at Consuela. She’s been reading
“Balderas is the real deal,” he says. “I have a feeling he’s going to solve this, and that’s a bit frightening.”
“Why would that be frightening?”
“If he’s right, there’s something horrifying at the end of this. Anyway, I get the feeling Balderas is the tipping point.”
“Tipping point?”
“When you’ve been pushing on something and it starts to move, and you realize you couldn’t stop it if you wanted.” He smiles and nods to himself. “But there is a moment just before this realization when everything is completely calm.”
Columbus is sitting up in bed as Nurse Tammy slathers shaving cream onto his face, making small foamy circles with her fingertips. Consuela is perched on the windowsill, watching-her head tilted, bemused. Columbus ’s eyes are closed. He’s wearing a black cotton beret pulled to one side. Where he found this beret is a mystery. He seems to have a talent for getting people to do things for him or for convincing people to give him things. Nurse Tammy is meticulous and quick with her shaving. This efficiency pleases Columbus.
“Thank you,” he says. He brushes his hand along his jawline and smiles. “This reminds me of a time when I was staying with Juan at a villa near Montoro. It was midday and we were shaving. It was not nearly as pleasant as this shave, but we had only cold water.”
Nurse Tammy folds the razor into the towel, nods at Consuela, and leaves the room.
Behind the stable, Juan and Columbus stand at a table beneath a generous, spreading elm. Swallows chirp and make their clicking sounds in the upper branches. The sprinklers flicker to life in the lower vineyard and begin to make their rhythmic sputtering-water sound. The sunlight is filtered green through the canopy of leaves.
A pitcher of gin and tonic sits on the table between them. Behind and away from the stable, an arching passageway leads to the courtyard. One of the queen’s friends owns this villa, an eccentric woman who is a bit of a patron of the arts, and in Columbus ’s case, a patron of hopeless causes. Columbus and Juan, by association, are guests. Selena is in the kitchen glancing sporadically, worriedly, through a small, square window at the two men. She can hear only bits and pieces of their conversation. Somewhere inside the main house, somebody is playing one of Bach’s unaccompanied cello suites. It sounds to Columbus like the third suite, the one in C major. It’s happier to the ear than the others. They finish shaving and sit down.
“This came for you yesterday,” Juan says. He slides a brown envelope across the table and leans back to watch.
Columbus places his drink on the table, picks up the envelope, brings it to his nose, and sniffs. He sighs heavily, rips open one end, and peeks inside. Another birthday card with his actual birthday two months past. He does not have to look in order to know it’s signed, “Love, Cassandra,” or “Lovingly, Cassandra,” or some other adoring salutation. How does she find me? he thinks.
“A woman?”
“A mistake,” Columbus says.
“A persistent mistake, it seems.”
“Her birthday greetings come randomly, or so it seems. Never on my actual birthday.”
“Some say nothing is ever random. Everything is dependent on prior events.”
Columbus thinks about this. He wonders about the events that caused his obsession. He thinks about the possible events that might be put into motion from his crossing the Western Sea. “Could you please randomly fill my glass?”
“That would certainly be dependent on your asking me to make it so.”
“Just make it so now, and then be pleasantly unpredictable.”
Juan fills his glass and smiles. “Some women,” he says, “refuse to be gotten rid of.”
They sit in the shade and share two slow pitchers of gin and tonic. At some point in their conversation, the Inquisition is mentioned. This is something neither of them is comfortable speaking about. There are regions of Spain where one not only has to be Catholic but must be the right kind of Catholic. But this villa is a safe haven.
“Look,” Juan says, “this darkness is something human beings cannot escape. It is our nature. We wallow in it. And at the same time, it seems almost sanctioned by the church. Abel and Cain. Cain slew Abel. And ever since Adam’s son killed his brother, mankind has been killing and slaughtering and mutilating. Adam and Eve march out of the garden and their prodigy start the killing.”
Columbus leans back in his chair. He’s grappling with his faith today. He looked into the mirror as he was performing his morning ablutions and saw a godless man. It wasn’t a frightening image, but he recognized the godlessness in himself. On days like this, he fumbles his faith. Drops it, picks it up, and drops it again. His faith is a slippery trout and he is squeezing too tightly. If God is the river, he thinks, in which my faith swims, this morning, I prefer to turn my back on that water. I’ll take the trees and the mountains and all the gray clouds, instead.
He looks down at a small, black, lightning strike of a cat. It appears and disappears so suddenly.
“And let me tell you,” Juan continues, “I have seen much of this world and hope to see a lot more. I do not mind that people are different-that they believe different things. I don’t care. Jews, Muslims, Vikings, Marco Polo’s Buddhists, witches, or pagans-I don’t care. Muslims love their children the same as Christians and Jews.”
Columbus pets the cat, which has hopped into his lap, kneaded, and curled up. “Once we start believing in things,” he says, “we’re at war against those who don’t believe in the same things.”
“But this religion seems to hate people, even the people it’s supposed to serve. Next they’ll be making us grow beards because Moses had a beard, and Jesus and God had beards, and then sending groups of Inquisition cowards to make sure our beards are the right length. Punishable by death, of course.”
Columbus smiles. This is exactly the kind of conversation that could get them in trouble. But Juan is not done yet.
“Should we not be free to choose our path to God, or to choose no path at all? When you have to use violence, intimidation, and fear to impose your religion, you will never succeed. It should be called the
“What would you suggest? To hold no beliefs?”
“Is that even possible?”
“I don’t know but I would like to try.”
Juan unconsciously nods his head.
“Well, to not believing, then,” Columbus says, raising and tilting his glass slightly toward Juan.
“To uncluttered minds and hearts,” Juan says, taking a drink.
Columbus knows this way of viewing the world is not popular with the Inquisition. His fear is that one night he’ll drink too much, speak his mind, and the wrong people will be at the table. He thinks about his sons and Beatriz. He worries about their safety.
What if the Inquisition turns on him? What if he’s suddenly found to be a Jew, or his desire to sail the Western Sea is considered heretical? He is not a Jew, and he simply wants to see what’s out there, but what if? Or what if his ideas about the physical world, its size and scope, conflict with the prevailing wind out of Rome? What if he’s tortured into confessing something idiotic?
Columbus has a well-stocked cupboard of fear.
This morning, he opened his door and the news on the street was that thirty Jews had been killed in a small town in Italy -burned to death by a mob. And four women drowned, allegedly witches, after being tortured into a confession. Sign of the times. Brutal, senseless, filled with fear and ultimately stupid.
“It would be my wish to sail toward whatever is out there with an open mind and heart,” Columbus says.
“Ah yes, your voyage.” Juan fills their glasses and looks hard at Columbus. “Look, I’ve read the reports. May I be truthful?”
“As a baby’s behind.”
