“Well done, Your Majesty,” Columbus says. “I’m ruined.”
Ferdinand smiles kindly. Turns a compassionate face to the navigator. “No,” he says, “you are not ruined. Neither is your idea of sailing west. If you had won, I would have personally seen to your ships, somehow. But the queen always has the final say in matters of the sea. In fact, she has the final say in matters of war, roads, religion. Almost everything.”
“There’s still a chance then?”
“Oh, Mr. Columbus, you’ve only proven your desire, your commitment, and your determination. These things, I will communicate to the queen.”
Columbus bows his head, then very quietly says, “Thank you. Thank you.” And then he looks up at the king, who is eyeing the pool table. “But you do not want me to explain to you why I know this journey is possible?”
“Yes, yes, yes… I’m sure you have your reasons.”
“This new route could be very lucrative for Spain -”
“Yes, yes… money is good.”
“And of course I will carry God and Christianity to Japan and India -”
“Well, that’s fine. That’s a fine thing to do. I’m sure they’ll be thrilled to hear that their own system of beliefs, whatever it may be, is… well… wrong.”
“And I will claim whatever land I might discover for Spain.”
“Hmmm… expansion is good, I suppose… Yes. Very good. Quite convincing. Yes.”
“And I will-”
“ Columbus! Enough! I tell you what I’m going to do. I’m going to buy a few thousand shares of Columbus Sails West Incorporated… see where it takes me.”
“Thank you, Your Majesty.”
Ferdinand touches Columbus ’s shoulder and the navigator looks up into the king’s dark eyes. “Another game, my friend?” the king says.
“I’m sorry, Your Majesty. I have lost the stomach for pool today. I think I have to lie down.”
“Tomorrow then, Columbus. I’ll send up one of my special chambermaids. She’ll make sure you have a good sleep.” He turns, draws open double doors, finds a small crowd of courtiers in the hallway. “Tomorrow, Mr. Columbus!” he shouts. “Out of the way, you bloodsucking sycophants!” And they mutter after him down the hallway.
Emile, to his surprise, has managed to keep a few friends in the company. He calls one of his Spanish contacts when he arrives in Marbella -finds out that there is a concierge who will work for Interpol-for a price. “He’s very reliable,” the agent says. “I helped him with a family matter a few years ago.” Emile finds the hotel and checks in. It’s too much money, but it’s the hotel where his contact works. His room faces the Mediterranean. The balcony looks out over the tops of palm trees. From the hotel lounge a walkway leads onto the beach. It’s clear and windy-a good steady breeze coming from the east. Emile finds the concierge and convinces him to ask around about a confused man. Emile emphasizes the fact this man will likely appear baffled-he might not know who he is or where he’s going.
“I think he thinks he’s Christopher Columbus,” Emile says. “A theory. This is only a theory,” he adds. He’d not spoken these words out loud before, but all the pieces added up to this simple statement. The three ships down south. Isabella. Your Majesty. The concierge gives him an eyebrow-raised, skeptical stare. Emile makes his face go hard, stone-cold, and flat. The concierge sighs and nods. Of course, there was much that did not add up. Morocco didn’t make sense for a man who might think he’s Christopher Columbus. And this man’s sense of direction seems to be absent. One would think that Columbus would always know where he was. Ah, it’s just a theory, Emile reminds himself.
For three days, Emile bides his time. He walks around his room naked-wearing a towel occasionally-and semi- drunk, quite drunk occasionally. He watches television and orders room service. He curses the stupidity of television, turns it off, and drifts into the minefield of memories involving his ex-wife. Conversations about his work that turned into three-day blowouts about how obsessed he was, how he was never home, how he was distracted by his work when he was home. But she would have loved this room, this view, being in a fine hotel on the ocean. He’s finding it more difficult to recall why they actually fell apart. There had to be more to it than his obsessions. But there wasn’t really a defining moment. He’d been tracking someone in Berlin, and when he came home hardly anything remained in the apartment. It was an equitable splitting up of belongings. She’d been fair. Emile didn’t bring a lot of material possessions into their life. She’d taken what had been hers, and not much was left at the end of that process. He sits up in bed, pours another whiskey, and turns the television back on.
At 3:30 A.M. on the third night, Emile can’t sleep, can’t watch the television anymore, and doesn’t want to drink anything. He heads for the roof of the hotel to get some air, to breathe, to move his legs. There’s a jazz club on the top floor. He gets off the elevator and walks down the hallway, barefoot and wearing the hotel housecoat over his trousers, looking for a stairwell to the roof. He can hear the sound of someone tuning a piano coming from inside the club. Emile walks past the door, which is slightly ajar, and is halfway down the hall before he stops- acknowledges the pull of the piano. He hasn’t played since before the Paris incident. He hasn’t felt the desire to play.
Inside the doorway it takes a while for his eyes to adjust. Through the windows the sparkling lights of Marbella arc along the shore of the Mediterranean. One thin spotlight shines directly onto a piano sitting on a small stage against the far wall. The man at the piano has a full gray beard and a no-nonsense face. His focus is on tuning the piano. He looks up at Emile quickly, then back to his job. He says nothing. Emile stands in the entranceway, awkward but also drawn to the pure sound of the piano. The single notes ring out-they hang in the room. Emile thinks of a raven, or a hawk, suspended in an air current, wings motionless except for a small flutter. A minute later, the gray-bearded man is packing up his gear. He looks toward Emile.
“Still there?”
“I-”
“Come and play then. It’s what you need, yes? I will have a nightcap-a little Courvoisier. It is my custom. And I will listen.” The man has a thick Slavic accent. Emile’s not sure that he wants an audience tonight. It seems his feet are nailed to the wooden floor.
“It’s what you need,” the man says. “I’ll pour some drinks in the back.” He does not move like an old person. There is a lithe vitality in his walk.
Emile sits at the piano. It’s a Steinway, a good choice for a jazz piano. He read a story in an online news service that Keith Jarrett plays a Steinway. Emile plays a single note, a middle D, and lets it ring out in the dark room. Then he begins to unravel all he was taught as a child. He purposely forgets how chords work. He un- remembers scales, theories, and circles of fifths. He plays notes and combinations of notes that make no sense-he embraces dissonance, and yet there is an ephemeral order. Emile draws on feelings and colors. If he stumbles upon a musical cliche, he will repeat it, warp it, ruin it to the point where it becomes original and new. He remembers scents. Rain. Patchouli. Sandalwood. Cedar. Leather. He plays weather. He plays the stars in the village of his youth in France. The color of ocean at dusk-the indigo sky meeting the water evenly. The way dried grasses touch the wind. He plays the memory of his wife’s long legs and slender toes. He plays a scant memory of her voice speaking his name-whispering his name over and over inside an absence of periwinkle. And then he comes to what happened in Paris and he plays this, too. He plays its pain, its sadness, its loss and remorse. He begins to play the damaged parts of himself. Half an hour later, he is improvising inside a sixteen-bar blues riff he didn’t know he knew. The gray-bearded man is sitting at a table in the middle of the club sipping his cognac and reading a newspaper by candlelight. Emile notices there is a snifter of cognac sitting on the bench beside him. He stops playing, turns around on the bench, and looks out into the club. “Thank you,” he whispers.
