Consuela sits on her small balcony, overlooking the sluggish Rio Guadalquivir. A pot of mint tea is sitting on the table, steeping. The birds are so loud that she is beginning to find them annoying. They chatter at four in the morning and don’t stop. Back and forth making nests and mating, eating, and singing-always with the songs! She’d love two minutes of silence. Faith called an hour ago. When Consuela hung up she wanted a drink, but there was nothing in the house.
Mint tea will have to do for now. She’s not sure if Faith is convinced about Columbus -though, for the past hour she called him Bolivar, not Columbus. This name shift felt like a betrayal to her.
“It’s strictly professional, Sis. Nothing happened. It was all me. I know it’s wrong. Trust me. Nothing happened, and nothing is going to happen.”
“But you sounded so in love. You can’t have anything to do with this man.”
“I’ve moved away from that ward.”
“You’re in a position of power. It’s not only ethically wrong; it’s legally wrong. You could go to prison.”
“I can’t imagine what the Inquisition would do.”
“The what?”
“A board of inquiry, you know?”
It goes like this for an hour. They circle the issue, plow through it. Poke it, dismiss it, and circle around again. Until, finally, Consuela has had enough.
“I have to go,” she says. “I’ve got a date tonight.” A beautiful fabrication that ends things neatly.
“A date?”
“Yes, I may be old, but I’m not dead, Faith.”
“Anybody I know?”
“God, let me get through the first date before you disapprove, okay?”
Silence hangs between them, thick and awkward.
“Look, his name is Bart,” Consuela says finally. “He’s an accountant.”
“I’m just curious, Con. Nothing more.”
Faith pauses. She wants to ask more questions but refrains. Her voice is pinched when she finally says, “Have fun. Talk to you soon. Love you, Connie.”
Consuela pours the tea but it’s tepid. She decides to go out for a drink. She’d love to find a bar that offered the discriminating protection Salvos’s place gave to Columbus. But he was telling a story. It was just a story. Places like that don’t really exist.
“You are suffering from something we big-brained doctors call a dissociative break. These things can manifest when some sort of painful event or loss occurs, and the patient doesn’t want to face the pain. I know this sounds like a bunch of bullshit jargon meant to impress, not communicate. The plain version goes something like this: you’re avoiding something and it’s our job to try and find out what that is. When this dissociation is extreme, and in your case, I believe it is, the emergence of alter personalities can occur. Do you understand what I’ve just said?”
“Yes, I’m not going to sleep with a beautiful woman tonight. Nor am I going to drink three bottles of wine. Nor am I going to sleep in a bed with soft, 600-thread-count Egyptian cotton sheets. And I won’t have room service to call for coffee and croissants in the morning.”
Dr. Balderas smiles. He’s amused, not pitying. “What I’m seeing in you-and this is based on my reading of Consuela’s notes and my observations-is that you’re exhibiting a dissociative fugue, or a dissociative identity disorder. Sometimes, when a patient is faced with an overwhelming traumatic situation and there’s no physical escape, the patient will resort to going away in his or her head. You persist in your belief that you are, in fact,
“Is this legal?”
“I’m the boss. And anyway, I don’t believe you’re dangerous. We wine lovers have to stick together.” The doctor raises his glass. “To getting well,” he says.
“To getting out,” Columbus says.
They drink in silence. Dr. Balderas pours more wine.
“I’m wondering if you’ll answer a question for me.”
“Well, I’m the one on the couch. I rather like this new wine therapy you’ve devised. Fire away.”
“I need you to really think about this before you answer. Okay?”
Columbus nods.
“Do you remember anything? I mean the smallest fragment of a fragment of half an imperfect memory- anything? Any minor detail.”
Columbus closes his eyes. He’d love to answer yes. He tries to stop thinking. Listens. Is there anybody in there screaming to get out? Hello? Hello? But no, he is who he is. Then the face comes. There is a man’s face. A bald man. His voice is soft-spoken. He’s looking down at Columbus -asking if he’s all right.
“Nothing,” he says. “I only have these Columbus memories.”
“What about places? Do you remember the Catedral de Santa Maria de la Sede in Sevilla? Can you close your eyes and see the orange trees in the courtyard, the stained glass? When were you there last?”
Columbus smiles. “You’ve been reading. That’s a step beyond your predecessor.” He takes a sip of his wine. “And if I lied and said yes, I do remember another life, would I-”
“That would only be a beginning step.”
“Well, what if you’re wrong? And what if I’m perfectly happy being who I am?”
“There is a danger that you are avoiding this event in your past with such fervor that, yes, you could never come out. That’s a real danger. It would mean that you’d never get out of here.”
Dr. Balderas looks evenly at Columbus. There is no panic, no hint of apprehension at the prospect of never getting out.
“In my notes,” Dr. Balderas says, “I saw that you believe, and Dr. Fuentes’s notes confirm this, that something horrible is going to happen-a disaster is looming, something you are powerless to stop.”
“That’s right.”
“Do you still feel this way?”
His voice gets very small. “Yes. Something too horrible to even think about.”
Dr. Balderas leans forward, elbows on his desk, one hand cupping his chin. “What if it already happened?” he says.
“What do you mean? I’m worried about the future.”
“What if the something awful already happened and you’re running away, not moving toward?”
“I was going to sea. Three ships in the harbor at Palos. Then I woke up here. I had my ships, supplies, a crew. Everything was ready.”
“You were brought here and the only name on file is Bolivar. You have no idea how you came to be here?”
“Yes. No. Ask Nurse Consuela. She was there when I arrived.”
“I’ll look into it.”
“Thank you. And thank you for the wine, too. It has been quite a while…” Columbus ’s legs feel wobbly when he goes to stand up; he’s a little unsteady but also determined not to show it.
The next morning, he stops swimming, stands up, and slow-motion walks over to the edge of the pool-looks up
