Waiting For Columbus (49 page)

She almost does not recognize his voice. He’s shouting above loud music, calling from the bathroom of a bar—telling her to
Wake up. Wake up for Christ’s sake
.

“Have you been drinking? Do you realize what time it is?”

“Those are excellent questions, Consuela. The answers are
yes
, and
it doesn’t matter
. I talked to his brother. He called from Quebec City two days ago.”

“Who? Whose brother?”

“Julian’s—your Columbus—his brother. We talked for an hour. He told me Julian and his wife honeymooned in Tangier.” The music gets louder for a few seconds, like someone just opened a door and then let it shut.

“Tangier, so?” Consuela is not following. Why is Emile so excited?

“Julian went on his honeymoon in Tangier. In Morocco. Across the Strait of Gibraltar. It’s the piece of the puzzle I didn’t have an answer for. I didn’t understand how the Strait of Gibraltar fit until now.”

“Okay, I’m wide awake.”

“Look, I’ll be back in Sevilla tomorrow night. I’ll call you when I get in.” He hangs up. Consuela sits and looks at the receiver in her hand until it beeps. She hangs it up and then sits in her bed until she has to pee. Sleep does not come easy. It is finally purchased with two glasses of warm milk and a shot of brandy. She does not work the next day, sleeps until 9 A.M., and goes to the gym. She calls Dr. Balderas, tells him what Emile told her. She meets Emile in the bar at Enrique Becerra. He kisses her gently on each cheek—then pulls back a bit, looks at her with pure joy. “I missed you, Consuela,” he says.

Dr. Balderas weaves his way through the restaurant toward their table.

“He was trying to connect with his wife,” Dr. Balderas says. Before he sits down, the owner, a man Consuela could easily imagine as Salvos from Columbus’s story, comes over immediately and shakes the doctor’s hand.

“Wine?” he says. “I have an extraordinary pinot I know you’d love. The blackberry flavors practically jump out and slap you in the face.”

“That sounds fine, Ernesto.”

Dr. Balderas sits down across from Consuela and Emile, who look amused and surprised. “I’m a regular,” he says. “We play chess.”

“What do you mean he was trying to connect with his wife?” Consuela says.

“Swimming the Strait of Gibraltar was a subconscious desire to join his wife, the memory of his wife in Tangier. Something in Columbus was trying to connect with his wife.”

They sit silently as the waiter appears at their table, opens the wine with a certain efficiency, and pours with elegance. Dr. Balderas tastes the
wine—lets a sliver roll around his mouth, waits, then looks up at the waiter and gives an almost imperceptible nod.

“So,” Consuela says. “What do we do now?”

The day is a gift. The morning air is fragrant with the heavenly scent of orange trees. But it’s also humid and hot. The sky is already a striking, flawless blue. There is no wind. Not even a faint breeze. It’s as if the day is holding its breath along with Consuela. She and Columbus are in the lower courtyard, moving toward the swimming pool. He is in front of her, in his robe, a towel draped around his neck. She stops walking, stands still, and watches as he moves away from her. Her heart is racing.

“Julian,” she says.

Columbus stops. He does not turn around. His legs wobble; they buckle. He goes down hard, and then he is kneeling on the cement.

Consuela moves in front of him, crouches, then sits cross-legged on the ground.

His hands cover his face. “My daughters’ names are Chloe and Jane. Jane is thirteen. Chloe is eleven. My wife, was lovely. I found them … I was chasing someone … and then I found them. I thought it was thunder. But the sky was blue. It was so blue. They were so beautiful.”

He’s having a hard time with his breathing. Can’t seem to get a full breath.

“Chloe and her mother were together, peaceful, embraced. Jane was alone. I couldn’t find her arms. I don’t want this … I don’t want to feel this. My little girl’s arms were gone.”

Consuela stops breathing. Not breathing is the only appropriate response she can muster. This catches her by surprise. She doesn’t want this, either. She wants to be alone in her bed curled into a ball, headphones
on, and drunk beyond compare. She does not want this picture. It’s a picture that will never go away. She takes a breath.

“I know,” she says. Consuela leans forward to embrace him and he collapses into her.

Julian arrives back at the station, winded and confused. Three thunderous bangs and a clear blue sky. There’s so much smoke. People screaming. He’s going down a flight of stairs toward the smoke—fighting against desperate people moving in the opposite direction. He’s going the wrong way.
Bombs
, someone says.
Bombas
. He pushes through people. At the same time, he’s looking at faces. What were they wearing? What were his girls wearing? He just needs a glimpse of a face or a garment. He begins to see bodies through the smoke, some still alive, some not moving. They won’t be here, he tells himself. They’re already out in the street looking for him. They won’t be here. They’re not here. A silence enfolds the scene.

Consuela is not sure she wants to hear any more. He’s telling his own story now—a hesitant revelation in a hoarse whisper. There is no fifteenth-century façade. And just like that, she thinks, Columbus vanishes.

Julian helps a slender young woman with a head wound to the stairs—starts her on her way up and out. He keeps looking, but they’re not here. Chunks of train everywhere. He pushes over a seat. Gets tripped up on some wire that grabs his pant leg and won’t let go. He picks up somebody’s running shoe—the laces are singed. Does he remember what Jane was wearing? Chloe? Jane, a gray hoodie. Chloe, a blue shirt with the name of some hip-hop guy on it. Rashmi … Rashmi is wearing. What the hell is Rashmi wearing? Doesn’t matter—they’re up on the street looking for him. He carries the shoe for a while. Somewhere among the wreckage and the bodies and the smoke, he drops Rashmi’s bag, her poems. This bag has become irrelevant. It no longer matters. He has to find them. He does not remember hearing anything.
At some point there were sirens but not for a long time. He stops, jumps to the tracks to help an elderly Japanese man to his feet. The man is holding his left forearm with his right hand. Lots of blood. He pushes the old man up onto the platform. The smoke is making him dizzy. He craves a breath of clear air. He’s moving in slow motion through wreckage. Why did this happen? Who would do this? He’s hazy, staggering. He trips over a dead dog, a German shepherd. He turns around and finds a single black pump and knows. This is one of Rashmi’s pumps.

“They were so beautiful,” he says to Consuela.

He does not retreat from reality but an overriding grief wraps itself tightly around Julian. His voice flattens. He becomes methodical and pragmatic. Some things need doing, others do not. Bits of the past year drift in and out of his consciousness. He remembers swimming. He remembers the strait. He remembers a small child named Aabida. And there was a story, a tale, an adventure. He remembers being Columbus as if Columbus were a beautiful dream. But none of this matters anymore. He’s going home. Maybe there is a life there, in Montreal. There is a house. He remembers a house. There are the pieces of a life. There is a city he loves. He’s going home.

The gears go into motion. A woman from the Canadian embassy arrives the next day and interviews Julian. She is efficient, well briefed, and extremely compassionate. Three days. He’ll be on an airplane in three days. She’s taken care of a replacement passport but a passport is hardly necessary. They’re sending an airplane. This woman will be on the plane with him. She’ll take him home. Julian declines an offer of putting him up in a hotel. He’ll stay at the institute for three more days.

Dr. Balderas smiles into his office and barely recognizes his patient. Julian’s hair is combed. He’s fully dressed. Even his posture is more upright—
he seems pulled up and taller. He seems more intense, more present, and very sad.

The cloudy light steals through the venetian blinds to give the room an even flush. It’s a kind light. Not gloomy. Doves, Julian thinks. This sky is the color of doves. There were doves on campus, outside his office window, in Montreal. Turtledoves or mourning doves—doves of some kind anyway. A combination of grays, with tinges of brown. That color is this day. This day is gray and delicate and hollow.

“I have to ask,” Dr. Balderas says.

“Julian. My name is Julian Mehmet Nusret, Doctor. I was named after a famous Turkish writer, who was an advocate for free speech, particularly the right to criticize fundamentalist Islam. I understand Al Qaeda has claimed responsibility for the bombings.”

“Still to be determined, but yes.”

“Irony.”

“I am truly sorry for your losses, Julian.” The doctor stops, picks up a small sculpture of a horse, examines it, measures its weight in his hand, then places it carefully back where it belongs. “Where is home, by the way?”

“You know very well where my home is, Doctor. Montreal. Do you want me to recite my address and postal code, too?”

Dr. Balderas smiles. “I’ve never been to Canada. I hear it’s beautiful.”

“Listen, I want to thank you for not giving up on me. I …” He shakes his head. “I’m at a loss.”

“It’s all right. I wouldn’t know where to begin, either.”

“I hope I wasn’t too much trouble.”

“It was an interesting journey, Julian.”

They sit in silence. A squeaky metal cart moves by in the corridor outside the closed door. Julian can smell coffee. He turns toward the smell.

“Do you want a cup of coffee? I just made a press.”

“I would. Black. Thank you. What is it the Turks say about coffee?
That it should be black as hell, strong as death, and sweet as love? I’ll forgo the sweetness today.”

The doctor gets up and retreats to the small sitting area behind his desk. He comes back with two steaming mugs.

“I take mine black, too,” he says.

Julian inhales the scent of the coffee like he’s been away from it for years. He takes a sip. Closes his eyes. He places the mug carefully on a stone coaster on the side table. “What happens now?” he says. “My daughters, my wife, gone, and I should have been there, with them, to protect—”

“You would be dead, too.”

“What kind of God would … I should have been there to protect them, to protect my girls.”

“Not about God. It’s not your fault. It was heartbreaking and awful, but it’s not your fault you’re alive.”

Julian takes a sip of coffee and notices Dr. Balderas noticing his hand is shaking. He’s angry and confused, outraged, and resigned. He doesn’t know what to feel first. But somebody did this on purpose. Because of religion, or politics, fear, or oil, or any variation of fundamentalism. All the meaningless, stupid reasons.

“What happens now?” Julian whispers.

Dr. Balderas looks at his patient—tries to comprehend the pain he’s had, is having, will have. “What happens now,” he says, “is you face your pain and move on. You live through it. It’s not something you have to do alone. I know a very fine therapist in Montreal.”