Thomas Trofimuk - Waiting for Columbus

“Nurse Consuela?” Emile says. “You seem to be crying.”

“Oh shit,” she says, wiping away her tears. “It’s nothing. I’ve been weepy for days. I’m a little overwhelmed. This is great news.”

Emile crosses the gulf between them and hands her a handkerchief. It seems to be an honest gesture, not ostentatious. It’s just something he does when women around him cry. Consuela looks at it, then up at him. He shrugs. “My mother insisted her boys always carry a handkerchief. Old habits, you know?”

Consuela takes the handkerchief and dabs the corners of her eyes. “Thanks.”

“I’d be interested in your opinion, Nurse Consuela. How close do you think he is to coming out of this?”

She stands up and crosses the office, looks down into the courtyard. These windows need cleaning, she thinks. A fly skitters along the glass. I’ve no idea, she thinks. “I’m not a doctor,” she says.

“You see him every day-have seen him almost every day. Right now, I’d value your opinion more than any doctor’s-no offense intended.” He nods at Dr. Balderas.

“He’s close to finishing his story. It’s almost done. But I don’t know if he’s ready to face whatever it is that happened to him.”

“I think,” Dr. Balderas says, “what Consuela is worried about is the reality. We could pressure him to face his reality and push him even further away-lose him completely.”

“How much time do you think you’ll need? I can be exceedingly slow when it comes to my paperwork.”

Consuela smiles.

“We need a week, maybe two,” Dr. Balderas says.

“Okay. That’s not a problem. I’ll need at least that long to run the DNA. There are no fingerprints on file for this alleged Mr. Nusret. I’m having a file on him forwarded to your e-mail account, Dr. Balderas, but let me tell you what I know…”

“Well, you could tell him it’s a standard test-that the same test is being done on every patient in the institute.”

Consuela smiles. “He’s delusional, not stupid. What do I tell him when he asks what the test is for?”

“Tell him the test is looking for influenza antibodies,” Emile says, “that this test will help with the development of a flu shot.”

“Is this in any way close to ethical?”

“You’re responsible for his well-being. This test will help us be sure that he is who we think he is.” Emile is surprised to find himself feeling envy. He’s envious of Columbus because he gets to be with Consuela every day-well, every day she works. He looks over at Consuela. Clearly she is weighing the ethics of this test. Emile finds himself liking her more for her hesitation.

“Okay,” she says. “Okay. I’ll get you a DNA sample.”

“One more thing,” Emile says. “What time does your shift end?”

“Are you asking me out on a date?” She shakes her head as if this would be entirely out of the question.

“Well, we could call it business, but it’s been a long time since I’ve had a glass of wine with a woman who pushes me on the ethics of my job.”

“No,” Consuela says. “I couldn’t possibly go out and talk about business. But I’d love to see what an ethical glass of wine looks like.”

“I have a home in Paris,” Emile says. He catches the waiter’s eyes and holds up his thumb and forefinger for two more glasses of wine.

Not a house, or a flat, or an apartment, Consuela thinks. “That sounds like code for a woman is waiting for me in Paris,” Consuela says. She stops. “I’m sorry, that’s none of my business.”

“It’s all right. It is actually a pretty homey apartment. There used to be a woman there, but she took her leave two years ago. And I’m outside the realm of relationship right now.”

“That’s a very odd way to say you’re single, Mr. Germain.”

“I’d be willing to step back into that realm for someone like you, Ms. Lopez. You did say Lopez?” Shut up, you idiot, Emile tells himself.

“I didn’t say.”

“Oh? I’m sure Dr. Balderas introduced you as Consuela Emma Lopez.”

Consuela shakes her head.

“Well, it must have been on your name tag.”

Consuela smiles and shakes her head again.

“Okay, I asked around. I dug around a bit,” Emile says. “I know about that stop sign in Barcelona -the one you ran in 1997.”

I looked you up, too, she thinks. Consuela can’t help wondering where Emile was shot. She finds his eyes. Is there hurt there? Is he still damaged there? Gray eyes, with shards of hazel. The same confidence she sees in Columbus ’s eyes. An even self-knowledge. A groundedness. Yes, Columbus is deluded. But still, he has these same eyes. This Interpol man has not shaved in three days. She wonders if this is by choice. He has a strong, narrow nose. Brown hair with an undercurrent of gray. Even when he places the small wire-rimmed reading glasses on his face, he’s attractive.

“I think I’m flattered,” Consuela says.

“Well, I’d like to know about you, beyond your work, beyond Columbus. Where were you born? Have you lived in Sevilla all your life? I want to know your story.”

Consuela sips her wine. “Well, I like to read.”

In the dining hall, Consuela sits across from Columbus and looks into his eyes. She wants to tell him she’s tired. Tired of the stories and tired of being in love with someone she can’t touch, hold, or really, understand. He’s a man without substance. She has been in love with a five-hundred-year-old ghost. She’s afraid of the end.

“Beatriz winds up in a place much like this,” Columbus says. “In a mental institution with wire screens over windows and locks on doors, security guards, orderlies, and drugs.”

“She’s sleeping soundly,” someone says.

Beatriz hears this and does not move. She listens to the people moving around the room. She listens to their conversations and judges their numbers and where they are in the room.

“What happened to her? How did this happen?” A woman’s voice.

“Some sort of knife fight.” A man. It could be one of the security agents. One of the queen’s men.

“It’s going to leave a scar. It was a deep cut.” The woman again.

“A shame. She’s really quite pretty.”

A gentle touch on her forehead.

“She’ll be out for quite a while.”

And then the sound of a door closing. The hinges creak. Two sets of creaking and then silence.

Is she alone? There’s no window in the door. Beatriz knows this for a fact. She remembers checking it on the way in. But did they both leave? She waits. And waits. But how long to wait? If she waits too long there is a chance she could actually nod off. She managed to palm most of the pills they gave her but she could not avoid ingesting some pain medication.

Finally, she decides to risk one eye. Through a sliver she sees the lights have been dimmed. There are only three candles on a table across the room. Slowly, Beatriz moves her vision entirely around the small room. She realizes she’s been holding her breath. Breathe, she thinks. Breathe.

She sits up and flips her legs to the floor. That motion doesn’t feel quite right but it’s not as bad as it could be. The door handle begins to turn. And the door is opening. The nurse comes in. Beatriz is just as she left her. The hinges squeak again and Beatriz is up and out of bed in a flash. Her clothes are not in this room. She finds and dresses in a set of green cotton pants and a simple smock. She’s a little wobbly on her feet but the wobbliness is not debilitating. She takes three bottles of pills. Then she’s at the window, pulling the latch and swinging the windows outward into the night. The heat hits her like a small fist. She had taken the air-conditioned hospital for granted.