Five days later, Consuela gets a call from Emile, excited and babbling like an idiot. It’s three in the morning. Consuela had just drifted off, after a night with the girls at a flamenco bar. She definitely had too much sangria, talked too much, had a puff of someone’s cigarette, drank some more, and got up and danced. She doesn’t dance. She most certainly does not dance flamenco. She did tonight.
She almost does not recognize his voice. He’s shouting above loud music, calling from the bathroom of a bar-telling her to Wake up. Wake up for Christ’s sake.
“Have you been drinking? Do you realize what time it is?”
“Those are excellent questions, Consuela. The answers are yes, and it doesn’t matter. I talked to his brother. He called from Quebec City two days ago.”
“Who? Whose brother?”
“Julian’s-your Columbus -his brother. We talked for an hour. He told me Julian and his wife honeymooned in Tangier.” The music gets louder for a few seconds, like someone just opened a door and then let it shut.
“Tangier, so?” Consuela is not following. Why is Emile so excited?
“Julian went on his honeymoon in Tangier. In Morocco. Across the Strait of Gibraltar. It’s the piece of the puzzle I didn’t have an answer for. I didn’t understand how the Strait of Gibraltar fit until now.”
“Okay, I’m wide awake.”
“Look, I’ll be back in Sevilla tomorrow night. I’ll call you when I get in.” He hangs up. Consuela sits and looks at the receiver in her hand until it beeps. She hangs it up and then sits in her bed until she has to pee. Sleep does not come easy. It is finally purchased with two glasses of warm milk and a shot of brandy. She does not work the next day, sleeps until 9 A.M., and goes to the gym. She calls Dr. Balderas, tells him what Emile told her. She meets Emile in the bar at Enrique Becerra. He kisses her gently on each cheek-then pulls back a bit, looks at her with pure joy. “I missed you, Consuela,” he says.
Dr. Balderas weaves his way through the restaurant toward their table.
“He was trying to connect with his wife,” Dr. Balderas says. Before he sits down, the owner, a man Consuela could easily imagine as Salvos from Columbus ’s story, comes over immediately and shakes the doctor’s hand.
“Wine?” he says. “I have an extraordinary pinot I know you’d love. The blackberry flavors practically jump out and slap you in the face.”
“That sounds fine, Ernesto.”
Dr. Balderas sits down across from Consuela and Emile, who look amused and surprised. “I’m a regular,” he says. “We play chess.”
“What do you mean he was trying to connect with his wife?” Consuela says.
“Swimming the Strait of Gibraltar was a subconscious desire to join his wife, the memory of his wife in Tangier. Something in Columbus was trying to connect with his wife.”
They sit silently as the waiter appears at their table, opens the wine with a certain efficiency, and pours with elegance. Dr. Balderas tastes the wine-lets a sliver roll around his mouth, waits, then looks up at the waiter and gives an almost imperceptible nod.
“So,” Consuela says. “What do we do now?”
The day is a gift. The morning air is fragrant with the heavenly scent of orange trees. But it’s also humid and hot. The sky is already a striking, flawless blue. There is no wind. Not even a faint breeze. It’s as if the day is holding its breath along with Consuela. She and Columbus are in the lower courtyard, moving toward the swimming pool. He is in front of her, in his robe, a towel draped around his neck. She stops walking, stands still, and watches as he moves away from her. Her heart is racing.
“Julian,” she says.
Columbus stops. He does not turn around. His legs wobble; they buckle. He goes down hard, and then he is kneeling on the cement.
Consuela moves in front of him, crouches, then sits cross-legged on the ground.
His hands cover his face. “My daughters’ names are Chloe and Jane. Jane is thirteen. Chloe is eleven. My wife, was lovely. I found them… I was chasing someone… and then I found them. I thought it was thunder. But the sky was blue. It was so blue. They were so beautiful.”
He’s having a hard time with his breathing. Can’t seem to get a full breath.
“Chloe and her mother were together, peaceful, embraced. Jane was alone. I couldn’t find her arms. I don’t want this… I don’t want to feel this. My little girl’s arms were gone.”
Consuela stops breathing. Not breathing is the only appropriate response she can muster. This catches her by surprise. She doesn’t want this, either. She wants to be alone in her bed curled into a ball, headphones on, and drunk beyond compare. She does not want this picture. It’s a picture that will never go away. She takes a breath.
“I know,” she says. Consuela leans forward to embrace him and he collapses into her.
Julian arrives back at the station, winded and confused. Three thunderous bangs and a clear blue sky. There’s so much smoke. People screaming. He’s going down a flight of stairs toward the smoke-fighting against desperate people moving in the opposite direction. He’s going the wrong way. Bombs, someone says. Bombas. He pushes through people. At the same time, he’s looking at faces. What were they wearing? What were his girls wearing? He just needs a glimpse of a face or a garment. He begins to see bodies through the smoke, some still alive, some not moving. They won’t be here, he tells himself. They’re already out in the street looking for him. They won’t be here. They’re not here. A silence enfolds the scene.
Consuela is not sure she wants to hear any more. He’s telling his own story now-a hesitant revelation in a hoarse whisper. There is no fifteenth-century façade. And just like that, she thinks, Columbus vanishes.
Julian helps a slender young woman with a head wound to the stairs-starts her on her way up and out. He keeps looking, but they’re not here. Chunks of train everywhere. He pushes over a seat. Gets tripped up on some wire that grabs his pant leg and won’t let go. He picks up somebody’s running shoe-the laces are singed. Does he remember what Jane was wearing? Chloe? Jane, a gray hoodie. Chloe, a blue shirt with the name of some hip-hop guy on it. Rashmi… Rashmi is wearing. What the hell is Rashmi wearing? Doesn’t matter-they’re up on the street looking for him. He carries the shoe for a while. Somewhere among the wreckage and the bodies and the smoke, he drops Rashmi’s bag, her poems. This bag has become irrelevant. It no longer matters. He has to find them. He does not remember hearing anything. At some point there were sirens but not for a long time. He stops, jumps to the tracks to help an elderly Japanese man to his feet. The man is holding his left forearm with his right hand. Lots of blood. He pushes the old man up onto the platform. The smoke is making him dizzy. He craves a breath of clear air. He’s moving in slow motion through wreckage. Why did this happen? Who would do this? He’s hazy, staggering. He trips over a dead dog, a German shepherd. He turns around and finds a single black pump and knows. This is one of Rashmi’s pumps.
“They were so beautiful,” he says to Consuela.
He does not retreat from reality but an overriding grief wraps itself tightly around Julian. His voice flattens. He becomes methodical and pragmatic. Some things need doing, others do not. Bits of the past year drift in and out of his consciousness. He remembers swimming. He remembers the strait. He remembers a small child named Aabida. And there was a story, a tale, an adventure. He remembers being Columbus as if Columbus were a beautiful dream. But none of this matters anymore. He’s going home. Maybe there is a life there, in Montreal. There is a house. He remembers a house. There are the pieces of a life. There is a city he loves. He’s going home.
The gears go into motion. A woman from the Canadian embassy arrives the next day and interviews Julian. She is efficient, well briefed, and extremely compassionate. Three days. He’ll be on an airplane in three days. She’s taken care of a replacement passport but a passport is hardly necessary. They’re sending an airplane. This woman will be on the plane with him. She’ll take him home. Julian declines an offer of putting him up in a hotel. He’ll stay at the institute for three more days.
Dr. Balderas smiles into his office and barely recognizes his patient. Julian’s hair is combed. He’s fully dressed. Even his posture is more upright-he seems pulled up and taller. He seems more intense, more present, and very sad.
The cloudy light steals through the venetian blinds to give the room an even flush. It’s a kind light. Not gloomy. Doves, Julian thinks. This sky is the color of doves. There were doves on campus, outside his office window, in Montreal. Turtledoves or mourning doves-doves of some kind anyway. A combination of grays, with tinges of brown. That color is this day. This day is gray and delicate and hollow.
“I have to ask,” Dr. Balderas says.
“Julian. My name is Julian Mehmet Nusret, Doctor. I was named after a famous Turkish writer, who was an advocate for free speech, particularly the right to criticize fundamentalist Islam. I understand Al Qaeda has claimed responsibility for the bombings.”
“Still to be determined, but yes.”
“Irony.”
“I am truly sorry for your losses, Julian.” The doctor stops, picks up a small sculpture of a horse, examines it, measures its weight in his hand, then places it carefully back where it belongs. “Where is home, by the way?”
“You know very well where my home is, Doctor. Montreal. Do you want me to recite my address and postal code, too?”
Dr. Balderas smiles. “I’ve never been to Canada. I hear it’s beautiful.”
“Listen, I want to thank you for not giving up on me. I…” He shakes his head. “I’m at a loss.”
“It’s all right. I wouldn’t know where to begin, either.”
“I hope I wasn’t too much trouble.”
“It was an interesting journey, Julian.”
They sit in silence. A squeaky metal cart moves by in the corridor outside the closed door. Julian can smell coffee. He turns toward the smell.
“Do you want a cup of coffee? I just made a press.”
“I would. Black. Thank you. What is it the Turks say about coffee? That it should be black as hell, strong as death, and sweet as love? I’ll forgo the sweetness today.”
The doctor gets up and retreats to the small sitting area behind his desk. He comes back with two steaming mugs.
“I take mine black, too,” he says.
Julian inhales the scent of the coffee like he’s been away from it for years. He takes a sip. Closes his eyes. He places the mug carefully on a stone coaster on the side table. “What happens now?” he says. “My daughters, my wife, gone, and I should have been there, with them, to protect-”
“You would be dead, too.”
“What kind of God would… I should have been there to protect them, to protect my girls.”
“Not about God. It’s not your fault. It was heartbreaking and awful, but it’s not your fault you’re alive.”
Julian takes a sip of coffee and notices Dr. Balderas noticing his hand is shaking. He’s angry and confused, outraged, and resigned. He doesn’t know what to feel first. But somebody did this on purpose. Because of religion, or politics, fear, or oil, or any variation of fundamentalism. All the meaningless, stupid reasons.
“What happens now?” Julian whispers.
Dr. Balderas looks at his patient-tries to comprehend the pain he’s had, is having, will have. “What happens now,” he says, “is you face your pain and move on. You live through it. It’s not something you have to do alone. I know a very fine therapist in Montreal.”
Emile sticks out his hand and Julian takes it. Emile can see an open bag on the bed behind Julian.
“The embassy wanted to buy a whole new set of luggage. Our luggage in Madrid, after a while, was shipped back to Canada. But I have nothing to put into a set of luggage.”
“I am sorry for your loss, Professor Nusret.”
“I… I don’t know who you are. I’m sorry. Are you from the embassy?”
“I’m Emile. Emile Germain. I’m with Interpol. I’ve been following you across southern Spain. I’m sorry it took me so long.”
“Oh, so you’re the Emile that Consuela talks about. She’s told me a little about you. You’ve made an impression on her. Something about dedication and doggedness, and listening. You’re a good listener.” Consuela could do worse than this man, he thinks.
“Look, I know you’re getting ready to go home, to go back to Canada. I wanted to meet you. I wanted to let you know that I’ve been lost. I’ve been at the bottom of sadness. And… and it’s possible to find your way back.”
“Something happened to you,” Julian whispers. It’s more a statement than a question.
“I got shot. And a girl was killed. They say it wasn’t my fault.” Emile stops. He can’t seem to catch his breath, but he pushes through. “After, I couldn’t find my way. I lost meaning, misplaced the purpose to any of this.” He raises his hands, palms up, half pointing to anything and everything. He looks around the room, at Julian, past the window, into the oak tree, across the wall, and back to Julian.
Emile pulls his reading glasses out of his shirt pocket and loops the stems around his ears, pushes the bridge up on his nose. He does not know why he put his glasses on. He’s not going to read anything. Christ, he thinks. This man lost his wife and daughters, his whole family. My problems are bits of fluff. “Nothing I say right now will be of any comfort. I know this. But I hope at the right time, you’ll remember me-that I’m all right. I made it through.”
Julian sits on the edge of his bed, looks out the window, lets silence move into the space between them.
Before the shooting Emile would have been uncomfortable with this sort of damaged lull. But not now.
Julian looks over at Emile. “Thank you,” he says.
“God, I hope I didn’t just sound like some sort of affirmative, positive-thinking, self-help asshole. I only wanted to let you know the pain doesn’t have to be permanent.”
“That’s what I heard,” Julian says, nodding. More silence interjects itself.
After a couple of minutes, Emile clears his throat. “Look, I have to go but I wanted to-”
“Thank you for not giving up on me,” Julian says. “Without your determination I might still be five hundred years ago… It’s better to know, to be now. To be now…” Julian drifts out of the room and into a replay of what he knows about his now. Emile fades into the background. He does not hear Emile say, Take care, my friend. Nor does he notice Emile as he places the brown envelope containing Rashmi’s notebook into the bag on the bed.
Consuela meets him in the dining room, where Julian sits staring at the lemon grove across the courtyard. Behind the lemon trees there are palm trees-green splashes in the sky like fireworks. He is sitting in his chair, the one in which he’s spent many days and weeks-months, in fact. Now he seems lost in this chair. “Come with me,” she says. “Let’s get you out of here.” She takes his hand.
Julian follows her down through the mezzanine, through the front garden area, and past the parking lot. He looks around like a newborn baby-as if everything he’s seeing is new and fascinating. She nods to the guards and they walk together through the main gate. Julian stands at the edge of the street. The air is silky, the light diluted and kind. Across the narrow cobbled street is a small sidewalk café. There is a woman sitting, reading a newspaper, and taking her coffee. The balconies above the café all have cast-iron balustrades, most have plants. At the end of the street there is a pale-colored building that looks like it may be a cathedral. A man on a moped putters by. A red Volvo is parked down the block.
“I’m still in Spain,” he says, half surprised, but adds: “Of course, I’m in Spain.” He takes a big breath.
“I’d love to buy you a drink,” Consuela says. This idea, blurted out, makes her blush.
“That would give me much pleasure. But I insist that I pay. Dr. Balderas was kind enough to loan me his credit card. He expects me to use it. I don’t want to disappoint him.”
They walk across the street to the café and sit at one of the sidewalk tables. A waitress places menus on the table, announces she’ll be right back to get their order. There are four blue cornflowers in a narrow vase in the middle of the table. A white tablecloth. The music is a single cello playing inside its own echo. There is no direct sunlight.
When Julian looks at her, Consuela knows. She sees the truth of him. This man is not Columbus. Each wrinkle and stray hair speaks of a different man. There’s an efficiency in his movements that was not there three days ago. There is no omnipresent hope, no abstruse pigheadedness, and no hysterical obsession with sailing away. There is no passion for acquiring ships. And yet, he will fly away tomorrow to the continent Columbus never stepped upon but is credited with discovering. She gets it. She knows he has to grieve. He has to be alone. He needs time to gather what remains of his life into the present tense. Part of Consuela is screaming that she should cling to this man no matter what-that she ought to hold on to him for dear life. But not now. They cannot converse at length, not in the present. They met more than five hundred years ago, when Columbus was desperate and obsessed-when he would do almost anything to get his caravels and go to sea. When the Inquisition was running around poking its narrow bone of a finger at all that was different. When a powerful queen single-handedly ran the country. They met inside the Columbus story-factual or not. That’s where Consuela is and, for now, that is where she must stay.
It was Columbus she fell in love with. She has no idea who Julian is, except a missing, presumed-dead Canadian professor who had a wife and daughters. Surely Columbus was a meshing of Julian and everything he knew or thought or understood about Columbus. But Columbus is not looking back at her.
“I-” He stops, looks away, then comes back to her face.
To Consuela, he looks torn in two, like a man with one foot in the present and one hesitant foot in the past. He’s off balance, dizzy, muddled by reality. It’s an appropriate disposition for a man who spent most of the last year insisting he was Columbus-a man with one foot in the Middle Ages and one foot firmly in the Renaissance.
“I know,” she says. “It’s all right.”
He half smiles, an awkward, painful gesture, then finds almost firm ground. He shakes his head and looks down at the flowers on the table, then back up at Consuela. “No, you don’t know, Consuela. The feelings… Columbus’s feelings. They’re my feelings. He’s still here, in my heart.”
Consuela can’t remember the last time she cried. There’s no stopping these tears and she doesn’t care. She can barely breathe. “Mine, too,” she says.