Waiting for Columbus

Truth be told, Emile is worried about his liver. He thinks he drinks too much and is concerned his liver is not able to keep up with its detoxification function. He worries but he does not curb his drinking. He’ll wake up in the middle of the night and know for certain he has cirrhosis because of his drinking, or that he’s dying of hepatitis because he drank something bad somewhere in his travels.

His ex-wife used to lean over and check the time, and then try to calm him down. She’d go through all the symptoms she could remember, some of which he had. He gets headaches sometimes. He gets fatigued occasionally.

“Calm down, Em. Breathe. We all get headaches,” she’d say. “We all get tired. Come to bed before one or two in the morning and you won’t be so tired.”

He still stays up too late. He still gets the headaches occasionally. And he is still worried that his liver is ruined. He will not allow his drinking to interfere with his work, but there are times when he is not certain where the line between work and life is drawn-and he drinks in this gray area.

It’s the kindness in Carmen’s face that has kept him coming back to this café for the past two days. There seems to be a built-in compassion-an acceptance of anything he might have to say. Her eyes are hazel. Her eyes seem to listen-as if they can follow the words in the air. Emile shakes his head, watches her pour beer at the end of the bar. Her hair is cropped blond, thick, and seemingly ruled only by its brevity. She has a gray sweater under her white apron. The sweater is unraveling a bit at the back, along the bottom. It must be a favorite sweater, he thinks. He has no idea what the landscape under that sweater might look like and this is part of Carmen’s beauty. The sweater makes a mystery. Or in the heat of noon, a baggy T-shirt makes a mystery. Yesterday he’d heard a table of customers comment on how crowded her balcony is, referring to Carmen’s breasts. But he does not really care how crowded it is there. And Emile does not know if, in fact, she is kind. Any appearance of kindness is untested. She has been a good listener, though, and there is kindness in this.

If only I had a euro for every proposition, proclamation of beauty, or pass, Carmen thinks. But this guy… has a damaged charm she finds interesting. And he’s tall. He’s taller than she is, which makes him rare and attractive in her eyes. She’s six feet. He must be six two. It’s not much but she will not be with a man shorter than herself. This is one of her rules. He is not wearing a wedding ring, but for Carmen it would not matter if he was. In fact, he would be more attractive if he was. She does not acknowledge it, but she is attracted to unavailable men. There is safety in this condition. He has never mentioned a woman. On his first night at the bar he spoke about love. The next day he asked pointedly what it was women wanted, to which Carmen had no answer. Half the time she has no idea why she moves toward a particular man. In her thirty-five years, she’s not kept anyone around for longer than ten months.

She does know a little about her likes and dislikes. For instance, Carmen does not care about hair. Men who attempt to cover it up, disguise it, or solve it she finds a

“We’re alone,” Emile says. He sighs. “We look up into the sky at night, and we feel terribly alone. This is the reason we invented God. At least, it’s the reason our gods are still around. In the begi

“But what about faith?” she says. “What about ritual and holiness?” She deftly removes his glass and slides a clean one into place-then half fills the new glass with whiskey.

“We do not need religion to have rituals. We can be holy about all the things that place us in a state of awe or wonder. Things like beauty. Art. Poetry. Music. A child’s laughter. Love. These are the things we should find holy. This is where holiness lives.”

“And faith?”

“We should have faith in each other.”

“Not always an easy thing.”

“Well, I have faith in your kindness, in your compassion, in the way you listen with your eyes.”

“Faith?”

“Yes, though I have never witnessed an overt act of kindness or compassion, I have faith that you possess these qualities, based on nothing but my observations of you.”

“Sometimes faith is misplaced, misguided, wrong-is it not?”

“Oh, now you’re turning me on.”

Oh my. There’s the line, she thinks. It’s dangerous because she’s fascinated, amused, and enjoying herself. They have danced toward the line, and now it’s there, in plain view-easy enough to cross. She’s very interested in pushing across this line with Emile, but she hesitates. He must recognize this because he pulls back from it. He stands up, places too much money on the bar, and gathers his bag.

“Until next time, Carmen. I will continue to hold my faith in you. Tomorrow I must continue my search.” And then he’s on the street; Emile, thick with whiskey, part of the human landscape of Córdoba at night. Tomorrow I will be a bit closer to finding this man who inspires loyalty in strangers, Emile thinks. Tomorrow we will unravel a bit more of this puzzle.

“Buenas noches, Emile,” Carmen whispers to the empty room.

Emile wakes up with a dull ache in the back of his head. He does not question what it was that caused this stu

“ Islands in the Stream,” he says to the windshield after half an hour of driving. “It’s in the book called Islands in the Stream.”

Consuela feigns sickness, takes three days off. She needs to shake her dream away, find her footing before she faces Columbus again. On her first day, she reads in bed until noon, drinks a bottle of Cava with a bowl of strawberries, and sleeps. She walks to a restaurant for di