Free Waiting For Columbus by Thomas Trofimuk Page B

my Columbus told a story about arriving—washing up on shore somewherenear Palos. The thing is, nobody knows how Columbus got to Spain. We just don’t know how he arrived. He could have been in a shipwreck and washed ashore. He could have been on the run from Portugal. They don’t know for sure.”
    She’s been trying not to sound too enthusiastic about these stories but fears her excitement is seeping out.
    “What does Fuentes think the stories mean?”
    “I don’t think he has time to care. I’m honestly not sure he reads my reports.”
    “What do you think, Connie?” Tammy reaches over and fills Consuela’s glass.
    “Well, for one thing, he knows a lot about Christopher Columbus. It’s not just incoherent muttering. Somewhere in there is a man who has knowledge about the fifteenth century.”
    “But he believes he’s Columbus?”
    “Yes. As far as he’s concerned, he’s being prevented from sailing across the Western Sea to China, or Japan.”
    “It’s romantic in a sort of twisted way.”
    “I think something may have happened to him,” Consuela says. “Something that is very likely not romantic at all.”

    He wishes this ballpoint pen was a fountain pen. Even a pencil would be more elegant than this plastic throwaway thing. But he was lucky to have it. He’d signed it out and then turned it back in after two hours, without having written a word. He sat at the writing desk in good light and watched the bees work the lemon blossoms on the tree just outside the window. In the afternoon, Columbus tried again.
(i)
    He has this image of a sleeping woman, her still form on a bed, lying on her side. The sheets are a mess of gray around her. A thick, regal-purple quilt is
scrambled at the end of the bed. Her hip is thrust up, exposed—the line of her body is a sculpted, curvaceous desert landscape, supple and long. There is nothing hard about this body—it holds no tension. Three candles on the dresser across the room, two of which are still lit, make a pale-yellow light. Dark wooden venetian blinds are pulled down but allow slivers of light to section the darkness. A bottle of champagne is upside down in a silver bucket on the bedside table. Books are piled on this table and also fill a narrow shelf that runs the length of the headboard. Piles of sideways books at either end hold the upright books in place. There’s a painting of a narrow, long-necked nude woman on the wall beside the bed. This picture is enclosed by a thick, dark frame. This is not a hotel room
.
    The scent of vanilla hovers in the room. Her face is not visible, but it’s easy to imagine this woman is satiated, happy. He wishes this for her. He cannot say why. The picture-taker is standing in the hallway looking into the room. Did this person take this picture on their way back with another bottle of champagne? In the doorway, sees her body on the bed. Thinks: Jesus, she’s beautiful. Wonders: Where’s my camera? Places the bottle of champagne on the floor. Gets the camera, frames the picture, takes the picture. He wonders if she will hear the shutter, lean up in the bed and say, “Hey … what?” And perhaps the picture-taker captures her question as well. But there is no hint to suggest that she sat up in the room. Nor are there any hints to suggest pictures prior to or after this one. There will be a perfect circle of condensation on the hardwood when he lifts the sweating champagne bottle off the floor
.
    This is a vulnerable position, he thinks. To expose one’s back and buttocks like this speaks about trust and faith, and comfort. She trusts the picture-taker. Perhaps this speaks of love. Does love follow trust, faith, and this level of comfort? Are these dependent on each other?
    He thinks he ought to know this horizontal woman. There is some nuance he cannot put his finger on that resonates with familiarity. But what? He looks closer. If only this mental image would move. If only she would sit up and turn toward the