“Faith, Columbus, have faith.”
“How is it that you have this supposed power to save us?”
“Faith, Cristobal, my friend.”
“You are the devil!” He crosses himself and backs away.
“Oh don’t be such a child. You know better than that. Satan is back running the Inquisition. Running Rome. Selling passage to heaven and pocketing the money.”
“Who are you?”
“Someone who can save you. Someone who can get you wind and sky. Who can find your new land. Who can do all these things if you simply take me to bed.”
“No. I can’t.”
“How badly do you want to find the new land, Don Cristobal? Why don’t you give in to your gut and your heart, and your desire, and forget your brain?”
Columbus turns away, looks out at the nothingness. “Certainly, yes, somehow I am attracted to you in a different way than friendship. Different than comradeship. It is a strange thing that I cannot understand. It is an evil thing.”
“Why do you say evil? Does it feel evil? Is not an urge an urge?”
“It goes against God’s will.”
“Didn’t Jesus say we should love one another?”
“Not like this.”
“Bed me, Columbus.”
“There are those on board who would report this to the Inquisition.”
“Not if we’re alone behind a locked door.” Bertrand takes Columbus ’s hand and leads him slowly to his cabin.
“That’s not such a bad dream,” Consuela says. “A tad embarrassing, I suppose, but it’s just a story, yes?” Consuela smiles.
Columbus sighs heavily. “I am a navigator, a pretty good navigator… and in this nightmare, I am useless. How is this a good story?”
“Does it matter how you get there?”
“Yes, of course it does. Do you not know me by now? The journey is everything! The way one does something is everything.”
“By the way, your last escapade through the window, your journey toward freedom, your attempted escape- how in the hell did you get out of your room?”
“Can’t say.”
“Can’t or won’t?”
“The end result is the same.”
“But the journey is the thing. The beauty is in the way a thing is done.”
“That, Nurse Consuela, is a beautiful thought.”
“But you’re still not going to tell me, are you?”
“Nope.”
“What were you thinking, anyway? You know how tight security is around here.”
“There’s nothing for me here. I’m not sick. I’m not delusional. I’m Columbus. I’m happy being Columbus.”
“I don’t think you’re sick. But as long as you insist you are Columbus, I’m afraid they’re not going to entertain the idea of letting you out.” This is the first time she can remember that Consuela puts herself on Columbus ’s side and “them” on the other. It’s a small shift but she notices it.
“How can I not be Columbus when he is exactly who I am?”
“I don’t have an answer to that question. Someone smarter than I am once said we are what we do. I can’t tell if you are doing what Columbus would do.”
“Take a look over there at those two muscle-bound idiots.” Columbus waves and smiles. The orderly who was reading, continues to read; the other one smiles and waves back. “I can’t do what Columbus should be doing. If your axiom is true then I’m spending time in a mental institute, most of the time doped up on pharmaceuticals. What I do is put up with being treated as if I am insane. What does that make me?”
“It’s not like you don’t try to get out. This was your third failed attempt in what-six months? It’s no wonder they have two orderlies watching you. Listen, seriously, just between the two of us, how did you get out of your room?”
“No. I may need it. And those orderlies have nothing to do with my escape attempts.”
“Attempting to escape is futile. There’s too much security.”
“It would only be futile if escape was the goal.”
“You’re telling me that escaping was not the goal?”
“This sun feels good on my face,” he says.
“Yes, yes, it’s a nice day, Mr. Columbus.” She closes her eyes and focuses on the warmth on her face.
Consuela drifts into silence. If escape was not the goal, then what? And what about their chess games? Is he losing on purpose? She’d not considered this. Is he
She opens her eyes and looks at him. He’s got a wild, half-undone look about him that she has always found attractive. It is as if some part of his psyche does not care about how he appears to the world. There are more important things than appearances. The result is style. Consuela has been trying to maintain a professional demeanor toward Columbus -ever since her luncheon with Faith. But her imagination skips a beat when it comes to Columbus, her fantasies; her longing grows each time she rubs up against him. She’d like to do some serious physical rubbing up against this hopeless cause. She’d like to do a lot of things. She wonders if he knows how she feels.
“One can only truly learn from failure,” Columbus says. “The valuable lessons come from failures, not from a continual stream of successes.”
“There are three candles in her room,” he says at breakfast the next morning. It is the morning of the day of the feast of Saint Bertilla. “Always three,” he adds. “Not two. Not four or five. Why would she choose three?”
“Who?” Consuela is tired. It was a late night, and her air-conditioning was not working. While temperatures were hitting only the midtwenties in the day, her apartment was uncomfortably hot. Sleep came late. She’s grumpy-holds her third cup of coffee protectively.
“Selena.”
Oh good Christ. Another story about a lover. Another woman. Another tall tale of lovemaking. When was the last time she made love?
“If you had a choice, how many candles would you choose?” he says.
“I wouldn’t, Columbus. I’d turn on the light. You’ve noticed the light switch in your room, haven’t you? And its clever relationship to the light in your ceiling?”
He ignores her. “If you were choosing to light your bedroom with candlelight, how many would you choose?”
Consuela sighs. “Fifty. I don’t know.”
“Selena always had three. There was only giving and tenderness that first time with Selena, and it set the pattern for all the rest.”
“End of the hall, on the left,” she’d said. Columbus enters her room hesitantly, pushes the door shut with his back. He is moderately thick with wine.
Selena is naked as she moves gracefully across the dusky room-through the shuddering candlelight-hands him a
