arm around her.
Thank God. Isabella almost applauds. The woman helps the man to his feet and they briefly discuss her apartment, which is only a couple of blocks away. Then they trundle up the street. The queen is relieved. She can go back to the Plaza Hotel. If she’s late, Columbus will wait. He’ll be in the bar just off the lobby having one of his bloody Scottish beverages.
The phone is ringing. Consuela is in the bathtub. She doesn’t care. This is the third call she’s smiled at and then ignored. Of course, it’s a cordless phone. She could have brought it with her to the bathroom. Her coffee mug is on the tub’s edge and the press is sitting on the toilet seat. The water is steaming. It’s midafternoon and raining. Sevillians always seemed shocked at the rain-like it’s a freak of nature, not part of nature. She sinks into the water so her knees and breasts and nose become islands. She imagines she is Columbus floating naked in the Strait of Gibraltar, with sharks, whales, and jellyfish all around. It would be substantially cooler than this bath. Consuela has no inclination to reenact Columbus ’s journey to that degree. She’s happy in her hot water. She closes her eyes. Drifts, tries to float. Thinks about being naked and adrift in so much water. She imagines the night sky, the stars, the waves, and the ocean current pushing her toward the Mediterranean. The vulnerability of being naked in so much water is frightening. A shiver strikes up her spine-a shiver in a hot bath. Consuela sits up in the tub. The hollow water sound echoes around the tiled bathroom. “He’s out of his fucking mind,” she says.
She shakes away the Strait of Gibraltar and takes a sip of her coffee. Outside, a car honks. She can hear the
It’s not a bad thing to drink alone. Oh, Faith would disapprove. Rob would smile, pull her aside later, and ask if it’s a regular thing or an exception. Her mother would pretend not to hear. Her father would raise his left eyebrow, a gesture Consuela has never been able to comprehend. And Columbus? He would approve wholeheartedly. He might say something stupid like: In water one sees one’s own face, but in wine one beholds the heart of another or With wine and hope, anything is possible. Or he’ll start to tell another story, another puzzle piece to the whole picture. Consuela fears the end. She fears that last piece. What if he stays Columbus? What if he goes deeper into himself? What if they lose him completely to this story? At the same time, Consuela does not want him to stop when he is so close to the end. But there is a date stamp on this man now.
She has been trying to be with Columbus as much as possible, and trying to make it appear as if she could care less. She has been lurking, hanging around at the periphery, waiting for the end.
Consuela wishes someone would slip in behind her and attempt to describe her beauty by reading Hafiz ghazals aloud. She drifts in this small fantasy for a while. The phone rings again, and for some reason, Consuela gets out of the tub, drips her way to the kitchen, and picks it up.
“Meet me for a glass of wine,” Emile says. “I’d like to listen to you for a while.”
“Okay,” Consuela says. Christ, she thinks. I’ve had a snootful of wine already.
Two days later, Columbus again pulls a chair in front of the mirror, and trusting that Consuela is there, begins to spin out another piece of the puzzle.
After Columbus leaves for his appointments, Juan begins to doubt. He begins to ruminate and fret. The reality of what they’re going to do begins to sink in. It’s well after three in the morning when he boards the
“ Columbus, he’s a bright man,” Strabo says. “He knows things he has not shared with anyone.”
“Like what?” Juan lights another beedi.
Strabo smiles like this is an incredibly stupid question. “Well, he has not shared it with anyone.”
“So how do you know it exists?”
“Because it must. There must be evidence from beyond the limits of our travels across the Western Sea. He’s not suicidal.”
“Yes, but is he sane?”
“You think he’s crazy?”
“I just asked the question.”
“It is, I think, too late for such questions, my friend. You’ve signed up. We sail west in a few hours.”
“To Columbus, then,” Juan says, raising his cup.
“To us, my friend.” And Strabo touches his cup to Juan’s.
They continue to drink. They drink the Scottish beverage neat, and as the light offers long strands of orange and pink in the eastern sky, the bottle is nearly empty. Juan has smoked nearly a whole pack of his beedies. It is not a solid line of smoking but, rather, a dotted line through the night.
Juan is not sure why he joined the crew. Friendship? He doesn’t wholly believe. He does not believe in what they’re about to try to do, but for some reason, he feels obliged to take Columbus up on his offer. Perhaps it’s as simple as having enough faith to do something he doesn’t understand.
Juan hesitated over Columbus’s offer, and then said yes to himself and got on board. What if this dreamer is right? He’s not right, but what if he is? What if? What if they sail right into history by finding the Indies, China, Japan? The implications of being the first to discover such a route are beyond what he can imagine.
The garden is a fragrant treat-an olfactory gift. They walk along the stone pathway and cannot help but step on a variety of thyme, and the smell is delightful. It fills Consuela with hope. It feels to her as if she is breathing green sunlight.
“I’m sorry,” she says. “Help me understand this. You put Juan on a ship? The guy knows nothing about sailing. Doesn’t that seem a bit absurd?”
“Yes. It was a matter of friendship. And Juan is somebody who is not afraid to tell the truth, even if the truth is not what I want to hear.”
“You invited a one-handed ex-soldier who likes to paint on a voyage that’s going to require sailing expertise.” She sits on a stone bench and Columbus sits next to her. He looks smaller today. His hair is pulled back as usual, but his face is narrower, his eyes sunken, his skin sallow. Has this been an evolution she didn’t notice because she’s too close, or is this sudden? Regardless, Columbus has become diminutive.
“He’ll be fine. I trust he’ll find a way to contribute.” He sighs heavily. “ Columbus needed someone who would see things with new eyes and speak the truth.”
“By Columbus, you mean you.”
“I mean Columbus. Something happens, Consuela. Something happened.”
“What happened?”
“It goes bad. First, a woman is found floating in the harbor. The morning before the voyage. She’s floating naked and dead. Only her face, torso, and legs are visible above water. People gathered in Palos for the launch looked down and saw this armless woman. The water is black and thick around her. It is as if her arms have been cut off. It was in the papers. They thought she was a prostitute.”
