He clams up. He asks for and then demands sleeping pills. Consuela prompts him a couple of times. He deflects, feigns a cold, or a sore throat, or fatigue. He is amused at small things. He finds the sky-cloud formations-fascinating. Sparrows mesmerize. Flowers delight. All these things have become more important than stories.
“I want to give him a bottle of wine,” she says. “I want to loosen him up and persuade him to finish.”
“We have medications for that, Consuela.” Dr. Balderas stands. Looks out the window.
“Check,” Consuela says, sliding her bishop into position. “I’d rather not drug him up when he’s so close.”
Dr. Balderas smiles, sits down, looks at the board. He hadn’t seen this coming. It’s aggressive and risky, which is a style of play he’s not witnessed in his favorite nurse.
“Okay. But it’s got to be private. That’s an interesting move.”
“ Columbus taught me. It’s a derivation of something called a gambit.”
On a day when the sky is ripped with gray and cool breezes arrive in blusters from the Atlantic, Consuela tells Columbus she’s procured a bota of wine and asks if he’d like a drink.
“Ah, you are seducing me,” he says. “This behavior is not unappealing. It’s about time you tried to take advantage of me.”
“I am not seducing you,” she whispers. “I just want to share a bottle of wine with my… friend.” She almost said favorite patient but that would be too outlandish for her to handle. Feeding patients booze is forbidden. It’s against the rules. Even though she has permission, this goes against everything she knows about being a nurse. “Not here, though. Meet me at the pool.”
“It’s been a while since I had a drink of wine with a beautiful woman,” Columbus says. He’s sitting on the edge of the pool, presiding over the pool, with his back to the doorway. She has grown to love the way he always knows when she is in the room. No matter how quiet she is or how careful she is about her scent, he knows.
“I saw this coming days ago,” he says.
“What did you see?” Jesus, this isn’t going to work, she thinks. She starts to panic.
“The weather. Cooler weather. I adjusted the temperature of the water.”
Consuela dips her toes into the pool and she finds the water is hot. They decide to move their deck chairs so they can put their feet in the water. Consuela passes the bota to him and he sprays a long stream of wine into his mouth. They pass the bota back and forth. If this first bota doesn’t do the trick, there’s another just inside the pool-room archway, which she dropped off as she came in.
“So what’s going on in that head of yours, Columbus? Do you know who you are today?”
“The ugly dreams are back. I can’t seem to dream about anything pleasant.” He stops. Takes a couple of barely controlled breaths. “Butterflies would be nice. Puppies. Kittens. Anything but what I find in my sleep…”
“Do you want to talk about your dreams?”
“We have talked about them. They’re ugly things. Horrifying. And I am here with a beautiful woman, and the wine is good. So no, I don’t want to talk about them.”
“Thank you, by the way.”
He looks at her, perplexed, then nods. “Well, you are a beautiful woman, regardless of what you may believe or think.”
They finish the bota and Consuela stands.
“Where are you going?”
“Do you think I would bring just one bottle of wine?”
“Nurse Consuela, you little vixen. I’d offer to get up and help you find that bottle but I’m not entirely certain I can.”
“We will taste the Pesquera now. I’m told it is an excellent Spanish wine. One of the best.”
“And the first bottle?”
“A bordeaux,” she says matter-of-factly.
That’s enough to push him back into the story. His eyes become sad and dark, edged with pain. The creases on his forehead deepen. He clears his throat and sighs heavily, then leans back in his chair and begins. “Ah, yes, the Café Bordeaux. This is where things go terribly wrong…”
Columbus arrives at the Café Bordeaux a few minutes early. There’s a lovely warmth to this place. Brownish, reddish, orange colors permeate the room and give it a comfort beyond its plush chairs and thick carpets. Selena wants to say good-bye, he thinks. This is her kind of café. It feels like Selena. It has the feel of privacy regardless of how public it may be.
He passes a table of four monks, hoods up, heads down, focused on the mastication of their food. He and Juan drank at least a bottle of wine each at the previous café, and upon sitting down, Columbus immediately orders another. The waiter is a small ferret of a man with a slender mustache. He is not friendly but his efficiency makes up for this. The wine is presented, uncorked, and poured with little fanfare. Columbus appreciates this man’s sharp-edged professionalism. If he hadn’t already filled his roster of sailors, he’d have invited this man along.
At the next table, separated from his by a dwarf palm tree, a mother and her two daughters, young girls about ten and twelve years old, are having dinner. The daughters have long dark hair, brushed and shining. They are so well behaved. Their mother, a woman who has a knowing smile, seems pleased, proud to be out with her daughters. Her smile makes Columbus feel she understands her daughters, that she listens with love. Columbus cannot help but overhear their conversation. They are discussing what they will wear the next day to watch the ships set sail. This pleases him. The youngest daughter talks excitedly about starting school in the fall. The oldest rolls her eyes.
Columbus takes another sip of wine. There’s no stopping this now, he thinks. He will sail in the morning. They will discover whatever is there. He thinks of the falling rock-a five-meter-high rock he has been pushing for the past ten years. Finally, he has loosened it to the point where it is going to fall. The rock is in motion, it has momentum, and Columbus can’t stop it.
He looks up in shock when she arrives, and he is stunned when she sits across from him, lets her hood fall to her shoulders, smiles. Her eyes have receded into her face, pupils dilated, and her complexion is sallow, pasty. Whatever drug she’s on, it has not been kind to her looks.
“My love,” Cassandra says inside a breathy whisper.
“Cassandra.” Columbus is off-kilter. This is a surprise. “Cassandra?”
“No kiss, Columbus? Have you no kisses for me?”
Columbus leans across the table and kisses her cheek gently. There is a faint scar along her jawline. Her skin feels cool and moist. She seems altered, like life itself has withdrawn slightly from her body.
“Have I become your sister?”
“My sisters are all at home in Genoa.”
“ Genoa. Well, I did not know that. You have family out of this country. Keeping secrets, are we, my love? I thought we had no secrets. I thought we shared everything.”
“We shared one evening-”
“And a night and a morning and an early afternoon.”
“Yes, of course, a beautiful time, but a short time.”
“And now you are leaving me.”
“Cassandra, I am leaving everything, everybody. Not just you. I have two sons. And I have a wife.”
“You have a wife?”
“Well, it is fairly common knowledge.”
“Not to me. You didn’t think it important to share that piece of vital information with me?”
Columbus leans back in his chair. “There was not an appropriate time to share my life’s history with you.” It would not be wise to volunteer any information about Beatriz or Selena, he thinks. Not now. Not ever.
“We could make the time, if only you would not do this thing tomorrow.”
“Cassandra, it is set. I sail tomorrow with the tide. There are three ships. And there are many men counting on me. The king and queen are counting on me.”
“And what of me? Were you going to leave without saying good-bye?”
Columbus begins to feel very twitchy. He does not like the way this conversation is going. She seems to be calm but there is some sort of violence hidden under the skin. Perhaps her voice is too calm. “Well, I will remember you. I will take you with me wherever I wind up.”
“And what about my love?”
“Your love?”
“Yes, I love you, Columbus. I love you like life itself. I have always loved you. I have always been waiting for you. All my life I have waited.”
“But I have not seen you for seven years.”
“And I have loved you all that time.”
“It’s been seven years!”
Her voice changes to something frozen and hard. “And during that time how many others have there been? A dozen? Two dozen, my love? A hundred, my love?” Her hands are in white-skinned fists on the table.
“But I must leave tomorrow, and I cannot take you with me. You understand that I have been waiting for this moment for all of my life? Would you deny me this voyage?”
Columbus stands up. He’s through with this. This is ridiculous. He was hard-pressed to even recall her name and now she is talking of love!
Then the waiter with the slender mustache is standing beside him, whispering in his ear. “You must sit down, Señor Columbus.” Columbus looks at the waiter, measures the strained seriousness of his voice, and sits.
Cassandra looks across the table, speechless. Not only is she being shunned; she’s being interrupted and ignored.
The waiter pulls up a chair beside Columbus. He has a small, white towel draped over his left shoulder.
“What’s going on?” Cassandra says.
The waiter’s voice is just loud enough. “If you want to stay alive, you’ll shut up and drink your wine.”
“What-”
“It’s your faith, Columbus. The inquisitors. The university. Your obsession. Your belief that you can do this despite the known facts. The inquisitors are coming for you. They say you are possessed. They say your ideas about the size of the world are heretical. They may be here already.”
“Who are you? How do you know-”
“I’m a friend who wants to see you set sail tomorrow.”
“Okay,” Columbus says. “You’ve managed to scare me. What do you want me to do?”
“When I leave your table, wait one minute and follow me behind the bar and out into the kitchen. Wait there. We’ll get you to your ship.” The waiter stands up, smiles, claps Columbus on the shoulder. “I’ll bring you another bottle right away, sir,” he says.
Cassandra watches the waiter’s back as he moves toward the kitchen, and then she faces Columbus. “You’ve planned this to get away from me,” she says. “I’m not going to let you run off. I love you. I shared my body with you, as if we were married!” Columbus is counting to sixty. He’s only at thirty when it all changes.
“I have been completely true to you, my love… are you listening to me?”
He risks a look over his shoulder. Cassandra’s voice slows down-he can’t understand what she’s saying. The waiter is moving in slow motion. He’s behind the bar, but he has not gone into the kitchen. Instead, he flips the towel off his shoulder-in a suspended arc-and drops it on the floor, like he’s starting a race or signaling for some event to begin. The towel seems to take forever to hit the floor. The waiter is off, almost running down the passageway toward the front of the restaurant. Is that right? Columbus is thinking. Should I still go into the kitchen? What’s going on?
Two strands of fear pound through his body. He can’t breathe. He fears the Inquisition-he has been pushing the edges of tolerance with his desire to redefine the map of the known world, and he has been vocal about his doubts in God, his growing disdain for the religion behind which the Inquisition hides. He also fears the waiter may have been lying. What if there’s something else going on? What if? What’s in the kitchen? Then the waiter, moving toward the front of the restaurant, turns toward Columbus’s table-it’s such a fleeting glance. In that micro-fraction of a second their eyes meet, and Columbus knows something is about to happen. One of the girls at the next table is eating ice cream-smiling, laughing. The waiter is going in the wrong direction, hell-bent to get out of the room. Columbus pushes his chair back. It scrapes the tile floor-groans, tips over with a bang. He has to see who’s in the kitchen. He has to see. He has to know. His legs are leaden. He can’t move fast enough. He glances back. Cassandra is standing, her mouth open. The mother of the two girls is half standing, watching him. The waiter is almost at the front door. Columbus pushes through the kitchen door. It’s empty. An acrid burning smell. Dull, stainless-steel appliances. Chopping blocks. Racks of knives. A cardboard box on the counter against the wall. Stacks of plates. A pot of something boiling on the stove. A broken plate in the middle of the floor. A frying pan on a gas burner with its contents burned-the smoke beginning to fill the top of the room. The kitchen is vacant. Nobody is there. “Shit.” He turns around. Stands still for a second. There isn’t a waiter in sight. Come on, Columbus tells himself. Move! Everything in him is screaming to get out of this restaurant, but he runs toward the table with the girls instead. He looks toward the front of the room. The waiter is near the door, pushing his way through four men putting on coats. He has to get to the girls and their mother. He’s got to get in between the kitchen and their table. He’s acting on instinct and adrenaline and fear doubled. Cassandra is nowhere in sight. The mother looks surprised to see him running directly toward her. She’s gathered her girls in close, an arm around each daughter. She’s leaning toward the door, like she’s going to get out of the way of this madman. No, he thinks. Not them. Not these girls-not this woman. No! Columbus dives at them, pulls them to the floor, and the explosion pushes the bar, the wall, and most of the kitchen into the dining room. The air around him seems to be moving in both directions. Something jars his back, his spine. He feels the impact-a sharp pain and then nothing. A table smashes into his head as it flips across the room and through the window. The sound of breaking glass. Dishes smashing. Screaming. The café empties quickly, chaotically.
Gabriel is one of two agents whose assignment was to follow Columbus and keep him safe. He was on the street when the window blew out-a shower of shattered glass sprays across the road. Car alarms honking up and down the street. He’s frozen for a split second as he figures it out. Then he’s moving against the flow of people-moving through, toward Columbus. At the same time, he’s screaming into a tiny microphone in his sleeve: “It’s a bomb. He’s down,” he says. “Code red, goddamnit. The subject is down. We need backup.” Gabriel moves past the mother and daughters. They were behind Columbus, he thinks. Maybe Columbus is all right, too. The woman who was at Columbus’s table comes out of the washroom, looks around, and heads for the door. She slips and falls near the doorway, gets up, and disappears into the street.
Columbus opens his eyes. He can’t see anything except the ceiling. He can’t move his body. He can’t move his arms or legs. He can’t see the girls or their mother. He can’t lift his hand to shield his face from the overhead sprinklers. He blinks the water away the best he can.
A sort of odd silence folds itself around the remaining disorder. Somewhere in the background he hears horns honking. Columbus’s breathing is fast and threadbare. He notices this-wonders why he’s breathing so quickly. Are they okay? he thinks. Are the girls okay? The mother? They’re not in his peripheral view.
He smiles. Relaxes into his view of the ceiling and even the steady sprinkle of water on his face. There are rough wooden beams. He begins to count the beams in the room. He suddenly craves a cigar. Does he have any cigars? Is there a cigar in his pocket? Yes, a cigar would be nice right now. The queen will be most disappointed. I have made promises I will not be able to fulfill. Promises, promises, promises… and there will be no journey across the sea. All that fuss for nothing. Nothing! But I’m breathing. I’m breathing. There. That was a breath. That’s good. As long as I am breathing… I…
Perhaps I’m not going to ruin everything. It’s going to be all right, Beatriz. I’m not going to see what’s out there. Not for me to do. Somebody else’s problem. Blood. Blood. There won’t be any blood now. It’s all changed. All changed. No more blood.
But still, I’m breathing. There. There’s another breath.
Gabriel holsters his gun. He’s not sure why he drew his weapon. He leans over Columbus. Columbus sees that this is one of the queen’s guards; they were all issued Walther PPKs.
“Don’t move,” Gabriel says.
“That won’t be a problem,” he whispers.
“What?” Gabriel leans closer.
“The girls, the mother-okay?”
“They’re fine. They got away.”
“Tell Beatriz. I’m sorry.”
“Beatriz?”
“I’m breathing. I am… tell Beatriz…”
Gabriel pulls a tablecloth from a sideways table and makes a couple of sloppy folds, slides it gently under Columbus’s head. “Hold on,” he says. “Help is coming. You’re going to be all right.” He does not believe this man is going to be all right. He hopes this is not noticeable in his voice. He looks down at his hands-they’re covered in blood. Under Columbus’s head, the red expands into the white tablecloth.
Gabriel looks down at Columbus. Is he breathing? He seems to be smiling.
“Tell Beatriz I’m sorry…” Columbus thinks he says it. He’s not sure. Doesn’t matter.
Columbus tries again to smile. Thinks, Isn’t that odd? Exhales.