Thomas Trofimuk - Waiting for Columbus

It’s drizzling. The light is sublime. Fog mixed with cloud swirls in the high branches of the trees, giving everything an even, kind light. They hustle across the dayroom courtyard. Just before they reach the arched entrance to the south wing and the forgotten swimming pool, she says, “And?”

“And what?” he says, stopping.

“And what happens next?”

“Of course, you want to know what happens next, but great stories should never be rushed. This is a story about obsession and love, and lust and imminent discovery. It is a story that marks a leap in knowledge and understanding for all of humanity. It changes the world into a far bigger entity.”

“It is a good story. Do you think I’m rushing you?”

“I’m happy to keep going. Whenever you want, I am happy to tell you my story. Should we get out of the rain?”

But he doesn’t continue. He swims and she waits and nothing comes. When he finishes his swim for the day, he looks at her with confusion in his eyes.

“I… I don’t know what happened. I wanted to go on, to unravel more of this story. It just wouldn’t come out. I couldn’t find a way to begin.”

“It’s all right, Columbus. Stories can wait.”

In fact, it’s Consuela and Dr. Balderas, anxious in the wings, who wait. They wait for more than a week for him to continue.

“I know I started this,” Columbus says at breakfast. “I know. But it’s getting harder to keep going. I start to lose my breath when I think about coming to the end.”

“All in good time, Columbus,” Consuela says. “I’m not going anywhere.”

He holds his fingertip on the top of his queen, but Dr. Balderas is suspended in something other than chess. His mind is not on the game. Even Consuela can see that any move involving the queen would be disastrous. But still, he holds his finger there, as if he is considering the possibilities of such a move. He is looking at the board but he does not see it. He moves his forefinger to his pursed lips.

“The women,” he says, finally. “The women are his wife.”

“The women are his wife?” Consuela is confused.

“ Columbus. Columbus ’s women. Think about it. The queen, Isabella, represents strength, fortitude, and courage-and most important, she is sexual restraint. Selena is unconditional love. She asks no questions. She asks for nothing. Beatriz is the archetypal mother. Cassandra-was that her name?-she represents lust, desire, wild abandonment. All these women are representations of Columbus ’s wife. His real-life wife.”

Consuela can feel the blood drain from her face.

“What?” she says halfheartedly.

“It’s just one piece of the puzzle. I couldn’t get my head around all these women Columbus sleeps with, or in the case of Isabella, doesn’t sleep with. This parsing of personality traits makes sense. He’s not a philanderer in his real life. He probably loves his wife very much. What I don’t understand is why Columbus never beds Isabella. If I’m reading your reports correctly, they’re crazy about each other.” He’s about to go on but glances up at Consuela and stops. “Are you all right, Consuela?”

“Bathroom,” she says quickly. In a flash she’s in the hallway. In scant seconds she’s standing in the bathroom with the door locked. The lock click echoes in the small room. A strip of fluorescent lighting sparks to life, hesitant and yellow.

Breathe, Consuela, she tells herself. She slides down the wall so her buttocks rest on the floor, her feet still flat on the tile. Her forearms rest on her knees. This can’t be , she thinks. How could I be so stupid?

Even with the air-conditioning and the cool tile on her back, Consuela is sweating. She can feel the wetness on her back, and under her arms.

Why hasn’t Columbus slept with Isabella? It’s a story. There must be a thousand ways to tell a story in which this lust is consummated. There was plenty of opportunity. Just make up some motel room in Barcelona, or Madrid, or Marbella. Find some clever way to shake off her bodyguards. Wear disguises. But Columbus has not told this story. Their relationship is taut with sexual tension. It’s restrained, withheld, and ultimately forbidden. Just like…

It’s me. I’m Isabella. Oh, fuck.

“Does he know who he is?” Emile sips his coffee. Dr. Balderas had been pleased to show off his new Italian espresso machine. When Emile had asked for a café cortado, the doctor jumped up and made one for himself, too.

“Not yet,” Dr. Balderas says, “but we believe he’s close.”

“How close?”

Dr. Balderas hesitates.

“Look, it’ll take us a few days, perhaps as long as a week, to confirm who he is. But if he is this missing Canadian, I’ll have to let the Canadian embassy know we’ve found him. They’ll want to notify his family. And eventually, sooner rather than later, they’re going to want to take him home.”

“How much can you delay that process?”

Emile smiles. “Depends on how convincing an argument you can make.”

“Nurse Consuela is supposed to be here.” He looks at his watch. It’s not quite eight thirty.

Consuela is guarded when she arrives at Dr. Balderas’s office. She hesitates at the door. She does not know how to feel about this Interpol agent. It’s possible he holds the key to Columbus, and she’s not sure she wants the key.

Emile stands when she comes into the office.

Well, that’s old-school Cary Grant, she thinks. Nice. So far, her mother would approve.

He reaches out his hand. “I’m Emile Germain. I’m with Interpol. I’ve been chasing your Columbus patient for a few months.” He smiles. “I’ve had other cases along the way but he kept pulling me back to Spain.”

His handshake is firm, not overpowering and not lame. His eye-glasses are folded flat in his shirt pocket-they look like they might be wire-rimmed reading glasses. Consuela looks at his shoes. Her father always harped about how you could tell a lot about a man by the way he took care of his shoes-or didn’t. He’s wearing stylish, brown dress shoes, slip-ons-more pointed than any pair of conservative wing-tipped oxfords. The shoes are not polished. But they’re not in rough shape, either.

“Do you know what happened to him?” Consuela sits across the room from the two men-she wants space.

“My office identified four files out of our database-all of these men are possibilities. We need time to confirm his identity, but judging from these pictures, I’d say we’ve got a pretty good idea. We think he was in Madrid on March 11.”

Dr. Balderas breaks in. “Everything fits, Consuela. They think he might be a Canadian.” He hands her four pictures inside a red-and-white Interpol folder, which she flips through quickly. The pictures are fairly conclusive, though not 100 percent. The man in the pictures has short hair, or his hair is covered by various hats. He wears glasses in a couple of the photos. The eyes seem to be right. Consuela returns to the first one. Yes, this one certainly looks like him.

“I thought…” Consuela says. She inhales sharply. “He’s not Spanish? He’s Canadian?”

“Yes, and this creates a bit of a problem,” Dr. Balderas says.

“You mean beyond the fact that he still believes he’s Columbus,” she says.

“Well, that and the fact Mr. Germain is going to have to report in. He’ll have to let the Canadian embassy know we’ve got one of their people. I’ve let Mr. Germain-”

“Emile, please,” Emile says.

“I’ve briefed Emile on our progress. I’ve given him my opinion. I’ve told him that based on your reports over the past couple of weeks, and the changes I’ve witnessed in Mr. Columbus, that he’s close. And we’d like a little time.”