Waiting For Columbus (38 page)

He takes his reading glasses off and places them quickly on top of the papers on his desk. “He came to and was extremely agitated. He would not stop screaming. He was hysterical.”

“So he’s pumped full of drugs again?”

“We had no other option.”

“He was already restrained. Did he say anything? Anything at all?”

“Nothing but screaming. I have no idea what he went through out there in the strait. It’s a minor miracle he survived. And I am accountable. I’m responsible for this. It’s not going to be pretty when I get in that room with the board. They’re going to want to talk to you, too.”

“It’s not your fault. He duped all of us.”

“It was my idea to go to the beach.”

“It was a good idea.”

Consuela spends as much time with Columbus as she can. She reads to him for an hour each morning, and then pushes him in a wheelchair down to the pool. Each day for a week, and then two, and then three.

Pope Cecelia dies in the second week of his withdrawal into silence. Consuela finds her in the morning, a peaceful smile on her face, eyes closed, hair like a mane—almost like it’s been brushed and arranged on the pillow. After the first gentle nudge, Consuela knew. She
decides to sit for a while before letting others know. She needs to do something to make grace around this passing. So she sits quietly with the pope. I can give you an hour, Cecelia, she thinks. There will be no white smoke over the Sistine Chapel when a new pope is chosen. There will be no new pope to replace Cecelia. There will be just one less patient.

Cecelia’s family claims her body and belongings. The duty of gathering Cecelia’s life, at least her asylum life, into three cardboard boxes falls to Consuela. She is surprised to find a Hafiz ghazal in Columbus’s handwriting on a piece of paper with well-worn fold lines. She knew they’d talked occasionally, but this implies an intimacy beyond casual conversation. Good for you, Cecelia.

Consuela begins to struggle with her hope around Columbus. She had hoped the sound of her voice would draw him back, or the hollow sound of the pool room would spark a connection to the present. But he does not speak. Even when they back off on his medication, he remains silent … eats without looking at his food, stares straight ahead. He’s turned inward. He eats and goes to the bathroom and sleeps, but it seems his life is elsewhere.

Maybe this is his way of escaping, Consuela thinks. She misses his voice, his stories.

She has started to take Columbus down to the pool for half an hour before her shift each day, and lets him sit there while she swims. She sets up a couple of candles at either end of the pool, slips out of her clothes, and swims her lengths in the luxurious cool water.

This morning, on the day of the feast of Saint Sylvester, Columbus’s eyes follow her in the water—watching her swim.

“You have an exquisite body,” he says.

Consuela swims to the edge and looks him over. She’d almost given up on him coming back. But he’s staring at her, eyes sparkling, almost
laughing. “Welcome back,” she says. “Where have you been? I’ve missed you.” Consuela pulls herself from the pool. Tries not to act like she feels, which is self-conscious of her body, embarrassed, fat.

“I don’t know. I was swimming. I remember being on a beach. I remember seeing Tammy, but after that … I don’t know. How did I get back here?”

“Some children found you, washed up on a beach.”

“Spain?”

“Morocco.” Consuela wraps herself in a towel.

“Shit.”

“Yes, quite the little journey you went on. They say dolphins saved you. They say the dolphins waited just offshore until you were found.” She smiles. She only has one towel and needs to dry her hair. It’s a big towel, but it is only one. She turns around. He can look at my butt, she thinks. As she puts on her bra—fastening it in the front, twisting the clasp to the back, and then finding the armholes—it feels too tight. She pulls on her uniform and is keenly aware of the way this uniform constricts. It seems too tight around her armpits. She wonders if she’s gaining weight.

“But you don’t believe that.”

“I’m just happy you lived. You almost didn’t.” She quickly towel-dries her hair and turns around.

“I’m surprised, actually. I don’t remember the end. I think I dreamed about dolphins. I dreamed a lot of things. Some not so nice things. Some very pleasant.” He tries to stand but his legs are wobbly. “How long have I been …”

“Out of it? Six weeks. Just over six weeks.”

Columbus sits back down. “Six weeks,” he says, stunned.

“I know, by the way,” she says.

“You know what?”

“That my body is exquisite.” She walks by, the towel under her arm, and the edge of it brushes Columbus’s arm. That touch shivers through him.

Dr. Balderas is pacing back and forth in his office. Dr. Fuentes was sacked three weeks ago, just after the hearing in which Dr. Balderas was cleared of any wrongdoing in Columbus’s escape incident. According to the board, Balderas had taken all the necessary precautions. It was an unfortunate incident but the patient was safely back in care. Dr. Balderas was not happy about the result. Sure, Columbus was back at the institute and had lived through the ordeal, but he was turned inward, silent—almost comatose.

So the news that Columbus is cognizant and speaking makes him giddy. Consuela brings the news to him and together they trundle down to the dayroom and sit with Columbus for a few minutes.

Columbus is staring out the window, his expression not changing, head slightly to the side, drooling.

“Mr. Columbus?” Dr. Balderas moves around in front of him, into his view. “Can you hear me?” He looks over at Consuela, whose heart is pounding. She’s terrified. Maybe the pool conversation was an anomaly and he’s slipped back inside. Disappeared. Did she imagine him commenting on her body?

“It doesn’t look like there’s been any change,” Dr. Balderas says. This makes him sad. Perhaps this nurse, who’s spent so much time with this patient, was only hoping he’d come around. He reaches into his shirt pocket and pulls out a flashlight. Checks Columbus’s pupils, looking for even constriction in both eyes when the light is only in one eye. Everything appears to be normal. Just as he’s about to stand upright Columbus shouts: “Boo!” Dr. Balderas drops the flashlight in shock. Steps back gasping. Columbus catches the flashlight, snatches it midair.

Consuela jumps, too. “Son of a bitch, Columbus!”

“I was just mucking with you guys. I’m fine, really.”

“I don’t think I am,” Dr. Balderas says. He exhales and looks hard
at Columbus. “If you ever do that again I’ll prescribe cold-water therapy with Nurse Sidona. And I’ll insist that she use the brush.”

“It was a joke, Balderas. Lighten up.”

“That’s Dr. Balderas and it was not funny, Columbus. Not fucking funny.”

In Cádiz, Emile goes right to the harbor and looks for the office of the coast guard. He finds out that the Spanish coast guard picked a man out of the water just off the coast about one month after his person of interest disappeared. This man was in bad shape—hypothermic, dehydrated, and exhausted. When he came to, he wouldn’t stop talking about sailing the Western Sea and how he was the one true and only Christopher Columbus. He had no identification. There are still questions about where he came from. He could have come from Morocco or from a boat offshore. They know what they should do with him. There are protocols when you find someone with no papers, no passport, no identification whatsoever, floating in the Strait of Gibraltar. Those protocols, in a world gone mad with fear, were not pleasant if you were on the receiving end. One of the men who helped fish this man out of the water suggests the obvious: “We should take him to the hospital—he needs a doctor.”

For some reason, these men hesitate. They listen to this man. “My ships are in Palos,” he says. “I have no time for hospitals. My ships are in the harbor in Palos.”

“He’s out of his head.”

“Why don’t we take him to Palos? Take him to the Franciscan monastery at La Rábida. I know Father Bolivar. The monks will know what to do with him. Maybe they know him.”

“Maybe he’s an actor or something. Part of some historical play about Columbus.”

One of his co-workers chips in. “But what was he doing in the strait?”

“Maybe he got drunk at a party.”

“Hell of a party. He looks like shit.”

The men look at one another and know this is something they will not speak of. This didn’t happen. There was no man who believes he is Christopher Columbus floating half dead in the strait. This information was only pried out of one of these men with a hefty bribe. The Interpol badge by itself wasn’t enough.

Emile leaves the coast-guard office in Cádiz, his wallet a little slimmer. He checks out of his hotel, and heads for Palos. Palos, as a destination for this man, makes sense, but Emile thought he would wind up there on his own. Emile has no idea what this man might have been doing swimming in the Strait of Gibraltar.

They are sitting on wooden benches in a simple antechamber with stone walls. Emile had waited almost an hour. Then a monk brought in steaming tea. Father Michael was a few minutes behind the tea.