’ve been pushing on something and it starts to move, and you realize you couldn’t stop it if you wanted.” He smiles and nods to himself. “But there is a moment just before this realization when everything is completely calm.”

Columbus is sitting up in bed as Nurse Tammy slathers shaving cream onto his face, making small foamy circles with her fingertips. Consuela is perched on the windowsill, watching-her head tilted, bemused. Columbus ’s eyes are closed. He’s wearing a black cotton beret pulled to one side. Where he found this beret is a mystery. He seems to have a talent for getting people to do things for him or for convincing people to give him things. Nurse Tammy is meticulous and quick with her shaving. This efficiency pleases Columbus.

“Thank you,” he says. He brushes his hand along his jawline and smiles. “This reminds me of a time when I was staying with Juan at a villa near Montoro. It was midday and we were shaving. It was not nearly as pleasant as this shave, but we had only cold water.”

Nurse Tammy folds the razor into the towel, nods at Consuela, and leaves the room.

Behind the stable, Juan and Columbus stand at a table beneath a generous, spreading elm. Swallows chirp and make their clicking sounds in the upper branches. The sprinklers flicker to life in the lower vineyard and begin to make their rhythmic sputtering-water sound. The sunlight is filtered green through the canopy of leaves.

A pitcher of gin and tonic sits on the table between them. Behind and away from the stable, an arching passageway leads to the courtyard. One of the queen’s friends owns this villa, an eccentric woman who is a bit of a patron of the arts, and in Columbus ’s case, a patron of hopeless causes. Columbus and Juan, by association, are guests. Selena is in the kitchen glancing sporadically, worriedly, through a small, square window at the two men. She can hear only bits and pieces of their conversation. Somewhere inside the main house, somebody is playing one of Bach’s unaccompanied cello suites. It sounds to Columbus like the third suite, the one in C major. It’s happier to the ear than the others. They finish shaving and sit down.

“This came for you yesterday,” Juan says. He slides a brown envelope across the table and leans back to watch.

Columbus places his drink on the table, picks up the envelope, brings it to his nose, and sniffs. He sighs heavily, rips open one end, and peeks inside. Another birthday card with his actual birthday two months past. He does not have to look in order to know it’s signed, “Love, Cassandra,” or “Lovingly, Cassandra,” or some other adoring salutation. How does she find me? he thinks.

“A woman?”

“A mistake,” Columbus says.

“A persistent mistake, it seems.”

“Her birthday greetings come randomly, or so it seems. Never on my actual birthday.”

“Some say nothing is ever random. Everything is dependent on prior events.”

Columbus thinks about this. He wonders about the events that caused his obsession. He thinks about the possible events that might be put into motion from his crossing the Western Sea. “Could you please randomly fill my glass?”

“That would certainly be dependent on your asking me to make it so.”

“Just make it so now, and then be pleasantly unpredictable.”

Juan fills his glass and smiles. “Some women,” he says, “refuse to be gotten rid of.”

They sit in the shade and share two slow pitchers of gin and tonic. At some point in their conversation, the Inquisition is mentioned. This is something neither of them is comfortable speaking about. There are regions of Spain where one not only has to be Catholic but must be the right kind of Catholic. But this villa is a safe haven.

“Look,” Juan says, “this darkness is something human beings cannot escape. It is our nature. We wallow in it. And at the same time, it seems almost sanctioned by the church. Abel and Cain. Cain slew Abel. And ever since Adam’s son killed his brother, mankind has been killing and slaughtering and mutilating. Adam and Eve march out of the garden and their prodigy start the killing.”

Columbus leans back in his chair. He’s grappling with his faith today. He looked into the mirror as he was performing his morning ablutions and saw a godless man. It wasn’t a frightening image, but he recognized the godlessness in himself. On days like this, he fumbles his faith. Drops it, picks it up, and drops it again. His faith is a slippery trout and he is squeezing too tightly. If God is the river, he thinks, in which my faith swims, this morning, I prefer to turn my back on that water. I’ll take the trees and the mountains and all the gray clouds, instead.

He looks down at a small, black, lightning strike of a cat. It appears and disappears so suddenly.

“And let me tell you,” Juan continues, “I have seen much of this world and hope to see a lot more. I do not mind that people are different-that they believe different things. I don’t care. Jews, Muslims, Vikings, Marco Polo’s Buddhists, witches, or pagans-I don’t care. Muslims love their children the same as Christians and Jews.”