Thomas Trofimuk - Waiting for Columbus

Columbus pets the cat, which has hopped into his lap, kneaded, and curled up. “Once we start believing in things,” he says, “we’re at war against those who don’t believe in the same things.”

“But this religion seems to hate people, even the people it’s supposed to serve. Next they’ll be making us grow beards because Moses had a beard, and Jesus and God had beards, and then sending groups of Inquisition cowards to make sure our beards are the right length. Punishable by death, of course.”

Columbus smiles. This is exactly the kind of conversation that could get them in trouble. But Juan is not done yet.

“Should we not be free to choose our path to God, or to choose no path at all? When you have to use violence, intimidation, and fear to impose your religion, you will never succeed. It should be called the imposition, not the Inquisition.”

“What would you suggest? To hold no beliefs?”

“Is that even possible?”

“I don’t know but I would like to try.”

Juan unconsciously nods his head.

“Well, to not believing, then,” Columbus says, raising and tilting his glass slightly toward Juan.

“To uncluttered minds and hearts,” Juan says, taking a drink.

Columbus knows this way of viewing the world is not popular with the Inquisition. His fear is that one night he’ll drink too much, speak his mind, and the wrong people will be at the table. He thinks about his sons and Beatriz. He worries about their safety.

What if the Inquisition turns on him? What if he’s suddenly found to be a Jew, or his desire to sail the Western Sea is considered heretical? He is not a Jew, and he simply wants to see what’s out there, but what if? Or what if his ideas about the physical world, its size and scope, conflict with the prevailing wind out of Rome? What if he’s tortured into confessing something idiotic?

Columbus has a well-stocked cupboard of fear.

This morning, he opened his door and the news on the street was that thirty Jews had been killed in a small town in Italy -burned to death by a mob. And four women drowned, allegedly witches, after being tortured into a confession. Sign of the times. Brutal, senseless, filled with fear and ultimately stupid.

“It would be my wish to sail toward whatever is out there with an open mind and heart,” Columbus says.

“Ah yes, your voyage.” Juan fills their glasses and looks hard at Columbus. “Look, I’ve read the reports. May I be truthful?”

“As a baby’s behind.”

How is a baby’s bottom truthful? Juan wonders. Doesn’t matter. “You don’t stand a chance of pulling this off. Unless you know a lot more than you’re saying, you’d have to be an idiot to go to sea and expect to reach the Indies, or China, except in a foundering ship filled with dead men. Not to mention the fact you’ll be adrift in a rowboat-set there by your mutinous, starving crew.”

Columbus looks across the table at Juan and smiles, then nods his head. Here is a worthy challenge. If he can convince this man, he can convince anybody.

“You can’t carry enough water, or food, for this voyage,” Juan adds. “Maybe on a ship five times bigger, but first, you would have to build such a ship, hmm?”

“Faith against doubt. Hope against hopelessness.”

“That’s not a very convincing argument. I mean, if that’s it, it’s no wonder you’ve not lined up any ships.”

“Juan, you could be right. Those at the commission are probably right. Most of my calculations are grossly underestimated when it comes to the size of the Earth. But if this is true, then could you tell me, please, how big the Earth is?”

“Well, I don’t know. The commission did not know. How the fuck would I know? But I’m not proposing to sail halfway around the damned thing.” Juan leans back and lights up a beedi. The heady scent spreads like incense in the dead air.

“The thing is, nobody knows for sure. This voyage to the Indies will not be executed with the use of intelligence, mathematics, or maps. It will be made by failing to understand what goes through the mind and heart of a man standing alone on a beach looking out to sea.”

“Look, have you actually read any of the reports? While nobody is sure, they are fairly certain it is an immense distance to India and Japan across the Western Sea. The guys that made these reports are not dull. These are the best minds of our time. This is not based in superstition. It has to do with the curve of the Earth. This is science. And please don’t tell me the planet could be shaped like a pear.”

“Here’s what I know, Juan. There’s something out there. I do not know if it is Japan or the Indies. But I do know there is something out there and it is entirely reachable by sea.”

“A new land?”

“That is possible. An island, or a group of islands, between here and Japan. A group of outer islands before Japan. I don’t know.”

“How is it that you know this?”

“I had a conversation with a Norseman.”

“A what?”

“A Norseman, off the coast of Britain. He spoke of writings that mention a land out west that his people have seen. And I overheard a couple of sailors talking about finding a small man in a death boat twenty-one days west of the Canary Islands.” Columbus does not mention that the Norseman said his people had been there. Nor does he bring up the fact the Norseman said there were demons there.

“A Viking? Don’t they do horrible things to their children?”

“Have you ever seen a Viking do something horrible to a child? Jesus, where do these rumors come from?”

“You talked to a Norseman and you overheard a conversation. Well, that changes everything. A couple of rumors about land being there really sways me to your side. I’m sold. You’re not an idiot after all.”

“Juan, I want to tell you something that will not sway you in the least.” Columbus takes a drink. “I am no longer trying to convince you. I simply wish to tell someone what I am feeling. You are not my family but I trust you by your actions.” Columbus clears his throat, pours more gin and tonic into a sweating glass, and takes a huge swig. “Do you believe in fate?”

“No. I believe we make our own lives.”

“Fine. It doesn’t matter. What does matter is I can feel a shift. The weight is shifting toward this journey of mine, and I don’t know if I could stop it if I tried. It’s almost as if I am irrelevant. It’s like this huge rock I’ve been pushing against has started to fall over. And now, it is not so easy to stop. It’s going to fall. And when it finally hits the ground, anything that happens to be in the way of the rock will be squashed.”

“You’re right about it not being much of an argument.”

“Regardless. I want you to watch. Because it’s going to happen. And when it does, I’m going to need someone, a clear thinker, to observe and record with cold eyes-eyes that question. For that reason, for your steady dubious nature, I’d like you on the voyage.”

“You what?”

“I want you to come.”

“You want me to die with you when we run out of water and food and hope? I’m honored, touched.”

“That’s not going to happen.” Columbus speaks slowly. His voice becomes throaty, seems to slip down an octave.

Juan looks at him hard-sees the steady belief Columbus has in his own words written in his narrow, stern face. He concedes this belief. Columbus, at the very least, believes he will succeed.

“Don’t answer right away.”

Juan was not expecting an invitation. “I won’t take your invitation lightly, my friend. Now let me tell you about Selena, who is crazy about you, by the way.”

“Is she really?” Columbus says.

Both men turn at the sound of pots clanging onto a stone floor somewhere inside the main house.